People, Places and African Studies

Abstract

This article is based on a talk given to the SCOLMA annual general meeting in 1993 and is, very largely, a personal backward look at my involvement with people, places and African studies since the late 1950s.When I first went to Africa in the fifties long distance travel was not the commonplace it is now. Uganda, where I took up my first overseas appointment as Librarian to the Department of Agriculture, was then a twenty-four hour flight away with stops at Rome, Benghazi and Khartoum. It is difficult to recapture first impressions on setting foot on African soil but there is a confused memory of heat, blazing sun (at 8 am), and the brilliant colours of the trees, flowers and the dresses of the Baganda women as well as mild cultural shock at finding that all the men wore shorts: I was not prepared for all those hairy knees.