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Zimbabwe – or was it Rhodesia? |
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New job, new home, new shirt, and it was time for new haircut too. "That first night, there was a big dance being held in the old Princes Theatre: a dress-up affair. I donned my Army patrols kit and took my newly found girlfriend. At the dance there was a man with a familiar face and I was puzzling over who this was, resplendent in his dinner-jacket. I suddenly realised that this was the man who had cut my hair earlier in the day. 
The roads in the 40s were relaitively quiet
© Afribilia |
It was the first lesson I learned about white Rhodesians, how classless their society was and how democratic among themselves they were. 'White Jack was as good as his white master'."
The white population in Rhodesia was heavily swelled from the late 1940’s by British immigrants and those from South Africa who wanted to escape the growing impact of apartheid on their lives. The white population in Rhodesia in 1961 peaked at 221,000 from a figure of 69,000 in 1941.
White society never went as far rightwards as it did in South Africa, or as far leftwards as Britain and the liberals wished. Although racially exclusive, whites were, until the late 1950s, sufficiently self-confident with their post-war economic prosperity and progress to accept multiracial tolerance.
Joshua Nkomo [1917-1999], who was a member of the ANC [African National Congress], had a profound influence on Brian when he met him at a public meeting. Brian talked about Africans being well looked after by the Europeans, who provided them with all the services they needed, but Joshua countered by saying, "But the Europeans do exactly the same for their own cattle, who, like the Africans, they keep in stalls, without granting them freedom".
A social whirl
Brian’s memories of Salisbury remain undiminished: "Salisbury was orderly and clean. However, the wide streets became rivers when the rains fell, the storm water drains being unable to cope with the heavy down-pours. 
The architecture in Salisbury was as contemporary as in Europe
© Afribila |
The rains would come regularly in the second week of November after the hot and aptly named 'suicide month' of October and would last until February, when dry weather was virtually guaranteed until the next November. Farmers would plant out their tobacco seedbeds in the first week of November knowing the rains would be along the next week to water them.
"Rhodesian white society has always been very male dominated and sport mad, particularly for rugby – much in the same way as Gloucester is today, but athletics was my love. I had the pleasure of organising the very first inter-racial athletics event in Rhodesia from which emerged Terry Sullivan, the first sub-four minute miler in Africa, and a wonderful African miler called Muleya, who represented Rhodesia at the Commonwealth Games. He was sadly killed in a car accident shortly afterwards."
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