The death last week of Dr Kenneth Kaunda, first President of Zambia, at the age of 97 brought memories flooding back for an African-born academic who grew up in the first years of his rule

My parents left Scotland for then Northern Rhodesia in 1952, seeking to escape the poverty of post-war Paisley to forge a new life in the colonies. Today I would call them economic migrants. My father, Charlie Bell, worked as an airport radio technician for the colonial administration in Lusaka and then for a while in the small town of Mongu in the province of Barotseland, where he rose to the exalted position of airport manager. We used to go game-­viewing on the grass runway at night. The last decades of his life were spent as a telecommunications officer at Lusaka’s international airport.