Ally K. Sykes
Ally Sykes – the Zulu who shook the colonial tree II

The name Sykes is one to play with. The current mayor of Dar es Salaam comes from this family. There is a Kleist Sykes Street in Dar es Salaam. I have heard the name many times, but until a few weeks ago had never had a privilege of meeting any member of this illustrious family.
I had also been told by my colleague Theo Mushi a consultant editor with the Guardian LTD that Ally Sykes was the first Tanzania to run a jazz orchestra and to play live jazz in Dar es Salaam. As a jazz broadcaster and occasional writer on jazz, I, of course was anxious to meet this man. A few weeks ago, the great Don Laka brought his jazz quintet to Dar es Salaam to kick off the week of celebration marking Ten years of freedom in South Africa. Before the concert had actually started, a friend pointed someone out to me who was sitting in the front row. “That’s Ally Sykes,” he told me “please introduce me,” I replied in a few seconds, Ally and myself were engaged in a conversation that lasted almost until the show began. He was an elegant man, with great charm, when I asked him if I could interview him as a journalist, he seemed delighted. He gave me his card and asked me to telephone him any time and we could make an appointment. Eventually, I did this, and on Friday morning, I spent a couple of hours in the fascinating company of his highly articulate, humorous, charming gentleman, with a fascinating, well remembered and well documented past. Ally was born in Dar es Salaam on the 10th of October 1926. “My grandfather came to Tanganyika as a German mercenary. The Zulus had already acquired a reputation amongst the colonial powers as being very tough warriors, and the Germans wanting to beef up their colonial army, went on a recruiting drive to South Africa and Mozambique, to attract young members of the Zulu tribe into their army. Once my grandfather had stayed in Tanganyika for some time he decided that the British colonial oppression was slightly milder than what he had suffered in South Africa under the Boers so he decided to stay here.” Thus the patriarch of the Sykes family arrived here as a warrior and several of his descendants, including Ally himself also become a warrior not only in the second world war where Ally as a member of the kings African Rifles was to fight the Japanese in Burma with a stengun, but also later, in the fight for independence, when he was to use the spoken word and the pen as his weapons. Ally went through both primary and secondary at Kichwele School in Dar es Salaam. “I was very lucky because we had a very good Headmaster Robert James Harvey. He really cared for children under his authority and his wife was a doctor, so we also got excellent medical attention. Mr. Harvey was a somewhat revolutionary colonialist. He was the first Headmaster to put his own child in an African School.” “At that time we really worked hard on our studies. Our examination papers came from Makerere. This institution was an inspiration even to those who were not fortunate enough to go there to study.” From 1943 to 1946, Ally was in the King’s African Rifles, rising to the rank of Sergeant, which was high as an African could get in those colonial days. Ironically, at the war’s end, they invited some of our traditional chiefs, whom they regarded as their most reliable Vibaraka stooges, to Burma where they were made Captains! His experience as a soldier taught him so many things. He was to travel and see Somalia, Ethiopia, Ceylon and Burma. But the most important thing these experiences taught him was what he had to do when he came back to Tanganyika, and that was to send the colonialist packing and establish an independent African State. “The lessons in the KAR were so crystal clear. There were three different diets, designed on a racial basis: Europeans, Asians and African. When I came back home there was still a mirror image of this, with three salary grades: Europeans, Asians and African. How could a grown man put up with this nonsense? A fully qualified doctor from Makerere was getting half of what some half educated Indian was earning!” Astonishing enough, some of the basics of the struggle for independence were worked on by Ally and like minded colleagues while they were still in Burma. “I personally came up with the name of TANU and the party emblem of the Green (peace) and Black (the Africans) and this was while still in Burma.” Ally showed me relevant page of Judith Listowel’s book, The Making of Tanganyika published in 1963 outlining this remarkable story. It would take 16years of hard and complex struggle before the party was actually formed. The one who coined the party’s name was to be the proud bearer of party card NO. 2. Ally did not come back home immediately after the war. He spent three years in Kenya as an Assistant to the remarkable mzungu Peter Colmore, who died only a few months ago. His career was so long and varied that the East Africa Newspaper gave him several pages of the middle page spread of honor. He was an amazing man and I remember him very affectionately. He knew about five African languages including Kikuyu, Luo and Kiswahili. He taught me how to run an office and how to arrange a filing system etc. Eventually ally came back to Dar es Salaam and very quickly got a job in the colonial civil service. At that time, it was illegal for a colonial civil servant to engage himself in politics. As Ally was a member of well know family who had been politically active since 1929 when his father founded the Tanganyika African Association (the forerunner of TANU) and himself was up to his neck in nationalist politics, he was a watched man. He was first appointed to the Labour Department in Dar es Salaam, but eventually because of his political association, was sent to Korogwe as a punishment. While there, one day he lost his temper and beat up a white colonial officer. Within ten hours he was transferred to Arusha. In Arusha he beat up another mzungu, and this time the punishment was up to Mtwara. For Ally born and brought up in prestigious family in Dar es Salaam, this was too much. He resigned from the Labour Department and remained in the city of his birth as a government store keeper of the flame of the nationalist movement With my connection to the world of Jazz, I was very anxious to ask about Ally’s band. “It was called the Merry Blackbirds. I played tenor, alto and soprano saxophones, and we have played a mixture of dance and jazz music.” Ally named musical influences as American musicians both black and white, including Duke Ellington, Duke’s saxophone star soloist Johnny Hodges and the white big bands of Tommy Dorsey (with whom Frank Sinatra got his first big time gig) and Glen Miller. I hear that Radio Tanzania still has some of their recordings. They recorded at Dr. Johnson’s Studio in Nairobi, for Jambo Records and in Dar es Salaam, were frequently to be heard at such venues as Dar es Salaam Club, Gymkhana Club, The New African Hotel and the Hotel Internationale. In those far off days, they were paid about hundred shillings per gig, a lot of money at that time, and surely more enjoyable than working in the Labour Department in Mtwara. One thing which really impressed me during my conversation with Ally was the sheer efficiency of his office, unfortunately still uncommon scene in Dar es Salaam. I would ask a question and he would immediately pick up the in house phone “please bring me the files on Peter Colmore ,” he would tell a member of his staff in the ground floor office. In less than a few minutes the girl would bring the correct file, and Ally would say, “Here Christopher, read this.” I asked Ally where he got this highly streamlined office efficiency and discipline from. He laughed, “I think I got from my grandfather and he got it from the Germans!” Ally is now 78, but has a memory, walks and talks like a man of fifty. He is a practicing Moslem. The day was Friday and time for prayers was approaching, and one of the most interesting interviews I have ever had to come to a close. However I have a sinking feeling, sometimes in the not too distant future am going to give Mr. Ally Sykes another phone call and ask for another interview. There must be so much more he could tell.