‘I sang for Queen Elizabeth II’
Samson Kintu Bukulubuzibu Telisonyiwa. Photo by Henry Lubega
What you need to know:
Grand opening. More than six decades ago, Samson Kintu Bukulubuzibu Telisonyiwa, a retired medical doctor, was a Senior Four student at Busoga College Mwiri in Jinja when Queen Elizabeth II opened the Owen Falls Dam, now Nalubaale power dam, on April 29, 1954. Kintu was a member of the school choir which was chosen to sing the British national Anthem, God Bless the Queen, at the dam opening. He shares his memories of the event with Henry Lubega.
I was a member of the Busoga College Mwiri school choir headed by Titi Nabeta, our choir master. The preparation for the official opening was a long and tedious exercise, which we did for about two months. For us as students, what we were looking forward to was not singing for the queen, but being out of the school compound.
The headmaster, F.G.Coates M.B.E, often dressed in full white, attended the preparations. On the D-day, we were excited to be going out of the school compound. After lunch, we boarded the school bus to the Owen Falls Dam. We got there almost an hour and half before the function started. Many of the invited guests had arrived and there was a lot of drumming and dancing from traditional dancers. Many people had taken their seats, while others were standing on the bridge watching the proceedings below where some VIPs were seated.
The current Jinja highway across the bridge was also a new road that was being commissioned that day, but on that very day, it was closed to public traffic. It was only those invited who were allowed to go past the bridge. The general public was watching from a distance not very close the dam.
When we got to the venue, we were confined to our school bus up to the time the queen arrived. When she arrived, we assembled and sung the British national anthem, God Bless The Queen. Though our role had been played, we could not leave the venue. For the next three hours, we sat on the grass next to our school bus and listened to the different speeches. To us, they were not of much interest. What mattered most was the fact that we were out of the school compound, unlike our colleagues we had left behind.
After the speeches, which seemed to take forever, the queen went to switch on the dam. I understand there was to be a cocktail there after, but we never attended that. We were not given even a soda. But the fact that we had at least moved out of the school compound was satisfying enough. Those days, getting out of the school was a not an everyday occurrence.
The place I came to in 1954 when the dam was being opened saw a drastic change in a short time because of the electricity being produced and the opening of the new road. The road past the bridge shortened the journey from Jinja to Kampala.
The old road was below the railway bridge, which connected to the Kampala highway at Lugazi, through now Buikwe District.
