The story will speak of my voyage out to Nigeria in September 1960, officer class, on a British Navy Troopship. By telling this story of the End of Empire by a young, innocent member of the colonial power, I also hope, in a second, older, more reflective voice, to tell another more historical and political story. In addition to the personal story, the older voice gives a sense of what it was like to live in England and in the newly independent Nigeria in the middle of the last century from the perspective of our very different contemporary world.