On the 21st April 1967, I arrived at Ikeja Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, to take up my new job as service manager for a British company (Bewac: British [Engineering] West Africa Corporation) which sold, serviced and repaired Leyland, Albion and Scammel trucks, Land-Rovers and Rover cars, Triumph cars, Rolls Royce cars and Massey Ferguson tractors and implements. It was to be a very exciting and dramatic first tour of duty (19 months), because shortly after my arrival I was transferred to the company’s branch at Enugu, capital of the then Eastern Region of Nigeria and seat of power of the Ibo (Igbo) tribe. A couple of weeks later the Military Governor of the Eastern Region, Colonel Ojukwu, declared secession and the Republic of Biafra was born, leading to civil war with the rest of Federal Nigeria. Read about my adventures in Nigeria/Biafra in my latest, 55th anniversary updated edition (third) of The Up-Country Man, a personal account of the first one hundred days inside secessionist Biafra. (See below)
Month: March 2022
Third Edition of “The Up-Country Man” now available.
An updated new, 55th anniversary third edition, with added material and clarifications is now available at Smashwords and all the Amazons as an e-book. The paperback version is now available on Amazon and other on-line retailers: Barnes & Noble , Blackwell and Bookdepository. It’s also available from Lulu direct. With new information and an important illustration, this story of the first 100 days of the 1967-70 Biafran War (Nigerian Civil War) from the point of view of a young British engineer (me) on his first tour of duty, through to final evacuation on the MV Isonzo, (see below) is made even more interesting and readable. (Click on the red coloured links to purchase from those retailers)
African Tales 