Moving Moments
Chapter 3 –
Pioneering in the Promised Land
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| Northern Rhodesian Flag 1939 - 1953 A Fish Eagle atop the Victoria Falls, offsets the British Union Jack |
Dad landed a
job with Fraser and Chalmers, an engineering company, in Kitwe, Northern
Rhodesia in 1955. Kitwe was part of a string of five or six copper mines on the
Copperbelt in the north of the country bordering what was then known as the
Belgian Congo. The Congo shared the copper with Northern Rhodesia as they had a
string of copper mines just over the border on their side. These copper mines
have always formed the backbone of Northern Rhodesia’s (now Zambia) economy.
Dad left for
Kitwe early in 1955 with the plan that Mom would follow with the rest of the
family at the end of the school year. A company house was being built for us in
Shakespeare Drive and it wasn’t long before we were all getting used to our new
abode. We soon met George and Kaye Jenkinson and their five
kids in the same street as us. George was a local GP in town. What most got our
attention was that they were obviously well to do, as they had their own
swimming pool. Many a good time was had in that pool and the Jenkinson’s became
lifelong friends to Mom and Dad.
Nev and Rose
attended Frederick Knapp school in 1956, and Alan attended the primary school.
I made my debut into the first intake of Kindergarten at Frederick Knapp in
1957 where my academic prowess was marked by a Recitation of “Nursery Rhymes
come to Tea” at the end of the year at the Kindergarten Concert. Refreshingly
the program began with a Hymn Sing by the entire Infant School - so sad that
those days are gone. In 1957 Nev and Rose transferred to the brand new Kitwe
High School, not far from our house in Shakespeare Drive.
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| 1957 Frederick Knapp KG Concert |
Halfway
through 1957 Dad left Fraser and Chalmers and found a job at Kansanshi mine
about 150 miles North West of Kitwe. It was pretty remote and primitive with no
schools. We had to vacate the nice new house in Shakespeare Drive, so Mom and
Dad decided to buy their own property at Itimpi which was a collection of 5 –
10 acre small holdings carved out of virgin bush about 15 kilometres north of
Kitwe. Dad would commute to and from Kansanshi on the weekends.
I’m guessing
Mom and Dad didn’t have much money at the time because conditions at Itimpi
were basic to say the least. Neville describes our situation as follows; “our
home was made out of wattle and daub. It had two bedrooms. Rose and Alan slept
in one, Nev in a hut separate from the main house and I shared with Mom and
Dad. There was no glass in the windows, only screens, and no electricity. Water
was pumped by hand from a well into a storage tank at the top of an anthill –
anthills were 10 – 12 feet high. Our toilet was a long drop/outhouse and our
stove was wood burning and for our lighting we used Tilley paraffin lamps” It
was a bit of a come down from the delights of civilization just down the road
in Kitwe. The roof leaked prodigiously and every time it rained, which was
often, we would run around putting out pots and pans to collect the drips.
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| Mom, Pioneer at Large |
Mom
obviously had a bit of a pioneer spirit in her because she seemed to take all
of these inconveniences in her stride. It wasn’t long before we had a massive
vegetable garden going in the back yard which was her pride and joy. I guess we
were living off of the land. Our time at Itimpi was our real introduction to
the joys and challenges of life in the colonies. Life was simple but
opportunities abounded for improvement.
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| Itimpi House - no glass windows, leaks galore and none of the mod cons. |
Life at
Itimpi was excitement filled for us all as there was so much to discover and
enjoy. We were pretty close to nature so more often than we’d have liked nature
was in our face. Our dachshund dog Mitzi buried a bone under Alan’s pillow one
day and Alan woke up that night screaming with ants swarming him in his hair in
search of the bone. There were regular ants, which were small and friendly. But
along with that were two other types of more aggressive ones, namely Red ants
and Matabele ants. Red ants, a bit like a termite, gave a nasty nip and we
learnt to avoid them. Al and I decided to see how Mitzi dealt with them by
dropping her into a swarm of them once. Neither Mitzi nor Mom was terribly
impressed with our experiment. Matabele ants were about an inch long and had
massive pincers. They would march in double file and it wasn’t much fun being
bitten. When we stomped on them they emitted an awful stench. We stopped them
entering the house by spreading ash in the doorways.
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| The young ones heading out for school |
15 year old
Nev prided himself on being the family protector and it was his job to shoot
snakes with his pellet gun. Mom had a puff adder sitting under her chair one
night. No one could figure out why Mitzi was agitating. Puff adders are highly
venomous, but very slow to move, so they will stake their claim to a spot and
not give it up easily. Luckily Mom spotted the snake, thanks to Mitzi, before
the snake snagged her. There are not too many harmless snakes in Africa.
Perhaps Itimpi is where I developed my lifelong aversion to snakes of any kind.
To this day, even in friendly snake Canada, my skin crawls just at the thought
of any kind of these reptiles.
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| The Intepid Family L to R: Mom, Alan, Rose, Rob, Nev |
Stories
abound of life at Itimpi. This is where we had our first portable record
player. It was one of those wind up ones which had a brass needle. When the
needle got blunt you pulled it out and replace it with a new one. The needles
came in tins of fifty. When the music started to wane one would leap up and
rewind the player vigorously until the music sounded normal again. There was
the time Graham Douglas peed in our well. For quite a while we had to hold our
noses and hope for the best when tasting the best vintage water that Itimpi
could offer.
I don’t have
too many recollections of Rose at this time. I seem to remember one of Nev’s scouting
buddies, Peter Taylor, who lived just down the road from us at Itimpi had a
crush on her. I’m not sure if the feeling was mutual. Once Al and I were
playing by the railway line, not too far from Peter Taylor’s house. We decided
it would be interesting to see what would happen if we put a rock on the line
and see how the train would cope with that. For days after that I felt terribly
guilty and kept listening out for news of a derailed locomotive near our house.
Nothing ever came of it so we were spared having to admit to being responsible.
Al and I
would delight in watching one of the African helpers slaughter a chicken for our
supper. He would put his foot on its neck and then deftly chop it’s head off
with an axe. The real fun was when he lifted his foot and the chicken would run
around headless for a few seconds until the blood had finish spurting out. Mom
and Dad bought two piglets, which were aptly called Kan and Sanshi. When they
got bigger Al and I would have great fun riding them.
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| The Family in front of the new house We only lived in it for a short while. |
After a
while Mom and Dad built a brand new home on the plot. It had all the mod cons.
We even had electricity and an indoor toilet. I remember sleeping on the floor
of the new house on a mattress before we moved in. Al and I would hear the big
hairy tarantulas, which were about three inches in diameter, scurrying across
the floor. This totally gave me the creeps and once again I could probably
trace my lifelong aversion to spiders to moments like these.
During these
times, while Dad was working at Kansanshi, he would take Al and I up there in
his Land Rover. I remember Dad sitting me on his lap the one time and letting
me steer the vehicle while we hurtled down the dirt road. I guess that would be
frowned on these days, but in those days we were indestructible. Life was good
and adventure was around every corner.
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| Native copper found at Mufulira mine |
Bill Knott, a friend of Nev’s, a few years
later was working on a construction site on the Kansanshi road when he spotted
a snake, a boomslang, going down a hole. Boomslang’s are pretty poisonous. Bill
had heard that once a snake is heading into a hole it cannot turn around in
the hole and come out again. With this fact firmly in mind, he grabbed the boomslang’s
disappearing tail at which point the snake’s head promptly appeared and spat
Bill in the eyes. This could have blinded him but a quick wash out with milk
saved his bacon. So much for that urban legend.
All good
things must come to an end. The mine at Kansanshi flooded, rendering it
inoperable. This left Dad looking for a job again. Fortunately there was a need
for an engineer at Nchanga mine in a town called Chingola, about 45 kilometres
from Itimpi. We had lived in our new house, not more than about six weeks and
the decision was made to move to the mine house provided by the mining company,
Anglo American. The Itimpi plot was sold and we closed that chapter of our
lives where we had lived pretty wild and free. Ahhh, those were the days. I was
about five years old and the next chapter of our adventure was about to unfold.
