My first thoughts on arriving in the UK (England) were of complete misery.
We had to leave Mulu when the Dergue (the communist) took Mulu over. We were not the only people to feel despair. I can remember Galate coming to our house at Mulu in tears and telling us to get dressed as the Zumbacha had come to take us away. The Zamecha were groups of young people who had been indoctrinated by communist groups into the idea of land for the peasants.
I can remember them arriving at Mulu and telling us to go home. We said, this I our home but of course, they did not listen to us.
Michael with his usual good sense told me to leave with dignity and pride and not in floods of tears.
The zamecha made us walk down to Dareba which was right at the end of the farm. Vicci was very young, so Michael carried her all the way. When we got there, there was a group of the zamecha there who told us to give money to pay the local staff. We refused and said we would only give it to a senior member of the farm staff. I think it was Tesfai we specified (he was the most senior of our farm staff)
Of course, we did not have the money there, but we often used Tesfai to collect money from the bank in Addis Ababa so he went with the driver of our car and a letter from us to the bank to collect one month’s pay for all the staff.
When he came back, we refused to give it to the zamecha but handed it over to Tesfai to pay the farm staff. I can remember Adera from the valley plantations also being there. So, they took charge of the cash and made sure it went to the right people.
Then we got into my parents’ car a Ford Saloon. The zamecha would not let us have the farm vehicle because that would be needed to take the fruit into Addis Ababa to sell.
So, we drove to Addis Ababa and went up to the Embassy because we did not want to go to our house in Kebene in case the zamecha came and took the money away. Sandy Curle was the consul there and he and his wife took us into their house and looked after us until we could get a flight to England.