23. A Model Student Lacking in Confidence

Fitting in worried me. To my mind, at least, our family was not like the typical Rhodesian (often ex-South African) family, which meant that I wasn’t like my peer group. Our family was very close, but also strait-laced and puritanical. My parents were hard-working individuals, who didn’t drink alcohol and didn’t go out socializing with other adults at sundowners and the like. Our whole routine revolved around the five of us. Occasionally we went to the cinema, though often my father didn’t accompany us. We didn’t have African servants, as did just about all Whites, to do the laundry, the housework, and the cooking, and because we were living in a flat, we weren’t responsible for looking after the garden outside the building.

So, our life consisted of pursuing various hobbies, completing household chores, and listening to music. My father had bought a second-hand radiogram, a piece of wooden furniture which contained both a radio and a record-player. He must have purchased the second-hand records that went with it, since I can never remember his buying anything new. We had a large selection including musicals such as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Carousel”, a favorite of my mother’s, as well as the great pieces of classical music such as “Swan Lake” and “Les Sylphides”, all of which we played regularly. Sometimes we children recorded pop music from the radio onto our Akai reel-to-reel tape recorder and listened to that, instead. My mother was as much into this kind of music as were John and I. She danced and sang along with us. My father, who was not fond of the more modern tunes, disappeared to find a quieter spot in which to read.

We were all bookworms, except for my mother who really didn’t have the time, as she worked full-time, looked after house and home, and, with me, made all the clothes both she and I needed. She did all the meals, too. We children were assigned chores at the weekends. Such was our life! We didn’t go out very often, unless to fly my father’s model aircraft. We simply stayed at home but were quite content to do so.

Television had finally arrived in Southern Rhodesia in late 1960, so by 1961 we had a small black and white television set, which my parents allowed us to watch at times. I loved “Dr Kildare”, starring Richard Chamberlain. I melted as soon as he sang his romantic ballad, “Dream, Dream, Dream”, and will react to it even now, half a century later whenever I hear the tune, even if sung by someone else. I thought Richard Chamberlain was wonderful! So handsome, so talented, I had a real crush on him. At that time, I had no idea that my adoration was doomed to failure, since the actor was gay!