Zambia World Wide

I am so thankful for the life I had in Northern Rhodesia and later Zambia.

Under the exhausted eyes of our parents, I along with 4 brothers arrived in the little mission station of Mwinilunga in the North Western Province sometime in 1956. We had travelled from the USA by boat to Matadi and then by train through the Congo to Muchacha, from there by road (track) through the bush to Mwinilunga arriving in the worst thunder storm imaginable.

Going on 4 years old the memories are still clearly defined, the grass house we lived in being virtually destroyed by our house boy who took exception to us sharing the house with a snake, having a Ford Prefect car that did not seem to have a starter motor (ever) thus having to be parked on a hill so it could be run down the hill and be bump started.

Persuading my younger brother Tommy to join me in the car, we moved the gear lever into neutral (no hand break), off we went down the hill with me steering a course designed to miss the other house in our path...Ooops almost missed the house but took out the bathroom while the house boy was bending over the bath doing the washing!

Also remember seeing snakes all over the place, seeing a mamba cruise across the road in front of us - he was so long that his length was the width of the road. Being about 6 years old and on my bike with my brothers we just about crapped ourselves.

My parents not being able to survive on the mission field with 6 boys (from 2 families) resulted in us having to leave our beloved Mwinilunga and head for Lusaka where we moved into King George Avenue and my father took up work at Duly Motors in the service department.

Our first brush with the law came when on Guy Faukes night we thought it was great fun to throw fireworks at passing vehicles on King George Avenue; after 'bombing' 2 vehicles we perfected our attack on the 3rd passing vehicle, unfortunately the driver was rather upset with us and screeched to a halt, our only escape as little boys was to climb the mango trees on the side of the road and hope the driver would not see us in the dark. Not so, the driver turned out to be a policeman who must of had his fair share of carrots because he spotted us in the dark hiding up the tree in a matter of seconds and we were swiftly dealt with by my father then and there.

I can remember being at Lusaka Boys School and on one swimming day forgetting my swimming costume at home, the penalty was to go swimming in the 'altogether'. We had a young female teacher and I was sure that there were girls from the girls school hanging around somewhere sniggering, used to make me break into a cold sweat for years afterwards!