We started our married life in Gwanda in the Matabeleland South province and Judy had to get used to my frequent absences on patrol, absences which in some cases, as I have described earlier, were protacted by hunting trips, canoe safaris and such like. She was very tolerant but became a little impatient when I had to leave her at home on the frequent occasions when I had to take stock or take the minutes at meetings of the Gwanda club. However, our social life revolved around our club and our circle of young married friends. We played tennis every Saturday and on Saturday evenings we used to gather at the Mount Cazalet Hotel for the weekly film. Our two babies slept in the back of the station wagon parked outside the hotel, as did the children of other young couples and there was never any trouble - just imagine doing that now!
After four and a half very happy years at Gwanda where I was Assistant Native Commissioner we were transferred at very short notice to Gutu, 100 kilometres from Masvingo. What a traumatic experience one's first transfer is! When I was a bachelor I was transferred many times, and just used to rail my bed, chair, radiogram, trunk and suitcase to the place where I was going, mount my motor cycle and go. As a family man, things were very different, as anyone who has undergone a transfer will know.
After two years at Gutu we planned our first really long leave of three months, and made all the arrangements. One day the Chief Native Commissioner Mr S E Morris visited the station and in the absence of the Native Commissioner we entertained him to lunch. Stan Morris was a most impressive character, almost God to a young Assistant Native Commissioner. Almost his first words to me were predictably "How are you, Hemans?" My reply equally predictable was "Fine thank you, Sir". His next words were totally unpredictable and most upsetting, "Well, if you are fine, you don't need your leave. I'm cancelling it and transferring you to Karoi as Acting Native Commissioner". After the initial shock, we still managed to feed him and compromised on one month's leave before transfer.
The long haul from Gutu to Karoi, now with three babies, was marked by the frequent escapes of our little flock of muscovy ducks from their cardboard box in which we had tried to secure them. By the time we reached Karoi the car was filled with floating feathers and we were all liberally spotted with evil smelling ordure.
The Native Commissioner of Urungwe District had since the establishment of the administration there, been stationed at Miami, a tiny village in the centre of the mica, graphite and other small mines in the pegmatite belt. With the development of the post war farming boom and the construction of the main road from Salisbury to Kariba, it had been decided to move the administration centre to Karoi. The last incumbent of the post had refused to move from Miami to Karoi and had been sent to Head Office for his sins while I was sent as Acting Native Commissioner. We moved into a brand new house in a bare piece of ground. It was wired for electricity but to our disappointment, after two years of gas and paraffin lighting and a wood stove and geyser at Gutu, we found we had to use the same at Karoi, and the kitchen was tiny and stinking hot when the Dover stove (not so welcome) was at full blast.
However, there is an element of romance in the ritual of lighting the lamps in the evening, specially when one had plenty of time. It was not quite so pleasant coming home late and groping around in the dark for the candles and matches preparatory to the lighting of various Tilly, Aladdin, Optimus and Cadac lamps, which, we had accumulated. We were seldom without hot water and were quite happy with our good old Rhodesian boiler based on a 44 gallon drum and lots of firewood.
In the smaller towns we always had the privilege of convict labour. In Gwanda and Wankie it was on an occassional basis, but in Karoi, Gutu and Essexvale it was on the basis of one or more men regularly every day. Even on Sundays they used to come and light the fire. Old colonial phraseology described the convicts as "bandits" and the trusted ones were allowed as garden workers to the staff and known as "tame bandits".
At Gutu our "tame bandits" used to arrive and light the boiler fire as early as 3 a.m. One amazing character had been convicted of culpable homicide in that he had beaten his wife who had unfortunately succumbed to the assault. Witnesses had stated that as he was beating her, he shouted "Maringeringe - who is he?" but no-one ever knew who Maringeringe was. He was a very happy worker, loved our children and wanted to work permanently for us when he had served his sentence. Unfortunately we could not accommodate him.
In Karoi we had the task of transforming the bare msasa sandveld into a garden and managed very well in the year that we were there. We prided ourselves on the gardens we made wherever we were stationed. Most District Commissioners and staff did the same and except where the house had not been occupied for some time, we moved into a reasonably tended garden.
Even at Wankie where the District Commissioner's house occupied the highest point on Government Hill, we managed to maintain a good and interesting garden, based on many terraces, and in that inhospitable soil we grew the largest tomato I have ever seen - it weighted over one kilogram.
Our transfer from Karoi was really quite spectacular. Apart from the pantechnicon, our convoy consisted of Judy's little Lloyd sedan (who had heard of a Lloyd? It was produced by the now defunct Borgward group in Germany and had a 600c.c. aircooled engine), my Opel Car-a-van and towed behind that was a large wooden cabin cruiser that I had brought for use on Lake Kariba. We by now had four children, so the baby in his pram and a little boy who travelled most of the way balanced on his head with his feet waving in the air, and a nurse maid, together with the dog and the parrot in her cage, went in the Opel and Judy and the two girls and the cat travelled in the Lloyd. As I had the baby in my car, I had to stop every few hours and hand him over to his mother to be fed. A flock of ducks and a flock of hens travelled in the cabin cruiser.
When we finally arrived in Essexvale we found a bonus two eggs on the straw which we had placed on the cabin floor.
That boat was not a very good buy because it had an 18hp outboard which was grossly underpowered for the task. Furthermore, it developed woodrot and finally a group of four children aged between three months and seven years do not consider a day out on Kariba as the world's greatest entertainment. I eventually sold it for £65, retained the engine and bought a little open runabout which could plane with a reasonable load and with which we had great fun on the dams around Essexvale, at Kafusi and on the Zambezi.
Internal Affairs and the BSA Police have always worked very closely together and the spirit of teamwork was admirable. There were the odd personality clashes as is unavoidable in any situation but on the whole, the co-operation was first-class.
My only real clash with a policeman, apart from the cut and thrust of debate during JOC meeting, was when I was a very junior magistrate and the member-in-charge BSA Police Belingwe, not liking my having found one of his alleged criminals not guilty in court and discharging him, telephoned me afterwards to complain that I should have found him guilty. He received little sympathy from me and then had the temerity to complain to my District Commissioner from whom he also received short shrift.
My farewell party at the Belingwe Hotel was a memorable affair. After speeches and a presentation of £9, with which I was most impressed as it represented nearly a whole month's net salary, we celebrated in fine style until the early hours of the morning after which I found my way home to the cadet's mess and falling into bed, went out like a light.
I was awakened by a rhythmic heavy thudding noise and groaning my way to the lounge saw two figures outside in the pale moonlight wielding a gum-pole as a battering ram against the wall. I staggered outside to try to put a stop to the proceedings, and found that the offenders were my two good friends from the BSA Police single quarters. I asked them what the .... they thought they were doing and received the very reasonable reply in the circumstances - "We are trying to knock a hole in your wall".
Thud. Thud.
"Why are you trying to knock a hole in my wall?"
"We thought it would be a good idea."
"Well, please don't do it here, because just inside from where you are operating is my radiogram and I don't want that to be damaged"
"Well, where can we do it?"
"Come over to the garage here and knock a hole in that"
and I led them over to the garage where I left them wielding their battering ram and fell back into bed.
The next morning there was a remarkably neat hole in the garage wall and the yellow Fargo vanette of the BSA Police Belingwe was found just down the road in the ditch with a brick-stained gum-pole in the back. I didn't hear the result of any enquiry that might have taken place because I was off the next day on transfer to Gwanda. Both lads went on to become very senior officers in the force.
Another wild character at Belingwe used to get up to all sorts of pranks. He is known to have ridden his horse up the steps and onto the verandah of the Belingwe Hotel and one memorable occasion rode his BSA 500 side-valve motorcycle up and down the first-floor corridor of that establishment.
The police at Tuli, about as remote an outpost as existed in those days, were entitled to shoot for the pot and their orderlies became proficient in the cooking of venison. The surplus meat was, of course, stored in the paraffin refrigerator (These, when they worked, were very efficient, but were prone to all sorts of problems. The solution was usually to empty them and then turn them upside down for a few hours. Thereafter they were refilled, the wick was lit and away they went again.)
However, on one occasion there was a mysterious sudden death in the area and poisoning was suspected. The Government Medical Officer was sent for by radio and performed an autopsy. He found nothing but decided to keep the victim's liver as certain poisons lodge there and can be traced by laboratory tests. He instructed the police to keep the liver overnight in the refrigerator and take it into Gwanda the next morning while he continued with some other work elsewhere in the district.
The cook, as was his practise, made up his own mind on what meals to prepare and served a very normal breakfast of impala liver and bacon the next morning. After breakfast one young trooper prepared himself for the journey to Gwanda and last of all went to the fridge to get the suspected murder victim's liver for the laboratory. He could not find it anywhere and asked the cook where it was. I need not recount the rest of this story - suffice to say that the breakfast that had gone down came up again much faster and there was no trip to Gwanda, only a most embarrassing radio conversation to explain the absence of Exhibit "A"!
It was with a heavy heart that I decided to accept the offer of early retirement at the end of 1981. This privilege had been included in the agreements leading up to the independence constitution. Though no white District or Provincial Commissioner had been forced to retire, all District Commissioners were to be moved into provincial headquarters to be "advisors" to the new black District Administrators, and the writing was on the wall that all white Provincial Commissioners were to be removed from their provinces and placed in Head Office in Harare, where a minor job awaited them. This was not acceptable to the vast majority and it was thus that on 31st December 1981 I bade farewell to my colleagues. I do not blame the new Government in any way, because it was obvious to all that a white administration would be seen as a colonial anachronism out in the districts.
The black District Administrators were selected from applicants with certain qualifications and experience and after a period of training were sent to work with their white counterparts for a few months, then back for more training and they were finally allocated to their districts where the majority of them have settled down remarkably well considering the very short experience they had compared with the long years we had under experienced District Commissioners, slowly working our way up the ladder.
If the present trend continues and the Zimbabwe government adheres to and is able to enforce its policy of strict conservation of natural resources and population stabilisation, there is a future for the communal areas.
It is encouraging to hear men and women in positions of authority explaining that defiance of government conservation measures was formerly a part of the struggle for independence but that now good conservation constitutes the struggle for survival. Let us hope that their message is heeded.