Bernard Mizeki 1967

We arrived in Rhodesia on 8th September 1967. At first sight, Bernard Mizeki College didn't seem to have changed much since I was last there four years previously - see earlier post here. In this picture, the two main teaching blocks are at centre, with the dining hall behind them and the library to their immediate left. The buildings towards the far left are the two boarding houses, Kamungu and Molele. To the right are the staff houses.

We were assigned our own bungalow, though we did have to share it at times with, for example, a VSO. It had been Jean and Basil Farrant's house and they were keen gardeners, so we had some interesting plants and an excellent vegetable garden. The latter was cared for by....

....Titus, who also looked after the rest of the garden and helped around the house. The vegetable garden produced....

....a wealth of vegetables but, with the Marandellas area above 5,000ft, we could also grow things like strawberries, though I had to borrow test tubes off the science department to prevent the birds eating them.

With Gill also teaching in the school on a local contract we should have settled quickly - but we didn't. The danger of returning to a place one remembers so happily is that it will have changed, and the college had. Almost all the teaching staff who had worked there in 1963 had left and, although we made very good friends with many of the new staff, the school had lost its direction. The reason was simple: the inspirational head I had known, Peter Canham, had been sacked and replaced by a man who was not up to the job.

We quickly made contact with many of the teachers I remembered, and were soon offered a job at another school, St Faith's, near Rusape. We went across to look at the school which, although a very small, rural secondary, buzzed with energy, and were shown the house which we would have. We were sorely tempted - but we had signed a contract which, as a matter of principle, we were loath to break. So, with great sadness, we turned down the offer.

However, we didn't leave St Faith's empty-handed. We took two kittens home with us, Nangatanga, which means pumpkin, because of his stripes, and Nhata, which means flea, so-called because she brought them with her.