Free Download Tepid Whisky by Paraffin Lamp: Life and Work in Outposts of the British Empire in the Twentieth Century by Robin Bromby
English | April 17, 2023 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B0C2X6Z4F7 | 390 pages | EPUB | 15 Mb
The present-day perceptions of the British Empire have been framed largely by the events of the 18th and 19th centuries. The colonial story of the 20th century, however, has been obscured and forgotten. While many inequities – slavery in parts of Sierra Leone and sale into servitude of girl children in Hong Kong – continued into the 1920s, a great change was taking place in the colonies spread across Africa, Asia, the Pacific and Caribbean. A new breed of colonial officer was emerging: incorruptible, often working for low pay, but trying to improve the lives of the people they ruled, albeit within the mindset of colonial rulers. There was Edward Lumley in Tanganyika paying out of his own pocket for coffee plants to develop a new source of income for the Africans of his district. Another example was James Corson in Africa injecting himself with sleeping sickness in his efforts to find a cure. Or Douglas Newbold promoting education in the remote north of Sudan. These men and women endured months of lonely existence often without electricity or running water. The 1920s also saw wives coming out to join their husbands and struggling to make ends meet on their husband’s low pay and missing their children left back home. Or Alys Reece, wife of the military governor of British Somaliland, trying to entertain with no food shops in the capital to call upon. Of course, there was the snobbery – encountered first on the voyage out and resurfacing at "the club" in Northern Rhodesia or Suva. Nevertheless, these colonial officials were making up for lost time, belatedly improving health and education services. Not enough in the end, of course, and that end came suddenly – in Aden with the last troops being evacuated to a nearby warship after years of violence, and tears were too seldom shed by the suddenly independent people of colonies from Jamaica to Ghana to Kiribati. ‘Tepid Whisky by Paraffin Lamp’ shines a new light on life in these colonial backwaters and tells of the lives and hopes of those who "went out" to serve the last gasp of British Empire.
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