Martin Bell, Jon Snow … and Idi Amin

Posted on 2011/12/22 , tagged as

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Earlier this autumn Icon published Martin Bell’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, a collection of ‘light and dark verse’, much of which is autobiographical and therefore especially interesting to read.

One the highlights is a poem entitled ‘Idi Amin’:

Idi Amin

President Idi Amin of Uganda married his fifth wife, Sarah,
at the OAU Summit in Kampala in 1975.

In fifty years I never played the hero
And never was one either, more’s the pity;
In derring-do my rating was a zero –
I did not lead an infantry attack,
I never claimed to liberate a city,
Or counted them all out and then all back.

But one thing that I did and they did not,
Despite their valiant actions and embeddings
(Except of course that some of us were shot),
The sole, unique distinction I have got:
I witnessed one of Idi Amin’s weddings,
To Lady Sarah of the Suicide Squad
Of the Ugandan Army; and that, by God,
Was well worth doing, if distinctly odd.

As it happens, Martin was recently looking through some old photos and fished out this gem:

Martin – looking very fresh-faced – is on the left. And that’s Jon Snow, interviewing dictator Idi Amin in the centre – an amazing photo to have unearthed. Click on it to see it in greater detail.

We publish a new, updated edition of Martin’s classic account of the Bosnian war, In Harm’s Way, next April.