Chingola '56

Chingola, 1956-1958

The Copperbelt, Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, now Zambia

Dad had a new job as the manager of the Nchanga Iron and Steel Company (NISCO). At around the same time, one of his brothers, Ruby Gilbert, became the manager of the Mufulira Iron and Steel Company (MISCO). These two businesses were set up by the Tow brothers who part-owned the Scaw-Tow iron foundry in Kitwe.

Town flat

At first, we stayed in a flat owned by Moss and Fay Dobkins in Chingola's town centre. I remember wandering around outside from time to time, and once was approached by an older man in an overcoat. I'd seen him a couple of times in previous days. This was curious, no one wore overcoats, certainly not in the middle of the day. We struck up a conversation. After a few minutes, he asked me if I'd like to see what was in his coat pocket. I was pretty sure I didn't, but to reassure me he produced a boiled sweet in wrapping paper, and offered it to me. Now I knew this was definitely weird, and backed away slowly, no one kept sweets in their pockets, they got sticky way too quickly. I mentioned this to mother, and never saw him again.

One early evening, mother served me dinner. Dad was away for some reason, and mother was a bit tense. Aged six, as is common, I had developed an aversion to some foods, and felt I would sooner starve to death than eat a cooked tomato for example. Mother served me a sausage and a cooked tomato. I ate the sausage, but didn't touch the tomato. I'd also developed a passion for other foods, and ice-cream topped the list. Mother brought out a bowl of ice-cream, but I wasn't allowed near it until I'd eaten the tomato. The stage was set. Over the next half-hour we yelled, screamed, wept, and cursed each other. I would not yield, and neither would she. Promising me the tomato for breakfast the next day, she locked me in my bedroom. I yelled, wept, cursed, and beat on the door until I fell asleep, probably another half-hour later. Dad served me my breakfast, a bowl of Kellogg's bran nuts, a dish impossible to eat in a hurry because the small bran nuts were hard and needed to soak in the milk before they could be chewed. The tomato was nowhere to be seen. Mother materialised after we'd eaten and it was never mentioned. Fifty years later I realised I'd been offered a face-saving peace deal, but at the time I hadn't seen that. The rift between us was never repaired, and I never hugged her again.

39, The Close

After a month or so, we moved into a semi-detached bungalow in "The Close", one arm of it now renamed "Katutwa Street". Behind the house was bush, and the Kitwe-Chingola railway line was about 100 metres away. I would love to steal a copper penny from mother's purse and lay it on the railway. After a passing train ran over it, it was four times its original size and wonderfully flattened and thin.

I was an incorrigible show-off, but knowledge of this condition did not make it into my consciousness until just a few years ago. It started in The Close, when I got it into my head (aged 6) that I didn't know what girls were made of, and naturally disbelieved the sugar and spice and all things nice business. So I stood on top of the local termite mound (a small mound, around 1.5 metres high which was shielded by long grasses; seriously long grasses; standing on the mound I could just see over the top, I'd guess that was 2 metre high grass) and dropped my pants. No one could see that, so I called out to the girls passing by something like, "Who wants to see me naked?" Two enterprising Danish sisters, who lived a few houses down, took me up on my offer and fought through the grass. I could read their disappointment, though, and they laughed and walked away when I invited them to join me. So that didn't work, and I resolved on Plan B.

I thought I'd visit the Danish girls to, you know, introduce myself, hang about, see what they were up to. Maybe encourage a little reciprocal exposure. So a couple of days later I trotted down to their house. As often as not, you would knock on the back door of a house to say hello, not the front door. I went round the back, and noticed some little yelps and noises from a shed. I opened the shed door, and was promptly attacked by the Alsatian dog who was suckling her pups. Fortunately the girls' family was in, got the dog off me quite quickly, and ran me to the doctor. Fortunately I had held out my arm to protect me and the dog just bit and held it in her jaws. I never thought she meant me any serious harm, she was just keeping me away from her pups, and fortunately it never affected my attitude to dogs. Dad came round and fetched me from the doctor who stitched my arm up quite nicely, almost all the scars have healed and disappeared.

I discovered I had a brother. Dad announced one day that we were going to drive to Kitwe the next day to pick up "my brother" John. I didn't understand too much of what dad said, but cheerfully accepted the arrival of a new family member. (John Plimmer is my half-brother from my mother's first marriage.) On the drive back from Kitwe, John lit a cigarette and then invited me to blow it out. I'd never actually held a cigarette, and spent a happy few minutes blowing on it vigorously. It just continued to burn, and I told John I couldn't blow hard enough. No problem, he said, why don't you hold it out the car window. Great idea, I thought, and spent further happy minutes trying to have it blown out as we drove along. It just glowed and burned more brightly, and John took it back before it got to my fingers. I was very happy to have a brother who liked to play like that.

I was incorrigibly curious, and although I was vaguely aware of this condition, it took many years until I understood that it was why I did some pretty silly things. Apart from exposing myself on the termite mound, wanting to find out how things worked made me take all my toys apart. Dad would buy me a battery-powered toy car or other gadget every so often, and after 10 minutes of playing with it I'd get the screwdriver out and prise it apart to see how the motor made the wheels go around. After a couple of such episodes, he gave up buying me anything that could tempt me to destroy it. John seemed to understand me a little better. When he next visited, he brought me a Dinky car transporter. It could not be taken apart, but was a brilliant plaything, since it had an articulated and detachable trailer with a loading ramp and an upper storey that would slope down and then lock back up when loaded with Dinky cars. I loved it.

A young newly-married couple were our neighbours in the other part of the semi. He taught me how to fold a paper aeroplane. A proper paper aeroplane which flew, not a paper dart which didn't. Coupled with the fact that I thought John had studied aerodynamics with de Havilland in England, I was on my way to my life-long interest in aeronautics. One day I noticed a large red mark on our neighbour's neck, it looked like he had been bitten. I asked him what had happened, but he just laughed and changed the subject. Later, I asked dad. Just a love bite, dad said, from his wife. Well, that was nonsense, I knew you only bit people to hurt them. So I learned that you didn't tell people when you had been fighting, and if they asked, you made up a story about it that made it seem like you hadn't.

While at The Close, I was arrested. Dad turned up at the police station after a short while and took me home. It turns out that I had cycled through a stop sign right under the nose of the constable stood on the corner. Looking back on it now, I think the constable assumed I was thumbing my nose at him, and decided he had to do something about it. He was black, I was white, and decolonisation was in the air. The Copperbelt would have the infamous murder of Mrs Burton in a few years' time.

Early school

I started at the local convent school, I'm not sure why. Mother was Roman Catholic at the time, and dad was Jewish, I think they felt it important that I had a broad exposure to different faiths. If so, it was a good idea, but it lasted about three months, the Catholic sisters and I did not get on. Unquestioning obedience was foreign to my character, as was deference to authority and uncritical acceptance of statements which I thought a little thin on their evidence base. It came to the boil when I was required to wash my mouth out with soap because I had said something unwelcome, probably something like, "I don't believe you". Washing your mouth out with soap required you to actually eat bits off a bar of soap... I refused, and was sent home.

The following week, I was enrolled at the local government pre-school, and was much happier, almost certainly because the class was larger and there were fewer teachers; I could get on and amuse myself with much less interference. I learned to read, and was encouraged by mother, who spent some time with me every day reading Janet and John books, with hindsight the best thing she ever did for me.