Maxim Gunn in West Africa

West Africa is a more dangerous and treacherous place than when I was working there in the 60’s, and there certainly weren’t any Leopard Men that I knew about, but Maxim Gunn is the type of man I wouldn't have minded meeting during a few of the more dicey moments in my own more sedate career in the wilds of Northern Nigeria, like the terrible day when the world went mad and the killing started. They called it the Biafran War, but it was more like bloody retribution and the fulfillment of a prophecy.

But most of it was good, very good, and I still remember arriving all those years ago. We landed at Kano in the wee hours, and after customs I went up onto the airport roof to wait for the local plane - a DC3 - to Jos. And as I waited the sun rose. It was a Rider Haggard moment. It was "King Solomon's Mines" and "She". It was P.C.Wren and "Beau Geste". The blood red ball shimmering through the desert dust, the smell of camel dung cooking fires, and the muezzin’s call to prayer. It was glorious, that first sunrise over Africa. I sat and watched it with a feeling of intense excitement and awe and it has stayed with me and I can still smell it although it was nearly fifty years ago.