My childhood in Accra

Douglas Dickason recalls life in Accra as a young boy in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

I lived in Accra as a young boy from the age of eight until I was 14. My father, a British army warrant officer in the Army Physical Training Corps, was posted to what was then still the Gold Coast from 1946 until 1953. The posting was originally for one tour of only 18 months, but my parents loved the life and the environment so much that my father managed to persuade the army to let him carry on for another three tours, making six years in total, interspersed by compulsory three-month breaks in the United Kingdom.

My father went ahead of my mother, my younger brother Peter and I, and sailed to Accra by troopship. It was the normal procedure for families to arrive later once accommodation had been organised.

We sailed from Liverpool on 14 June 1947 on the troopship "Empire Bure" of the Elder Dempster Line and stopped at Freetown to disembark those who were stationed in Sierra Leone. There was no landing quay and passengers had to be taken ashore in small launches. This completed, we set sail once more for Takoradi in the Gold Coast, where we joined up with our father.

The bus journey from Takoradi to Accra was long and precarious in the heat; there was no such luxury as air conditioning but only open windows, and by the time we got to Accra we were caked in red dust from the rough unmetalized roads.

We said goodbye to those who were going off to other military stations in Kumasi and Tamale and soon we where loaded onto an army truck of the Gold Coast Regiment and driven to our new home in a converted military hospital in the area known as Dodowah Villas. All the dwellings were single storey and whitewashed with black-pitched roofs; a veranda ran along the front leading to an annex with toilets, a bathroom, an ironing room and a small room for our domestic worker Genesis.

Our schooling was not very good as there were no qualified teachers; instruction was given by the wives of British soldiers stationed in Accra. We went to school in a converted three-ton army truck. Only four hours a day were devoted to school, from 08.00 until noon. Afternoons and weekends were spent on the beach, Labadi or Christiansburg; there was also a small pool at Teshi. On Labadi beach there were two areas, one for officers and their families and one for the other ranks. The school children could mix, but not adults.

Once a month there was a garrison church service in Giffard Camp, after which we would usually go swimming. On the other Sundays we would either go to the Lisbon Hotel at the airport for a curry lunch or up to Aburi's tropical gardens, collecting bananas on the way back.

There was always great excitement when a Pan American Constellation aircraft was due in to refuel at Accra airport, which invariably happened at night. The plane would sit on the tarmac under the glare of the engineering lights and, with its shiny silver and blue sleek body and three tail fins, it looked like something from out of space.

We were the first family to fly home. It took three days to fly from Accra to Blackbush airport in England as there were no navigational aids for night flying in those days. A typical flight would involve leaving Accra in the morning and flying to Lagos for a night stop. From there we would fly to Gibraltar for another night stop at the Rock Hotel, with two refuelling stops at French Foreign Legion bases across the Sahara along the way. On the third day we would fly to Lisbon for lunch and refuelling, then on to Blackbush, England.

While we were out in Accra there was a smallpox epidemic and everyone had to be inoculated. I got vaccine poison and had to be admitted to 37 Military Hospital.

One day we came back from school to find our father at home, which was most unusual as he was never there until mid-afternoon. It emerged that our mother had been taken into hospital that morning with a mystery illness that was so severe that only my father was allowed to visit her, and it took over six weeks of experimenting and research to find a way to combat this unknown fever. At last there was good news and our mother was allowed to have visitors. Major Hughes, the military doctor who looked after her, said that she had been very lucky, but would have to stay in hospital for a few more weeks to recover. Later in life I discovered that the illness was most likely Lassa fever, of which very little was known at that time.

In the run-up to independence from Britain in 1957 a new stadium was built in Accra. My father had the task of laying out the sports field, which included all the usual arena activities from track to field events. The opening was marked with a military tattoo involving marching bands and demonstrations of military skills. Entry was by invitation and few white people were invited; but as my father had been involved in the project we were able to go. I wonder what the stadium is like now?

Were you in Accra at or around the same time as the author? If so he would be glad to hear from you. You can contact him by email at douglas.dickason@btinternet.com.