Most people can point to moments in their life when they made a decisions which deeply affected their future, but it's not often that there is a picture of such an occasion. This is one of the exceptions.
Early in our time in Rhodesia, in 1967, we were driven out to St Faith's, a very small secondary school in the bush, the nearest big town being Rusape. The school had only recently come in to existence, very much against the wishes of the Rhodesia government, and was located in what was called a 'reserve', an area of, usually very poor, very overcrowded agricultural land designated for the exclusive use of Africans.
Very soon after arriving in Rhodesia, where we had a three-year contract to teach at a much bigger African secondary school, we realised that our school was a very unhappy place, and we were keen to escape. Hearing of this, the headmaster of St Faith's, Blair Murray (second from right) invited us to visit his school, where we were shown this house, under construction, which would be ours if we moved school at the end of that first term.
We loved the place. I also knew Blair from my time at Bernard Mizeki in 1963, and liked and respected him. There was someone else there I knew and loved from '63, Wilf Stringer, standing in front of Mrs MW's blue umbrella.
We wrestled with the decision. We desperately wanted to move but, in the end, decided to stay at Bernard Mizeki because we had signed a three-year contract, and it was against our principles to break it.
We did, however, come away from that first visit to St Faith's with two mementos of that rather wet day....
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