Mrs. Queen's Chump is the military memoir of a young man who,
naively acquiescing to a period of adventure after leaving boarding
school, soon found himself enmeshed in the agonies of subjugated
peoples caught in the turmoil of a collapsing British Empire and
demanding restoration of their dignity and rightful human freedoms.
Left to deal as best he could with his own transition from boy to
man - somewhat before PTSD became a recognizable quantity - he
realized as a born Canadian citizen he might easily have avoided
service in Britain's army - but he had committed himself, so
entered with his eyes open and became a keen observer.
In stories that are sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, yet
somehow tinged with the sadness that always jolts the loss of
innocence, the author tells of experiences as an infantry officer
fighting in the jungles of both Kenya and Malaya. They are incident
of another time, yet hauntingly contemporary - soldiers sent to far
off corners of the world to secure the privileges of tough and
ambitious colonizers, themselves champions of Empire (no matter
whose) who feel full entitlement over both people and resources.
Bring up the troops
Despite clear dangers, thousands of bright-eyed and brainwashed
young Brits whose invincible dads had recently thrashed Hitler were
now, by the late 1940's and 1950's, keen to do their bit, to head
abroad and have a go at running the Empire. They sallied forth into
what they thought a halcyon sunset in need of some burnishing, but
in reality dazzling in its madness. By the end their military
weight and wallop proved insufficient to address the anger of
millions of very restless natives - or to douse the frenzies of the
likes of Idi Amin.
The initial disease was Empire Myopia. Within a short time, and
like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, those who had come to impose order
themselves succumbed to an Idi-like dementia that tumbled the whole
wretched Empire to its knees. About the Author:
Born in Vancouver, Canada, Jeremy Hespeler-Boultbee started school
in Australia, continued in the United States and Canada, and
graduated from high school in Britain - this last giving rise to
the military service described in these pages. A young and
insightful officer, whose views often ran counter to those
expressed by his superiors, he was in a unique position to observe
the collapsing British Empire. Later, as a journalist living in
Lisbon, Portugal, he was again witness - this time to the
revolutionary shake-up and demise of another of Europe's entrenched
old orders. Hespeler-Boultbee has worked on major assignments in
Canada, the United States, Portugal and numerous countries in
Africa. In addition to writing, he is an architectural historian
specializing in Renaissance Portugal. He considers home to be
Victoria, British Columbia, Barrancos, Portugal and Bahir Dar,
Ethiopia.
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