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Pre war, the Italian Artillery officers stationed in Addis had been keen polo players and there were still several ponies in the stables.I commandeered two of their grooms to look after the ponies and bring one of them to my quarters to ride every morning before breakfast. About this time a group of us used to go off to shoot Egyptian geese in an area below Addis where there were many square miles of swamp. The water was between one and two feet deep and oddly enough the ground underfoot quite firm. Well established trees were still standing in the water but quite dead. It looked as if the whole area had only been flooded for a relatively short period, say five or six years. I remember spending most of one morning wading through this swamp stalking the geese that were feeding on the water. We got a good bag the photograph of which is somewhere in the archives.

There was a tragic sequel to being able to equip the two Regiments with anti-aircraft defense. It was a 'thank you' invitation from them to my boss Major Barton the SOME and myself to join their 'in house' farewell celebration to Abyssinia on the 10th August. They were scheduled to leave the next day for the Western Desert. It was a lavish occasion held in the one hotel that could be called such and drink flowed unrestricted. Barton and I had gone to the dinner in the car that he used, a small left hand drive Fiat saloon. When we finally were allowed to leave it was evident to me that it would be much safer for me to drive. Unfortunately he pulled rank and insisted on driving himself. We shot away from the hotel and soon after started to descend the long hill to our mess below far too fast. I shouted several warnings but whether he got his foot stuck over the accelerator or what I know not. We just went faster.

We had changed the rule of the road, from right to left, when we took Addis Ababa and therefore were driving on the left hand side of the road. Halfway down the hill a 10 ton truck was parked with no lights. I shouted a warning and put my left arm over the top of my head. He started to pull out to the right but the corner of the tail-board came through his side of the windscreen decapitating him and tearing off the roof of the car. The car turned over several times before coming to rest. Somehow I was thrown out through the roof.

When I awoke in hospital I realised how lucky I had been. I had a broken collarbone lacerations to my left arm and concussion. They told me that the back of my Rolex stainless steel watch was still fastened to my wrist and probably saved the top of my head being severely damaged as I slid down the road on it.

Soon after leaving hospital (25th August 1941) I was promoted Local/Acting/Unpaid Major and appointed SOME North to take Barton's place.

There followed two months of mopping up outlying pockets of resistance and, in our now well established base workshop, we contrived to generally refit our occupying forces. In addition, I now was beginning to enjoy a rather laid back, though busy, routine. There were a couple of Italian night clubs in Addis in addition to the one hotel and occasionally a few of us had a night out. One night I remember, after a few drinks, playing the drums in the dance band, coping quite adequately with the drum sticks but being a bit behind time with my foot on the big drum. I had to be helped out by the drummer standing in front with a padded drum stick zonking it to keep up the time.

It is at this point (23rd October 1941) that my diary stops other than a scanty chronological list of main movements dates. Therefore any recollections of the remainder of Potter's Pot-Pourri will come from this list plus any memory that remains. For the record, today is the 29th February 1996.
Gondar in the north of the country was still holding out. An Indian Division was coming at it from the north and the 12th EA Division moving up in a pincer movement from the south.

At the end of October I left the base workshops in Addis to join 12th EA Div HQ, now in the capacity of a Div staff officer. I found Div HQ some 20 miles south of Dabat where I arrived seven days after leaving Addis. Why the journey took so long I have no record and cannot remember.
With two brigades of the KAR (Kings African Rifles) ahead we worked our way up to the top of a high mountain range overlooking Gondar, taking quite heavily fortified gun positions dug into the mountain sides on the way. We spent two nights on the top here before attacking Gondar below. The temperature was close to 100F at midday and yet hoar frost had formed on the top of my ground sheet by day-break. It was on the morning of the third day as we were about to start the attack down the mountain side that a flight of RAF light bombers appeared over us heading towards Gondar.

There had been no Italian Air Force activity for some time and we had taken no air to ground camouflage precautions. Mistakenly we thought that these chaps were going in to prepare the way for us. But no, making a leisurely circle they came in and, line ahead, dropped their load on us. Luckily they were not too accurate and so did not cause too many casualties. From my prone position under a rather large rock, out of the corner of my eye I saw the Divisional Commander leap into a latrine trench followed smartly by a couple of Africans. He came out covered in nastiness shaking his fist vigorously at the sky.

We entered Gondar on the 29th November where we stayed for about three weeks returning to Addis on Christmas Eve 1941.
January passed in a fairly leisurely manner, the last stronghold of Gondar had been taken as had most of all the odd pockets of resistance that had been holding out. I seem to remember having to arrange the destruction of a number of Italian ammunition dumps, a few of which had many tons of particularly unpleasant and unpredictable hand grenades. Packed in wooden crates of a 100, they were very light, had a flimsy aluminium casing that fragmented on explosion into small particles. Unlike the Mills bomb, they were extremely sensitive and unreliable. They were probably developed by the Italians as anti-personnel 'surprises' for the local Habash specifically for their initial invasion of Abyssinia. While they were not used against us, in large quantities they were very tricky to dispose of.
Early in February I was advised by DOS (Director Ordnance Services) Middle East that I had been awarded the MBE. This was published later in the East African Gazette No.100 d/d 7 Feb 1942. It also had the welcome news that my Local/ Unpaid rank was now Paid Acting Major.

Also in February we learned that Haile Selassie was going to return from his sojourn in the UK to take over his Country again and that we were shortly to return to Kenya.

Haille Selassie commanded all his regional chiefs to wait upon him on a certain day 7 days hence. At the same time he issued an invitation to our general to 'bring his senior officers to tea at the palace’ on the same day.

At the appointed time about 10 of us, led by the general, presented ourselves at the palace gates in freshly pressed No. 1 khaki drill uniform. Here we were each presented with small identical nosegays of fresh flowers at the entrance. We were taken to the bottom of a flight of a dozen or more wide stone steps leading up to a row of canvas chairs on the Palace veranda. At the top of the steps, in a more throne-like chair, sat Haile Selassie. We mounted the steps line ahead in rank order and, as the most junior Major, I was tail end Charlie.
Immediately it was evident that a problem had arisen. The guy handing out the posies had been on our right hand side as we came through the entrance and automatically most of us, including the general, had taken them in our right hands. Thenceforth we marched in line to the bottom of the steps. The general was the first to find that there was a problem. While concentrating on not missing his footing and keeping his eyes on Haile Selassie, he arrived at the top of the steps about to ceremoniously salute with a posy of flowers in his right hand. A quick fumble resulted. By the time I got up there my adjustment had been made and all was well.

We were led off to the canvas seats on each side of him and served off silver trays, not with tea but with champagne and cream cakes. We must have looked proper Charlies with a posy in one hand, a glass of champagne in the other and a plate of cream cake perched precariously on a knee.

When we had all been served, a signal was given and for the next hour or so all his regional chiefs came out of the woodwork of the palace grounds. They had been waiting there for hours, individually some of them bitter enemies. Most of them carried very large colourful open umbrellas and wore cloaks of quite brilliant hues. Each came to the bottom of the steps, made their obeisance and departed back to their regions perhaps several day's donkey ride away. I took many pictures of the event with my Lieca but, without colour film or telephoto lens, the results were not what they might have been had they been taken today.

Soon after this tea party units started to move back to Nairobi as we began the process of handing back the country to the Emperor.
My orders were to collect all the civilian lorries most of which were 10 ton Lancias and Fiats and load them with all the workshop equipment and machinery that I could carry. Being a workshop unit as usual we were to be tail end Charlies to pick up the pieces on the journey back.

In the end, together with the men of my original workshop, I had collected together some 20 odd ten tonners, innumerable lathes, milling machines grinders and other machine tools. All the equipment had to be crated to prevent damage during the three week journey. Finally on the 27 February, the last convoy to leave Addis Ababa, we set off bound for Nairobi 1200 miles away very few of which had any roads. It took 21 days. I had selected a handful of Italian prisoners of war to come with us to drive, repair and be generally useful. One surprise on the third day out was to find that one of my African fitters had boxed up a rather buxom young Abyssinian maiden in a crate labeled "milling machine". She was nearly dead from heat exhaustion and lack of water. However having revived her we had to take her on as we were in the middle of a desert.

The trek was pretty exhausting, rocky or desert tracks for most of it, temperatures well over 100F during most of the day with everything covered in dust. We had burst tyres, broken axles, cracked chassis. We had to strip down and somehow botch gearboxes and engines. It was all a bit of a nightmare but we got all 21 trucks into Nairobi in the end.
The last night out from Nairobi I remember well. We bivouacked just outside Nyeri. Then, together with one of the two other officers in the convoy, we took a 15 cwt truck in to the planter's club there to beg a proper bath and a meal. I explained that, not having seen a field cashier for ages we had insufficient money to pay right now, but would do so later. This offer was waved away, we were given a large whisky, some towels and pointed in the right direction down a corridor to the showers. Coming back down the same corridor some time later feeling much refreshed I put the only three single African shilling coins in my pocket into a fruit machine on the wall. I pulled the handle twice with no result but on the third pull released the jack pot. There were shillings all over the floor. Needless to say we had a splendid dinner stayed the night and we were able to pay the bill.
The next day I got the whole convoy into a bivouac area on the outskirts of Nairobi. We sent most of the Africans on leave back to their native villages - and so ended the Abyssinian campaign.

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