Lightest Africa By F. Spencer Chapman
Lightest Africa By F. Spencer Chapman
Hardcover
Publisher: Chatto & Windus Ltd 1955, Scarce
Used - Very Good. This book is in very good condition. The DJ has some limited signs of wear and tear but the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
An account of Spencer's year spent travelling across 17,000 miles of Africa with his family, filled with photographs, observations, and natural history.
This book was written in the early 1950's and is essentially a drawn-out description of the author's family vacation through south and central Africa. The author was a war hero in the jungles of Malaysia, an astute mountain climber and polar explorer to boot and has written about all of his other escapades. This book's main redeeming feature is its interesting photos, some in color, taken along the way.
Frederick Spencer Chapman, DSO & Bar, ED (10 May 1907 – 8 August 1971) was a British Army officer and World War II veteran, most famous for his exploits behind enemy lines in Japanese occupied Malaya. His medals include the following: the Distinguished Service Order and Bar, the Polar Medal, Gill Memorial Medal, Mungo Park Medal, and the Lawrence of Arabia Memorial Medal.
After the war, Chapman was asked to form a school in Germany for the sons and daughters of British Forces and Control Commission Civilians resident in the British Zone of occupied Germany. This school, the King Alfred School, Plön, for children 11 to 18 years of age, used the German naval establishment at Plön in Schleswig-Holstein where Admiral Dönitz had resided during the last days of World War II. Chapman, as headmaster, set up the school, organised the teachers, arranged for the alterations to accept both boys and girls, and then in one day in 1948 accepted 400 young boys and girls into what was possibly the first successful comprehensive, co-educational boarding school in the world. His dynamism and understanding of the requirements of young people were the guiding influence in setting up the school to become a first class success story which lasted for 11 years. He was relieved after its successful commencement, at which time he continued in educational work as Headmaster of St Andrew's College, Grahamstown, South Africa (1956–61) Then Warden at the Pestalozzi Children’s Village Sedlescombe between (1962-66) and Warden of Wantage Hall at the University of Reading (1966–71).
