Caught in a Cold War Trap
Miller Caldwell
In memory of Elizabeth Connie Caldwell,
who died far too young
About the Author
Miller Caldwell is a Scottish novelist. He graduated from London University having studied African industrial development, traditional African religions and the colonial history of West Africa. He has had articles published in health magazines and The Scottish Review.
In a life of humanitarian work in Ghana, Pakistan and Scotland, he has gained remarkable insights into human nature. He brought an African president to tears in West Africa in 2000 and he confronted Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2006. He retired from being the regional reporter to the children’s hearings in Dumfries & Galloway as he has mild cognitive impairment. He was, for twelve years, the local chair of the Scottish Association for The Study of Offending. He also served on the committee of the Society of Authors in Scotland as its events manager. This is his 23rd book.
Miller plays a variety of brass, woodwind and keyboard instruments. They cure writer’s block. Married, he has two daughters and lives in Dumfries.
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
About the Author
Chapter 1 Jura 1967
Chapter 2 Glasgow 1970 – 1974
Chapter 3 A visit to The Russian Embassy
Chapter 4 Making a Break
Chapter 5 Setting Foot in Africa
Chapter 6 My first job
Chapter 7 Settling into Tamale
Chapter 8 Ghanaian Hospitality
Chapter 9 Secret Ashes
Chapter 10 Morag gets a mention
Chapter 11 The Enigmatic Amadu
Chapter 12 A Mission to Sandema
Chapter 13 Nkansa’s true Colours
Chapter 14 I Must Leave Tamale
Chapter 15 Life at the Russian Embassy in Accra
Chapter 16 Supping in the Lion’s Den
Chapter 17 Morag arrives in Accra
Chapter 18 Morag and Robert at the Pool
Chapter 19 Korle Bu Teaching Hospital
Chapter 20 Labadi Beach Club
Chapter 21 Home truths
Chapter 22 An Engagement Honour
Chapter 23 Planning Political Asylum
Chapter 24 Asylum denied – Morag Flies Home
Chapter 25 Kuku Hill, Accra
Chapter 26 London in Disguise
Chapter 27 Postscript
Acknowledgements
Interview with the Author
Other books by Miller Caldwell
The day I confronted Usama bin Laden
Copyright
Chapter 1
Jura 1967
Have you ever been to the island of Jura? Not many people have. If you are a whisky connoisseur you possibly toured the island’s distillery to taste the Isle of Jura single malt. Perhaps you were a climber assaulting the famous Paps of Jura, or a sailor assessing the treacherous cauldron of the Corryvreckan whirlpool from the safety of land. Maybe you needed to imbibe the presence of George Orwell (aka Eric Blair) who completed Nineteen Eighty-Four at Barnhill on the north of the island. That’s about all you can do on Jura, which is why not many go there. That however, may be its attraction.
I was there during the Cold War and there my spying career took roots. I was on a family holiday in July 1967. In the third week, my life changed forever.
My name is Robert Harvie and on that holiday I turned sixteen years of age. My father was a Church of Scotland minister. Minister’s families were not rich, so the holidays were the only real perks we enjoyed. Dad would bring four sermons with him each summer and the pulpit exchange was complete when our manse in Glasgow was occupied by the minister whose manse we lived in for a month. We usually enjoyed somewhere with fresh sea air, while the other minister and his family explored the culture of the Gallus Glaswegians, their numerous parks and the animated city which ‘Smiles Better’ with its keen sense of humour.
It was a wet morning. I remember that well. A real humdinger of a downpour, I heard my father say. I stood in the small north facing wooden porch while the salty air filled my lungs. The rain made the nearby coastline of Mull of Kintyre invisible. I cursed this four-week island break for being neither summer, nor a holiday. I longed to be home in the city engaging in the many different interests I had.
By lunchtime, the rain had retreated. A tiny patch of blue sky fought through the grey cloud, offering a ray of hope. The land in slow progress began to have a re-birth. Colours became vibrant once more and the single track road’s tarmac glistened. I focussed on a snail crossing the road. It was not risking a car’s approach; few cars were on the island but I feared a seagull might be tempted to devour the slow-moving creature. I ran towards it in haste. I picked up the snail and placed it on the grass verge. It felt good—a good deed accomplished on a boring day. The snail was insecure and unwilling to reappear from its shell at first. I waited in silence. It did too. Then I smiled as it continued its journey into grassy cover.
I turned around and saw the sun settle on a verdant hillock behind the manse. I decided to get to its summit and take the family Bush radio with me. My mother approved my plan and I set off. It was a steep climb and my route was circuitous—to avoid calf strain. I stopped and turned around. I saw a tanker in the distance. It moved slowly like that reluctant snail I helped cross the road. I imagined myself on the ship, going somewhere exotic. It was sailing down the Firth of Clyde after all, and that perhaps meant an American trip, even South America. There again it might just be going to Ireland. My thoughts came back to land.
The swirling wind dictated which way my blond hair would flow as I arrived breathless on the crest of the hill. My foot caught a heather clad mound. Then I saw I had caused a disturbance to the zigzag of an angry adder. It moved like a retracting hose away from me and I relaxed. I forgot to mention—Jura had a number of vipers lurking in the undergrowth in the hills. On warm sunny days, they could be seen on any open land squirming around on the warm ground. I found a flat grassy bank and sat down.
The Bush radio gave me the Home Service and the Light programme. I could not concentrate on their urban offerings so changed the button at the top to short wave and turned the dial. I caught some French programme and lingered to hear an excited high-pitched Parisian woman. It could advance my French studies, which would resume in two weeks’ time back at school. However, after I had heard a sentence or two of her rapid French fire I could not follow her line of thought. I turned the dial further on. This time I heard a farming report. I gave up re-tuning. I kept the station on and lay back to absorb some sun. I could have fallen asleep in a matter of moments but there was something odd about the programme.
The announcer spoke about English Ayrshire cows. What a howler. That was akin to saying Eccles cakes come from Aberdeen. There was more to confuse me. The reporter spoke about the 12 coal mines in Suffolk, the powerhouse of energy for the south of England. Suffolk coal? I knew these facts to be wrong and waited for the punch line. It never came. When the programme ended the announcer informed me that Farming Matters would broadcast at the same time next week, on Radio Moscow.
It was not a comedy after all, but an inaccurate description of British farming and land use. I felt indignation; an urge to respond, to clear up their misinformation. After all, I had little else to occupy my time. So that night in bed I wrote a letter explaining that Ayrshire cows were from Ayrshire, in Scotland, and Suffolk was farming land and did not have a coal seam—as I recalled from my school geography notes.
The following day I took my letter, addressed to Radio Moscow, Moscow, U.S.S.R. to the Craighouse post office, which was in a cottag
e. A red post box outside gave the clue that the postmistress lived inside. I entered setting off a bell clanger above my head. A woman came through from her lounge, closed the door behind her and sat down on a floor screeching wooden chair by her ink padded desk. She read the address.
‘Moscow? That’s foreign,’ she confirmed in a matter-of-fact voice and opened a book. Two fingers ran down the columns like sprinters. ‘Anything in the letter I should know about?’ she asked.
I hesitated. My heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. I supposed I could share its contents with her. ‘I have written to them to show there were mistakes in one of their programmes.’
She looked at me through horn-rimmed glasses. ‘I don’t need to know what you write. So, is it just paper inside?’
I nodded somewhat embarrassed. She took her fingers from the list then snapped the book closed.
‘Then that’s nine pence postage. It might take a few days to get there.’
Phew, I expected to pay more. She returned the letter to me and I took it to the post box outside. As it dropped down into dark oblivion I wondered how soon she would retrieve it and have it sent seaward, landward and forward to Moscow.
Chapter 2
Glasgow 1970 – 1974
After I got home from that miserable wet holiday with too many raw seaweed memories of Jura still lurking in my mind, a letter arrived. It was from London. It bore the embossed markings of the Russian Embassy on the back flap. I kept it hidden from my parents.
As anticipated, the station appreciated my contact and was delighted to acknowledge the corrections to their farming programme, which I had supplied. To show their gratitude, I would receive a package in the near future. And I did, about three weeks later. Inside a brown packet were three photographs. One was of the Kremlin and two of Red Star Square both at night and in the day. In addition were Radio Moscow UK listening times in a handy booklet, a personal letter and an ornament of the famous Red Square in a glass hemisphere, on which snow fell every time it was shaken. The letter was from Olga Lagonov. She wished to be my pen friend.
Olga and I exchanged letters monthly for three years and my interest in the Russian language grew. We corresponded about football—her brother was a Spartak Moscow supporter like her. We rarely wrote about politics; more the things that interest teenagers. However, any romance was out of the question for obvious geographical and cultural reasons, although she was a very attractive girl, as her photo which I kept in my wallet showed.
The relationship lasted this length of time because Olga was by now my Russian tutor. I had studied Russian in my final year at school, but with her support, it led to me gaining excellent results in the language. Of course, nobody knew about Olga. I even kept her correspondence from my parents, sometimes with difficulty. I became somewhat furtive in gathering the mail. When they eventually learned of my pen-friend in Russia they decided it an impossible relationship which would wither in time. Fortunately, their suspicions were not raised any higher.
The Russian language was on offer as a subsidiary subject, after French and Spanish, on the modern languages degree course at Glasgow University. I enrolled. Neither did this fact worry my parents. They felt that eventually after the cessation of the Cold War, the rapprochement was necessary and that knowing the Russian language would be a good way to join the Foreign Office, perhaps. I did not dissuade them.
Before the start of my first term at Glasgow University, I received a letter from London. It was from the Russian Ambassador’s office once more. Inside was a cheque to cover my living expenses for the first year.
I looked at the cheque. £2,000.
I had never held such an amount of money in my hands before. It would more than cover all my accommodation, books, meals, and I guessed several beers. Yet I had also been given, by the British government, the maximum student grant, as my father’s stipend was deemed insufficient to support me.
I focussed on the passage in the letter where it stated ‘for the first year’. Did that mean similar amounts would arrive in time for each of my four years? What if I sent the cheque back to the embassy? Would they be offended?
I held on to the cheque for four days before deciding to bank it. During that time I wondered why they were so generous. Surely my original letter was forgotten by now? It could hardly be a bribe to engage in work for them as I was now engaged in a lengthy study. In the end, I put it down to good fortune; to a moment of serendipity. After all, I had been corresponding with Olga for some considerable time and had not been compromised in any way.
When I told her I was studying Russian as well on the modern languages course, Olga was delighted and ensured I was fluent in Russian and could write in their Cyrillic script with ease. This pleased my lecturers.
My new Glasgow address, a small flat in Gardner Street in the west end, was ideal in many ways. It was quite near the university and gave me the privacy my mail required. I arranged for it to be re-directed from home of course. Olga too was at university. She was already in her second year at the Lomonosov Moscow State University studying biochemistry.
Over the next four years her letters arrived sporadically and mine were sent at a similar rate. Their infrequency upset me at first. After all, she had given me a good grounding in their language, and I hoped to continue to write in Russian to her.
Meanwhile, without fail, the London embassy sent me radio listings. I did tune into Radio Moscow from time to time, naturally. Balalaika music was a change from Scottish country dancing tunes, but I’d give the wrong impression if you thought I returned from lectures and spent each night in the flat. I had a social life. I played rugby for the university and I joined the music society. I also attend meetings of the Russian club.
The club’s membership included a collection of leftist Marxist students in love with the 1917 revolution and sympathetic to the land and people who suffered so much, as allies, in World War Two. They knew Conservative governments were traditionally hostile to Russian communism, so the change from Labour’s Harold Wilson to high Tory Edward Heath strengthened the club’s membership. There was talk of a visit to Russia. As well as Moscow, Leningrad was high on their agenda, but finances held them back. I wondered if my wealth could be put to the common good, but having what was then a considerable amount of money was likely to alienate me in their communist eyes.
Then I found a girlfriend. Or perhaps she found me. It was a very sudden, mutual and powerful attraction. She was not from the Russian club. I met her at a music society weekly meeting.
Morag Sutherland was a Lanarkshire girl from Motherwell. Lean and sporty, she had a smile which melted my heart. Medicine was her subject and I knew she’d still be studying after I graduated, which might end our blossoming relationship. But what the heck? I had to start romancing sometime, somewhere.
We drank coffee during the day and at the weekends, in the evenings, she sipped gin in the pubs we visited while I drank beer, or more often cider. We spoke about our upbringings and found a few names of contempories we knew in common. She told me she was glad to meet someone who was not a medic. All her fellow students were, of course, but so too was her father, mother, brother and sister. No wonder she was pleased to encounter me, I thought. It wasn’t long before we held hands in public. It felt good to announce we had each other.
We visited each other’s flats. I stroked my hands through her lush black tresses, and it wasn’t long before more intimate strokes satisfied us both. It took us to another level and a commitment to one another, as many student affairs did likewise. After all, she was my first girlfriend, and I was her first boyfriend. It was new territory for us both and we were glad to progress our discoveries in harmony.
I wrote to Olga informing her of my new acquaintance. I wondered how she would react, as our letters had the intimacy of a brother/sister relationship. I need not have worried. She congratulated me and told me she had a boyfriend. She had had him for more than a year. That saddened me. She had never told me about h
im. What else could she be keeping from me?
After four years of study, graduation called for a family gathering. My parents attended the Bute Hall, where the ceremony took place and they met Morag for possibly the fourth or fifth time. Photos were taken of me in a black gown with a purple hood signifying that I was now a graduate Master of Arts. I clasped the rolled certificate in my hands. Then my father offloaded the qualification while my mother took photos of me and some with Morag clinging on to my arm. This ritual was replicated all over the university lawns and a bright sunny day in June was appreciated by all—a relief for so many Glaswegians.
The following morning I began to think about what I would do with my qualification. I contemplated teaching languages in a secondary school. That meant a year of further study, of course. I had better get my application in. But which college of education should I approach? One in Glasgow, Morag hoped, as I did too.
Then on Saturday morning, as I left the kitchen, I saw an envelope fly through the letterbox and land like a plane as it taxied to a stop on the varnished wooden hall floor. It was a letter from the Russian Embassy containing a card congratulating me on my degree.
In the accompanying pages I learned I was invited to the Russian Embassy, an invitation which came with a rail ticket. I could hardly refuse to attend—the golden goose had, after all, seen me comfortably through my student days. It seemed appropriate that I should go to show my appreciation.
Chapter 3
A visit to The Russian Embassy
When I told Morag I had an invitation to visit London she was curious. I suppose she feared I might get a job there and the distance would put our relationship under strain.
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