In the latest issue of our Newsletter, we have an article, ‘Memories of Rhodesia’, by Heather Taylor. Heather lives in the same village in Staffordshire as David and Brenda and she met Phithi when he came to stay with the Yates Family over the Christmas period in 2009. We hope that more people with ‘African’ connections (especially Zimbabwe and Sudan), will contribute articles to our blog and also for future issues of our Newsletter. These contributions can throw a completely different and personal light on our understanding of Africa. Articles by people with first hand knowledge of the historical, cultural, educational and social aspects of life, in that vast continent - both past and present - will be most welcome.
The farm consisted of 250 acres which wasn’t big enough for tobacco, so he changed to dairy and poultry. Tobacco is a very greedy crop, and land where it has grown has to be left fallow for several years after planting, so a very large acreage is needed.
‘Bellapaise’ was on the Lomagundi Road (now Chisemba) leading to Ruwa where the Rose of Sharon orphanage is, I believe. The road was what we called a dirt road, not tarred, so in time it became very corrugated and had to be graded regularly. Before ‘Bellapaise’ you passed the Epworth Mission, a very large area of land owned by the Methodists and the site in the corner was the Theological College. During the 50s and 60s the Mission was run by Fred and Kathleen Rea, a remarkable and very committed Christian couple from Northern Ireland, who also ran the College. In the 9 years they were there they completed a large building programme which produced the College it finally became:- “The first to be built was the classroom block, followed by the Chapel, dining hall and library, the hollow square of about 20 rooms for single men, two small guest cottages and a number of staff and student houses.” – Taken from the book, ‘The Best is Yet to Be’ written by Kathleen Rea.(a) They dedicated their lives to training and educating young people in Rhodesia and subsequently Zimbabwe.
Epworth Main Road
I was born in 1946 in Salisbury, Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe. My parents lived on a farm they called ‘Bellapaise’ in memory of an abbey in Northern Cyprus, where they met. My father had gone out to the country originally in about 1936, having been told that it was a very healthy climate, and the prospects for tobacco farmers were excellent. My mother joined him in 1939 with her parents who lived in a cottage behind our house. He worked as a manager on tobacco farms first of all, and then bought ‘Bellapaise’, which is only about 12 miles out of Salisbury, now called Harare.
Jean and Heather sitting in the tobacco field
The farm consisted of 250 acres which wasn’t big enough for tobacco, so he changed to dairy and poultry. Tobacco is a very greedy crop, and land where it has grown has to be left fallow for several years after planting, so a very large acreage is needed.
‘Bellapaise’ was on the Lomagundi Road (now Chisemba) leading to Ruwa where the Rose of Sharon orphanage is, I believe. The road was what we called a dirt road, not tarred, so in time it became very corrugated and had to be graded regularly. Before ‘Bellapaise’ you passed the Epworth Mission, a very large area of land owned by the Methodists and the site in the corner was the Theological College. During the 50s and 60s the Mission was run by Fred and Kathleen Rea, a remarkable and very committed Christian couple from Northern Ireland, who also ran the College. In the 9 years they were there they completed a large building programme which produced the College it finally became:- “The first to be built was the classroom block, followed by the Chapel, dining hall and library, the hollow square of about 20 rooms for single men, two small guest cottages and a number of staff and student houses.” – Taken from the book, ‘The Best is Yet to Be’ written by Kathleen Rea.(a) They dedicated their lives to training and educating young people in Rhodesia and subsequently Zimbabwe.
Balancing Rocks
On the road to the farm you passed the famous ‘balancing rocks’, which are an arrangement of granite rocks balanced precariously on top of each other. There was granite everywhere and those piled up rocks were a playground for my sister and me. We used to ride over there on our horses and endlessly look for Bushmen paintings. These people had lived in the area of Southern Africa about 2000 years earlier and recorded scenes of their daily lives by painting on the rocks with vegetable dyes.
When my parents bought the farm the house consisted of two brick cottages I believe, which were then joined by the ‘middle veranda’ and there was another ‘front veranda’ looking onto the garden. The roofs over the bedrooms were thatched and the roof over the middle veranda and kitchen area was made of corrugated iron – a cheap material in those days. We had a ping-pong table in the middle veranda; also a darts board and we used to love roller-skating when we weren’t riding. Farming was touch for my Dad; he could never leave the dairy and poultry, so we had very few holidays. He had to get up at 6am every morning to supervise the milking. I remember watching the farm labourers who did the milking, they were very good and made the milk sizzle into the galvanized iron pans! I used to try but was pretty useless! The head milker was called ‘Simbi’ so named because he had to come to the house and beat an iron plough disc hanging by a rope from the Jacaranda tree near the house, to wake up the milkers, who had to get the cows into the dairy first. I believe ‘simbi’ means iron in Shona.
Jean and Heather with 'Jess' ~ Christmas 1950
When we were small, my sister Jean and I had a wonderful nanny called Lydia who came from the Mission aged 18 to ask my mother if she needed any help. She looked after us until we went to school. When my sister subsequently returned to the farm with her husband in 1967, Lydia reappeared to look after Jean’s two young children.
We had a wonderful childhood. I was a tomboy and my memories are of climbing trees, sitting for hours in the ‘tree house’ and watching the chameleon. A fascinating reptile like a large lizard who could swivel his eyes round his head and change his colour according to the background he was on in order to camouflage himself. Animals filled our lives; my father was a great naturalist and bird lover, so he was forever bringing home injured birds and animals. I have memories of various owls, and a young duiker (small antelope) we called Tinker Bell who stayed with us for along time. We made friends with the cows who all had names and we watched them giving birth. We were sometimes asked ‘to collect eggs’ from the laying birds, and you knew which hen would peck when you darted your hand under the nest! Then there were snakes! We had black mambas (very poisonous), hooded cobras and pythons on the farm. My closest encounter with a cobra was when it came into the bathroom and coiled itself around the tap. Its head was in strike position and my father beat it hard with a sjambok (a whip made of cow’s hide) to kill it.
We had to go to boarding school (government schools for farmers’ children) from the age of 7, so from then on we only came home in the holidays. That is another story!
The black and white photos record our time on ‘Bellapaise’ described earlier. The coloured pictures show scenes of holidays when Paul and I and young Clare went back between 1982 and 1995. I have lots more of these photos!
When we were small, my sister Jean and I had a wonderful nanny called Lydia who came from the Mission aged 18 to ask my mother if she needed any help. She looked after us until we went to school. When my sister subsequently returned to the farm with her husband in 1967, Lydia reappeared to look after Jean’s two young children.
Jean, Heather and Suzette with 'Tinker Bell', the duiker
We had a wonderful childhood. I was a tomboy and my memories are of climbing trees, sitting for hours in the ‘tree house’ and watching the chameleon. A fascinating reptile like a large lizard who could swivel his eyes round his head and change his colour according to the background he was on in order to camouflage himself. Animals filled our lives; my father was a great naturalist and bird lover, so he was forever bringing home injured birds and animals. I have memories of various owls, and a young duiker (small antelope) we called Tinker Bell who stayed with us for along time. We made friends with the cows who all had names and we watched them giving birth. We were sometimes asked ‘to collect eggs’ from the laying birds, and you knew which hen would peck when you darted your hand under the nest! Then there were snakes! We had black mambas (very poisonous), hooded cobras and pythons on the farm. My closest encounter with a cobra was when it came into the bathroom and coiled itself around the tap. Its head was in strike position and my father beat it hard with a sjambok (a whip made of cow’s hide) to kill it.
We had to go to boarding school (government schools for farmers’ children) from the age of 7, so from then on we only came home in the holidays. That is another story!
The black and white photos record our time on ‘Bellapaise’ described earlier. The coloured pictures show scenes of holidays when Paul and I and young Clare went back between 1982 and 1995. I have lots more of these photos!
Faithful Nanny Lydia who came back to see us when we visited Zimbabwe with daughter Clare, aged 3 months, in April/May 1982
Heather, Jean, baby Clare, Sheila and Nanny Lydia in April/May 1982
Ruin of Great Zimbabwe in April/May 1982
View from the ruins of Great Zimbabwe
Trout Farm at Nyanga in the Eastern Highlands - September 1995
Guest at the Ilala Lodge Hotel, Victoria Falls, being prepared for white water rafting on the Zambesi - September 1995
Harare Airport - September 1995
Why did farmers children have to go away to boarding schools? Didn't the colonial government build schools and raise the literacy rate by requiring all to attend? Was there something special about these boarding schools that wasn't offered in day schools? As an American I can't see the logic in mandating children to attend boarding school instead of building a local school.
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