Many Parts The Life and Travels of a Soldier, Engineer and Arbitrator in Africa and Beyond

by FitzGerald, Desmond

• ISBN13: 9781845113063
• ISBN10: 1845113063
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-01-15
• Publisher: Radcliffe Press

Summary

This full and engaging memoir covers Desmond Fitzgerald's eventful life from his birth during the First World War to shortly before his death at the beginning of the next millennium. Some of his earliest memories are of his childhood in Africa and he maintained a lifelong fascination with the continent, despite interludes in Britain. He served with the Royal Engineers in the Second World War, travelling extensively in Africa and the Middle East, and subsequently returned to Africa, first as a soldier and then as an engineer, living and working in many different countries. This entertaining autobiography of civilian life in Africa is full of vivid portraits of the author's family and friends and a world and a time which has changed forever.

Author Biography

Desmond John Otho FitzGerald was born in Nairobi on 1 February 1917 and died in Nairobi Hospital on 12 September 2002. After leaving school in England July 1935 he joined the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He went on to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and graduated with a BA in Civil Engineering in 1939. He served with the Royal Engineers throughout the Second World War, earning a DSO for bravery during a battle at Weiteran in Belgium. Desmond retired from the army in 1956 and became a partner in a firm of consulting engineers in Kenya. He worked on numerous civil engineering projects in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Lesotho and as far afield as Antigua. He became a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators in 1986 and worked as an arbitrator and expert witness until his death in 2002.

Table of Contents

Child and Soldier

Student and Revolutionary

Moscow, 1924-29

Shanghai Days

'Tokyo Wouldn't Be Bad

'A Man of Consequence'

The Ring Takes Shape

Moscow, Summer 1935

'It's Hard Here, Really Hard'

Winter and Spring 1941

May 1941

June1941

July1941

August 1941

September 1941

October 1941

Paying the Price

Epilogue A Hero's Grave

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.