Various events in my Life
This is a personal tribute to my departed cousin and friend, HRM Eze Professor Chukwuemeka Vincent Ike, OFR, NNOM, Ugwu Aro, Eze Ikelionwu 11, who departed this earth on 9th January, 2020, and was laid to rest on 11th April, 2020. I have always known him as Vin and first …
My first Christmas in England had been spent in Coventry in the house of a pen friend- see my earlier post, Christmas in Coventry. Before I left Nigeria I had not known about the pen friend phenomenon. But in England I learnt that the European could be most curious about …
That was a favourite joke of my Jewish boss, Mr Rosen, in Elizabeth House, Ministry of Public Buildings and Works where I served my articleship towards the Final Examination of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on three days of the week. My bosses and coworkers were mostly very pleasant. …
As a follow up on previous post Flash Back – Fools Rush In, in Lagos I was employed by T. A. Hammond & Partners, Quantity Surveyors, with offices on the Marina with whom I had been in communication for weeks. I moved into a hostel in Obalende. My employers had …
I do not have a good memory for people and their faces. This failing in my nature has often embarrassed me especially when I travel to my hometown, Ndikelionwu, where some people, especially the older ones, accuse me of being haughty. They say, is this not the son of so …
I spent the first three months of 1960 living with Mr Okeke-ifi and his family in the Railway Quarters in Kaduna and my preoccupation was writing applications for a clerical job while waiting for the results of the West African School Certificate examinations. The preferred job with many school leavers …
There is a saying that fools rush in where angels fear to tread. Well, in 1960 I rushed headlong into suffering. I had done very well in the West African School Certificate examination. That coupled with all the praises and encouragement by relatives and friends made me to forget …
During that eventful month of April 1960 I took part in aptitude tests organised by the African American Institute in Kaduna. They were running scholarship awards for the Ivy League Universities on the East Cost of America being some of the best Universities in America including Harvard. Kaduna was the …
Because St Paul’s was a new Secondary School, the authorities decided that the first sets of students would undergo a six year course to be properly grounded for the West African School Certificate examinations. So 1959 was our final year. By that 1959 the incidence of my being sent home …
One important thing that happened to me during my holidays was meeting a cousin called Vincent Ike. He was a graduate and was organising a fledgling student’s union for the town. He was tall and lanky and self confident. I was overawed. I was a totally unexposed and timid junior …
