John Jeremy Hespeler-Boultbee - Mrs. Queens Chump: IDI Amin, the Mau Mau, Communists, and Other Silly Follies of the British Empire - A Military Memoir

Table of Contents

Mrs. Queens Chump

Idi Amin, the Mau Mau, Communists,

and Other Silly Follies of the British Empire

A Military Memoir

J. J. Hespeler-Boultbee

CCB Publishing

British Columbia, Canada

Mrs. Queens Chump: Idi Amin, the Mau Mau, Communists, and Other Silly Follies of the British Empire A Military Memoir

Copyright 2012 by J. J. Hespeler-Boultbee

ISBN-13 978-1-77143-030-2

First Edition

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hespeler-Boultbee, J. J. (John Jeremy), 1935-

Mrs. Queens chump [electronic resource] : Idi Amin, the Mau Mau, communists, and other silly follies of the British Empire a military memoir / written by J. J. Hespeler-Boultbee.

Electronic monograph in PDF format.

ISBN 978-1-77143-030-2

Also available in print format.

Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

Cover photo and design by the author.

Photo credits: All photos contained herein are copyright J.J. Hespeler-Boultbee.

Extreme care has been taken by the author to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. The publisher cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed by the publisher for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the author.

Publisher:

CCB Publishing

British Columbia, Canada

www.ccbpublishing.com

for Cuauhtli Emiliano

Also by J. J. Hespeler-Boultbee

A Story in Stones:

Portugals influence on culture and

architecture in the Highlands of Ethiopia

1493-1634

Foreword by Richard Pankhurst

2011 ISBN 9781926585987

Authors Note

The events and dialogues related in this volume constitute memoir rather than history, little more than morsels of a much broader story now almost forgotten the slimmest and faintest of links between a tumultuous reality and the enigmatic mists of memory. What follows is culled from events occurring some sixty years prior to being noted down, more or less in sequence, in these pages a fact that might be seen to ruffle the edges of hard evidence. Such are the fickle diversions of Time when married to the whimsical art of storytelling. The reader will judge.

Certain historical characters will be recognized. However, many names have been altered or fabricated in order to avoid embarrassment or inconvenience to any number of people for any number of reasons.

The author especially acknowledges and thanks Tristan Trotter for his most valued assistance in the preparation of the manuscript. Almost from the day I began this very personal assignment yours has been a strong encouragement.

With the wink of a watery-eye and a tip-o-the-hat, I happily offer greetings to my dear friends and journalistic cohorts of Portuguese revolutionary days, Art Moses and Mick Lowe. You have both known for many years of my involvement in these events, and have urged me to write about them. So here they are, and well open other notebooks, brevemente

My dear wifes long-suffering patience and understanding has been a blessing throughout the months this work has been in progress. Dearest Alemie, I salute your forbearance and your many, many kindnesses.

JJH-B, Victoria, B.C., Canada October 2012

KENYA

1. A Schooling

For the most part Englands very private public schools were established with a singular goal in mind: to provide hundreds of cadres of moderately well-educated loyalists to go out and govern the British Empire. It was hoped they would prove to be men of substance who could think on their feet administrators and policemen, soldiers, engineers. Two-thirds of world wall maps were pink tinted throughout the 1800s and up until about 1960, signaling that indeed the sun never set on the British Empire. No one in Britain cared to take the French too seriously when they contended this was because an Englishman cannot be trusted in the dark; nevertheless, graduates of this Spartan educational system, chipper young squirts not unlike myself, were anxious to get on with the next adventure down the line, and that was somewhere out there in the vastness of Empire.

But by mid-twentieth century the only problem was that when we finally did make it out into the great wide world, more than anxious to do our bit, the Empire was in manifest disarray.

This is a personal account from that time the mid-1950s. Queen Elizabeth II had ascended to the throne by then. Some sixty years on as I write she is still very much in place. Arthritis may distort and cripple my bones but it has not yet entirely succeeded in overburdening my memory though it may have tinted it a bit. When theyre not busy fading away, old soldiers do like to take their time buffing up their occasionally outrageous stories. Still rather full of hopes and dreams, always a bit of the cockeyed optimist and certainly a mite irresponsible, I would like to imagine that at heart I am only a slightly older version of the young man I was then. I have always told stories, and over the years friends and family have said you must write them down. It is true, unfortunately, there is not an extensive bibliography of the events with which I was occupied in those years. There are certain records and chronicles here and there, but for the most part I shall launch into this project with my God-given grey matter, and from the comfort of my Canadian haven mull those events that, over the years, have been so instrumental in leading me to where I am right now at my desk in a small apartment overlooking the delightful garden that separates me from the side entrance to St. John the Divine Church in Victoria, British Columbia.

From the end of the Second World War until the early 1960s, Britain had instituted what was known as National Service for all men attaining the age of eighteen a two-year military call-up into one or another branch of the services. Everyone had to register; there were few deferments. Compassionate grounds were occasionally considered. Now and then a candidate for service was unfit for medical reasons. Depending upon marks and the general progress of his studies, a university student might sometimes receive permission to postpone service until after graduation this often to the benefit of some military branch requiring a specialist. Nationality counted little. Resident foreigners were high on the list for prompt call-up, no matter what nationality. The official thinking appears to have been that if Britain was good enough for residence, then the recipient of the Crowns hospitality was justly charged for it through his gracious offering of service in the military. If one did not agree with this premise then one forfeited residence, thank you very much, and would be obliged to leave Britain for wherever and promptly.

Certain privileges were open to students of the gentlemanly schools the British class and caste system at its most blatantly snobbish that generally produced good chaps often qualified for little more, upon completion of their formal studies, than an understanding of cricket, or knowing instinctively (through breeding, of course) what was acceptable wearing apparel for any given social function. If these favoured fellows fared well through their basic military training and to their credit they often fared extremely well indeed they tended to be the young men who made up the bulk of the officer ranks of the