Working with communities in Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan

Obituary

The Herald, 5th October, 1999 - Glasgow

Despite colour-blindness which would have killed off the naval careers of less determined men before they began, Ranald Boyle spent his 21st birthday on HMS Calpe, the headquarters ship of the famous Dieppe raid. Calpe was the last ship to head for home and had endured the concentrated attention of the shore batteries and a sustained aerial bombardment as she picked up wounded soldiers from the water. It was then, after Calpe had rescued more than 500 wounded allied soldiers, that Boyle was severely wounded, sustaining shrapnel wounds in his head and neck after a Fokker-Wulf 190 bombed the ship's bridge on which he was standing. His 21st birthday was almost his last. After a period of convalescence he was sent to the Mediterranean and served on MTBs on clandestine operations, mainly launched from Corsica, landing and picking up agents from enemy territory. It was for these operations, during which the accomplished sailor rowed agents ashore, routinely going so close that he could see the lit cigarettes of the machine gun nests above his head, that he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for "gallantry, enterprise, and undaunted devotion to duty on hazardous operations". After the war ended he was sent to the Far East where he acted as a flag officer at the surrender of Japan and was in charge of a Japanese prisoner of war camp in Hong Kong.

Despite his war record, Boyle will be best remembered for his work in Southern Sudan. After becoming District Commissioner in Gogrial, Bahr el-Ghazal after the war, he resigned in protest in 1953 over British government failures to provide the promised safeguards for the predominantly non-Arab peoples of the Southern Sudan when the country was granted independence. The Dinka tribe, who were in the majority around Gogrial, paid him the rare privilege of renaming him "Tim Atiep", literally "shady tree". When he made a visit to Gogrial, nearly 20 years later, the then District Commissioner, who was a northerner, was put out by the reception given to Boyle by the Dinka, who slaughtered a bull in his honour. He complained that he had never been accorded such a welcome and why should a foreigner be so honoured? The reply from the Dinka was that Tim Atiep had made the effort to learn their customs and language and would write letters to the Chiefs in their own language. Until his death, whether in the columns of the Times or Telegraph, through letters to MPs, or his work with Baroness Cox and the anti-slavery Society, Boyle's pressure was one of the most important factors in ensuring the issue of the oppression of southern Sudan by the North was kept on the agenda. Because of his concerted attempts to spotlight human rights abuses in southern Sudan in the Eighties and Nineties, returning to Sudan became more fraught and often impossible in his later years. He was, however, able to spend a month there in his role as a consultant for the Save the Children Fund South Sudan Programme.

After spells as a freelance journalist and for the Iraq Petroleum Company, Boyle became a diplomat and enjoyed spells in Kenya, Qatar and Sudan, before returning to London, where his knowledge of Middle Eastern affairs helped him become a director of Hambro's merchant bank. He then became a financial adviser to the Emir of Qatar before retiring in 1996. Educated at Wellington College and Exeter College, Oxford, Ranald Boyle was a member of the Royal Company of Archers, a keen tennis and squash player until well into his seventies, and an accomplished linguist. Ranald Boyle was a man of great fun and humour who was nevertheless well known for his strong principles and not being afraid to speak his mind. He is survived by his wife, Norma, their seven children, and five grandchildren.

The Guardian | The Times | The Telegraph | Sudan Democratic Gazette

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