Auctions leaving Zambia

When we returned from leave, we noticed a change. People were nervous and friends were leaving. There was a riot in Kitwe and Elice felt it wasn't right to raise the children in that kind of atmosphere.
We left our bits and pieces to be sold at auction by a man called Jo Jackson. There were frequent auctions at the time and one day Jo was selling a cruet set. Remember this was in the mid sixties  and prices were rather different. The bidding went up from two shillings and sixpence to five shillings to a pound. When it got to two pounds ten shillings, Jo stopped the bidding. 'Are you all mad?' he asked. 'You can buy these down town for fifteen shillings, who will offer me five?' Someone put their hand up and Jo shouted 'I'll take it. I'm not going through that again.'
Leaving turned us back into nomads and we returned from the sunny bushveld of Zambia to Glasgow, planning to go to Canada, where I had spent six months between third and final year university.

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David Banda

This was intended to show how we moved around but I just want to tell one last thing about David Banda. I took leave to join the family in UK and arranged for a pal to feed the dog. David, having second sight called round - just in case and found the dog hadn't been fed or watered. The floors were concrete so he opened the garden hose and put water through the gap under the back door to give the dog a drink, then found my old university friend. Between them forced the back door and fed the dog. Now the house was open, David brought his bedding and slept there until we came back.

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Bachelor life

With Elice overseas David Banda took over as housekeeper. Some said he was a Sangoma and thatr's why people came to consult. I don't know but it didn't matter when I came in from work, whether I came straight home, whether I dropped in to visit a friend or had a beer in the club on the way home, the potatoes were just boiled and David was taking a meal from the oven. I was so intrigued that once or twice I delayed deliberately but the meal was just coming out of the oven no matter what I did. I had an Irish granny who read tea leaves in the bottom of cups for people but that was a joke, David Banda was a professional.
While Elice is away, I thought it would be good to show what it was like in a big copper mine compared to crawling in thirty six inches in a Scottish coal mine.

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Tripoli landing

Oakhaven, Zambia, Tripoli, Ndola, There was a family emergency at home and Elice managed to get seats for herself and the children. The flight was supposed to get off in the morning from Ndola but on the way out it had been loaded with aircraft spares for the RAF, who were in Zambia after UDI in Rhodesia. To get the spares on the seats had been pushed to the back and had to be put back after the spares were off-loaded. I waited with them but there was word that the were boarding and I went off. The word was a rumour and it was late evening by the time they took off. The charter landed at Nairobi, then made for Tripoli. By the time they got there, the toilets were full and the passengers rushed off into the humid heat to relieve themselves to find the tripoli toilets dirty, smelly and blocked and they all decided to wait until they were back on the plane. Thirty minutes after they took off again, the toilets were full until they got to London in a snow storm. Luckily Elice had taken warm clothes. Some others had thin blouses and skirts and Elice gave out some of what she had. The snow had affected flights and the charter bookings were delayed. Elice, always one for action, booked a sleeper and left the airport.

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Zambia was still rather colonial at that time, one put on a suit and tie, if not a dinner jacket, and the ladies wore long elegant dresses to the cinema. All the Scots had kilts and wore them on every possible occasion. There was gossip, lots of gossip and the first thing anyone was asked was their address, which told where their husband fitted into the mine hierarchy. One chap was given a half promotion and didn't qualify for the next grade of house but the mine felt his promotion needed to be recognised and put in a serving hatch between the kitchen and dining room. They held a celebratory dinner for the hatch but now the hostess had to get up and take the plates from her side of the hatch instead of sitting chatting with her guests while the cook served. It didn't catch on!

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We joined the sailing club at the mine dam, a real expanse of water formed by the mud from the plant to let it settle and allow the water to evaporate, or be reclaimed. It was an open air activity for us all. I bought a half share in a dinghy and started racing. I had to get a crew as Elice refused to get into such an unstable boat. Which was just as well because we capsized so much that it became referred to as a Scottish jibe. It was a good place to go as the children could run around with other children and get cool drinks and the women could have a good chat. It was also a good way to get to know people in what was, for us, a strange community and more experience for writing about the people in Oakhaven. 

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Eve's pudding in Zambia

David Banda had started and proved his worth but Elice was unsure about letting him cook for us - he was a man after all!!  We had to go shopping in Kitwe, a good hour's drive away. I was on afternoon shift and needed to eat before I went out, so she decided to let him do a roast, which she prepared and put in the oven, telling him when to turn on the oven. She worried all the time we were away but when we got back David was taking the roast, surrounded by roast potatoes, with vegetables just cooking and and putting an Eve's pudding in the oven. We were rather embarrassed at our lack of faith but enjoyed a really good meal. Another lesson on going to new places.

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Oakhaven - Choosing servants in Zambia

With the heat in the early forties it became obvious we needed someone to get the housework done in the cool of the morning. My wife, Elice, had plenty of colonial advice - don't get one who speaks good English, they're con men and will steal you blind - don't get one who is well dressed, especailly if they have a briefcase, they will be crooks - don't get one who is scruffy, they won't wash and clean properly. I came home from work one day to find her worried. 'A chap came who spoke good English and was smartly dressed and had a letter case with his references in it and I've asked him to start work tomorrow. I hope I haven't made a mistake,' she told me. His name was David Banda and he was from Malawi and we couldn't have had a better helper and friend. People would drop by to talk to him and, in the end, we discovered he wrote letters and gave consultations on marriage and other issues. He had been working for the Chief Constable before he came to us and, like many of the Zambians I worked with, was as straight and honest as the day was long. Another experience of settling in, like Mrs Jackson in Oakhaven.

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Mufulira and now Zambia, and the first priority was a car. A colleague took me to the garage and I saw an Opal that would fit our bill but what about down payment? Jimmy, the salesman asked me what my mine number was and when I told him, he said I could drive the car off for £5 deposit. When I looked incredulous, he explained that if I resigned, the mine would let him know and the cops would pick me up at the border. No problem. We bought furniture on the same basis and went to the club for a swim in the pool and a drink. I was at work when a man stopped my wife and asked if she was Mrs Dalton. It turned out we had been at university together and he was married with a daughter the same age as ours. We had been going to the dances in the club but found it got a bit rough later when the drink got a good grip and were relieved to find there was another side to colonial life. We moved to a more permanent home and our neighbours were Afrikaans. We couldn't have found better because the wife explained how to cook squash and what to do with avocado pears, which grew on trees there. It was a devilish hot time of year and we decided we needed a servant to get the housework done in the cooler morning hours and were given all kinds of advice on servants.
The picture shows the shops where my wife met my friend. I only wish it was n colour as it was baking hot near midday

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Nomads - After the letter came with the job offer in the Zambian copper belt, the first thing we had to do was decide which of our treasures we would take. Should we take our cats, for instance? My friend insisted we should take NOTHING!! With much trepidation, the whole household went into store; beds, bookcases and cats. We flew in one of the first VC10 flights landed at Entebbe at mid-day in sweltering heat, before going on to Ndola and being picked up by a rather bored personnel chap. Maybe we asked too many stupid questions, like 'Do you see many lions?' After an hour or so, we arrived in Mufulira and he dropped us at our temporary home, pointed and told us the shops were just over there. We met several other new arrivals and managed to sort things out after a fashion and arrange to buy a car - so that I could go to work and leave my wife and the two young children to cope with this new environment. That was our first arrival in a small community and the first episode that would lead to the book, Welcome to Oakhaven.

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My friend's return from Africa caused a bit of a stir and while I waited to see if my application for an interview would be successful, I discovered several others had been infected by the same bug and we had a bit of a get together with one or two. My wife acted as hostess for the evening and naturally there was food. I don't have any pictures of those meals but I do have a picture of a much later one in the course of preparation; that Cordon Bleu course at the Glasgow College really paid dividends in the quality of food I was treated to. To get pictures of what happened next I will have to raid the old portmanteau and scan a few snaps. This exercise is changing from an off-the-cuff reminisce into a bit of a project. Still, one does one's best.

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My old colleague and his wife came for dinner and, of course, my wife laid on one of her Cordon Bleu meals, one suitable for colonials on leave from Africa's Copper Belt. My friend was full of his experience and I was enjoying his company but his gas light was put on a peep and he and I were silenced when my wife started to ask questions about the price of bread and butter and eggs and milk and were toilet paper and things women needed once a month available. I had thought it would be just a pleasant evening but realised there was a second agenda and started to ask about his job underground. You don't crawl around for a start, he told me, the ore bodies are massive and you can stand up everywhere. It sounded attractive, especially as work in Method Study, which should need imagination had become routine (I was to discover that all big organisations turn things that nee imagination into routine so that they can control the things that should be uncontrolled lateral thinking). We were late in bed and next day I was writing to the mining houses asking about employment in Northern Rhodesia, which would shortly become Zambia and we were off like gypsies.

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On the notice announcing the village's presence someone had scrawled Welcome to Dodge City in recognition of its raw and sometimes noisy character. Not all raw and noisy villages or towns were in mining areas but I discovered some part of every mining town is like that.Nevertheless we had good neighbours and pleasant surroundings and another baby. There were children of the same gae round the doors and I thought we were settled, well, settling, anyway, but then an old colleague came back from Northern Rhodesia on leave and it all changed.

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