Last Of The Rhodesians

The Gokwe Kid and the mad Made for Mugabe Mermaid

2012-01-31T16:58:00.001Z

I just fancied writing something totally insane. Absolute gibberish. Of course, all creative writers need a prompt. Usually it is life itself. In theory, you can write about anything. What I love to do is manipulation. It is called ‘spin’. I should have been a politician.

So there I was, not really concentrating any more on my school work (short attention span), and well, what do you know – Peter Godwin sends a Tweet, which for some unsure reason pops up on my Facebook. The link was very interesting. It is from a web site called bulawayo.24.com. This article was posted today and I insist you read this below because it beggars belief…until, shockingly, it is actually true. I have witnessed this and give my account afterwards.

- - -

Water Resources Development and Management Minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo had a Senate Committee on Gender and Development in stitches when he alleged that mermaids were preventing government officials from installing water pumps at dams in Gokwe and Mutare.

Nkomo was presenting evidence on the water supply situation in Zimbabwe when he made the stunning allegations.

He said the problem first occurred in Gokwe when officers installing water pumps at a dam dumped the project vowing not to return to the area because of the mermaids.

He said a similar situation occurred at Osborne Dam in Manicaland. Government hired white personnel to do the job but they also refused to undertake the project.

"We even hired whites thinking that our boys did not want to work but they also returned saying they would not return to work there again," he said.

Nkomo said it was necessary to brew traditional beer and carry out any rites to appease the spirits.

Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo who also appeared before the committee concurred that there was need to perform traditional rites at the dams.

- - -

During the Rhodesian Bush War, the Russians, assisted by the Chinese, had this great idea to mutate some of the female ‘freedom fighters’ they supported into a kind of mermaid. The plan was that they could then swim from Zambia, crossing Lake Kariba, and swim up the Sengwa River and then sort of sliver along and then lurk in dams with broken water pumps in Gokwe Tribal Trust Land. A devious scheme, as sure enough, after the locals had hit the broken pump with a large lump of wood to ‘fiks-it’, they had then concluded it was ‘brokin’ and that meant calling a whitey out.

The ‘fighting mermaid of feminism freedom’ would then attack poor unsuspecting whitey and that was that. A few instances did occur in the Gokwe area, but was cleverly hushed up as crocodile attacks. Not that I ever saw a crocodile in all the time I was in Gokwe, but that is beside the point.

Luckily, during my time fighting this slime, I was chosen to become part of the elite covert unit PAMU (Police Anti Mermaid Unit). It was all very hush-hush because the mere thought that something like this might reproduce and suddenly a baby one pops out your tap whilst running a bath, was considered so terrifying that along with just about anything else to do with the war, it was kept out the local press.

Anyway, I remember that night vividly when I first saw one of the nasty things. I still get nightmares. It was a Saturday night/Sunday morning. I had just got back from the Gokwe whites only sports club rather well blasted out my skull. I recall that my knees hurt from crawling the half kilometre home, dragging my FN rifle behind me, and thought I could sooth them in the tiny swimming pool us elite policeman had just outside our single quarter’s bedrooms. Big mistake. I was so pissed I forgot that the pump had not been working for a couple of days and should have known this was a perfect spot for the hideous monsters to lurk in the rather shallow depths.

Recalling this is harrowing, even now after I have easily drank that pool and many more of its volume equivalent in bubbled water of hops, malt and wheat for decades, but, that night was bad news…

I managed to ease my aching bones into the shallow end, when suddenly, I was pulled in. (The official report stated I fell in; which is lie). The monster mermaid was terrifying but my training took over instinctively and I promptly started having a wee and a poo at the same time. (The poo was used in evidence at my kangaroo court-martial.) I screamed out for my mates but they were drunk and didn’t care a jot over my imminent demise. Of course, I still had my trusty FN assault rifle with me as its sling was wrapped around my neck. As I was dragged deep into the rather shallow depths, I cocked it and let rip at the demonic thing.

This was fire power at an enormous scale. I blasted it scales all over the pool walls. (Forensics claimed they found none. I think they were just too lazy to look properly.) That rifle did some damage though – mainly to itself. The barrel split almost instantly, but still I pulled that trigger as I fought for my life. The noise was appallingly still. The water pressure of 7,62 mm rounds being fired under water nearly made me pass out in pain as I emptied the entire magazine into its hideous form.

I don’t remember much after that because I must have wounded it and it went off. I got into a bit of bother but I talked my way out as usual. I did do a sketch of the thing that attacked me. Anyway, it is true, the things are still out there…please, please, make sure your water pumps are regularly serviced.

Next week I will tell you about the great fun I had when I was abducted by mutant ZANU (PF) green lesbian winged aliens from planet Zimbabwe.

Africa and Rhodesia - A short history lesson

2012-01-30T19:19:00.000Z

At the end of the Second World War the West European colonial powers were bankrupt and the Americans lent them the money to survive. Three things then happened that became inextricably intertwined that spelt catastrophic doom for the average black peasant in Africa.

Some of the educated blacks spotted a chance to make a few bucks and under the pretence of ‘Nationalism’ started to make a lot of squawking noises aimed primarily at any –

‘Make Love Not War’ sixties counter-culture ‘liberals’ that thought whitey was still whipping the ‘coons’ everyday on their million acre plantations –

and the Yanks, now flexing some serious muscle, both financially and militarily, decided that as the new kids on the block, the Brits can forget the whole empire nonsense, free the peasants and they could hopefully outspend the damn Russkies in gaining influence in Africa.

All with predicable results - Anarchy.

The squawkers, proclaiming to be Christian to the core, not having a bone through their noses and promising on their ancestor’s grave that the ideology of democracy, free speech, a neutral civil service, judiciary, police and army would be upheld; were given their chance. Hurrah to Independence, Hurrah to Democracy, Hurrah to the greatest get rich quick scam since Charles Ponzi.

So in the sixties it started to happen. One after another the colonies held ‘free and fair elections’. The average European in the liberalised West didn’t give a monkeys’ nuts on the outcome; they had enough problems of their own. So as soon as the loudest squawker had power and realised he had just been handed a cheque book and all it needed was an ‘X’ (His Mark) on the dotted line, he could live like a king! There was the pesky problem that some of his ‘subjects’ may not like the civil service being taken over by illiterate tribal mates (who happily soon spotted ways to have a jolly thieving time), and replacing the judiciary, police and army with only ‘loyal’ mates, and the press was used just to press out their protesting brains, tried to be ‘democratic’ in their protest. (Give a take a butchering or two.)

This problem was soon solved by teaching the moaners some manners. Usually this was very painful and involved severe dismemberment that generally led to the democratic moaner wondering how he lost his legs in the last knife edge election. But at least the new nation was free of the accursed whitey hey! Still, all this soon brought problems. It didn’t take long before these happy free nations saw the economy collapse along with the infrastructure through corruption and incompetence. But – luckily there is a solution. It is all whiteys fault.

Oddly, it is. The political boundaries of Africa are a total farce. Before Whiteman arrived preaching that deranged idiot Scotsman’s load of crap of the three ‘C’s -Christianity, Commerce and Civilization, even the Romans had decided it was better to leave the place well alone. Things ticked along quite nicely, thank you very much. Tribes came, slaughtered, got complacent and were in turn slaughtered and along with some very nasty diseases hanging around the place, the native population muddled along quite ecologically efficiently. There were no ‘borders’, but just constantly moving boundaries of tribal influence.

So for centuries the jolly Golly was quite capable of sticking a spear up a rear to keep any status que, until whitey turns up with what is now Africa’s bane – the powered projectile. The top squawkers soon cottoned on to this fact after they had been sorted out into packets of land drawn on maps by whitey and his magic of Maxim machine guns. They patiently observed, watched and waited till they had lots and lots of boys’ toys that go bang, of their own; and a lot easier to use than your average assegai.

As the colonies disappeared to be replaced by countries that would struggle to find the definition in a dictionary, and with the reserve banks plundered – the money ran out and the boys with the toys got all excited and went mad and hacked up their former bosses and then they find that that this hasn’t quite solved the lack of purchasing power. What do you do in such a situation? Of course, you turn to the Whiteman because it is his fault they are in the mess they find themselves.

So, being very smart, they ask whitey, who has several centuries of bloody warfare, along with scientific advancement experience; to come back and sort the rotting, stinking, corpse laden shit holes out. Restore law and order and kick start the economy etc. Hah, who am I kidding…

Because, and this will shock, between 1960 and 1965, 26 African former colonies were given ‘Independence’. Most collapsed into anarchy almost immediately. Happily, the ones with guns could control the only thing left – their natural resources. Available to the highest bidder (don’t forget to chuck in a few weapons), the situation hasn’t really changed much. Bob Geldorf and Bono may tell you otherwise; but they are - quite frankly - hypocritical idiots.

So…one little place, still run by nasty whitey, has been keeping an eye on all this amazing liberalism and thinks – We don’t think this a good idea. By 1965 the British, under the leadership of some complete brain dead tosser called Harold Wilson, Prime Minister of a broken, chaotic, penniless nation called ‘Great Britain’, told the Rhodesians that they should hand over an immaculately run, almost crime free, corruptless civil service and judiciary and a generally rather well organised economy; to a bunch of squawking ‘Nationalists’ – and they told them to - ‘Fuck Off’.

It was like -this was the jewel of Africa. No other colony had created in such a short time a nice paradise. Well, it did help if you were white, but saying that, they were paying the taxes that went towards better black enlightenment and surely one day it would reach equilibrium?

This answer didn’t go down toooo well with the rest of the world. Still, Rhodesia under Captain Ian Smith guided his ship straight onto the rocks. It just took a while to sink.

So the squawkers understood something dumb Rhodesian whitey had neglected to understand – the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and whilst the blacks were quite happy to chop each other to bits to make a few bob, kicking whitey out of Africa took precedence. For a very simple reason – it distracts the world from their own atrocities and makes sure dumb ass liberal whitey keeps pumping money into their Swiss bank accounts.

And so Smithy and the boys decide to fight. Sadly, after a bit of a false start, the future Zimbabwean nationalist squawkers, loosing the plot, pop a few assegais up a few arses and two triumphant Western/Eastern orientated orators emerge by the mid 1970s. One was called Joshua Nkomo. He led the group that was 100% Ndebele. They were on a loser from the bloody start. Due to whitey and his map, his Zulu ancestral rape and pillagers, whilst being far superior to the peasants up north (the Shona), find themselves making up only about 25% of the ‘country’. He opts to stop in Zambia ( a collapsed cess pit north of Rhodesia, that just coincidently happens to have some of the planet’s largest copper resources), and asks for help to overcome nasty whitey from…er, white skinned Russians.

Meanwhile, by the time poor Portugal gives up the ghost on Mozambique in 1974, the local intelligent intellectuals take over the country and whilst turning the place into the Guinness Book of Records as being the worst place to make a buck on the planet, and starving to death was a rather a happier way to go than being butchered as a ‘sell-out’; they let Mugabe (who has meantime brilliantly decided he is really a Chinaman, but has the support of 75% of the population called the Shona tribe), and his politically corrected nutters, to set up camp and start to cross into Rhodesia and kill people in the name of liberation. This was the end for the peace loving, black friendly, whites of Rhodesia.

Eventually, the nice, happy, liberated blacks took over – though it did take about 50,000 people to die first, and they all jumped up and down and celebrated freedom from white suppression in February 1980. Since then, the land has gone from strength to strength (not).

Who cares?

So, whilst the battle raged in 1976 – the Gokwe Kid arrives on the scene…

Mugabe – My Part In His Victory

2012-01-30T10:26:00.000Z

I just realised that I have spent days messing about and making myself ill with the nonsense. I think that the thirty odd pages I wrote and scanned and combined was no good. Very depressing. But then just when I thought I had really lost the way, I came across another satirical Rhodesian writer. He has written a book called Mugabe – My Part In His Victory. I gather that he has published under a pseudonym of Chris Walmsley.

There is a bit on Amazon here and I was well impressed. It also gave me an inkling where I was going wrong – mainly I didn’t need to go into so much historical detail, no matter how ‘basic’ I made it - there was too much. So I will scrap it all and just keep it very seemples.

I feel much better now. So back to work…

The Gokwe Kid takes a short break from work…

2012-01-18T12:09:00.001Z

I ruined my dinner last night and landed up nearly poisoning myself. I had ‘found’ some severed neck bits and along with some frozen roast potatoes I popped them in a pressure cooker, added some herbs I had gathered from the mountainside and sprinkled a bit of instant Bisto powder on the lot, closed the lid, stuck the thingy on the nipple and fired it up on full whack.

Anyway, as I was laughing hysterically over my own witlessness, I started to think after about a tin or two that there wasn’t much hissing and puffing steam coming from the kitchen. Actually, there was a lot of smoke and a bad smell of something getting seriously crisped. The smoke alarm didn’t go off because it only does that when conditions are damp. In that scenario the thing screams its head off and lands up being put on maintenance mode for weeks and weeks and it goes ‘peep-peep-peep’ at a giant mosquito type pitch - which is driving me slowly insane.

So, I removed the cooker from the very hot plate and chased the smoke out my front door. Upon opening the pot, I was struck by several senses. The biggest one was the lack of mine. I had forgotten to put any water in. I scraped the rather black muck out and chased it around in a frying pan for two minutes with some oil and tried to eat the

disgusting muck. I also noticed that my once shiny new cooker now inside looked like the remnants of a fire bombed mosque. I filled it with cold water (I can’t afford the hot stuff) and a bit of el-cheepo washing up liquid and – well, I had a peep at it this morning and it does not bode well.

Sigh, it is a hard life.

The Gokwe Kid and the mystery of the knives and forks.

2012-01-15T17:47:00.001Z

Eish – I needed a break. Pushed it a bit far, but I have gone over 95% and run it past another mate – it is looking good. I thought I should take the day off, but after messing around - I felt the urge and did this in less than two hours. Forgive any p and g mistakes. Go on - have a laugh…

North Wales, sometime last year. (I think.) A true story.

The Gokwe Kid digs around hard in his stainless steel pot that contains his cutlery collection. No matter how often he gropes around, the only fork about is one used for poking at pickled onions at parties. He cannot afford either of these and now he concluded that at least five, maybe six forks had mysteriously disappeared out the kitchen. The world’s greatest bush detective started to think…a sign of imminent chaos.

First he looks to see if maybe they had flown out the window- a flock of forks. This solution was induced by the second tin of beer, which the great sleuth uses to grease his brain cells, as being impossible because he has no window in the kitchen. He also didn’t bother to raise his eyes and stupidly look at the extractor fan’s grid just in case they had been building a nest there. Perhaps they had made a stab at doing a runner? After all, as far as the Kid could recall, they all had four prongs to leg it on.

Scratching through his decrepit track suit bottoms at his anal orifice (as sadly his disabilities didn’t allow his arms to travel further up then his facial one), he thought hard. Staggering to the floor, he took a peep under the fridge – perhaps they were chilling out there? None to be seen and the cleverest of thoughts entered his frontal lobe. ‘How the hell am I going to get up?’

With the pain in his back nullified from mulling the problem over with some more tins that were now rather easy to get hold of, he miserably concluded he would have to purchase some more forking forks because the truth had finally hit him. Over a period of binges he had tended to throw the fork, along with the plate scrapings, into the rubbish bag.

Things are not simple living in Britain’s version of Gokwe. Although the electricity works, most of the inhabitants lack the spark of brightness. Even Polish immigrants don’t bother looking for work here. The Kid kits up and drags his aging, creaking screeching bag on wheels, with telescopic handle, down the long hill. His body, aged from fighting gooks three decades ago and nothing to do with alcohol and tobacco, weaves expertly between wonderful examples of starving Irish made rock walls, and the Snowdonia National Park wild bush. It reminds him of home – the Great Zimbabwe Ruins - when he fell pissed out his head down the narrow path from the acropolis.

The old bag will be needed. At least whilst he is forking about he can pop into the Co-Op and get some light refreshments for the empty fridge. But first he has to replace the things he needs to remove food from his plate - so he went to the bank first to see if the cash point would say yes for a change. Fortified with a fiver, the Rhodesian X-Factor winner is instantly recognised by a fan driving a large vehicle –

“Get off the fucking road you drunken dick.”

The Kid waves enthusiastically onto his back. How the people loved him and so in tune. The shouting fanatic knew he was on the rocky road looking for forks and was the great Dick of the Bushveld.

Now on a mission, the Kid studied the front of a large shop called ‘The Factory Shop’. This was obviously a shop that had not been fabricated, but what happened to Woolworths that had been there the last time the Kid took off his shades? Had they forked off too? He didn’t care; they had gone the same way as Rhodesia – well forked.

The BSAP’s finest works out how to enter the place. After lingering a little too long at the women’s lingerie and concluding he would look daft wearing a nylon leopard skin thong to remind him of the good old days, he snoops out the forkers who are hanging around with some right sharp characters called knives. They can only be messed around with by adults. Dangerous things indeed and the Kid quickly spots what he needs and enters the realm of the towns' intellects – the cash desk.

Idling swaying to some canned camp music, whilst some ancient crone attempts to work out how to enter a PIN number, the Kid looks idly down at his would be purchase and…

He has KNIVES. How can this be? Confused. Has he lost it totally? He looks down at his feet. The left shoe is right, the right shoe is right also, he hadn’t left it behind. No, he knew the difference and being the wicked wit he is and gagging for a laugh (and a drink), and as he is next in turn after the old bag finally remembered her birth year, he switches to the Russian accent he picked up from questioning questionable gooks and says to the young girl at the desk –

“Zis is nife, Yes. It say nife? Yes?”

She looks. She looks at the product, looks at the Kid - who has now placed a finger up his right nostril and has wide staring eyes.

“Erm, actually they are not. I go quickly and get the knives.”

As the girl moved from behind the counter, the Kid pulls finger and stops her. Switching to his arrogant Rhodie/BBC News Reader pseudo accent

“My dear, I know perfectly well they are forks – for forks sake.”

The Gokwe Kid – walking the tightrope

2012-01-11T16:14:00.000Z

Last night, someone whose opinion I respect, asked me if I was bi-polar? I spoke to many people last night. Really bizarre, some were in South Africa, another on Vancouver Island. I think they all worry about me. In the end it boils down to walking a tightrope. I have pushed and still pushing the boundaries of creative writing in a memoir. I have created an interactive ‘B’ class celebrity from three decades ago, wandering around as a policeman in the last colonial land in Africa, stuck in a Victorian time bubble. It is insane!

I shudder at some of the prose I have come across from Rhodesian/Zimbabwean writers and future writers. I am going over one at the moment, and I have warned the author that er…problems. As if I don’t have enough to do. A lovely parcel arrived today from the Open University. Loads of goodies inside for my next course and when I pass it…I have a degree…yippee. But, I wander a bit

So, who the hell am I to criticise any writer when I have no credentials? Actually, I have. Diploma in Literature and Creative Writing after my name (DipLCW(Open) as well as CertHum (Open)) for a start, but away from the academic…look in the cyber world. Google - The Gokwe Kid. Get it? Click images. Or just type in Gokwe and click images. Get it!

So – to my problems. LM radio is playing in the background. I listen to it all the time. Jim Croce is singing ‘Time in a bottle’, how appropriate. Then Tinky Pringle starts gabbling and snaps me out of the zone. Bless her. A Salisbury girl actually. You can Email her via their website.

Anyway, yeah, writing about Rhodesia and those days. I am giving away the first seven almost perfect chapters. Simply Email me and beg a bit. lore-data@hotmail.com

But be warned. Some of you will not get it and set fire to your PC. Some will stop and think – did he really just say what I thought he said? This is very dangerous territory I go into. Some people have the early drafts. Few have the latest version. This is dynamite and I know I am on a winner - but there is a big but – I am three quarters across the tightrope and wobbling. In one conversation last night, I was warned. I was walking a very, very fine rope. This is an excerpt from his Email I received this morning –

I've nailed the first 7 chapters with much enjoyment and some good chuckles and outright shouts of laughter. You poke fun at everyone (including yourself) and everything. But there is an underlying sense of sadness, I think. Sad for all the fucking idiots who ran the show and sank the ship. Many of them are brought back vividly to life and... if I didn't know them... I knew somebody like them.

I enjoy all the subtle use of innuendo and nuance. So many sights and sounds are familiar. It's full of good old colloquial speech and humour. The introduction of historical facts, movies, books, quotes is clever. Some oblique references where one has to 'refer' and try to 'apply' memory and make connections. Suggestive. It exercises the brain box!

What I'm saying is... everybody will see themselves in your pages.... and that's what will make the book popular, I believe (apart from the good 'wordsmithing' in its pages)

Random thoughts......good images of the times, local colour. It's ruthless and hard-hitting (you will take some flack)

I keep willing you down the road to a happy ending ( that it wasn't so bad and all worth while) But I don't think that is going to happen!!

Last night I had the weirdest of dreams. I recalled an episode from a TV series called Stalag 13. The plan was that one prisoner would try to escape by claiming insanity and hence be sent back to the UK by the NAZIs. Weirdly, this ‘expatriation’ deal was true. So, the head of the escape committee gives the man approval to go ahead with the plan, but warns him that he could be going to somewhere he will not realise. And you know what happens in the end? The bloke went mad, stark raving mad. He actually believed he was the madman he created! So I awoke refreshed (a bit) and decided to really go for it, because, in a mad world, the fools have the last laugh…hah-hah-hah

So, my budding writing buddies – read what I will send you, learn a bit, but most of all – do not go down this road because it maybe one you will not return from…

PS – I will try to set up a PayPal account so some of you can throw the idiot the cost of a beer or two now and then.

Carpe Diem - Seize the day

2012-01-08T12:17:00.000Z

I received an Email shortly after my last posting. It came from Mitch Stirling.

He attached a little anecdote he wrote lamenting his time as a fresh, scared, young man starting out as a teacher at Fort Victoria High School. This is mixed with some very good opinions on where Political Correctness has taken the West and the problems teachers have today. He has kindly allowed me to put it up here.

Known as Fort Victoria until 1982, when its name was briefly changed to Nyanda. Within a few months its name was again changed to Masvingo when it was discovered that Nyanda did not translate very well across dialects. It is the oldest colonial settlement in Zimbabwe, and grew up around the encampment established in 1890 by the Pioneer Column en route to their eventual destination, Salisbury. (Wikipedia)

The pictures were scanned from - More Rhodesian Senior Schools 1950-1982 (Part 2) Books of Zimbabwe, 1982

Carpe Diem - Seize the day

After three years at the Teachers' College in Bulawayo I was let loose on the world of Rhodesian education as a teacher of History. My first thoughts were that I really should have paid more attention to the lectures on the theory and practice of education whilst at college. In fact, I thought, I really should have 'attended' those lectures! Oh well, too late now. Into the deep end I went with the finest of Rhodesian youth in 1968.

Fort Victoria High School 1982

The best thing - perhaps the only thing - I had to offer as a teacher was my youth. To my relief I realized that the Fort Victoria High School children who were destined to receive my 'words of pedagogic wisdom' were not children at all, but young adults separated from me only by a few short years. And they were mostly from a middle-class Rhodesian background just like mine. But how, I asked myself, was I to corner them in a classroom on a lovely sunny day and make them interested in history?

Fortunately the Zimbabwe Ruins and the little-known Nyajena Ruins were not too far away, so classroom captivity was not a big problem at all. 'Living' history was a real possibility because there was a school bus, sandwiches and bottles of Mazoe orange to take on expeditions to the ruins and the surrounding Iron Age sites. Perfect.

Young minds were very keen to soak up all of that, as was mine. From those interesting beginnings it was a natural and easy progression to read and learn about the Zulu and Boer War and hold them in memory in preparation for public exams. It would be nice to think that those young folk enjoyed the history as much as I and hopefully that fat red history of "The British Empire and Commonwealth" by James Williamson - the book that most of us remember as the standard text book for "O" level History - lay comfortably in their classroom desks, along with the more demanding Log Tables and "O" Level Maths and Science books.

Another amazing thing I discovered was... when I asked the 'kids' about all the things they loved - like trees and fish and animals - I became the pupil and they the teachers. They were a very knowledgeable bunch of ‘bush babies' who knew far more than I. So, a mutual and instinctive respect for one another developed based on a fascination for the ancient and the natural world, plus some plain old-fashioned decent values which are so often absent in today's world of education.

One of those values was respect for one's seniors. I was brought up with that respect and so were they. It was like an unspoken rank-structure handed down from father to son and mother to daughter. It's what made a young boy stand up when a lady-teacher entered a room, open a door for her and doff his cap at the appropriate moment. I'm not suggesting they had perfect manners those Fort Victorians, nor were they 'goody goodies' by any stretch of the imagination. Far from it. But, there we were (for better or for worse) locked together in a moment of time, trying to understand each other and the world around us. Wonderful memories were made and, dare I say, friendships were formed that have survived the test of time, even to this day.

Friendships... I say that loud and clear. There is nothing wrong or sinister about friendship in a pupil/teacher relationship as long as certain rules of conduct are observed on both sides. Although I have to say that certain things happened in those old days; certain 'things' for which I would probably go to jail for today. To beat some young male miscreant on his bum with a bit of stick was the way of things back then. If a boy was caught smoking or drinking in the hostel dormitories it was normal practice for him to present his buttocks to the staff room for six whacks with a cane. Simple as that: it was the rule. I have been on the giving and receiving end of the 'stick' in my time on many occasions, so I think I can speak with some authority when I say that I don't feel depraved or dysfunctional or psychologically damaged by it in any way. But... and this is the point, one very quickly learns (from both ends) that punishment of any kind should be swift, decisive, occasionally painful, although never dispensed in anger. It is a fast-track learning experience. The cane may be primitive, but it works on most occasions.

At the other end of the scale... to place a comforting arm around a young 12 year old lass, as I did on occasions, seemed perfectly natural and completely innocent. But I would go straight to Alcatraz or San Quentin today - or wherever they put deviant, psychopathic, paedophiles in North America - for such unacceptable behaviour in today's schools. All the best teachers I have known over the years who graced our Rhodesian education department have always had, first and foremost, the kids’ best interests at heart. These men and women could be easily identified by their passion for directing young lives down the straight and narrow paths of life. And they had a quality of fairness about them which could be spotted and appreciated by most school children, sometimes subconsciously, and sometimes not until later years.

The influence of famous educators like Bob Hammond, Jeeves Hougaard, Miss Thwaits, Neil Jardine, Tony Tanser, Dot Turner, Miss Parsons etc etc on the lives of the children in their charge cannot be underestimated. I mention these names at random; there are many more who influenced all of us in many ways... wonderful academics, cricket coaches, tennis coaches, drama, music, art... Some of them even represented Rhodesia in a variety of disciplines and they generously handed down their skills and experience to the next generation of Rhodesians.

But you didn't have to become an international player or a big success at anything to appreciate what those teachers did and how they imprinted themselves indelibly on all of our lives.

“Mum, how come when Rhodesia asked for independence from Britain, we were told no but places like Zambia and Malawi did?” or The history of Rhodesia, Rhodesian style…

2012-01-06T22:43:00.001Z

“Mum, how come when Rhodesia asked for independence from Britain, we were told no but places like Zambia and Malawi did?” or The history of Rhodesia, Rhodesian style…

And so in early 1973, the future Gokwe Kid sat down miserably for another torturous breakfast. It was school holidays. He was 14 going on 15 and was now a pupil at the co-ed Mount Pleasant High School, Salisbury. Having been removed from Allan Wilson Technical School due to ‘poor performance’ by his father, the Headmaster, Geoff Lambert, had kindly placed the lunatic in 3b1 instead of where he should have belonged – mainly in the ‘Special’ class.

He liked his new school. He had chinas from the Boy Scouts days in his class, those days before his father had removed him - blaming the Scouts for ‘poor performance’ at school. There were also nice girls in the class. They tended to be a bit more tolerant of his verbal diarrhoea of unashamed utter bullshit. Also, only the headmaster and deputy heads were allowed to cane the boys, which was a relief because the Kid had been beaten almost everyday at Allan Wilson.

Mount Pleasant High was in the northern suburbs, a so called ‘affluent’ area and had grown at a huge rate, so by the time the Kid was enrolled there were over 1100 pupils spread over six forms. The classes all numbered under 30 pupils. By the time a child entered the third year of higher education, his/her path to O’levels and beyond had been determined. There were three ‘A’ streams. These kids were the crème de la crème, not just Rhodesia’s elite, but in the world –

INTELLIGENCE: THE MENSA JOURNAL No. 97, MARCH 1967, p. 1.

The Intelligence of White Rhodesians
BY NATHANIEL WEYL

For the past five years, all Standard Two European, Coloured and Asiatic students in the Salisbury District of Rhodesia (which contains over 50 per cent of the white population) have been given South African group intelligence tests. Those scoring 130+ have then been tested individually, using the latest international standardization of the Terman-Merrill test.*

About 95 per cent of those scoring 130+ on the group test did so on the individual test. The Terman-Merrill tests revealed that about 7 per cent of the white children in the government schools of the Salisbury district had IQs of 130 or better. This compares with about 2.5 per cent in that range in the U.K. and the U.S. and about 3 per cent in New Zealand. Group testing of pupils in privately operated schools indicated that their inclusion would not have lowered the percentage of gifted children.

Elite

Thus, white Rhodesians are an elite element within the English-speaking world in terms of psychometric intelligence. This finding is reinforced by visual impressions. Salisbury whites appear larger, healthier, more vigorous, alert and bright than London whites. Beatniks, transvestites and obvious homosexuals are conspicuously absent.

Among the reasons offered for the intellectual superiority of white Rhodesian children were:

(1). The Group Test is a much better instrument than the subjective opinions of teachers for winnowing out gifted children from the mass.

(2) Rhodesian policy is to exclude immigrants who lack jobs, thus minimising the influx of unskilled, uneducated and incompetent elements.

(3). Since the white minority must provide managerial, scientific, professional and intellectual leadership for the Africans as well as the Europeans, the demand for elite elements is enormous. Rhodesian officials estimate that 15 per cent of their white population consists of professionals and highly skilled technicians as against 10 per cent in the case of white South Africans and only 6 per cent in the case of the British. (The tests showed that the Coloured and Asiatic children made quantitatively insignificant contributions to the 130+ IQ group.)

(4). Immigration to developing frontier countries is probably positively selective for self-reliance and intelligence.

Of the 800 or so white Rhodesian children who scored 130 or better, no less than twelve were shown to have Iqs in the 180+ range. This again is a multiplier of the normal IQ distribution.

‘A’ streamers would be fast tracked in two years through their O’level curriculums. They could take as many as they liked and tended to hang around in their own clique, but some ‘B’ streamers, especially boys of sporting abilities were acceptable. ‘B’ streamers were a weird hotchpotch. There were two. B1 and B2 but only divided to maintain low numbers in class. They would take three years to complete a minimum of five O’levels. They were given some options. English, French/Afrikaans and Maths a must. All boring. Geography also a must. The Kid loved this subject; especially as his teacher had the biggest mazams he had ever had the pleasure of looking at, stuffed into a tight, sleeveless top.

Then you could choose two from the following – Accounts, Biology, Physics and Chemistry, Domestic Cooking and History. The Kid loved history and biology told you about sex so that was that. There was a problem though. His biology teacher was called Mrs Virgo, and although a nice old dear, was rather old fashioned and learning about reproduction from her tended to put you off the idea. Here was a problem. The ‘A’ streamers were taught by the best teachers. ‘B’ streamers were taught by the less gifted, such as the maths teacher who didn’t even have a degree.

‘C’ streams were for the idiots. Quite a lot of them actually, C1,2 and 3, but not all were totally brain dead. Some suffered from learning disabilities that are recognised now, but in those days were just bundled under ‘thick and naughty’ and had what little sense they had constantly beaten out of them in the vague hope of getting some into them. One of these went on to become world famous – Bruce Grobbelaar.

But it is HISTORY that interested the Kid that fateful morning as he watched with growing alarm as the ponging mess called Pronutro – Banana flavour, slowly coagulated into the soya bean mash it was made of. The Kid neither liked nor disliked his petite, blonde and rather strict step-mother Katherine. It was all just c'est la vie for him. No hugs and stuff in this family, just a smack across the head from father if he returned a barb with one of his own. And then the Kid did a classic – opened his mouth before engaging brain

“Mum, how come when Rhodesia asked for independence from Britain, we were told no but places like Zambia and Malawi did?”

Step-Mum pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes. The Kid knew the look and thought he shouldn’t have hit the enter button before going carefully over the content.

Katherine stood up and returned shortly with a large, brand new text book and placed it before the panicked eyes of the future winner of ‘Rhodesia Has No Talent’. The book is titled Longman Secondry Histories. The Modern World since 1900. It is a 1973 revised edtion published by Longman Rhodesia (Pvt) Ltd, Southerton, Rhodesia.

“Ignore the first two thirds; they cover much of what your O’level history curriculum of Europe since the 19 hundreds. I want you to read the section ‘Africa South of the Sahara 1900-1972.’ I want you to pay particular attention to the Chapter 28 and read the questions at the end and write the answers. You will dedicate two hours each morning of the holidays to the task. At the end you will know the answer. Do I make myself understood?”

The Kid felt sick as a proverbial pig. A simple question received a rather complicated answer – one to totally mess up his plans of just dossing about for four weeks.

“What is this book?” the Kid babbled in panic.

“The Rhodesian Government has recognised that not all whites are bright sparks. They have realised that O’level may be just out the reach of some of them. They have introduced a new certificate. It is called the Rhodesian General Certificate of Education, RGCE. They pass, they may go onto O’levels. If they fail O’ levels, at least they may have something to show a future employee.”

This was all doing the Kid’s head in. He thought of maybe taking a mouthful of Pronutro and fall on the floor, spasmodically twitch a bit while spitting gunky soya gunge out his mouth. No chance of that – wicked step-mother was well tuned to his stunts.

“But, but, I know all about Rhodesian history, like at Blakistan Junior School we learnt about the Mazoe Patrol, and, and at Allan Wilson, they even have bits of them in cabinet!”

“So you know everything do you? Pray, open to page 289 and answer the following.”

The Kid does as he is told and with horror realizes he is well up the creek -

Southern Rhodesia

a) For what reasons did Britain establish control over Southern Rhodesia?

b) How was the country governed from 1898 to 1923?

c) How did the European settlers gain power? _ .

d) ln what ways did the economy of Southern Rhodesia develop in this period?

e) Why did the settlers demand a change of government after the First World War? What kind of government did they want?

f) Describe the constitution set up in 1923.

g) Name three Prime Ministers who held office between 1923 and 1953.

h) What was the Land Apportionment Act and why was it passed?

i) How did Southern Rhodesia's economy develop up to the Second World War? .

j) What part did Southern Rhodesia play in the Second World War and how was the country affected by the war?

“Er, this is for the idiots, clever kids don’t need to know things like this. We learn about English kings and stuff, and world wars and nasty Nazis, much more interesting.”

Katherine ignores this ignorant comment and turns the pages to the questions on page 341 -

Events in Southern Rhodesia

a) Name the two Prime Ministers of Southern Rhodesia 1953-1962.

b) (i) Who were the African nationalist leaders and what did they

want?

(ii) Why were the nationalist parties banned?

c) What did Africans gain by the constitution of 1961 ?

d) What new party gained power in 1962? Who was the Prime

Minister? What was the attitude of the new government to the

Federation?

e) Why did Southern Rhodesia fail to gain full independence from

the British Government?

f) What does 'U.D.l.’ mean? When did Rhodesia declare U.D.l.?

g) How did the British Government and the United Nations try to

overthrow the Rhodesian Government? Why did these measures

fail?

h) Where and when were unsuccessful attempts made to reach

settlements after U.D.l.?

i) When did Rhodesia become a Republic? Who was Prime Minister

and who was President?

“Can you answer these? You will after you study. You may start now. I will be monitoring you.”

- - -

Woosh, it is 2012, The Gokwe Kid rolls another cheeky fag and gazes out the window. The book is there, looking rather dragged about, but he has it. Perhaps the only one in existence now. It is so clear, almost prophetic in clarity. The history of Rhodesia, uncomplicated, simple and yet for all its brilliance was restricted to ‘C’ streamers. Crazy… He scans pages, does some OCR and messes about with the parts he needs. He wonders why we, the white Rhodesians never clicked. For all our ‘fine’ education, we just didn’t get it. Nor did the author in the end. But if we had looked…it was all there, but study HISTORY and African history at that…eish, what the hell for? It is not like we will lose anything…or

- - -

The future winner of the Rhodesian X-factor conceded defeat, staggered to his room and moaned for ten minutes about his own stupid gob…and he read and read. The prose was so…basic that even an idiot could understand it –

Southern Rhodesia

Cecil Rhodes was a wealthy man with driving ambition. During the Scramble for Africa, he wished to extend British power to the region between the Limpopo and the Zambezi Rivers and so prevent the Boers of South Africa or the Portuguese of l\/Mozambique acquiring the area. Gold had been found and it was hoped that the region would prove as rich as the South African Rand.

ln 1885, he persuaded the British Government to establish a Protectorate over Bechuanaland thus securing the route from the Cape to the land beyond the Limpopo. In 1888, his agent, Rudd, obtained a Concession from Lobengula, the king of the dominant

Matatabele tribe. This gave Rhodes permission to look for minerals in Mashonaland, an area to the north of Matebeleland, in which Lobengula sent his warriors to raid.

In the following year, Rhodes obtained a Royal Charter which set up his British South Africa Company. The Company was given permission to govern Mashonaland and to make land grants. In 1890, the first group of Europeans entered Mashonaland as settlers, establishing forts along their way. Their journey ended at Fort Salisbury, named after the British Prime Minister of the time. After that, the pioneers dispersed to farm and look for minerals. Soon afterwards, an Eastern border to the Company's territory was established after a dispute with the Portuguese.

Lobengula and his chiefs were unhappy with the extent of British penetration and the restrictions which had been placed on their raids into Mashonaland. Attacks on the Mashona caused a war with the European settlers in 1893. Although the British suffered a serious disaster when a patrol led by Major Allan Wilson was wiped out by the Matabele, European weapons soon proved effective. The Matabele were subdued and Lobengula died soon afterwards.

In 1896, first the Matabele, then the Mashona, rebelled against the British South Africa Company. The Matabele were subdued and in a series of indabas or discussions in the Matapos hills, Rhodes himself met the chiefs and persuaded them to accept the Company's

authority. Finally, the Mashona rebellion was also brought under control. The name 'Rhodesia' was used for the first time in 1895.

Government by the Chartered Company 1893-1923

The British South Africa Company, often known as the Chartered Company continued to rule Southern Rhodesia until 1923. At the head of the government was an Administrator. Efficient government was introduced by two men in particular: Sir William Milton, the Administrator from 1898 to 1914, reorganised the Civil Service, and Sir Drummond Chaplin, his successor, continued his work.

ln 1898, the British Government gave Southern Rhodesia a new constitution. The normal Executive and Legislative Councils were set up and from the beginning the settlers elected members to the Legislative Council. By 1907, their representatives were in a majority.

Meanwhile the country developed economically. Railways were constructed from Beira and the Cape. Gold was found in quantities, but coal, chrome and asbestos became more valuable to the economy. European agriculture also developed and after the First World War, tobacco became an important export.

Responsible Government

At first the Company and the settlers got on well together but by the First World War, a quarrel had developed between them. The settlers believed that the Company paid too much attention to its shareholders in England and that it should spend more on such things as schools and hospitals. They also resented the tax on gold miners and the granting of land to speculators. In its turn, the Company found that it was not making a profit and wanted to give up the responsibility of governing the country.

The war brought a lull in the argument, as approximately 25 per cent of the European population took part in campaigns in German South West Africa and East Africa, as well as overseas. However, an association was founded during the war to work for Responsible

Government for Southern Rhodesia. As we have seen, in this type of government, the Prime Minister and his Cabinet are chosen from the chief party in the elected Legislative Council. As the settlers already had a majority of representatives in the Council, this would give them

control of the government.

After a General Election in 1920, twelve out of thirteen elected members on the Legislative Council supported the Responsible Government Association led by Charles Coglhan. The British Government then appointed a Commission to investigate the governments of both Northern and Southern Rhodesia. For Southern Rhodesia, they recommended Responsible Government if a majority of voters approved in a referendum. As some people favoured union with South Africa, the voters were offered a choice, but the majority voted for Responsible Government. The new constitution came into force in 1923. Southern Rhodesia became a British colony with a Government representing the king. The Government was to be chosen from the Legislative Assembly which was elected by those who could read and write and had an income of £1OO per annum. The colony was to be practically self-governing in internal matters, but the British kept control of Foreign Policy.

The Kid sighs deeply. What the hell must he learn this shit for? It wasn’t like he was going to have to fight for the nonsense - little did he know… A couple of chinas turn up and bang on the kid’s bedroom window. They want him to come out and play. Swim and do ‘Marco-Polo’ in the pool glistening so invitingly just on the right of his line of sight. Katherine hears the knocks too and dismisses them until 10 o’clock, as he must study. He hates her…

Southern Rhodesia 1923-45

Southern Rhodesia developed smoothly under Charles Coglhan who was Prime Minister from 1923 until his death in 1927. He was followed by Howard Unwin Moffat who began to experience difficulties. ln the early 1930s when the Great Depression caused unemployment

and hardship and many people left the country. Economic difficulties brought Moffat's downfall and in 1933, Godfrey Huggins became Prime Minister. He had come to the country as a young doctor and stayed on. He was a popular personality and actually remained Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia until 1953, and then of the Federation until 1956, the longest 'reign' in the British Commonwealth.

As in Kenya, a land problem developed especially as the African population gradually increased with the end of tribal warfare and the introduction of better living conditions. ln an attempt to solve the problem, Moffat's Government passed the Land Apportionment

Act of 1931. This separated the lands of the two main races who were not allowed to buy land in each other's areas. This was intended to prevent exploitation of the African by speculators and also to encourage white immigrants to bring their capital and skill to develop the European areas. However, it caused bitterness amongst Africans who resented the amount of land allocated to European use.

After the set-back of the Depression, economic development continued. Tobacco became Southern Rhodesia's biggest export. New minerals were discovered, strip roads were laid and industries began to grow up in the towns. Economic development caused a social problem. Many Africans left their villages to work on the European farms and in the mines and

towns. Their wages helped to buy the consumer goods that were now available. However, the system had some bad side effects. The Europeans regarded the Africans as only temporary residents in their areas. Most of them left their wives and children at home and so families were split, and this caused a decline in traditional African values. Many workers did indeed return to their villages after saving enough money for what they wanted, but others became

de-triba|ised and did not wish to return, yet they had no permanent home in the town. This problem became worse after the Second World War. African agriculture also deteriorated as too much was left to the women who were conservative in outlook and resisted

new methods.

Yawn, what does the Kid care? The only ‘real’ contact he had with black people was Julia the maid and David the garden-boy. Not exactly the future…He plods on through the chapter.

Southern Rhodesia played an important part in the Second World War considering her size. Several camps were set up to train Air Force personnel, while about 10,000 troops of all races served in the British Army in such areas as North Africa, Italy, the Middle and Far East. Many of the Africans who had served abroad came back with new ideas and afterwards began to demand more opportunities for advancement. ln addition, the war caused an economic boom as the demand for agricultural produce and minerals increased. Factories to manufacture consumer goods also grew up as it became difficult to import them from Britain.

The days go by, and the Kid attempts to absorb the short history of his country. He skips a bit…

Soon after the break up of the Central African Federation in 1963, Malawi (Nyasaland) and Zambia (Northern Rhodesia) achieved independence. Southern Rhodesia, originally the most advanced of the three territories, had still not gained full independence, though, in practice, Britain had very little control over her affairs.

During the Federal period up to 1962, Southern Rhodesia had two Prime Ministers, Garfield Todd and Sir Edgar Whitehead, who had passed laws to advance Africans. However. African nationalists led by Joshua Nkomo and Ndabaningi Sithole were not satisfied with the rate of progress. They did not oppose the Federation in the same way as the nationalists in the Northern Protectorates, but wanted 'one man, one vote', and African control of the Southern Rhodesia Government. Their violence led to the banning of the nationalist parties, the restriction of the leaders and a State of Emergency in 1959.

However, a new constitution was introduced in 1961 and approved in a referendum by the Rhodesian electorate. This gave more Africans the vote according to their education and property. African nationalists were not satisfied. Renewed violence and intimidation led to the banning of Nkomo's Zimbabwe African Peoples Union (ZAPU.),and the renewed detention of the nationalist leaders. The majority of Europeans were worried by this violence and in the elections of 1962 (which the African voters boycotted to show their dislike of the

constitution) they ousted Sir Edgar Whitehead and voted in the newly formed Rhodesian Front Party, (RF).

The new Prime Minister, Winston Field, asked for independence for Southern Rhodesia but this was refused by the British Government who wanted a constitution more favourable to the African nationalists. Fie|d's failure to gain independence resulted in his replacement by Ian Smith in 1964. Long negotiations between Smith and the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, achieved nothing. The British laid down Six Principles for a settlement, the first of which stated there must be unimpeded progress towards majority rule'. This was unacceptable to the Europeans of Southern Rhodesia who did not want to hand political power to inexperienced Africans.

Because of the failure to achieve independence by negotiation, the Rhodesian Government made a Unilateral (onesided) Declaration of Independence on 11 November 1965. The British Government said this was illegal and imposed sanctions or trading restrictions on the country. This failed to subdue Rhodesia and in December 1966, Smith and Wilson met once more, aboard H.M.S. Tiger in the Mediterranean. It seemed as if a settlement had been reached but the agreement broke down because the British proposals for an interim government until final arrangements had been made were not satisfactory to the Rhodesians.

After that, Prime Minister Wilson appealed to the U.N. to impose mandatory (compulsory) sanctions against Rhodesia. This was done, but because it was impossible to block all access to Rhodesia, sanctions did not bring the country's downfall. In fact, because of the difficulty of importing goods, secondary industry expanded and boom conditions followed. The main result of sanctions was to place the European electorate more firmly than before behind Smith and the Rhodesian Front Government. In 1968, further negotiations between Smith and Wilson on board HMS Fearless also broke down and in 1970, still unrecognised by the rest of the world, Rhodesia became a Republic, with Smith as Prime Minister and Clifford Dupont as President.

ln 1971 negotiations were reopened with the British Government. ln November, Ian Smith and Sir Alec Douglas Home signed an agreement by which Rhodesian Indepen-

dence would be recognised by Britain. A new constitution was to be introduced giving Africans a gradually increasing number of seats in the Assembly, while racial discrimination was to be reduced. However, in accordance with one of the Six Principles, the British wished

to test public opinion to see if it favoured the proposed settlement.

A Commission led by Lord Pearce was sent to Rhodesia and in May 1972 reported its findings: while most Europeans, Coloureds and Asians were in favour, the Africans rejected the proposals in over whelming numbers. The Rhodesian Government claimed that this was caused by intimidation, but the verdict meant that the settlement was not put into force.

The Kid hands in his answers. What a waste of time! He has learnt nothing really and doesn’t give a toss…

- - -

Woosh, 2012, a late evening. The Gokwe Kid is tired, but absolutely fascinated. Shame the story ends in 1972. Eish, a few years later all shit breaks out! He rolls yet again another cheeky and decides he is an alcoholic. He ruffles through a few more pages. He finds some stuff and starts to think the author of this text book was lucky not to be shot – by either side-

- - -

Criticism of colonialism

The colonial period in Africa's history was really very short, less than a hundred years, but it brought important changes. African nationalists are quick to point out the bad side of colonialism, for example the exploitation of their raw materials and minerals and the use made of cheap or even forced labour. Many educated Africans resented the

condescending attitude of Europeans.

On the other hand, without colonialism, there would have been no

nationalism. It was the European powers which drew the boundaries of modern African nations. ln addition, the Europeans brought many social and economic benefits: Britain in particular spent more money in the later years of her rule than she ever took out of her colonies.

Communications were developed, crops introduced, minerals discovered and mined. Missions, hospitals, schools and clinics were established. The modern African nationalist was himself produced by these European influences, not by the tribal past of pre-colonial

Africa which he usually rejected.

The problems of independence

Many Africans expected too much of independence. lt did not automatically solve old problems and, in fact, it created some new ones. The most serious of these was a lack of unity within the state. During the struggle for freedom, most Africans had been united against the colonial Government, their common enemy. Once this was removed, tribal and regional feuds revived and caused political conflict and even bloodshed as in the Nigerian Civil War from 1966 to 1970.

Because of the need to achieve unity, most African countries soon became one party states. The political group which had gained independence ran the government and banned all other political organisations. The former French colonies were the first to do this but some ex-British states soon followed suit. These states had been left with parliaments like those of Paris or West-minster but these did not suit the African personality. To the new leaders, the Western European system of allowing and even paying critics to oppose the government seemed extremely foolish especially as they had few experienced politicians. As Nyerere of Tanzania said, “There can be no room for difference or division.”

The politicians claimed that the one party system was a more African way of doing lthings than democracy. ln the tribal past, the elders used to meet under an indaba tree and discuss difficulties until they were solved, not divide into groups to oppose each other. Along with one party states, African Socialism developed. In general, this meant that the government controlled most aspects of life in the country. Once opposition was banned, the Prime Minister often became the President as well. Parliament became unimportant and the government began strict supervision of civil servants, police and the law courts. ln a democracy, these are regarded as neutral in political matters, but many African governments staffed them with loyal party men.

The people of the African states became in general far less free than under colonial rule. In many states, critics of the government could be arrested, restricted, gaoled or even executed, either without trial or after proceedings in which all the judges were party men and in which they were allowed no defence. The most extreme example of this, occurred in Guinea in January 1971, when over fifty people were executed in public for their part in an alleged invasion of the country.

It was not always easy to find sufficient educated men to staff government departments and so incompetence often hindered the work. Added to this was corruption, as many officials used their positions of power to take bribes and so line their own pockets at the expense of the government. This was very difficult to eradicate especially in West Africa where the system of ‘dash' or bribery had been a way of life since the old slave trading days.

As there was no legal way of changing the government, critics had to resort to violence. Often in the new African states, the army was the only group with the necessary strength to overthrow the political leaders. As popular discontent increased, the generals ousted the politicians. General Mobuto of the Congo was the first of the military rulers. Then, when Ghana’s President Nkrumah was absent from the country in 1966, he was deposed by the army, which set a new fashion in military coups.

These became common place, the most recent to date being the deposition of Milton Obote of Uganda in January 1971. African states ,are, in general, very poor. They need schools, hospitals and clinics. They need to develop agriculture, industry and communications. They need mines, dams` and power stations. However, they lack the technicians who are needed to develop these projects and because the people are poor, they cannot raise the money to pay for them in taxation. Such money as is available is often wasted on prestige projects such as monuments and Presidential palaces which do not benefit the people at all. To make matters worse, the population is expanding at such a rate that a LITTLE development is useless: ENORMOUS improvements are necessary FAST.

Foreign Aid could help to solve economic problems but often the country which gives it expects support in return. Both Russian and Chinese Communists have sent aid, for example to Guinea and Tanzania, in the hope of securing a foothold in Africa. On the other hand, Western European countries and the U.S.A. are accused of neo-colonialism, when they ask for support in return for their assistance. Thus, Africa could become a scene of rivalry in the Cold War, though most African states claim to be neutral. ln fact, they have tried to make themselves part of the 'Third World', of the non-aligned powers. As most Asian and African states had gained independence by 1970, they were in fact in a majority in the United Nations where they had great influence.

- - -

Woosh – 2012, North Wales. The Gokwe Kid runs to the toilets and vomits. This cannot be. It is almost four decades since he read that stuff, and yet it is real as today. This is all too much, why was this restricted to the idiots? Would it have made a difference if it was taught to the bright sparks? Who knows, because a short time later – WAR and 50.000, give or take a few, will die…for what?

The Kid is knackered, but he has one more page to scan. The signed page of this history book. He recalls meeting the co-author and had demanded that book for his collection. It was not signed. In fact, it was just a test copy with a few, corrections jotted in. He insisted on a signature.

“I haven’t signed using this name for a very long time,” the co-author said to the Kid.

“Do it, just go for it,” the Kid replied.

And so he got his way. He knew a bit about the author. A strict Roman-Catholic (besides bending the rules now and then), born and raised in a working class two up and down terraced house in some backwater in Leeds, United Kingdom. The father was a steam train driver, the mother a house wife, but with frugality they sent their only chid to university. A personality that was not very creative - but very determined. Though marriage the author landed up in Nyasaland, teaching black children. Divorce and migration saw the writer teach at Hatfield Girls High, Oriel Girls High, Species College and be an archive secretary to Sir Roy Welaensky, in Salisbury, Rhodesia. Later - became the Head of History at Mount Pleasant High and in protest after 1980, when the ruling party insisted on changing history, became Head of History at the prestigious, privately funded St Georges High School. A position held for well after the use by date.

The Kid pushes a book page for maybe the last time into the scanner. It is the page with the signature…

The Gokwe Kid – Prologue or Pre-madness?

2012-01-05T17:41:00.001Z

Early 2012. Storms are lashing the west coast of North Wales. The Gokwe Kid, now in his early fifties, sighs dramatically as he puffs on a cheeky cigarette and blows the smoke out off the partially open balcony door. No smoking allowed in the tiny flat he habituates. Like some fool on a hill, high as a kite and drunk as a lord, he is none of these - for they are appalling metaphors. He is worse and stuck half way up the side of a mountain.

He sups on beer, thinking, pondering - his mind confused but yet…almost visionary of the imminent fame and accolade he has desired ever since he once woke up inspired one morning and we realised one of us was a schizophrenic. It wasn’t that hard to create a Shilo, the imaginary friend of Neil Diamond fame. The Gokwe Kid called his cerebral best china, PO Greenberg. He was a policeman, a so called Patrol Officer in some part of deepest, blackest, bad-ass Africa and was rather useless. He was always in trouble. But in his own way he was funny bugger, stuck in the late 1970s, totally ignorant of the rest of the world outside his immediate senses.

The greatest detective ever to stride the continent famed for famine, handouts, food aid, AIDS and Kalashnikovs, wandered into the kitchen and solved yet another mystery in seconds. The fridge lacked beer. The Kid sighed. It meant he would have to persuade the stupid ex policeman to go down the hill and stock up a bit. He hated this confrontation. PO Greenberg was rather lazy sometimes and moaned terribly when sent out in raging storms to keep the Kid happy and fit to finish writing his memoir. Still, for all the drama queen antics, he went anyway.

The Dick of Bushveld was at a turning point. His book is almost, almost complete. His editor seems to be on strike, his promised cartoonist can’t be bothered and he might have managed to hack off loads of people with strange Emails and Facebook postings. Otherwise he is rather pleased with the progress. One little, teeny, weeny problem is how to do a prologue. In other words - sort of get a background as to what made us mad. Not us-us, but white people going to Africa, especially a place that was called for a minuscule of time - RHODESIA.

Tripping over another pile of memoirs relating from a time long gone and memory fainted reproduced spluttering of THAT short period; when the myth of the invincible crusaders of Livingstone’s three Cs – Cunning, Conquest and Capitalism fought with the reality of the true African version – Conning, Cruelty and Capitalising, the Gokwe Kid struggled to think of a new approach.

We mean, like, there is plenty out there in cyber space. Rhodesia is more connected than they ever were in ‘the good old days’. Old enemies are now friends, ignorant bigots get tut-tutted on Facebook by those that are smart enough to know a bit more. And they write, oh how they write. Lament, lament a time that the ignorant world can PC correct pick and poke at - but one thing no one can deny the white Rhodesians – we had the best steak, egg and chips. Steak when we had it all, Egg on our faces as it went tits up, and we got our chips. But, in a way, we had the last laugh.

And yet we do not laugh. We cry for the beloved country and so we write and write and hope people will understand and if not…fuck ‘em, it was a hella of a ride!

Then the Kid remembered a book. A special and very rare book. It was signed by one of the co-authors. There, in there - was the prologue, the beginning he needed…

(To be maybe continued…)

Sixpence and the Great White Bwana

2012-01-02T16:44:00.002Z

Yo all. Happy New Year and all that bollocks. I am still alive and kicking up a right ruckus. Forget Year of the Dragon – this is the year of the Gokwe Kid. More about that later, but meanwhile, many people wonder how I became so disturbed? It is, sadly, a long story but below is part of it. When I write the prequel (should I still be alive by then) what you read now is a disturbing insight into the mind of a highly unbalanced individual. This is all true.

Sixpence and the Great White Bwana

In 1971, Sixpence and the Great White Bwana are members of 8^th Mount Pleasant, (Salisbury), Boy Scout Troop and are at Coronation Park for the boy scout cooking competition. Both are aged 13 going 14. Bwana is ‘A’ stream at school. Sixpence cannot swim…

* * *

Sixpence sat on one of the many boxes that he had just unloaded and sticking a finger in one nostril, he thought that maybe it was a bad plan to have volunteered to be the Great White Bwana’s sidekick for the day. He normally spent Saturday fully occupied, doing nothing, but here he was, dressed all smart in his Boy Scout uniform and about to spend his free time as unpaid assistant cook. Bwana had promised Sixpence that if he worked hard, did as he was told and shut his stupid mouth, he, the Great White Bwana would cook the best fish kedgeree and baked apple desert in the world, and thus win first prize at the annual Scout cooking competition and that he, Sixpence, would receive 50% of the spoils.

Once Bwana had found the small, roped off allocated plot that would become the bush kitchen for a day, he had his Sixpence working hard immediately. After dragging most of Bwana’s mother’s kitchen out the back of her estate car and assembling three tables, Sixpence was told to go to the wood pile.

‘Now, Sixpence,’ Bwana said, whilst handing him two huge buckets, ‘get only nice looking pieces of wood. In one bucket you bring me small white ones and in the other large dark ones. I want six bucket loads and stacked neatly in the corner. Do you understand?’

‘Yes Baas,’ Sixpence replied and wandered confusedly to the massive pile of off-cuts that had been dumped by the local furniture manufacturer in the middle of the football sized field.

By now the sun was doing its usual Central African stunt by making poor Sixpence sweat terribly as he staggered back with the heavy buckets. Meanwhile, Bwana had created TWO fireplaces with some bricks (nice clean ones) that had magically appeared from one of the tin trunks that Sixpence had nearly split a gut dragging to the plot.

Even though Sixpence was an expert arsonist since the age of three, Bwana wouldn’t allow him to build the fires. Bwana wanted to make a work of art. White wood had been used to get the fires started and he had then carefully placed the dark hard wood on top. If Sixpence would have made the fire, it would have been a huge pyramid, and he would have poured some petrol on it and have a big blaze immediately. Just like Boss Rob in the adjacent plot next door! Now instead, poor Sixpence was forced to lie on the ground and blow gently on the fires to get them glowing nicely.

‘Sixpence, go and fill the buckets with water. One must always be on the small fire getting hot for your washing up water,’ Bwana told his lazy cook-boy, who was taking a short break and scratching at his hole, whilst grinning stupidly at the next-door neighbours; who had just realised that they had forgotten to bring any tables.

Sixpence couldn’t understand why Bwana refused to give Boss Rob and Boss Angus one of their tables, for after all, they were also from the same Scout troop.

As Sixpence wandered off to look for some water, he was starting to think that he was going to be doing very little cooking and a lot of manual labour. He muttered mutinous threats under his breath.

When Sixpence returned with his feet and socks soaking wet from spilling half of the water, Bwana had turned the plot into a scene straight out of some futuristic Out of Africa film. He had a huge green umbrella over two tables. Piles of snow white crockery and gleaming stainless steel pots and pans and silver tea-set, covered one table. Two huge, spotless, wood chopping boards and an entire set of master chef knives were placed on the other. Sixpence also had a table that was covered, but not with shade. His table was covered with a large plastic washing up bowl, a drying rack, a bottle of sanction busting imported washing up liquid, and a pile of stain free, neatly ironed tea towels with motifs of roses.

‘Sixpence, here is a scrubbing brush for your nails. Whilst I prepare the food, you can go for a walk but be back in 30 minutes because I will have some washing up for you then.’

‘Yes Baas, thank you Baas’, Sixpence said.

He was happy for a respite, as he was hurting from all the heavy loads his poor back had suffered. Wandering aimlessly about, his heart was bursting with pride as he looked at all the other hundred odd kitchens. His Bwana had the best one of all and Boss Rob and Angus had the worst!

Sixpence got back right on time, only fifteen minutes late, to find Bwana had indeed produced lots of dirty plates to be washed up. Bwana was very forgiving and instead of whipping his boy, handed a crisply ironed, whiter than white apron to Sixpence, who was then soon washing happily away. The washing up liquid made his hands soft, not like the stuff at his home, which gave him palms like scouring pads whenever he was forced by his parents to wash up because the lazy maid didn’t have to work on Sundays.

Whilst Sixpence dried up, he watched the three judges who had arrived for the first inspection and were now in Boss’s Angus and Rob’s kitchen. Boss Rob was filleting a couple of bream (tilapia), on his lap whilst sitting cross-legged on the ground. The fish was stinking a bit under the midday sun, making Sixpence’s nose runny and he wiped it clean on his forearm. The judges were very impressed with Boss Angus who was busy doing a famed tribal dance called, ‘Termite Death’. He was stamping on millions of tiny red ants that were crawling in chaotic order over everything whilst looking for free snacks. The judges noted carefully the pots that were caked with muck and were boiling furiously on top of a warped blackened wire grill, balanced precariously on three unlike sized rocks.

Now it was the turn for The Great White Bwana and his Sixpence to be inspected. Bwana made his Sixpence stand to attention, as Bwana gave the judges the smartest Boy Scout salute since Lord Baden-Powell invented it. They wandered around with murmurs of astonishment. Sixpence guessed the last time they had seen a set up like this was at the five star Victoria Falls hotel! Even the dustbin looked like it had been flown in from some far away land just for this occasion. All the ingredients for the meal were beautifully laid out, the smoked herrings rested in a bed of ice, ready to be broken up into large chunks and to be placed into a spotless pot with gently warming milk, complete with a bay leaf floating on the top. The perfect smokeless fire glowed invitingly under the stainless steel grill. Bwana was as cool as the cucumber sandwiches that he offered the judges.

‘Perhaps a small refreshment’ he said, proffering a huge brilliant white, gold embossed serving tray with tiny triangular sliced sandwiches made with fluffy private bakery bread, perched cheekily between thinly sliced iced lettuce. ‘Perhaps, a cup of tea? Sixpence, pour some tea for our esteemed guests.’

Sixpence, not being a complete idiot, did so with a flourish, complete with a clean tea towel draped over his arm as he poured tea into dainty cups. Putting on his number one smile, he asked if they preferred illegally imported white, brown or candy sugar. Bwana seemed satisfied as the judges moved on.

‘Sixpence, stop grinning like an idiot! Make yourself useful.’ Bwana handed Sixpence a huge tin of aerosol ant killer. ‘Spray the table legs and all the ground’.

Sixpence did as he was told in double quick time. He wanted to take a burning stick out the fire and spray that too, because it made a cool flame thrower to roast the ants, but he knew Bwana would give him a clap around the ear hole if he tried.

Sixpence decided to take the piss a bit.

‘Aaah, Baas Rob, shall I spray your food as well? I think you are suppose to make fish kedgeree not ant kedgeree,’ he said whilst laughing like a hyena.

Bass Rob was not impressed and told Sixpence he was a cheeky bastard and would get a kick up his arse so hard that Sixpence would turn into two Tickys.

Cheeky Sixpence went back to washing dishes, giggling stupidly at his own clever wit, whilst Bwana was getting everything ready for the baked apple. As he set about mixing dark brown demerara sugar with cinnamon, Bwana decided to try and educate Sixpence.

‘Sixpence, the rules, besides saying what kind of meal it must be, has only one other requisite. This is that the meal must be cooked over an open fire.’ Bwana tipped his head in the direction of the suffering fools next door, ‘Bush cooking can be done in two ways. One is in a simulation of a war zone, complete with starving soldiers, battling the elements to create something edible that might kill them, if the termites don’t eat them alive first, or - secondly - it can be done in a style fit for a King!’

Sixpence just nodded his head enthusiastically. He couldn’t answer, because firstly, he didn’t have a clue what Bwana was going on about, and secondly his mouth was stuffed with the rest of the cucumber sandwiches that he had thieved when Bwana wasn’t looking.

Bwana picked up a perfectly shaped, glossy granny smith apple. In his other hand he had a strange object resembling a small steel tube attached to the handle. As he carefully pressed it through the middle of the apple from the top, he went on educating his Sixpence.

‘Sixpence, can you remember what the Boy Scout motto is?’

Sixpence, thought carefully whilst he swallowed the last sandwich,

‘Yes Baas, it is, “Be Prepared”.’

Sixpence's eyes bulged with astonishment as he watched Bwana, who with a few deft twists, pulled the entire core out the apple. Sixpence knew that if he had attempted to use this amazing piece of, ‘White Mans Magic’, the corer would have carried on through the apple and made a huge hole in his palm.

‘I have practised this dish three times at home. I have it down to perfection. In exactly 45 minutes we will be ready to present it to the judges,’ Bwana said as he stuffed the apple with the sugar mix.

He then placed an aural of cloves around the top and placed it on a small aluminium tray. This was then carefully placed in a large pot. He slowly added water till it floated and with the lid in place this in turn was placed on the fire.

Sixpence was very impressed and made a mental note that perhaps there were other ways to being clever besides having just a smart mouth that got him into trouble all the time. Sixpence noticed that Bass Rob had also prepared their apple. It didn’t involve such fancy preparation as the Bwana’s apple. They just popped a small one into an enamel cup, poured some water over it and placed it in the middle of the hottest flames, where its skin promptly started to shrivel in agony.

Whilst Sixpence did more washing up, Bwana prepared the coup de grace. On a silver platter three of the bone china plates were placed. A small vase appeared with a single red rose in it. Three pure linen serviettes, neatly rolled, were placed in polished silver rings to match the three silver forks and spoons. The aroma being given off by the fish kedgeree in its imported basmati rice made Sixpence’s mouth dribble with desire.

After a while, Baas Rob and Baas Angus had returned from where they had brought their burnt offerings to be judged. They announced arrogantly to the Great White Bwana that, ‘the judges said it was delicious!’

‘Sixpence, put on a fresh apron and comb your hair,’ Bwana said as he placed the finished food onto the plates. Looking at the tray, Sixpence was stunned. The apple was fit to burst, not a mark on its skin except streaks of glossy melted sugar reeking of cinnamon dribbling gently down.

Now, whilst Sixpence hadn’t taken much part in the cooking, he was not a total bloody fool and he had one trick up his sleeve. Not even the cleverest Bwana had thought of this one!

‘Baas, you forgot one thing,’ and from his coat pocket he gave Bwana a beautiful hand made menu, embossed with the Boy Scout Logo and inside was little pictures of fish and apples. Sixpence had even managed to spell ‘kedgeree’ correctly!

Bwana was very pleased with his Sixpence and they joined the end of the line. Bwanas timing was impeccable. The food was still piping hot when it was presented to the stunned judges. Tears of gratitude rolled down their cheeks and they willingly participated in the ceremony as Sixpence presented the menu, then laid the serviettes on their laps whilst Bwana served up the food. The oohhs and aahhs of appreciation reverberated around, stunning the other competitors. They were all going to be losers, and they knew it. Sixpence now knew he would become famous one day.

The last part of the competition was presenting a cleaned up kitchen. Sixpence was very upset as Bwana had made him even clean up the fireplace and scrub the grills till he was almost blinded by its flashing brilliance. After the judges had been for the final marking, Bwana packed everything away and Sixpence dragged his exhausted body once more backwards and forwards whilst loaded down with crates and boxes full of hot bricks.

As the sun set, the Scouts all gathered for the prize giving. Bwana looked very smart but Sixpence was rather bedraggled and smelled of wood-smoke. And then it happened – Bwana and Sixpence were called out, First prize! Bwana and Sixpence proudly received each a folding canvas camping chair each. Sixpence was taken home and told his Father of his magnificent triumph, but his Father said,

‘Cooking! You will be wearing dresses next,’ which upset Sixpence very much.

The following Friday evening at the Scout hall, Bwana approached Sixpence, looking a little peeved off.

‘Sixpence, does your camping stool work properly?’

Sixpence gazed intently at the ceiling for a moment before replying.

‘My stool is working fine Baas, what is wrong with yours?’

Sixpence didn’t need the answer, because when he had put the stools in the boot he had noticed that one of them was a reject, having one of its legs three inches short. So whilst Bwana had been very smart in winning the cooking competition, Sixpence had taken the only working chair - because he was very clever-clever!

The Gokwe Kid – Mission Impassability

2011-12-29T15:58:00.001Z

Well, I needed a bit of a break from writing and editing ad nauseum. I was starting to get stale and not very imaginative. As I await my chapters coming back from my reluctant editor, I did other things. BUT, thankfully my desire to write returned.

Today is Nigel Triggs’s birthday. Nigel has a huge part in my book, but also he has bent backwards to help me with input and information. I thank him for that. So, I dashed off this little anecdote which I dedicate to him. This is not in the book.

Mission Impassability

Gokwe POs singles’ quarters, winter 1977. The lads are having a game of poker. Things get excitable and finally the game is called over and out around 1 in the morning. The others wander to bed but not the infamous Gokwe Kid because he is a man on a mission of impossible stupidity. Feeling well pleased with himself after freeing at least 75cents from the wallets of Messrs PO Triggs, Golden and Brockbank, the great Dick of the Bushveld has more coin to score by order of the great police bwana of Gokwe, Chief Inspector Harvey.

With the government desperate for funds it seemed a good idea to lash out a few tickets on unsuspecting drivers and as such duty PO (me), was to place a road block ten clicks out of Gokwe on the main dirt drag to Que Que and knobble a few bucks. This, for some obscure reason, had been designated between the hours of 2 to 4am.

Shortly before ticketing time, I meandered sleepily into the charge office and asked for a volunteer. Immediately a small riot broke out as by now my reputation preceded my authority and most of the black staff turned white at the prospect of going any where with The Gokwe Kid. Strong men have known to break down in the Boss’s office and volunteer to go on a six months PATU tour rather than half a day with the greatest bush detective of all time.

Still, I managed to bribe one with a promise of a bottle of Coke and as the town hall clock didn’t bong twice, I had a Police Ahead sign and a pole on some rickety legs spanning the middle of the road. Mindful that the place had more gooks swarming around than ticks on a ridgeback’s back, I turned the Landy lights and engine off and proceeded to chill out a bit. I was chilled all right- I was bloody freezing! Even with the heavy long grey coat, the temperature must have been barely above zero up there on the plateau.

After about 90 minutes of teeth chattering and spitting out loosened fillings – a car approaches! So exciting. I dash out and nearly get run over. The frightened driver had no chance and I really put the boot in. Did him for just about everything my fine little fine book could offer up. Horn and indicators not working, bald tyres, dodgy brakes, no soapy water in his windscreen wiper spray thingys, rear view mirror chipped – in fact I filled out the entire part allocated for the bad things. It came to a massive 153 dollars and 25 cents. I sent the poor man off with his copy. By that time it was 4am so I packed up, went home, threw the book into the Boss’s in tray and popped off for some sleepy eye.

I was allowed an extra couple of hours sleep in and wandered into the charge office at 10am, just in time for a nice cup of tea, when my name was roared out from the direction of Mike Harvey’s office. He sounded in pain.

“PO Greenberg, I see you have ticketed someone for various offences related to an unworthy road vehicle.”

“Yes Sah!” I beamed intelligently. “I got him for just about everything.”

“I see. Do you remember the driver’s name or where he lives?” asks the Boss.

Mmm, strange question indeed. I am not good with names and black peoples’ names were rather incomprehensible to my dyslexic brain. Besides, I was giving the man a ticket, not asking him to be my new best china and can I pop around to his pad for a party. I shook my head in the negative.

“I presume you know what he looks like?”

“Yes Sah, he was…er… black!”

“Very good Greenberg. Do you recall the vehicle’s registration number?”

Eish! That was tricky one. Maybe he hadn’t any. I should have whacked that onto the fine list as well. Again I shook my head in the negative. Tossing the open fine book in my direction, the Boss says

“Can you find any glaring mistakes you may have perhaps made whilst filling in this fine?”

I looked carefully and whistled softly under my breath. Oh-oh, the amount had been added up wrong, I had short changed the Rhodesian government out of 15 dollars. I apologised profusely and hoped to hell I wasn’t going to be forced to cough up the difference.

The Boss sighed in that same way my teachers did when they handed back my essays.

“PO Greenberg, if the driver does not turn up to pay the fine in seven days, are you going to fetch him in?”

I nodded enthusiastically in the positive.

“Pray, tell me, how will that be possible when you have neglected to fill out the entire part relating to his name, address, vehicle type and registration?”

Now that was a very good question and I suddenly thought that perhaps I had also forgotten to put my belt on because my shorts seemed to be now flapping around my ankles. Taking a pen, the Boss drew a line through the page and wrote ‘Cancelled’.

“You are dismissed.”

The Gokwe Kid goes on the rampage

2011-12-17T13:09:00.001Z

At the height of the riots in England this year, the desperate government appealed for help. Immediately Dr Who tele-transported the only man that could sort the problem out – The Gokwe Kid – Dick of the Bushveld.

After being dragged out of some target practise, ripped through time and space, the rather disorientated Gokwe Kid took aim at what he conceived to be horrible hoodie gooks looting some stores. Aiming rapidly, he let rip, missing Curry’s full of electric crap shop and marauding hoodie gooks, and fired straight into a WHS Smith bookstore.

The carnage was awful. Every copy of Wilbur Smith’s new book was incinerated along with every GCSE crib notes on how to become a celebrity by sitting on the dole. Not one hoodie gook was killed. Terrible! Sorry about that.

Don’t drink, do drugs and then post on Facebook – It could get you killed.

2011-12-16T16:45:00.000Z

Well, it has been a hectic few days with me getting completely stressed and wound up. With Xmas coming up, everybody seems to be paying attention to their own lives and friends and family, and leave me and my book on the sideline. Poor little me. Not to worry hey.

Still, as ever, The Indefatigable Unimpressionable Gokwe Kid, messing about whilst his editor fires off comments like –

Yo, DOTB (Dick of the Bushveld)

When I started the project I soon rued the day I put my hand up, but you're growing on me (you are a fungi to know).

As I plough through, I'm getting a feel for when you were out of your head, vs when you were lucid. It's not hard to tell. That's why I have "flattened out" some of the weirder passages as no-one will have the vaguest idea what the hell you're on about and your reviews (read, future sales) will be bugga'd.

However, I have kept these to a minimum.

I had no idea there was so much material... it's seriously time-consuming and I'm doing it as my real job/life permits. You'll just have to wait till I'm done.

What do you refer to with the images? I thought you were putting it all together, or am I to design the book for nikisi, as well as editing it? If so, I demand a 100% pay rise.

Lots of love,

Your Editor

(I added that lots of love bit myself. You don’t really want to know what he really signed out with.)

Sigh, such positive feedback hey! Poor bloke. Still, The Gokwe Kid, now actually starting to take the impersona of the creature he has created, decides that he needs better attention than that and cleverly unleashes images and clever-clever accompanying chit-chat in the vain hope he will have millions of fans worshipping him. Instead, he gets a lynch mob!

Oh-oh.! I needed to create what is known as a reverse positive feedback loop. It works like this –

My ‘late’ (not late enough as far as I am concerned), father used to say to me (at least everyday) – ‘Every time you open your mouth, you put your foot in it.’

Fair enough. After that we take foot out of mouth and blab my way out of the fact of why I put my foot in my mouth in the first place. I think there is a scientific name for this problem – insanity.

Well, as can be predicted – firing off Gokwe Kid type witticisms, whilst heavily sedated by legal and not so legal substances, tends get some draw backs. Next thing you know, I have been accused of all sorts including a sociopathic rapist with a penance to write in gory detail the ‘conquests’ in the vain hope of making some quick bucks. Not bad!

I would have been better off calling Mother Teresa ‘A lying, thieving Albanian dwarf.’ (Christopher Hitchens). Bloody hell, me thinks, this is not too good. Time for damage limitation. So, we do all that, try to clear the airwaves. But lesson learnt - till the next time I am out off my skull. Still, being a very sensitive soul, I had to take to my bed for 14 hours and I was very unwell, but I am better now. As if any of you care! Oh man, just wait till you read the book – it is insane!!!

Meanwhile -

The Gokwe Kid Christmas Card

Digging around and sorting out pictures to scan yet again, so the quality will be good enough for the print, I came across a BSAP season’s greetings card. I sent it to my mum in the UK in December 1976. Hilariously, at the back it has a request for her to send four batteries for my Currys £20 digital watch which has a part in my story.

Anyway, I took the card, tweeked it a bit and here it is! My Christmas card for you. Simply copy, print, cut it out and glue the cover on – job done. It will take pride of place on the mantelpiece.

Best wishes, and hopefully I post again soon…

The Gokwe Kid - out.

We Will Remember Them

2011-12-03T13:51:00.000Z

Bang in the middle of the book is an extraordinary chapter. It is literally a turning point in my narrative. Something amazing occurs and incredulously most of it was airbrushed out of the Rhodesian press. I managed to get hold of the press coverage but since I knew more than what was reported, I decided that I should make a determined attempt to uncover the facts.

Now this is where the power of the internet comes in. I am sure that many of you have heard of the six degrees of separation. It refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. (Wikipedia). Recently I read that this had become four due to social networking.

So, as the Gokwe Kid, the greatest of bush detectives, I went about a’dickin and slowly but surely, started on getting the pieces of a rather large puzzle together. First off I needed input from fellow police officers. This didn’t throw up too much info as one of the main characters, Inspector Andy Gray, is now dead. My own Boss was on holiday at the time. One copper was around but wasn’t involved ‘directly’ but supplied me with valuable background and some interesting observations. Another copper was directly involved but so far has ignored my appeals to Email me.

I then needed input from the Rhodesian Airforce. Through my pal ‘Coolbeans’ an ex-chopper tech, an appeal was put out on their huge site ORAFS. I then received a copy of the same account I describe but it was missing many details and also in some respects inaccurate. I then was able through the ORAF contact to actually get hold of the actual pilot and he made a huge effort to clarify many points. But this still wasn’t enough because I needed input from the Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR). The web didn’t help me much so I contacted another china who puts me in touch with an ex-Brigadier from the RAR. He in turn puts me in touch with Major General Michael Shute who was CO of the RAR at the time.

By now I am bricking myself. Bloody hell, I am just a lowly ex Patrol Officer and I am talking to big guns! Mike Shute does the business and low and behold, I receive input from not one, but two RAR commanders involved in the incident! I still haven’t yet gone through forensically the amazing recollections as this means a rather large rewrite of the chapter.

But just going through what I have, it threw up even more missing bits, like, it turns out the School of Infantry were also involved! That group, along with National Park rangers has me a bit stumped at the moment. I doubt I will get their versions, so will have to make as accurate guesses as possible to fill in the missing bits.

I still have questions for some of my ‘informants’ before I finally wrap up one of the biggest incidents of the war inside Rhodesia that involved three branches of the security forces and National Parks, and has never been fully told. Sadly it has very tragic moments but what happens is a tale of immense skill, courage and tenacity that lasts for days and covers over 200 kilometres.

So, wait and see. Meanwhile - Mike Shute is raising funds for the construction of a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum inStaffordshire to honour the fallen members of The Rhodesian Native Regiment and The Rhodesian African Rifles. As can be seen by the cover of the brochure he sent me, they want to build it based on the stone structure of the famous Zimbabwe Ruins. You can actually buy a stone. There is also a raffle with the first prize a framed painting by John Hopkins, ex 1RAR Officer, who was art teacher in Wales but now retired early to paint as a professional.

If you wish to donate or buy a ticket (£5) please Email –

Mike Shute, Chairman – Regimental Memorial Committee at

michaelshute@btinternet.com

Finally, to wrap up this posting before I continue going over the book that everyone will love to hate…

Have you heard about the ruckus over the recent Nando’s advertisement ‘Last Dictator Standing’? The nice people in charge of Zimbabwe threatened to murder all the staff of Nando’s, so they had to pull it. Here it is -

Yes! It is a huge NO!

2011-11-29T17:14:00.001Z

Great news. My editor has now sent me six chapters back and I will start, yet again, grinding through it. It has to be perfect. Not like some of the mistakes on the blog, but that is different.

One of the wonderful things about me and my editor, is how I freely granted him to freely say whatever he thinks about the book. Unlike other editors, who caress your ego and entice more cash out of you to ‘tidy’ up a few problems, mine is an honest gent. He should be - he is also BSAP. Actually, that has sod all to do with it. The reason he can say what he likes is that talk is free and so is his fee – hah hah.

Still, it is looking good. I will let you know what he has messed about with in due course but in the meantime, I copy his lovely quicky note to me that I received this morning –

Howzit Penga man

Shamwari, I can assure you that you are unlikely to ever appeal to a Rhodie audience: you diss everyone.

You also appeal to every Rhodesian/white supremacy-hater that every crawled the Earth... not to mention every BSAP officer still alive who regards any former member under 80 as much use as a Nottingham Hoodie.

I could dissect your work to the nth degree, but I will stick with my job of editing this discombobulating compendium of random thoughts and striking memories.

After six chapters I have reduced my role to casual, yet knowledgeable observer.

You are unlikely to ever sell a copy.

But, that's not why you're doing it.

And that's why I love it.

Thanks for doing this thing, champ.

Well, was I pleased or what? Yes, yes, yes – if my own editor disses me, it means I have a massive hit on my hands!

Rhodesian way of life : Reality TV?

2011-11-28T16:25:00.000Z

Suddenly, I had divine inspiration. I needed beer. So I went out for a walk. To the nearest shop. My mind was pondering. Since I sent the whole lot to the editor - I feel a little lost. So I started researching about POD (Print on Demand), and Amazon, and Lulu and stuff, and came to the gloomy conclusion – writing the book is the easy part.

I have chatted with other poor saps trying to make few bucks flogging a book. It isn’t easy. But more wailing about this at a later date. Now I have to tell you about my divine inspiration.

So, there I was mulling and moaning away, as I slogged my way through bitter cold to get my fix, when suddenly I stopped dead stoned, and drunk. It is because I saw the light. I was farting around trying work out what the hell for a celebrity I had created.

Of course – it could be a mini-series! Make a poorly made reality TV episodes - but set in the mad world of Rhodesia! I will expand on this grand plan later.

Meanwhile. I decided to work on the back cover. Not bad for a start, but it could be a tad too long –

War torn Rhodesia 1976 -78

After proclaiming the coveted crown of Rhodesia has no Talent, along with the X-Factor and semi-finalist in Strictly come Soldiering, the Gokwe Kid now has only one more triumphal title to achieve. To be the ultimate outback detective – Dick of the Bushveld.

Patrol Officer Greenberg is his name – outranking stupidity is his bane; as he battles protocol and dodges the evil gooks of Mugabe. From his inauguration into the world’s finest police force – the British South Africa Police, he is threatened with terrible death on an almost daily basis from his ‘friends’, whilst his enemies avoid him like the plague.

A mocumentry, a tragic/comedy – this is the true story of torturous transition. A deranged, juvenile delinquent motormouths into a manly, deranged delinquent - and fails rather dramatically in that task as well. This hilarious weepy will have you attached to alcohol and giant joints.

As the whites only ‘Rhodesian way of life’ reality TV show’s ratings plummet, the legend in his own mind finally screams –

‘I’m a celebrity – get me out of here!’

So, after messing around with that, and a couple of whatevers later, I decide, whilst pissing around with another version, I come up with a rather odd idea for a prologue -

21 December 1979

Reporting from Lancaster House

With the world wide viewing figures of the reality TV show Rhodesian way of life hitting rock bottom, and advertising revenues at a critical point, the shows founder, Ian Douglas Smith, finally acknowledged the game was up.

Speaking to a large audience of cheering, communist insurgent bastards, the man known as, The Great White Bwana, spoke with sorrow as he acknowledged that the plug had been finally pulled on the show, that its height, was watched by millions of whites only fans.

‘It was a great run. The people really loved it for the first ten years but then the blacks wanted to become contestants as well and just wouldn’t take no for an answer. We did propose that if they agreed that only white contestants can win farms and Mercedes Benzes as prizes, and that black contestants would receive a bar of Sunlight soap and a Cecil John Rhodes colouring book - they went fucking ape shit! The ungrateful bastards.’

Wiping away a tear, the man that would inspire Simon Cowell decades later, continued,

‘Remember in ‘76 to ’78, when we really struggled to get viewer ratings up and we had that twat from the British South Africa Police appearing in all our shows? Was that funny or what? Pissed out his head on the X-factor, starving to death on I’m a celebratory get me out of here’ and best of all, when he won the Rhodesia has no talent, we tricked him into paying for the shows caterers. What an imbecile. He even believed the gook nonsense about winning and getting great big farms full of tobacco and maize fields and a luxury car. Hah-hah. Silly sod. Those were the days!’

Even the commie insurgent bastards shut up in respect. Some also remembered the show which had been beamed via Russian satellites to their base camps.

Great White Bwana Smithy continued.

‘Aah, remember that time when he tried to chat up that nun with the hairy legs. Laugh? I nearly shat!’

Then a well known heckler in the audience, a dim-wit called Mugabe, chirps up,

‘Yes, yes, I remember that episode, and then we went and murdered her, hah-hah!’

And the room erupted into laughter as many recalled that and other favourite scenes.

The Great White Bwana then lost his composure for a minute.

‘And that is exactly why this show is gone, because you fucking lot went too bloody far! It’s all well and good to take the piss out of some poor bastard for a few laughs, but you lot – went totally over the top. So, you have only yourselves to blame. Once you ass holes start your own produced reality TV show, and it all go well tits-up, don’t come with your begging bowls. You can fuck off!’

After putting up with some enthusiastic jeering, Smithy, as the former producer had been nicknamed by his adoring fans, continued,

‘I never did work it out. That fool PO Greenberg, talked so much shite, but the bloody viewers never voted him off, no matter how much we manipulated the votes!’

‘Hah,’ screamed that idiot Mugabe, now backed by the whole pack, ‘That’s where we can teach you stupid whiteys a lesson!’

Smithy frowned and made a rude gesture towards Mugabe, and wrapped up the interview on a rather soft note,

‘I still wonder what happened to the Gokwe Kid. I was always amazed that he was never butchered by any of us. I hope he writes his memoirs one day. He was a true bush detective. A real Dick of the Bushveld.’

‘More like “Dickhead”,’ shouted Mugabe, to roars of laughter.

The Great White Bwana stood up and with dignity walked the walk. It was all over. But he knew, this wasn’t the end, for – the show must go on…

The Gokwe Kid - Dick of the Bushveld

2011-11-25T16:35:00.002Z

What’s in a name? Especially for a book. I gnaw at my beer can. So far, as I intend to have a prequel and a sequel - which I think means it is a trilogy of utter insane gibberish - what about the title of the middle one?

Okay, we have Last of the Rhodesians and Chronicles of an African anarchist covering the lot. But, whilst I like The Gokwe Kid bit, it is this bit ‘Dick of the Bushveld’ I am not so sure about. Maybe I am being a little toooo clever-clever. Two reasons –

How many people associate the word ‘dick’ as in detective, and at the same time it is also short for ‘dickhead’, which unquestionably I was/am?
It is also a word play on a very famous ‘Boy’s Own’ type colonial book, Jock of the Bushveld, by South African author Sir James Percy Fitzpatrick. A true story, I remember reading this and howling my head off at the end. It is about a dog.

‘It was weedy, ill-proportioned and was the victim of constant sibling attack. The odd little puppy grew into a great and fearless dog. He was well liked, well respected and well behaved and this was the start of many a great adventures.’ (Wikipedia)

So I started out just like Jock - but forget the ‘great and fearless’ bit. Think more of ‘ungrateful and brainless’, and sadly Jock gets his brains blown out whilst I get to keep mine whilst well blasted out of them most of the time.

Any ideas?

Last of the Rhodesians – Monochrome

2011-11-23T17:55:00.000Z

Well, as promised, things must change. The new look is far from perfect and I do not care as of this moment because I am…Drunk! I will mess with it as I go along. Still, it is rather…posh! Very slick. Anyway, please feel free to do the usual, ‘I can’t be arsed commenting’, which after 6 years I am a tad used to.

You can of course use some Cut and Paste templates to save you the bother.

1. The bollocks of a posting, Ek Se

2. Die Mugabe, Die

3. Eish, me so pissed man

4. Defend the Regiment, old boy, defend the regiment! Or be dammed.

5. White thieving colonial bastards etc etc.

So, I will give you another tiny teaser. This is actually cut from Chapter 30, but even I thought it might be worth messing around a bit with it and doing it as a prologue. I must think about it. Anyway, this extract is deep into the story and NOW we have a mystery thriller. It is middle to tilting to low brow prose. That is obvious because I am writing with the perspective of a middle to tilting to low education 18 -20 year old idiot, and hence, I am not exactly articulate in the words of clever-clevers. If you doubt my ability to write clever-clever, I will happily bombard your Email address with some of my university essays. They are so clever-clever - I haven’t a clue what the stuff is about – but I got some cracking marks…hah hah.

Okay – Enough. Below is the unedited extract and I hope you like the new Blog look. Ciao

It all started on an autumn morning - the sun blazing away gently outside the window with a few clouds breaking the monotony of perpetual light blue. I neatly filed my last bit of paperwork and bantered with Leon and Ian, the last of the gang that I had sort of started out with. The two dim-wits puffed furiously on their fags whilst swearing at the ancient typewriters and threatened me with the usual disembowelment if I didn’t shut it. I didn’t mind, they were both ignorant twats, but it was nice to have some company for a change. My desk was clear and I was wondering if I might pop out for a little cruise around town under the pretence of maintaining an active presence of smiling, happy caring cops. (Just keep an eye out for the missing landmine.)

I snickered loudly as Leon ripped a thick bunch of papers and carbon from the guts of the protesting machine, whilst screaming obscenities about the stupidity of carbon paper that prints backwards on the back of the page instead of the next one. I ducked the screwed up paper ball aimed viciously at my head just as the Boss walked in with a huge pile of papers stacked under his arm.

A quick scan of my two partners, whose sudden eruption of typing and frenzied paper pushing showed immense skill in trying to avoid what was coming next; my stupid smiling face and cheerful ‘Good morning Sir’ settled my fate.

Dumping this mountain on my desk, my greeting was repaid with an added line,

‘Sort this out, it’s a bloody mess, and soon.’

He walked out and the gleeful cawing from the peasants at the other desk really rattled my cage as I gazed at the evil mound of mixed recycled brownish paper, along with a pile of white crime report forms, enough to open up my own police station. This didn’t look too good. This was a mess, no doubt about it and it took four long studious days, and a second desk, to get some kind of picture in my head of what was going on.

What I had here, spread neatly over two desks, was, technically, theft and fraud. What looked just like a simple case of stolen cheques fraudulently cashed, didn’t show that many entire families existence was threatened by starvation. The picture doesn’t always tell the whole story. At last I had something to really get my teeth into. So far, all cases were wrapped up in hours or a few days, weeks, months... It was all so simple. We got an accused - job done. We have none - job not done – pass the paper work up the ladder. There was nothing complicated to test my detective skills acquired from years of reading The Hardy Boys detective novels and The Three Investigators. I now had my wish, because in this game - there are snakes that counter the ladders and the serpents had all landed on my desk. Time to roll the dice and this time - I dice with death…

Join the BSAP – it is so Cool!

2011-11-22T16:53:00.000Z

Amazingly, it is sort of a wrap. As in - 40 chapters sent to the editor with 352 pages. That is without photos and cartoons. Okay, he is missing one chapter, a big one. I am still awaiting some FACTS. Okay, things will start to change on this blog soon, but meanwhile…

Hard to believe, but my guardian angel (after a long bloody break), decides to turn up and casually toss a bit of a teaser in my lap. So…when I was a little boy and a gob shite Boy Scout, the police turned up one night at our Scout Hall during our weekly Friday bum-chumming. Of course, I legged it quick because they might still be looking for the bush arsonist from a few years ago,…not really (not).

Anyway, they looked really cool and showed us a film about why we should join the BSAP. I had forgotten about this film until I saw it again today.

If you want to purchase my book – watch this please, because it will make you not only understand, but transport you into the magical surrealistic world of the BSAP of Rhodesia. Little had superficially changed by the time I joined. I recall as a nipper going to the BSAP show. By the time I joined it had been stopped due to lack of manpower due to the war. Anyway – watch this. It is a bit long, so get a drink…

The film was made in 1968. Ron Steele, ex BSAP, was involved in the making of it whilst working with Liaison & Recruiting. It is pure propaganda…I bloody love it – YEAH!

The Peacekeepers from Ron Steele on Vimeo.

How to Write About Africa – The Gokwe Kid style.

2011-11-11T12:20:00.000Z

Today is of course a special day. One when we remember our fallen colleagues. I remember them very much, day after day, as I wrap up my memoir. It is of course also the day when Smithy and the boys told Harold Wilson where to shove his pipe. The rogue Rhodies picked the day on purpose. It was a clever propaganda shot.

To lighten up the tone a little, I thought you might like this bit of fun –

How to Write about Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina, appeared in the magazine The View from Africa and was first published in Winter 2005.

I read it with interest, totally forgot about it, and when I stumbled across it once again a few days ago, I decided to use it as a checklist for the contents of my African memoir.

How to Write about Africa

Always use the word ‘Africa’ or ‘Darkness’ or ‘Safari’ in your title. Subtitles may include the words ‘Zanzibar’, ‘Masai’, ‘Zulu’, ‘Zambezi’, ‘Congo’, ‘Nile’, ‘Big’, ‘Sky’, ‘Shadow’, ‘Drum’, ‘Sun’ or ‘Bygone’. (Aah, I don’t quite have that, but ‘Dick of Bushveld’, as part of the subtitle, does have an African theme.)

Also useful are words such as ‘Guerrillas’, ‘Timeless’, ‘Primordial’ and ‘Tribal’. Note that ‘People’ means Africans who are not black, while ‘The People’ means black Africans. (Ooh, I have loads of tribal, primordial guerrillas in my memoir, but they play just a small nasty part as I had little time for them.)

Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress. (I have a picture of me arresting bad thief Robert Mugabe. He is wearing ‘Western’ style clothing, so are my fellow Ground Coverage constables. I am wearing a uniform, a sort of Whiteman’s Zulu outfit, so I am almost there.)

In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. (Well, they weren’t when ‘we’ were charge. My memoir is set in the past - not today. Also, I must digress; for you have an oxymoron. You can’t have starving people alongside huge herds of animal - unless of course the herds are owned by Robert Mugabe or that slapper Grace. Also, I am not sure about all this ‘hot and dusty’ stuff. When I turned up in Gokwe it was bloody pissing down all the time and the ‘dust’ was giant pools of mud called ‘roads’.)

Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. (Nope, sorry, as much as I try, I can’t fit them in to my memoir. But! I do recall Alan shooting a monkey and our Black BSAP lads made some great monkey gland steaks out of it. But, they were not short people. But the monkey had a short life. Does that count? I have people emigrating. They are now called Rhodesian Diaspora (tend to be White), or Zimbabwean asylum seekers (tend to be Black)).

Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn’t care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular. (That is a bit of a pisser! Maybe I offer them a discount on the Ebook version. The printed version they would just use for rolling joints and I do not want to promote drug abuse. Hah-hah. Yeah. And this bit – ‘keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular’, I have some romance, but it is all evocative one sided and the cow dumped me, which I suppose is unparticular (what ever that bloody means!)).

Make sure you show how Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls, and eat things no other humans eat. (Like Food Aid? Or genetically manipulated?) Do not mention rice and beef and wheat (I do in my memoir, and it doesn’t sound too good even by Whiteys standards!); monkey-brain is an African's cuisine of choice, along with goat, snake, worms and grubs and all manner of game meat. (I am not surprised at all. Serves ‘em right for kicking Whitey off the farms! I have some insect eating in my memoir, but you have to buy the book to find out.)

Make sure you show that you are able to eat such food without flinching, and describe how you learn to enjoy it—because you care. (I didn’t care one jot. The only thing I cared about was me and my ever scarcer contents of my wallet.)

Taboo subjects: ordinary domestic scenes, love between Africans (unless a death is involved), references to African writers or intellectuals, mention of school-going children who are not suffering from yaws or Ebola fever or female genital mutilation. (Hah, I got you there, I mention sex between Africans a few times and well maintained schools for well fed black children- till the Gooks came and trashed the lot. African intellectuals? Mm, yeah, I mention some. Except that Kambasha bloke was a little too clever and did me over, over half a dead cow.)

Throughout the book, adopt a sotto voice, in conspiracy with the reader, and a sad I-expected-so-much tone. (Sadly I cannot do that. My voice tends to be of outrageous arrogance along with indignant whining of self pity. Occasionally I have a blotto voice. Blotto = drunk.)

Establish early on that your liberalism is impeccable, and mention near the beginning how much you love Africa, how you fell in love with the place and can’t live without her. Africa is the only continent you can love—take advantage of this. (I have plenty of that, till I decide the place is going tits-up.)

If you are a man, thrust yourself into her warm virgin forests. (Hah hah hah – you bet I was trying to thrust myself into (female) virgin forests. Still, I have no sex scenes at all. Too short really to warrant more than a Julius Caesar miss-quote –vidi, vici, veni.)

If you are a woman, treat Africa as a man who wears a bush jacket and disappears off into the sunset. Africa is to be pitied, worshipped or dominated. Whichever angle you take, be sure to leave the strong impression that without your intervention and your important book, Africa is doomed. (Nothing to do with me.)

Your African characters may include naked warriors, loyal servants, diviners and seers, ancient wise men living in hermitic splendour. Or corrupt politicians, inept polygamous travel-guides, and prostitutes you have slept with. (I have a few of these characters, but I gave the prostitutes a miss because I couldn’t afford them and it was generally frowned upon if White police officers hang around Black beer halls chatting up dark ladies of the night.)

The Loyal Servant always behaves like a seven-year-old and needs a firm hand; he is scared of snakes, good with children, and always involving you in his complex domestic dramas. (My loyal servant was called Thomas, and he washed my clothes. I can’t remember if he made my bed.)

The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona). He has rheumy eyes and is close to the Earth. (No he isn’t. He was my Boss and is a Whiteman.)

The Modern African is a fat man who steals and works in the visa office, refusing to give work permits to qualified Westerners who really care about Africa. He is an enemy of development, always using his government job to make it difficult for pragmatic and good-hearted expats to set up NGOs or Legal Conservation Areas. Or he is an Oxford-educated intellectual turned serial-killing politician in a Savile Row suit. He is a cannibal who likes Cristal champagne, and his mother is a rich witch-doctor who really runs the country. (In my book, Mr Kambasha, is no way as nasty as that, but he did do me over, over half a dead cow - as previously mentioned.)

Among your characters you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless. She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the dramatic moment. Moans are good. She must never say anything about herself in the dialogue except to speak of her (unspeakable) suffering. (Nope, sadly I have none of those. The only person who was starving now and then was me because I refused to pay for food.)

Also be sure to include a warm and motherly woman who has a rolling laugh and who is concerned for your well-being. Just call her Mama. Her children are all delinquent. (Aah Bless, I mention my poor old Mum quite a few times, and I was definitely delinquent enough to join the BSAP.)

These characters should buzz around your main hero, making him look good. Your hero can teach them, bathe them, feed them; he carries lots of babies and has seen Death. Your hero is you (if reportage), or a beautiful, tragic international celebrity/aristocrat who now cares for animals (if fiction). (The anti-hero is me and the other characters buzz around me making me look a total twat and it is all true.)

Bad Western characters may include children of Tory cabinet ministers, Afrikaners, employees of the World Bank. When talking about exploitation by foreigners mention the Chinese and Indian traders. Blame the West for Africa's situation. But do not be too specific. (Hah, I have them all, the bastards! And I clearly explain how sanctions made us almost 100% self sufficient and the budget balanced (except in my wallet), and the only big examples of handouts was me begging for fuel coupons.)

Broad brushstrokes throughout are good. Avoid having the African characters laugh, or struggle to educate their kids, or just make do in mundane circumstances. Have them illuminate something about Europe or America in Africa. African characters should be colourful, exotic, larger than life—but empty inside, with no dialogue, no conflicts or resolutions in their stories, no depth or quirks to confuse the cause. (Nope, sorry, no can do. My Black characters have dialogue, and are a great lot. Well most of them, except the Gooks.)

Describe, in detail, naked breasts (young, old, conservative, recently raped, big, small) or mutilated genitals, or enhanced genitals. Or any kind of genitals. And dead bodies. Or, better, naked dead bodies. And especially rotting naked dead bodies. Remember, any work you submit in which people look filthy and miserable will be referred to as the ‘real Africa’, and you want that on your dust jacket. Do not feel queasy about this: you are trying to help them to get aid from the West. (Unfortunately, this does occur in some form, but not quite as extreme.)

The biggest taboo in writing about Africa is to describe or show dead or suffering white people. (Who are you kidding! I was suffering almost immediately after joining the police!)

Animals, on the other hand, must be treated as well rounded, complex characters. They speak (or grunt while tossing their manes proudly) and have names, ambitions and desires. They also have family values: see how lions teach their children? Elephants are caring, and are good feminists or dignified patriarchs. So are gorillas. Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people’s property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents. Any short Africans who live in the jungle or desert may be portrayed with good humour (unless they are in conflict with an elephant or chimpanzee or gorilla, in which case they are pure evil). (I have loads of animals, but unlike other Rhodesian memoirs, they tend to stay in game reserves and not be constantly falling into farmer’s swimming pools. Nor do they tend to talk a lot because I do all that, and couldn’t put a trunk in sideways.)

After celebrity activists and aid workers, conservationists are Africa’s most important people. Do not offend them. You need them to invite you to their 30,000-acre game ranch or ‘conservation area’, and this is the only way you will get to interview the celebrity activist. (Oddly, I do have a bit of that sort of stuff. See the posting below.)

Often a book cover with a heroic-looking conservationist on it works magic for sales. Anybody white, tanned and wearing khaki who once had a pet antelope or a farm is a conservationist, one who is preserving Africa’s rich heritage. (That’s me! I had a pet snake for a while but it got out and there was a right hullabaloo about it all.)

When interviewing him or her, do not ask how much funding they have; do not ask how much money they make off their game. Never ask how much they pay their employees. (I did. The Yank youngsters made a buck a day – bloody fools as far as I was concerned.)

Readers will be put off if you don’t mention the light in Africa. And sunsets, the African sunset is a must. It is always big and red. There is always a big sky. Wide empty spaces and game are critical—Africa is the Land of Wide Empty Spaces. When writing about the plight of flora and fauna, make sure you mention that Africa is overpopulated. When your main character is in a desert or jungle living with indigenous peoples (anybody short) it is okay to mention that Africa has been severely depopulated by Aids and War (use caps). (Mm, to be honest, that is real ‘girlie’ type prose. Whilst I generally couldn’t be arsed with such nonsense, as I spend most of time talking about how wonderful I am - but, for the sake of sales, there are a few ‘Africa’ type descriptions. I mention the sun, as you would have to be blind not to notice it, and I use the word bush a few times. What is in it is long grass, thorny things and rocks and trees that should really be bulldozed down and made into a six lane motorway, as to be honest I hated walking in the friggin stuff! As for AIDs, it wasn’t around in my time, but war was.)

You’ll also need a nightclub called Tropicana, where mercenaries, evil nouveau riche Africans and prostitutes and guerrillas and expats hang out. (Well we had Club Tomorrow and the Le Coq Dor. Definitely filled with nutters, but not sure about the prostitute thing.)

Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care. (Actually my book ends with a quote from an ex-door neighbour and it is not very flattering! But as if I cared.)

The Secret Lives of Elephants

2011-11-02T18:50:00.000Z

How weird is this? I was busy redoing an important chapter, when I noticed in the information I have been given, the mention of a National Parks HQ up in North West Gokwe. I figured out that this had to be the Hostes Nicolle Institute for Wildlife Research. Well one thing led to another, but first look at this extract from another chapter which was written entirely from memory –

I think that Alan rather liked being my teacher. School outings were great fun and very educational. Not only that, the scenery was stunning. The natives seemed cheerful enough and waved enthusiastically as we tootled along. Being paid to play tourist was certainly up there amongst my favourite ways to earn money by doing the littlest as possible. Ah, this was the life. On the downside, we didn’t have a tape deck in the Landy. Bit of a bummer. I just had to imagine the chords of the Out of Africa main theme, ‘I had a farm in Africa, till the Gooks stole it’, soaring to the heavens as we zipped through the game reserve, past herds of elephants, kudus and the occasional lions. All I needed now was a wicked wench and a chilled glass of vodka, lime and lemonade, served to me by a waiter wearing white gloves over black hands, to make my life fulfilled.

On one of these safaris, weather permitting, I met National Parks Head Ranger, Tony and his wife. This slightly built character was in charge of the 2000 square kilometre (772 square miles) Chirisa National Park. This was a place of undisturbed beauty of miombo and mopane trees scattered between the bush scrub. Tony had been there almost three years and loved his job with a passion. He had to - this place was about as remote as it could get. At the park headquarters, Hostess Nichole, there was a tiny clique of White folk, with a few foreign scientists working on several projects in well-equipped laboratories.

To get to the complex we had crossed the Sengwa River gorge. The concrete bridge was tiny; barely the length of the Landrover, but below, the river had cut a deep and wide chasm into the soft surrounding rock, creating almost a tunnel with a narrow slit open to the sky. From one of the scientists I was to learn that one group had come all the way from America to study the place due to an unknown species of bats that lived there. All this was incredibly interesting stuff. From another of these dedicated academics I was showed the handmade fibreglass collars with imbedded transmitters that would be attached around elephant’s necks. By triangulating the signal they had been plotting the route and distance travelled by the herds through the park.

I spotted a couple of young Whites amongst the scattered sheds but they would have nothing to do with us. Alan explained they were Americans on some sort of aid project and insisted on working for the same rate of pay as the Blacks. We police were considered bad guys by these Yanks, and I considered them idiots for working for a buck a day.

You can make out Gokwe TTL boundaries. Where the bottle neck is, draw a straight line across. The south was BSAP Que Que Rural area. The massive lump north is where me and few lads did the business.

Now it seems I have spelt the name of the place wrong for a start. No big deal, but whilst checking some facts with Nigel Triggs, I sent him the above snippet and he came up with a name – Rowan Martin. This was the man I met in charge of the elephant research. It also turns out that his brother, Patch Martin, joined the BSAP! Now armed with a name I go a’lookin and there isn’t much, but I find out this –

The Government helped in the establishment on a 40 000 ha site in Chirisa Game Reserve at Sengwa Gorge of the Hostes Nicolle Institute for Wildlife Research and, on completion, this complex will consist of laboratories and research facilities that will be among the most modern in Southern Africa.

The above snippet I found on a fascinating blog called Our Rhodesian Heritage. Well worth a peeps here.

I also discovered that Hostes Nicholle was in fact the Interior Minister. He arranged for the funding and I guess the place was built in the early ‘70s. The next problem is that there are in fact two park/reserves next to each other. Chirisa is called these days a safari area, which means people can go there and shoot animals. The other, separated by a wire fence, is the Chizarira National Park. The actual so called western border of Gokwe Tribal Trust Land (as it was known at the time), follows through Chirisa Game Park, as I now believe it was called then, and follows up the entire eastern boundary of Chizarira. Now, running through Chirisa is the Sengwa River. This river is mentioned many times in my memoir. The Google map doesn’t show it well, but it starts just south of Gokwe village, runs due east for about a hundred kms, then turns 90 degrees north for about 200 more kms before going into Lake Kariba. Now along the north leg is Hostes Nicholle, near the aforementioned gorge. Now, remember the bit I wrote about bats? Well, how about this –

Between 10 January and 14 February 1976, activity patterns, habitat use, and selection of prey by some insectivorous bats were studied in mopane and brachystegia deciduous woodlands in the Sengwa Wild Life Research Area of the Hostes Nicolle Institute of Wild Life Research in Rhodesia (18⚬ 10 S, 23⚬13' E), using ultrasonic (=bat) detectors, light tags, and analysis of insect remains from bat feces.

To be found here.

This is just amazing! Except, the date is wrong, it would maybe have been Feb 1977 because I remember this! I visited with Alan in January 1977, and I couldn’t make this stuff up! Also in this academic paper, the fools got the coordinates wrong. I looked at my map and guessed that it is a printing error and should be 28 degrees not 23. As soon as I can work out how the hell I put that into Google maps I have the exact location of the place.

Another annoying thing is the size of Chirisa. From a safari/hunting web site I got the 2000 square km figure, but the bit I found about the government building the station says 40 000 hectares - which is double! I wonder if they included the Nat Park. I will think about that one. Anyway, onto Mr Rowan Martin. It turns out this bloke is one Africa’s top elllie experts and what he showed me on that day was part of years of research –

Africa's Elephants: Can They Survive?

(Originally published in the November 1980 issue of National Geographic)

But not all our Rhodesian experiences were so gory. On a hill covered in orange and yellow mopane trees, where the Sengwa River runs under sienna-colored cliffs, stands the Hostes Nicolle research station. Here a young scientist, Rowan Martin, was working on an elephant-tracking program.
He had developed a new type of radio collar that used little power, and that could continue transmitting for more than 12 months and be received at a range of ten miles. Tracking was done from tall, rotatable antennas atop sheer hills. He had trained rangers to record the bearings of each of his 20 or so collared elephants every three hours, day and night.
Locating his elephants from his stations, on foot, and by air, Rowan has built up the most detailed data ever compiled on continuous elephant movements. His most exciting result is apparent proof of a new level of elephant society, the "clan," which is beyond the family units and the kinship groups that Iain has found.
Rowan has clear evidence that as many as a hundred individuals sharing a common home range freely associate with each other, but not with individuals of a neighboring clan. He also discovered, as Iain did at Manyara, that large strung-out assemblages of elephants show extraordinary coordination of movement. They rumble to each other, and at times their communication seems almost telepathic.

The full, and well worth reading, article is here.

By 1989, Rowan Martin is the deputy director of research in Zimbabwe's department of wildlife. But whilst his research led the way, it would take a while for the puzzle to be finally finished. From more searching I found this –

Especially baffling had been the way groups of elephants were observed to synchronize their activities while widely separated. In Zimbabwe, for example, the wildlife biologist Rowan Martin had radio-tracked female elephants from different families and noted that they would stay within a few kilometers of one another, even while changing directions and covering substantial territory. They moved in a coordinated fashion, almost as if they were communicating over great distances with . . . what? No one could recall any unusual vocalizations. The separated groups were not in visual contact. Communication by scent was conceivable, but the coordination occurred even when the wind direction was unfavorable. The zoologist Iain Douglas-Hamilton once remarked, “We didn’t mention ESP openly, but . . . some of us were ready to entertain the idea that these animals were sending bloody mind waves to each other.”

I even found another academic paper where they sent more scientists back to Chirisa and followed many of Rowan’s elephants, over a decade later!

So what is the great secret of the elephants? It is called infrasonic sound. The ellies communicate with each other in a decibel range we humans cannot hear. And, amazingly when they tested the theory in Etosha Nat Park in Namibia, they came to this stunning fact –

With data from sixty trials in total, the experiment confirmed that the elephants of Etosha were capable of responding to one another’s calls from as far away as 4 kilometers (2.5 miles), which meant that their communications could typically cover an area of at least 50 square kilometers (19 square miles). In a subsequent analysis, a team of meteorologists established that interactions between ground and air heat from dusk to dawn would expand those ranges. This would theoretically enable elephants to communicate with one another from a distance of about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles), covering an area of some 300 square kilometers (115 square miles).

And finally, as more recent research has shown, elephants listen to infrasonic calls not only with their ears, which catch vibrations moving through the air, but also with the bottoms of their feet. The dense, fatty pads there contain specialized receptor nodes known as Pacinian corpuscles that can pick up vibratory information traveling as seismic waves in the ground. The implication is that the animals’ auditory field may be larger than Payne ever imagined, since low-frequency vibrations can travel even greater distances through the earth than through air.

The full article -

The Secret Lives of Elephants

An important conversation is taking place below the range of human hearing

BY DALE PETERSON LECTURER IN ENGLISH

- can be found here.

It makes incredible reading, especially the part when Katy Payne, a Cornell University acoustic biologist, has literally the answer fly at her.

Obviously I cannot add all this to my memoir but I will add some in the Memoir Mutterings I put on the end of many chapters.

Okay, I have a book to finish, but cool stuff hey! I was actually there with Rowan showing me all the stuff and explaining what he was doing! (Alan Golden and Nigel Triggs were stationed with me at Gokwe. Both play a part and both have helped hugely with the writing of the memoir. I am truly grateful)

Catch ya all laters…

Mana Pools ca 1995 with the late Ranger Steve Pope.

PO Greenberg – No1 Loser

2011-10-26T14:33:00.000+01:00

The Gokwe Kid. My room in the Gwelo police singles mess, June 1978. The hat I believe I borrowed from fellow PO Keith Wainwright. The leather jacket is mine but not issue. Behind me is my clothes cupboard. The mini Rhodesian flag I still have. Also stuck to the door are some strange shiny squares. They are office numbers made from aluminium that I stole from the Monomatapa Hotel in Salisbury when I was a hardcore daring individual. I did these raids with my mate Tim Bell. We nearly got caught. As the lift was going down, some staff member got in, and my screwdriver fell out my sleeve and onto the lift floor. The Black gentlemen picked it up, and handing it to me said,

‘Excuse me Sah, you have dropped your screwdriver.’

Greetings all. I see I have not updated for a while. As usual I was very busy going over the same stuff again and again. The same laughs, the same crying. Tweak it here, tweak it there - until the whole thing starts to drive me mad.

Okay, I have reached the end for the umpteenth time. Now it is having a little look over for obvious defects by a couple of friends before it gets popped off for editing. But as I went over the chapters, I spotted a weird pattern. I then spent several hours trying to work out what the hell am I doing?

I mean, this is a memoir right? A memoir is about all or a part of someone’s life. You go from A to Z and hope something interesting happens in-between to keep your readers even vaguely interested in (as in my case), some complete 18 year old tosser thrown to the lions in 1976 Rhodesia. (Rhodesia? Where is that?)

I have read many Rhodesian memoirs and factual accounts. All, in their way, crept something into my ‘version’ of the dying days of Rhodesia. One, in particular I will mention. It is the academic book by Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock called ‘Rhodesians Never Die’ The Impact of War and Political Change on White Rhodesia.

This is seriously hardcore stuff. I must have read it at least four times over the last ten years, each time something imbedded itself in my mind. I haven’t read it for a while and although it sits right now in front of me, I decided enough is enough. If we look at the topics abstractly that these great writers covered in clinical terminology, I come up with a list -

Homophobia, racial discrimination, alcoholism, religious intolerance, relationship problems, corruption, internal military rivalry, sexism, machoism, torture, abuse of power, blind ignorance, downright primitiveness, propaganda, bravery and cowardice, censorship, white class structure, sport fanaticism, incredible entrepreneurship under sanctions, shortages due to sanctions, betrayal, arrogance of perceived superiority, materialism, isolation and forced integration, friendships imposed by circumstances, and…the utter brainless waste of human life… and that is to mention a few.

Okay, it sounds like a horror trip. But it is not. Or is it? Can it all be just a huge joke that no one really understood because; it is never the joke that is the star - it is the way it is told. Ah, but there is always the other side to the story. Honour, respect, good manners, incredible comradely between Blacks and Whites, survival against incredible odds, perseverance, pride, love, humility, stunning nature, incredible weather and drinking.

All these themes slip effortlessly into my prose. Some so subtle you need to look twice. The whole memoir IS a joke, a Shakespearian tragicomedy - for the joke’s on me. But how can I write a tragicomedy, for surly that is fiction? Welcome to my memoir - because I may have achieved the impossible. High, middle or low brow writing, it is all three and yet it is not.

But, most of all about my memoir, it is an entertaining adventure story with more twists than Piglet’s tail. Where are the truth and the fantasy separated? Easy. The truth is boringly obvious – the fantasy makes it exciting. But then memoirs don’t normally follow the classic style of story telling. Some ups, then down, up a bit, then down and finally up to the grand finale. Life isn’t a fairy tale - far to complicated. So how does a memoir become a fairy tale? Hansel and Gretel meets the Gokwe Kid? Hang on to your seat, because as you go deeper and deeper into this weird world that I unfold, it gets seriously crazy.

And then – what the hell is the genre and style? War, love, adventure, tragedy, comedy, fantasy? It is all of them. Occasionally I mention directly with hindsight or retrospect. But there are many sentences that are riddled with rhetoric and futuristic hindsight. I state the bleeding obvious but obviously blinkered. In theory - it is all impossible. I claim ignorance of the situation I am eagerly accepting, whilst at the same time acknowledge the faults of the system that I had no clue of what it was at all about!

In clear text – I was full of shit - jumped freely into the shit because I didn’t give a shit, and I was as thick as shit and then realized it was really shit the shit I was in, but managed to bullshit my way out to write more bullshit about the shit I got into because I was a stupid shit. Got it? I shit you not!

I believe it works! Crazy shit.

I use occasionally modern slang and terminology foreign to us Rhodesians at the time.

I mention technologies that never existed, and internet services such as Facebook and Ebay. Also television programs such as Rhodesia Has Talent and the Rhodesian X-factor. These programs never existed, although we did have very primitive versions at the time. Google is often mentioned. For example in a certain chapter I have this line –

Bush Rhodesia acacia trees long yellow grass lions gooks dangerous Christmas Eve 1976 end of the world as we know it

The idea is if you cut and paste that, if read on a PC, or type it out by hand if reading from that thing called a paperback. In theory, it should bring up the link to the above blog heading.

It just has to be the wildest thing - Rhodesians Never Die. We will - we are dropping like flies, but no one envisaged the internet and in that massive universe called cyber space - they are all out there, for ever! Let the future ponder over a miniscule moment of time that meant so much, to so few, for reasons to be dissected for eternity. Good luck I say, because…the task is impossible. But, if one book throws a spanner into the academic works – this is it!

Catch ya later…

Last of the Rhodesians - : How the chain of command works when there is radio silence.

2011-10-08T18:42:00.001+01:00

I promised a few freebies, and as the ‘honest’ copper that I was, er…whatever.

Now, what you will read below I personally think is one of the finest pieces of stand alone comedy I have written. Unfortunately, I was standing rather alone in this incident. What you read is deep into the fantastical memoir that I have written. But, this chapter can stand alone. I cried tears writing this. I am not likely to cry bullshit, am I? All what you read is true. I have taken some poetic licence writing this. My critics can cry me a river.

I am tired. I do not know if I can make the self instigated Christmas deadline. I will try, but I will not sacrifice quality just to get a pagan deadline. I have a quarter to go before it gets sent off for editing. Anyway, here is another unedited chapter - and it is bloody hilarious…

Chapter 29: How the chain of command works when there is radio silence.

Once upon a time - on a bog standard insignificant day of rapes, murders, stolen bicycles and a couple of chickens, along with the average bestiality (not necessarily with the stolen chickens) - the Boss calls me into his office. He hands me a file.

‘I would like you to read this now. Here in my office. It arrived with the police post from Que Que.’

Ooh - sounds all cloak and dagger stuff - very exciting! I take the file eagerly and look at the cover. It had my name on it (wow, that is so cool), but disappointingly had no ‘Top Secret’ stamped anywhere. There were a few sheets of paper inside and I started to read them in chronological order. Within seconds it became very clear and I nearly passed out with fright. This was the worst case scenario – ever! The first two I already knew -

Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation

License Department

Salisbury

Autumn 1977

Karl Greenberg

BSAP

Box 10

Gokwe

Failure to renew your radio license.

Dear Mr Greenberg,

According to our records, your radio license has expired. As of this date we have no record of you renewing it. I wish to point out that should you not do so within the next thirty days we have the power under the Radio and Television Broadcasting License Act of 19 hundred and voetsak, to really give you a serious hard time. Evasion is a criminal offence - it will be prison for you, and a fine that will break you financially for life.

Yours threateningly,

Rupert Mudcock

Director

P.S. If you write a nice letter to say you don’t really have a radio anymore, we will hold fire, BUT, mark my words, we could spring a surprise visit, and woe is you hey if you have a radio – china.

_ _ _ _

British South Africa Police

P.O. Box 10

Gokwe

Day after your threat

Director Rupert Mudcock

Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation

License Department

Salisbury

Re: Get your licence or get liquidated

Dear Mr. Rupert Mudcock,

I take deep personal affront to your offensive tone. I can only postulate that you suffer from megalomania brought on by polymorphous light eruption. As you may notice I am a police officer, and a highly respected one, based in a place you would struggle to find on a two-dimensional, geometrically accurate, static representation of three-dimensional space - commonly known as a map.

Your ignorance of the law empowered under your jurisdiction is staggering in its incompetency. I am surprised that you have attained the position that you now seem to relish with the pathological psycho of a power obsessed maniac. I find it disturbing that you should accuse me of being a common criminal with no proof of any crime committed. Contrary to your misguided belief, it is not a crime to own a radio without paying a levy for it. It is, however, a criminal offence if I turn it on and listen to the propagated propaganda garbage churned out by your broadcasting company. Should I simply have it tuned into Radio Maputo to listen to Comrade Robert Mugabe without a license, that is his problem, not yours! Nor am I legally required to formulate, transcribe and communicate to anyone, when and if, I engage my receiver of electronic media into the appropriate mode for deciphering and henceforth regurgitated out via an electro-acoustic transducer into comprehensible harkening.

However, in fairness to the predicament I have now put you in – to wit, your demand is a load of bollocks – I will take time to explain and offer some advice that you are in desperate need of. I would have continued paying the extortionate sum to listen to Forces Requests, simply because my present honey sends me messages because, as unlike you, I have a war to fight; but sadly my beloved mini-Precious (such was the name of my recently departed radio - for use of a better word), passed away – violently.

It was whilst I was Gook hunting deep in the bush at Charama base camp. I was tired and well sauced from a few toots, when I was required to drive off and fetch some beers from the nearest store about an hours drive away. Upon my return, after and enduring a few more for the road, I forgot where I had placed my mini-Precious and drove over it. Its dying scream will haunt me forever. The squawk the loudspeaker made as it was flattened into a Frisbee, still makes my bones chatter chillingly. I have neither had the time, nor the inclination; to purchase a replacement. That would dishonour the ghost and soul of my mini-Precious. Some of its happier ditties - Schweppes Orange, Lyons Ready Maid, Five Roses Tea, to sadly mention a few - still fill my head when I dream.

I buried mini-Precious at the edge of the escarpment where the reception had been the best. I placed its terribly mutilated, crushed face pointing in the direction of Springbok Radio, a channel we both had loved. Its little twisted aerial I left poking out the small, shallow grave. I placed the inverted fired FN cartridge from the gun salute onto it in deference for a lost comrade taken so cruelly by the hell that is war.

Now let me give you some facts of life and some advice re: reality. The population of Gokwe TTL is almost quarter of a million. Through my travels throughout this massive land mass, I have become aware of a huge proliferation of radios used by the local populace. The noise they emit I find, quite frankly, irritating to my Western tuned ear, but this is beside the point. I roughly calculate that if 10% of this population possess a radio, you should, in mathematical terms, be receiving on the average - 2000 renewals a month. I have been informed by Gokwe’s Postmaster General that he has no recollection of this ever happening, and would struggle to find the forms in the tip he calls an office. (Saying that, I err on the cautious side. He could have been pocketing the lot because he tried to shaft me over some digital watches, but this is just an unproved theory.) I also notice that in all my time I have been in Gokwe, I have never seen you or any of your goon squad rock up here and spend a few weeks driving through bush and mud; checking out the peasant’s licences.

Your racial inequalities match the Department for Dog License fees. I have yet to see a collar with obligatory dog tax dogtag hanging around a Kaffir Dog’s neck. The only things that are hanging there are ticks and fleas, but this is not so of the White dog owning Gokwians who comply with the law. Must they also write a letter for tax exemption if their beloved pet gets inadvertently run over by a drunk? I beg to differ.

Sincerely Up Yours,

Patrol Officer Karl Greenberg

Gokwe Police Station

_ _ _ _

Oh-oh! This doesn’t look very clever-clever anymore. I had written the letter on police time, with police paper, using a police typewriter, with the fancy Gokwe police rubber stamp under my signature and posted my reply in a police stamped envelope (free post). I have typed out rape statements faster than that letter. I had worn a dictionary out putting the masterpiece together and had shed buckets of tears of hilarity over my sparkling wit – now I wasn’t so sure. I didn’t look up at the Boss, and went on to the next sheets. They were all letters…

Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation

License Department

Salisbury

Day after Greenberg’s letter

Office of the Assistant Commissioner of Police

Midlands Province

British South Africa Police

Gwelo Headquarters

Greetings old friend,

I hope you and your wonderful wife are fine. We must get together down on the farm for a bit of chin wag in the near future. Chat about the good old days over some gin and tonics. Those wonderful times when we were hard, disciplined police troopers, what-what, arf- arf.

Listen old boy, sorry to bother you, but it seems you have some unruly element under your command. I have enclosed the necessary documentation and I believe you will be shocked by this young whippersnapper’s response to my perfectly written, standard request. Quite shocking, old boy, quite shocking! I told my beloved of course, and she almost swooned, and now threatens to bring it up amongst her fellow bridge players.

This cannot continue. We have to uphold the regiment dear chap. We cannot allow this rubbish to bring down the noble name of the BSAP! Next thing you know -the disease will spread and every Tom, Dick and Harry will scribble illiterate memoirs of their pathetic contributions. All rabble Sir! Unlike us Sir, unlike us. No, old boy, this evil must be stamped out before it spreads. Good God man, if the enemy got hold of this scandal; we will be the laughing stock, old boy. Laughing stock, I tell you!

I will leave this in your capable hands, dear chap. I am sure you will act with all the powers at your disposal.

Yours faithfully,

Your friend Rupert

_ _ _ _

I let out a small, silent fart. Bloody hell! This bloke has had a serious sense of humour failure. The way he was going on, this Rupert Mudcock twat would splash this as a scandal all over the News of the World. I bet the slimy bastard was even hacking into the police phone trying to find out if I really had a dead radio. Still, this was looking bad. The Boss was still watching me silently, as with shaking hands; I read the next letter –

Office of the Assistant Commissioner of Police

Midlands Province

British South Africa Police

Gwelo Headquarters

Chief Superintendent Toady Scheisskopf

Officer in Charge

British South Africa Police

Que Que Province

Que Que Headquarters

Good God, Toady, what the hell is going on down there? I give you command of some run of the mill joint and I am having to handle nonsense like this? What in God’s name are you doing man? Have you lost your marbles? Too much playing golf, I gather, rather than controlling the men under your command. Totally irresponsible. An absolute disgrace. I want action from you Toady, action I tell you; otherwise you can kiss any more promotion good-bye. I will not tolerate this.

Make it so.

_ _ _ _

Chief Superintendent Toady Scheisskopf

Officer in Charge

British South Africa Police

Que Que Province

Que Que Headquarters

Chief Inspector Mike Harvey

Officer in Charge

British South Africa Police

Gokwe

Harvey, have you gone mad? Are the lunatics running the asylum? I know that Greenberg. A very cheeky sod. Last time I was up there he was hanging around like some X-factor candidate, scruffy and with long hair. When I asked him to get a haircut, you know what he said to me?

‘In case you haven’t noticed - we lack White peoples barbers or hairdressers. But if you wish, I could go to the local’s one and get myself an afro just like Black Belt Jones.’

I want his guts for garters, Harvey. I want him flogged, drawn and quartered, Harvey, you hear me. A disgrace. Some lip on that boy. Listen up Harvey, if you don’t want to rot in that hellhole till your bones are bleached to alabaster marble, pull finger and sort that cocky bastard out once and for all. A bloody disgrace allowing such a fool to run amok under your command. Bloody hell Harvey, sort yourself out man and bring that imbecile down a smart peg or two.

I demand immediate action.

Chief Supr. Toady Scheissekopf

_ _ _ _

I closed the file and handed it back to the Boss. We faced each other in semi-cemetery silence. Even the cicadas and cooing doves that you normally heard through the open windows seemed to have shut up. They were waiting quietly for my firing squad to gather.

Maybe five seconds we stood there emotionless - but it seemed forever. For one of those rare occasions in my life…I had absolutely nothing to say. At last, the Boss spoke, but there was something wrong with his facial muscles. They were twitching strangely around the corners of his mouth and his eyes seemed watery.

‘Karl. May I give you some good advice? Next time you want to pull another stunt like this - please refrain from signing it in an official capacity and using our rubberstamp.’

Then, before my astonished eyes, he took the folder and dropped into his wastepaper basket.

‘Dismissed.’

As I sneaked Gollum-like out of his office I suddenly realised that with all the stuff that went across Mike Harvey’s desk – this bit of ‘bad news’; had just made his day.

Memoir mutterings and glossary.

I got lucky, as usual. I recall from private correspondence with Mike Harvey that Toady wasn’t exactly his best china either. I recall an incident when Toady comes up for one of his inspections. (Ah, bless, he must have had a golf game cancelled.) So, it turns out that we single POs ‘have’ to invite him to have lunch with us. Wilson puts up a right feast for a rare full house of at least 5 POs. I am as usual chattering utter garbage during the meal. Then Toady, with a look of pure venom, says,

‘You! Shut-up! I wish to eat my meal in peace and not be forced to listen to utter rubbish.’

Now, I seethe. For a start, it happens to be OUR singles quarters, thus sacred hallow ground. Secondly, my dear Chief Superintendent Scheisskopf, we had to allow you to come and eat with us. We need that pleasure as much as I need a frontal lobotomy. AND, thirdly, my dear Shithead (which is English for Scheisskopf); I am also forced to pay for part of your bloody meal!!! Which, I have just now concluded, is the chicken leg and I am going to shove it up your nose.

I didn’t, because if I had - this would have been the final chapter. Still, with that wonderful thing of hindsight and the attitude problem I have – I should have tipped his meal into his lap and legged it asap to Mike Harvey and begged him to hide me.

I wish I had that file now. It would be gold worth on EBay. Still, the Boss was right to get rid of it.

Voetsak – Normally means bugger-off or get lost. In this case - 19 hundred and voetsak - the word is used as ‘no idea’.

MASK OF THE FUFURA. The Sotsee Invasion. By Steve Carter

2011-09-30T12:01:00.000+01:00

As I wander through the internet looking for anything that may help in making me rich and famous and thus have loads of middle-aged groupies to grope, I stumbled across the Mask of the Fufura. It is written by a gifted Rhodesian story teller who served in the RAF. The pre-teen book is set in Africa and very influenced by Steve’s time there.

I touched sides with Steve, and we have had a nice bit of chit-chat about writing and publishing a book. Unfortunately, he went the hard way and it appears he was well shafted by promises from experts only interested in cashing in. Luckily for me, being penniless, this cannot happen and as a result, I will wring the last drop of blood out of any friend or acquaintance I have to get my show on the road for next to zit.

Anyway, please take time to look at his website and blog and give a plug/endorsement. Better still, if you have kids, give it go.

Thanks and I better get back to the rewrite – till later and stay tuned for another freebie coming this way soon…

Last of the Rhodesians : Chapter Two

2011-09-25T13:00:00.001+01:00

Hi all. Apologies for the late posting. Things are getting rather exciting as I head into the last third of the rewrite. Sometimes it just doesn’t seem to flow right and I also catch myself, not so much being lazy, but more uninspired. I suppose going over the same stuff again and again does that. But I realise that I must stop and step back and look at certain chapters from a different angle.

One chapter, for example, has now gone monstrous. The original story was based just on my memory, but I decided to really work hard at getting more information from people involved at the time. So input started coming in after appeals on Facebook and personal contacts. So after rewriting four times this particular chapter, it still wasn’t right. I then sat on it and moved on. I am still hoping to get more information but even with what I have, I suddenly had an eureka moment. I needed to look at it as if watching a movie. Anyway, enough of that…

I read a very interesting article about self-publishing in electronic format. I will of course be doing that as well. I also, from other articles on the web, found out how to get hot endorsements. But before all this I need to have the book sent off for editing. Then I can mess around with more self promotion. Especially the web site which I have now decided I don’t like…lol.

Anyway - what I did spot was that authors like to give a few chapters as freebies to whet the appetite.

SO… I have decided to let you have a bit more in teeny weeny portions up till Xmas. Not much mind, and ALSO, before I get any Trolls, remember, trying to write a book that appeals to everyone lands up appealing to no one. Now this is UNEDITED so forgive typos and whatever and more than likely it may get changed a bit. All comments good or bad appreciated. Now, in Chapter One, I have just arrived back into Rhodesia – it is late August 1976. So here is -

Chapter 2: Recruit copper Karl gets cruelly cropped.

My obsession with joining the BSAP started when, as a pre-teen, I had read all the Alfred Hitchcock’s The Three Investigators books and then as a teenager all the Detective Hardy Boys novels. I was convinced I had a natural talent for hunting down criminals by piecing the clues together, as I had nearly always concluded who the baddies were before the final chapter. However, nowhere in these American written collections did it refer to beating up people with heavy objects to coax them to spill the beans quickly, and thus save writing so many chapters. I would find out about that trick later.

So it was with rather naive expectations that I joined the ranks of the blue and khaki, with the anticipation of achieving the rank of Detective Chief Superintendent before my 21st birthday. When I filled in the application form at the police headquarters, I was told I had just made it in time for the next day’s entrance exam. Hey! I hadn’t known about that bit. So much for being a great detective! If I failed - it would be the peasant army for poor little me! God - the mere thought of it gave me another panic attack. The idea of being a troopie pre-Neanderthal ‘Brown Job’, nearly made me drop one! The army bastards had already sent me a fat envelope with my call-up papers. If I wasn’t accepted by the police - I would become Gook fodder! Whilst I truly did love my country, I had absolutely no intention of dying for it. I was back for the Rhodesian way of life – Braai, Booze and Babes, preferably in the sun, and get well paid for it. AND certainly not for R$77 a month that the average conscript troopies got for going into the bush, whilst armed up to their smelly armpits and fighting some very nasty individuals that were officially called terrorists or insurgents or the grander title – Communist Insurgents. We just called them Terrs or Gooks. Later I learnt that they were the same as us – Freedom Fighters! We wanted to be free of them and vice versa. Living on a keyboard of ebony and ivory in perfect harmony is fine, as long as the big keys remain white.

On the application form it showed the wage structure. With my five O’levels, I would start on an income of R$222 dollars a month, before deductions, etc. That would have been about £200 British pounds then. That sounded like a fortune when you take into account a bottle of Coke (because of sanctions there was no such things as cans of beverages) was still five cents in the supermarkets, and a pint of beer in the discotheque was 35 cents! Amongst the small print it was also pointed out that, IF, and a big if… I pass all the future exams; I might make an Inspector in seven years. Since I hadn’t actually calculated on taking any exams at all, this sort of set back all my ambitions of replacing the present incumbent Commissioner of Police by the ripe old age of 25.

What was apparent when I turned up for the exam, after preparing for it in my usual way - by doing sod all - was that I had unquestionably the most beautiful head of long hair and along with my gobby manner, it made me as popular as an empty beer crate at a mental institute’s annual piss-up. The exam couldn’t have been that difficult because most of the thirty odd applicants also passed, and after meeting them briefly during the smoke breaks, I realised that some of them were verging on the imbecilic. So - subject to a medical examination - I was in.

According to the rumours, you had to be pretty brain dead or a complete spastic, if you failed to sneak (bribe) your way past Morris Depot’s mad incumbent police doctor, and not get a clean bill of health. When I turned up for my ‘medical’, I was a nervous wreck. According to the medical examination form that the senile old man would fill in, three of the criteria’s could be a problem for me.

Two were psychological. I had to allow him to insert his finger into my anus and feel about for haemorrhoids, and then let him fondle my balls, whilst I coughed in embarrassment. I wasn’t sure what the reason was for this, but the thought that my nuts and arse might fail me at such an early stage in my life was extremely traumatic to say the least. Imagine telling your friends you were not accepted into the police force because your piles were bigger than your testicles and they gaily inform you that my odds of being a homosexual porn-star were also up shit creek. (Rhodesian macho humour is rather tedious.) The third problem was physical. I had flat feet, and although they never bothered me, on paper - I didn’t qualify.

However, all this fear was unfounded. My blood pressure was checked; I was weighed in at 65 kg (143lb), measured up to 174 cm (5’8” and a half) and asked if I felt alright. About joining the police? What a daft question. Well, for sure, I wouldn’t be here otherwise, would I? Actually, what he meant was if I felt perfect in the body. The mind didn’t interest him… that would soon become obvious from the amount of lunatics I would meet as fellow recruits, which included my old china from Allan Wilson High School, Tim Addison, and a new side kick, Jeff Swindells.

That very first night at Morris Depot I was introduced to perhaps one of the wealthiest men in Rhodesia. The police recruit barber, Santos. A tiny man of Portuguese nationality, he had been trained by Australian sheep shearers. He would arrive twice a week, and set up shop in the evenings inside the recruits’ bar. In a few buzzing seconds of a massive electric hair cutter, he converted my David Cassidy looks into an ugly, round ball, topped with brown sandpaper. For the privilege of having next to no chance of pulling any birds in the foreseeable future, I was forced to hand over a dollar. I was rapidly running out of them.

My intake, Recruit Patrol Officer (PO) Squad 8/76, was designated a squad instructor. He would be responsible for teaching us marching drill, first aid, self defence and riot control. He also took us for PT (Physical Training) and would inspect us before we went off to any other lessons. Unfortunately for me, Inspector Mike Lambourne was the ultimate keen, very mean, killing machine, with a black belt in judo and was a champion weight lifter. He was also one of the biggest men I had ever seen. His regulation cap had been adapted so that its hard peak had been angled with such extremity, that it touched the bridge of his nose. It made him look like a nasty NAZI in khaki. With a fist as big as my head and his forearms matching my thighs for size, my half-Jewish anus twitched with fear of this man.

Day one of my new career was used to kit out my fellow recruits and I. Mighty Mike used his expertise to shout and scream at us into some kind of bunch that might resemble a squadron formation, and had us tripping and stumbling, still wearing our various motley civilian clothes, to the Quarter Master’s store. Here we would be issued with all that was necessary for a professional policeman for the next three years. The massive amount was supposed to be packed in a huge, blue, sausage-shaped canvas bag almost as large as myself. There were never ending trips to the counter to collect stuff - heavy, dark khaki wool trousers and a long jacket for winter. Also horse riding trousers, khaki shorts and short-sleeved Safari suit type jacket for town, and grey, open-necked shirts for rural areas. Rubber soled boots for running around in the bush, leather soled boots with steel studs for marching noisily on tarmac and normal leather shoes to go with the long khaki, blue topped socking. There were leather leggings that went from the ankle almost up to the knee, that were usually for town duty, and worn, presumably, if you expected to be savaged by dogs. Green canvas leggings were supposed to be for wandering around rural places if you expected to be savaged by snakes. Then came rubber truncheons (presumably for beating senseless any savaging dogs or snakes), hard hats for riots, and soft leather gloves with huge, white, plastic fins, for riding motor bikes - if we would ever get to see one.

As you called out your size and were issued kit, you had to sign for the lot. It all had to be handed back when we left. If something got worn out on the way, that was not a problem, but if it was lost or stolen – you paid for the replacement. Name and number noted on paper for everything. Blue lanyards to wrap around the left shoulder, its clip end holding a shiny stainless steel whistle, would be hidden in the top left shirt pocket. Steel handcuffs, hairy green socks, a stunning leather belt with the magnificently embossed buckle of solid brass with the BSAP logo of a lion speared by assegais. Then we received our full fighting kit. (My protests that I was sure not to need this were ignored.) Two pairs of heavy cotton shirts, trousers and French Foreign Legion type caps, all in the deep shades of Rhodesian bush camouflage. One Green nylon sleeping bag (known lovingly in the trade as Fart-Sack, or Wank-Pit), aluminium pots and water bottles to put in or on the light green canvas contraption called a web kit. This muddle of straps, flaps and odd shaped pockets resembling a builder’s harness for away trips, was designed for maximum efficacy of combat efficiency. It was supposed to carry all that we would need for fighting Gooks, Spooks, Terrs, Charlie-Tango, or whatever slang name was given to the enemy. Not that I was particularly keen on that idea. I had joined the police to serve souls, and not to shoot holes in them…

Along with the uniforms, each recruit was paired up to share a room and a batman (I always wondered if any of them did a bit robbin on the side), to be our own personal slave! He was there to make our beds, which for some insane reason had to be folded in a special way, resembling a giant square hamburger, and stuck at the end of the bed. He also had to wash and iron our clothes, and for this privilege, we had to give him each R$55 a month out of our hard earned money. This was exploitation, but I had no chance of getting Julia to move in. This was bad news. I had barely started work and was already in debt to my half-owned slave! As the American confederates are so fond of saying – If I had known it was going to work out like this; I would have picked my own cotton!

- - -

Memoir mutterings.

There still seemed to be some invisible link to the mother country, otherwise what was wrong with the name ‘Rhodesia Police’? I suppose it just didn’t roll off the tongue with the same amount of ambience as BSAP.

It all started in 1889, when 500 armed volunteers accompanied the pioneer column of Cecil John Rhodes’s British South Africa Company crossing over the Limpopo, and setting up a camp by a nearby kopie (hill) some three hundred odd miles due north. By the time they realised it was the wrong kopie, it was too late and the future capital, Salisbury, was born. The Great White Hunter, Frederick Courtney Selous, had been their guide and as punishment for these major mindless meanderings he was shot in the head by a German sniper (but that wasn’t till the First World War).

In 1891 the Mashonaland Mounted Police was formed in the north and was soon followed by its southerly counterpart, the Matabeleland Mounted Police, plus the municipal force called the Southern Rhodesia Constabulary. By 1909 the word ‘Company’ had been dropped and the whole lot, along with the neighbouring Bechuanaland Border Force, became amalgamated as the BSAP. Elements of this force served in the Anglo-Boer war as well as the First World War.

From cutting grass to wiping arse – The evolution of the Rhodesian powered lawn mower

2011-09-11T19:39:00.000+01:00

Whilst it is recognised that the entrepreneurial Rhodesians were the first to circumnavigate sanctions and create the first eco-friendly powered lawn mower (It needed no energy consumption besides a plate of sadza and relish once a day), it was the Americans that took the first steps to use it competitively.

In 2006, the USA took gold in the 400 metres cycle track grass trimming in the Idiots Olympics, held, coincidently, in Zimbabwe. The winner is here depicted trying out the winning model in his father’s workshop. Sadly, the USS Enterprise Lawnbike C113, was stolen seconds after it had cut a swathe through the opposition.

The great John Deere, an American corporation based in Moline, Illinois, and the leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery in the world, attempted to mass produce a model for Africa in general. Disappointingly, sales failed due to a disastrous decision by the United Nations and other Aid agencies to declare them inhumane and award their staff US2000 to supply their horticultural experts (garden boys – in plain Rhodie speak), with motorised Chinese made four wheelers - that consequently disappeared at an alarming rate to pop up on EBay soon after delivery.

Depicted above is the standard model and pictured below is the Deluxe version which was designed for use 24/7 with a headlight to stop the night shift horticultural expert driving into the swimming pool.

It was only when Lehman Brothers collapsed that a niche market opened up for a bicycle for geriatric pensioners. It was designed for those who had been taken for a ride on pure bullshit, that needed a way to the Post Office to collect their pittance; whilst crapping themselves in anticipation. Sadly, the firm producing Crap-On-Wheels were forced into administration after a possible terrorist Muslim was found using one to place a brown bomb of stinking proportions, whilst it was chained up at the entrance to Queen Elizabeth’s private quarters.

Police poaching in Rhodesia: The deathly daft drilling of Daffy Duck

2011-09-07T16:15:00.000+01:00

For various reasons I cut this bit out of a chapter I am rewriting, but rather than just chuck it, I decided to post it here. Set in January 1977, I am on my first bush patrol, aged 18. I am stopping the nights at an all Black administrated police (not rugby) camp at a place called Kanu. This kip, deep in the bush, was sort of where Matabeleland and Mashonaland met…

I always fancied eating some ducks and it was time to try them out and, luckily for me, there were plenty for free to be had at the police station. Small problem is that they were all in a dam directly adjacent to the police compound. The near side of this trapped water, about the size of six rugby fields, was the deepest and had a few White-faced Tree ducks paddling about, but over on the far side was a massive flock of them with a few dozen larger Knob-billed standing on what seemed to be a rather muddy waters edge.

I didn’t fancy the walk, so with little thought of how I was supposed to fetch my dinner, I sat on a rock above the little duck paddling happily away 15 meters below and taking careful aim - fired at it. First thing was the noise, I had forgotten how loud the F.N. could be unannounced and instantly the surrounding bush fell silent. The cicadas stopped there irritating ‘creetch creetch’, and the doves shut up cooing for a couple of seconds. I had at least been bright enough to inform the Charge Office members of my plans, although they hadn’t been too enthusiastic about it.

As the startled flock on the other side settled back down after a short panic flight, I peered at the water hoping to spot dinner floating around. I was just coming to the conclusion that perhaps my weapon, which was powerful enough to drop a charging elephant; was just a little over the top when it came to getting Daffy Duck, when ‘blup’ out it popped from the dark depths and carried on calmly paddling about. It was obvious I had missed - but I did think it would be a tad less active after having several grams of copper and lead pound into the water next to its head.

So I fired again.

‘Bang’ (Daffy disappears)

‘blup’ (Daffy reappears)

Bang’ (Daffy gone again)

‘blup’ (Daffy pops back up)

I was feeling a little foolish by now and actually considering if a short burst on automatic would teach the cheeky little bugger a lesson. Obviously bored, Daffy paddled further away from the shore, putting that plan to rest. Well pissed of now, I called to Thomas, my batman, to follow me, I trekked around the shore till I got near enough to the flock that were all gathered in a patch of gooey mud. I stopped when my feet started to sink into the soft ground. I pushed down some of the long bush grass so as to keep me dry, and lying down at about fifty paces, targeted the largest Knob Bill in the group and pulled the trigger.

The flock immediately took to the air and when I stood up; I couldn’t believe my luck. They had been so well packed together I had drilled three! I sent Thomas in to fetch the well fucky duckys (what with me having no desire to sink up to my calves in the stinking muck), and told him to keep the little ones and cook the Knob Bill. No worries about the giblets as they had been dispersed into the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound.

Unfortunately I hadn’t put much thought into the way my dinner should be cooked and I suppose it’s my own fault that the pale grey boiled lumps presented to me an hour later tasted like old chewing gum and just as hard.

Moral of the story: Look for duck on special offer at the Co-Op. (Due to the recession, it would appear that offer went with the birds.) But, otherwise, simply hack it up into four quarters. Not three quarters - as that makes very little sense. Then, prick the skin and rub in salt. Chop up a lemon into whatever chunks your rusty blunt blade can manage, and using toothpicks; sort of nail bits of lemon all over. Pop in the oven at middle to very hot to not so hot - depending on how it sizzles. Meanwhile, make some chips out of those round brown objects that need peeling, slicing and placed in hot oil. Rustle up some rabbit food type salad and job done!

Copyright: All cartoons belong to Warner Brothers.

Just messing about...

2011-09-03T15:22:00.001+01:00

This rewrite malarkey can get you down sometimes and I just want to scream and say to the computer ‘Get on with it, will Ya!’ I am having to constantly ‘correct’ things that my Ex Boss points out so vividly, and I quote –

Note: I think it is important that you get the procedural facts as correct as possible so that what you are portraying is more authentic otherwise you could be accused of not knowing your subject and your account being a load of hogwash and a farce by those who are in the know, which would be a great pity.

I know this, which is why I got the kind man to go through it before the rewrite. He is a bit of the old regimental type and as he progresses through the first draft chapters, I noticed that he doesn’t seem overly impressed with some of my shenanigans. (Actually, on one occasion he went berserk with me…lol – Hey, it was thirty odd years ago Boss!) Lots of juicy scandal guaranteed. Just wait till you have a copy.

Anyway, today it is pouring down. I am sick and tired of the British weather. How I remember those days when I would try to write down incoming radio messages at Gokwe Charge Office, my wrist wrapped in a cotton handkerchief to stop the sweat dripping onto the poor quality paper we were provided with. Ah, the heat! I dream of it. When I am rich and famous I hope I can afford twenty minutes under a sun bed – gawd, I am gagging for a bit of the sun’s vitamin D.

So taking a break from going over and over my own words – which isn’t quite the same as, ‘Loves the sound of his own voice,’ another infliction I suffer upon others whenever I am released from my cage, I messed about with designing the book cover.

So here is attempt number 1.

Mmm. Not bad. Any graphic artists out there want to help? All you get is an acknowledgment and a free signed copy if I use you…

An Idiot's Guide to Singing The SA National Anthem

2011-09-02T10:37:00.000+01:00

A friend sent the link to me but I thought it good enough to put it up here as well. It is a handy instructional video for those who struggle with the South African anthem. Deep Fried Man and Gareth Woods are both award-winning South African comedians.

Is Africa overpopulated with Pushmi-pullyu?

2011-08-29T14:17:00.000+01:00

As we have all gathered from harrowing scenes on our T.V. screens, famine has yet again hit the horn of Africa. I haven’t seen Bono and Bob Geldorf rushing around with their cheque books, nor do I see much coming from the rest of Africa. There is an interesting article in the Independent. It shows the utter apathy of the African Union to the situation. To put it frankly – they don’t give a shit. Let ‘whitey’ pay. Reading the comments is well worth it. It appears ‘whitey’ is utterly sick of coughing up dosh because, as we all know, most of it ‘disappears’ in ‘transaction and administration’ costs and most of what is left gets looted. BUT, and here is a big BUT, it appears to me as if the ‘donors’ (I.E. unwilling tax payers), are catching on to the fact that they actually make the entire situation worse!

Kevin Meyers wrote a piece for the Irish Independent in 2008. If you Google the title, it appears that the article provoked quite a backlash. It is however a rather alarming observation and certainly raises some big issues. My conclusion is a ‘damned if we do and damned if we don’t’, that is still riding on the endless excuse of colonial wrong doing. Shame no one tells this to the Chinese as they plunder Africa of natural resources so that we in the West can have cheap ‘Made in China’ products. (Why does a Dr Doolittle pushmi-pullyu [pronounced "push-me—pull-you] spring to mind? Amazingly, it appears the creature comes from Africa.)

Below is the article with a comment at the beginning from sources unknown.

Somalia is not a humanitarian disaster; it is an evolutionary disaster. The
current drought is not the worst in 50 years, as the BBC, and all the aid
organisations claim. It is nothing compared to the droughts in 1960/61 or
73/74. And there are continuing droughts every 5 years or so. It's just that
there are now four times the population; having been kept alive by famine
relief, supplied by aid organisations, over the past 50 years. So, of
course, the effects of any drought now, is a famine. They cannot even feed
themselves in a normal rainfall year.

Worst yet, the effects of these droughts, and poor nutrition in the first 3
years of the a child's life, have a lasting effect on the development of the
infant brain, so that if they survive, they will never achieve a normal IQ .
Consequently, they are selectively breeding a population, who cannot be
educated , let alone one that is not being educated; a recipe for disaster,
in evolutionary Darwinian terms.

We are seeing this impact now, and it can only exacerbate, to the detriment
of their neighbours, and their environment as well. This scenario can only
end in an even worse disaster; with even worse suffering, for those
benighted people, and their descendants. Darwinian theory shows that
biological principles will apply to the human condition, in spite of all our
goodwill , and eventually, some mechanism will intervene, be it war, disease
or starvation . Talk about kicking the can down the road, as the Americans
say, about their budget deficit !

So what to we do ?
Let them starve ?
What a dilemma for our Judeo/ Christian/Islamic Ethos; as well as Hindu
/Buddhist morality.
And this is beginning to happen in Kenya, Ethiopia, and other countries in
Asia, like Pakistan.
Is this the beginning of the end of civilisation ?
We better not be around, when it happens !

This report by K. Myers appeared in The Irish Independent.

AFRICA is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS

No. It will not do. Even as we see African states refusing to take
action to restore something resembling civilisation in Zimbabwe, the
Begging bowl for Ethiopia is being passed around to us, yet again.

It is nearly 25 years since Ethiopia's (and Bob Geldof's) famous Feed
The World campaign, and in that time Ethiopia's population has grown
from 33.5 million to 78 million today.

So, why on earth should I do anything to encourage further catastrophic
demographic growth in that country? Where is the logic? There is none.
To be sure, there are two things saying that logic doesn't count.

One is my conscience, and the other is the picture, yet again, of
another wide-eyed child, yet again, gazing, yet again, at the
camera,which yet again, captures the tragedy of . . .

Sorry. My conscience has toured this territory on foot and financially.
Unlike most of you, I have been to Ethiopia; like most of you, I have
stumped up the loot to charities to stop starvation there.
The wide-eyed boy-child we saved, 20 years or so ago, is now a priapic,
Kalashnikov-bearing hearty, siring children whenever the whim takes him.

There is, no doubt a good argument why we should prolong this predatory
and dysfunctional economic, social and sexual system; but I do not know
what it is. There is, on the other hand, every reason not to write a
column like this.

It will win no friends, and will provoke the self-righteous wrath of,
well, the self-righteous, hand wringing, letter writing wrathful
individuals, a species which never fails to contaminate almost every
debate in Irish life with its sneers and its moral superiority. It
will also probably enrage some of the finest men in Irish life, like
John O'Shea, of Goal; and the Finucane brothers, men whom I admire
enormously. So be it.

But, please, please, you self-righteously wrathful, spare me mention of
our own Irish Famine, with this or that lazy analogy. There is no
comparison. Within 20 years of the Famine, the Irish population was
down by 30%. Over the equivalent period, thanks to western food, the
Mercedes 10-wheel truck and the Lockheed Hercules, Ethiopia's population
has more than doubled.

Alas, that wretched country is not alone in its madness. Somewhere,
over the rainbow, lies Somalia, another fine land of violent,
Kalashnikov-toting, khat-chewing, girl-circumcising, permanently
tumescent layabouts.

Indeed, we now have almost an entire continent of sexually hyperactive,
illiterate indigents, with tens of millions of people who only survive
because of help from the outside world.

This dependency has not stimulated political prudence or commonsense.

Indeed, voodoo idiocy seems to be in the ascendant, with the president
of South Africa being a firm believer in the efficacy of a little tap
water on the post-coital penis as a sure preventative against AIDS
infection.

Needless to say, poverty, hunger and societal meltdown have not
prevented idiotic wars involving Tigre, Uganda, Congo, Sudan, Somalia,
Eritrea etcetera.

Broad brush-strokes, to be sure. But broad brush-strokes are often the
way that history paints its gaudier, if more decisive, chapters. Japan,
China, Russia, Korea, Poland, Germany, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the
20th century have endured worse broad brush-strokes than almost any part
of Africa.

They are now -- one way or another -- virtually all giving aid to or
investing in Africa, whereas Africa, with its vast savannahs and its
lush pastures, is giving almost nothing to anyone, apart from AIDS.

Meanwhile, Africa's peoples are outstripping their resources, and
causing catastrophic ecological degradation. By 2050, the population of
Ethiopia will be 177 million; the equivalent of France, Germany and
Benelux today, but located on the parched and increasingly Protein-free
wastelands of the Great Rift Valley.

So, how much sense does it make for us actively to increase the adult
population of what is already a vastly over-populated, environmentally
devastated and economically dependent country?

How much morality is there in saving an Ethiopian child from starvation
today, for it to survive to a life of brutal circumcision, poverty,
hunger, violence and sexual abuse, resulting in another half-dozen such
wide-eyed children, with comparably
jolly little lives ahead of them? Of course, it might make you feel
better, which is a prime reason for so much charity.! But that is not
good enough.

For self-serving generosity has been one of the curses of Africa. It
has sustained political systems which would otherwise have collapsed.

It prolonged the Eritrean-Ethiopian war by nearly a decade. It is
inspiring Bill Gates' programme to rid the continent of malaria, when,
in the almost complete absence of personal self-discipline, that disease
is one of the most efficacious forms of population-control now
operating.

If his programme is successful, tens of millions of children who would
otherwise have died in infancy will survive to adulthood, he boasts.

Oh good: then what? I know, let them all come here (to Ireland) or
America. (not forgetting Australia!) Yes, that's an idea.

_____

So…if you have read up to here, how about I lighten up the situation just a little. Here is a little play I wrote a few years ago and posted on this blog. Scanning briefly over it I concluded that I am seriously disturbed in the head! If you haven’t read it yet, here it is – The Flight ofthe Feeniks

Last of the Rhodesians - Progress so far…

2011-08-21T13:28:00.000+01:00

Well quite a lot has been happening behind the scenes. Firstly, I have now obtained the services of a top class editor and even better…for free! Now this person has a mountain of editorial and producing experience but I am not allowed to divulge his name. Secrets indeed! I am only allowed to say this much, and I quote from his Email –

I'd prefer to be known as a "Former BSAP plain-clothes-type whose ZANLA-given Chimurenga (nom-de-guerre) name was Netsai Mabhunu".

Which brings me to the subject of Chimurenga names. I don’t seem to have one, well, not that I know off, but I am working on it. It will have to be based around the word Penga.

I have had the honour of having a chit-chat with this individual who has had a glance over the first six reworked chapters. He also said to stop sending in bits and bobs and every ten minutes excitedly send another slightly changed chapter. Basically, what he meant was to wrap it all up and then send the lot. Okay, fair enough. I reckon that will take another four weeks. He needs about the same amount of time to go over it and then send it back to me for any changes and after that – it is ready to roll hot of the presses, AND believe me, this is HOT.

So hot that Netsai Mabhunu said I haven’t a chance in hell of newzimbabwe.com publishing it, nor getting an endorsement from the likes of Peter Godwin. Now why would that be? He tried to explain that what I have written is too controversial. ‘So what?’ say I. I never intended to write some PC correct nonsense but the hardcore truth as I witnessed it. But, I am not telling it, I am showing it. So far, as I reach well into a third of the rewrite, I have satirically and creatively mentioned racism, segregation, homophobia, religious slandering, white class structure, the difference between town and country, bullying, alcoholism, bravery, cowardice, lunacy and sanity. We have the good, the bad, the beautiful and the downright ugly side portrayed as Rhodesia struggles to hang on to…what? I think I have achieved the right balance between the ludicrous laugh out louds and then with a thump, the reader is brought back down to earth with rather a shock at the almost cryptic way I put over a serious point.

Cartoon by Vic Mackenzie.

What is difficult is to bring over the picture of Rhodesia trapped in an almost Victorian time bubble. The isolation and the total lack of the influence of the counter-culture revolution that ended in 1972 and even the shock culture of punk in 1976 onwards, never entered our little ‘paradise’. As far as Rhodesia was concerned, to hell with ‘the winds of change’…

What Netsai Mabhunu hasn’t realised yet that whilst this is a memoir, it is in fact written as a true adventure story, with all the characters being real and many have contributed. I hope that in this way the book will crossover into mainstream rather than just be picked up by the Rhodesian Diaspora.

I have also been doing a bit of promotion via Facebook etc and deliberately let slip some chapters aimed at former police officers that were with me at Morris Depot police academy. These were in turn leaked further. As a result I have been receiving some interesting and vital information. Some of this has now been included.

Finally, the website is up there but I haven’t done more to it yet. I will wait till the book goes off to editing, then I have more time. Oh, someone wrote that I have rather a high opinion of myself considering the short amount of time I spent in the British South Africa Police. Actually, I have a very highly inflated opinion of myself, but that has nothing to do with the time I was in the BSAP but the fact I was, and always will be - penga.

Catch ya all later.

Anarchy in the UK – the Rhodesian solution.

2011-08-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

Well well, what an exciting week! Looting in Luton, shooting in Tooting and London burning. Rhodesians worldwide were quick to offer support on how to solve the problem with these naughty youngsters known as ‘Yobs’ for a better PC correct terminology. Some of the ideas floated around were rather sound, but ‘String the fuckers up!’ may have been legally allowed back in the good old days of Rhodesia, after all we were gentlemen and not the Ku Klux Klan, but to be honest, hanging is sadly banned in the UK.

Another idea was put them in the army. Great idea, they can go looting marijuana fields in Afghanistan. ‘Bring back the birch!’ was another good suggestion. I am not sure about birch as I was beaten with a bamboo cane. My headmaster had quite a selection of weight and sizes in an umbrella stand in his office. But, here in the UK they banned this practice also.

Some said if they love burning cars so much, let them have a South African tyre necklace to light up their dark lives and make it a new event for the London Olympics. The 100 meter flash dash or the singeing sprint. The winner gets a fire hydrant.

Below are three very short clips of some of the looters and rioters in action. Watch these and then decide what should be done with them…

AND, this just has to go to number one. It is from 1976, the year I arrived back in Rhodesia to start my own ANARCHY…hah hah hah

Rhodesia- Ration Packs; the ultimate truth!

2011-08-02T18:20:00.000+01:00

Ratpacks or Ratz for short, were a fundamental part of nearly every combatant’s bowl movements on the White side. What the bad Black side ate is not of interest in this story. I gathered that the evil bastards simply shoved a rifle up a peasant’s nose and got served and serviced. (I never bothered with that stunt because I wasn’t that hot on boiled hukoo and sadza.)

Now, my Proof-reader told me he couldn’t be arsed going through this chapter, and recommended I delete it. So I did. Gone…puff - just like that (not), because you now may have this chapter to read. It is excruciatendely boring. Actually, that word doesn’t exist, but don’t pass a stone over it. Please add any of your own observations.

The description below is very thorough, but it contents might have passed through me with very little spice and so; read it and whilst you do…why not microwave a nice Indian Madras – there is nothing better than a good curry muncher…

Disclaimer and rightful claiming –

Please note that I retain the right to add your name, anecdotes, edited Emails or Facebook comments, for my own personal exploitation, either in my book or on my blog and website. (Here is the time to get famous hey! Albeit, less than 15 minutes…lol)

Kind regards, Karl… Last of the Rhodesians

Eat, drink and be merry - for tomorrow you will be dead from food poisoning.

I had seen these boxes before. When I was 15 and had been visiting best-friend Stephanie Brooks, her brother Mike (who was doing his call-up with the army), would bring a couple of half empty ratpacks home with him during his R and R. (Rest and Recreation.) We had experimented with them in the kitchen and usually fed the dog with the results.

I just love children sized shoe boxes with little neatly packed mysteries in them. Sure enough there were lots of surprises. A quick look at the rest of my sticks ratpacks revealed that we had three different types of ‘One Box, One Man, One Day’. Stamped on the side of each light brown cardboard box was a letter. C, G or H. The idea of this was to give everyone a change of diet everyday. Digging through the contents, it soon became clear that the initials actually stood for: Crap, Gore and Hideous.

Basically, all ratpack types would have the same stuff in them. The different types were due to the contents of the supplied tinned food and the kind of starch. A quick visual examination could be described so:

Common to all ratpacks -

1. A (my) palm sized, very sticky transparent plastic bag, filled with orange or green sugar. This was supposed to be ‘cool drink’. For some strange reason this bag always seemed to have burst and made the rest of the contents adhere to each other like super-glue. Once you had the stuff in a cup and applied water, you were treated with a vile taste resembling nothing like oranges or lime, and a mass of wet, semi-dissolved sugar swirling around at the bottom.

2. Another transparent bag, about half the size of the sticky one, which looked alarmingly like it contained four teaspoons of dried semen. In fact, it was supposed to be milk powder that you combined with the next two bags.

3. A small bag of cigarette tar, the same size as the semen bag, which appeared as having been scraped out of the lungs of a chain smoker. This was the coffee! When boiling water is added you spent some time twirling a defoliated twig in it (no teaspoons), and then you shook in some sugar and milk powder. The milk powder flatly refused to dissolve, and immediately gathered in small lumps on the surface and no amount of twirling could get them to do their proper job of integrating with its dark brother. (See! – Black and Whites don’t mix well!) When it came to drinking the stuff, the lumps would stick to your teeth and when you bit into them, you were rewarded with the sensation of chewing on a sweaty sock.

4. A bag of off-white sugar the same size as the ‘cool drink’.

5. A packet of four bullet-proof, light brown oblongs that fitted neatly into your top breast pocket around the heart area. These were biscuits or hardtack as they are correctly known, and are made from wheat flour, salt and water and then baked extremely hard. The things could last for years and were almost indestructible. It was claimed they could stop a bullet, that’s why we kept them in our shirt pocket. They were close to inedible and attempting to eat them without being softened in the ‘coffee’, you had a good chance of breaking all your teeth.

6. A bag, same size as the sticky stuff, resembling salted small white pebbles. Well, they were as hard as pebbles, but not quite as hard as the biscuits. These were peanuts. Not the nice Willards roasted type that you bought in the supermarket, these were the rejects. These were the nuts that fell on the floor whilst they were being pulled out of their shells. They were left to lie there for weeks till they became rock hard. Now they were so devoid of moisture, that whilst attempting to chew them, they set like concrete as soon as it had collected every drop of saliva in your mouth. You then used the twiddle stick from the coffee to pry the soapy tasting muck from the roof of your mouth where it had decided to take up permanent residence.

7. An aluminium, unmarked toothpaste tube, but filled with some stinking green/yellow pus. Inside was an incredibly greasy load of semi-rancid margarine. This tube obeyed Murphy’s Law every time it was squeezed. Instead of coming out the narrow hole exposed after removing the screw top, it instantly unravelled its rear end and fired its rotten guts all over your combat trousers. Since you couldn’t eat the biscuits, you now used them to scrape the greasy gunk from your crotch, leaving a lovely large stain. Since the stuff ponged so bad, you wouldn’t dream of cooking with it, so it got promptly chucked. Even the ants gave the stinking glob a wide berth.

8. Some huge yellow salty pills. These were to be taken every day to combat salt loss due to excessive sweating. They tasted vile.

9. A box of Lion matches. Besides for making foja (fire) they could be used as tooth picks and ear cleaners. My mate Addie used them as weapons. He had this very annoying habit that after he lit up a fag, he would place the used stick in the crook of his folded first finger and then use his thumb to flick it into your face.

One interesting thing about this box of matches was the logo. As little boys do, it had become common knowledge that if a thumb was placed over the lion’s head, keeping its mane visible, the body now resembled a semi-erect penis that had just ejaculated.

Starch Options

1. A bagged handful of off-white, rock hard, wedding confetti. This was rice. Not the kind Uncle Ben would eat. The stuff took ages to cook, drank water like a fish and because there was no sieve available - it tended to turn into mush. If you added the sugar and the milk-powder it became the world’s worst rice pudding.

2. A bagged handful of yellowish hard tubes resembling a gutted cheap ballpoint pen, now chopped into finger tip sized bits. Officially it was called macaroni, but any resemblance to its Italian origins was lost in translation. When mixed with milk-powder and sugar, it just beat the rice pudding in the competition of the worst things you can put into your mouth without gagging.

The Tin Options

Each tin was approximately 200grams (7 ounces) and had no paper labels. Upon opening them, the strange contents could be one of the following –

1. A blue boiled egg, some badly cloned Heinz type beans, and a dwarf’s circumcised penis, otherwise known as a cocktail sausage. This was the ultimate in bad eggs, so to speak, because the egg, which took up 80% of the tin, stank like a stink bomb and looked the same colour of a freshly hung corpse’s bloated face. It sat ponging away in some orangey coloured sauce that had a few brave beans wallowing in it whilst the baby sized dick hid under it.

We were actually warned about these tins. We were not to open them if the tin ends looked suspiciously like they were being pushed out from the inside. This unique feature in tinned food was due to the fact that the egg had finally come of age, and the frenzied bacteria that were happily eating it had farted so much, that the bulging ends would erupt imminently. There were rumours that the Selous Scouts, a unique fighting unit, would use them as grenades against the Gooks.

2. Frankenfarters. These deathly pale objects were called this because they resembled Frankenstein’s fingers - after the nails had been neatly guillotined off and the bones pulled out. They smelt like they had been breeding in a swamp and once ingested they tended to produce abdominal gas that a Gook could smell from a click away.

3. More tiny penises, drowning in a thick orange swamp full of dodgy beans. This was really the same as the tin with the egg, but without it. This moved the food from inedible to barely edible.

4. An occasional and rare imported tin of Pilchards in tomato sauce and on the most wanted list. They tasted so lekker they would be traded for promised blind-dates with fellow recruits’ virgin sisters. Judging by some of the ugly buggers we had with us, you would have to be blind to date any of their sisters… or mothers for that matter.

Now certain members of our trainee buddies in arms were wise to the fact that ratpacks are used only in desperation. Jan, our leader was way ahead on that scale. His sausage bag really was full of swag. Out came real tins of just about any produce available in the shops and he soon had himself a regular feast prepared. Why hadn’t I thought of going shopping before we went on COIN? That was because I flatly refused to use my pay to feed my-self. I would rather starve… and so I did.

Another clever device Jan had brought with him was called a tin opener. An amazing device that could open tins! I hadn’t thought of bringing one of these either. His was a SAP issue, a tiny folding hook type metal thingy, that hung around his neck on a shoestring. A little larger than a thumb, it was a flat piece of hardened steel with a folding flat blade. With leverage, the punctured tins contents would slowly be exposed. We now had to queue to open our food. Meanwhile, ‘Poor old Guy’, in frenzied desperation, had thrown his tin numerous times at one of the huge granite rocks that dotted around our ‘camp site’ until it burst its guts all over the show and then scraped the stuff into his aluminium ‘cooking’ pot…

So, after an excellent evening meal under the magnificence of the southern hemispheres’ stars, we went happily (not) to bed…

And the hate mail starts – I am so chuffed!

2011-07-30T17:08:00.000+01:00

Received today via Facebook…

Karl, having grown up on the 'wrong side of the railway track' as you suggest in Hatfield, poor and shoeless and inferiorly educated at Hatties' Junior, I feel unqualified to comment on the prose of an obviously superior, priviledged (sic) being from such an esteemed suburb as Munt Pleasant (not a typo). But you did ask for feedback. Your ramblings are reasonably humorous but amateurish - hence the reason Godwin et al's efforts are vastly superior to yours and have enabled them to profit from their works, whereas ..... well, don't give up your day job just yet mate..!! I wish you luck though, I am sure a few whenwes like R.O. (a N. suburbs man himself) will splash out a few of their hard-earned pennies on your book.

The Times cryptic crossword is very difficult. I haven’t a clue what they are going on about. But, I recall reading years ago, the winner of that year’s crossword competition, after solving it in about 9 minutes, said along these lines…

‘It is easy. Once you know how the cryptic creator clicks, the answers are inevitable!’

So, my campaign is working. (By the way, for non Rhodies, ‘chuffed’ means to be extremely pleased - such as dropping your pencil onto the floor at school deliberately so you could look up Miss Fletcher’s skirt and get a glimpse of some spider legs.)

There was a rampant Whites Only ‘English style’ social structure. Class systems ring a bell? This, I noticed, is never addressed in any memoir from Rhodesians. It existed. How I recall when Mount Pleasant High had any match against Cranbourne High; it was simply acknowledged as a necessary slaughter.

Was I lucky to go to Mount Pleasant High? Forget it, I was B stream and we got the B and C stream teachers. They did their job admirably, sometimes not.

As the novelist Edmund White, once said

‘good writing is about bearing witness to uncomfortable facts.’

So. Look very carefully, and not just between the lines. There are gems of cryptic knowledge, much disguised humorously, but it is there. Many a line will confuse you…Am I for real or what? And that is the trick I hope to perform, for whilst many will cringe, this is a part of the history of Rhodesia…Albeit, hidden, just as is was in those days.

Any FAQs?