Roses Under the Miombo Trees (25 page)

Our own costumes complete, all we had to do was to sew white sailor hats for the men to go with their white T shirts and rolled-up white trousers, and the cabaret team was ready – well, apart from a week of nightly rehearsals of course. Mark was to be MC as well as a miming sailor, and I had offered my carnations to make buttonholes to sell to male guests, so with that and the catering it was a particularly busy time.

All the hard work was worth it. I ditched my usual cramped aerogramme and reached for the airmail pad:
The Commodore's Ball was a howling and fantastic success, 91 people (we'd estimated 80 at most). The Bunny Girls (Barbara Mac was Mother Bunny!) were a wow, appearing before supper with carnation buttonholes (55 of them made by
me
) to sell to the men. Then we dished out supper, paella and salad, garlic bread etc. and puds. The cabaret came straight after, and was fabulous, the men's sailors' mime (Mark was in that) was encored and so was the Bunnies' dance routine. It ended with the awards of Bunnies' tails to various hard workers of the Yacht Club who deserved them! Then the Bunnies and Sailors came down and started the dancing. Lots of photos were taken so I hope to be able to send some. Twisting etc. went on till 4 a.m., with
no
awful drunks, no lechers pursuing Bunnies or other anticipated horrors! Mark was M.C. and jolly good too. It really was a fabulous do,
and
made money – and all for 15/- a double ticket
.

Bunny Girls dancing to The Hully Gully
Left to right: Jiff Bowmaker, Chris North, Barbara Mackinson, Glenda Tobin, Pam
Crosse-Upcott, Self

My bunny tail is Alan Bowmaker's award for services to theYacht Club

There was a heartless P.S. to my account of the event:
Sunday at the Yacht Club was a scream as everyone, except M and I, had the runs from the seafood in the paella!!
I am ashamed to have to reveal that my competitive streak led me to regard this unfortunate catering mishap as an opportunity to win a few races.

Throughout August it seemed as if the pace of change and the pace of our hectic social life went hand in hand. Mike and Liz Rushton, off to run Edinburgh zoo, held a leaving sale, as did the Gamwell Sisters. These sales were, with the shortage of goods in local shops, significant events where you might find just the frock or piece of furniture or ornament you were looking for. Liz came from the USA and I was thrilled to be able to augment my homemade wardrobe with her stylish American cottons. In the case of the Misses Gamwell, everyone, it seemed, wanted some small memento of these two remarkable women, who had contributed so much to the little community over nearly 40 years. I bought a shawl crocheted of wool so gossamer-fine you could pull it through a wedding ring. Their farewell party, with drinks and snacks, speeches and the presentation of gifts was a moving affair. They hoped to drive their 1928 Chevrolet (‘The Horse') around South Africa, before sailing from the Cape, from thence planning to live in the Channel Islands. (In the event it turned out to be too complicated to import the car into South Africa, and it was driven back to Abercorn, and thence to a dealer on the Copper Belt, with hopes it would find its way into a museum.) In the same week, there was one of the occasional film shows at the Institute – ‘a Peter Sellers film' – a barbecue at the Barrs, ending with a fine guitar session from Gavin, and a party at the Bowmakers on the Rushtons' last night. All this came in the days following one of our particularly energetic weekends: on Saturday, a large party after baby Philip Bowmaker's Christening, where we danced on the verandah to the light of a full moon, going home after bacon and eggs at 3 a.m., only to get up four hours later for a rare Holy Communion service at 8 a.m. with the visiting Archdeacon. Then, as there was a gale blowing, we followed this with an excellent day's sailing; however, Mark was first to capsize, then William, for whom I was crewing, put us in the drink where, treading water under a very wet mainsail, I became convinced I had lost my contact lenses. (Miraculously, I hadn't).

As a reminder of the reality of impending independence, now only a couple of months away, our president-elect Kenneth Kaunda visited Outward Bound's headquarters. On the shores of lake Chila I duly photographed him and his entourage gazing out at the rough waters in the teeth of a gale, Gavin our District Commissioner in attendance. Within a couple of weeks of his visit, Kaunda had become the country's first prime minister. There was another multi-racial sundowner, this time hosted by our District Commissioner, Gavin Barr and Caroline. Perhaps I was getting the hang of things, for I wrote:
I was much amused to chat to up and coming Africans from UNIP [ United National Independence Party], the rural district council etc. Their wives sat against the wall in a row with babies. And on Saturday the first Africans who are being put up for membership of the club entered the portals – a historic moment. The first three are good chaps and will get in ok – one is Alan's fish ranger. Independence isn't far off so it's all just as well
.

There is, in one of my letters at this time, a hint of concern about Mark's job. Instead of staying on in Abercorn until the following June (for which we had applied for long leave to go to England), he was to be transferred to Lusaka in March, to a job as yet unspecified. But no more information was forthcoming, and in the meantime both Mark and I were distracted by the delightful prospect of a short holiday. At the Bowmakers' invitation, we were to go by government fisheries boat up the west coast of Lake Tanganyika, past Kasaba Bay tourist camp to spend four or five days at a rest camp at Sumbu. Holidays at that time were almost exclusively taken as ‘long leave', for there was, in that remote corner, nowhere easily reached for a short break, other than Kasaba Bay rest camp for lakeside game spotting, which Mark and I could not have afforded anyway. So this was a rare treat, especially as Alan had the government fisheries resources at his disposal:

Alan has to do work up there, Mark is taking some leave and Jiff and I are bringing two children apiece and a lot of food. There is a rest camp there, very good fishing and bathing, and it will mean Mark can really get away from all his worries. We are going in the ‘Dame des Iles', a bigger boat than the fisheries launch, it should all be marvellous fun … We are busy getting in tins of supplies, as there is no fridge at the camp and the only fresh things are fish you catch and chickens. Fortunately the ‘Dame des Iles' is equipped with everything + 3 cabins, and we will also have the smaller fisheries launch for short fishing and bathing trips, and another fisheries chap is bringing the Landrover round by road so we can try to shoot some game. It will be pretty hot and I hope to do lots of swimming and sunbathing, and Mark will get a real rest from the company and the phone
.

Kenneth Kaunda (left), his entourage and Gavin Barr DC (centre)

On our return, all looking very tanned and fit, for we had lived in bathing suits, I wrote enthusiastically of our ‘marvellous holiday':
We managed to leave the house, clean and locked, at 6 a.m. on Friday and finally left Mpulungu on the ‘Dame des Iles' at 8 a.m. – the baggage on the quay looked like a tropical exploration party setting off for 6 months. We spent most of the day getting to Sumbu, with lunch at Kasaba Bay rest camp – no elephants for once. We only had one of the three rest houses at Sumbu for 2 days, so the Bowmakers slept on board. We had a big bedroom and bathroom, and front mosquito-netted stoep for eating etc., all v. well ventilated against the heat, which is pretty terrific. We had 2 boys operating the boat, our 2 house boys to do washing etc., and the old chap there cooked, when he wasn't drunk, which was half the time. Then Alan had his small v. fast motor boat there, for fishing trips etc. so we were well done by.

We felt particularly fortunate, for Jiff and Alan were already used to this sort of trip, both of them at home in the bush and in the water in a way Mark and I were not. They taught us to fish from the boat, to spot game and I, always wary of water, even learned to snorkel, although the water was not very clear. We had taken a stock of tins of food, but ate fresh fish and decided, as Alan had a permit to shoot an animal strictly for our own consumption, to go in search of game for the pot. This involved leaving the game reserve early on Sunday for a nearby ‘first class controlled area'.

At 5 a.m., leaving Paul with Uelo, and baby Philip with the Bowmakers' Henry, we piled Jeanne (now 2) and baby Caroline, plus carrycot, into the cab of Alan's fisheries Land Rover, and with two Fisheries staff crouching in the open back we bumped through trackless bush of a game reserve area. We spotted a herd of elephant, hartebeest, ugly old warthogs, bushbuck and dainty duiker, all relatively unafraid. Heading out of the reserve itself we reached our destination – Lake Tondwa. Alan cut the Land Rover's engine, we unfolded our sweaty limbs from the cab, placed the sleeping baby in her carrycot in the shade of a thorn tree, and took in the scene.

Everything was vast – the lake shimmering in the early sunlight, the high, distant blue ridge of mountains behind it and above all, the silence. It was as if the whole world had fallen still, leaving a silence deep enough to drown in.

We broke it, of course, as humankind always does sooner or later. We filed quietly through scrubby thorn bushes, spotted buck grazing, ears flicking, alert. Alan selected a reedbuck in his sights. The heavy rifle's shot rang out like an explosion, sending terrified game into the bush and thousands of waterfowl up from the lake in panicked flocks. The buck was quickly skinned and gutted by the fisheries staff, its heart and liver a delicacy for them grilled over the breakfast fire. Back at Sumbu, its meat made delicious eating, as did two knob-nosed geese which Mark miraculously brought down with a single shot. As I wrote to my parents, with the game and waterfowl so relatively unafraid, this could not be regarded as sport, adding:
the tsetse flies were murder, and the mozzies, but it was extremely beautiful. We went for a couple of picnics on a lovely beach, under the shade of winter thorn trees which are elephants' favourite food, and mounds of dung warned us to keep a look-out! We saw several from the boat while fishing, also hippo, crocs and buck. With the water not clear, the fishing wasn't at its best, but we trawled around the coast a bit, with quite large plugs, and all caught about 3 to 4lbs nile perch. On the last day Mark thought he had hooked the bottom and reeled in a 17lbs perch! But frankly they aren't much sport as they hardly fight at all
.