There Was a Country: A Personal History of Biafra by Chinua Achebe Read Free Book Online

attractive document,
     to send it off for “polishing.”
    What I did next, in retrospect, was quite naïve, even foolish. I put my handwritten
     documents together, went to the post office, and had them parcel the only copy of
     the manuscript I had to the London address of the highly recommended typing agency
     that was in the business of manuscript preparation. A letter came from this agency
     after a few weeks. They confirmed that they had received my document and wrote that
     the next thing I should do was send them thirty-two pounds, which was the cost of
     producing my manuscript. Now, thirty-two pounds was a lot of money in 1956, and a
     significant slice of my salary, but I was encouraged by the fact that I had received
     this information, this feedback, and that the people sounded as if they were going
     to be of great value to me. So, I sent off the payment as instructed.
    What happened next was a near catastrophe. The typing agency, obviously having received
     the money I sent, went silent. One week passed, then two, three, four, five, six weeks,
     and I began to panic. I wrote two letters inquiring about the status of the manuscript
     preparation and I got no answer.
    One had a great deal of confidence and faith in the British system that we had grown
     up in, a confidence and faith in British institutions. One trusted that things would
     get where they were sent; postal theft, tampering, or loss of documents were unheard-of.
     Today one would not even contemplate sending off materials of importance so readily,
     either abroad or even locally, by mail.
    The good luck was that at that point in my career I was working very closely with
     a British former BBC Talks producer, Angela Beattie. Beattie was seconded to the Nigerian
     Broadcasting Corporation, for which she served as head of our two-person department.
     She was the head of Talks and I was the Talks producer, and we had a secretary, I
     believe, also from the BBC. It was to Beattie that I now went to and told my story
     about the British typing agency. Ms. Angela Beattie was shocked—she was a no-nonsense
     person.
    “Give me their name and address,” she insisted.
    Fortunately, she was about to go to England on leave, so she became the perfect vehicle
     to carry my anguish to the typists in London. And she did it in her distinctive way.
    She arrived at the offices of the typing agency and asked to speak to the manager,
     who showed up swiftly. Angela Beattie asked the manager sternly what she had done
     with the manuscript that her colleague in Lagos, Nigeria, had sent. Here, right before
     them, armed with a threat, was a well-connected woman who could really make trouble
     for them. The people there were surprised and shaken. “Now, I am going back to Nigeria
     in three weeks,” Angela Beattie said as she left the agency’s office, “and when I
     get there, let us hope that the manuscript you took money to prepare has been received
     by its owner, or else you will hear more about it.” A few weeks later I received a
     handsome package in the mail. It was my manuscript. I look back now at those events
     and state categorically that had the manuscript been lost I most certainly would have
     been irreversibly discouraged from continuing my writing career.
    Later that year, in the fall of 1956 or thereabouts, I was selected to travel to the
     British Broadcasting Corporation school in London where its staff were trained. Bisi
     Onabanjo, a good friend of mine and the future governor of Ogun state, was also among
     the small group of Nigerians attending this course. I had not up to this time traveled
     outside Nigeria. In those days such trips were done by boat, as commercial air flights
     from Lagos were not commonplace. London was a brand-new and pleasant experience. I
     took advanced technical production skills courses during my time at the BBC staff
     school, and in between my classes was able to take in the sights and sounds of London,
     a city