Rambles on the Edge. Wendy Maitland

8

       CHAPTER 9

       CHAPTER 10

       CHAPTER 11

       CHAPTER 12

       CHAPTER 13

       CHAPTER 14

       CHAPTER 15

      CHAPTER 1

      As soon as the decision to leave Kenya had been made, it was as if we had launched ourselves like surfers on an unstoppable wave rolling at speed towards a far shore that was only vaguely visible. There was very little time to get our move underway and my main concern had been for our much loved Kipsigis ayah Elizabeth, who was grief-stricken to be losing ‘her’ children (having no confidence that I was capable of looking after them myself), and finding a new family for her where she would be appreciated and well treated. She and David had established a link through mutual despair at our departure and he promised that he would take care of her until a new position was found.

      He came to help me pack up, bringing tea boxes and piles of newspapers, telling me that army people are experts at packing and moving as that is what they do all the time. He was an immensely kind and reassuring person to have around, practical and methodical, while Adam disassociated himself from any actual hands-on involvement in the packing-up process, saying that he had better things to do. He was planning a route for us to drive through Tanzania and Mozambique to our new home in Rhodesia, carrying as much luggage as could fit inside and on top of our Cortina Estate. Adam’s valiant 1956 Land Rover that had seen us through so many years of adventures and never let us down, very sadly had to be sold.

      The Labradors, Roger and Ruin, were despatched to an animal transport company in Nairobi from where they would be flown by cargo plane to Salisbury. Our third dog, Beetle, had already gone to join the pack at Glanjoro House, which was a good move for her as one of the Pointers was her mother.

      We were almost ready to leave when Fa decided it was too risky for us to drive with a baby thousands of miles through the African bush, without medical facilities or any kind of civilised amenity along the way. All we could be sure of encountering, he said, were swarms of mosquitoes and tsetse flies and insisted that I should go by plane with the children while Adam took the car. There would be more space in the car for luggage that way too, he suggested.

      David once again helped out and took me to the airport with the children and Elizabeth, resulting in a highly distressing scene as we said goodbye and Elizabeth refused to let go of Peter, clinging onto him and wailing so loudly that ground staff came to see if he was being kidnapped. By this time all of us were sobbing and David had to prise Peter from Elizabeth’s arms, putting his own arm around her as he led her away through the airport, and I felt utterly bereft. For months and years afterwards, the person I missed more than anyone was Elizabeth. She was much more than a nanny: she had been a kind and motherly figure to me as well as the children, scolding me when I was forgetful or made silly mistakes, but most of all laughing with me and being perpetually cheerful and loving.

      Friends told us the difference between Kenya and Rhodesia could be summed up as follows: ‘Kenya is the Officers’ Club and Rhodesia is the Sergeants’ Mess.’ I was curious about this distinction and wanted to see what was meant by it when we became part of this new society. European settlers in Kenya were mainly British, which they might have thought gave them an edge, while many Rhodesians were descendants of Dutch Afrikaner families who had trekked north from South Africa to escape the aftermath of the Boer War. The conditions they endured were so brutally harsh, they needed to be very tough to survive and had done so with pride in this new country.

      Adam had accepted a dairy manager’s job offer by post from a farm at Gwelo in the southern part of Rhodesia, without meeting the owners or seeing the farm in advance of our arrival. Up to this point our only contact with Rhodesia had been a brief excursion a few weeks earlier to have a quick look around. This had followed reports from friends already there who sent glowing accounts of the country’s prosperity and lifestyle with, in particular, excellent schools, which for us was a pressing issue now that Louise had reached school age.

      Kenya was our home and leaving was something we could never have contemplated before independence in 1963 brought uncertainty for those of us who, despite feeling we were Kenyans and having a deep allegiance to the country, were not indigenous Kenyans and that was a crucial difference. Adam had been born in Kenya and knew no other life apart from school in England, so it was more wrenching for him to leave, but Rhodesia was still Africa and offered a quality of life enhanced by an environment of surpassing beauty and diversity. The splendid mountains, thorn trees and golden savannahs of Kenya were there replaced by monumental granite outcrops rising from the russet colours of Mopani woodlands and plains: Africa in a different guise, but no less glorious.

      Our nearest neighbours in Gwelo were Afrikaners, Letty and Henk, who spoke Afrikaans at home with their children, either Shona or Ndebele on the farm with the African workers, and English when they were with us. Swahili was unknown and everything felt very different and foreign, especially the climate: scorching hot just then at the height of the southern African summer and, later on, bitterly cold in winter.

      We moved into the dairy manager’s house with the possessions that Adam had managed to bring with him in the car, and waited for the dogs to arrive. We needed their company to help us feel like a normal family again. The animal transport service was an efficient organisation that handled all manner of live cargo for zoos as well as transporting domestic pets. Expert care from door to door was provided with veterinary supervision, at no little cost. Quarantine restrictions did not apply in this case and the dogs were delivered all the way to the farm, arriving in massive crates that looked solid enough to have transported lions, but were impressively clean with plenty of bedding. The dogs were in excellent health and spirits, leaping out to greet us ecstatically and race around sniffing all the new scents. Having them with us lifted morale all round.

      Our house was quite superior by farm manager standards with a guest cottage and swimming pool in the garden, but best of all, a telephone. The owners of the farm were what Adam described as local cattle barons and lived in grand style, displaying their wealth in a way that successful farmers in Kenya never did. It was almost a point of honour among those who were better-off in Kenya settler communities that the more you had in the bank, the less you let it show, which in some cases meant very short rations for farm managers and other employees. Here in Gwelo our new bosses, Lawrence and Thelma Maclean, exhibited none of that modesty and were in addition devout Baptists who believed in Christian charity, heaping us with generous perks and hospitality. Adam had been surprised and delighted to find that he was in charge of a pedigree Friesian herd luxuriating in cultivated pastures, with a modern milking parlour and well-trained, reliable labour.

      Simon, now three years old, went with him everywhere and was called ‘Baas Stompie’ by the African workers, amusing them as he scurried about on his short (stompie) legs. Peter was already walking at ten months and sometimes went along too, hand in hand or carried piggy-back by Simon who was his devoted carer. African children often carried babies on their backs, but Thelma Maclean disapproved of Simon doing the same. ‘Going around like an African,’ she complained, and insisted on engaging a nanny for us, explaining that it was important for us to have the right kind of nanny. ‘We don’t have ayahs here,’ she said. ‘That’s for Indians.’

      We had arrived in time for Christmas 1969 and I went to look for cards to buy in Gwelo town, twenty miles from the farm, after dropping Louise at primary school. She had settled into Class 1 enthusiastically, expecting that she would be reading and writing within days since being given new pencils