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The Society of Malaŵi Journal

GEORGE SHEPPERSON – A FELLOW BIBLIOPHILE

Frank Johnston

When I met George Shepperson for the first time at his Peterborough home,
many years ago now, through the kind introduction of David Stuart-Mogg, I
mistakenly assumed I knew a great deal about his exceptional talents, all accrued from
public and private sources. While he may have amassed a unique knowledge and
personal experience of Nyasaland, more latterly Malawi, which allowed his rise to be
the world-recognised doyen on Central African history, he could have known little
about me other than as an occasional supplicant in publishing matters, here in Malawi,
the one-time centre of his primary academic interest area. Not so. Without the
slightest hesitation, he immediately shared his fascination with that little title, My
Lady of the Chimney Corner penned in tribute to writer Alexander Irvine's mother.
This tome was devoted, in emotive manner, to a life lived not more than 10 km from
my childhood home by the shores of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. I had thought
my love of the book stemmed entirely from personal knowledge of Pogue's Entry in
Antrim town, where Irvine’s mother had lived all her life bringing up a dozen much-
loved children in obscure 19th century post-Famine poverty.
During two hours of vanished time, I learnt that Irvine's work had also made a
huge impression on George Shepperson's mind. It might perhaps even have been an
echo of his own family experience which had made it singular for him. That might
well have been true, sadly now I will never find out now whether he too had a
powerfully supportive mother, but it transpired it was just one of hundreds of works
where he could remember not only the content in detail, but also carried in his head
peripheral data about each book, its setting and its writer which could only amaze. In
this specific case he could even recall in ‘US army slang Irish Gaelic’ the truly
pejorative meaning of the Pogue's Entry address! And sufficient other Irish Gaelic
words and phrases to impress me with the breadth of his linguistic skills. These, as
other contributors here will have related, extended to among others Swahili and
ChiNyanja, as spoken commonly in the King's African Rifles.
Sam’s, or Shep's as he was also referred to by many, linguistic talents were
rapidly manifest in my case through his more general social skills which had made
him so deservedly popular among his many students over the years. In my
own peculiar case as a publisher, caring unduly about techniques of book
'architecture', he further endeared himself to me when he demonstrated his deep
knowledge of, and appreciation of, a well-made book. His favourite publishing house,
I learned, was Edinburgh University Press and he held up a 12mo notebook written by
him, David Livingstone and the Rovuma, as one of the finest he had encountered and
asked to ensure I had a copy of it.
I notice now, at the time of writing, that I have singled out only two of his
remarkable personal attributes during the same time as it has taken NASA and Spacex
to send a crew by rocket to the orbiting space station. Not because my task was
difficult, rather the opposite in that there were so many additional attributes. As this
splendid work attests choosing just two, perhaps unmentioned herein by other
admirers of his wonderful life, proved a slow selection. Few historians can have had a
personal life more richly lived!

Frank Johnston (1942-2020). Publisher, antiquarian book dealer, photographer
& tourism consultant. It was Frank Johnston who first coined the Malawi’s
renowned slogan: “The Warm Heart of Africa”.

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