Sir James (“Jimmy”) Mancham never let the trappings of power weigh too heavily on his personal life. During his time as president of the Seychelles, he became a familiar sight driving through the streets of the capital, Victoria, in his convertible Rolls-Royce Corniche.
Often he would stop when he saw a pretty young woman and invite her to dinner in the presidential villa. At a time when politicians were becoming increasingly secretive about what they got up to in private, Mancham could scarcely have been more unabashed.
“On the question of being an international playboy, perhaps I should plead guilty,” he wrote in his autobiography — a book that boasts 11 references to “Mancham: playboy” in the index. “My name has been associated with a galaxy of beautiful women — beauty queens, models, starlets and other ladies of various social standing. I make no apology for that.”
The son of a French mother and Chinese father, Mancham was born in 1939, educated at Seychelles College and called to the bar at Middle Temple in London in 1961.
Five years later he became the chief minister of the Seychelles Democratic Party, which he had also founded, and subsequently prime minister. A passionate anglophile, he hoped that the Seychelles might remain part of Britain as an independent protectorate in much the same way as Gibraltar had done. When London imposed independence in 1976, Mancham became the first president, at the age of 36.
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He immediately set about trying to turn the Seychelles into “the Switzerland of the Indian Ocean”, establishing the islands as the tropical destination of choice for high-rolling partygoers. The Shah of Iran, Peter Sellers, George Harrison and the arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi were among those who sampled the delights of “the islands of love”, as they became known.
Thickset and bearded, Mancham may not have been conventionally handsome, but what he lacked in looks he more than made up for in energy. His first marriage to Heather Evans, which produced two children, failed to withstand the strain of his numerous affairs and was dissolved in 1974. “I was an unfit husband,” he admitted with characteristic candour.
However, he did not repine for long and on his frequent visits to London he was decidedly generous with his affections, being seen out and about with a succession of beautiful women on his arm, among them the glamour model Fiona Richmond, Edward Kennedy’s one-time mistress Helga Wagner, and a former Miss Kansas City.
Matcham felt confident that, far from disapproving when they read about his exploits in Annabel’s nightclub — a favourite haunt — his countrymen would be fired up with pride and aspirational zeal. “They say to themselves, ‘What’s that little bastard doing there? He’s one of us.’”
Not everyone was happy for him, however. Although Mancham did a good deal to improve the lot of poor black labourers on the islands’ coconut plantations, there were those who felt that his voracious appetites and zest for partygoing (and his Rolls-Royce) sent out quite the wrong message. There were also claims that he had not spent more than three weeks at a time in the Seychelles since taking office.
“On the question of being an international playboy, I should plead guilty
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After a year in power, Mancham was deposed by his arch-rival, France- Albert René. As austere as Mancham was flamboyant, the trainee priest turned Marxist had long been his implacable foe. According to some sources, their enmity dated back to the 1960s when René was blackballed by the exclusive Seychelles club that Mancham also belonged to.
On yet another visit to London, this time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, Mancham was telephoned in his hotel at 5am to be told that he had been overthrown in a coup.
As he recalled later, he was not alone at the time. “I was in a deep sleep, a guest of Her Majesty’s government in a suite at the Savoy . . . with my own guest sleeping prettily beside me.”
Unbowed, Mancham threw himself into the life of an exile with his typical zeal, living as a bon viveur in his Putney home. Yet he never stopped campaigning for the restoration of democracy in the Seychelles — although he always denied that he had had anything to do with a South African-backed coup attempt in 1981 led by the notorious mercenary Colonel “Mad” Mike Hoare. Masquerading as members of a beer-drinking club called Ye Ancient Order of Froth Blowers, Hoare and his fellow mercenaries were foiled by the Seychellois customs. A routine check in their baggage for illicit bananas revealed an AK47 assault rifle.
Mancham passed the time in Putney by listening to light music on the radio and writing books. An enthusiastic poet, he would often present visitors with a volume of his somewhat soupy verses, Reflections and Echoes from Seychelles. But when, in 1985, he was interviewed by the Australian journalist Catherine Olsen for the Evening Standard, she proved to be every bit his lyrical match. “He had,” she wrote, “skin the colour of golden treacle, taut and firm, and a beard with just the right number of grey streaks.” Shortly afterwards, she became his second wife and they had a son, Alexander, who is second secretary of the Seychelles foreign ministry. Both survive him.
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Mancham was also fond of homespun philosophising. “A wise mackerel will keep his distance from any shark,” he once declared. Possibly he was thinking of his old foe, René, when he said this. Over the years their rivalry had remained as intense as ever. Then in 1992, much to his astonishment, Mancham received a letter from René asking him if he would like to come back and stand in democratic elections. When his flight touched down, an estimated 10,000 people were waiting to meet him out of a population of 35,000.
Mancham stepped back onto Seychelles soil to the strains of Una Paloma Blanca, his campaign theme song. Garlanded with frangipani flowers, he told his cheering supporters: “My beard is white and my hair a little thinner than when I last saw you. After 15 years of grey socialist rule the time has come to restore to the people their joie de vivre.”
However, it was not to be. At the election, Mancham’s Democrats were soundly beaten by René’s Progressive Front. After the coup, René had confiscated Mancham’s land, but now, no longer seeing him as a threat, he restored much of it.
To the surprise of both, the two men became friendly. They had at least one thing in common. “Albert used to say I was the playboy,” said Mancham, “but he had more girlfriends than I ever did.” Mancham built himself a house overlooking the ocean and proceeded to form an even more unlikely friendship with the Rev Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church, better known as the “Moonies”. Although he had initially been wary of meeting Moon, Mancham was soon won over, proclaiming him to be “an exceptional man of superlative value”.
Mancham continued to do all he could to promote the Seychelles as a tourist destination and felt that the country’s easygoing café au lait society, as he called it, offered an example that others might profitably follow.
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Sir James Mancham was born on August 11, 1939. He died on January 8, 2017, aged 77