On Reflection and in Retrospect

Henry Osmaston, Uganda Forest Department 1949-1963

a)  Why did I join the Colonial Service?

My father and several of my relations were foresters or soldiers in India, where I was born, so travel and the Imperial/Colonial tradition were familiar and attractive.  I read forestry at Oxford split by war service. I was offered early release from the army by the C.O. to take up a post in Sierra Leone but after geographical research I decided to soldier on; eventually after completing my forestry course I applied for and got Uganda, for which I have been everlastingly thankful – a much more interesting and pleasant country and people.

b)  What did you think you were meant to be doing?

In Uganda, as a Protectorate, we had clearer political objectives than in the colonies, with the explicit aim of ultimate  self-government, though with a far from clear timetable; initially this was regarded as being in the remote future.  Our professional aims were correspondingly clear: to maximise the permanent forest resources of the country and to train local staff to manage them.  We had few European settlers, while the Indian businessmen and technicians were regarded as a development asset.

c)  Looking back, what do you think we achieved?

If I had been asked this up to a decade after independence (1962) I should have answered confidently “A lot, including the aims expressed in my last paragraph”.  Apart from prosperity and a more or less stable and democratic political structure, Makerere College and Mulago Hospital were probably at the top of similar institutions in Africa and the Forest Department had a world reputation in the management of tropical rain-forest. The influence of the churches in morals and education complemented our activities in government. Twenty years later, after the terrors of the Amin and Obote II dictatorships, with the economy in ruins, with natural forest reserves over-run with official approval, with the people decimated by massacre and further threatened by Aids, I should have replied very doubtfully.  Now thirty years later and after several visits to Uganda I am reassured. Thanks to copious aid from overseas (including Britain) the economy is booming, partial democracy has been re-introduced, forest reserves have been restored and people are cheerful and welcoming, but much of this is based on the pre-existing infrastructure: British traditions and bureaucracy are very durable (as one can see in India).  In particular the timber plantations, which we established to meet expected shortages, have been the main source of commercial timber for construction and similar purposes during the last decade. The greatest political problems are the external ones of security on the borders with Sudan and Congo which continue to aggravate internal tribal dissension between north and south.  Internally corruption, negligible in colonial days, has sadly increased greatly.  Relationships between Europeans and Africans at all levels were generally excellent and friendly, though the European clubs maintained colour-bars till shortly before independence.

d)  What do you think we failed to do?

We failed to realise the accelerating pace towards independence, so failed to educate sufficient local people fast enough to a sufficiently advanced level (both in general and professional fields).  However this was subject to serious constraints.  Then copious libations of overseas aid were not available and 3W countries had to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, though Uganda was fortunate in its prosperous cotton fund.  Input to higher education was limited by low scholastic levels, and in a circular manner these were in turn limited by the shortage of qualified school teachers.

Although in government departments such as forestry there was negligible tribalism, this existed and if anything was encouraged in the police and army to pose a counter-weight to the more politically advanced Baganda.  These forces too lagged seriously in the provision of professional training and advancement..  We failed to anticipate how this would provide a power base for Amin.  Nor did we successfully cope with the problem of the traditional dominance of the kingdom and people of Buganda, partly because of surviving Lugardian ideas of ‘indirect rule’.  There was some tendency to ‘Masai-itis’, the regarding of such ‘primitive’ tribes as the Karamojong and Bakonzo as entities for conservation rather than development.

e)  What do you think ‘they’ thought of ‘us’ and our work?

As a professional forester I had no contact with professional Ugandan politicians, though naturally one suspected that for at least some of them the motive behind their anti-colonial words and actions was self-seeking for power rather than patriotism.  This view was supported by the almost universally friendly and co-operative attitude of everyone else.  Of course it is hard to tell for certain when one is on an established power-base, but recently some former Ugandan colleagues have expressed nostalgia for the safer and better times of colonial days.  They have certainly expressed respect for our professional achievements in forest management.  Some of our former domestic staff in particular have maintained close contact and friendship with us.

f)  How do you see and remember your CS/HMOCS career and experience?

I shall always be grateful for the opportunity to spend the most active part of my life in such a stimulating and satisfying environment and occupation.  I was particularly lucky to serve in a country with a pleasant climate when effective measures against some of the major health hazards (malaria, polio) had just been introduced, so that one’s own life and those of one’s family were safer; when funding for forest operations was becoming more generous, and forestry practice was becoming more scientific and better formulated economically; but before modern luxuries, transport and pressures had quite superseded the excitements of foot-safari and camping, and when sometimes the only means of communication with head office was by weekly mail steamer.  Uganda also has a very wide and interesting variety of landscapes, vegetation and climates from the dry Rift Valley to huge lakes and glaciated mountains, from tropical rainforest to near-desert.

I had clear professional aims and sufficient independence to put them into practice.  My colleagues, both British and African were congenial and mostly were highly motivated.  My family enjoyed life there as much as I did. What more could I ask?

g)  If you had a ‘second career’ how did the two compare?

It is difficult to compare swords with ploughshares – I prefer to think of my careers as complementary.  My non-forestry interests and work in Uganda provided the basis for my subsequent doctorate, while that in turn plus my experience as Principal of the Forest School qualified me for a lectureship at Bristol University.  At the same time my practical experience in forest management inspired my metamorphosis into a pedigree dairy farmer.  The ivory tower provided mental stimulus and I particularly enjoyed close contact with generations of students, which mitigated occasional frustration with the restricted viewpoints of some of my colleagues and the experience of Cosmographica academica in practice.  Managing the farm gave me the physical exercise and the opportunity for independent decisions that I had enjoyed in Africa.  Fortunately as a geographer I was able to continue my travels and particularly ones to mountains, ranging from taking successive field-classes of geography students for over a dozen years to the northern hills of Mallorca to taking a groups of others to China and the high Himalaya.  In retirement I have continued my travels, have co-authored and edited several books including one on Tropical Glaciers (CUP) last year, have two more in press, and am president of a small international academic society concerned with Ladakh.

I shall be 80 this year (2002) but am lucky to remain both physically and mentally active, and with my wife I enjoy four children and nine grandchildren.