With thirty-two years service in Nigeria, Palestine
and The Gambia, in beachcombing at the Colonial
Office and governing first the Leeward Islands and then
Jamaica, Sir Kenneth Blackbume's memoirs will have
an immediate appeal to hundreds of former members
of the Colonial Service. Those who go one step
further and realise that appeal by reading the book
will find a story worth telling and modestly told.
Educated at Marlborough and Clare College, Cambridge,
the young Blackburne (one of the almost
unbelievable number of sons of clergymen who chose a
career in the Colonial or Sudan Political Service, a
high percentage of whom entered the doors of
Government House) gladdened the eagle eye of Sir
Ralph Furse by supplementing "a modest degree" in
geography with a good chance of a rowing Blue
if he stayed on for that highly successful recruiting ploy
of a 'Fursian Fourth' [year at Oxbridge]. In retrospect.
Sir Kenneth's sole regret of those halcyon days on the
old Tropical African Services Course was that they
were taught so little about the history of the colonies
to which they were destined. His negative motivation
is important in this cheerless age of snide sneers at the
agents of empire: "I had no starry-eyed visions of
service to humanity, nor of changing the face of the
world". The Colonial Service was simply a worthwhile
job, a career of service.
His five years in Nigeria, where in 1930 he was
posted as ADO to Owerri Division, Sir Kenneth likes
to label 'Paternal Colonialism'. An accident to his
fiancee persuaded him life would be less demanding
on the now limited manoevurability of his future wife
in Cyprus, where two vacancies were on offer to
junior officers from West and East Africa. But the
Colonial Office's last-minute discovery that they had in
error just assigned a Jew to Palestine (he had
changed his name by deed-poll) resulted in the Blackburnes ending up in Galilee instead. Incidentally,
in my current research into the Colonial Service, I am
fascinated by which a select, sterling and successful
training ground a posting to Palestine proved for many
of those who went on to the top. Quaere, did Palestine
constitute the elite service among elites? Former MCS
officers need not reply!
Sir Kenneth's time as the first Director of
Information Services at the Colonial Office (1947-50)
were momentous years in the projection of the Colonies
at home and abroad, and he rightly devotes a fair
section of his memoirs to this. Similarly, his years as a
Governor (and later as a Governor-General) are
described in detail and throw useful light on some of
the work (and play: good GH stories abound) of that
now almost coelacanth-like creature, the colonial HE.
In particular. Sir Kenneth disclosed interesting clues
about relations between incoming and outgoing
Governors -- he himself succeeded the unbelievably
unorthodox Lord Baldwin -- and about the famous
card index in the Promotions Branch. His tribute to the
Colonial Service, to whom his memoirs are dedicated,
is rounded off with a striking observation on the
genuineness of their concern for those for whose
welfare they were responsible: "There can be few
retired members of that Service today who are not
still in touch with their former friends overseas,
ranging from men who are now ministers of government
to those who merely served in our homes as
domestic staff".
Based on letters home from his wife and himself,
kept unknown to him by his parents for nearly forty
years, and on his private diary during his Palestine
period and his CO tours to East Africa and the Far
East, Sir Kenneth Blackburne's autobiography is not
only a record of a distinguished member (at 42 he was
the youngest serving Governor, at 33 the youngest
serving Colonial Secretary) of a distinguished Service,
but also an important contribution to the future
history of HMOCS.
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