A Far From Ordinary Life: A Diary of Adventures in an Africa Now Past
By Fred Duckworth
Illustrated by Elise van der Heijden
Almost 20 years ago in C.A.R., Fred Duckworth was flying with his Lord Derby eland hunters and their wives from Chinko’s savannah concession to their forest area in the south-east of the country to hunt bongo.
I was to continue on to Bangui with Rudy Lubin’s hunters for everyone’s flights home. But a huge rainstorm shook the DC-3 that was still flying back then, and the pilot diverted us to Zemio, several hundred kms off course, farther east.
I’d been teased for always travelling with hard-boiled eggs, sardines, bread, a cooked guinea fowl and a bottle of scotch. But it was the middle of Ramadan when we landed in the dead still of a tropical holiday, and my supplies came in handy. Fred and I divided up our clients between the American Baptist and the Italian Catholic missions, but found ourselves with no option but to share the filthy chambre de passage of probably the last remaining French coffee planter in C.A.R. and his mulatto family, our host’s tins of 10-year-old preserves, and my bottle of J&B. That night, my threats of stabbing Fred with a knife if he so much as exposed an elbow to me (he had a reputation as a lady’s man, back then) were superfluous: The mosquitoes were so out of control that we both slept with our boots, gloves, hats and head nets on (for the record: he on the uncovered mattress and me on a pile of my clothes on the floor).
Where has the time gone? Lucky for us, somewhere between Fred’s safari seasons in C.A.R. and Tanzania, his trips home to Holland to Elise and the sons they raised together, and to safari conventions, he’s written a first-class, thoroughly absorbing and entertaining book – A Far From Ordinary Life – fastidiously edited by Brian Marsh and published to the highest standard by Rowland Ward.
The story begins, of course, with Fred’s birth in 'old colonial-styled' Calcutta to British parents in 1934 during his father’s 15-month shikar there to hunt big game. (Can the utterly cute photo of the 3-year-old Fred on page 9 really be Fred?)
Archibald Duckworth’s work as a civil engineer with the East African Rails & Harbours placed the family in the middle of Kenya elephant country – the ultimate 'being at the right place at the right time' with the right people. With his .470 Nitro Express in hand, he took his son in pursuit of worthy tuskers and, later, tiger and markhor on the subcontinent. Fred’s first elephant (carrying 89 and 81 pounds of ivory) was taken with a 9.3x64mm Brenneke Mauser, which quickly taught him to carry as big a double rifle as possible for the rest of his hunting career. (He carries a Krieghoff .470 Nitro Express, but would be glad to own a top-notch .500 Jeffrey). Other 'flutters of angel's wings' taught him to 'Never assume that one can rely on other persons in moments of extreme crisis.'
But the hunting nearly came to an end for Fred when, shipped off to Great Britain for the sake of an education he obviously got, he learned his father had drowned while hunting elephant in south-eastern Tanganyika. Devastated that his mother had sold her husband’s guns 'to rid herself of the tools of his enchantment,' at 18, he embarked on life with his father’s all-important last real gift - a .375 H&H Magnum Mauser.
Fred vividly relays the wanderings and twists of fate as he evolved from assisting game control scouts in the Selous Game Reserve in Tanganyika, to hunting for ivory at a time when a 110-lb per side tusker was worth four month’s pay as an assistant game ranger), to becoming a licensed professional hunter, describing the personalities, guns and game encountered along the way.
In a feat that would be impossible today, Fred’s perpetual lucky streak (I’ve seen it in action) landed him highly coveted 'real jobs' that led to great adventures. As regional game warden of the southern region of Nyasaland/Malawi under Bruce Kinloch, he was called in to hunt down 13 man-eating lions – including the notorious Kasupe lion that, in nine months in 1969, killed 17 women, nine men and one child, and mauled another eight people.
But then, another turn in the road led him in 1972 to the Coptic Christian Empire of Ethiopia, where his responsibilities would eventually extend from creating a 'Plan for the Protection and Sustainable Utilisation for all the Wildlife Areas of Ethiopia', to 'reorganizing' the barely existing big game hunting safari industry. In the meantime, in the Danakil he met the beautiful, adventurous Dutch artist, Elise, who 30+ years later, remains at his side.
Fred takes us through the entire evolution of Ethiopia’s safari industry that started in the 1950s with a Russian Turkish lady named Marusa Lapin and her husband, Yura, conducting a few hunts in the Arussi Mountains for mountain nyala. Then came an American schoolteacher, Ted Shatto, remembered for taking James Mellon on safari; and Ker, Downey & Selby’s aborted efforts to get a Kenya-style hunting industry started there. And the PHs - Fred knew them all: Karl Luthy, Col. Negussie, Esthete, Carl Forsmark, Major Gizaw G. Giorgis, Dimistris Assimacopoulos as well as Nassos Roussos, Thomas Mattanovich and Håkan Pohlstrand who also contributed photos to Fred’s book.
Danakil, Afar, Gambella, Gurafarda, Harrar, Omo … all words that make you dream - despite the Martini-Henry rifle-toting (and later AK-47) peoples of these lands. Fred knew – and photographed - them all, too.
Some 50 years and 240 pages later, Fred does not end his book on an upbeat tone concerning Africa’s wildlife. He has watched too many species in too few years disappear from too many areas. In countries where political upheavals sweep away human populations and demographics decimate the wilderness, he explains why, with species like Swayne hartebeest, whose populations were on the road to recovery, today probably only 100 remain.
This first book of Fred’s life story closes with Ethiopia in shambles and Fred and his family packing for Rhodesia. The C.A.R. is not even yet on his horizon. Obviously, much of Fred’s story remains to be told.
A Far From Ordinary Life is full of wonderful photos and dozens of spirited, expert graphite pencil drawings by Elise, putting this book in a class of its own. If I have one complaint, it would be for maps and more maps. Many readers like to know where places - like Malawi’s Changata escarpment and Shire River in Henry’s Ghost are actually located.
A Far From Ordinary Life ,published by Rowland Ward,is available in a Standard edition for $60; a Collector’s edition for $95; and the Special Buffalo-leather-bound edition for $175.