“I was known as the ‘Enemy English Press’. I had the special branch on my tail, they used to pinch my notebooks out of my hotel. In those days we used to send unexposed film or actual photographs through the post office. They used to open your packet, fog the film, tie it back up and send it,” says Yamba resident Oscar Tamsen, regarding his adventures through Africa as a war time correspondent.

Pat Fordham explores his motivation for living such a life.

The 94-year-old former journalist has lived a life in which many would say could fuel a life of fear, danger and near-death experiences. Even though this may be true; Mr Tamsen believes that in order to be the best journalist, he had to be where the best stories were and for him, that was Africa.
Oscar’s longing to become a journalist began in university while studying economics and political science at Oxford. He fondly recalls how he got offered his first job in the media.

“I went down to London, went to all the newspapers and I couldn’t even get past the front door. So, I got on a bus, on a double-decker bus to where I was staying in Chelsea and I met a friend, sat next to him and told him I really wanted to get into newspapers. And a gentleman in a bowler hat, with an umbrella and a pin striped suit sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Excuse me young man, this is my card, phone me in the morning’. I phoned him and he said, ‘do you want a job, I’ll give you a job!’. He was actually a lawyer to a group of newspapers”.

The job he landed was at the Oxford Paper, and with that, he was able to pay his way through the rest of his studies.

The young journalist then went on to work for The Economist for a bit over a year, but soon left due to his inner desire for bigger and better things.

“I found it boring, even though I’d studied economics, it was a boring job. I had the trade union beat and I was forever going to protest meetings and I thought this isn’t for me,” the former journalist says.

After bouncing around dreary old England and Europe, unable to find his calling; he applied for a role in Africa as a foreign correspondent. Little did he know, this extraordinary adventure would sustain him for the next 14 years of his life.

During Oscar’s time in Africa, he spent years documenting the Mau Mau conflict in Kenya, while also travelling over the continent to meet with Nelson Mandela in his home in Suweto, South

Africa and become part of the press corps for then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip during their royal visit to Kenya in 1952.

Oscar reminisces of his time in the Mau Mau, as dangerous and daring; with no-where being safe for an outsider reporting on the escalating situation.

Sometimes you had shots fired at your vehicle, particularly at night”.

Even though his reporting landed him in hot water, he believes it was all worth it.

One of his most interesting stories is that he was one of the last people to meet with Princess Elizabeth before she became Queen.

In 1952, the Princess and her husband Prince Philip were touring Kenya to visit a lodge the Kenyan people had given her. They were visiting Tree Tops Hotel about 100kms away from Nairobi when the unthinkable occurred.

“So, we had dinner and we had the viewing of the wildlife and went to bed and woke up in the morning and the Prince and herself disappeared. What had actually happened was, was the King had died during the night and they came while we were asleep and they came very quietly to the Tree Tops and they said you’ve got to leave, you’ve got to come with us and they took them straight back to the lodge, which they had been given. Then they were taken straight to Nairobi and put on an aircraft and she was flown back to England and the moment she flew back to England the next morning at 11 o’clock it was announced that the King is dead, and she was the queen. We were in total disarray,” Mr Tamsen says.

From there, the war correspondent spent several years documenting the situation in South Africa; meeting with then political activist, Nelson Mandela on multiple occasions.

“I interviewed him and ate in his house in Soweto,” the former correspondent says.

“I realised from the word go that he had a lot of anger”.

The journalist had several issues with the South African government while reporting there, with the mostly Dutch government disliking Englishmen with a passion. He speaks of a body of officers who would follow him wherever he went in the country, stealing and damaging his roll of film, while then sending it off back to England.

“The editor would be phoning me and saying what’s the matter with your photographer? They hated English people because 50% of South Africa was English and 50% was Dutch”.

Even though life as a war correspondent was exhilarating and full of adventure, it was time to move on.

In-between moving to Australia in his late fifties, Oscar moved back to United Kingdom before making his way to Perth. He notes that he did not think much of one of the most isolated cities on planet, calling the place particularly “backward” in the 1980’s.

“It was just a country town really, the tallest building in Perth in those days was two stories,” Mr Tamsen says.

He then travelled to the Sunshine Coast, where he helped set up newspapers like the Sunshine Coast Citizen and the Sunshine Coast Daily, which has since gone onto become one of the main newspapers in the region. This was also followed by stints at the Courier Mail and NT News.

Since then, the now long-time resident of Yamba has lived in the area for nearly 30 years, with the coastal town holding the same amount of love in his heart as any other place he has travelled to in the world.

“The good thing for me is that it’s a small place, although it’s getting bigger. Best weather in the world,” says the 94-year-old.

His time in the coastal town has consisted of running the rate payer’s association and surfing, with the Englishman surfing up until he was 88 years old.

In terms of his motive for moving to far-reaching corners of the globe, he says that the job took him there and would do it all again.

“I’ve always been interested in the world; us journalists are interested in everything. Your job is the most important and to get the best out of your job is to go to the place where the best stories are, so it’s not the country that drags you there, it’s the story.”

Oscar plans to sustain his fulfilling and exciting life for years to come.

This article was previously published in Scene magazine, March 2021.