1980 - ZIMBABWE Exploratory Visit - Salisbury#3

Monday December 8, 1980 - Salisbury

I woke up at about 04.30 this morning worrying about what we should do – come up here? Stay in Cape Town, knowing that if we chose the latter option the pressure would come to move to Johannesburg? Was Salisbury a better option than Johannesburg? Round and round for about an hour, finally getting back to sleep at about 05.30.

When the coffee arrived the day was bright and sunny, but it clouded over and although still warm, there was not much sign of the sun. Before we had our breakfast, we phoned Matt who sounded very chirpy and seemed to be kept quite busy.

I popped into the office to collect some money and to sort out our bookings. (It was illegal to take Zimbabwe dollars out of the country and credit cards were unknown so we had to obtain funds locally.) Although we had initially thought of going to Victoria Falls, as both of us had been there as children and had good memories of the wonderful sight that the Falls make, we were told that this was the wrong time of the year. With all the water pouring over from the heavy rains, the mist would be so thick we wouldn’t be able to see anything. So we decided to drive up to Vumba and Inyanga instead. (This area of Zimbabwe is about 500 feet higher than Salisbury/Harare and afforded a cool relief during the hot season before the rains.)

After leaving the office we had a look at a couple more shops including Meikles and Sanders. We both thought they were better shops than Barbour’s and Meikles even had some toys. Not many, but more than Barbour’s. Matchbox cars are $2.05 each. We bought a couple of things there – presents for the Crones and Catherine. After dropping off our purchases, we picked up the car and went to deliver the parcel we had brought to Mrs Howard – she lives in a row of flats called Seven Dwarfs. (Neither Rab nor I have any idea who Mrs Howard was – I only left this piece in because of the name of the residences!) She had a funny little dog called Anneline who everyone called Bitsa because she was made up of “bits of this and bits of that” – a real Heinz 57.

Leaving Mrs Howard and Bitsa we went out to St Georges again, but couldn’t see anyone as they were all at lunch. We went down to Hartman House (the Junior School  to St Georges) but it certainly was not as nice looking as St John’s. To kill a bit of time until the School Secretary  came back from lunch we drove out to Borrowdale Shopping Centre but found all the shops closed for lunch. An estate agent was open and we spoke to them about house prices. They seem very low – one house with a swimming pool and a tennis court was sold recently for $30,000.

From there we went on to the National Botanic Gardens where different plants from the various parts of Zimbabwe grow in separated areas. Rab didn’t feel much like too much walking and it was pretty hot but it would be interesting to spend a bit more time out there some time.

Some of the abandoned military vehicles we saw all over the country

Back we went to St Georges and finally saw the Secretary, Brother McArdle who was very rude and indifferent despite my being an ‘old boy’. I walked out of his office in the end because he just could not care less about enrolling Matt. So we headed for town via the Salisbury gardens so that I could show Rab the miniature Victoria Falls there, as she will not be seeing the genuine thing on this trip. I cannot recall the scale to which it is constructed, probably 1:100 but we used to love watching it when we were kids. It is about thirty foot across and ten foot high and sprays blow out a fine mist from the bottom of the Falls so that rainbows are formed in the same way they are at the proper Falls.

We had a toasted sandwich and an iced coffee but didn’t look around the gardens because Rab was feeling tired and wanted to get her feet up. The altitude was getting her, I think.

I spent some time in the afternoon phoning some of Dad’s old pals, at his behest. Apparently one of them – Brian Hewitson – had recently made the front page of the Sunday newspaper. He had built a dolls house for his granddaughters which had taken him five years to complete. It even included a fridge and stove. Ronnie Watson was leaving the following day for Inyanga where he has a cottage and he invited us to pop in and see him if we were in the area.

I had to go back to the office to meet up with Eric as we were having drinks with the Chairman, Brian Stringer, at the Salisbury Club. He eventually turned up (he was notoriously bad in his time keeping) and we had quite a pleasant time. He suggested Highlands School as a possibility when I told him about our initial problems in finding a place for Matt. His son is leaving this year at the end of Standard 5 and he said that despite it being a Government School, the standards were very high. We decided to see the Headmaster, Mr Yates on our way back from St John’s.

Back at the hotel, I found Rab watching “Eight Is Enough” and since she wasn’t too keen on going out, we had a meal in the room. Most impressive it was. The waiter wheeled in a large trolley with all the food and then unfolded the side wings to make a nice round table. Despite the television being in black and white, we enjoyed the programmes – at least I did as Rab kept nodding off to sleep. We saw “The Sword Of Justice” and since it was in English at least we could understand what was going on. (At this time in South Africa, the transmissions alternated nightly between English language and Afrikaans language) The news was manly about the Tekere trial and included an interview with him. He is really a nasty bit of work. The last programme, during which Rab was fast asleep was the Bob Newhart Show, which was very good.