Reflecting on it now, I am sure that the news overshadowed the rest of our time in Gwelo. I remember feeling pleased for Mark at his promotion, but deep down I was also very scared. I had studied the map in our Readers Digest atlas, seen how far north Abercorn was, how close to the Congo, whose southern province, Katanga, ran like a finger alongside Northern Rhodesia’s Copper Belt. The canny Belgians had insisted, back when international boundaries were arbitrarily drawn through local people’s tribal lands, on their share of the area’s vast resources of copper and cobalt. And the Congo was now, as we all knew, sliding into ‘a cauldron of chaos, fear and violence’, as Martin Meredith describes in ‘The State of Africa’. So I had visions of hardship and loneliness ahead in a remote outpost – and yes, of being surrounded by hordes of black men.
Happily though, we had two visits to look forward to before then to keep my mind off things – first from Mark’s brother and his family, and then from my mother. And as if in anticipation of her trip, my mother seems to have kept no more letters from Gwelo, apart from one to Cape Town, welcoming her to Africa, but it is a time I remember well. Life had its steady hum of routine, Mark settled in his job, I with my network of women friends, and Paul such fun as he grew apace – first teeth, first words, first crawling, all recorded in his book. He was now moving around at speed, often on one knee and one foot, his favourite time garden watering, getting under the lawn sprinkler or pressing his hands into the muddy red loam around my newly watered zinnias and petunias. I was thankful for Inez, now earning her £1 a month taking him for walks; I am sure she would have preferred to strap him on her back, rather than rattle his cheap pushchair over the stony tracks as instructed. Once, absorbed in sewing a romper suit, I suddenly realised how late it had got. Usually Inez would appear quietly in the doorway with Paul on her hip, but now there was no sign, either in the garden or on the back road. No answer from Daniel either. I hurried towards his kaya, turned a corner and there were Inez and Paul sitting under a musasa tree. She was singing to him and they were playing a sort of pat-a-cake. They looked up: Mama, Paul said and went on playing, while I, perversely, wanted him to have missed me. Inez was as slim as ever, I noticed, with no sign of pregnancy.
With Mark’s brother John and his wife Pat, Sam and Debbie
Paul: Look no hands Mum!
Mark’s brother John, his wife Pat and their Sam and Debbie, aged about three and two, were on their way back to his job in Nigeria with another oil company, after Christmas in Cape Town. Suddenly toys and bricks covered the stoep and dinky cars were earnestly pushed back and forth. Our stone floors were busy with little running feet; Paul sat watching them for a while as they sped past, then, as if realising that all fours was no longer enough, let go of the bars of his pen and walked. It was a fun time, marred only by strangely cool weather, and all the more precious for not knowing how long it might be before we were together again.
Soon Mum was on the Pendennis Castle from Southampton, from where, true to form – for correspondence was meat and drink to her – she posted us a letter to reach us before she landed in Cape Town. I still have her little pigskin writing case bought for the trip, with a small blotter and pockets in the lid for envelopes and stamps, a ragged Union Castle label still tied to its handle. I was in a whirl of getting everything ready for her, wanting to impress; our landlords helped by sending a team of labourers to whitewash the house and tidy up the grounds, so that all looked spick and span for Mum – though mainly because they now wanted to sell the property when we left. Before she arrived, we went down to Bulawayo for Mark to be briefed on his transfer, now scheduled for 17 June, and to do some shopping, for it is quite awful how much we are going to need to take with us – more furniture etc.
So in March 1963, having left Paul with Joy down the road, my mother met her first grandchild sleepily lifted from his cot one evening; he was 14 months old. And suddenly Mum was a visitor in my home – a strange turnabout for both of us. I had found it hard to imagine this, to picture her sitting on the sofa, being waited on as a guest. Growing up, we had all experienced our mother as constantly busy – running the home, yes, but also involved with the Mothers’ Union, the Young Wives, and endlessly on the phone. We all longed, I think, to get past that air of preoccupation that seemed to prevent her from giving us her full attention. Now here she was with none of those demands on her time – how would that feel, for both of us, I wondered. In practice, however, she joined me in my own busy-ness, helping around the house but above all taking over her grandson, teaching him to use a spoon properly, encouraging his walking. She even insisted on more enthusiastic potty training, for in her day this would often be complete by one year, being part of the now infamously strict and rigid Truby King regime of baby rearing developed by a New Zealand dairy farmer and eagerly adopted by conscientious parents in Britain. Having been, I felt, a victim of this tyranny, I wanted none of it, but on the other hand how nice it would be to be rid of nappies, I thought, and let her give it a try, with some success. A suitcase full of new clothes and toys came separately by rail, which for us felt like Christmas all over again, and we had of course the endless round of tea parties and the odd clinic visit – Mum found the sister very stern and disagreeable. In Gwelo Paul had his first proper hair cut and came out looking a real boy; at Bata Shoes we bought him his first red leather shoes, fortunately made for wide feet more used to going unshod. After much foot waving and clomping about, the novelty wore off and he went back to barefoot, like most of the rest of the population. Once more we were invited to the Cummings’ farm, where Mark and I glowed as our landlords told her what perfect tenants we had been.
Paul with his England Granny
Mark had managed to schedule some leave while she was with us, and we took Mum on a tour, going as far as the Eastern Highlands, where we had honeymooned, and which had, we felt, the most beautiful scenery in Southern Rhodesia. The Mini Traveller bucketed along, which can’t have been comfortable for Mum, but she insisted on sitting in the back with Paul, and they also shared hotel bedrooms, Granny with potty at the ready. Our route took us first, via Selukwe and its pretty tree-clad hills, to Fort Victoria (now Masvingo), so that we could show Mum the nearby Great Zimbabwe Ruins.
This was a mysterious place, a huge site with the remains of high curved granite stone walls many feet thick. There was a Great Enclosure with a conical tower almost phallic in its effect; everywhere sinuous curves, with not a right angle in sight. The craftsmanship was superb: precisely cut stones fitting securely without mortar in walls up to 11 metres high and six metres thick. It was a strange, moving place in the middle of nowhere – so how on earth was it created, we wondered, and by whom? The one thing we knew with certainty was that it could not have been built by local people: after all, they lived in mud huts – hadn’t even invented the wheel! We accepted the alternative explanations that had been developed over decades – that the builders had been Arabs, or Phoenicians (though why they should have picked this place was still a mystery); there was even a legend that this was a replica of the palace of the Queen of Sheba in Jerusalem. All these exotic and improbable theories only added to the atmosphere of the place.
Cousin John’s photo of young Yvonne shows Great Zimbabwe’s magnificent stonework
Mark and Simon (on an earlier visit) pondering the mysteries of the Ruins
Even more fascinating for me has been learning, decades after our visit, the truth behind the legends – truth emerging from archaeological research through the 20th century. As far back as 1928 an English woman archaeologist, Gertrude Caton-Thompson, was first to state that the ruins were of decidedly African origin. Since then artefacts found, radiocarbon dating and more archaeological research have established that the structures, which extend over 1800 acres, were built over the 11th to 15th centuries, by a people who spoke one of the Shona languages and so were members of the Bantu family of African peoples. Over 300 stone structures have been found on the Great Zimbabwe site itself, fro
m simple to more elaborate; pottery, coins and beads etc. found originated from as far away as China, the Middle East and India, suggesting that it was a great trading centre, with gold from mines in the area at the heart of its wealth.
Not that it was easy for white people to accept these facts. In colonial Rhodesia the ruins’ true origins were hushed up, Ian Smith’s government pressurising the Museum Service to withhold the correct information. The Inspector of Monuments, Peter Garlake, whose research had been first to prove incontrovertibly that it had been constructed by ancestors of the current local population, and who refused to toe the government line, was forced out. Another Museum service official, Paul Sinclair, quoted in ‘ None but Ourselves’ by Julie Frederikse (1990) said: Once a member of the Museum Board of Trustees threatened me with losing my job if I said publicly that blacks had built Zimbabwe’.
Great Zimbabwe Ruins became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986.
As we headed up into the Eastern Highlands, Mum’s new hobby came to the fore. On the rutted dirt roads, with panoramic views before us, she would suddenly call to Mark, regardless of dangerous bends, ‘Oh do stop, please!’ She had spotted what looked like another interesting wild flower. These she would pick – if there was more than one – and at our next hotel would sketch them in her notebook. At one of our highest points, we stopped to admire the view next to an abandoned steamroller, where Paul had his first ‘Top Gear moment’. Installed by Dad in the driving seat, he sat turning and turning the disengaged steering wheel until we had to tear him away, protesting bitterly. It was a very happy time for all of us, out of our normal routine, enjoying each other’s company, all of us centred around Paul.
Eastern Highlands: Paul’s first Top Gear moment
Mountain Lodge, Vumba – return of the honeymooners
Back in Gwelo, Mum made a planned trip to Bulawayo to stay with our Watson cousins, and to connect with her beloved Mothers’ Union. When we were growing up, we had experienced the ‘MU’ as a nuisance, diverting our mother’s attention from us; only much later did I learn of its valuable work overseas, its network spreading deep into the African continent, and into townships where white people seldom went. Needless to say, Mum had organised to join what I referred to in my welcome to Africa letter’ as a ‘jamboree’ in an African township outside Bulawayo. She described on her return a great hangar of a church, a vast gathering of ladies dressed in white with splendid head-dresses, and how the service came alive with hymns sung in a vibrant close harmony that seemed miraculously spontaneous and effortless.
After the now usual goodbye parties in Gwelo, suddenly Mum was gone, flying back from Salisbury to Britain and their new home, the old vicarage she and Pa were restoring on the Herts/Cambs border. She took with her a copy of the Rhodesia Herald (‘established 1891’) for 23 April 1963, filed it away with my letters. Its yellowed broadsheet pages bring me a feel of that Salisbury, of those times, like a scent captured in a bottle. It was St George’s Day, 50th anniversary of the laying of the Cathedral’s foundation stone. The Southern Rhodesia government was declaring war on juvenile delinquents; the city was ‘shivering through one of its coldest April days ever’ (62.4 F at midday). In London, the United Nations Subcommittee on Colonialism had been told ‘politely but firmly that the British government cannot permit any interference in the domestic affairs of Southern Rhodesia’. On an inside page, the editor had seized gleefully on a piece from the Yorkshire Post, thundering that ‘an Eskimo would be as well qualified to advise on how to fight bush fires as the U.N. Sub-Committee on Colonialism is to advise Britain on political affairs’. The new Prime Minister, Mr Winston Field [shortly to be succeeded by Ian Smith] had written to Mr Rab Butler, First Secretary of State, repeating that Southern Rhodesia ‘must be given independence on the day that either Northern Rhodesia or Nyasaland secedes or gains independence’. Beside an advertisement for French velvets at 29s 6d a yard, the U.S. 7th Fleet was reported to be sailing into the Gulf of Siam amidst concern over developments in Laos, while President Kennedy was meeting with his National Security Council. Further on, amidst advertisements for Windolene and Brisk soap, an African had been sentenced to death for murder in Ndola, tourist numbers were down 5% ‘due to news reports’. Joshua Nkomo (who had recently testified to the UN Sub-Committee on Colonialism, urging them to intervene in Southern Rhodesia) was expected to appeal against his conviction and sentence to six months hard labour for ‘assaulting, resisting or obstructing police officers’. Meanwhile in Lusaka, Mr Martin Kaunda, a well-known teacher, had been accepted as ‘the first African south of Uganda to join the Rotary Club’. Helen Shapiro, ‘Britain’s raven-haired 16-year old singing sensation’ would soon be appearing at the Palace. On the tobacco auction floor, sales for the previous day were 2,068,535 lbs, at an average price per pound of 37.16 pence. Trading in copper from Northern Rhodesia’s mines was slow.
Both Paul and I felt doleful at Mum’s departure, Paul was whiney and clingy at the loss of so much loving and undivided attention, I with a sudden sense that little stood now between us and our transfer to the back of beyond. Was Mark anxious too at this big career leap, and a posting so far from branch office support? I think we would have both been too busy making the best of it to bring our anxieties into the open. My own were eased a little by a visit from Paul Scotcher who, after a couple of years as the Abercorn rep, would soon be handing over to Mark. They spent some time talking work over their beers, and when I joined them he described life there: a great place, he said, good social club, sailing, families with young kids – you’ll soon make friends. But, he added, shopping is a bit of a problem, you have to order a lot – and take every stick of furniture you need. This meant shopping, which was anathema to us for the strains it put on our budget.
By late May I suspected I was pregnant, thrilled to have it confirmed before we left Gwelo. I had explained to Mark my longing to have children closer together in age than I was to my own three brothers. The oldest, Will, was 3½ years younger than me and I wanted my children to have a better chance of growing up in a closer relationship and enjoying each others’ company. Now busy with endless decisions of what to take and what to throw, hauling out our battered suitcases for packing, I was not so thrilled at the inconvenient morning sickness that suddenly beset me. I was going to lose my support system too, those more experienced mums who had seen me through the first pregnancy and Paul’s birth. We sadly did the rounds of farewell parties with couples who had become good friends, swearing to correspond, to keep up with each others’ family news. Whilst I am sure we all meant it, at the same time I somehow sensed we were unlikely ever to see each other again.
Our little Mini was to take us as far as the Copper Belt, but with no room for Boy. We organised for Mark’s colleague Doug to have him flown up once we arrived, while Twist the cat found a new home with the Arkwrights. Daniel meanwhile had decided to return to Nyasaland. It had never occurred to us to suggest he and Inez come with us, it was far too remote for that. As I had sorted and packed, a small heap of unwanted clothes had grown until they filled a big old cardboard suitcase. Now, with the house echoing and empty, cleaned for the last time by Daniel, we all stood at the back door, dressed in our travelling clothes, the back of the Mini piled high. We presented Daniel with the battered case, and Mark handed him his savings account pass book, into which we had deposited a small amount each month, with strict instructions to use it wisely. Daniel took it with cupped hands and a respectful ‘Yes baas, thank you baas,’ in his soft voice. I looked at Inez: was her waist filling out, or was I imagining it? I did not like to ask. They climbed into Mark’s Zephyr for a lift to the station, while Paul and I waited for the Cummings to come and take the keys from us.
Daniel: A Postscript
A couple of weeks after we arrived in Northern Rhodesia, a letter arrived for Mark from the BSA (Southern Rhodesian) Police. It reported that a native, Daniel xxx, had been found to have in his possession a suitcase of clothes that clearly be
longed to a European. The native claimed that these had been given to him. Would the addressee now please confirm if this claim was correct, so that the native could be released, otherwise the matter would have to be further investigated.
We were furious: honest Daniel, now held at the border on account of an old suitcase of cast-offs! Too late we realised that we should have foreseen this and issued a letter to him in the first place. Mark hastily wrote a stiff note confirming the gift and we just hoped that it would get there.
Long Distance
All morning I’ve been reading my old letters home,
Roses Under the Miombo Trees Page 10