This memoir is set during a time long before the independence of Zimbabwe from Britain. My father and mother (he being a magistrate and local governor) lived in Southern Rhodesia throughout the '40s and '50s, and this is a story of what life was like in those days. Mother and her family were from South Africa and my father was born in Cornwall. I have tried to capture time and place as seen through my eyes, the eyes of a child. I wanted to get all of this down; the society, cultural norms, our family history etc., before everything about that time disappears for ever. It is no a political treatise, but an account of a life as seen through the eyes of a child. The names of the towns have all changed since African independence. I have kept to the names we whites used during that time for authentication.
About the Author: I was born in 1939 in the city of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia as it was known then. Many of you will know quite a bit about Zimbabwe today. The brutality, killings, dealing in blood diamonds, and the general mayhem perpetrated by Zanu PF led by Mr Robert Mugabe, and perpetrated on his people and the nation. So, his brave new world has faltered. Do you sometimes wonder what life was like in Zimbabwe, before all this, during colonial days when it was called Southern Rhodesia? I hope this can be explained, as this is the story of a colonial childhood with all its contradictions. My father was the local magistrate and so, it is also about my family and how they were shaped by that life; how the norms and strictures of the mother country, Great Britain, dictated manners, social behavour and culture. It is also about a black population who knew we should not be there, but were powerless to break out from the overlay of so-called white civilization. I starated writing this autobiography in 2003 during the time I was living in Armidale, NSW, Australia. Before that I lived in South Africa and the UK. Over the years, I spent quite a bit of time visiting other countries like Cuba and Oman and my interests are in the history of the Soviet Union and the life of Ted Strelow and the aborigines of Central Australia, though I do not claim to be an expert in any way. I joined the New England Writer's Centre and was offered a writing scholarship at Varuna, the Writers Centre in Katoomba, NSW. There my book was appraised as worthy for publication. I am currently working on a novel, and though it has taken me many years to get published, it is something anyone of any age can aspire to, though you need a bit of luck. I have two children who live in Australia.