Pre-war volunteer to the Kenya Regiment (KR 561).

Obituary - Daily Telegraph April 4th 2000 - ' … His parents lived at Margherita, Assam where his father managed coal mines. After a childhood spent at Barnstaple in Devon and at Blundell's School, he was articled to Cooper Brothers, the accountants, in London. In 1938 he sailed for Kenya to start work with a company based at Kisumu; on his arrival he found that his new firm had just been taken over by his previous employers, Cooper Brothers.

A twice-weekly highlight of life at Kisumu was watching the arrival from London of the flying boat for South Africa which landed on Lake Victoria. During the Second World War, Hines served in northern Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Madagascar. Iin the King's African Rifles he commanded a squadron of 20 light armoured cars which was assigned the task of defending 800 miles of northern Kenya against an Italian invasion from neighbouring Ethiopia. Hines spent six months eating with his African crews and sleeping under tarpaulins, as there were no tents. The working language was Swahili. At the Outspan Hotel in Kenya, his wife helped Lady Baden Powell to reply to the thousands of letters written to her on the death of her husband.

In early 1941, Hines, then a captain, was in the van of General Cunningham's swift 1,900-mile advance from Kenya to Addis Ababa, via Kismaio and Mogadishu in Somalia and up the one good road through Harar, Diredawa and Awash. While advancing, with iron rations, in light armoured cars, they captured thousands of Italian troops. They confiscated their arms and many supplies, and left the prisoners for the other British troops who were following behind. In Addis Ababa, Hines helped to rescue numerous Italians and Germans who had surrendered - he saw many others who had been crucified beside the roads by the local Shifta people. On one occasion, while crossing the river Kolito in Eritrea, Hines witnessed one of the Leakey family (well known for its anthropological discoveries in East Africa) win the Victoria Cross.

The Allied forces were held up by a group of Italian light tanks. As Hines watched through binoculars, Leakey and his sergeant jumped on two of the enemy tanks and dropped grenades into them; but on a third tank, they were caught by gunfire. Hines helped to recover the sergeant's body but was unable to find Leakey's. …. After taking part in the invasion of Madagascar and being transferred to Burma, Hines was made the accountant on the Kenya Wheat Scheme, set up to help feed war-ravaged Europe. ….

David Hines strove to improve the lot of East Africans by encouraging the transition from subsistence farming to better organised cash crops. From 1947 to 1959, Hines was employed by the Colonial Office in Tanganyika to develop farming co-operatives ….. Then in 1959 Hines became Commissioner of Cooperatives for Uganda. He and his staff of 400 advised groups of about 100 to 150 farmers on how best to join together and establish local cooperative societies; ….. In the three years after Independence in 1962, Hines continued to work for the Ugandan Government. Then from 1966 to 1972 he was adviser to Kenya's Minister of Agriculture, particularly about the "million-acre scheme" to buy expatriate farms, mostly in the Kenya highlands. ….. Hines eventually retired to Ventnor, on the Isle of Wight, and then to Kingsdown near Deal in Kent, close to his beloved Royal Cinque Ports Golf Club. David Hines married, in 1940, Bertha Grice; they had a son and two daughters.

Colonial - Treasy. Acctnt. Tanganyika 1945; Senior 1947; Senr. Co-op Offr. 1953; Asst. Comsnr. Co-op Devel. and Asst. Regisr. Co-op Socs. 1956; Comsnr. Co-op development Uganda 1961-64