On April 1, 1977 England's Guardian newspaper published a seven-page supplement devoted to the previously unknown island state of San Serriffe.
Interestingly our very own Greg Rowley played a significant role in this, although his name does not appear among the credits.
When I mentioned the San Seriffe hoax to him the other day he smiled as though evoking a fond memory.
'Like a few of the bright boys at Tamba- Tamba at that time I was lucky enough to benefit from what was known as a Kakoy scholarship. I went to London , to private school, and then on to The University of Sussex. After graduating I was given an internship at the Guardian (journalism was my forte then, the history side developed later).
Tim Radford took a particular interest in me, and was very keen to talk to me about Tamba- Tamba at any given opportunity. He even started taking me over to his place in Virginia Water in the evenings for dinner and drinks. At first I assumed that he was going to propose that we did some piece on Tamba- Tamba.
I thought the article was hilarious. It resonated with me because during my time in England people would ask me where I was from and they would be completely ignorant of Tamba- Tamba, so as far as the majority of English people were concerned it was no surprise they fell for San Seriffe. As I remember it it was Tim who was responsible for developing the idea of San Seriffe more so than Phillip Davies...
Some of the guys on the staff were sure that San Seriffe was modelled on Tamba-Tamba more closely than it really was, but what Tim got from me was the notion that this country could exist, and have quite a complex history and that people in England, a pretty educated section of society, could be wholly ignorant of it.'
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