Rhodesia- Ration Packs; the ultimate truth!

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.

                                                or

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.

or

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.

or

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!

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?

Last of the Rhodesians – This is IT!

I realised I have picked a rather prickly subject with this memoir. The deeper I went into my memory, the more I baulked at some of it. I decided from the beginning to write it in my satirical, piss-taking style, but with all my Open University learnt skills, even I struggled to try to depict the last African colony’s death throes in such an acutely accurate scenario.

Many people died. There is nothing funny about that. But, to create the perfect balance of me, the naïve, arrogant 18 year old, and the early fifties memoir writer, in to some kind of true recalled reflection, neither boring in history, or pathetic in liberal left wing retrospect ponderings, or, right wing ‘hang the niggers high’ theology as reading entertainment; is not easy.

Many try - quite frankly there are tons of totally boring, creaking old White Rhodesian ‘memoirs’ being churned out faster than a Warren Hills Cemetery grave digger preparing the final chapter. (See last posting.)

So what can I do when others such as Peter Godwin and Alexander Fuller became rich and famous by jumping on the Rhodesian guilt train as it left the station? Quite a lot actually – but…you have to read the book. (And cough up some dosh as my fridge is running on empty….)

So, after much weeping into my last, but not least, beer tin, I now give you, the ultimate start to an adventure that even the devil would decline. This is a one off hey! I wish to point out that I might change a bit of this depending on the maelstrom I get, but…hopefully, Chapter One gets to your gut instincts…. I need loads of comments, after all, you lot are supposed to buy the book…

 

Chapter 1: Return of the Rogue Rhodie

‘Jannie van de Merwe, your Captain speaking, ek se. We have arrived at Salisbury dodgy International Airport in the illegal Republic of Rhodesia. Those Whenwes returning to fight a hopeless cause – you can stop whining now. Thank you for flying South African Airways.’

I staggered out of my seat and collected my piles of cabin luggage. I noticed that a mouse seemed to have terminated in my mouth overnight after my downing of half a dozen vodka, lime and lemonades freebies to help me sleep. I smashed my head on the Jumbo’s exit door. I forgot I was now considerably taller in my platform shoes and as I stood at the top of the stairs leading to the kiss smacking tarmac below-

‘Karl, Yoo-hoo, Karl!’ screams of adulation pierced my ears and I threw my gorgeous locks of softly undulating brown hair from my shoulders, and took in the sight of my ululating adorers screaming from the terrace public gallery. Stephanie Brooks, Clare Finlason and Lorraine Trenchard waved enthusiastically. It was a bit confusing at 6.00 am on a chilly August day of 1976. I was expecting my step-mother Katherine, the history teacher, to pick me up. Still, having a few groupies screeching away did wonders for my ego. I was returning in triumph to save Rhodesia.

My landlocked scrapping little land, barely the size of Texas, was surrounded by hordes of evil, commie Black tyrant controlled basket cases, such as Zambia and Mozambique. Rhodesians only had one semi-friendly escape route to the south over what Kipling called, ‘the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River’. And, those rooinek hating Boers couldn’t be trusted either! I mean, as I observed a few of Africa’s ‘happiest Blecks’, unload the luggage, I was trundling on the way to the terminal across the world’s longest civil runway. At a mile long the thing could have, at a pinch, accommodated the Space Shuttle. Local Rhodie lore was that when the slopes down south got themselves some new 747s, our lot rang them up and asked how long the runway must be extended too?

            ‘Ag, man, make it a click, hey.’

Of course, this caused confusion. Is a click a mile or a kilometre? Rather than ask, hence showing more ignorance of the outside world, they just settled on the extended version. I suppose, because of sanctions, the phone line to Seattle was blocked, otherwise they could have just asked some techi bloke at Boeing and saved a few uppity peasants having their maize fields buried under tarmac. Nowadays we have Google and it’s the uppity peasants that are getting buried under the tarmac by Mugabe.

I was a tad worried after collecting my luggage. I had to go through customs and didn’t fancy declaring anything. I had lied at the check-in (aim for the pretty girl, give number one smile, and flutter long eyelashes and get away with 15% excess, whilst not pointing out you have a mountaineer’s rucksack packed with stereo equipment you intend to sneak on board as hand luggage). Of course, all shit broke out on the plane at Heathrow airport, as I wobbled aboard with the thing on my back. The White stewardess (no Blacks allowed on this plane), wasn’t having any of my snake charming.

            ‘Listen,’ she hissed into my ear as I sat smugly down, ‘I know exactly what stunt you pulled here. I am getting this put into the hold. I have a good mind to report you,’ she huffily said as she dragged my rucksack away.

            Report me to whom? Who cares, they had threatened me a few years ago, when I was visiting my bio-mother in the United Kingdom (UK) and got caught thieving all their face creams and Eau de cologne from the toilets. Now I had just moved house and the White supremacists were paying for it…hah-hah. No wonder I was the black sheep in my dysfunctional family!

Still, I now had to sneak the contraband into Rhodesia. I had a bad feeling I was about to be fingered…

            ‘Anything to declare?’ the smartly attired officer, decked out like a tropical cruise ship captain in pure white, asked rather inhospitably.

            I had to think fast. It didn’t help that I looked like David Cassidy from the Parakeet family. My plumage of bright green included a pair of Oxford bags, enough to laminate the landscape luminously, and…I had a better suntan, since Rhodesia was just crawling into spring and I had returned from the UK’s hottest summer on record. Not only that, his hairstyle cut a clean cut image, whilst mine looked liked it needed cutting to get clean.

‘Oh, erm, I have a few music tapes, and I am here to join the British South Africa Police.’ That threw him a bit.

            Behind him on the wall was a framed picture of our Great White Bwana, Prime Minister Ian Smith. That was him who told us we had the happiest ‘Blecks’ in Africa. His droopy eye, damaged in a Spitfire crash whilst fighting the eyeties for the motherland in WWII, stared accusingly at my luggage.

            ‘Do you have any books or magazines of pornographic quality?’

            Of course I did. I had stuffed into my luggage one of the hottest books around, Xaviera Hollander’s Happy Hooker, along with the latest Playboy and Penthouse magazines, but I wasn’t exactly going to tell him that. In this country even Wilbur Smith was called a sexual pervert by our Victorian censors. Nor was I going to inform him that I had half a discothèque’s sound system that could reap a nice amount in import duty. Also - A litre of Captain Morgan’s 73% proof rum and a super cool digital watch, four tins of Brut 33 deodorant I had purchased at Woolworths on special offer, instead of the rip off ten bucks down at Barbour’s (Rhodesia’s version of Harrods, - less the Arabs and most of the stock). All in all, I was carrying a rogue’s treasure trove, but as a true Rhodie, I wasn’t letting on. Guard Against Gab was now a well known government slogan to stop us spilling beans to the enemy.

I showed him a couple of the latest UK pop albums - Mike Oldfield and 10cc.

‘How much foreign currency have you brought into the country?’

‘Sixty British pounds.’ This was not good. Fifty of them had been a goodbye and good riddance present from my bio-mother. The next few weeks were going to be tough, but I was hoping to shift the porn for a few bucks.

And then I was sneered through into the awaiting arms of my fans.

Lorraine’s old man owned Le Coq D'Or, a nightclub in the centre of Salisbury. There they had live gigs and the brain dead Rhodesian Light Infantry troopies, on their ten days ‘Rest and Recreation’, kicked testosterone fuelled rival armed forces to death whilst competing for any available jiggy-jig. Hence, Jimmy Trenchard had a bit of coin and his Suzie Quatro look alike daughter could go to school in her own Mercedes. The other arriving Whenwes went home in dilapidated Rixi Taxi’s Renault 4’s or a sun faded Datsun 120y and the occasional pseudo BMW Cheetah. (Named after the animal, not the fact the Rhodesians had been nicely cheated by these kit cars.)  There was still no sign of the accident prone second-hand donkey and wooden scotch carts, but at the rate petrol was being rationed, I guessed it wouldn’t be long. Well, at least my darling fans chaperoned me home in style.

Unfortunately, despite my seven month absence and my amazing transformation from a scrawny short back and sides and floppy fringe, into a Top of the Pops one hit wonder, none of the girls were interested in popping a wondrous hit with me on the back seat. Actually, it soon became apparent I had been used as an excuse for them to get off school for a day. Besides, as they were also just over eighteen, and wrapping up A’levels for university entrance, they were hardly likely to be caught messing with someone their own age who had barely scraped through O’levels; regardless that I looked like David Cassidy’s half Jewish clone.

So whilst I did all the talking, the Mercedes cruised through the poorer Whites’ suburbs of Hatfield, Queensdale and Cranborne. The standard sized gardens, two thirds of a football pitch, many littered with huge outcrops of weathered granite boulders, showed off the occupant’s income. If it looked shit - they couldn’t afford a borehole and a full time garden boy. Then the car’s retreads crossed the main railway line, (the only one actually), and we entered the city centre. We passed street names of pioneers, explorers, missionaries, and land thieving imperialists - Moffat, Stanley, Rhodes, Livingstone et-al -with old Dutch style gable houses and shops either side. And then up Second Street, heading north, passing some of the ‘skyscrapers’, crossing over Jameson Avenue, the statue of Cecil Rhodes stuck in the middle of the road, and so into the suburbs where the proper upper middle-class Whites lived – Alexander Park, Avondale, Borrowdale, amongst the many of this city of a quarter of a million of all races. I think the indigenous population had their own versions of income graded urban habitats, but they weren’t in sight, or in mind - segregated mentally and physically. Land possession…the first of White Rhodesia’s bane.

It was so strange, judging by the peace and harmony of Salisbury; it was hard to believe that Rhodesia was at war. The open space, the intense colours of nature, the neatness, the cleanliness, the smell, the amazing weather, the laid back populace of Black, White and in-between – this was the jewel of Africa – once bitten by its addictive toxin; a place to die for…And - that was the problem, not all the ‘Blecks’ were happy, and it seemed that some had progressed from being just cheeky munts and kaffirs that needed a good snotklap to sort them out; but into terrs and gooks that needed slotting. The former derogative terminology was used by boorish Rhodies, the latter, by all of us. Rhodies that is – the rest of the mad planet considered them as ‘Freedom fighters’…hah-hah, in retrospect, did they get it wrong or what!

It was nice to be home again. The suburb of Mount Pleasant was okay I guess. Here the soil was red with iron content, but with no giant boulders, the prolific gardens of sub-tropical fauna had nothing adventurous about them. But most did have a swimming pool (except us). Arriving at 14 Sims Road, I was rapidly booted out the car as it appears the wicked wenches had other plans. Julia, the ageless multi-purpose maid, known locally by the uneducated uncouth as a ‘Nanny’, was delighted to see me, and I was greeted with much happy babbling in her local lingo of Shona and clapping of hands. Besides a few swear words, most of it was gibberish to me. Local indigenous language was not on our school curriculum, unless you count Afrikaans. I proudly managed to get a mark of ‘U’ (ungraded), for my ‘O’ level exam in that incomprehensible guttering. Actually, I also failed English, but managed to scrape a pass when I did the exam again...

Her English was rather limited, but she understood her daily duties at $13 dollars a month -  make tea by 6.00am, set dining table x 3 daily, clear table, wash up, ironing, vacuum, dusting, polish the patio, prepare vegetables, baby sitting and weed the garden (her favourite chore). She wasn’t allowed to use the washing machine or the stove – they were considered too technical – and on no accounts was she to touch the pressure cooker or the Kenwood cake mixer - God forbid! (Nor was I come to think of it!) She was allowed to use the iron, which, as they were Made in Rhodesia, fell apart under her heavy hand on a regular basis. The Hoover was built in the fifties and was almost indestructible.

I unpacked my precious (as my Hi Fi was named), and waited for the rest of the clan to turn up, usually about half past one; after school finished for the day. The family consisted of Michael, my seven year old half-brother, sixteen year old step-sister Bridget, and my petite, strict and correct step-mother. My old man had passed to the beyond in ’74 and was pushing up daisies in the Jewish cemetery at Warren Hills. I missed him as much as heaven did. But, the family diagnostics is for another story – suffice to say my school years loosened many bolts in my head, assisted occasionally by clips around the ear hole from father dear, but this book is about the next traumatic period in my constantly unstable life.

The last seven months had been rather dramatic and traumatic. As soon as school was out for ever, I scavenged more of my rapidly dwindling inheritance and went back to my roots, Salford, a real dump of a place. A city within the city of Manchester in Great Britain – except there wasn’t anything great about it. Suffice to say it is a story in itself, but to summarise –

I started my career by stashing blocks of butter into the fridges of Liptons supermarket for £17 a week. Progressed to indoor pool attendant and finally gave up my ghost’s roots whilst on £45 a week (before tax), working in a cotton mill factory as a labouring lackey. I had tried to join the Royal Navy as a trainee officer. I passed the exams and was thrown onto the street when they found out I was from Rhodesia! It seems that the counter-culture of the sixties, so recently ended, had made the British completely paranoid about White people from Africa. They had sent us there in the first place, the uneducated idiots!

I was home sick and wanted out of this place where people my age spoke with every second word a reference to theirs or someone else’s genitals as adjectives, punctuated with grammatical variations of the four letter word for sexual intercourse. Idiots…all of them. 99% of them had never heard of Rhodesia and those that had thought I was a mass murderer or at least a plantation slave driver.

I wrote to the British South Africa Police (BSAP), the Rhodesian police force as it was known, hoping for them to pay for a ticket home. I mean, they actually promoted these kinds of deals. Unfortunately for me, I received a threatening letter spelling out I was being considered a deserter unless I returned pronto. To this day, I still can’t figure this out. I left as a minor, with British Citizenship. So, as a British adult subject, I applied for the free ride…and, they claimed because I had registered at the age of sixteen (all White boys had to), I was theirs and due to start fighting. I still don’t get it. Well, that’s besides the point. I got step-mom Katherine to spring a one way ticket (to be paid back), after bio-mother said she was happy to see the back of me as long as she wasn’t paying and here I am…

The next day was a high speed lesson in the naivety of my situation. I decided to hitchhike up to my old school just in time for their twenty minute break at 10.00am and check out some chinas. Normally I would have used my bike, but sadly it was rather wrecked and besides, wearing my peacock outfit along with the extreme heels; I would have been wasted on the tarmac at the first corner.

            ‘Yussus man, I thought you were a chick ek-se.’

            That charming comment came from the rather dodgy driver of the Peugeot 404 that picked me up. But things were to get worse as I stumbled on to the rugby field where several hundred kids (Whites only), ritually ate sandwiches and mobbed the Dairyboard ice-cream vendor (Black only), for the limited plastic bags of Bengal Juice, a beloved chocolate flavoured milk drink.

            ‘Bloody hell Greenberg, you look like a morph! You turned queer or what?’ asked my good friend Tim Bell in greeting. ‘Hah-hah, you look like your wearing a friggin dress, you longhaired fairy.’

            This comment, accompanied by snickers and giggles from dozens of straw boater wearing tarts and macho rugger-buggers in their scrotum tight khaki shorts and rain shrunk, dirty brown porkpie hats, had me rapidly losing confidence in my fashionable superiority. I was awakening to the fact that Rhodesia was still stuck in some weird kind of time bubble and my apparel was sending some bad messages…

I needed a plan B before I was either raped or mugged. I hitched into the city centre and stupidly changed my British dosh at the bank. I didn’t know about Black markets then. I just presumed that’s where the indigenous population bought melies and oddly shaped tomatoes; whilst in the meantime, our government was practicing it wholesale.

The exchange rate was a farce of 80 pence to the Rhodie dollar. I then invested in a pair of blue suede Bata trainers and with gritting teeth, a pair of locally made denim jeans with the dubious name of Spurs. I was furious with myself. I should have kitted up with the much coveted Wrangler or Levi instead of the whirling dervish, bloody stupid Oxford bags! Now I was down over twenty dollars, but besides the long hair, I looked relatively ‘normal’. Thus attired, my next visit would be down to the BSAP Head Quarters and sign my life away- Pro Rege, Pro Lege, Pro Patria  (For King, For Law, For Country.)

 (Motto of the BSAP. Rather odd as we had no king, the laws were rather dodgy and the country was internationally recognised as illegal!)

- - -

Memoir mutterings and glossary

Must remember to point out that the Stephanie Brooks in my story has nothing to do with American mass-murderer Ted Bundy’s girlfriend of the same name.

Must remember to tell Steph she still owes me a new copy of the Happy Hooker. I lent it to her and after much screaming months later, a quarter of it was presented back to me in total bits with the pages glued together. It seems the sex mad pupils of Mount Pleasant High couldn’t get their hands on it fast enough and it was chopped into segments and passed around.

Must drop an Email to Lord Sugar of the UK version of The Apprentice fame. It was his firm that sold me that dodgy Amstrad amplifier. Cost £40 in those days! Cheapest in Dixons at the time. The stupid five pin input had been soldered in mono mode (which I eventually fixed), but the output for the tape deck to record never worked. That’s what you get from buying from a former barrow boy!

Salisbury International Airport. Crazy, but families went to it as one of a Sunday outing. For a few cents you would gain entrance to the balcony overlooking the runway and have tea and sandwiches and get all excited if a plane arrived or took off. 

The statue of Cecil Rhodes had a wide yellow stripe painted down its back when Rhodesia passed away. I believe the figure was shortly after ‘Independence’ in 1980, uprooted and placed in the back garden of the National Archives in what is now Harare.

China – Nothing to do with the bastards that were equipping and training Mugabe’s ‘Liberators’. It was and still is a friendly Rhodie referral similar to the British ‘mate’ or the modern version ‘M8’.

Eyeties – Italians. Many of them landed up in Rhodesia as POWs from WWII and at the end of it promptly decided it was a far better place and settled in as residents.

Ek Se - The phonetic full stop applied to the end of a spoken sentence. Considered trailer trash Afrikaans and means the English etiquette equivalent of ‘Oh, I do say!’

Melies - Local lingo for white maize (corn).

Morph -  From ‘morphing’, to change. Reference to homosexuals or men in touch too much with their feminine side.

Whenwes - Comes from the fact that Rhodesians abroad tended to start all conversations with - ‘When we lived in Rhodesia…

Rooinek - Red necks. Derogative term for white Rhodesians used by Rock spiders and Slopes in vain attempt to placate themselves for losing the Boer war.

Slotting – From slot, to shoot/terminate life.

Snotklap  - The ability to hit someone with the open hand so hard against the side of the head, the recipient’s mucus would spurt out the nostrils. My father was an expert at this. Sadly, I was the only recipient of this type of education designed to drum some sense into me.

And here is the latest Rhodie news…

Recent Email from good friend whose father owned the Rhodesia Herald, before Smithy and Co did a Rupert Murdoch style takeover…

Hey! Lore!
U missing the boat or what? If this crap below gets published...?
WTF???

He then attached the following.

I wish to draw your attention to a book that has recently been published written by Sue Gibbs, entitled ‘Call of the Litany Bird’.  

Sue and Tim Gibbs lived in Nyamandhlovu for many years (not far out of Bulawayo) and this book tells the story of their lives on their farm through the bush war, Zimbabwean Independence and through the Gukurahundi years. Written initially as a collection of stories for her children to read and to pass on to their children, Sue had no intention of it becoming a published book. When she took it to a publisher to ask him to print 100 or so copies for her family and friends, he took the time to read it. He was captivated and called her back saying that this should be published for the world to read. He said it was sensational. Hence you come to see the book described below.

Sue writes the book beautifully. She has an amazing gift with words and the book really is captivating. I would like to quote my favourite passage from the book which in my view encapsulates both her writing ability and also her love for the farm and for Africa.

“I sat under the jacaranda, alone and yet not alone, absorbing the achingly glorious beauty of Africa, becoming part of it in those brief moments before the Queen of the Night folded her flowers back in, as if re-gathering her petticoats, withdrawing her scent, readying herself for the day. I remembered reading somewhere that it was possible to turn our ‘desert of loneliness into a garden of solitude’. This is it, I thought.…the aloneness here is not lonely. In the tall bottlebrush beside the courtyard fountain, brightly coloured birds preened themselves, singing and chattering to each other and, beyond the front lands, the veldt, drenched in pale gold, stretched as far as the eye can see. How could we ever leave this? As the sun, a large white pearl, slowly rose in the eastern sky, I got up and returned to the bedroom to await roll-call and Manka’s morning tea tray.”

Incidentally, the book has stayed amongst the top 100 books about Africa for several months now on Amazon, frequently taking the number 1 spot.

What a load of shite…stay tuned. I feel ill.

The Whenwes of Rhodesia

Whenwes - Comes from the fact that Rhodesians abroad tended to start all conversations with - ‘When we lived in Rhodesia…’

 A lot of controversy surrounds the spelling. There is whenwees, when-wees , whenwe’s, whenwee’s and whenwe, which incredibly is actually in Wikipedia and hilariously considered a derogative word!

 However, I believe the Bulawayo born artist Rose Martin, along with Lois Bodze, should lay claim to the correct spelling with the publication of the 1978 cartoon strip ‘The Whenwes of Rhodesia’. 

 Thanks to the internet, I tracked it down. Looking through it is jaw dropping. The subtle touches are brilliant. Whilst the world has moved on, a lot of what is depicted is still relevant today.

 Unfortunately, there are a couple of tasteless references that were a mistake; most Rhodesians will spot the ones I mean.   All of it is available to read here - 

 

Copyright is anyone’s guess, but I would just love to get Rose to do some cartoons for me…

Philosophical Ponderings of a Pathetic Philatelist

Back in the ‘good old days’ when we Whites told the Blacks what to do and things worked rather well… for some obscure reason, nearly every White household had someone who enthusiastically collected Rhodesian First Day Covers.

I do not deny that the stamps tended to be very colourful, educational, and promoted us Whities as the next best thing since slaughtered Zulus, but sadly, the aspirations that in the future they would be worth a fortune - turned out to be rather delusional. Delusional - such as like our Great White Bwana Smith said – ‘We have the happiest Blecks in Africa.’

I still ask myself, if they were that happy, why did that Black kid at the Scout Rally in Ruwa Park in 1972, punch me in the eye when I told him it was forbidden to play on the assault course after dark because it was dangerous? And the little shit ran away before I could give him a contrasting white eye.

That is beside the point. Now, as a lightie, I collected stamps. Most boring kids do, especially the poor ones on a tight pocket money budget. My old man (pushing up daisies for a long time now), was a right shit. He would get all the First Day Covers (FDC), with the fancy Salisbury Central Post Office date franked on an illustrated envelope. Meanwhile, I was forced to go to Mount Pleasant Post Office and purchase the lowest range of stamps up to the maximum of 25 cents, less five for the plain white envelope, and put up with half a first day cover.

BUT – hah. Revenge is MINE. Mine I tell you. Because there are millions, trillions, zillions of the worthless Rhodesia FDC crap floating around, barely being sold for 50 pence a pop on EBay. Except…one – MINE!

Quite simply, I have a boring one depicting the Bulawayo Trade Fair of April 29-May 7 of 1978. Two stamps, 4 cents and 8 cents, on the ‘official’ envelope – franked and placed so professionally by the White Post Master himself! (He was a bit of a piss head and his wife had a right large arse, as I recall) but, and here is the big but…

Check out where it is rubber stamped. Yup…Gokwe. The end of the fucking world! Death Valley on a plateau!

It is the only one in existence, which I will swear on my father’s grave (easily done actually). AND, I am considering giving it to the highest bidder of my forthcoming bestseller for the signed 01 copy (of a maximum of 10), in the not too distant future…which leads me to…

When is the sodding book coming to frustrating fruition? Not long, I am sure you will have it in time for your deity orientated present sock over the proverbial mantelpiece. Actually, I am working away at the 3^rd edit and a stunning new opening chapter which will be soon presented on this blog as a taster for more anarchy to come.

Meanwhile…the website is up and running, albeit still set for the Open University exam, but that will be changed in a couple of months…BUT, some laughs to be had here.

Feeling old when your son turns 21!

 21 years in 21 seconds.
Pictures taken in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Turkey, Crete, Germany and the UK.

I don’t usually put much private stuff up here. But today is an exception. I suppose most of us know where and what we were doing when we turned 21. All of a sudden it seems a long time ago.

That David was a looker was always apparent. That he got from me… Sadly he seems to have picked up my hedonistic genes.

Last of the Rhodesians – The Website

Update - 11th June -

No, don’t get excited. I am still have a lot of work to do. But this is a teaser.

However, there is quite a bit for you to sniff around. The host is still the OU, so that means in about four weeks it will be gone. Ignore the bit with numbers and word count; it is for the OU final exam. I will update every few days.

Have fun. Just click the fab logo…

Oh, you can even use the ‘Contact Me’ on the ‘Home’ page. Well, I hope so. There are still a few glitches to be ironed out.

Sadly the bloke mentioned in the entry below hasn’t contacted me. Ag shame…

In case you are wondering…yes, it is all my own work – hence a bit primitive.

Chopper Tech - Gordon (Beaver) Shaw

Whilst I was looking on the web for just about anything related to Gokwe, I stumbled across the Blog of Gordon Shaw. The bit I was looking for was amongst the HUGE 2008 archives he has. The research he has done for his book is amazing. And it turns out that an incident I describe in my book, he has actually also written about as it concerns the death of a best friend. I am hoping to get hold of that particular chapter to include in my own memoir.

If any of you are interested in this limited edition book, contact Mimi Cawood at yebomimi@gmail.com. I gather it is 350 South African Rand (about 30 odd pounds) with p&p extra. Anyway, here is a forward for his book by

Major Don Price BCR

OC 3Cdo

1  RLI

 

Someone asked me the other day, "Hey Don, did you know this guy Gordon Shaw? I think they called him Beaver. He was a blue job, a chopper tech. Did you know him? Did he see any action?" I do know Beaver Shaw and I did have the pleasure to operate with him!

My mind wanders off and I remember........Fireforce, a call-out, the wind in my face, the speed we were moving over the ground towards the target area.....and.......

“One minute out," came the words from the pilot. We pulled up and the command, "Smoke! Now!" filled my headset.   I lobbed the smoke canister out the open door and we banked sharp left, the blades chopping the air in a clatter of noise; there was that brief second, when time seemed to stand still as we waited for something to happen. Then it came............

The chopper tech barked into his mouthpiece, "Roger, Gooks 10 o'clock......left, bank left, bank left now! K Car is firing!" Dum-dida-dum, the sound of the 20 mm cannon firing, dum-dida-dum and the action was on! You talk about an adrenalin rush, something to shove you to the edge of your seat, exciting stuff, all of this and more, much more! A time to pray, a time to laugh, sometimes to cry. All of these emotions come to you at different times in an airborne Fire- force assault. The experience is something once never forgotten. It is exhilarating, exciting, fast, often frightening but always, always..... magic!

In the contact described above I have recollections of glancing to my left as we circled the contact area. The tech, K Car gunner, was crouched kneeling and firing the 20 mm gun with deadly effect. His crooked smile, calm demeanor and self confidence steadied and calmed my nerves as the battle unfolded! There are flashes of green and orange on the ground followed by the roar of incoming enemy ground fire. The Perspex shatters just to the left of my head and I am stung by the plastic and shrapnel which suddenly fills the cock-pit slams into my shoulder! It feels like a hefty punch and when I touch my shoulder it’s wet, sticky and hot. Apart from that I am fine and there is no time to worry about this now as things are happening and fast! The floor between my legs bursts upwards like thin silver paper being torn as rounds crash through the aircraft floor and green hornets whizz around   I duck and feel vulnerable and stupid all at the same time as there is nowhere to take cover! Nowhere to hide or dodge the bullets! I look to my left once more.....the tech is still smiling, still firing and once more I relax. Beaver you biscuit sort them out, bud! You go Boy!!

So the battle continues. The para Dak runs in over the target and deploys just off to the west. The paras seem to be ejected from the aircraft but then they steady to float and swing down towards the ground and the enemy below. All the time the K Car circles and the team watches; flashes all over the place and men running. Suddenly a billowing mushroom of white smoke makes us zero in on a contact taking place below. The radio crackles to life, "Contact, contact! Stop one we have a contact!"  Beaver adjusts his position and shuffles left or right on his knees behind his gun, taking in the situation  He looks, aims and a split second before firing he advises both the K Car team and the troops below, "K Car firing!" and the 20 mm once more spits out its deadly load.

There are yellow-white flashes and then a plumb of smoke as he makes a direct hit on a gook scrambling for cover behind a baobab tree. In an instance the gook disappears, vaporized. Everything is in slow motion now and the 20 mm spits again......Duda-doom....dud -dum!

Back in camp and safe on the ground I swing out of the chopper and onto terra-firma. The chopper tech walks around and claps me on the shoulder, "Great stuff, Ishe! Wasn't that outstanding?"  The pilot, Chas, unclasps his mouth-piece, "Good work, Beav! Spot on shooting, mate well done!" Chas and I saunter back to the Ops room for a debrief and some hot tea. For us the show is over for a while anyway. But for Sgt Beaver Shaw and the other chopper techs like him it has only just begun. He must now get to work and work quickly as there is no time to waste. The next call-out could come at any moment and he must re-arm, clean his gun to avoid stoppages, check everything on the aircraft, refuel, re-grease, check all oil levels and seals, all joints and blade tips as everything must be 100 % before the next siren blast signals another call-out!

Later that evening in the troop’s canteen the lads relive the battle. Stories are told and retold. The drinks flow but eventually, rather quickly actually, the lads are finished, expired, too much adrenaline has been pumping; one by one they peel off but before they go each and everyone says , Hey Beav...thanks bro you were magic up there, man. You made that 20 mil sing boet.....thank you Beav, thank you!" There are high fives all around. Eventually only a few of us are left and we reflect one last time on the day’s action and punch-up! The swirl of the last swallow and one last look at the dying fire.  "Good night you all.....good job Chas and great shooting Beav. Cheers everybody. See you tomorrow."  So ends a normal Fire Force day; what will the morrow bring?

Sgt Beaver (Gordon) Shaw was one of those dedicated chopper techs, a true professional who loved every minute of his work and calling. As a gunner both in the G Car and K Car he was unparalleled; apart from being a deadly shot with an uncanny knack of knowing the gooks next move before it happened he was also a great guy and a superb airborne soldier who always remained extremely modest.

I met Beaver in 1978 when he was posted as part of Fire Force Delta to Beitbridge where I was OC 1 (Independent) Coy RAR. The area was tough, dry and very hot in both meanings of the word - temperature wise and gook action. Beaver worked with me as tech/gunner in the K Car on many a call-out and I can honestly say I was always impressed by this quiet often shy young man in olive green overalls. For me he was and will always be one of the Blue Job's (Air force’s) unsung heroes as during his time with 7 & 8 Squadron his accurate shooting accounted for hundreds of gooks killed.  He spent day after day doing what I described in just one action, never bitching, whinging or finding fault in anyone....just quietly doing his job!

Beaver went on to be actively involved in almost every operation where choppers were deployed as well as airborne assaults into Mozambique like the raid on Chimoio in Operation Dingo. In fact the list of his deployments is staggering.

Beaver also accompanied pilots into neighboring hostile (enemy) countries on “hot extraction” missions playing an important role in rescuing soldiers from life threatening situations and bringing them back to safety.  Tasks the normal soldier never spoke or heard about but which were very real. Again, chopper techs like Beaver were never praised for their part in these highly dangerous airborne mercy missions; to this day they remain unsung heroes!

.
 Beaver’s memoires, “Chopper Tech” is a must read for both military historians and civilians alike. It is a wonderful record from a totally different perspective of the Rhodesian war and our fight against terrorism.

I am honored to have been asked to write a foreword for this quiet totally unassuming and modest professional …..  Sgt Gordon (Beaver) Shaw.