Introduction to Second Edition

Summary

At 8.45 a.m. on Wednesday 2 April 1958, the Prime Minister of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, hosted a private meeting with Henry Swanzy, the Head of Programmes at the Ghana Broadcasting System. Swanzy carried with him two books. The first was a copy of Nkrumah's autobiography (1957), which he would ask the Prime Minister to inscribe. The second was a copy of Voices of Ghana (1958), which Swanzy, as its Compiler, had received from the Government's printing press only four days earlier. Having been in Accra on secondment from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) since November 1954, Swanzy was due to return to London in seven days. The presentation of the anthology was to be ‘his final act in Ghana’ and the last time he would see ‘His Excellency the? sagyefo, the Hon. Dr Kwame Nkrumah’. The ‘ceremony’ – as Swanzy referred to it with an air of self-mockery – took only five minutes and, at the request of the Office of the Prime Minister, there were no photographers present. ‘Oddly gentle and even vague, he took the book’, recalls Swanzy, ‘asked if the poem by Nehrbot was ‘really good’, [and] asked if he could treat the book as a work of reference’. Nkrumah was evidently in good humour as the Nehrbot poem, ‘Ode to the Hon. Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’ (pp.249-51), is the only piece to mention the Prime Minister in its title. When Swanzy requested an inscription in the autobiography, Nkrumah obliged using green ink. He then flattered his visitor by asking Swanzy to write something for him in Voices of Ghana, the country's first literary anthology. As the meeting closed Swanzy wished Nkrumah well and would later record in his diary that he did this ‘sincerely’ due to rumours of protests over the Government's use of public money during the first year of independence.

Back at the recently opened Broadcasting House (known as BH-3) Swanzy attended the weekly Programme Meeting. The agenda included his formal handover as Head of Programmes to Joseph Ghartey. After this there was a Senior Staff Meeting, a group photograph and Swanzy's farewell party with the programme staff.