James Skinner

Trevor Grundy writes: Richard Hall’s classic The High Price of Principles explains fully what happened to James Skinner (obituary, November 6) when he was Chief Justice of Zambia in 1969.

President Kenneth Kaunda had approved a large contingent of the Zambia Youth Service to appear outside the High Court in Lusaka. Hall (first editor of The Times of Zambia and in 1964 a great admirer of Kaunda) wrote: “The mob demonstrated and forced its way into the High Court and ran up and down the corridors shouting for Skinner to present himself. The Chief Justice stayed locked in his office. That night, Skinner and his family slept away from their home for fear of being petrol-bombed. The country awaited a condemnation from State House but none emerged. The next day there was another assembly and a march to State House with banners reading ‘Hang Skinner’ and ‘The only good white man is a dead one’.

“Kaunda ordered the destruction of the banners and expressed regret over the previous day’s violence, saying: ‘These young people got over-enthusiastic.’

“The Irishman, whom the whites in Zambia had belatedly come to respect, flew off from Lusaka, never to return; the militants rejoiced. Kaunda retired into seclusion, shaken by the international reaction to these dramas and by suggestions that Vice-President Kapepwe had tacitly supported the High Court riot.”

Rear-Admiral John Adams

Commander David Aldrich writes: I served with Captain Adams (obituary, November 14) when he was Captain Superintendent, AUWE and I a junior Lieutenant-Commander. Along with a civilian scientist, I was detailed off to undertake the quarterly muster of classified documents at the establishment. We were none too happy with the way that keys and documents were handled, particularly when Bunty Gee, custodian of the classified library, said she couldn’t find the plans of one of our guided missile destroyers.

We reported to Captain Adams that “the security of classified documents would not stand a board of inquiry”. It was soon after that incident that the Houghton and Gee story became public knowledge.

Douglas Parmée

David Wade writes: Douglas Parmée (obituary, November 13) was my supervisor when I first went up to Cambridge in 1949. He was younger than the majority of dons and there was a nice touch of humour to him which made his pupils comfortable. He was concerned that we did not regard learning the French language entirely as a dictionary matter and such fluency as I once had in it, plus the start of a real interest in French literature, I owe to him.