My Mum, Dad and I moved to
Umtali in 1961 from Bulawayo. We first stayed in the old Balmoral Hotel
until we found rented accommodation in the Old Mutual Flats in Main
Street, then moved to a house on the corner of 4th Street, opposite the
YMCA, for a time, next we were at Newbridge Flats in Fifth Street, lastly
at 34 Victory Avenue. Dad taught technical drawing and woodwork at the
Boys’ High but I think he got a hard time from the boys in those days, and
the folks went off to Zambia eventually to seek greener pastures!
My friend, whom I had met in 1957 in Gatooma, Judy Shield, (now
Chapman)was then living near Beatrice; she and I used to visit each other
in the school holidays, traveling up and down by train to and from
Salisbury, all by ourselves, (we were about 14 then) with no problem or
fear. I do remember some strange ladies whom I had to share a compartment
with on occasions, and once with three nuns!
On one of Judy’s
visits to me in Umtali, we went to the Girls High school pool to tan and
swim one day, & put on oil as “sun tan” lotion. Well, we got so burnt,
we could not even open our eyelids the next morning, they were so swollen
up – dreadful when I think of it now! We spent most of our school holidays
at the Umtali swimming pool – I loved swimming and was in the school team
for a bit. Some of our first friends in Umtali were the Jordan’s – Dorothy
and Albert became my folks’ bowling friends, their sons were John and
Robert.
How can we ever forget our trips to Beira, (we so regret
it now that we didn’t go more often then, being only 4 hours away)
especially Rhodes and Founders weekend, what a time we had , staying in
those very basic cement chalets on the beach at the Estoril, for something
ridiculous like 2/6d a day each, floating on the waves on a black lilo for
hours, eating out at a different Chinese or Portuguese restaurant every
night, (starting with divine snow white bread and chicken livers peri
peri), dancing the nights away in the “Pavilion”, and trying to look all
glam for the hordes of university chaps who used to arrive every year for
a long weekend party of note. And the little stalls near the lighthouse
selling their Chinese wares – plastic lanterns, pencil cases etc. ( I have
a receipt from 1972 when we went down with our little son for a week,
staying at the Estoril Motel, it cost us Rhodesia dollars $63.50 for
accommodation, $35.00 for food, $20 for petrol and out of $150 we were
left with $42.00 spending money!!)
Umtali was a wonderful place to
stay as a teen. We used to ride our bicycles everywhere,( mine had silver
mudguards) and to and from school; there was a place to keep our bikes
during school hours –they never seemed to get pinched. By mid teens though
bikes became a bit infradig, so we then walked everywhere, in our stiletto
high heels and stockings, flared dresses and bows to match in hair, to the
Vaudeville or Apollo cinemas, (the latter then managed by the Siddalls ).
We went every single Saturday and Sunday afternoon, Glynis Relleen and I
and Lynette Swales hardly missed a flick, (my Dad refused to let me go on
a Sunday, so when he was having a Sunday arvy rest, Mum would give the
thumbs up and I would sneak out my bedroom window and go anyway!) and then
we would usually end up afterwards at Helens café in Victory Avenue for
fantas, cokes and hot chips, – playing records on the jukebox like “Baby
Love,” “Diana”, “Personality”, “Rubber Ball”, - Elvis, Cliff & the
Shadows, Pat Boone, Ricky Nelson, Chubby Checker, Diana Ross and the
Supremes, Helen Shapiro, Sandy Shore, Cilla Black, the Everly Bros, Micky
Most, Nancy Sinatra , Adam Faith, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Rolling
Stones, then, my favourites the Beatles, arrived on the scene.
Listening every Saturday morning to Martin Locke’s Hit Parade. I
also used to listen to LM radio every afternoon to Evelyn Martin and David
Davies, and often won shirts and 7 singles by sending in requests. My best
friend then was Guilleaume Nel (now Alker – she married Chris who came out
from Germany to help build the oil refinery) and her dad managed Lawson
Pigott Motors, so he would loan us a car (a Vauxhall Viva) and off we
would go, me supposed to be teaching her to drive (Rory Hilton’s dad had
the driving school down the road from us in 5th street, (or was it 4th) I
had 7 lessons and passed first time, at age 16). Guillaume and I would
drive all over the suburbs, singing away and just having fun. One of the
mechanics at Lawson Pigott was a guy called Peter Theron who had a car
with a 7 single record player in it, which we thought was
amazing!
When Guillaume left school she went to Mrs Johnson’s
Secretarial College in Main Street. Girls from my era (Form 4B1 1963,)
were Glynis, Guilleaume, Moira Campbell, Eileen McSherry, Pam Went, Bev
Onyett, Di Burford, Kathleen Barley, Annette van der Schyff, Susan
Armstrong, June Knight, Yvonne Gibbins, Basiliki Mafraketalos, Rosemary
Milne, Janet Harrington-Johnson, Geraldine Turner, Dawn Howarth, Yvonne
Second, Betty Bedford, Stephanie Barnes, Katriona Harris & Dianne
Boyd-Clarke. Another friend from a standard higher than me was Val Shaw
-who was very popular with the boys!
Saturday mornings meant a
couple of sashays up and down Umtali’s Main Street to surreptitiously eye
the boys, who also used to plod the pavements (or drive up and down
showing off in their Sunbeam Alpine sports cars, (Eddie Norris) Morris
Minors (Stu Maclaine, Clive Schwegman & the Rimmer Boys – the Rimmers
are all in W Australia now) or motor bikes, (Robbie Bottger, & Eddie
again) and then we would arrive at Meikles tearoom, where they had those
deep comfy wicker chairs, beautiful china crockery and silver cutlery and
waiters with red cummerbunds and fez’s, and delightful dainty iced cakes,
knickerbocker glories and brown cows – wonderful days!! Sometimes we went
to the Astoria Café down an arcade, past Leach’s Store, (where Diana Nel
worked, she is still in Umtali !) for a yummy apple strudel
pastry.
In the mid sixties I took part in 2 musicals which the
Courtauld Theatre put on every midyear , “No No Nannette” & “Annie Get
Your Gun” which were tremendous fun and we made so many friends - lots of
the gals and guys taking part actually ended up marrying each other.
Wonder where they all are now? (some of the cast I remember are Jim
O’Toole, Audrey Hagen, Blaise Rutherford, Brian Schwegmann, Jeff Halkier,
Mike Jenvey, Glynis Relleen, Moira Campbell, Brian Timmins, John Siddall,
John Delaney, Jill Coleridge, to name a few, & old man Isadore Fisher
on the piano). Thirza Siddall coached us in the chorus singing. I
waitressed one year at the Catholic Hall for a show, an Old Time Musical
Evening, produced by Doreen Jarvis. Fantastic evening.
Going back
to Meikles, does anyone remember that old lady who used to do her washing
in the ladies loos there, she lived in Third Street I think, and used to
cook in the gutter outside her old house!
Later, when I was
working, a crowd of us would often drive over the border and eat out at
the Station Restaurant at Machipanda – wonderful Portuguese food but I
always had steak, egg and chips to everyone’s disgust. The beers would
flow, and now I wonder how we sometimes got back home safely through the
border and up that hill! Trips to Vila de Manica were another weekend of
fun, especially when an Olympic swimming pool was built there. Sometimes
we were so broke we used to sell some of our clothes to the local maids
and gardeners to get a bit of money together for petrol so we could go out
on a weekend!
Most of the guys our age in Umtali were of course
involved in the army, and there were often parades up and down Main Street
, with the band playing, soldiers marching, and everyone would eagerly
line the pavements to watch them march by ( something my children/
grandchildren rarely see these days).
My husband Joss and his pals
(Mitch Rodgers, Peter Flower, Eddy Norris, Alex Robertson, ) would spend
many hours in the “Rat Pit” playing snooker. The Cecil, Royal, Fairbridge
& Browns Hotels were our watering holes, and Xmas Pass Hotel on a
weekend; Another pastime was “window shopping” of an evening, strolling up
and down the streets with friends, feeling quite safe. When the oil
refinery was built at Feruka we used to drive out there and sit and view
the lights at night or the other place we all went to was up Xmas Pass to
look down on the lights of Umtali twinkling below and the Vumba in the
distance. And the view from Kingsley Fairbridge Memorial. Will never
forget our drives on a Sunday up the scenic Vumba picnicking or strolling
around beautiful Manchester Gardens, having a drink at the Impala Arms or
Leopard Rock). Sometimes picnicking out at Manica Bridge! Also remember
the hops on a Friday or Saturday night at the BESL, St John’s Church Hall,
Moth Hall, Catholic Hall (Bingo there too) the WI Hall and there was
another hall opposite the circus stand, can’t quite remember what hall it
was, (Masonic Hall?) Usually with Ants Went’s band (the Outlaws/The
Silhouettes?), and Rory Hilton’s- can’t remember his band name though!
Names come to mind round that time of Bryce Bloom, Butch Lewis, Charlie
Armstrong, Ian Steele, Ron Jennings & a cute short chap called Little
Dave. And the New Years Eve balls, dances and shows (i.e. Des and Dawn,
Four Jacks and a Jill) at the Queens Hall. The Courthauld was also well
known for hypnotist shows, Tommy Goddard singing “Crying”, and we saw the
landing on the moon there. Another annual event which everyone went to was
the Agricultural Show out at the showgrounds, just to see who was there
and to be seen! Saw our Mr Ian Smith there one year, wandering about quite
freely and mingling with the crowds.
When I started work in the
Post Office in 1965, my dad bought me a little green Ford Anglia, for
work. I think it cost one hundred pounds. When my folks left for Zambia, I
shared a flat with Noreen Stapleton whom I had met in the PO (she was
later married for a time to Delano Bolton – his Mum ran the Hot Dog Stand)
and then when we got tired of cooking and housekeeping we moved into Mrs
Bissland’s newly opened boarding house, Devon Lodge in Milner Avenue –
previously the AA - we were mostly young working girls and boys, and we
loved it there. I remember an old chap who initially had a room there,
they called him the “Captain” and he would go crazy on a full moon night
thinking he was still at war and frighten the hell out of us!
I
wish I had kept my twist bag and Beatle boots, which came into fashion
then, they most probably would be worth a fortune now!
The P O
staff I worked with around about the mid sixties were Mr Harvey-
Postmaster, Mrs Pat Green in the telegraph office, Mrs Bridget “BB”
Bardell, Mrs van Wyk, Ian & Dorothy Pollock, Bill Kelly, Jimmy
Macdonald, Dolph Ehrke, Sally Eager, Noreen Stapleton, Maria De Sousa,
Carol (Kafupe) Simmens, the late Frank (Flash) Kelham, Peter Flower, the
late Sam Cook, Joss Jordaan, the late Bob Bissland, Dot Nicoll, divine
Bill Morgan, Paul Johnson, Arthur Gledhill, John Parkinson, John Delaney,
Felicity Mynhardt, Clare Kleynhans, Noelle Marshall, Mitch Rodgers, Harry
Morgan, Charlie Pienaar - Charlie used to stand on the steps outside every
morning and purv all the girls passing by! ) Mr |Ralph Longhorn (he was
given a very naughty nickname!) took over later from Mr Harvey.
I met
hubby Joss in the PO; we started going out after a party was held in the
parcels section on Valentine’s night in Feb 1965, I think Ant’s band
playing! Joss boarded out at Mrs Violet Norris’s farm “Devonshire” for a
while, I eventually moved there too, to save money – we paid ten pounds a
month rent back then. We had great and interesting times there, with all
the Norris family.
We married at the Umtali Boys High Chapel in
1968 with reception at the Fairbridge Hotel. Caught the train that night
for Salisbury, flew to Durban on Sunday for 2 week honeymoon at the Parade
Hotel on the beachfront!
I worked in Founders Building Society for
a while, 1968 and 1969, under Mr Rodney Vowles, first with Leigh
Partington and Lee Quirk, then Fiona Craig and Shirley Flower (married the
late Ernie Stockil). When Mr Vowles retired Mr Bathurst-Brown became the
manager.
Shops I recall are Teenstyles and Kiddicraft (the Levy’s),
Meikles, Kingstons, Mitchells Bakery, Rivron the optician, Brown the
photographer, Pelhams Laundry (Mrs Flower), Shingadia’s shoe menders,
Windsor Studios, The Umtali Post, Helen’s Café, Radio Ltd, and Lowdon
Lodge. One place I never went up was Cross Kopje. Went to a few air shows
out at Grand Reef Aerodrome.
And, who can ever forget the trips out
to Hot Springs on those strip roads?? Those balmy evenings when we would
all pile into cars and drive that awful narrow road, over low level
bridges, and spend the evening drinking and partying, then drive home late
at night; some weekends there would be dances, or we’d go out there on a
Sunday and swim in that lovely hot water and tan – it used to be so
festive and crowded with people! Joss and I plus friends from SA went to
Zim for the Millennium in 2000 and spent an hour or two at Hot Springs on
our way back to RSA, for our memories sake. The place was “open”, we had
to pay to get in, and you could get a drink there and have lunch, but
sadly we found the place rather neglected and unkempt, and looked kinda
“bombed out” – we were the only people there, but we did relax on those
old iron garden chairs, (I think they were only made in Rhodesia, a sort
of white “braai grid” type of metal, everybody had a set of a tables and 4
chairs in their gardens) and we did have a lovely swim in the main pool as
that was the same as ever and so were the change rooms! There are some
chalets one can overnight in, the rates were very reasonable back then.
Joss and I left Umtali in 1970 to manage the Post Office in
Concession. Twelve years and two children later, having gone into retail,
and 2 years into independence, we decided to leave Zim, and settled in
SA.
We have been back many times over the years, especially to
Umtali, as it is a place very dear to our hearts with wonderful, happy
memories which we will never forget.
Cindy Jordaan (nee Crapper)
