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The Anglo-Ethiopian Society News File - Summer 2021

Pen & Sword have done an excellent job in making these letters available to their readership. The product is of a very high quality and the layout clean and simple with nothing to detract from the substance of the book, which gives a fascinating insight into the life and experiences of an extraordinary soldier and diplomat.

andy’s letters home to his father cover the period from 1919, immediately after his being commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders, through his secondment into the King’s African Rifles, his time as an Administrator in Kenya and Somaliland, Consul in Abyssinia, Political Officer and Assistant British Commissioner on the British Somaliland-Ethiopia Boundary Commission, District Officer in Tanganyika and return to the Army in 1939, when he raised his own regiment of ‘Irregulars’ to fight the Italians on the Northern Kenya-Southern Ethiopia border.
His lifestyle is far from the customary idea of British Colonial life; more Indiana Jones than Raffles. He makes light of the discomfort and hardship of living under canvas for months on end but is excited by his botanical and archaeological finds, many of which were unique and original and still to be found in British botanical gardens and museums in Africa and at home.
His daughter, Christian Curle, who edited the letters, provides contextual notes where these add to the reader’s knowledge and understanding. She does this in such a way that they do not become obtrusive or detract from the substance of the book. The letters themselves tell us not only about Curle but give us a fascinating insight into the long build up to World War II. From Curle’s viewpoint, this seemed inevitable. They also show the potentially catastrophic gulf in understanding and experience between those on the ground and the theoreticians giving them orders. Curle was a practical man who made things happen. The War allowed him to shine.
The letters give a full sense both of his satisfaction in a job well done and his frustration at being thwarted by bureaucracy. The book presents an opportunity to learn about a period and area of the British Empire which are often forgotten or ignored and as such is a valuable resource for anyone interested in this corner of Africa, or indeed the extraordinary life of a British Colonial ‘adventurer.’ Pen & Sword are to be congratulated on their decision to publish this work and on its execution.

George T Wight