Fred and Henry
Sir: I suppose it is annoying for the Anti- Apartheid Movement to be lodged in Selous Road (Notebook, 18 June). But could they not have found premises elsewhere? It would be bad luck on the harmless Vic- torian painter Henry Selous to have his name expunged by the Republic of Camden in favour of the splendid Nelson Mandela simply because another better-known Selous — the late Victorian hunter Fred- erick Courtenay Selous — is regarded by some in north London as 'unprogressive'.
In fact, FC was no run-of-the-mill kaffir- hater, though he was certainly an im- perialist who abetted the questionable Cecil ,Rhodes in his duping of poor Lobengula (whose people had been chased out of South Africa, incidentally, by South African blacks). He was also something of a freethinker, naming one Rhodesian outpost Mt Darwin and another Mt Hampden after the Cromwellian parliamentarian. He lov- ed across the colour line, too: despite a wife 'back home', the name of Selous (pro- nounced sa-loo) survives in Zimbabwe only in Arcadia, the once Coloured suburb of Harare. The Selous Scouts, Ian Smith's ruthless toughies, gave FC a bad name, often mispronounced by Africans as `zealous Scots'. But it is noteworthy that as trackers and pseudo-guerrillas (three quarters black) they co-operated multi- racially as a fighting unit more harmonious- ly than much of Mr Mugabe's tribally uneasy army today. Camdenites may also like to know that Selous, who fell to a sniper's bullet in Tanganyika in 1917 aged 65, remains honoured by President Nyerere of Tanzania, whose largest National Park still bears his name.
Chuck it, Camden. Give Mandela a street somewhere else. Leave Fred and Henry alone.
Xan Smiley
The Times,
Gray's Inn Road, London WCI
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