Tuesday 2 August 2011

Some Memories of Ghana (Fort Elmina and Cape Coast Castle)

)

LEL 

On an Entry in the Dictionary of National Biography

(Laetitia Elizabeth Landon, born Chelsea 1802, buried Cape Coast Castle, 1838):


Cultivated men summed up
The value of her short life’s worth:
“As a poetess…diffuse”.
Self-destruction the enduring verdict
(By prussic acid, but no post-mortem),
In spite of darker speculation
Of murder by her cultured husband,
Or by his jealous Gold Coast mistress.
Suicide? No more to tell?
Picket Cape Coast Castle,
Open up the case again:
Justice still for LEL!


Song: Fort Elmina Blues

They took me down to Fort Elmina,
The meanest place I’ve ever seen.

They took me down to Fort Elmina,
The meanest place I’ve ever seen.

They threw me in a dark old dungeon,
The walls were thick, (I) couldn’t see the sun.

The ocean’s roar can’t hide our cries,
As one more slave amongst us dies.

The floor is wet, the floor is foul,
A new-born babe begins to howl.

Cape Coast is worse, the rumours say,
But if I could change, I’d go today.

The ship came in, after three long months,
They packed us in, they chained us down.

I said farewell to Fort Elmina,
The prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.

I said farewell to Fort Elmina,
The prettiest sight I’ve ever seen.




A Letter from Nick Teye

I still recall with pleasure a letter I received from a Ghanaian film student, after I’d run a seminar on Script-Writing for Documentary Film Makers in Accra, Ghana, back in 1980, at the National Film and TV Institute. I had been involved in film making and TV production and training for ten years in Africa (mainly in Ethiopia and Kenya). 

“After the priceless seminar with you in Accra…I now view documentary films with a very critical mind…your approach to the subject was revolutionary and challenging, which third-world film makers need most”.

(Nick Teye, 25/9/1980)


I wonder what Nick's doing now. Could he be the Nick Narh Teye who directed the feature film "My Father's Wife"?


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