KOSSOH TOWN BOY. By Robert Wellesley Cole

It is always heartening when distinguished Africans put pen to paper, and as in this case, reminisce on their childhood, their lives in general. Es'kia Mphahlele (South Africa) did the same in his classic, Down Second Avenue. Cole (Sierra Leone) also obliges here. More of the same please! Yes, in this narrative the somewhat sickly youth brilliantly looks back on his childhood, his early close shaves with death, his relatively privileged background. Education is very important in this family, with the author's father having undertaken important studies in England - a time his stoic mother had to hold the fort back at home in Kossoh Town, and sometimes emotionally administer terrific beatings on poor Cole! (the author). Not that his father held back the rod too whilst at home, especially anytime he thought the boy was slacking in his studies. The boy tries to live a fairly normal life in his society, attending some social occasions, and partaking in sports generally. There is a particular account of a football match interspersed with facetious comments uttered in the flexible "Krio" patois. A privileged childhood in an upper middle class family...nowadays it might seem farcical what constituted "middle class/privileged" some decades ago, at a time when there was no television, no telephone (never mind mobile ones), no computers, no internet etc. But such are the vagaries and nuances of shifting life. The author recalls a serenity of sorts, with plenty of discipline, shades of bustling culture, growing up et al. His early life in school, his relentless studies; reading, reading...knowing he was destined for much better and bigger things (he would later on travel overseas too, en route to becoming the first African surgeon). Yes, that would be later on; here in this book he just looks back creatively and perhaps even nostalgically on his youth. And after all, this is the story - a very fine story - of a boy... Kossoh Town Boy...