Memories

My Grandfather was a senior manager in the GPO / Post Office and after retiring he took up a UN Posting to Ethiopia to after a few months we all moved out after he had been 6 months in post.

My first memories really start there as I was around 4 at the time we moved out and we returned in Sep 1972. We lived in the two-story flat apartments in the Ghion hotel grounds (we were no 10 – upper level).

Memories come in flashes at that age, but some things are indelibly printed and some I suspect come from Mum, Gran and Grandpa talking about it and reliving it. It’s hard to separate which is which.

I clearly remember the door buzzer going and this strange man coming in who Mum, Gran and Grandpa knew. His clothes looked messy, and he had big blisters all over his hands.…

My family were living in Ethiopia from 1970 until 1972. For us ex-patriot children, it was a blissful life, although this was not the case for so many Ethiopians. The only blight for my family and many others, was that my two older sisters Jane and Caroline, went to boarding school in England and so we lived a life of joyous reunions, rapidly replaced by an ever increasing sense of dread, about their approaching departure.

On the 18th April, Jane was 14, Caroline 12 and I was eight. After an early morning ride on our horses; and their recording the goodbye message for us, that they traditionally did, we set off for the airport and waved them off onto the doomed plane.

My mother has written about what happened next and I spoke about it, in an interview for the BBC in April 2021. Jane was killed almost immediately, and…

This picture reminds me of many happy visits we made to the various lakes including Langano, Awasa and Debra Zeit as a family. It's my two younger brother's Chris & Ken with our father Jack Townsend. Most likely the picture was taken by my mother. Very often we would meet other families there with children of similar ages making it a great place to meet and make new friends. Some we already knew because of links between our fathers work others we simply met at the place and learned more about their background later.

As Harriet describes in her memory the holidays were a great rush of anticipation and enjoyment at being together again and then the dread of that moment of parting which always seemed to come around really quickly.

I was able to return to the UK for the 50th anniversary of the tragedy and attended the Easter Day service at Berkswell parish church where my brothers funeral was held and where they are both buried. Some how it seemed fitting to start the 50th anniversary year celebrating the Easter Story with all its message of hope in the face of dreadful adversity. The rector and congregation were kind enough to pray for all those who had experienced sudden loss through accidents in general and mentioned the loss of Christopher and Kenneth specifically and the wider family who were able to join. I was pleased that several others who had been contemporaries of Chris and Ken were also able to attend and remember them as well. Thanks to all who were able to join us.

This is the moment in the Easter service during intercessory prayers when we and…

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