Kwame Owusu-Bempah obituary

My friend Kwame Owusu-Bempah, who has died of cancer aged 72, underwent a rare journey from a village childhood in colonial Ghana to a position as an academic of distinction in the UK.

Born in Akokofe, near Kumasi, Ghana's second city, Bempah (he was never known as Kwame), the son of farmers, had a love of study. He was an academically gifted child and progressed to study at the British seminary near Cape Coast, many miles from his home. Being away from his family taught him independence, and the art of creating new families around himself wherever he went.