We arrived in Rhodesia from Cape Town in May 1958 when my stepfather, Cyril Williams, was transferred to Gwelo (Gweru) as General Manager, Prices Candles Central Africa.

By the end of the year he had lost that position and we moved to Sinoia (Chinhoyi) where my parents were to manage the Sinoia Caves Motel. The trip was quite an adventure with our trailer losing a wheel on the dirt road between Hartley (Chegutu) and Sinoia via Gadzema. (These are stories for another time).

There was no high school in Sinoia (that opened in 1960) so in the January of 1959 I was enrolled at Guinea Fowl School (GFS), halfway between Gwelo and Selukwe (Shurugwe). I was in Wellington House (WH) at the school. My brother was born in Sinoia in April 1959.

GFS was a great school, way out in the bush and almost every weekend would be spent walking and exploring.

Some time in about mid-to-late-1959 my stepfather caused the owners of the Caves Motel to, reluctantly in my mother’s case, let them go. My mother wrote and told me about this and said Cyril had got a job at Copper Queen near the Sanyati – way out on the Alaska road. He had been friendly with the people who offered him the job. The accommodation, I was to learn, was primitive – not to put too  fine a point on it.

Towards the end of 1959 I had no idea where my parents were.

I subsequently learned that the job at Copper Queen had ended and my parents were, by that time, living on a very basic farm (rondawels with no electricity or running water) with a chap named van Tonder about halfway between Karoi and Sinoia (I know it was 28 miles from Sinoia).

I had not been in contact with my parents for some time and I must have said something to one of the teachers. The upshot of his was that under no circumstances was the school prepared to let me get on the train to Sinoia until contact had been made with my parents. There was some discussion about what to do because the school would be closed. One of the cook matrons was approached and she offered to look after me until my parents could be contacted.

Accordingly, on the last day of term, I accompanied the lady (I will call her Mrs Brown for ease of reference and until I learn her actual name) to her home in Hunter’s Road, where her husband was a warder at Connemara prison.

They were lovely, kind people and I remember running around the area, exploring here and there. I don’t remember if they had children of their own but I remember that there were children around my age – perhaps neighbours?

After a few days Mr Brown announced he had taken a week off and was going to go down to his gold mining claims near Fort Victoria (Masvingo). He wanted to do as much as possible in his mine as he could because Lake Kyle (Lake Muturikwe) was close to completion and had already started to fill. When the lake was full all the little mine smallholdings would be under water.

He asked if I would like to go with him – I jumped at the chance and we set off. I cannot remember the accommodation there but I think Mr Brown had a small cabin that we stayed in.

I do remember exploring the mine. It was quite extensive with drives into hillsides and long dark tunnels and some deep, dark shafts. On one occasion I was walking along a tunnel and Mr Brown suddenly stopped me rather sharply. He then pointed out the shaft in the tunnel floor that I had not noticed. He showed me how to walk around this black hole and warned me about the care needed in the tunnels. He forbade going into the mine drives alone.

I did do a lot of exploring in the area on my own while Mr Brown and his black workers were occupied in the mine.

One day I was up on the hillside and had been peering down some of the open and unprotected shafts that were dotted around. At one of these shafts I was standing about half a metre from the edge and leaning slightly forward to peer into the dark hole, tossing a couple of pebbles in to hear if they hit bottom or splashed into water.

Somewhat engrossed in this boyish activity I suddenly heard an angry HISS by my feet.

Now HISS is misleading. It leads one to think of the insignificant sound of a tyre deflating…this was more like an EXTREMELY amplified consumptive wheeze, a noise you make in the back of your throat but loud and sinister! Think of the second syllable of BACH (yes, the musical genius – unless you can’t pronounce Bach …?) and imagine that CHCHCHCCH….at your feet but at CONSIDERABLE volume? That is the closest I can get to describe the sound of a startled serpent.

The next sequence of events took place so quickly that for many years I have believed that, in times of stress, one of the SIXTH SENSES is telekinesis.

I glanced down. The cobra was reared up. Its head was level with my knee, hood spread. Another angry CCCCCCHHHHHHH…. then I fell over a log some three or four metres BEHIND where I had been standing.

Trembling, I stood up, all the time staring at the place I had been standing. There was nothing there! Nothing. I picked up a large stick and looked around wildly…was the snake slithering towards me? Would it be angry and come after me? After another moment of dithering I fled. I am glad there were no hidden shafts in my path as I scampered pell-mell down the hill and back to our camp.

When Mr Brown got a message from home that my parents would be coming to fetch me we packed up and drove back to Hunter’s Road.

A day or two later my parents arrived to collect me. Cyril was grumpy that he had had to travel all that way and that I had wasted the train fare. He wanted to know why I had not got on the train – I think he had arranged for someone to meet me…but he had not told the school anything!

Anyway my mother was pleased to find me safe and well and thanked Mrs Brown and her family for their kindness. Although My recollection is scant on detail, and I have forgotten their name, they were the nicest of people – the best of Rhodesia. I have never forgotten this episode.

My stepfather enrolled me at the new Sinoia High School in January 1960. It only had form one in the first year and I had to hitch-hike 28 miles from the farm in the bush every morning. I was always late and I resented being put back a year. My behaviour was not exemplary and this resulted in Mr Talbot-Evans, the new head and my ex-housemaster from Wellington, giving me a talking to before he caned me. First boy to be caned at Sinoia High School – what an achievement.

Because of my rebelliousness it was recommended I go back to GFS and, two weeks late for the start of term I was back in junior dorm at WH.

By the end of 1960 my parents had moved to Salisbury and in 1961 I had to go to Cranborne High, near where we were living. This was because my stepfather could no longer pay my boarding fees due to his depleted circumstances.

1961 was eventful…I started at a new school where I refused to do Latin because I had been due to stop it at GFS. I was downgraded to a B stream as a result…My sister was born in the March…I broke my arm in the April (?), just before end of term…and then, a week or so after start of term, on 11 June 1961, my stepfather was killed in a car accident. 

I missed the rest of second term, we went to stay with relatives in South Africa but came back to Salisbury within months. At the end of the year I came seventh in class. As promised for passing the year, my mother bought me a bicycle. It cost her eighteen guineas that she paid off and it was many years before I comprehended what it took for her to keep her promise. 

My mother made a life for us, made a home for us and brought us up. I was fourteen, my brother was two and my sister three months of age when she was widowed. She always said that had we stayed in South Africa she could not have done that but, in Rhodesia, she could.

I have written a little about these events in my anecdote titled AFTER GUINEA FOWL SCHOOL.http://eriktheready.com/after-guinea-fowl-school-gfs-2/

Guinea Fowl School is/was located in the Rhodesian (Zimbabwe) midlands halfway between the towns of Gwelo and Selukwe – roughly eleven miles either way. (today those names are Zimbabwe, Gweru and Shurugwe and the distance would be 18 kilometres). It still exists, GFS, having been reopened but it is not the same and is very run down and rather sad in the pictures I have seen. (The GFS blazer badge – as worn in the period that the school was originally open is shown here).

I attended GFS, where I was in Wellington House, from January 1959 to December 1960. There were six houses then – located at TOP school were Wellington, Lancaster, York and Stirling (Stirling was still a girls’ house in 1959, the last year in which girls were still at the school). At bottom school, just over half a kilometre away on the other side of the main road and railway line, were situated Lincoln and Blenheim houses. Anyone who knows anything about the air war in Britain will recognise the names of bomber aircraft of the RAF and a picture of a Wellington bomber is shown in the photograph.

With each house accommodating about 60-70 of us there would have been around 400 students.

In retrospect I did not realise how happy I was at GFS until quite some time after I had left.

The school was on the site of a WWII training airbase and the hutments that had been used to house staff and trainees had been converted into school hostels, teachers’ single quarters and houses for the married teaching staff. When I arrived there the new school classroom block had just been built but there were still a number of classes being held in the old buildings including one of the old aircraft hangars.

With its own small hospital, a chapel, swimming pool, large communal kitchen and dining halls and vast grounds and sports fields it was a great place for young people to be educated. Long rambles into the surrounding bush were the order of the day on most Sundays. After eating the breakfast cereal we would make a sandwich of our bacon and egg and sneak it out in a handkerchief to eat for lunch later. There was a kind of overarching esprit de corps at the school. The same esprit pertained in the individual houses with fierce inter-house rivalry, helped by the fact that each house had its own accommodation buildings. The large dining halls were shared and each house was seated in its own section of the halls. Bottom school had its own dining hall and kitchen complex but all school work and sport took place at TOP school.

The reason I left the school was because my stepfather had experienced some setbacks and could no longer afford my boarding fees. The Department of Education ruled that because my parents had moved to Salisbury (today’s Harare) I had to go to a day school near home as the family was now living in an area served by a local high school – we having previously lived in the Sinoia/Karoi (Chinhoyi/Karoi) rural area.

I hated Cranborne Boys High (my new school) – it was new and rough. I remember Mr Brown the headmaster, as he was about to cane me (because I had been falsely accused of something and would not counter-accuse), saying something like this to me: “Young man you need to realise that there are no traditions such as you had at Guinea Fowl, at this school. These boys think you are a mug and none of them would dream of owning up. By keeping silent you are accepting their accusations and I have to punish you”. I received three cuts and was laughed at on my return to class.

I never did tell tales and was bullied for a time until I clocked a couple of the ringleaders after which I was left alone.

I had all but stopped Latin at GFS because I would not have been taking it in Form 3 had I stayed, so I refused to do it at Cranborne. As a result, I was moved down from the four year A stream to the five-year B stream.  My classroom colleagues were not A-streamers either.

In June 1961 my stepfather was killed in a car accident on the Lomagundi road. I was fourteen, my brother was two and my sister only three months old.

I missed a term of school while my mother took us to Cape Town (where she was born). She decided Rhodesia would be better for us and we went back. She told me if I passed that school year I would get a bike. I came seventh in a class of over forty and she kept her word. I only realised later the sacrifices she made in order to do that.

We lived at Cranborne hostel (as we had before my stepfather died) for several months. This was the old WWII air base that was to become HQ 2 Brigade a few years later. We then moved to Queensdale and finally Cranborne Park.

1961 was to be the last year that I really did fairly well at school and although I got a good pass at the end of 1962 in Form 4 and a full CoP (College of Preceptors) my work deteriorated. I got a lousy GCE O level and battled to find work – it was also the first year of GCE replacing the Cambridge certificate which had caused some confusion.

I wanted to join the Air Force or Army on leaving school but the air force turned me down (I suffer with colour confusion – I see colours but not in quite the same way everyone else does). The Army also turned me down for being short-sighted. I took a job with the OK Bazaars under the impression I was not ever going to serve in the military.

When I got called up in the September of 1964 the OK promptly fired me but that left me free to get into the Regular Army – a lot of friends were already in the army.

In my interview at Llewellyn Barracks the reason for being refused at the end of 1963 was brought up and I said if I could be shot at as a short-sighted territorial surely I could as easily be shot at in the regular army with the same condition. (I think that the break-up of Federation at the end of 1963 was to blame for them not taking too many people when I first applied?)

I was attested into the Corps of Signals because I did so well on signals course and my request for infantry was met with the option of not joining up or joining signals (sometimes referred to as a dog’s choice vs bugger all choice)!! I think it was the right CHOICE in the end and I did very well in the Corps. I served from my National Service call-up in September 1964 to the end of April 1980 with a short break trying the BSAP in 1975 (I hated it and promptly transferred back to the army). I was a Warrant Officer Class 2 in 1979 up to the end of my service and my next logical career move – that was not to be – would have been to go for a commission. I served until the 30^th of April 1980 after which we sold up and moved to South Africa.

The picture of me at Victoria Falls was taken on an instamatic in mid-December 1966. We were returning from a one week signals course exercise during which my detachment had been based between Victoria Falls and Kazangula. I was 20 at the time.

I left the Army in 1975 at the end of my first ten-year contract in a vain attempt to save my marriage which ended in divorce that year. It was not the fault of the army although the tensions of the day played a part. Janet and I have a daughter who was born in 1974.

The BSAP (British South Africa Police) was the national police force of Rhodesia. In 1975 when the police advertised for individuals with a communication background I applied and was accepted. The job was in plainclothes and, oddly, not really police work at all. I was not at all happy and transferred back to the army on 1 March 1976, almost exactly a year after leaving.

In the Army I had done several courses and been fortunate to serve with some really good officers who mentored me. I found that as a senior NCO and as a Warrant Officer I was frequently in charge of sub-units and was appointed in acting positions in the absence of available officers. I ran two signals troops as acting OC and near the end of 1979 I was attached to the Commander, Rhodesian Signals, for the last 5 months of my service.

During this final period of time I carried out liaison for a short time with the communications elements of ZANU PF and ZANLA then took over the running of the communications for the Salisbury District area of command for the elections period. The area was vast – Darwendale to Marandellas (Marondera) and Mazoe (Mazowe) to just north of Beatrice. HQ Salisbury District at that time was being run as a brigade headquarters.  I drew up the Signals order, drew and issued all the required equipment, deployed the personnel and oversaw the successful completion of the operation.

After that I was tasked with putting together a team to provide communications backup for the Independence Celebrations. I and my team were afterwards congratulated on a signals backup that enabled the complex logistics to proceed when the telephone system could not cope with the volume of communications traffic. Once I had returned all the equipment and given my team their Independence Medals (a most informal medals parade, it was held in the lounge of Meikles Hotel over drinks) it was the end of April 1980 and the end of my service.

The letter to the right is the one thanking the Army for our assistance. I got all my team to sign it when I issued them with their Independence Medals. I also received a separate, personal letter of thanks from the department.

In South Africa I worked in the two-way radio industry for most of the time with a couple of forays into my own handyman business while unemployed after being retrenched (made redundant). I have always had something of the square-peg-in-a-round-hole feeling as a civilian having made up my mind before the end of the seventies to make the army my permanent career.

After my late wife, Rose, died I remarried Janet who was again divorced and with whom I had maintained a close but long-distance friendship. After visiting her in 2014 we decided to remarry and she came to SA in 2015 for the ceremony. My application to join her in Australia, where she is a citizen, was approved in 2016.

I now live in an area called the Sunshine Coast in Queensland which is very beautiful – the Pacific Ocean is ten minutes away. If it had been suggested a few years ago that this is where I would be, very happily remarried to the person I have always loved, I would have scoffed at the idea!

To clarify that last statement. After the divorce from Janet (that I did not want) I had to get on with my life and I dearly loved those to whom I was married in the interim but, to use THE BEATLES’ song IN MY LIFE as an analogy:

Though I know I’ll never lose affection
For people and things that went before

(and) I know I’ll often stop and think about them
(but) In my life I love you more

If you have sound listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAGvON_WjUA

Having always been the “go to” person for letters and proofing, and having worked at a typesetting company (during one of those REDUNDANCY periods), I found it natural to start a business doing proofreading, editing and copy writing. It is something I enjoy, suits my attention to detail (am I a bit OCD?) and the WWW is the perfect vehicle for it, for Erik the Ready and…I also still take on small DIY / handyman work. …and I am starting to add blog-type copy on my site to satisfy my love of writing