Unofficial Christ's Hospital Forum

I have been on sick leave this week with a very nasty bug but today felt up to listening to the radio much of the time - what memories:

As some of you know, John was in the British Council so the news from Russia brought back memories (one stage we had to have a night guard because of anti-British rioting - how do you explain that to a four year old without frightening him?)

In Midweek there was a young Ghanaian working for Afrikids in the Kassena-Nankani region, that was where I worked as a VSO. They are doing great work saving spirit children, these children who either were born 'different' could be disabled or just a sixth finger, or those whose mothers died in childbirth were put to death as they were so unlucky. I wondered how many listening knew just where he was speaking about.

In The World Tonight there was a rainforest report from Borneo - from Danum Valley research centre - we were at the official opening of that. The British Council did a lot to set it up, the Senior Scientist is still a Brit from The Royal Society.

Katharine wrote:As some of you know, John was in the British Council so the news from Russia brought back memories (one stage we had to have a night guard because of anti-British rioting -

Yes, I thought about you when I heard that news.
Not sure if you are referring there to rioting in Russia or Ghana. I've been through several demonstrations - nervous sometimes but the anti-British riot in Accra, Ghana was OK. This was in retaliation for Smith's UDI in Rhodesia.
The leaders had decided that they would stone Barclays Bank HQ in Accra and apparently agreed in advance which windows would be broken so staff were moved from there to safety. de facto only those windows got broken!!!
Quite a large crowd (in Osegafyo's day it was "rent-a-crowd") and a lot of noise but come 4.30pm we (the whites and local staff) walked out of the front door and through the crowd with absolutely no danger at all. I'm sure it was put on for the press!

Walked through an anti-bank demonstration in Milan one day. One of the demonstrators took me and a companion round to the back door so we could go in for our meeting with management!
Had to go through a very noisy demo in Sao Paulo as well to get back to work after lunch - felt perfectly safe except worried that the whistles etc would break my ear drums!

sejintenej wrote:

Katharine wrote:As some of you know, John was in the British Council so the news from Russia brought back memories (one stage we had to have a night guard because of anti-British rioting -

Yes, I thought about you when I heard that news.
Not sure if you are referring there to rioting in Russia or Ghana. I've been through several demonstrations - nervous sometimes but the anti-British riot in Accra, Ghana was OK. This was in retaliation for Smith's UDI in Rhodesia.
The leaders had decided that they would stone Barclays Bank HQ in Accra and apparently agreed in advance which windows would be broken so staff were moved from there to safety. de facto only those windows got broken!!!
Quite a large crowd (in Osegafyo's day it was "rent-a-crowd") and a lot of noise but come 4.30pm we (the whites and local staff) walked out of the front door and through the crowd with absolutely no danger at all. I'm sure it was put on for the press!

The rioting I was referring to was in Malaysia, but as it had been KL and we were in Sabah 1000 miles away we felt London was over-reacting! Later when there was some disagreement between Dr Mahathir & Britain and a lot of anti-British nonsense in the local papers the State Government made it very plain to us they wanted to know as soon as possible if we did have any threats or similar. They said they would not stand for such silliness in their state. They recognised the work the Council had done for them.

I know just what you mean about riots in Ghana been there done that. I found it very difficult the way a 'bruni' (peeled orange therefore a white person) could walk through just as if you did not really count as a person.

Used to have lots of demonstrations in Latin America, mainly when the trade unions were up to something.

In Bogota, during bank renegotiations, bands would come into the bank, bang drums and harangue us for 10 minutes or so. My number 2 was head of the union so he would stand on his desk whilst making his point. Most of my staff took their typewriters into the toilets and got on with their work so it was pretty empty except for me.
During a National strike there were few buses running and people had to tie brushes onto their front bumpers to sweep the nails and glass out of the way of the tires. One girl was on a bus that got attacked and as soon as she got into the bank we had to send for an ambulance as she had a hysteria attack. Ambulances got through.

Guatemala was pretty similar except that we had military police as bank guards so protesters were wary about stepping out of line.

Our office in Buenos Aires was a block from Plaza de Mayo, where there was frequently something going on, but it mainly just screwed up the traffic. When one US president visited, can't remember if it was Clinton or George Bush, they held a major riot and through a molotov at one of the branches. We had put anti blast plastic on the windows, so it bounced back. They then had a go with hammers etc and eventually got through and tried to throw another inside. It got stuck in the hole, set the plastic on fire and filled the branch with black smoke.

Apart from the girl in Bogota, no-one was hurt and apart from having a verbal go at the foreign staff, we had no problem.

Never seemed to worry me, just made sure I kept a low profile at all times.

Just for the record, I was stuck in Panama during the US invasion, but again, well away from the riots and ransacking that went on. Got out on a German military flight and many on the plane had seen what went on and spent most of the time cowering in their hotel rooms.
Not very exciting but at least I have a video of the invasion to show my grandchildren, not that they will be interested.