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Shepperson Memorial

what I have collected but also the amazingly pertinent and interesting bits and pieces
he continued to send me over many years. Nonetheless I appreciated his advice at the
time that I “bash on with the thesis when you get back. Don’t collect too much new
material at this stage.” In large measure I did press ahead with my writing, sharing
some early thesis chapters I’d written with him. I was deeply gratified that, after
examining them, he concluded I “could write a magnificent paper of Malawi and
World War I” and recommending to the organizers that I do so for a SOAS conference
on Africa and World War I.
Attending that conference was the last time I actually met and spent any
significant time talking with George in person, though it was far from the last time he
entered my professional life. We exchanged letters sporadically over many years, often
sharing what we’d most recently written, particularly about Malawi. When I became
General Editor of an Encyclopaedia of Colonialism, I persuaded him first to join the
Editorial Board and welcomed his sage advice. Then I cajoled him into penning—quite
literally; he apologized profusely for his inability to have them typed—two brief
entries, on Joseph Booth and John Chilembwe. Following those exchanges, as my
writing veered more to other topics, the letters tapered off; even our occasional
Christmas exchanges ebbed.
Yet when I started once again thinking and writing about World War One, my
copy of Independent African became increasingly page-worn: I found George’s words
a touchstone refocusing my mind on the Malawi I had come to know. Several attempts
to rekindle our correspondence died, and I feared George might have as well. Even my
discreet inquiries regarding his health proved futile. But in the last few years while
writing about a distinguished KAR veteran, RSM Juma Chimwere, DCM, I’ve been
grateful for the good offices of David Stuart-Mogg as a go-between in re-establishing a
connection between Shepperson and myself. When David was able to tell me of Sam’s
joy in seeing the cover of Distinguished Conduct—with its image of a young Sergeant
Juma on the cover—I felt as though I’d once again passed muster with my friend, the
effervescent external examiner I first met so many years ago.

Melvin (Mel) E. Page is Professor of History (Emeritus), East Tennessee State
University (USA).

Archive Images No: 10

The late Dr T. Jack Thompson’s grandson holds a
Japanese flag retrieved by Lt George Shepperson in
Burma from a slain Japanese soldier.

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