Zambia World Wide

Golf

Rolly Hillier one of our electricians got me to join the Golf Club. To get me started I bought Rolly’s old set. After some lessons from the Pro I started playing every Saturday. My hero at the golf club was Ray Jennings, one of our Engineers. He lost his right arm while working on the roof of a house. Watching him hit a golf ball further than most with only his left hand gave me a lot of inspiration. Till this day I have not found someone who can make better chips than served at the golf club. We would play various dice games to see who must pay for the drinks and chips. Once the rowing demanded most of my time I could only partake on a social level.

On leaving Zambia I once again started playing golf.

Rowing

Hugh James a telephone electrician with the mines spoke me into joining the rowing section of the Mindola Yacht Club towards the end of 1958. On joining they possibly had the best coxless four and the worst coxed clinker four in the Rhodesias. The clinker leaked so badly that we had to coat the outside with fiberglass. With water trapped between the fiberglass and the woodwork it became extremely heavy. In the six years of active rowing I won close on ten regattas. On joining Ian Eagger was the Chairman and coach. With our first regatta on the Zambezi at Livingstone in July 1959 we won the Lady Moore Trophy. The crew consisted of Gaven Bruce Stroke, Hugh James No.3, George Watridge No.2 and Frank.L.Boswell Bow with Ian Eagger as coach and Cox.

As the membership grew we felt it was time for some extra boats. A fund raising committee was formed with me as chairman. Ian approached the Rhodesian Lotteries and they agreed to meet us pound for pound. Being the Secretary I started corresponding with Salters. R.C.B.P.C. gave their typists permission to do all my typing. The two boats with their oars including packing and shipping would cost one thousand pounds. The oars were not from Salters.

Our fund raising dances and raffles were most popular. To make the dances more attractive prizes were issued. Most companies when approached for prizes were more than willing to help. The Astra cinema for example gave us complimentary tickets and one of their display windows. The only person that refused to give us a donation was Sid Diamond the owner of Standard Trading. He felt that at our age we should learn to work for everything we wanted. He of course was known for dishing out lollipops to the younger children. Our boats arrived towards the end of 1961.

We had two exciting races. The first race of two and a half miles (4km) took place on the Zambezi River in Livingstone. With the wind blowing strongly the river became a sea of waves. Rowing became a nightmare, as one minute you had to dig deep to get the oar in the water and the next minute it was breaking over your oar and splashboard. A waved caused by a pleasure boat crossing our bow ended up in the lap of number three and virtually brought us to a standstill. Both teams caught

quite a few crabs. The opposition sunk three quarters of a mile from the finish. If it was not for our Cox Brian Crawford we too would of sunk. After the other crew sunk he stopped us and gave us time to empty some of the water with our caps. Our crew at the time was Gaven Bruce, Derek Crawford, George Watridge and myself. Our coach was Norman Ramsey. He was like a father to us.