Moving Moments Chapter 3 - Pioneering in the Promised Land

Moving Moments

Chapter 3 – Pioneering in the Promised Land

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.

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. 

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.