Legini Press © 2000 - 2019
Five Years in a White Man’s Grave
Most
of
Geoffrey
Webb’s
account
of
his
period
in
Nigeria
-
Bornu,
Zaria,
Kaduna,
Bida,
Ilorin,
Omu
-
was
first
published,
in
instalments,
illustrated
with
his
photographs,
in
the
Leicester
Evening
Mail,
in
November
1936.
Here
is
the
full
version,
with
additional
notes
by
his
sons Adrian and Nigel who both served in Africa.
Proficient
in
Hausa,
Geoffrey
Webb
took
a
strong
and
well-observed
interest
in
local
customs,
as
is
evident
from
his
account.
Later,
in
collaboration
with
Captain
Frank
William
Taylor,
he
wrote
Labarun
Al’adun
Hausawa
da
zantatukansu
(Accounts
and
conversations
describing
certain
customs
of
the
Hausas),
published
by
Oxford University Press in 1932 as No. 7 in ‘Taylor’s Fulani-Hausa series’ of language books and readers.
Anthony
Kirk-Greene
writes:
‘This
is
a
really
delightful
memoir
-
a first class
read.
Unusual
among
the
Colonial
Service
memoirs
which
have
become
familiar
reading
since
the
1980s,
here
is
a
classic
of
a
much
earlier
era.
It is
the
almost
tangible
intensity
of
personal
relations
with
Nigerians
as
much
as
the
standard
pleasures
(and
problems)
of
life
and
society
on
a
small
station,
that
will
emerge
with
poignancy and pleasure to grip many a reader.
Five
Years
is
surely
one
of
the
most
attractive,
honest
and
readable
personal
memoirs
of
Colonial Service
work
and
life
in
an
earlier
Nigeria
that
I
have
had
the
pleasure
of
reading
-
a truly enjoyable and valuable new source.’