Another Small Slice of Rhodesian Pie.

#4..Life in the Lowveld. (Part 1.)

(In which I set off into the great wide World..February,
1966)

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Life in the Lowveld..1966 . (part 1)

A story has to start somewhere. And so, a good a place to kick off,
would be with ones last days at school. On the eleventh of
November 1965, while completing my A level studies I was
invited by our headmaster, along with the rest of the final year
pupils, to listen to a radio broadcast. Anyone from my age group
who gets to read this will know that that speech was to change the
course of our lives and of our country forever.

The lead-up to the declaration read by our Prime Minister, Ian

Smith and which we listened to on that fateful day, went like this,
giving a bit of insight into events to follow.

Following a referendum the previous year in which voters had

overwhelmingly backed independence, in late 1965, with negotiations
between the United Kingdom and Rhodesia at an impasse, Smith (according
to his autobiography Bitter Harvest) had authorized a committee under
Cabinet Secretary Gerald B. Clarke to look at historical independence
declarations to come up with a suitable version for Rhodesia in the event of
a UDI having to be declared.
The committee decided to use the 1776 United States Declaration of
Independence as its reference. Once the text was agreed upon, the
Government Printer in Salisbury created the actual document (during the
first week of November.

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Clarke placed the document in storage in the Rhodesian Parliament building

until the morning of November 11, when Smith and his cabinet colleagues
after a last-minute appeal by the British Government failed to convince
them not to follow this course of action voted unanimously to declare
their independence. Clarke was then directed by Smith to prepare the signing
ceremony.
The document was placed in an adjoining conference room to where the
cabinet had convened to take their vote. With a photographer to record the
historic moment, Smith, Deputy Prime Minister Clifford Dupont, and the
other cabinet members signed the declaration. Later that day, Smith read it
out on national radio, along with a speech giving justification for the
action.[2]
The timing of Smith's telegram to the British Prime Minister (Harold
Wilson) announcing the UDI was symbolic. The message was sent at
precisely 1 pm local time (11 am in London) at the exact moment that the
United Kingdom started its Remembrance Day observance (two minutes of
silence to mark the end of World War I and honour its war dead).
The not-so-hidden message in this timing was to recall the fact that
Rhodesia had helped the UK in its time of need in both World Wars and that
the British should not forget that.]

And the declaration itself, like this.................

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Declaration

Whereas in the course of human affairs history has shown that it

may become necessary for a people to resolve the political
affiliations which have connected them with another people and to
assume amongst other nations the separate and equal status to
which they are entitled.
And Whereas in such event a respect for the opinions of mankind
requires them to declare to other nations the causes which impel
them to assume full responsibility for their own affairs.
Now Therefore, We, The Government of Rhodesia, Do Hereby
Declare:
That it is an indisputable and accepted historic fact that since 1923
the Government of Rhodesia have exercised the powers of selfgovernment and have been responsible for the progress,
development and welfare of their people;
That the people of Rhodesia having demonstrated their loyalty to
the crown and to their kith and kin in the United Kingdom and
elsewhere through two world wars, and having been prepared to
shed their blood and give of their substance in what they believed
to be the mutual interests of freedom-loving people, now see all
that they have cherished about to be shattered on the rocks of
expediency.

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That the people of Rhodesia have witnessed a process which is

destructive of those very precepts upon which civilization in a
primitive country has been built; they have seen the principles of
Western democracy, responsible government and moral standards
crumble elsewhere; nevertheless they have remained steadfast;
That the people of Rhodesia fully support the requests of their
Government for sovereign independence but have witnessed the
consistent refusal of the Government of the United Kingdom to
accede to their entreaties;
That the Government of the United Kingdom have thus
demonstrated that they are not prepared to grant sovereign
independence to Rhodesia on terms acceptable to the people of
Rhodesia, thereby persisting in maintaining an unwarrantable
jurisdiction over Rhodesia, obstructing laws and treaties with other
states and the conduct of affairs with other nations and refusing
assent to laws necessary for the public good; all this to the
detriment to the future peace, prosperity and good government of
Rhodesia;
That the Government of Rhodesia have for a long period patiently
and in good faith negotiated with the Government of the United
Kingdom for the removal of the remaining limitations placed upon
them and for the grant of sovereign independence;
That in the belief that procrastination and delay strike at and injure
the very life of the nation, the Government of Rhodesia consider it
essential that Rhodesia should attain, without delay, sovereign
independence, the justice of which is beyond question;

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Now Therefore, We The Government of Rhodesia, in humble

submission to Almighty God who controls the destinies of nations,
conscious that the people of Rhodesia have always shown
unswerving loyalty and devotion to Her Majesty the Queen and
earnestly praying that we and the people of Rhodesia will not be
hindered in our determination to continue exercising our
undoubted right to demonstrate the same loyalty and devotion, and
seeking to promote the common good so that the dignity and
freedom of all men may be assured, Do, By This Proclamation,
adopt, enact and give to the people of Rhodesia the Constitution
annexed hereto;

God Save The Queen

Given under Our Hand at Salisbury, this Eleventh day of

November in the Year of Our Lord one thousand nine hundred and
sixty-five.

Signatories

Twelve members of the Cabinet signed the Proclamation:

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Ian Smith (Prime Minister)

Clifford Dupont (Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of External

Affairs)

John Wrathall (Minister of Finance and Posts)

Desmond Lardner-Burke (Minister of Justice, Law & Order)

Jack Howman (Minister of Tourism and Information)

James Graham, 7th Duke of Montrose (Minister of Agri.)

George Rudland (Minister of Trade, Industry and Development).

William Harper (Minister of Internal Affairs and Public Service)

32.

A. P. Smith (Minister of Education)

Ian McLean (Min. of Health, Labour, & Social Welfare

Jack Mussett (Minister of Housing and Local Government)

Phillip van Heerden (Minister of Mines, Lands, and Water

Development).

The following junior members of the Cabinet were present, but did
not sign
:
Ian Dillon (Chief Government Whip)
Lance Smith (Minister without portfolio)
Andrew Dunlop (Minister without portfolio)
P. K. van der Byl (Deputy Minister of Information)

33.
This momentous occasion in our young lives meant little to us at
the time. Southern Rhodesia had effectively ruled itself since 1923
and with the break-up of the failed experiment of the Federation of
Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Britain was trying to get rid of any
responsibility for its colonial past in Central Africa! For those old
colonials of British extraction, who had had control of Rhodesia
since the Pioneer Column took over the country in 1890, the
prospects of now suddenly having to hand over political control to
African leadership was just not on!
Most of the white population, but not all, thought this idea of going
it alone, was worth a try. Our parents, many of whom had fought in
far off lands for the British Empire during The Great War, The
Second World War, Korea and Malaya felt secure in the
knowledge that Britain would stand behind us in 1965.had the
country not earned its place in the world by fighting loyally for
Queen and Country and by developing one of Africas most
successful economies in a very short space of time? However
things do not always go as one would hope, or assume they will
go! And it would affect my life and the lives of most, if not all of
the population of Southern Rhodesia at that time, forever!
Leaving the rather tedious side of the politics of the day aside, its
back to my adventures though!
Two things were about to happen in my life at this point..I was
going to get a job, mainly because I hadnt applied my mind
properly to my studies in order to go on to University, and I was
going to join the army because the country was off to war yet
again! This time a Civil War of a sort, and right in our very own
back yard!

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My very first job!

After a quick search through the Gwelo Times newspaper for a job,
followed by an interview in Gwelo at the District Commissioners
Offices, I was sent off in February of 1966 to become the first
junior clerk at the Internal Affairs Offices in Chiredzi.
In those far-off days, it was that easy for me to find employment. I
have to admit that I actually had no ambitions at all, after about
thirteen years of boarding school, as to what future discipline I
should attempt to apply my mind. I had achieved eight O Level
passes at G.C.E. but it seemed that at that point, that I had reached
my level of incompetence!
My two A Level years were essentially wasted time, for I
achieved about one and a half passes, which was in itself pretty
useless. With hindsight, I was glad to be accepted into the civil
service so easilyat last, at the age of about nineteen I had
found some direction!
It never seemed to occur to me at that time that perhaps I could
simply start working for my father. He was by then already
seventy-seven years old and still running the day to day affairs of a
fairly big cattle farm and quite effectively too! My parents also
never steered me in that direction either. Perhaps many years of
seeing siblings setting off into the world had persuaded them that it
is best to let let the young bird fly free first, and then see if it is
happy to return home at some point in the future!

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Anyway, the die was cast and I set off from home in my old
Zephyr Six which I had purchased a year or two earlier from
Besters scrap yard in Gwelo, for forty pounds. A short burst of
speed near Gwelo, testing the red-line revs of the old motor, at
some point in time had put a conrod through the block.
I found another old engine and dismantled them both and built the
new engine from the best parts of both the old ones. Shortly after
this, it was off to work, but by the time I reached Mashaba, about
forty miles south of home, the engine sounded as though several
maniacal blacksmiths had invaded it. The local mechanic, Mr
Donworth (sp) very kindly dropped what he was doing, and the
sump of the Zephyr as well.
Who has been repairing this engine recently?
Me, Sir
Where did all the mismatched conrod caps come from?
Well, no-one had ever told me that they came in machine-matched
sets up till then, but Ive never forgotten it since!! Mr Donworth
shuffled the rods and caps and did a bit of filing, dug up some new
bearings, and by the next day I was on my way again.
The old cars engine didnt give any more trouble but its body had
yet to be challenged by the road from Ngundu Halt to Triangle. At
this point the road had not been tarred and the heavy flow of
vehicles carrying materials into the rapidly growing Lowveld had
engineered the most incredible corrugations on this stretch of
road! I thought I knew all about corrugations having been born and
bred on them, even learning to drive on them but this was
definitely something else!!! I got to the newly tarred road at

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Triangle, (on reflection, it might have been at Buffalo Range that
the tar started) but never attempted to drive out again in my old
car, selling the battered remains before leaving to do nine months
of military service a while later.
If I remember correctly Chiredzi District had just been created
from parts of Zaka and Nuanetsi Districts and we shared,
temporarily, the offices of The Sabi Limpopo Authority in the
middle of the new and rapidly growing metropolis while our
own offices were being completed. Ivor Childs, ably assisted by
Frank Rawson did the SLA bit and Peter Johnstone as the new

A photo of a Ford Zephyr Six the same as my first car, but much smarted!

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District Commissioner of the District, had Nat Tarr as District

Officer and now me as junior clerk, to run Chiredzi. When I
eventually took my family into exile in South Africa some twenty
three years later I was amazed to find four of the five of us living
within a comfortable radius of about a hundred kilometers of
Pietermaritzburg. Of Ivor Childs though, I have never heard
another word! Many of you readers may detect a certain bias in the
tale towards Internal Affairs so far, and I will remedy that by
including Bernard Cavey (sp) heading up the B.S.A. Police in the
area.
Life in the Lowveld as a young adult had now begun for me, and
incorporated in this was the transition which every school leaver
faces sooner or later, that of boy to man!
And what a grand place to be initiated into the noble and ancient
arts of golf, beer drinking, tennis and fishing etc. The missing art
if you like, that of the pursuit of maidens, presented little or no
opportunity, simply because there were at best just a tiny number
in relation to the huge numbers of young section assistants and
single section managers waiting in a non-existent queue. Never
mindjust
concentrate
on
the
other
disciplines
available!................. And somewhere along the line, work had to
be done as well.
After a short while Midlands Construction had completed our new
offices and we moved in and more staff joined the team. Ian Steane
(?) as District Clerk, Daphne Wade as Peters secretary and
Rosetta Cavey as a clerk. The team of Messengers as they were

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.
called had grown and was housed in Tshovani Township and the
show was on the road at last.

Messengers on parade at the D.Cs Office at Gokwe, courtesy of Hugh.

The Messengers provided a link between the senior Internal

Affairs staff and the tribal Africans of the districts and were
recruited for their local knowledge as well as for any previous
military experience they might have aquired with the likes of the
Rhodesia African Rifles Regiment.

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Who among the inhabitants of the Lowveld can forget the smell of
the molasses on the road from Chiredzi to the Hippo Valley
Country Club or the looming hugeness of the Mill belching smoke
and steam at the halfway mark? Molasses was regularly sprayed
onto the main gravel roads possibly to stabilize the surface and to
reduce the clouds of dust which heavy cane-transporters raised.
Now and then the little stream that ran through the golf course at
the club seemed to putrefy from effluent from the mill and it didnt
just smell like the road did!! It stank to high heaven. Caddies
baulked from time to time at having to get in and shuffle about
with their bare feet looking for a badly hooked or sliced ball.
Golf was taken seriously though and balls were expensive and
caddies were generally encouraged to get on with the shuffling
bit.
To me fell the mundane jobs of a clerk. I remember looking after
the T/Ds or temporary deposits although what they actually were
escapes me now. I also wrote out hundreds of firearms certificates
and looked after stationery kept in the strong room.
At this point in ones career one was expected to study for the next
level in the service, that of Senior Clerklife always seems to
require more learning! After trundling off to complete my nine
months military training I returned to Chiredzi to find that I now
had my own brand new house in which to live. I had boarded with
Natt Tarr, the District Officer while the next house went up, and
now I could move yet again. A small grant from the department
allowed me to buy a bed and some plates, pots and pans etc, with
which to furnish my home. With accommodation in short supply, a
mess soon got going with various other young men from time to
time, helping to keep costs as low as possible for all of us.

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At one point the Mess employed a rather old African gentleman to
be our cook and to tidy and do the laundry etc.. Chiredzi was,
and no doubt still is, a very hot part of the world and for much of
the year one was covered in perspiration as the human body carried
out that basic function of temperature control! Our old cook had a
rather difficult to remember name and Frank, taking one look at
him, announced that he would be known as Sweaty from then
on.
Getting out of the office involved tax collection, trips to the cattle
sales in the Tribal Trust Lands etc. Regular cattle sales were held
from time to time in the Tribal Trust Lands and it was the job of
the D.Cs office to supervise these occasions. There were rest
camps dotted about where one could camp in relative comfort,
some more comfortable than others! At the Nyajena sale pens rest
camp, the rear of the outside long drop, or external toilet, had
subsided by quite a few degrees although the building itself had
not cracked at all. You sought of had to dig your spurs in when
using it and it was known affectionately as the leaning sh-i-t
house of Nyajena!
Looking back life was pretty good I suppose, for the population
generally seemed happy (with hindsight, one now knows
differently) and the Lowveld was really flying. On the horizon,
though, loomed the newly instituted period of nine months military
service along with changes to our country that we could never have
imagined..
But that is another story altogether and will have to wait its turn.