1. Early Life in The Gold Coast

The earliest recollections of childhood that I have are of events which occurred when I was three. During that year I became a member of the Salvation Army School almost across the road from our home in Tudu. I do not remember learning anything in particular except singing in praise of God. I also remember being very fond of a girl my age by the name of Rose Allotey. My family used to tease me that if I went to school and Rose was not there, I came right back home without more ado. I also remember that I had a great fall on my head from the stairs at home. I understand that my mother had great anxiety for some time after wondering whether it had affected my brain. Perhaps it did, but not in the manner that my mother feared.

My father, Ambrose Bennacle Amissah, was a lawyer. My mother, Diana, was the daughter of Joseph Nathaniel Abeohe Evans, a lawyer. In the circumstances, it probably was not strange that I became a lawyer too, and that two of my three children became lawyers. As my third child protested when she was told that she had an aptitude which best fitted her for the law, she would never join that profession; the rest of the family was without imagination. But more of that later. I was born on the 3rd of October 1930. My mother delighted in telling the story that she had been told by her lady doctor, the legendary Dr. Van Percy ~[* what was her first name? ]~ who practised then in Accra, that I would be born at 9 am., and true enough at 9 o'clock in the morning, I came crying out to this world.

At my christening, my father gave me all the names, including the surname of my grandfather on my mother's side and, for good measure, added Austin as my first name and, of course, I also bore the surname of Amissah. But to all members of my family and close friends I was always Ninii, which is a child's corruption of Nii, which is either Chief, or in my case, grandfather. Up to this day, when anybody calls me by that name, I realise, if I had even forgotten him, that he must be family or must have known me as a child. However, until my application for a passport before going to England to study in 1949, I bore the resounding name of Austin Joseph Nathaniel Evans Amissah. On that application, I shortened all that to my present Austin Neeabeohe Evans Amissah. Some friends from school still tease me sometimes by calling me Joseph. And for some time after I had, on my own, effected this change of name, I often had to swear affidavits to show that certificates which I had from school in the Gold Coast referred to the same person.

I have always explained my total lack of tribal feeling on the ground that I had such different blood strains in me. My father was a pure product of the Gold Coast. But as his name Amissah indicates, he descended from Fantis on the male line. Often fellow Ghanaians meeting me for the first time immediately start speaking Fanti to me. I understand them perfectly, but my Fanti pronunciation being somewhat stilted, I feel reluctant to speak it and reply in English instead, which makes me appear awfully standoffish. Where exactly my father's great-grandfather came from in Fantiland I am not sure. My father himself said that he came from Apam. But a person like Robert Baffour who hails from Elmina has claimed relationship with him and to be the current head of his family. He is not the only one who has claimed me as descending from Elmina. I have been put forward as one of the chief mourners in the family of a deceased Chief from that area. However, the Fantis, being a matrilineal community would make a weak case indeed in establishing my Fanti lineage. My grandfather on my father's side, John Egbert Vicars Amissah, whom I never met, was reputed to be a surveyor, who lived in Accra. He and his family had large tracts of land near the McCarthy Hill area on the east of Accra. Either he, or some earlier generation male Amissah, had come from Fantiland and settled in Accra. That forefather and his progeny had married Ga women resulting in the continuation of the Amissah name in an increasingly Ga family relationship. It is sufficient to say that I do not have any close Fanti relation whom I recognise as such. All the close relatives that I know are Gas from the Accra area. Even the Quarteys, Emmanuel Laud (Nee) Quartey, who retired as the Chief Executive of the Volta River Authority, and Joseph A.K (Fifi) Quartey, the distinguished chemist, whose mother was an Amissah and first cousin of my father, are recognized as Gas. My father's mother, Janet Plange, was from the heart of Accra. Her home was near the Salaga (Sraha) Market. Her family connections were with the Manyo-Planges, the Heward Millses on one side and the Ga Hesses and Randolphs on the other.

My mother, on the other hand, was a complete mixture. Her father was a mulatto, his father, Joseph Evans, being Welsh, and his mother, Beatrice (Aafio) Evans, later Bruce, being the daughter of Chief John Quartey of Accra. Joseph Evans, as legend has it, was one of three brothers who came out to West Africa. Two of them came to the Gold Coast. One of them, who was a teacher and a man of religion was the grandfather of Dr. Evans Anfom, Arthur Chinery and the Lutterodts. He made his home in the Mampong area of Akwapim. He lived to a ripe old age. My great grandfather on the other hand, was a trader who lived in Accra and died in his thirties. He was supposed to have sustained an injury while meeting his father on a ship in Accra harbour at the time when visiting boats could only be approached by canoes and the injury turned sceptic from which he died. Aafio, my great grandmother, who was alive at the time I was leaving for my studies in England had her home in the Otublohum division of Accra. My mother's mother, Tonesan, was a Nigerian, from the Okorodudu family of Warri, now in the Bendel (Delta) State. My mother was born in Nigeria, where her father had been sent as a young man, probably to escape the young ladies of Accra. He was indeed a handsome man. My mother, like my father, was also an only child. My grandfather brought her over to the Gold Coast when he was leaving Nigeria and for the time that she came to the Gold Coast, her “mother” was her father's youngest sister, Mary Evans (later Mrs. Jones Nelson), who was the mother of Mrs. Marion Odamtten, (my Aunt Marion and godmother), Mrs. Frances Alema (Auntie Frances) and Mrs. Genevieve Easmon (Auntie Genevieve). Like these sisters, my mother went to school for some time in Sierra Leone.

Having in my time been made godfather to a number of children, and mindful of my many deficiencies in that capacity, I must say that Auntie Marion took her duty as my godmother very seriously. She never forgot my birthday. She always brought me a present on that day. Even when I was a student in England, she would write to me and enclose some money. I remember, as a child, her once coming to our home on an October afternoon armed with a large drum full of sweets for me. She was surprised that nobody was in a festive mood. Everybody, including my mother had forgotten that it was my birthday. On another birthday, I got a huge bundle of aertex material from her which kept me in shirts for many years after. After I had gone to boarding school at Achimota, I always went to see her immediately on my return home at the beginning of my holidays and again before I returned to school. On the latter occasion, I was always loaded with supplies to supplement the school food. I got more supplies from her mother, whom we all called Nanaa. She was a lovely woman. More than any of my sisters and younger brothers I visited her often and enjoyed being with her. If I had been home for a week without going to see her, I knew I was running a grave risk of a serious reprimand when I eventually showed up. She always managed to draw me out of myself. I got to know that she also expected me when I visited to talk to her when, as an adolescent, I once visited and was very quiet. She asked whether something had died inside me. Like my father, she must have died in her early 60s. Both died while I was a student in England. My grandmother, Janet Amissah, was an impressive and enterprising woman. She was a trader in palm oil. Her home was known in Ga as “Muchru Mong”(“Palm Oil Fort”). On her trading profits, she built two houses and educated her only son in England as a lawyer. My father matriculated as a member of the non-collegiate Society of St. Catherine's (now a fully fledged college) at Oxford in about 1918. He retained the formal photograph of himself and the staff and other students of the Society throughout his life. But I have no record showing that he ever graduated. He was called to the Bar by Inner Temple, London in 1922, and returned to Accra to practice. He was then 32. He lived in one of the two houses built by his mother. It was to that house that he took his bride when he got married four years later.

My father had three sons before he went to England, Thomas, more popularly known as Kwaku Nkpa (Kwaku the elder); Herbert, more popularly known as Kwaku Fio (Kwaku the younger), and David, otherwise called Ahene. Before he married my mother in 1926, he also had a daughter, Phyllis, otherwise called Koshie. Marriage to my mother and the birth of their first child, Beryl, occurred within a year after Phyllis was born. Indeed both Phyllis and Beryl have the same birthday, 11th November, a year apart. Apart from my father's children born before marriage to my mother, my father and mother had eight children. Two girls, Beryl and Audrey, preceded me. Two girls, Mildred and Sheila, came after me. Then Ambrose Junior, called Sonny, followed by Rosemary, who died young, and finally Jack, who was named after my grandfather. Between Sheila and Sonny, my father had another son outside the marriage with my mother. That was Cyril (Nee), the engineer with the State Construction Corporation.

I believe my mother and sisters spoilt me. I enjoyed their company. I have as a result been dependent on women all my life.

My childhood home in Tudu was the house, built by my grandmother, Janet, at the place later on developed with the building occupied for a long time by Standard Chartered Bank. My father was not the only lawyer in the area. Just to the north of us was the great leader of the Gold Coast Bar, Lawyer Frans Dove. A native of Sierra Leone, he practised in Accra probably from the beginning of the century. He was father of my Aunties Marion, Frances and Genevieve. He had a large house with a number of tennis courts, which was the home of the Accra Lawn Tennis Club at that time. On the western side of the house was the home of lawyer Akilakpa Sawyerr, father of Aki Sawyerr, whom I had the privilege of working with in the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana, and who subsequently became Vice-Chancellor of the University. Then across the street on the other side was Lawyer Vernon Buckle, whose family was of our age and with whom we grew up together. Not very far away was Lawyer Hugh Papafio, with whose family we were on visiting terms. But we were not only friendly with the families of the lawyers of Tudu. Right across the street was one of the main means of transportation from Accra to the coastal towns of the west, Sekondi and Takoradi; that was Adra Brothers. It was owned and run by a family of Lebanese called Adra. One of them had a son by a Gold Coast woman. That son was Gilbert Oko Adra, who sadly died in the 1980s in London. Oko was always in our house when he was not at school. He also went to Achimota, where he was a very popular boy. Two sisters, Mrs. Martha Akwei and Madam Annie Brunger lived just beyond the Buckles. The diplomat, Richard (Akwei) Akwei, who apart from service in the Ghana diplomatic corps culminating in his Ambassadorship to China, was for some fifteen years the head of the Public Service Commission of the United Nations, is the son of Martha, and the former Attorney General of Ghana, Joe Reindorf, is the son of Annie. Both Akwei and Joe were a bit older than me. But we have always been close friends ever since, as also with Auntie Martha's other children: Sigismund, the eldest who spent so many of his later years in Sweden, and Iris (Naawaa), who married Professor Frank Torto of the University of Ghana, the closest friend among them.

I did not last very long at the Salvation Army School. At the age of 4 years 3 months I was admitted to the Government Junior Boys School at Adabraka. The state minimum age for admission was 5 years. As many did not know their exact ages, or if they knew were prepared to falsify it, a test of maturity had been devised whereby the prospective student had to demonstrate that he could comfortably reach the ear on the other side of his head by holding his arm over the top of his head. If his arm was too short for this exercise he failed admission. I could just about touch my ear by that process. But I was admitted. I spent from 1935 through 1938 at that school. To start with, the medium of instruction was Ga. But we started the rudiments of English as a language. I do not recall many incidents of interest at that school. Because it was a rare event, I remember a fight I had with one of my friends while on the way back from school one day. I also remember that I was rapped over the knuckles when I attempted to write with my left hand. Doing things with the left had was taboo in our society. Therefore, although I was naturally left handed I had to learn how to write with my right hand. This led to the curious result that in later life I could do certain things better with my right hand and others only with my left hand. The rough and ready classification was that, with hand movements, I became better using my right hand, but with arm movements, my left hand was still better. When I played cricket at Achimota, for example, I batted and bowled with my left hand. Until I went to England at an age bordering 19, I thought writing with the left hand was inherently wrong. As a result, one of the earliest cultural shocks I suffered when I had just arrived in England was from seeing so many students writing with their left hands without anybody paying attention to them. In spite of trying to conform with custom by doing as many things as I could with my right hand, my left trait was so distinct that at school, my most enduring nickname was “Abeku”, which means left. I often wonder whether this insistence on my using my right hand when I should naturally have been using the left had restricted my development.

Another vivid memory which I have of this time was the earthquake of 1939, which must have been the worst Accra had experienced this century. I was at home which was then just outside the old Accra Technical School. I was sitting chatting with my half-brother, Ahene, who was the closest to my mother's children and stayed with us most of the time while we were growing up. He was fun to be with. A very good sprinter, I think, he would have been much better if he had followed a strict regime of training. He loved a fight; he had the reputation of taking on about six opponents at one time and knocking them all out. Once, he took me to watch a football match between the arch rivals of football in Accra at the time, Hearts of Oak, of which he was a member, and Standfast, which I supported. About five minutes before the end, when supporters began to whistle to indicate to the players that they had no more time than within which to put in their best efforts, Ahene turned to me and said, “Ninii, you must go home, because now we are going to fight”. I do not recall which of the teams was leading at the time. I don't think it would have made the slightest difference. The time for footballing was ending and the time for fighting was about to begin. Ahene was my hero, without a doubt. Anyway, I was with him in the verandah of our house, when the earth began to shake. He shouted to me to leave the building, and I gave such a leap to get out as I have never leapt thereafter. The earthquake did great damage to houses. Government officials went around marking the damaged houses with large crosses, to show which had to be demolished. It led also to some low cost housing being constructed at speed in some areas. Some of the houses can be seen on the Osu-Labadi road today.

I also remember following the military band lead the soldiers who were being sent together with others from other British West African colonies as the Royal West African Frontier Force (RWAFF) contingent to Burma during the war. I loved the martial music, the only thing I liked about the military and as the band went from the Government Boys' School at Kinbu to the Accra Railway Station at the head of relays of soldiers brought from Cantonments by lorry to complete their last part of their journey out of Accra on foot, I followed them. I learnt quite a number of the marches which the regimental band as well as the Police band played.

I graduated to the Government Senior Boys' School at Kinbu, near the present Government Ministries area in 1939. It had some well-known teachers, such as Mr. Nylander,~[* first name? ]~ who became an Ambassador and a Minister in Nkrumah's time, and Mr. Frimpong.~[* first name? ]~ Both of them were feared by students because they were adept with the cane. Mr. Nylander had the nickname, “Okpleng”, meaning a cannon. I looked forward to being in their class with great trepidation, but I escaped, as I was at that school for only one year. In 1941, I joined the Lower Primary (LP) of Achimota School. From that time onward, I ceased to be a day student and became a boarder at the School.

Achimota had always been a co-educational school. But due to the dislocations of the Second World War, the boys of LP were in the central part of Accra, at a place known as the old Technical School. The perimeter fence of Technical School was only a few yards from my home. My parents could see what we were doing on the play-ground and sometimes the boisterousness of the boys had apparently alarmed my mother. From this time onward, my friends came more and more from my school mates and I lost contact with the wider Ga family and earlier school friends I had made before. The Akweis and Joe Reindorf's family eventually moved from Tudu to Achimota Village and I continued visiting them there. But Richard, Joe Reindorf, Naawaa and the Buckles, in any case went to school at Achimota.

At the Technical School, I made my acquaintance with the first member of the remarkable Nigerian family of the Attas. Adamu Atta, one of the biggest and strongest boys in the LP at the time who became my friend and protector, was the son of the Atta of Igbirra. Their home was in Okene and Lokoja round about the confluence of the Rivers Niger and Benue in Nigeria. The Atta of Igbirra was one of the far-sighted Chiefs of West Africa. He must have seen the need that would arise for African professionals and public servants in their countries and gave the best possible education to his children. Achimota was the best known school in West Africa, and the Atta of Igbirra~[* Uncle Rodger adds ]~ sent a number of his children there. Adamu later on became a lawyer and Governor of Kwara State in Nigeria during the Shehu Shagari regime.

Abdul Aziz who also came to Achimota, became the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Finance and the most senior civil servant in Nigeria at the time of the Biafran civil war. He had gone to Oxford after Achimota and the story goes that on his return to Northern Nigeria, his father, who was then in the Legislative Council, proposed that places should be found in the administration of the country for the sons of Nigeria who were bound to come back from training abroad in increasing numbers with higher education qualifications from then on. There was not one Nigerian in the service of Northern Nigeria at the time. The proposal was not popular amongst his conservative fellow rulers of the North. In the course of the debate, the Atta of Igbirra had said that he had no personal interest in the matter. That gave one of his colleagues the opportunity to bring the debate to an end by saying, “It's no use the Atta of Igbirra saying that he has no personal interest in the matter, because he has!” Abdul Aziz is said to have sworn never to work in the administration of his home region in the North. He joined the administrative service in Eastern Nigeria and rose to the top-most position in the Nigerian public services without ever serving in his northern home. Some say that the fact that there was so little strife and recrimination between Eastern Nigeria and the rest of the country after the war was due in no small measure to people like Abdul Aziz, who were in the highest advisory positions in the Gowon Government at the time.

Abdul Aziz's brother, Abdul Mumuni, also an old Achimotan, became a doctor. He worked in the North, and was in Zaria for a long time. Of the sisters who came to Achimota, Rakiya (Mrs. Scott) joined the diplomatic service of Nigeria, Katsina (Mrs. Claude Enin first and then later, Mrs. Majekodunmi), my class-mate, became a nursing sister, and the youngest, Sefi, who married the poet Chris Okigbo, the younger brother of my good friend, Pius, and was widowed in the Civil War, became the first woman graduate of Northern Nigeria, and after representing Nigeria in UNESCO eventually became Director-General of the Federal Ministry of External Affairs and later Ambassador to Rome. I later met their eldest brother, Abdul Maliki, who did not come to Achimota, when he was Nigeria's first High Commissioner in London. That was a truly distinguished family. The other African Chief who impressed me as having a similar appreciation of the value of education was the Bechemhene, Nana Fosu Gyeabour, but then I met his son Patrick Anin much later at Achimota.

I must have been a smallish boy at school, always slightly below the average age. I participated in most things that the students did but outdoor sports were not a favourite past-time of mine. I was quite proud of my academic work and I spent some time at reading. One thing which coming to the school in LP did was to qualify you early as an old boy and relieve you of the worst form of bullying which initiated all new students, especially to the secondary and teacher-training sides of the school. There was a minor form of bullying by the older and bigger boys in LP. But even from this I escaped, as one would incur the displeasure of Adamu, recognised as one of the two tough boys in LP, if one did. The other tough guy was Ludwig Richter. There was speculation as to which of the two was the stronger. But they kept the rest guessing as they did not offer to have the doubt resolved. When I later joined the Secondary School, I found that no one bothered to bully me as a new student to the side, although they bullied the newcomers mercilessly. It was a practice that I found revolting but could not do anything about. To my amazement, some of those who had suffered from the brutalising when they joined the School were themselves the most active and the worst offenders when they found that in their turn they were entitled to bully others. By the time our son Ralph went to the School, I understood that the practice had been abolished. ~[* it had not RA]~

Johnny Quashie-Idun was my class-mate. He was a family friend as his father, then a Magistrate, but later to become a judge of the High Court in Ghana, the Chief Justice of Western Nigeria and a member of the East African Court of Appeal and to be knighted Sir Samuel Okai Quashie-Idun, was a good friend of my father. Uncle Okai had a wonderful sense of humour. I remember walks with him both in Ghana and Canberra, Australia in 1965, where we met again after he had left the Ghana judiciary, enlivened by anecdote after anecdote. Johnny himself inherited quite a bit of the humour and common sense of his father. He had a gift for coining nick-names for his colleagues. The more they objected to the name, the more he insisted on calling them by such names. One soon found out that the best way of avoiding an undesirable name from sticking was to appear not to be offended at all by it. In his effort to find a name which I objected to, he called me a number of names, among them, “Abeku”, because of my left-handedness, “Sapiens”, for studying too hard, and “Cupidus”, because he thought I was fond of the girls. I took them all in good spirit, and found that those who used them did so affectionately. Another such family friend in my class was Akilowu Akiwumi, whose father, Augustus Molade Akiwumi, was also a lawyer and a friend of my father. Johnny's name for him was “Avarus”, because Johnny accused him of being a miser. Akilowu hated it; Johnny persisted with the name. John (Kweku) Appiah, who became a soldier and a member of the Ghana Engineering Corps, was also a friend from this time. George Amuah also joined the military as a naval officer. Some of my mates I lost sight of soon after Achimota. Among these was George Assad and Charles Haick, the latter of whom I saw many years later when he announced that he was now “on his fourth wife.” I am afraid I was not good at making friends with those younger than myself so that while I had many friends much older than myself, those who were younger came to my attention only for a particular reason. Among friends from the younger groups forms were, Willie and John Bossman, children of Kofi Adumua Bossman, the lawyer and judge; Johnny Francois, later to become the Chief Conservator of Forests; Vishnu Wassiamal, later Ambassador to Brazil and Japan; Adonten Asafu-Adjaye, the son of Sir Edward Asafu-Adjaye, the lawyer who became Ghana's first High Commissioner to the UK. Adonten was on his mother's side distantly related to me.

The head of the LP boys school, when we were at the Technical School site was Miss Dunnet. My form master was Mr. Asirifi Bonsu Attafua, who was to be my form master again in a later form. He later went up to Balliol Oxford and read history and then became a lawyer. He was always an admirer and a very good friend of Busia. When the latter became Prime Minister in 1969, Mr. Attafua became his High Commissioner in London. The other teacher who had much to do with my education and who was around at the Technical School was Mr. Tom Boaten, born in the Seychelles when his parents were in exile with the first King Prempeh of Ashanti. Mr. Doku-Nartey, was also a teacher at the Technical School. From Achimota came Mr. Turkson~[* first name? ]~ to take us in carpentry. Many years later, I had the honour of working with his son in the Law Faculty.

It was during that time that Owura (the Akan equivalent of Mr.) Ephraim Amu returned to Ghana and also came about twice a week to take us in music. He had just returned from England. He was the supreme nationalist. So much so that some conservative minded Ghanaians following in the British tradition in clothes and attitudes then prevailing, my father included, thought he was a crank. Owura Amu tried to express himself, when speaking in a local language, purely without using English words. He would use the nearest representation the local language was capable of in expressing the idea in order to achieve this purpose. So bicycle and the motor cycle, which was his means of transportation from Achimota to the Technical School, were described as “dade ponkor” (literally “iron horse”), a pen was “tchreudua” (“writing stick”), a doctor of letters was “ongumadruyefo” (“a medicine man on books”) and so on. He refused to spell or pronounce my name according to the accepted norms of the time. He could not understand why a Gold Coast name ending in an “a” should have an “h” at the end. And he would put the emphasis on Amissah not on the first but on the last syllable. All the same, I found him delightful and an inspiration. He taught us music and later on, drumming. He wrote beautiful music: both tunes and lyrics. In a local language like Ga in which he was not too fluent, the lyrics became a bit stilted. But coming from Peki in the Volta region where both Akan and Ewe were used, his songs in those languages were beautiful. Some of them would live for ever as the expression of our national ethos. With all due deference to Mr. Phillip Gbeho, who was also my music teacher at Achimota and who won the competition for Ghana's national anthem just before independence in 1957, for expression of the Ghanaian's faith, pride and pledge of service to his country, I think Owura Amu's “Yeng ara asase ni” (This is our very own land) ought to have been chosen as the national anthem.

I remember him in those days when I was an early teenager. In line with his Africanness, he wore a tunic shirt, buttoned up to the neck and a pair of shorts, all made of the cloth which was then woven in Nigeria and known as “Kano cloth”. He even made a rain cape of this material. It was sad to see him after the seven mile journey from Achimota to the Technical School through the tropical rain. Of course, he would arrive all wet. But it took him some time to take the practical course and get himself a proper raincoat. Johnny Quashie-Idun repeats a story told by his father when the latter travelled with Owura Amu on one of the passenger boats from the Gold Coast to Europe. They had had a European meal which by any standards was a good meal. Owura Amu leant over to Mr. Quashie-Idun, then a Magistrate in the Colonial Service and whispered in Twi, “Magistrate, se me nya ode bi anka...” (Magistrate, if only I had had some yam...").

From time to time, we lost contact and then again revived it through the years until I left Ghana for Europe in 1982. I had considered Owura Amu as one of the greatest Ghanaians I had known. I had occasion to serve with him on the Valco Fund for some thirteen years; it was always wonderful to see him at the Board meetings. This was between twenty to thirty years after he had taught me. His ways had not changed much, though he was now in his eighties. But he had come to be recognised more as a national institution by then. I was happy to note this metamorphosis. I very much enjoyed his contributions at the meetings.

A year after our stay in the Technical School, we went back to the Achimota School compound. But that did not last long. It was in 1942 and the decision was taken then that the General Headquarters (GHQ) for the West Africa~[* North Africa? Uncle Rodger]~, with Lord Swinton as the head of the war effort, should be based in Achimota. The Girls' School side of Achimota was chosen for the GHQ and the girls were moved from there to the boys' side of the school. Readjustments had to be made and this resulted in both the boys and girls of LP being moved from the school compound to the Aburi Gardens, some 23 miles from Accra on the Akwapim hills.

I have visited Aburi many times since I grew up and I am astonished how small the Gardens are. But at the age of 12-13, it was a very large Garden. Then, as now, it was a beautiful place to be in. Our teachers who had been in the Technical School came with us. But Miss Dunnet~[* first name? ]~ was replaced by Mrs. Wilkinson~[* first name? ]~ as the head. Indeed, I never saw Miss Dunnet again after this. Owura Amu stayed behind in Achimota. His place as music teacher was taken by Phillip Gbeho. In addition, we had Mr. Ofosu Appiah, who later joined Ghana Broadcasting, and Mr. Amuah,~[* first name? ]~ who died early. The teachers of the girls, who went to Agogo in Ashanti with them while we were in the Technical School, also joined us. So there were teachers like Miss Angela Christian, who could not have been back from her studies in the UK for very long, and the Hannah-Gardiner twins. The girls lived on the top floor of the main building in the Gardens and the lower floor was used for classrooms. The boys lived in some of the houses nearby. Some of the teachers had to make do with the out-houses and garages attached to these houses. But Mr. Gbeho who was married with children took a house in the town outside the Garden. Our dining hall, which was the main assembly hall, was quickly constructed in timber for our use.

I was delayed for a fortnight in leaving Achimota for Aburi because, just before the move, I was in the school hospital with malaria, which used to take me there regularly at least once every term. This time, after I had recovered, the hospital authorities decided to quarantine the inmates of the hospital for two weeks, because a patient among us had come down with measles. So we were kept there, healthy young boys and girls doing nothing, just passing the time. It was quite frustrating. One of the boys under quarantine was my distant cousin, Nee Lante Heward Mills, nick-named “Agra”. We found that our appetites were much better than the hospital rations we got and we often found ourselves hungry. That was until Agra's sister, Eileen (Naa Lamiorkor), who later married Dr. Robertson,~[* first name? ]~ got to hear about our plight. Our quarantine barracks was a wooden shed not too far from the girls' houses. Thanks to her, we were all right after that.

The Gardens were colder than anywhere else I had ever been before. The usual requirement that we had our baths twice a day became a chore, as the water was so cold, especially in the mornings. Aburi did not have much water at that time. The houses where we lived had large tanks for the collection of rain-water. But these were treated mostly as emergency supplies. For our water, we either had to go to a spring or to the village well either of which was at least a mile or two away from the Gardens and fetch our water in buckets. The traditional routine of classes, communal eating, resting in the afternoons, games thereafter, then prep, when we did our homework for future classes, was followed.

I got on very well with my teachers. At the time when they undemocratically appointed form captains to maintain order in the class, I was always appointed to that office. So, I had been form captain, although probably one of the smallest boys from my first year at the school when we were in the Technical School, and I continued this office in my second year at Aburi. But to demonstrate their independence or show me how unpopular I was, or both, once the election of form captain was thrown open to popular vote, I ceased to occupy that office; and that continued to be so right through the rest of my school career. That situation seems to have been repeated in my future career, because although I was appointed a Commissioner (Minister) of Justice and Attorney General by an undemocratic military Government and held a number of posts, I never held elective office. But then I never sought one, having firmly stuck to my father's saying that the day that we heard that he was seeking election to the legislature of the country, that very day, we should have him certified.

In spite of the fact that I was never proposed as form captain, I had a large number of friends at School. A simple recital of their names would be boring. Some of them appear later on in my life and it would be more appropriate to mention them then. But I got attached to the friends that I made throughout my days at Achimota. They were more my family than the natural family I had. That was understandable because the school term then was thirteen weeks. Mid-term was an extra day's holiday, which you might choose to spend at the School or go on an excursion with other students, once we were at the senior School where such excursions were organised or have an exeat to Accra. Mid-term did not consist of several days' break when you could go for a mini-holiday at home. Most of the year, was, therefore, spent in the company of my school friends. When later my mother was identifying members of my real family, even if somewhat extended, to me in the expectation that I would keep closer company with them, she found that I had, very little, and in many cases could develop no, feeling for them.

My friends at the school even at that time were not confined to the boys. Katsina, Adamu's sister in my class; Akosua Kuffuor, later Mrs. E.O. Dodoo; Theresa Striggner, now Mrs. Striggner-Scott, Ghana's Ambassador to Paris; Cecilia Nana Atoo, later Mrs. Manwere Opoku; and Effua Etru, were all contemporaries and good friends.

The road up the hill to Aburi was then not tarmacked. There was no protection built to its open side. The School hired the Adra lorry to take us from Achimota to the Gardens at the beginning of the School term and to bring us back at the end. The driving could look dangerous. Johnny Quashie-Idun's father was then stationed in Koforidua as a Magistrate. His jurisdiction extended to Mampong in the Akwapim area, which was quite near Aburi. He would come to fetch Johnny at the end of term. The first time I had to come down from Aburi at the end of term, he suggested to my father that he would pick me up as well and take me to Koforidua, where I could stay with his family for a few days then take the train from there to Accra. The road from Aburi to Koforidua was hilly but it did not present the same dangers as the part from Aburi to Accra. We did this a few times. But later I joined my other colleagues who were facing the peril of the Adra lorry trip down the hill to Accra.

I recall a visit our class made with Mr. Tom Boaten to the Provincial Council of Chiefs at Dodowa. That was an object lesson in civics. It probably is from that time that my respect for chieftaincy in the country developed. The Council was presided over by Nana Kwadade II, the Omanhene of Akwapim, and the father of my friend Kodwo Awere, whom I got to know better in the Achimota Secondary School. Before Nana Kwadade assumed the chieftaincy, he was Lawyer Awere, a friend of my father. Indeed, he was my godfather. There he was resplendent in his chiefly robes, discoursing with his fellow-chiefs about the affairs of their province. There was some majesty about their proceedings. They did not have ultimate power. But they had more power than they were left with in independent Ghana. It has been my belief, perhaps germinated at that time, that a constitutional structure in our independent country without a responsible role for the Chiefs would be a weak structure.

After a year and a half in Aburi, my class went back to the Achimota campus for our secondary, and some for teacher-training schooling. That was in 1944. We stayed in Achimota until we took the Cambridge School Certificate in December 1948. Most of my class-mates left at that point. But a few of us stayed on as the first intake of the new Sixth Form. I stayed on in that class for a term. But as my father planned to send me to England later on that year, I left after that extra term.

The Achimota I met had a system of student prefects, who were the senior boys and girls thought by the school authorities as responsible enough to control themselves and the other students in their charge. Each House had its prefect. Then there were overall Senior prefects, one for all the boys and the other for all the girls, as well as prefects for school sports and entertainment. Each House was more or less divided into four dormitories, with each dormitory having a monitor and with the boys, there were monitors for “groundwork”, an attempt to improve the surroundings of the House by gardening.

I was first in Livingstone House, which was then for the smaller boys of the secondary/teacher-training school. I stayed there for two years. Many others stayed for only one and moved on to the more senior houses. Our house prefect in Livingstone at one time was Sekyi, who became a businessman later. Harry Richardson, later an accountant, and Saka Akwei, artist, sculptor, and musician, were monitors in my time there. We had C.T. Shaw and Attoh Okine as house masters. Mr. Shaw did not actually teach me. But Attoh Okine did. He taught me history. As indeed did A.B. Attafua, when he came back from Aburi. Both of them later went up to Balliol College, Oxford for their degree courses. Attoh Okine also taught us various voice parts in hymn-singing that we sang at our evening prayers in the House. He was a good cricketer, having, I believe, played for his country in the inter-West African cricket matches and, under him, I learnt the rudiments of cricket.

After the two years, I moved to Cadbury House. I had not asked to go to Cadbury. We were asked to give our choice of senior House that we wished to go to. I then chose Aggrey House, the house quite close to Livingstone House. I cannot now remember why I preferred Aggrey House at this time. I remember that Adzei Bekoe, who later read Chemistry at Legon and Oxford, and was Professor and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana after Alex Kwapong, who had occupied the bed next to mine in my dormitory the year before, had gone on to Aggrey House. I probably heard of the interest of the Cadbury Housemaster, Mr. Charles Percy Woodhouse, in getting good cricketers to his house and I, with some pretensions to passable cricket at the time, did not want to come under his driving influence.

I was not too surprised when I found on my return to the school at the beginning of the year that I had been sent to Cadbury House. I was not too distressed: all my best friends, like Roger Korsah, Adamu Atta, J.H. Mensah, later economist and politician, Emmanuel Ofei Dodoo, later University Administrator, Johnny Quashie-Idun, Frank Vardon, now an accountant, Nee Quartey, the eldest son of P.D. Quartey, our physical training master, who for a short while also taught us Gold Coast History, were there. We formed some sort of group which ate together. The hard core of the group even pooled resources together, our pocket monies, gari, corned beef, sardines, tinned dry milk and other foodstuffs brought in chop-boxes to supplement the food we had in the dining hall. Roger was then the most senior among us, and some of us met him as a sports prefect, his specialities being the high jump and swimming. He acted when he could, as the protector of the members of the group whenever any of them got into trouble with the student prefects.

One of the many causes for protection was the interest in horse racing which some of us, notably, Adamu, Johnny, together with Nee Lante Heward-Mills of Aggrey House, whose father A.G.(Agbado) Heward-Mills, was one of the leading horse owners in the country, Bia Thompson of Aggrey House, son of A.W. Kojo-Thompson, the lawyer, who had actually become a jockey at a young age, Kodwo Awere of Gyamfi House, and myself, developed at school. We followed horse racing news, went to Accra on the week-ends to watch not only the races but the practice of the horses and got to know some of the trainers, jockeys and horse boys. This was an exciting past-time. Bia was a natural story teller and would embroider the most ordinary horse racing story in a manner which made it most thrilling and he had a lot of stories to tell, which would hold us captive for ages. Some of us chose stables which we supported: Nee Lante naturally supported his father's stable. The opposition consisted of stables controlled by some Lebanese, notably S.E. Sassine and the Chahin brothers. The racing horses were at that time imported from northern Nigeria and further on in the north of that country. They were not as good as Arabians, or thoroughbred European horses; when some of these were eventually imported into the Gold Coast, special races had to be organised for them or if they mixed with the West African breeds, had to run with long distance and weight handicaps. At its height, some of the owners in Nigeria, like Chagoury, raced their horses in the more important races in Accra. The premier race was the Governor's Cup, which like any premier race in any country was preceded by exciting rumour, argument about the merits of the various entries and high expectation. Would it be Zouzou, Victory Day, London, Royal Mail, Miracle or Jubilee's race, or that of a rank outsider? The horses remained more or less the same over a period, as there was practically no breeding in the Gold Coast, the horses were allowed to compete in the same races year after year until they were incapable and valuable horses did not appear on the scene too often. We got involved in all this excitement.

That involvement meant that we broke rules about going to Accra from time to time. Normally, each student had an exeat to Accra twice a term. He had a chit officially signed by the housemaster, or at least a prefect, granting him the permission to leave the school compound. He had to leave the compound at about 9 am. and had to be back before dining hall dinner, in the evening, which meant 6 pm. at the latest. But if one wanted to watch an early morning gallop by the horses, one had to be at the beach or racecourse in Accra, 7 miles away at dawn, at about 5 to 6 am. And if one watched an afternoon gallop or went to the races, the likelihood of return to the school before 6 pm. was remote. Besides, pursuit of the pastime necessarily involved going to Accra, not twice in a term, but maybe every weekend. Some of us did so more than others. Of course, the frequent visitors to Accra to indulge in this horse racing pursuit were from time to time caught out for breaking the rules. If you were caught by a sympathetic prefect or monitor, you may get away with it. If, on the other hand, you were caught by a staff member, or student officer, keen to enforce the rules, then you were in for a bad time. It may mean punishment in the form of digging a defined area, usually of hard gravelly ground about three or more feet deep and then filling it in after inspection, or in the worst case, suspension from the school for a period. That was where a prefect like Roger could be helpful; in turning a blind eye to an infringement, pleading for forgiveness with other colleagues, or for a lighter sentence, when you were caught by them. Fortunately, although I was the chief supporter of the Sassine stable, my non-exeat visits were not that frequent and did not meet with any official discovery. The other good thing about our love of horse racing at this time is that none of us, to my knowledge, gambled heavily then or turned into a gambler in later life. The worst it made me was that when we were students in England, I used to make a book for the English Derby for my friends, who placed small bets for the fun of it for the occasion.

Talking about visits to Accra reminds me of one rule which one had to live by. If you had no exeat and you saw Owura Amu come on the transport to Accra, then you must come off it at once. To begin with, the transport that we had to Accra at that time was an Adra Brothers' lorry. The accepted wisdom was that if Owura came on the lorry, he would pay the fare for the students he found on it. After doing so, he would turn quietly on the student, and ask, “Na wu krataa wo hen?” (and where is your document, meaning exeat?)

As was to be expected, C.P. Woodhouse started building his team for the cricket matches against the other Houses as soon as we got to Cadbury House. The team he had was quite formidable. No other House could touch us in cricket. Emmanuel Haizel, in the class a year ahead, played all the strokes we were taught not to play. But he always made a large score. To crown it all, he could bowl the opponents out as well. His was a keen eye in sports. Supported by K.K. Korsah, whom I met in Cadbury as the Senior Prefect of the School, Adamu, Johnny, Ofei Dodoo, E.A. Banful, myself and, later on, Nee Quartey, Johnny Francois and Fred Augustt,~[* check ]~ we were invincible and won the House cricket matches year after year. But I found Woodhouse's cricketing regime oppressive; and would cut practice as often as I could. I also played on the School team, when we were coached by our Ceylonese (Sri Lankan) master, A.H.R. Joseph, popularly known as Paa Joe. He had played some county cricket in England before and he was a pillar of the cricketing world in the Gold Coast. But I was not terribly good. Paa Joe once likened me to Wally Hammond, who had a lovely style but did not manage to produce a decent score. My commitment to the game is characterised by the fact that I have forgotten most of the facts about my participation in it at Achimota eg, the teams we played. My best batting performance on the School team, as I remember, was a modest but valuable score which I made when I once opened the innings with A.B.B. Andrews (Nee Blebo) of Aggrey House and I can remember a fine catch I took which brought to an end the innings of Major Bean of the Gold Coast mining community who also had a reputation as an English county cricketer. But I did enjoy watching people like Attoh Okine, Paa Joe, Kofi Atiemo, then an Old Boy who visited from time to time, and Kester play.

My opposition to Woodhouse was not limited to his cricketing regime. I got to a point where I tried to dodge doing anything that I knew would please him. I was not a particularly bright spark in the house. I would not have won great marks for tidiness or hard work. But I enjoyed the atmosphere and the friendships. The wonderful thing about the School was that if you started there at an early age, you had a long range of people in several years of classes that you get to know. At the beginning, you would know, if you took into account those taking the London University Intermediate level examinations, popularly know as Inter, students over a seven year span, as you moved up every year, new students came up, and depending on how well you get to know them, the number of years covered is expanded. When I started at the Secondary School, the war had increased the number of those at the Inter level because the students at that level from Yaba College in Nigeria had been moved to Achimota. This brought in an interesting injection of new blood, new attitudes and perspectives to the School. People like Sam Ikoku, who became one of the African advisers of Nkrumah after independence, Ben Chukudebelo (Chude), Birabe, whom I knew well and who was kind enough to act as my barber, Pius Okigbo, whom I was later to meet at Oxford were among the Yaba students. For me, they also brought to the Gold Coast the closest Nigerian relative of my mother that I got to know, her first cousin, Michael Okorodudu, who was one of their masters. Fraternising with all these people was a wonderful experience.

The one very sad note into an otherwise enjoyable life was introduced by the sudden death of Nee Quartey. We were dumbstruck. His immediate family was, of course, on the compound. While we grieved for his parents and brothers and sisters for their loss, I was surprised to hear that his mother's great concern was over how we were going to manage without our friend. I was very fond of Mrs. P.D. Quartey and thought she was a very brave woman. I also lost my sister Rosemary Naa Kwarnor while I was at School. I did feel sad. But I did not know her that well. She had been born and lived most of her short life while I was at School. I remember her as a beautiful child and wish I had known her better. Although I was no great shakes in the House, my class work was not bad. The only subject that I was not very good at was Latin. In my worst academic year at the school, that was in 1946, when I was in Form 3, my Latin master, E. Amanor Boateng, advised me to drop the subject as there was a distinct chance of my failing in the final examination. I was lazy and could not bother to learn the grammar. But I knew that many British Universities then required a pass in School Certificate Latin for admission, and I had every intention of going to a University in Britain, preferably, Oxford or Cambridge, so I declined to follow Amanor Boateng's advice. But although I picked up later, I never became good at it. Mr. Alex Kwapong who taught me the subject in Forms 4 and 5, always knew how much preparation I had done before class and would invite me to translate texts only after my prepared passages had been exhausted. I later asked him how he managed unfailingly to know when we reached the parts of the set work which I had not prepared. He said it was easy, I always had a fixed smile on my face when we got to the part I had not prepared.

The Gold Coast Government then had a scheme for sending its bright scholars to England for degree courses. There was then no University of Ghana. The limit which one could reach in his studies in the Gold Coast was the London University Intermediate degree (Inter). That was taken two years after the School Certificate degree. The Inter course was run in Achimota. As a result, the School at that stage did not only have students who had finished their School Certificate in Achimota but it had the cream of students from other Schools who could only continue their Inter course there. The time that I recollect was getting towards the end of the Second World War and the scheme of scholarships for study abroad lasted for some time after the war. One other result of the war was that there was quite a shortage of teachers in our secondary school, as up to that time many of them had been recruited in the UK, and the war made such recruitment difficult. The examination year in the Gold Coast in those days ended in December. Those who had taken exams had to wait a few months before they heard the results. In any case, as the University year in the UK started in October, there was a gap of a few months' waiting for those who had completed their education in the Gold Coast and wished to continue abroad.

While waiting to go to England for such further education, some of the selected students filled the gap by teaching their younger colleagues. Right through my years at Achimota, we had such temporary teachers and they were some of the best that I remember. Silas Dodu, later on a brilliant medical consultant was one of the earlier crop. Then there were Amanor Boateng, who taught us Geography and Latin, and later took his degree in Geography at Oxford, returning to teach at the University of Ghana when it was opened and later became Vice-Chancellor of Cape Coast University; my cousin, Fifi Quartey, who taught us Chemistry, and later on went to Queen's College Cambridge to distinguish himself and returned to teach his subject at the University of Ghana; Fred Sai, who also taught us biology, and became a distinguished doctor and international civil servant; A.A. Amar, who taught us physics, and went on to do medicine and specialised in family planning; K.B. Asante, who taught us Mathematics, and went on to do his degree at Durham University and later on was selected as one of the first six candidates to train as diplomats for the coming independence of Ghana and has since held many major diplomatic posts, including Berne and Geneva, Brussels and London; and Alex Kwapong, who taught us Latin, then took a first in Cambridge in Classics, taught at the University of Ghana and was later its Vice-Chancellor, and the Vice-Rector of the United Nations University at Tokyo. Achimota was at that time returning very high results for the Cambridge School Certificate exams, and it was due in no small measure to these inspired teachers. I remember that Fifi Quartey, after he had left for Cambridge, was succeeded as our Chemistry master by an Englishman, Lawrence B. Fry. After our first test, Mr. Fry told us that we already knew too much of the subject and could afford to forget some of it before our Cambridge exams.

The war brought some dislocation also in the filling of the headship of the School. Achimota was known as the School of Aggrey, who had given utterance to the famous apothegm that the keys of the piano were black and white and one did not get the best music out of playing either the white keys by themselves or the black keys by themselves. The best music is obtained by playing both keys together. The logic of the saying being, as the School motto, “Ut omnes unum sint”, that all may be one. But after Aggrey, who attained the high post of assistant Vice Principal under the first Principal, H.G. Fraser, no black man attained similar high office among the staff until after I had left the School. In my early years, the Reverend R.W. Stopford, later to become Bishop of London, became Principal. That was in 1941. With his coming, a fear swept across the School that all students who did not do well were to be sent down. The “disease” was called “Stopfordises”. It must have raised the level of academic achievement quite a lot. But Stopford did not stay very long at the School. In any case, apart from learning one of Owura Amu's songs to welcome him as head, I was too young to have anything to do with him. And until Peter Rendall came to be headmaster towards the end of my school days, there was a succession of acting heads, including the stylish Jack Marshall, Mr. H.C. Neil, and for short periods, Charles Woodhouse, my housemaster in Cadbury House. H.C. Neil taught me Latin at one time but I did not get to know him too well.

I said that 1946 was my worst year academically. In most other years, I managed to win prizes in two or three subjects, and sometimes collected the form prize as well every year.[*] But in that year I won no prize at all. I remember sitting among the crowd for the first time at the prize-giving ceremony quite disconsolate. That year, the prizes were handed down by Sir Arku Korsah, the father of my very good friend, and now also my brother-in law, Roger. By the time I got home, the news had got to my family that I was not working at school because I had more or less become a womaniser.

I had quite a miserable holiday. For the first time my father who all through my life I could remember hitting me only once and practically never gave me a serious talking to at any other time, gave me a long lecture. Then came the time when I went to say good-bye to Auntie Marion, my godmother. I received another sermon there. By the time I went round to Nanaa, I knew what to expect and was more braced up for that encounter. I met her on her way out. But she spent a little time talking to me about what she had heard I had been doing at school. Her case was simple: this chasing after girls, I had the rest of my life to do. I would even get tired of it. Why did I not concentrate on my studies for the time being? She went on to name the girl I had been wasting my time with. It was such a relief because, although I knew her well, I was not at the time even on speaking terms with her. So I was able to rubbish the report she had heard. Whether she believed me or not, I do not know, but I felt good being able to tell her, at least, that there was no truth in the allegation. I had always had my suspicion of who it was who reported me to my family. I believe it was a teacher who thought he was doing me a great deal of good, though in that case I would have respected him better if he had spoken to me first instead. But I did not change my life style much at the school because of the incident, except that I made a serious effort to get back to prize-winning, which I resumed the following year.

By the time I came to choose subjects for my School Certificate exams, I was equally good at science and the arts subjects. At one time, I had wanted to be a doctor. My father never tried to dissuade me from my frequent enthusiasms for qualifications. Because of the fact that the largest single employee was the Government and one did not want to be beholden to it unduly, he, of course, wanted me to have a profession which would leave me free to pursue my own interests if I did not want permanent employment.

Mr. Miguel Ribeiro (Uncle Mike) became my History teacher in the last two years before I took my School Certificate exam. It was he who put me firmly on to reading law. His father had also been a lawyer and I think he was in love with the law. He once took me aside and asked me what I wanted to be. I said I was not sure. I was inclined to do medicine but I was not too happy with the practical experiments in the biology lab. I could not stand blood. But my marks were very good. He said I could be good at a subject but it did not mean that I was going to be happy living with it for the rest of my life. He knew that my History was also very good. He thought I would be much happier reading law than medicine. I do not know how he came to that conclusion, because what disqualified me in his eyes for a future in science would equally apply to the arts subject in which I did well. I knew, however, that while I did not feel too happy in the biology lab, I could spend hours among my father's papers when I was at home. I read his books on law, especially on great cross-examinations, famous trials, legal biographies of such trial giants in England As Marshall Hall, Carson and Patrick Hastings, and legal anecdotes. I read some of his opening notes to trials he had conducted. Some of the latter, I re-read, after I had become a Crown Counsel, and often wondered why he was not a great lawyer in his day. Anyway, I managed to be persuaded by Uncle Mike and from then on started thinking seriously of becoming a lawyer.

In those days, the material used in teaching us arts subjects was heavily eurocentric and, even more so, focused on the British Isles. If a student said that he had chosen Literature as one of his examination subjects, it was nothing else than English literature. So he would read Dickens, Galsworthy, Sheridan, the Brontes, Jane Austen, Somerset Maugham and so forth. There was not the spate of African writers which are found nowadays to use as text books. As I wanted to take the additional science paper in which I knew I would do well, I did not take English literature. But English as a language was a compulsory paper. Although the students' vernacular languages were no more than optional papers. English, Maths and General Science were the core subjects in which every student had to pass in order to get a certificate. My chosen subjects were therefore, these core subjects, the General Science II paper, History, Geography and Latin. Throughout the School, I had only one year in which we read Gold Coast History as part of the history course. We did not expect to be examined [in it] by the Cambridge authorities and therefore, as often is the case, we gave low priority to it. The only book we had on the subject was Gold Coast History by W.E. Ward, a classical text book by one of the British teachers at the School.

We spent most of our time learning about the Tudors, the Stuarts, the Hanoverians and the French Revolution. Of text books, Trevelyan's book on English History was our mainstay. I thought it was inspiring writing. That was supplemented by those interested with Fisher's European History. I remember inheriting a very good textbook on British History by Ramsay Muir from my friend, J.H. ~[* Mensah? ]~ I got to know portions of it as I knew any other book. I could always score some bonus points with that because, unlike Trevelyan, I was the only one who had that book. I remember our using a cram book called Edwards when the exams were drawing nearer. And when Teacher Attafua returned from Oxford and took us a few hours in the subject, he introduced us to Stubbs. We had to take both physical and regional Geography, in which our great textbooks were by Dudley Stamp and Jasper Stembridge. We learnt about Africa, especially its climatic and relief geography and we did study a bit of the Geography of the Gold Coast. But the concentration was heavily on the Geography of the British Isles. I knew more about the rivers of Yorkshire, of which we coined the mnemonic, “Sunwad”, to cover the rivers Swale, the Ure, the Nidd, the Wharfe, the Aire and the Don, than I knew of the rivers of the Gold Coast and more about the cotton industry in Lancashire and the wool industry in Yorkshire than of the cocoa industry in the Gold Coast or any other industry in Africa.

My School Certificate results were good. It was only in English language and Latin that I did not score a mark which was among the best three in the class. In subjects like General Science which had to be taken by everybody, that class was of some ninety students.

By now Achimota was embarking on a Higher School Certificate course. We were the first to be taken on that class. Although my grandmother, Nanaa, was pressing my father to send me to England to continue my education, I joined this Sixth Form class. It had not only colleagues who had completed the School Certificate with me at Achimota but a few students from other schools which did not have such a course. Thus we were joined by Kodwo Debrah, who later was Ambassador to Washington and Addis Ababa, and High Commissioner to London, and the top civil Servant in General Acheampong's government and, upon retirement was employed by the Commonwealth Secretariat to train new diplomats in Zimbabwe, Papua New Guinea and Namibia. We were also joined by Ebenezer (Yosi) Laing who later became Professor of Botany at the University of Ghana and my brother-in-law married to my sister, Mildred, as well as Nicholas De Heer, the son of one of our leading Paramount Chiefs, Nana Sir Tsibu Darku, and who later became a doctor serving both at home and in the international field. I had definitely decided to read law at University, so I abandoned the science subjects in which I had done so well and limited myself to English Literature, History and Geography.

But I stayed on the Achimota Sixth Form course for only a term. My grandmother's pressure on my father became too intense, and my father gave the undertaking to send me to England in September that year to continue my Sixth form. In doing so, he undertook a great financial sacrifice, perhaps greater than what he knew at the time that he could bear. Peter Rendall who had just joined Achimota as headmaster from St. Bees was asked to advise. He was interested in an exchange programme for his students at Achimota with students in equivalent classes in St. Bees for example. He proposed that I go to St. Bees or to Felstead, where he had also taught. My father chose St. Bees and it was arranged that I should go there from September that year. At the end of that first term, on the 20th of April, 1949, I left Achimota for the last time as a student. That same day, my sister Beryl had her daughter, Diana. From that time until I left for England, I spent my time rummaging through papers or reading desultorily in my father's office below our living accommodation at Tudu, or in the Accra Public Library, or occasionally going to the Courts to hear lawyers like Koi- Larbi, recently returned from England with a reputation for brilliance, attending lectures given by people like Ako Adjei or helping my brother-in-law, Kweku Fori Ofori Atta, Beryl's husband, keep shop on Horse Road in Accra.

I had enjoyed Achimota tremendously. It had been my home for over eight years and the most formative years at that. Most of my Ghanaian friends were made in that School. I had developed a highly competitive academic spirit at the School. I had learned to love reading in its library. It was a good library with a regular supply of most of the literate British papers, weeklies, as well as a number of educative magazines apart from its books. Willie Bossman and Samuel Ofosu Amaah, now the paediatrician specialists, made copious notes for their class subjects from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We avidly read The London Times, The Spectator and The Listener every week. It was in Achimota that I developed my liking for classical music. Owura Amu and Mr. Philip Gbeho organised music evenings over the weekends when the catchy tunes of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schuman, Mendlesohn, Dvorak and Chopin were played from the library to the students who cared to assemble in front of the Administration Block. And, of course, many students who did not care particularly for the music milled around because the occasion gave them an opportunity to be with their girl or boy-friends for longer than usual. Religious services, every morning, except Saturday, and on Sunday evening were non-denominational Christian. But the Catholics had their own service. Everyone had to attend a service, in school uniform during the week or in national dress or blazer on Sunday evenings. This, of course did not cater for Muslims, of whom there were a few, or others who claimed to be non-Christians. For them they had to go to the reading room, where they read in silence during the period of the service. I managed to go to all three. I was not a good member of any of the Houses in which I lived because I was quite lazy and did as little sports as I could manage to get away with. I could, with effort, have become a good cricketer but I did not want to be one of Charles Woodhouse's boys. My football was indifferent and my hockey, as a left-hander playing with right-handers at their game, was just awful. But I knew I belonged and it was fun and, when the time came, I was sad to leave.

I was fielding at the school cricket oval on February 28 1948 when news came round that Accra was burning. The place was filled with excitement and anticipation. We all knew that due to the high cost of living there had been a boycott organised and led by that romantic figure, Nee Kwabena Bonne, Osu Alata Manche, who in his business life had been known as the Theodore Taylor of the European shops. This burning and looting of shops had taken place after the boycott was called off. It was followed by the arrest and detention of Nkrumah, Akuffo Addo, Willie Ofori Atta, all old Achimotans, Danquah, Obetsebi-Lamptey and Ako Adjei, who became known as the Big Six. We were not sure whether they had any part in the organisation of the chaos but we were quite proud of them. Achimota tried, like other schools, to organise its own strikes and protests. The girls were not supportive; they saw the boycott of classes in terms of boys, who were more clever, wanting to take a holiday from studies which they could not afford to lose. The staff did not have too much difficulty in crushing any rebellion. We followed the fortunes of the Big Six as taken before the Watson Commission appointed by the British Government to look into the causes of the riots. We avidly read the cross-examinations of Dingle Foot, who became a legend of forensic ability in the country, before the Commission. I did not, of course, dream at the time that I would one day read as a pupil in the Chambers headed by him in London. We read and re-read with fascination the report of the Commission which led to much debate and discussion. But on the whole, I do not think that we were stridently political. We were too interested in getting good academic results to enable us pursue further studies.

There was in the country quite mild agitation for the advancement by Britain, the colonial power, of the country to self-government. The newspapers, “The Morning Post”, “Spectator Daily” and “The Echo” often castigated the local administration. The Government consisted really of the Governor, who was advised by an Executive Council of certain important officers of State, like the Colonial Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Attorney General as well as a few nominated local members. The Legislative Council was heavily packed with the heads of the various Government Departments. Cities and towns like Accra, Cape Coast, Sekondi-Takoradi, and later Kumasi had elected representatives. Then there were members of the Assembly nominated by the Government. There were no political parties with country-wide support. One heard of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society. It had seen its best days and was at the time I am speaking of a rump organisation with ageing members in Cape Coast and Sekondi-Takoradi. In Accra, the political parties which offered themselves for elections were the “Mambii Party”, a sort of citizens' party, and the “Ratepayers”. The old Dr. F.V. Nanka-Bruce had been a pillar of one, and A.W. Kojo Thompson, the lawyer, was a pillar of the other.

The most famous prosecution of the times that I remember was the prosecution of Kojo Thompson for extortion by a public officer. It stirred up strong emotions. For the prosecution was Manyo Plange, Crown Counsel. He was also a distant relative of the accused. There were some who objected strongly to Manyo Plange's conduct of the case, especially in submitting his cousin to the gruelling cross-examination which took place. There were those who thought that Kojo Thompson had been framed by the Colonial Administration to discredit him and Africans generally. The prosecution was put on the basis that the evidence showed that Kojo Thompson had made the demand of the Association of West African Merchants (AWAM) as consideration for refraining from making a speech revealing the activities of and condemning AWAM. Kojo Thompson was convicted and sentenced to a fine and a day's imprisonment, which meant that he lost his seat in the Legislative Council. The case went all the way to the Privy Council. The legal question at issue was whether membership of the Legislative Council made one a public officer. Manyo Plange shrugged off the criticism levelled at his conduct of the case on the ground that he was not going to change the manner he prosecuted a case just because the accused was a relative. The United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC), formed by Pa Grant, an entrepreneur and elder statesman, and the intelligentsia of the country, including the Big Six, was the independence movement of the day when I was about to leave the Gold Coast for England. As pointed out earlier, its leaders were thought by the Colonial Administration to have fomented the rioting and looting in Accra on the 28th of February and were detained. But the Watson Commission did not think it necessary to determine the issue of responsibility. It recommended that the Constitution of the Gold Coast should be reviewed to improve the indigenous representation in Government. The Committee appointed by the Government for this review was headed by the eminent judge, Sir Henley Coussey. They were still deliberating on these weighty matters when I left the country. By this time, Nkrumah and his more radical following had broken off from the UGCC, and had formed the Convention People's Party (CPP).

I left a country whose political leaders, though no more detained, were out in the wilderness. In the Civil Service, there were very few in the senior service positions. The Attorney General's Chambers had only Manyo Plange, just about to move to Nigeria, as Crown Counsel. Sir Henley Coussey and Sir Arku Korsah were judges of the Supreme Court, as the High Court was known at that time. A native of the Gold Coast, Mr. Woolhouse Bannerman, and Sir Leslie McCarthy, originally hailing from Sierra Leone, had been judges of the High Court in the 1930s and 40s. But most of the local lawyers on the bench, like Van Lare, Quashie-Idun and Acolatse, were Magistrates.

On the 7th of September, 1949 I left from Takoradi by the Elder Dempster passenger boat, MV Accra, to Liverpool. Before that, I had gone round family and friends saying goodbye. Some gave me some money to hold on to, which gave them the excuse to deliver a lecture to me on comportment abroad. In front of our house in Accra to see me off to Takoradi were my father and mother and sisters, Sam Anie, who became the CPP Trade Unionist, a vital operative in Nkrumah's development of public corporations and, later on a businessman in his own right producing printed fabrics in his Anitex factory and whom I had always regarded as a brother and his sister, Jessie, who had looked after me as a child. My father had for some time been unwell, suffering from diabetes. His last words to me were that I would not be returning to meet him alive, a statement which brought tears to the eyes of all present and protests from Sam and others. But, as it turned out he was right.