SS Amra

It was this time of year that Allen & Peter took the 10 day journey from Mombasa arriving in Bombay on February 15, 1962. They sailed on the SS Amra, a ship built for BI (British India Steam Navigation Company LTD, London), originally as a Burma mailship, but post-war was commissioned to Bombay/East Africa routes. In I Celebrate Myself,  Bill Morgan describes the ship as ‘full of six hundred vomiting Indian families fleeing east Africa because of the country’s (Kenya’s) upcoming independence.” Though Allen and Peter were in the crowded hold, the ticket was only $50, and they were near the hatch that afforded them some fresh air.
Check here for more info than you ever thought you’d need to know about the British-India Shipping Line and the SS Amra.

3 comments

  1. My uncle Kevin Bourne was a radio officer on board the Amra, used to travel to Bombay frequently. Very interested to see this post.

  2. I was born in 1956 on ship s.s.Amra. traveling from Mombasa to Bombay. I would be very interested if anyone knows about it. Hope to hear from someone. Thanks

  3. Bhupendra, my name is Gavin Barrett and my dad was Ship’s Purser on the Amra. He is still alive and about to celebrate his 90th birthday. Connect with me on Facebook and I will try to help.

    To the article writer (as a fellow poet) and a traveller on BI ships, I have never seen passengers in the hold. “Lower deck” passengers may have slept around the hold, and “upper deck” passengers slept on the wooden decked midship. I wonder if the Amra made room in its hold for its humanitarian cargo — though I suspect they were fleeing Amin’s Uganda and not Kenya. Most of my own extended family (I am Indian) stayed on in Kenya and Tanzania well past Independence as they did not suffer quite the same level of persecution there as they did in Uganda.

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