It must surely be the dream of every colonial administrator to spend his retirement
years living on his own island in the sun. Humphrey Arthington-Davy almost
managed it after distinguished careers in the Indian Political and British Diplomatic
Services by staying on in Tonga (with the express approval of the King) after his
final posting there. But it is a former newspaperman in Tanganyika who has
realised that dream. Since 1962, Brendon Grimshaw has been the resident owner of
2272 acres of tropical island a few degrees south of the equator in the Indian Ocean.
It is Moyenne Island in the Seychelles group and Grimshaw has now written about
it in "A Grain of Sand". In 210 pages there are no less than 94 "chapters". The
book is, therefore, a collection of snapshots rather than a careful chronology of the
author's life since he was born in Yorkshire in 1925.
He learned his trade with the Batley News and the Sheffield Star but it was when he
accepted an appointment as senior sub-editor with the East African Standard in Nairobi
that his love affair with East Africa and the Seychelles began. He writes about his eight
years in Nairobi - and a further eleven in Dar es Salaam as editor of the Tanganyika
Standard - with the critical eye of the professional journalist commenting on the
developing political scene during those years, from Mau Mau to the 1964 army mutiny in
Dar. But the Job that gave him most satisfaction was making himself redundant by
training his 300 African and Asian staff at the Standard to take over from him. This he
achieved in 1970, earning the thanks and friendship of Julius Nyerere who invited him to
be Tanzania's first public relations consultant. He held the job for three years travelling
overseas with official delegations and supervising trade stands at international fairs. He
recounts his impressions of Japan, Russia, Hong Kong, Zambia and Zanzibar plus a
backward glance at his National Service days in pre-independence Cyprus and Palestine.
Grimshaw finally left Tanzania in 1973 to live on, and develop, the island he had
bought ten years earlier for 10,000 pounds. The heart of his book is the pain and pleasure he
experienced rescuing Moyenne from an overgrown wilderness neglected by man since
1915 when Miss Emma Best was the last owner to live there. He tells how, with the
minimum of help, he cut a path round the island; levelled a site on the hillside for his
house; dug an underground water reservoir; installed a generator; rebuilt sea and
retaining walls and restocked the tangle of old and decayed trees with some 12,000 new
saplings that are now fully grown.
With his snapshot writing style, Grimshaw has the irritating habit of breaking
continuity to pursue a specific theme, whether, for instance, it be his commitment to
International Rotary (by which he has raised considerable sums for deserving causes) or
his passionate support for legislation and enforcement to protect the marine environment
of the Seychelles. However, this style does make for a book in which to browse. East
Africa and the Seychelles before and after independence; the story of a modern
Robinson Crusoe; and impressions of foreign travels on behalf of a newly independent
country are the three main divisions of this book. Dip in it where you will. There is
much of interest to former colonialists, including those who have seen the green flash at
sundown.
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