After one year, Bernard was
entitled to local leave, so in 1953 he drove, with two friends,in his little
Hillman Minx, via Nairobi, then in the midst of the Mau-Mau insurgency,
to Gulu, northern Uganda, to see a contemporary from London University.
The journey covered about 3,000 kms, and went well, except that while
in Uganda the eruption of a volcano closed a road, forcing
them to make a detour of several hundred kms. Such a journey would
today be much more hazardous and unpleasant.
PART 11
MEETING BROKIE
( This heading is not
egotism on my part: both Bernard and I believed that we had “met our destiny”
in July, 1954, when we met at the Tanga Yacht Club, and soon afterwards
decided to spend our lives together. I was then a District Officer,
stationed partly in Tanga, and part of the time at Handeni, about 120 kms
inland.)
After our meeting, Bernard and I spent
as much time in each other’s company as we could, given the necessity
for discretion , because our relationship was not socially
- or legally – approved. When I was in Tanga, and could manage to get away
from the office for ½ hour, I would go to a small Indian café,
not frequented by the “Europeans”; this was opposite Tanga H.S., and I
would wait, agog, for Bernard, in the morning break to come striding
across, in his colonial white shorts and white shirt. We would drink
fresh lime juice, and eat a bhajia, then rush back to our respective jobs.
We also managed to spend many week-ends
away, at “safe” houses, or at remote locations. These included the hill
station of Amani, in the Usambara Mountains, where the old rest house
was little used. Amani, which also means “Peace” in Swahili, has a double
significance for us, and our personal car number plates, both in California,
and in South Africa, use “Amani”. Driving up to Amani in my short wheel-base
Land Rover, we used to stop for a skinny dip in a clear mountain stream,
just off the road,When we visited Amani 17 years later, all the trees on
the hillside had been cut down, for timber, and the streams were all dry.
Alas.
Bernard and I often sailed in Tanga
Harbour at week-ends, in borrowed yachts. Once, we won a race, with
Bernard crewing for me in Daphne Ainley's "Dainty".
We visited Colonel Boscawen’s fantastic
estate near Moa, on the coast, not far from the Kenyan border. A
friend described his home as “ a cross between a grand English country
house, and the Wallace Collection”. It was indeed extra-ordinary ,as was
the owner. Unlike most sugar-cane planters, Colonel Boscawen had left vistas
in the shrubs and cane so that from his verandah, there were splendid views
of the sea. Bernard and I introduced Col B to the excitement of undersea
goggling, to the consternation of his old boatman, who kept muttering,
“je, wewe ni Mzee, usiendelea!”(“I say, you are an old man, do not continue
with this”.)
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Pangani , on the coast
south of Tanga, was another refuge, where an eccentric English lady had
a self-contained beach hut, which she let us use. The water was carried
by two donkeys, Nelson and Hardy, the latter making an distinctive noise
when he walked, because of a KLIM tin attached to his hoof,
I was obliged by custom to call on the DC ( District Commissioner) at Pangani,
but fortunately he –and, more important, his wife – liked Bernard and me,
and thought nothing of our choosing to spend time on the beach at Pangani.
Happy days, happy memories.
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During this period, Bernard was required
to mark 1700 Senior Certificate examination papers in Geography, many of
them written in ki-Swahili.. The papers had been written at schools throughout
the territory. Bernard had a reasonable knowledge of Swahili, but teachers
were not expected to be fluent, nor to mark hundreds of scripts in the
language. Because I used Swahili constantly, I was able to help Bernard
in this huge task : we spent many evenings poring over the scripts. Because
of this imposition, and of other disagreements over policy, Bernard decided
to resign at the end of his tour, in January 1955.
I went ahead to England, in December
1954, taking a flat in George Street London (W1), where my mother
joined me, followed by Bernard early in 1955. We had five magical months
together in England, with Bernard walking me all over London, and then
driving (in my Standard Vanguard van) to see the familiar places from his
boyhood, and some new ones.
BULAWAYO
1955 - 1959
In May of that year, we sailed on
the S.S.”Umtali”, to CapeTown, then drove along the Garden route
to my hometown , Durban. From there Bernard flew to Bulawayo, to take up
his new teaching post at Founders High School,then the only high school
that prepared “Coloureds and Asians” for university,
in the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. ( I drove to Tanganyika,
but resigned from the colonial service a year later, joining Bernard in
Bulawayo.)
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