THE MISSION BOY FROM SHEBAR

About the Book

This book is Peter Tucker’s response to the requests of many of his former co-workers and friends to put on the record for the benefit of posterity his experience in over half a century of public service. Always meticulous and orderly, he begins from his roots in Shebar and goes through the various aspects of his life, describing in simple terms the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his long career in the public Service. He gives a clear and very informative story of the origin of his ancestors, who founded the Tucker Kingdom in the Sherbro region of Sierra Leone, their wealth and power, as well as their relationship with the British Crown. In his peculiar modest way, he describes his life and successes in his beloved St. Edwards School and his triumphs at Fourah Bay College. He entered the Public Service of Sierra Leone in 1955, and in the year of Independence he was deployed in the Prime Minister’s Office, where he was given the responsibility of recruiting and training Sierra Leoneans to replace the expatriate staff of the colonial administration and for the transformation of the Civil Service into one for an Independent State. He describes the way he did it and the immense satisfaction he found in serving his country well at that important turning point in its history. The Author also gives an insider’s account of the 1967 General Elections and the conflict arising therefrom. He candidly describes the events of that period and refutes many of the speculations, distortions and guesses about what really happened in those few days. Working with the NRC, with all the eccentricities of Brigadier Juxon-Smith is an unforgettable experience, and the reader is given a glimpse of it in this book.

About the Author

The author is the descendant of the Tuckers of Shebar, now in the Nongoba Bullom Chiefdom of the Sherbro District of Bonthe, Sierra Leone. He spent his early childhood at Marmu, Shebar, where he was born. He received his Primary school education in the hands of the Catholic Missionaries in St. Patrick’s Catholic School, Bonthe, and the Holy Rosary School at Blama in the Kenema District. He entered St. Edward’s Secondary School in 1943 and passed the Senior Cambridge School Leaving Certificate examination in grade one, with exemption from the London Matriculation Examination in 1946. In 1966, by now the proud possessor of a postgraduate degree in Latin of Durham University and a post graduate diploma in Education, he was promoted to the position of Secretary to the Prime Minister after a distinguished career in the civil service, thus becoming the youngest person ever to hold the post of Head of the Civil Service of Sierra Leone. The following year, when he was still under forty years old, he found himself playing a major leadership role in the crisis that followed the Sierra Leone General Elections. He left Sierra Leone in that year and in 1969, at the age of 42, obtained a second class honours degree in Jurisprudence from the University of Oxford, Jesus College, and was called to the Bar at Grays Inn, London, in 1970. After a distinguished career in race relations in Britain, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the Commission for Racial Equality in London in 1977, and ended his career as Chairman of the Sierra Leone Law Reform Commission, with the rank of Chief Justice in 2008. The author’s creative talent, sense of humour and ability to get on with a wide variety of colleagues are worth emulating in these difficult times in Sierra Leone. These qualities stood him in good stead in the Commission for Racial Equality, where he had to cope not only with the challenges he encountered daily as a black African Chief Executive in a mainly white national organisation in Britain, but also with the tensions that make the management of a multi-racial work force so demanding.