21. Not Forever, After All

It was a long walk to my new school, the name of which I can’t recall. Peter came with me to his nearby school, but John was accepted into a Grammar School elsewhere. I do, however, remember being taught French which soon became my favourite subject, introducing into me a love of the language that was never to leave me.

What my brothers and I didn’t know, however, was that life in Britain was so difficult for my parents that they had begun to discuss the possibility of returning to Africa. My father later told us that it was eventually the endless smog and rain of October and November that had worn them down. London, in 1959, was still burning coal, both in factories and homes, and the pollution hung over the city like a thick soup, brown, grey, almost greenish at times. I recall so well, at one time, day after day, trying to peer through the thick, heavy pall outside. If we opened our front door we couldn’t see the lamppost just a few feet away, let alone the pavement, the road, and neighbouring houses beyond. In fact, if I stretched out my arm in front of me, I couldn’t even see my own hand. Londoners were, like us, breathing in this polluted cocktail since it was impossible to escape it. My parents couldn’t stand it.

So, the endless days of smog were the final straw for my exhausted parents. In Southern Rhodesia, the skies were clear and blue with white puffy clouds; the sun shone every day, and the air was clean. The temperatures didn’t vary hugely, either, although, before the rainy season began in November, October could be almost unbearably hot. It was nick-named suicide month, because of the heat. The rains swept away that heat, bringing much needed relief. Winter months in July and August were cooler, but residents didn’t need to wear coats, for instance.

I recall my parents telling the three of us one Saturday morning out of the blue that they had decided that our family should go back to Africa and that we would be leaving in a few days’ time.

What?! Not again?! Really?! Why?! We have been here for only eight months, not even a year, and it was supposed to be forever.

I could hardly believe that we would be emigrating for a second/third time, going back to the very country that we had left, so certain that we would stay in England for ever. The local Afrikaners in Darwendale had been right, after all, when they had maintained that we would, indeed, return. They had seen it all too often before, I suppose. They had told us that Africa got under your skin and that it was hard to give up the blue skies and the endless sunshine. We didn’t believe them, but they obviously knew from experience what we didn’t: we’d be back!

They were right.