Gorillas Were My Neighbours

By Harry Merfield, Fred G. And Miller and G. Fred Merfield

Book Overview

My grandfather, Fred G. Merfield was a planter, hunter, explorer and naturalist. This book is the remarkable story of his life among the gorillas of the West African forests and is based on his memoirs written with Harry Miller in the 1950's. It covers the 35 years that he spent in the French Cameroons between the World Wars collecting rare animals and insects for museums and scientific research. He was much more than a hunter and killer of animals and he had a distaste for rich European and American safari hunters. He had a real passion for the people, animals and insects of West Africa and did much to help advance scientific understanding of the behaviour of primates in the 1920's and 1930's. He was the first author to observe and record chimpanzee's using twigs as tools to extract honey. It was only some 25 - 30 years later when Jane Goodall made similar observations, that chimpanzees were recognized as the only primates that can use tools in a similar way to humans. He was also a true adventurer in the mould of Indiana Jones. In one episode, he describes being trapped in a hut by Maka cannibals exchanging gunfire with arrows until he was finally able to escape on horseback. Later, he describes three buffalos unexpectedly charging at Hilda, his wife. He manages to either shoot them dead or deflect them in quick succession with one memorably sliding to a halt at Hilda's feet, a scene similarly replayed without credit in the movie Dances with Wolves with charging bison replacing buffalo. After the Second World War broke out, he was possibly the only Englishmen ever to have been appointed as a French police commissioner, Monsieur le Commissaire, working in the towns of Yabassi and Bafang and was awarded an Order of Merit and the Colonial Medal by the French Government. Sadly, my grandfather died in 1960, two years before I was born so I never got to know him. Both Fred and Hilda lived an amazing life, venturing into regions of Africa where few had been before.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0F5WJD9VQ
• ISBN13: 9798424586118
• Release Date: April 2025
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 183 Pages
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.4" x 6.0"