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Southsider recalls last days of dying empire

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

AN octogenarian Southsider who emigrated to Africa at a time of great social and political upheaval on the continent has written a book about his diverse experiences. In his fascinating memoir, ‘Snow on the Equator’, Sean Rothery, a well-known architect, artist and writer from Sandyford, tells the story of how he and his wife Nuala emigrated as a young couple from Ireland to Uganda in the mid-1950s. The book recalls their adventures, both in work and in exploring the remote regions of the country during what were to be the last days of the British Empire. Both keen climbers, they had decided to emigrate from the “drab, dreary, church-dominated and uninspiring place” that was Ireland at that time in order to satisfy Sean’s twin obsessions of architecture and mountains. They chose Uganda not just for the jobs they were offered but also for the Ruwenzori, a great mountain range wilderness with snow-capped peaks and glaciers that bordered what was then known as the Belgian Congo, currently the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “The thing about Uganda was that there was plenty of work going on in East Africa at the time,” Sean explained. “And so it suited me to go there, being an architect and as someone who wanted to climb big mountains.” Uganda is highland country and on the west side, bordering what was then the Belgian Congo there is a huge area of mountains, which were called the ‘Mountains of the Moon’ because the Greeks thought that the Nile rose from them. “They are not as high as Kilimanjaro but they are a much bigger range of mountains and cover an area of about 60 miles,” he added. “In those days the mountains were very difficult to get to and we had about a dozen porters carrying our supplies into the range.” Told against a background of day-to-day living as privileged Europeans in a deeply colour-graded society, Snow on the Equator also offers an intriguing insight into Uganda at a time of looming change. “We lived there for three years, so it is a story of part of East Africa and the very last days of the British Empire,” Sean said. “It was really a very different kind of place.” Tales of the couple's travels and adventures are interwoven with those of the late Victorian explorers of the ‘Dark Continent’, such as Stanley, Speke, Burton, Baker and the Irishman, Surgeon Major TH Parke. The memoir is enhanced with original pencil drawings by the author. While the book is a celebration of the splendid highlands and savannahs of Uganda, it is also a story of personal loss – the Rotherys’ second son, Niall, died from a heart condition days after his birth while a good friend was stabbed to death. “Our second baby died there tragically and then a few months later our best friend, who was also my colleague and who had worked beside me in the office, was murdered about 15 minutes before I went to see him,” Sean revealed. “The death of our son had a big effect on us at the time and when Walter was murdered a couple of months later it just compounded the whole thing. “Things were changing at that time and there was a huge uncertainty about independence,” he added. “I could see that my job wasn’t going to continue and in any case it didn’t seem that we were going to stay there. When we left it was an unhappy time and all our friends were leaving.” Snow on the Equator – An African Memoir by Sean Rothery is published by Ashfield Press and is available at good bookshops nationwide priced e14.99 and from www.ashfieldpress.ie.