A Speck in the Ocean of Time is an engaging and colourful book. The
title of the book refers to an anthropology lecturer at Cambridge
University in 1930 who said that “white settlement in Africa is but a speck
in the ocean of time.” This book charmingly relates the story of Pat
O’Dwyer and a number of others who went out to Africa to serve in the
Colonial Service in the early 1930s. The world depicted in the book could
not be further removed from our globalised world of 2015.
Until the early 1950s British graduates, mainly in their early to mid 20s,
would be sent out to far-flung parts of the Empire to serve as district
commissioners. In the Sudan, for example, the typical district
commissioner would have a smattering of Arabic and some legal training,
from which he was expected to preside over an area which could
sometimes be as big as Wales. Many of the recruits to the Sudan
Political Service (SPS) were talented sportsmen, generally from Oxford
or Cambridge Universities. As everyone knows, any person who
represents either university against the other earns a “Blue”. The name
Sudan comes from the Arabic Bilad al-Sudan, meaning Land of the
Blacks. This led to the famous description of Sudan as being a Land of
Blacks run by Blues.
The world of the district commissioner in Africa could be tough and
austere. All sorts of random challenges could present themselves. One
such figure, Major Clarence Buxton MC, described his situation in Kenya
with blunt precision - “the position isn’t easy or comfortable.” Other
figures in Kenya included such characters as Sir Edward Grigg who was
appointed Governor of Kenya in 1925. He was a humane figure and,
according to the Dictionary of National Biography, his “wife’s instinctive sympathy for all races, expressed particularly in her patronage of nursing
and maternity services, enhanced the distinction of her husband’s
administration”.
Veronica Bellers’ book is stuffed with anecdotes and reminiscences of a
bygone era. There are pictures of young men from Oxbridge in
sportswear which are now nearly 100 years old in some cases. The book
is almost exclusively concerned with the African continent. Many would
argue that the British Empire’s engagement in Africa is far less widely
appreciated and understood than the Raj in India, yet the challenges in
Africa for the budding young imperiaiist were arguably greater. The
district commissioners (DCs) operated in far greater isolation than their
counterparts in India and elsewhere.
It’s difficult to do justice to such a book as Veronica Bellers’ account in a
short review. The book is full of detail and vivid memories. It conveys a
way of life which has been totally lost. It also describes the mutual
incomprehension often experienced by the British and Sudanese
tribesmen; yet there are also stories of mutual admiration and respect. In
Nigeria, mosquitoes were a real hazard. Life for a DC could be boringly
monotonous, but there was no doubting the commitment and discipline of
the colonial officials. They really got to know the life of “the natives” and
were generally hardworking. Often the DCs complained about the food.
“Chicken, chicken, chicken... every day and every meal. Unless you
open a tin there is no other staple food to eat.”
The world evoked in books such as A Speck in the Ocean of Time is
rapidly receding out of living memory. Accounts such as those found in
this book are invaluable sources to a bygone age. The author is to be
commended for a full, vivid and engaging account, replete with details
about a little appreciated part of the British Empire.
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