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Gerty
was just a baby when she was taken from England to Africa to live,
but when she was older she wrote her memoirs of her days
there.
As
a very young child, aged about six weeks, I was taken from England
to Africa, with two older sisters and a
brother, where we lived in Chinde, on the mouth of the
Zambezi in Portuguese territory and we were housed within the
British Consulate Compound. When I was four, for education
facilities, we were taken back to England (we being my eldest
brother, 2 older sisters and myself) and stayed with grandparents
until my parents came home at the end of the first world war.
Our
family now being 9 children we then went to live in Cheltenham, the
North of England which was too cold for my mother, but we only lived
there a couple of years as my father had made arrangements for us to
go to school in Rhodesia. So
off all nine of us set out to go back to Africa.
We four eldest, (perhaps I should say that I’m one of ten)
but the eldest four (all of us still alive and between us 754 years)
were dropped off at boarding school in Salisbury (now Harare) and
the rest of the family traveled on to Chinde.
Our first trip home on school holidays we traveled as far as
Dondo by rail. There we were shunted off onto a pump trolley
in charge of a French teacher and it took us another four days to
get to where they were building the Zambezi bridge.
There were about 12 of us, 2 boys being sons of one of the
Bridge Construction crew. We
were in school uniform, navy blue serge!
There had been a storm the night before and as we next sat in
the back of an open lorry one can guess what muddy little objects we
looked.
The
man at the camp (I’ve no idea what nationality, but name of
Sunderam) was also a contractor to supplying firewood for the river
steamers and the rail. He
took care of us overnight, had our costumes cleaned and at dawn we
crossed the Zambezi in canoes and on up the Shire as far as Chiromo
in Nyasaland. From there we traveled by rail to Sankulani, where we
had lunch, and from there after lunch we went to Limbe hoping to
meet up with our parents. But
they had been recalled to Chinde as there had been a severe cyclone
which had just about wiped out Chinde.
This might sound very short and brief but I can assure you
that at the age of nine it was a great experience and when one realizes
that today children just get on a plane and one hour later they are
at school, to take 5 to 6 days traveling backwards and forwards was
a novelty for any child.
Prior to the bridge being built,
we went from Chinde by coastal vessel to Beira and then rail to
Salisbury to school. After
the Zambezi bridge was built, we traveled from Chinde up the Zambezi
in a paddle steamer and then caught the train from a new place
called Chindio and travelled to Beira, and thence on down to
Salisbury to boarding school.
My
father was transferred when the bridge was in operation and we moved
up as far as Muracca and for six months we lived on a paddle steamer
as there was no housing. The
day we moved to that housing was a nightmare.
102F in the shade and we walked through thick deep sand.
Our stay on the houseboat was in very restricted
accommodation. We spent
a few months there and then my father was once again transferred up
to Limbe. We lived up
Mpingwe, one of the hills behind Limbe and lived there for a few
months then my father left the British Central Africa Company and
worked for a transport company owned and run by a Colonel John
Saunders. I think from
there we used to travel backwards and forwards to Salisbury to
school but it was always a great adventure.
We would start off in very high spirits but after 2 or 3 days
in a very dirty coal smoked atmosphere from steam trains we were
glad to get to school.
My father, A.C.A, had once again moved, to our own home in Blantyre
and was later employed as Town Clerk. I had a very happy
childhood. We lived as
I said in Chinde, this is part of the delta at the mouth of the
Zambezi. Chinde had
very few houses, a few of the shipping company staff, my father who
worked for the British Central Africa Company and one or two others,
a few naturally being children.
We
had no other mode of transport except by Mashilla – this being a
long canvas seat slung from two thick bamboo poles and was carried
by four mashilla boys – the entire seat being called a mashilla.
We were taken every day out to the beaches, the most glorious
beaches that anyone could wish to see.
Our trips to the beach each day were a highlight of any
child’s life, the beautiful, beautiful sands and bright blue
Indian Ocean were lovely. We
lived a quiet life and had very little fresh vegetables, fruit, meat
or milk. We did have
lots of lovely fresh fish. Our house was a large bungalow with
12 foot glassed in verandahs on all four sides.
For coolness our house was built up on 6 to 8 foot poles.
We had great fun playing in this empty space.
My
father was very musical, we always had plenty of people around for
musical evenings and we thoroughly enjoyed life.
Later when we had to move from Chinde I thought my parents
must have moved with very sad hearts.
They had lived there for so many years and made so many
wonderful friends. We
moved, as I said before, to Muracca. Whether this still exists today
or not, I have no idea, but in my young days, the river Zambezi was
planted up on either side with sugar cane.
This seemed to be the main trade.
Further on beyond the Zambezi bridge was Tete, a coal mine
station. All this has
changed of course, and it is no longer Portuguese East Africa.
It is now Mozambique and like a lot of the Africa we grew up
in it is entirely run by Africans.
On
one of my trips to school from home, which was, as I have said
before, a paddle steamer at Muracca, we went down by rail as far as
Beira. This trip became
a nightmare as I developed enteric fever and was very ill by the
time we reached Beira. My
eldest brother decided to stay with me in the hotel and two older
sisters carried on to school, leaving my brother to wait with me
until my mother arrived to take me home.
The Portuguese doctors were most adamant that I was not to be
moved but my mother was also adamant that I would be much better off
under her special care at home.
I was put on a stretcher into the guards van and we had
traveled I suppose, a quarter of the way when to our horror we
noticed flames shooting through the roof of the guards van.
After lots of shrieking and the brakes going on the train was
stopped. We found the
driver was drunk and that somehow or other live coals had been
allowed to filter along the roof of the train as far as the guards
van where they caught fire. It
was most horrifying , terrifying in fact; I couldn’t move so I was
carried, once again, off the train until the fire was extinguished.
Then we proceeded home to Muracca where I stayed for a little
while and when my parents were transferred up to Limbe I went up
there. I never returned
to boarding school in Rhodesia as the enteric had affected my health
rather badly and my mother and father were persuaded that I was much
better to stay nearer home. I
attended the convent in Limbe, La Sagesse, and thoroughly enjoyed my
days there. The
sisters, particularly Mother Superior, were wonderful.
The Mother Superior was a very talented woman who hand
painted the little chapel.
On
a return visit to this Limbe convent after very many years, in fact
about 50 odd years, I was astounded to see it was still in good
repair, still being used as a school and that one of the old
Fathers, Father Basie, was still alive.
He was confined to a wheel chair, but still did his little
bit by visiting the lepers in the leper colony about 10 miles away.
Our
life in Limbe, where by this time our family now numbered nine, was
also a great pleasure. Our father by this time had bought our
own home (in Blantyre) and nothing delighted him more than to have a
crowd of young folk around the piano which he played, also the
banjo, which he and my eldest brother played, and we would have a
glorious sing-song. This
was his big delight as he was very fond of young people and always
did his best to keep us amused.
Another delight was to summon as many of the young folk
around Blantyre as possible and take us all out for a picnic at the
nearby river at Lunzu.
My
father, unfortunately, died a comparatively young man, as in his day
there was no penicillin or drugs that one can get so easily today
and he died of double
pneumonia. My
mother, brick that she was, in fact, was a very strong character,
brought up the ten of us, my youngest brother then being only 4
years old. She took
great care of us, my oldest brother worked on a tobacco farm which
had originally been my father’s but had been sold, and then later
for Mandala
before joining the Customs Department.
My two older sisters also were employed, so although we were
not well off, we were comfortable.
Although
we (my own family) now live in Australia my heart will always be in
Africa and I consider myself a white African having lived there for
50 years and it is God’s own country, a beautiful country.
I have been back three times, once with my youngest daughter and
twice with my husband. My
husband, by the way, is also much traveled.
He was in the Colonial Police and spent nine years of his
service in Palestine before coming to Nyasaland now called Malawi,
to take up service there where we met and married.
We have two beautiful daughters, both married; our younger one has
one small boy, a delightful little boy of seven and our older
daughter has four children, the oldest one being our only
granddaughter, the other three are boys.
Our oldest grandson has a son of his own so we are
great-grandparents and our granddaughter is now awaiting her first
baby.
I’ve
had a wonderful life. I do not regret any of it and although today I
do not enjoy the best of health I would not change one minute of the
past.
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