Back to photostream

Urambo Station Tanganyika /Tanzania1951

After my dad left the army in 1947/1948 he managed to get himself returned to Africa, which he loved, as part of the famous Groundnuts Scheme in what was then Tanganyika. This scheme was intended to be a major contributor to the world's protein resderve by turning huge tracts of Tanganyika's plains over to the production of groundnuts. It was deemed useful as a source of employment to many recently demobilized troops and was also intended to put to use many of vehicles, diggers and so on that had been shipped to Africa during the war in the expectation that they would be needed in the Far East when the war against Japan was expected to last for a lot longer than it did.

 

The Groundnuts scheme was something of a magnificent failure as what had worked on a small scale, failed badly on a big scale due to pests, drought and other catastrophes. My folks had a brilliant time though and my sister was born there...

6,509 views
5 faves
16 comments
Uploaded on January 11, 2007