On Call in Africa: In War and Peace 1910 - 1932

A unique and fascinating combination of personal memoirs, corroborated by official war diaries, richly illustrated with personal photographs of events 1910-1932 in East Africa. These memoirs of Dr Norman Jewell provide an intriguing account of the life of a young doctor working for the Colonial Medical Services starting in the Seychelles in 1910. After four idyllic years, Norman joined WW1 in East Africa; he was posted to Kisumu on Lake Victoria as a Captain in the British Army and then to the Field Ambulance unit. This took him all over British and German East Africa via circuitous routes and battlefield skirmishes chasing the elusive, undefeated German commander General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Aside from the risk of injury and death from the battlefields, he faced hunger, recurrent malaria and dysentery attacks. The supply chain was fraught with difficulties due to the vast distances of walking it took to deliver goods. Mention is made of the Pike report which exposed the poor management of the Medical Service command. After a particularly bad bout of malaria in late1917, Norman spent six weeks convalescing in the Seychelles where he met his young daughter for the first time.Returning to East Africa he rejoined the Ambulance unit in the Lindi area where the pursuit of Von Lettow-Vorbek continued through the southern part of German East Africa (now Tanzania). He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry in 1917 and continued to serve in the front line until the end of the war.He returned to civilian life as a doctor in the Colonial Medical services in Kisumu and was confronted by the Spanish Flu pandemic. The story also encompasses his escape, while on leave in 1920, from assassination during the Bloody Sunday events in Dublin. Norman recounts the development of…