Tony Hall in Ethiopia in 1973
Dad heard reports of the famine and decided to go there to investigate as Oxfam's field officer for East Africa. He went and saw the evidence of it and then came back to Kenya. He found photographer Mohammed Amin and went in again. He sent articles and evidence to the British Press.
The empreror Haile Selassie was a close ally of the west and so, initially, the newspapers and the media were very reluctant to take up the story. However, Jonathan Dimbleby read Dad's article in the Sunday Times and Dad took him around Ethiopia. Jonathan decided to make a film. It was this film that alerted Britain to the so called 'forgotten famine.' The Ethiopian famine of 1973, in which several hundred thousand people died.
Subsequently, the British children's programme, Blue Peter, wanted to organise a campaign to help famine victims and asked Dad, Tony Hall, to be their man on the spot. British children sent in 900 million stamps to be sold, and from the proceeds they asked Dad to buy oxen. They made a film of the distribution of the oxen to farmers who had survived the famine, but had nothing to help them plough and sow for the next harvest. Dad features strongly.
In Jonathan Dimbleby's subsequent recollections he takes the credit for both discovering and alerting the world to the famine in Ethiopia in 1973 and doesn't mention Dad's name once.
As the director of the Anglo Mexican Cultural Institute in Guadalajara I was effectively, along with the Honorary Consul (who was, by the way, an opportunistic shit) Britain's other representative in Western Mexico. The fill in. I was invited to lunch with prince Charles and happened to share a table with Jonathan Dimbleby.
At that point he was making a fawning documentary on Prince Charles. I said. 'I think my father worked with you in Ethiopia.' Dad had mentioned it in passing. 'Who's that?' he asked. 'Tony Hall,' I said. He looked at me blankly. 'Tony Hall,' I repeated 'the Oxfam representative.' 'Oh Tony,' he said, 'How is he.' I am still not convinced Dimbleby even remembered Dad clearly.
Dad went on in 1973 and 1974 to work together with Mom reporting on the famine in Maharashtra in 1974 for Oxfam. Of course, working for Oxfam and then the UN over the years they both built up a lot of experience on famine relief.
In the early 80s Dad worked on international news magazines focused on the Middle East and, as anyone is when they see the situation close up and are not partisan, he became pro-Palestinian. I remember how he remarked approvingly on Jonathan Dimbleby's reporting on the plight of the Palestinians.
With the onset of the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 few of the lessons of 1973 were learned. Instead the famine relief was hijacked by illiterate, inexpert, apolitical self-publicising, and ultimately self-interested musicians. The net effect was to bring the 1984 famine to the attention of an enormous audience and to raise a large amount of money. Money which, according to recent reports, through poor management, was subsequently largely hijacked and squandered.
For Dad, getting credit for going in and revealing the 1973 famine to the world was never the main concern. The point was to act and get things done in the most effective and intelligent way possible. But he did have some valuable insights into famine relief. He approached the BBC to do a follow up documentary, 20 years on, in the early 90s.
But the famine had been down-played because Haile Selassie was a western ally. Apart from Blue Peter viewers and the good hearted people who watched and responded to Dimbleby's film and Amin's pictures, no one would be interested. Dad's role had also been downplayed by the curate's egg of Dimbleby's journalistic ethics, and so, naturally the proposal wasn't 'sexy' enough for the BBC. It rang none of their bells.
His reflections on effective famine relief, however, are available here and I have comprehensive documentation of how the famine and media operations developed over 1973-74. I am sure he was thinking of using them in a writing project.
Much later Dad went back to Ethiopia to accompany my mother, working on an ILO women's fuel wood project. There he ended up restructuring the communications arm of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), but rejected a job as communications director in favour of a Ghanaian he thought was extremely competent. Although Dad did not get recognition for his role in the famine of 1973 Toni Strasberg, the daughter of Hilda and Rusty Bernstein, recounts:
'When they were working in Ethiopia and Ivan was shooting a film there I went out to visit and the Hall’s introduced us to many of their amazing international friends. Best of all, Tony, who knew Ethiopia so well, accompanied Pam dos Santos and myself on a trip to some historic places around the country. One afternoon we had hiked up a mountain in the Gondar region and as we sat at the top looking out at these weird shaped mountains with villages on their flat tops, Tony told us a story about a previous time in the area when he worked for Oxfam during the famine. He had been sitting on just such a mountain and had said ‘wouldn’t it be great if we could have a cup of coffee.’ Whereupon, one of the Ethiopians with him set off down the mountain and up the next one and then back again, to get some fresh coffee from the villagers there.'
I hope he enjoyed that cup of coffee.
By Phil Hall
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