When Clyde Sanger and his family approached the GNM archive in 2017, we were excited about the prospect of adding his papers to our collections. Sanger was the first journalist to be appointed as the Guardian’s dedicated correspondent for Africa, and held the post in the 1960s - the decade that saw more than 30 African nations gain independence.
When the records arrived we were no less intrigued. Sanger’s papers included correspondence with influential figures and statesmen including Hastings Banda, Tom Mboya and Enoch Dumbutshena, as well as 36 subject files of his research on topics ranging from the 1973 Commonwealth Conference to the ‘Missing leaders of Zimbabwe’. We did, however, note a problem.
