Helen & Cecil

Soon after the Zanzibar riot, in early 1936, Cecil arrived in Zanzibar for his second spell there. In the 'Life' Helen wrote for Richard and me she describes the first time she saw him. "Bunch and I used to meet at her car about 7.15am to go to work, she clasping her topi [hat] and a piece of toast. I well remember the morning when we drove up Suicide Alley and standing outside the English Club was Dad. Bunch shouted, "Cecil,” and waved, and we drove on in a rush as usual to be on time. Dad was standing on the step, in his smart shantung suit, with his hand on his back.

"A few evenings later Bunch and I were invited to the AMCo quarters for the farewell party to Wade [the man Cecil was taking over from]. The third time I met Dad was at a party given by Dicky Thomson of the National Bank of India. We talked the whole evening and decided we ought to get engaged! That was February." Yet Helen wrote that she was still mourning the death of Ian Rolleston, the assistant District Commissioner killed in the Zanzibar riot, at the end of February.

My mother had a watercolour of what was then the English Club door - top picture. Today the building houses the Africa House Hotel.

Helen and Cecil saw each other almost daily during the months that followed. Haji, Helen's 'house boy', brought a tray with her mid-morning tea to the office each day but he now called at the AMCo office en route and....

....collected a note from Cecil, written on a tiny piece of paper, and she sent her reply when the tray went back to her flat. Sadly, I don't have any of my mother's notes but one of my father's still exists. It reads, "Dear Helen, I have only just left E.T.C. - delayed owing to heavy rain. I will call for you at about 8.10pm which I....

....hope will not inconvenience you. Yours pro tem and very, very, very truly. Cecil."

They were obviously very happy together and very in love, but some of their friends were concerned about the match. Bunch Jones, who was unwell and ended up in hospital, who was a good friend of both of them, was worried because Helen was ten years younger than Cecil and, she felt, very naive. Bunch was sufficiently ill to be invalided 'home' to the UK but, before she left, she warned Helen not to get too involved. Later Bunch told her that Cecil wrote to her at Capetown to tell her he was serious and was going to take care of her.