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Thu 3 Feb
Walking back through college around home time someone calls from their office. It's the head of some department. He wants me to "come-in, sit-down, shai?" If I can spare 10 minutes he wants to tell me something, which arouses my curiosity. He tells me he is partly British. I nod. (He looks to me at the darker end of the Sudanese spectrum.) He is from Darfur. He tells me his mother's father was James Brown, a senior officer in the British Army posted there towards the end of the British administration (c1950). Evidently James Brown had taken a local wife and together they had a daughter. They were very happy together. Even when he was posted elsewhere he would come back to resume family life when he could. Later, from England he still supported them financially via the local commanding officer. Sometime in the 1960s the money stopped coming and later they heard the old man had died. The daughter is now in her later years and of course she's wondering - why after taking such good care of them while alive whether he had provided for them in his death. Was there a will? I Google "James Brown" + Nyala but find nothing.
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