Recent slavery

Michael Fry (Opinion, 24 March) writes that "everybody connected with the slave trade has been dead for the better part of two centuries".

That may be true for west Africa but not for east. In what is now Malawi, about 50 years ago, I met and talked with Petro Kilekwa, then an elderly man, who as a child had been captured, taken to Zanzibar, sold and put on a slave ship.

The ship was stopped by a British warship and he was returned to Africa where he became a Christian priest. I welcome Michael Fry's contribution to debate on this topic and would welcome comment on the extent to which Scotland's association with the slave trade arose from the Union with England of 1707.

DAVID STEVENSON

Blacket Place

Edinburgh