I have had several friends in my time, but few people whom I could call mentors, few older friends who took the time and trouble to point me in the right direction and help me navigate life’s paths with its many twists and turns. For me, Tetteh Addy, who has just passed to eternity, played that role during the most crucial period in my life in Ghana.

I knew of Tetteh because I had attended primary school with his younger siblings, but I got to know him much better later, after I finished university, through one of his cousins, Nii Odoi. Nii Odoi was our ‘leader’ during our university days because he was a bit more mature than we were. I suppose that it was easier for Uncle T to take over that role at that uncertain time for me.

With Uncle T, it was always about what I wanted to achieve. We became closer after his return from Manchester upon completion of a postgraduate course. He worked in the Ministries, and he did a stint with one of the local companies before eventually branching out on his own. He ran a company representing foreign establishments doing business in Ghana.

These were the heady days of the mid-1970s in Ghana when the economy was going in different directions. I was trying to set up our operation in the charter flight business with some friends, and the one thing we needed most was advice about its future. What would we have to do to sustain that business, and equally important, how could we do it? 

His view then was that we were going too fast, almost like running before we could walk and thereby drawing unnecessary attention to ourselves and what we were trying to do. Alas, just as he’d forewarned, we lost the business to a government edict that banned our operations.  So with some free time on my hands, I followed him around to see how I could learn from him in his business dealings, whilst holding discussions on any potential avenues to make some money. 

I was in awe of his simplicity and his discipline in the way he conducted his business. We gave serious consideration to what joint ventures we could engage in. Unfortunately, nothing ever came of those discussions because this was at a time when I suffered a major health crisis, resulting in my being hospitalised for a long while. He was a constant visitor, keeping me updated on what was happening on the outside, cheering me up and doing his best to uplift me from my despondency and isolation. When I came out of the hospital, his generosity knew no bounds, and he was kind enough to ferry me around on several occasions till I could drive and stand on my feet again.

Ostentation was not in his vocabulary; he lived the quiet life of a modest man but with all the confidence of someone who had come of good stock and had the proper training and culture of his upbringing. So he was at all times a calming influence on my penchant for being showy and youthful exuberance of over-dramatising things.

I was always welcomed in his home, it helped that his loving wife Phyllis regarded me as a younger brother from our secondary school days and as mates at university. I dropped in as many times and as often as my fear of his fierce dogs would allow me. I witnessed and experienced firsthand his doting on his young son as an eye-opener of how one day I would have a family of my own.

Our discussions on relationships were also very valuable. Some of the aphorisms about my not being able to win them all and my learning to be content with what I had, even if it was just one, I still remember. As I do, our many lunch breaks are spent at JOY café at Adabraka with our friend and lawyer, Nii Azumah Nelson. They both advised me on some of the business problems that I had encountered, thereby saving me a lot of aggravation, helping me not to resolve them but teaching me the value of sometimes walking away from what, though looming large, was a minor irritant.

Those conversations about my future helped. Incidentally, I went to work for the same company that he had worked for, and he also became a mentor. Not surprisingly, I ended up later in Manchester to study in the same Precinct that he had done his postgraduate degree in, though in a different course of study.

Uncle Tet remained a trusted friend to the extent that my wife sought his advice whenever she went to Ghana on dealing with one of her nephews who needed some emotional as well as remedial support.

There is still a debt of gratitude that I will never be able to discharge as I look back on the solid support that Uncle T provided for me during my working life in Ghana.  His taking me under his wings provided me with the inspiration to do the same for my younger friends, and now that I have met his sons in the UK, I will have to prepare to provide them with that same support.

My friend is gone. But I am certain that you know how much of your modest life I have tried to live.

We thank the Lord for your life and hope that you find peace in the bosom of your maker.

Ade Sawyerr

London

August 2025