Like the country it represented, it exuded a rumpled old world charm clearly in need of a makeover. Downstairs across a well-worn counter I accumulated numerous visas as I travelled to and from Sierra Leone. Sadly 33 Portland Place was later acquired by another leaseholder under very questionable circumstances and as a High Commission it is no more.
Lunsar in the
early 1990’s had already taken a battering from the fighting. Buildings still standing showed signs of gunfire.
Outside the town lay the
rusting machinery that had once chipped away at Massaboin Hill, a
mountain of iron ore which in the local dialect gave the town its name.
Lunsar
was the base for a swamp rice rehabilitation programme in the surrounding countryside. Security
could best be described as fluid as the fighting ebbed and flowed to and from
the south and east of the country.
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It was hard
to believe that the Queen made a State visit here in 1961. Back
then some up country towns had street lighting.
One day I paid a visit to an old Paramount Chief, reduced to tears as he showed a framed black and white photo of his introduction to the Queen during her tour. Outside few buildings were left standing and the street lights had long since ceased to shine.
What makes
Sierra Leone special are the people. They are some of the nicest you will find
anywhere, despite one of the world’s worst mortality rates and the horrors of
what the RUF rebels perpetrated.One day I paid a visit to an old Paramount Chief, reduced to tears as he showed a framed black and white photo of his introduction to the Queen during her tour. Outside few buildings were left standing and the street lights had long since ceased to shine.
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| The local blacksmith using hand bellows |
By 1995 the RUF had reached close to Lunsar and in places were only 20 km from Freetown. This was the time of Executive Outcomes and their highly efficient campaign to secure the Freetown perimeter and push back the rebels. When their funding was stopped in 1997, the RUF inevitably overran the capital with appalling consequences, leading eventually to the intervention of British Forces.
Now finally
Freetown is again buzzing with new investment. A return visit to River
Number Two and Lumley beach, the sad remains of Freetown's Cotton Tree and the road to Lunsar are long overdue.
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| Boarding the Lungi ferry at Freetown |
