Mrs Zigzag: The Extraordinary Life of a Secret Agent's Wife (11 page)

There was no shortage of local characters in Ghana either. Eddie recalls meeting one of them:

We went on the river there because the river leads right up to Ashanti. It has crocodiles and God knows what. At certain parts of it you have to be wound across the river on a chain-ferry and it takes about two hours to get across. When I arrived there was about an hour’s wait and so I walked around. As you walk around the bank you disturb crocodiles and they dive into the water. I saw some Africans busy with an air pump. It was an old diver’s kit and I saw some bubbles coming up. I thought ‘What the hell is that?’ because every now and again there would be a crocodile floating past and I thought ‘He must be a brave bastard.’

So I waited and after about ten minutes he came up and the African jumped in and helped him out. They took his helmet off and underneath it was a white face. He looked at me and said, ‘Hello, mate.’ I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m taking samples for when they build the bridge here.’ Anyway, we chatted and he said, ‘I’ve got to go down once more.’ He went down until he was completely submerged, and a crocodile came right over where he was. Suddenly he came up from the bottom and he punched the crocodile, and the bloody thing went about 6ft up in the air. He said, ‘They are easy when you know how!’

Betty continues:

There was no shortage of social life for us. We sometimes had parties at our house as well as parties at other people’s places; there was always something going on. Dinner parties of up to 20 and cocktail parties of up to 200 weren’t unusual. Once Eddie and I gave a party on the same night as the governor, and we were over-attended as it was said that our food and drinks were superior. And, the governor had only cheap sherry! It ended up a well-known local joke.

Eddie used to go his own way much of the time in Ghana. But, says Betty:

If we went to anything official obviously I had to be there and if we had gatherings of course we would both be there. We had a string of coloured lights around the house and when we were at home they were always on and if we were not at home they were off. So everybody knew we were in and they would come around. We had a wide circle of friends.

Among these was the editor of
The Evening News
, and the owner of the cinema, who became close friends with Eddie. Eddie remembered him fondly: ‘He was a great buddy of mine. I liked Fred because I could always talk to him, he was alone there. He would always listen to my stories. Every time I went to market and I would come back by, he would always have the coffee ready – sweet Turkish coffee in a china cup.’

Betty also has fond memories of him:

When I went to the market, on the way back I would visit and he would bake me goodies and I’d sit in his garden and eat them. He also had a factory making tiles for the houses we were building, that’s how we met him. He liked listening to Eddie’s stories. One day his cinema burnt down, and the rumour went around that Eddie gave him the knowledge to build the bomb that blew up his cinema, but no one knew enough in those days about how to find out for sure. It was only really the Lebanese that had money there.

She continues:

We used to go to another Lebanese man’s beautiful house, where he had built an aviary with hundreds and hundreds of little birds. It was enchanting to sit there in the evenings and listen to the birds singing, I think it was one of our favourite places to go.

The ex pats had their European Club, and it was very nice indeed. Sometimes they would have a special night in the European Club. The first time Eddie went, he met the manager who said to him: ‘I suppose you will be joining our club?’ Eddie asked him what went on there, and he said that they had dancing, various sports etc. – ‘but we don’t allow these black bastards in’. He brought Eddie some forms to fill in and Eddie told him, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t become a member.’ When asked why not, Eddie said, ‘I am here at the invitation of the Prime Minister and if I can’t bring him to my club then it’s not for me.’

Eddie went back to Nkrumah and told him the story. Nkrumah thanked him and then made Eddie and Betty honorary members of the African Club. Betty remembers that they didn’t exactly fit anywhere into the old social structures:

We were sort of a one-off because we went down to do something which no one else had ever done.

Sea View was the only nightclub in Accra, on the sea front. Anyone who was anyone visited the club. The walls were made of empty beer cases and the floor was tarpaulin. They had an old string band which was quite exciting and it motivated everyone to dance. Even the hot nights were fun. The toilets were made up of sheets of corrugated iron, full of holes, and you often would be standing or squatting to relieve yourself when you would spot an eye peering through a hole, over which you promptly put your hand! It really was a vast and different life that we went into – all because Eddie wanted the challenge of new things.

Lambadi Beach was a famous beach where we hired a beach hut which was exclusively for our use. We’d go whenever we wanted and we’d get the boys to go and get fruit from the trees; paw paws, pineapples and coconuts. It was a very nice way of spending time, swimming or sitting around on the beach and meeting new people. Once I was sitting on the beach and the water came in and took me back out to sea with it! Fortunately Eddie was around and was able to save me. They laid me down on the beach only to discover that I’d had too much sun and had sunstroke. I ended up in the Ridge Hospital. It was the only hospital with white sisters; the ordinary staff were still black. You could buy any amount of medicine for £5 from the nurses, provided that they weren’t caught by the sisters! With £5 you could get almost anything in Ghana! The medicine could be very dangerous but also very welcome! I went to that hospital various times. I went once with dysentery; it’s like a very, very bad tummy upset. It was terribly well known in Africa and was simply awful. We had to be very careful what we ate and drank. Everything was washed in Milton [a disinfectant] to disinfect fruit etc., but it tasted absolutely foul. In the hospital, the African angels came in handy with the painkillers!

One pain that even the African angels couldn’t cure, was the way that Betty and Eddie were forced out of Ghana. ‘Nkrumah told us never to both leave the country at once,’ – as Britain would never allow us to return. He was right.

6

K
WAME
N
KRUMAH
, I
PRESUME

K
wame Nkrumah made an enormous impression on Betty and Eddie, and they felt that the later problems he encountered were much more a result of people around him than of his own failings. This is more than just hyperbole. Eddie had circulated for years among ne’er-do-wells, and could spot a wrong ’un a mile away. The respect and admiration he expressed for Nkrumah was genuine: ‘He was modelling his life on Gandhi. He was a very spiritual man.’

Nkrumah made a real effort to root out the corruption that was rife. If you approached a government official, he would say quite openly, ‘How much you dash me?’ i.e. how much bribe will you give me? Eddie gives an example:

For instance, I wanted water on the building site, and the minister said ‘How much you dash me?’ I said, ‘I can’t dash you, – it’s your job.’ But then you wouldn’t get it. Then I went to Nkrumah and told him. Eventually he sacked the man who was in charge, but it was endemic and blatant, and it took a long time for them to get over this.

A strong friendship developed almost immediately between Nkrumah and the Chapmans:

Our friend Nkrumah would always invite us everywhere and we became very well known in the country. He always tried to protect us in any way he could. We always had to be careful working in Ghana, we could only transmit for two hours a day,
¹
and every time that we were on the radiophone, someone was listening in to try and scupper anything that we were doing. The British did not want the Dutch in Ghana, and our construction business was rooted in the Netherlands. It was not understood that we were trying to amalgamate the British firm Taylor Woodrow with the Royal Dutch firm we were working with.

Betty and Eddie always had to step carefully in Ghana as a result. They were, in effect, always being watched. A typical example occurred when Nkrumah asked them if they would go to Monrovia, Liberia, with him on a state visit. The Liberian president had sent his own yacht to Takoradi, the Ghanaian port, to pick up Nkrumah. Betty recalls: ‘Eddie and I talked about it, and he said he would love to go, but he didn’t think we dare go. We decided we would not go because it would cause such a scandal. So, he went off to Monrovia by himself.’

Because they were so close to Nkrumah, they were very careful to do nothing to embarrass him. One example of how close they were, was connected with that same trip. Betty tells the story:

This is how well we were regarded by Nkrumah, how well he trusted us. When he was in Monrovia he sent me messages to say he wanted me to go to the French company who were representing the car people in Accra where he had ordered a new Cadillac, and could I go to them to collect the car. And, preferably, could either I or his chauffeur come with it to Takoradi to pick him up when the yacht returned. So, I went down to Accra and said that I had come to take delivery of the Prime Minister’s car.

‘Oh,’ they said. ‘Have you got the money?’

I said ‘Of course not, the Prime Minister will pay you.’

‘Well,’ they said, ‘we won’t release it without payment.’

I replied: ‘I respectfully suggest that you do, because if you don’t, I believe the consequences for you will be unpleasant.’ So, after a lot of hemming and hawing they released it. I then went and bought his chauffeur a new uniform, but I didn’t go to Takoradi because the press would be there and there would be a great fuss. They often used to say, ‘I wonder what part Betty Chapman plays?’

In fact, Betty’s input on Nkrumah’s behalf was considerable: ‘I took care of his household staff personnel, personally cleaned up and prepared and supervised the preparations when VIPs were visiting his house.’ His house was described by Eddie as ‘a glorified mud hut’, yet that was of no consequence to him, or to Betty:

When we arrived in Ghana he was unmarried, and his own personal comfort seemed to be unimportant to him. He’d work so hard and get himself so run down, so I would send him milk and vitamins and be sure that his secretaries would be sure he had them every day. He was the head of the OAS (Organisation of African States, later the Organisation of African Unity), so some very highly placed people would visit. I’d always be present to help out, usually for government business, and I often stayed on as hostess for him.

He was very close to Eddie in particular. He would send for Eddie all hours of the day and night. It was nothing for him in the morning to say, ‘Could you come now Eddie? It’s urgent.’ And Eddie would go up to his house, and if he had a problem he would discuss it with Eddie. Nearly every night he used to come over to our house as well. The night watchman would let him in. He would knock on our bedroom door. He had no idea of time. It would sometimes be 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. He would open the door and say, ‘Can I come in?’ He was as bright as a daisy – he needed very little sleep. He would squat on the floor, whilst Eddie and I were under this huge mosquito net. He would say, ‘Eddie, I have a problem.’ Or, he would pick up the net and sit on the bed and talk. It meant that Eddie did more for that government than many of his [Nkrumah’s] ministers.

At one point someone (Betty has her suspicions as to who) sent Nkrumah Eddie’s police records. Nkrumah was unimpressed: ‘I don’t care what he has or hasn’t done in the past. All I care about is what he does for my country in the present’ was his response. What Eddie had done for Ghana was, in fact, quite a lot.

When Nkrumah became prime minister he was to do a speech, broadcast to the country:

That morning he called Eddie and me asking us to go around to his house. When we got there Nkrumah was on his bed going through his speech. He read it out to us and then Eddie stayed with him all morning and they perfected it together. Once he had broadcast it, it was hailed as a great speech. No one knew that Eddie helped him with it, but we did.

She continues:

Nkrumah called one morning with an unusual problem and said he was sending it to us: a mad Irishman had cycled all the way to Ghana from Ireland! So he arrived at our place, and we patched him up and packed him up with money and food and sent him off to South Africa with Nkrumah’s gratitude. It was a stunt that only an Irishman could do.

Nkrumah became one of my own closest and best friends. He once sent me 300 eggs from South Africa! I loved omelettes and he loved to come round to have some too. You never knew if the eggs were fresh if you got them in the market, so he was kind enough to send me so many! He loved nothing more than visiting us, and would always sit on the floor, often eating one of my omelettes!

He also sometimes sent me huge baskets of every fruit known, flown in by air to me. Once when it was my birthday he asked Eddie if I would like a washing machine as a present, but Eddie said no. A washing machine was a lovely thought from a man weighed down with affairs of state. It was expensive and a real luxury in those days. He was very generous.