Our own costumes complete, all we had to do was to sew white sailor hats for the men to go with their white T shirts and rolled-up white trousers, and the cabaret team was ready – well, apart from a week of nightly rehearsals of course. Mark was to be MC as well as a miming sailor, and I had offered my carnations to make buttonholes to sell to male guests, so with that and the catering it was a particularly busy time.
All the hard work was worth it. I ditched my usual cramped aerogramme and reached for the airmail pad: The Commodore’s Ball was a howling and fantastic success, 91 people (we’d estimated 80 at most). The Bunny Girls (Barbara Mac was Mother Bunny!) were a wow, appearing before supper with carnation buttonholes (55 of them made by me) to sell to the men. Then we dished out supper, paella and salad, garlic bread etc. and puds. The cabaret came straight after, and was fabulous, the men’s sailors’ mime (Mark was in that) was encored and so was the Bunnies’ dance routine. It ended with the awards of Bunnies’ tails to various hard workers of the Yacht Club who deserved them! Then the Bunnies and Sailors came down and started the dancing. Lots of photos were taken so I hope to be able to send some. Twisting etc. went on till 4 a.m., with no awful drunks, no lechers pursuing Bunnies or other anticipated horrors! Mark was M.C. and jolly good too. It really was a fabulous do, and made money – and all for 15/- a double ticket.
Bunny Girls dancing to The Hully Gully
Left to right: Jiff Bowmaker, Chris North, Barbara Mackinson, Glenda Tobin, Pam
Crosse-Upcott, Self
My bunny tail is Alan Bowmaker’s award for services to theYacht Club
There was a heartless P.S. to my account of the event: Sunday at the Yacht Club was a scream as everyone, except M and I, had the runs from the seafood in the paella!! I am ashamed to have to reveal that my competitive streak led me to regard this unfortunate catering mishap as an opportunity to win a few races.
Throughout August it seemed as if the pace of change and the pace of our hectic social life went hand in hand. Mike and Liz Rushton, off to run Edinburgh zoo, held a leaving sale, as did the Gamwell Sisters. These sales were, with the shortage of goods in local shops, significant events where you might find just the frock or piece of furniture or ornament you were looking for. Liz came from the USA and I was thrilled to be able to augment my homemade wardrobe with her stylish American cottons. In the case of the Misses Gamwell, everyone, it seemed, wanted some small memento of these two remarkable women, who had contributed so much to the little community over nearly 40 years. I bought a shawl crocheted of wool so gossamer-fine you could pull it through a wedding ring. Their farewell party, with drinks and snacks, speeches and the presentation of gifts was a moving affair. They hoped to drive their 1928 Chevrolet (‘The Horse’) around South Africa, before sailing from the Cape, from thence planning to live in the Channel Islands. (In the event it turned out to be too complicated to import the car into South Africa, and it was driven back to Abercorn, and thence to a dealer on the Copper Belt, with hopes it would find its way into a museum.) In the same week, there was one of the occasional film shows at the Institute – ‘a Peter Sellers film’ – a barbecue at the Barrs, ending with a fine guitar session from Gavin, and a party at the Bowmakers on the Rushtons’ last night. All this came in the days following one of our particularly energetic weekends: on Saturday, a large party after baby Philip Bowmaker’s Christening, where we danced on the verandah to the light of a full moon, going home after bacon and eggs at 3 a.m., only to get up four hours later for a rare Holy Communion service at 8 a.m. with the visiting Archdeacon. Then, as there was a gale blowing, we followed this with an excellent day’s sailing; however, Mark was first to capsize, then William, for whom I was crewing, put us in the drink where, treading water under a very wet mainsail, I became convinced I had lost my contact lenses. (Miraculously, I hadn’t).
As a reminder of the reality of impending independence, now only a couple of months away, our president-elect Kenneth Kaunda visited Outward Bound’s headquarters. On the shores of lake Chila I duly photographed him and his entourage gazing out at the rough waters in the teeth of a gale, Gavin our District Commissioner in attendance. Within a couple of weeks of his visit, Kaunda had become the country’s first prime minister. There was another multi-racial sundowner, this time hosted by our District Commissioner, Gavin Barr and Caroline. Perhaps I was getting the hang of things, for I wrote: I was much amused to chat to up and coming Africans from UNIP [ United National Independence Party], the rural district council etc. Their wives sat against the wall in a row with babies. And on Saturday the first Africans who are being put up for membership of the club entered the portals – a historic moment. The first three are good chaps and will get in ok – one is Alan’s fish ranger. Independence isn’t far off so it’s all just as well.
There is, in one of my letters at this time, a hint of concern about Mark’s job. Instead of staying on in Abercorn until the following June (for which we had applied for long leave to go to England), he was to be transferred to Lusaka in March, to a job as yet unspecified. But no more information was forthcoming, and in the meantime both Mark and I were distracted by the delightful prospect of a short holiday. At the Bowmakers’ invitation, we were to go by government fisheries boat up the west coast of Lake Tanganyika, past Kasaba Bay tourist camp to spend four or five days at a rest camp at Sumbu. Holidays at that time were almost exclusively taken as ‘long leave’, for there was, in that remote corner, nowhere easily reached for a short break, other than Kasaba Bay rest camp for lakeside game spotting, which Mark and I could not have afforded anyway. So this was a rare treat, especially as Alan had the government fisheries resources at his disposal:
Alan has to do work up there, Mark is taking some leave and Jiff and I are bringing two children apiece and a lot of food. There is a rest camp there, very good fishing and bathing, and it will mean Mark can really get away from all his worries. We are going in the ‘Dame des Iles’, a bigger boat than the fisheries launch, it should all be marvellous fun … We are busy getting in tins of supplies, as there is no fridge at the camp and the only fresh things are fish you catch and chickens. Fortunately the ‘Dame des Iles’ is equipped with everything + 3 cabins, and we will also have the smaller fisheries launch for short fishing and bathing trips, and another fisheries chap is bringing the Landrover round by road so we can try to shoot some game. It will be pretty hot and I hope to do lots of swimming and sunbathing, and Mark will get a real rest from the company and the phone.
Kenneth Kaunda (left), his entourage and Gavin Barr DC (centre)
On our return, all looking very tanned and fit, for we had lived in bathing suits, I wrote enthusiastically of our ‘marvellous holiday’: We managed to leave the house, clean and locked, at 6 a.m. on Friday and finally left Mpulungu on the ‘Dame des Iles’ at 8 a.m. – the baggage on the quay looked like a tropical exploration party setting off for 6 months. We spent most of the day getting to Sumbu, with lunch at Kasaba Bay rest camp – no elephants for once. We only had one of the three rest houses at Sumbu for 2 days, so the Bowmakers slept on board. We had a big bedroom and bathroom, and front mosquito-netted stoep for eating etc., all v. well ventilated against the heat, which is pretty terrific. We had 2 boys operating the boat, our 2 house boys to do washing etc., and the old chap there cooked, when he wasn’t drunk, which was half the time. Then Alan had his small v. fast motor boat there, for fishing trips etc. so we were well done by.
We felt particularly fortunate, for Jiff and Alan were already used to this sort of trip, both of them at home in the bush and in the water in a way Mark and I were not. They taught us to fish from the boat, to spot game and I, always wary of water, even learned to snorkel, although the water was not very clear. We had taken a stock of tins of food, but ate fresh fish and decided, as Alan had a permit to shoot an animal strictly for our own consumption, to go in search of game for the pot. This involved leaving the game reserve early on Sunday for a nearby ‘first class controlled area’.
/> At 5 a.m., leaving Paul with Uelo, and baby Philip with the Bowmakers’ Henry, we piled Jeanne (now 2) and baby Caroline, plus carrycot, into the cab of Alan’s fisheries Land Rover, and with two Fisheries staff crouching in the open back we bumped through trackless bush of a game reserve area. We spotted a herd of elephant, hartebeest, ugly old warthogs, bushbuck and dainty duiker, all relatively unafraid. Heading out of the reserve itself we reached our destination – Lake Tondwa. Alan cut the Land Rover’s engine, we unfolded our sweaty limbs from the cab, placed the sleeping baby in her carrycot in the shade of a thorn tree, and took in the scene.
Everything was vast – the lake shimmering in the early sunlight, the high, distant blue ridge of mountains behind it and above all, the silence. It was as if the whole world had fallen still, leaving a silence deep enough to drown in.
We broke it, of course, as humankind always does sooner or later. We filed quietly through scrubby thorn bushes, spotted buck grazing, ears flicking, alert. Alan selected a reedbuck in his sights. The heavy rifle’s shot rang out like an explosion, sending terrified game into the bush and thousands of waterfowl up from the lake in panicked flocks. The buck was quickly skinned and gutted by the fisheries staff, its heart and liver a delicacy for them grilled over the breakfast fire. Back at Sumbu, its meat made delicious eating, as did two knob-nosed geese which Mark miraculously brought down with a single shot. As I wrote to my parents, with the game and waterfowl so relatively unafraid, this could not be regarded as sport, adding: the tsetse flies were murder, and the mozzies, but it was extremely beautiful. We went for a couple of picnics on a lovely beach, under the shade of winter thorn trees which are elephants’ favourite food, and mounds of dung warned us to keep a look-out! We saw several from the boat while fishing, also hippo, crocs and buck. With the water not clear, the fishing wasn’t at its best, but we trawled around the coast a bit, with quite large plugs, and all caught about 3 to 4lbs nile perch. On the last day Mark thought he had hooked the bottom and reeled in a 17lbs perch! But frankly they aren’t much sport as they hardly fight at all.
My mention of the ‘mozzies’ and of sleeping nets down at lake level reminds me of a recent (2009) TV documentary, ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, which showed the ravages wrought by malaria today. The example given was Zambia, showing the children’s ward of Lusaka’s main hospital, full of babies and children lying listless and clearly desperately ill. The presenter’s doctor guide explains how malaria is ravaging the population, especially the young, now concentrated overwhelmingly in crowded urban areas. Yet I don’t recall our worrying about the risk. Perhaps those whose work took them to lower altitudes and steamier heat were more likely to get it, for occasionally one heard of someone who had ‘had a bad go’ of it. We certainly took no prophylactics. Yet today malaria is one of the great scourges of tropical and sub-tropical Africa. Indeed 90% of malaria-related deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of them among children under 5 years old. The parasites have become increasingly resistant to the main drugs used, and HIV infection increases individuals’ susceptibility.
However, there is good news too: in April 2009 the United Nations news service announced that Zambia had joined several other African countries in slashing the number of deaths from malaria by more than half, through aggressive control measures. Between 2006 and 2008, 3.6 million long-lasting insecticidal [bed] nets were handed out, coinciding with a 47% decline in malaria deaths in the same period. The prevalence in parasites dropped too by 53%, and the percentage of children with severe anaemia – mostly caused by malaria – fell by 68%.
‘Zambia stands as an example of what we can achieve throughout Africa through the combination of universal access to bed nets and effective malaria medicines’, said the World Health Organisation.
It was now October, our ‘pigeon pair’ developing fast, Paul stringing words together at last (‘lookadat!’ was a first), Caroline over the worst of her digestive problems. I delighted in their difference: Paul so sturdy, strong and a real boy, Caroline small-boned and delicate, yet wiry and full of energy. She was variously described in letters to her grandparents as ‘having a fearful temper but with a naughty sense of humour’ (me) and ‘a menace’ (her doting father). This last was for her habit of waking the household at 5.30 a.m. and, at 8½ months, of spurning crawling in favour of standing upright like everyone else. This involved steadying herself determinedly on the furniture or, preferably, on Mum’s legs, plus a great deal of falling over. She and Paul were good mates now, to my great delight, giggling together over toys, in the bath and side by side in two high chairs in the kitchen, where they swapped finger food and Paul ate heartily, his sister little. We took the plunge and put her into Paul’s bedroom, where he was quite prepared to entertain her for an hour till we got up. The pleasure of remembering these scenes reminds me of how hard it must have been for their grandparents, with only my letters and occasional tiny photos to keep them going. Already, though, I was writing home about the possibilities for our long leave the following year, and how we were saving for the airfares home.
Our pigeon pair
...and feeling hot down at Mpulungu
Soon, in the final run-up to Independence, came another ball, and so another cabaret: this time to welcome visiting golfers for the Abercorn Open weekend, in which Mark, the club committee’s golf member, was much involved. The theme was ‘Caribbean’ (sort of), the cabaret a series of musical(ish) numbers. Somewhere in the planning stage, when talents were being trawled from reluctant members, I admitted to playing the clarinet, which had lain untouched in a trunk since I had left home nearly five years before. Suddenly I was committed to playing in a small group, bizarrely named the Chila Chits, with Gavin Barr on guitar, Nobby Clark on banjo and Alan on tea chest bass. My repertoire was strictly classical, my comfort zone Bach rather than Bacharach, a sonatina sooner than swing, all played from sheet music. Now I must pick out a tune and play it from memory, with the gallant support and encouragement of the ‘string section’. I recall wishing that I could ‘swing it’, improvise, jazz it up, and finding that it was just out of my reach. I could however play in tune with a decent tone, (much to Mark’s astonishment, for it turned out that he had never heard me play). After much practising, I could manage ‘Moon River’, ‘String of Pearls’ and ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, moving on to include ‘In the Mood’, ‘Bye Bye Blues’ and we reached a triumphant climax with ‘When the Saints Come Marching In’. The week before the ball, I wrote home with studied understatement of having too much to do: The Ball is on Saturday, Ian Mackinson is giving drinks before it and I am making food for him, [Barbara had gone ahead to UK] and we are rehearsing nightly for the cabaret. On Sunday I am helping to do a buffet lunch for 50 at the club, making fruit flans, ham and several salads. The Open golf is over Sat. and Sun. and we are also having Jo Martin from Kasama for the w/e, a nice girl and the only eligible one for miles, so she’ll be popular! I am trying to knock up a tropical dress, a one-shoulder drape in native cloth, and a cummerbund for Mark. – Now Mark has just been in with 2 VIP’s from Salisbury he is entertaining, for coffee, and has now rushed to Kasama for the day with them, then Colin Carlin appeared for coffee and discussion on the dance – no wonder I never get everything done! Later I am going to Jiff to rig up dresses.
As Abercornucopia reported, on the night the Chila Chits, introduced by Ian our MC, were proclaimed a hit, as were ballads sung by Kevin Gould and Joan Carlin, Gavin’s golf calypso and various mime-to-recordings numbers. Jo had brought with her another single girl, from V.S.O.: the two girls had a terrific time with about ten bachelors between them. We danced madly till 1.30 a.m. and then to bed exhausted. Ian taped all the music which was v. good. On Sun. p.m. after working all morning on the buffet, I had super sailing while the golfers golfed. Won a thrilling race after a nasty pile-up at No. 3 Buoy where the leading boat capsized in a gale and we came up behind – as we went about my crew was warding off masts and booms with both hands! I then present
ed the golf prizes, having got the tinies to bed in the car early, and Mark made a v. good speech, but by 9.30 I was expiring of exhaustion.
I never got to hear the tape recording Ian made of our group, to take to my parents when he returned to England, and perhaps it is just as well it has long since been lost.
Ode to My Merry Widow
Everybody had one – we believed
in its magic, the way it pushed
our breasts to pin-up proportions, and down
the front, over the fierce metal zip, the tiny
hooks and eyes we linked and linked
till voilà! – a neat wasp waist above
the swing of frilled suspenders.
My black lace merry widow,
where are you now? Is some young body
still prepared to bear the pinch and prod
of your wires and metal fixings? More likely
you went to landfill, lacy nylon dissolving
amidst cans and cartons, your metal ribs
still lying, skeletal, in the sand.
CHAPTER 12
Flags exchanged at midnight: of dreaded
farewells and a longed-for arrival
People are getting rather apprehensive about Independence, I wrote in mid-October 1964, though I don’t feel they’ll really bother to make trouble. It was, both Mark and I felt, all somewhat of a formality, but for those settlers who had lived in the country for decades, perhaps their whole lives, it was much harder to come to terms with. And for the careers of those Britons who had worked for the Northern Rhodesia Government, there were step changes ahead, if not already faced. Nonetheless, the Union flag would be coming down for the last time: We want to go to the flag lowering and raising etc. in the township at midnight on 23rd, but not if it means standing pressed in a sweaty throng. Pam [our neighbour] may baby-sit for us, we can’t take children in the car down there.
Roses Under the Miombo Trees Page 16