{"id":949,"date":"2020-04-21T12:41:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T11:41:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/?p=949"},"modified":"2023-08-30T14:09:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-30T13:09:27","slug":"if-you-are-warm-and-happy-in-a-pile-of-shit-keep-your-mouth-shut-football-poetry-and-fables-in-blds-african-port-harbour-magazines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/archives\/949","title":{"rendered":"\u2018If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut\u2019 \u2013 football, poetry and fables in BLDS African port harbour magazines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Caroline Marchant-Wallis, Daniel Millum and Tracy Wilson <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many fascinating rabbit holes to explore in the BLDS Legacy Collection, and you often come across them in the most unexpected places. Perhaps this just shows our limited imagination, but when we first came across a run of journals relating to different African ports and harbour authorities our hearts didn\u2019t leap with excitement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

File under “worthy but dull” and move on was definitely the first reaction to a front cover like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Credit: BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

And let\u2019s face it, if you were asked what you thought lay within the pages of Cameroon Inter-Ports \u2013 Organe du Liaison et d\u2019Information de l\u2019Office National des Ports du Cameroun<\/em> you\u2019d probably have said the same thing \u2013 tables, charts, reports and the odd tedious institutional history<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

However, in order to catalogue these things you have to at\nleast have a leaf through them, and when we did so we found a much richer and\nmore idiosyncratic world than we could possibly have expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with, there was a sports section. The page below reports on a triumphant season for the Port Foot-Ball Club in 1981-82, winning the cup and coming second in the coastal league:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Credit: BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

They obviously took it seriously as well, as half the page\nseems to be taken up with references to how mediocre the team had been in the\npast, with the hope that this change in fortune augured well for 1982-83.\n(Please note this assessment is dependent on our extremely shaky French and\ncorrections are welcome!).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who want to find out how it all panned out next season we believe we have a complete run of the magazine! More surreal than this is the humour and poetry section:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Credit: BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Again, this is mostly in French, but the first gag runs something as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A freighter lands for the first time in a desert island far away from the usual sea routes. The captain disembarks to do a reconnaissance. He comes upon an old man with a beard down to his knees.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018What are you doing here?\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018I don\u2019t know.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018Why did you come to this island?\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018To forget.\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018To forget what?\u2019<\/em><\/strong><\/p>

\u2018I\u2019ve forgotten\u2019.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

It kind of feels like something may have been lost in translation here \u2013 although on the same page the poem in English about tyres is if anything, more confusing\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It soon became clear, though, that journals and content of this kind are not limited to Cameroon, and that Somalia and Tanzania could give the West Africans a run for their money. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Credit: BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The BLDS Legacy Collection also holds what appears to be a unique run of Bandari Zetu \u2013 Organ of the East African Harbours Corporation<\/em>, a journal in Swahili and English which contains a potent mix of port news sprinkled with more creative content, including this fantastic Aesopean tale, the morals of which the BLDS team have taken as a code to live by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"The
Credit: BLDS Legacy Collection Project team<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The East African Harbours Corporation seems to have been part of the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation<\/a> \u2013 which itself turns out to have been immortalised in song by the great Roger Whittaker. Check out \u2018The Good Old E A R and H\u2019 here – https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Qwmb6WtyEUQ<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, we\u2019re trapped at home at the moment, and so the\nonly follow-up research I could do for this post is online. But the very fact\nthat there is so little information on the web relating to the institutions and\njournals described above is in itself further evidence of the importance of the\ncollection \u2013 the long runs of port authority journals that are held for both\nWest and East Africa are crucial primary sources for anyone wanting to write\nnot just the \u2018serious\u2019 history of transport, trade and commerce in these\nregions in the post-independence decades but also, possibly even more\nimportantly, they are goldmines of ephemeral information relating to the\nculture of these workplaces and the people employed there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an obvious point, but as the examples above show, these\ndockworkers, engineers and sailors were not just employees, but also poets,\ncomedians and footballers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is just the tip of the iceberg \u2013 a few extracts from\nthese particular countries \u2013 but we expect to find many more, and would welcome\nanyone researching this area to get in touch (bldslegacy@sussex.ac.uk<\/a>). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Caroline Marchant-Wallis, Daniel Millum and Tracy Wilson There are many fascinating rabbit holes to explore in the BLDS Legacy Collection, and you often come across them in the most unexpected places. Perhaps this just shows our limited imagination, but when we first came across a run of journals relating to different African ports and … Continue reading \u2018If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut\u2019 \u2013 football, poetry and fables in BLDS African port harbour magazines<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[150885],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9fi5f-fj","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":961,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}