You Must Be Very Rich.....

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings……. We were fortunate today in having both our grandgirls for the day. As we drove back to our house this morning, discussing this and that, one piped up apropos our forthcoming holiday. “You are very rich, Granny.” “Why do you say that?”, responded Gran. “Because you are always on holiday!” came the chorused reply amidst shrieks of laughter from the two rascals.

I don’t think they’re the first ones to wonder how we managed to undertake all the journeys we have done without landing up in the poorhouse. The answer is a mixture of luck, good fortune and the ability to answer the door when good old Opportunity came a’knocking.

We did comparatively little travel after our first cruise to South America in 1969. There was a house to buy and a family to start. We always thought that three or four children would be a good number – most of my aunts and uncles had two pairs and I have three siblings. That was not to be. There were problems and when our son Matt was born, we rejoiced even though it was clear that he might be growing up to be an only child.

We moved around Southern Africa a fair bit – back and forth between Durban and Cape Town with my work and to see family – Rab’s home town is Durban. We had some stops in East London to see my extended family – my cousins with whom I had shared a home during World War II, when the men were away. I also had some business trips to Namibia, Malawi and Rhodesia (where I had ended my schooling in 1957) helping out with problems for the subsidiary companies owned by the South African company for which I worked. This was in turn a subsidiary of an international British insurer. There was only one sea voyage in these years – a short five day sailing from Durban to Cape Town with stops in East London and Port Elizabeth.

Of course we hadn’t forgotten our overall plan, but felt that we needed Matt to be a bit older before we started any long-distant expeditions. He was nine years old when the first opportunity turned up. At a dinner party in 1980, the London-based Director, Dennis B with specific responsibility for what were termed Overseas Territories (mainly the bits and pieces left of the mighty British Empire) mentioned a scheme he was starting. This would be aimed at encouraging young men with some talent in these Territories to put up their hands for Overseas Service. Until then it was almost unheard of for anyone but an Englishman to head up an Overseas Territory.

Dennis felt that this meant that good people and ideas were being overlooked, due mainly to the NIH syndrome – Not Invented Here. Having been told I might be considered for this, I put up my hand. What a way to get to see some countries in other continents!

Well, not quite immediately. The first step proposed was to test my mettle in Zimbabwe, as Rhodesia was about to be named. Rab was not very keen. She had visited Rhodesia with her family as a child but was very concerned about the future of the newly independent country – and the fact that virtually every person of European descent was anxious to get out. But…the more we thought about it, the more we realised that this might be a step to get out of South Africa. At that time it seemed almost inevitable that the ever increasing civil unrest was headed for a full on civil war. Were we jumping out of the frying pan into the fire; or was the fire out in Zimbabwe and being fuelled up and stoked in South Africa? Oops, there I go digressing again….. I’ll get back on track.

We landed up going to Zimbabwe for what turned out to be the happiest years of our life. It is a wonderful country with very pleasant friendly people and I’ll certainly not even begin to digress into the awful political mess that has resulted there from something that is a great deal more complex than “Mad Mugabe” as is implied in the sound bite media.

Before taking up my position in Harare, I attended a course in England and we took the opportunity, since my fare was being paid, to make our first visit as a family to Europe and America North and South. Rab and Matt flew in to Germany where our friend Jan put us up in Bad Godesburg and I met them there after my course was concluded. I was lucky to have found an excellent travel agent who started to show me some of the tricks of the trade. The round trip mentioned cost less than $5 more than a straight return ticket – and two nights in Rio de Janeiro were thrown in the cost of the ticket.

One of the great advantages of working in an Overseas Territory was the mandatory requirement of an annual visit to Head Office in London. The norm for England based expatriates was for the fares for the entire family to be met by the company. I wasn’t that lucky, but was fortunate to get Rab’s fare paid, leaving us only to find Matt’s fare. The Company kept a number of flats in London for the use of staff which kept the costs down and they were very good about entertaining us, supplying tickets for the theatre for any shows we chose to see. Although much of this largesse was because Overseas Territories were regarded as hardship posts there was also a recognition that it was extremely difficult to obtain foreign currencies in countries like Zimbabwe.

Just to digress very briefly here. It is difficult for anyone who has not lived with foreign exchange regulations to understand that it was simply not possible to

(a) legally take the local currency out of the country

(b) acquire foreign currency for a greater amount than that laid down by the government

(c) use credit cards for payments outside the country, since there were no credit cards

During the time we were there, the annual amount allowed by regulations rose to $600 per annum from the $150 it was when we arrived. It was possible to apply for a greater allocation for business trips, but these applications were rarely granted. We learned all manner of tricks to stretch out miserly allowances and find ways of obtaining funds.

During the seven years we were in Zimbabwe we made more than seven trips as, apart from the normal annual visit, there were some special conferences – wives were required to attend these. It was also very important for me to attend a number of conferences for African and so-called Third World countries as Zimbabwe joined the international insurance world after decades of isolation during the Independence War. On one such trip to Kenya and the Seychelles, I met Lars Bengtsson, which was the start of a wonderful friendship. We had planned to meet at a conference in Beijing the following year, but regrettably I was not able to convince Head Office of the essential nature of such a conference, or indeed the one held in Rwanda where Lars was fortunate to see the Mountain Gorillas. Can’t win them all.

I had also established good relationships with reinsurers in Switzerland, Germany and Sweden and of course annual meetings with these good people were essential, usually in conjunction with the annual visit or a conference. All of them understood the financial problems and were all very generous in providing accommodation, meals and in a number of cases, some wonderful side trips. One such example was a visit to Helsinki from Stockholm arranged by our very good friend Lars.

Having completed what I had been required to do in Zimbabwe, I was transferred to Australia, still regarded as an Overseas Territory although with less ‘hardship allowances” being provided. Again there as the annual requirement of a Head Office visits and conferences. There was an enormous advantage in these visits over those from Southern Africa – once you have paid for a ticket from Melbourne to London, you can go anywhere in the world for the same price!! There were no prohibitions on taking annual leave in conjunction with the Head Office visits, so we were able to visit many wonderful places with only the cost of accommodation for our account.

After leaving corporate employment – there’s a story that I’ll tell some time!! – I set up my own business and was again very fortunate to find some customers in countries other than that in which we were living. Some paid fares directly as part of my contract with them and if they didn’t, well, the cost of the fares was an offset and deductible from my taxable income, again achieving a significant discount in the cost. One of the most interesting was on the island of St Helena which is slap bang in the middle of the South Atlantic almost equidistant from the coasts of Africa and South America, Regrettably it has no airport, so we were forced to take the last Royal Mail Ship – RMS St Helena – to and from the island for seven years. A five day trip each way out of Cape Town. What a chore, but it had to be done.

Finally retired, we thought our travelling days were done, but……re-calculating the actual costs incurred in living as pensioners as opposed to the theoretical costs, we realised that perhaps, just perhaps, we could afford a trip or two. So we have.

So….perhaps not so rich in financial terms, but very rich in memories.