Tuesday 27th April, 2010-04-27
Dear Jeremy,
As well as Vesey Fitzgerald there were other colourful characters in Abercorn.
The Gamwell sisters farmed coffee on the slopes leading down to Lake Tanganyika . Dad got to know them as they belonged to a committee on which he also sat. I think it had something to do with local schools. Their story is interesting. They came from a well established English family. I think their father, a doctor, attended members of the Royal family. They had accompanied a sickly brother who traveled to Kenya for his health, as people did in those days. As you know Kenya is a producer of coffee. I do not know when they came to Abercorn.
The Gamwells were large women who wore men's khaki shorts and each carried a Bowie knife attached to their belts. They also drove a 1928 Chevrolet and always had a young African, a quedin, in the back who, whenever they stopped had to jump out and put a log of wood under the tyres to prevent them from running forward or backwards depending on the slope. Once a signpost had been changed and they drove right through Abercorn and when they realised this they drove straight to the D Cs office and reprimanded him for not letting them know.
We were invited to tea, not sure how many times.. They did not have a conventional house but each had a rondovel establishment of their own. They were connected to the dining room, sitting room and kitchen by a covered passageway, reminded me of cloisters. It was a real English tea with cucumber sandwiches, scones, tarts, fruit cake and cream cake.
When the war broke out in 1939 they bricked in their rooms and went off to fight for King and Country. One, I believe, helped to organised the FANYs (they were the First Aid Nurse Yeomanry) and the other was in Intelligence. Peace was declared and out they came to continue their colonial life as coffee planters
As quaint as their apparel was by day attending a cocktail party was another thing. They arrived dressed in expensive lace and all that was missing was the tiara. Daddy always regretted that he did not keep in touch with them.
Abercorn, being so far north, we were less aware of the development of the political parties until Harold Macmillan, while in Cape Town, spoke of the Winds of Change. While the anti-colonialists rejoiced that wind blew cold round us, the people working on the front line. . It was a shock to realise we were considered expendable.
A disturbing incident had occurred which should have warned us. During school holidays senior students were taken on camps into the rural areas to make a positive contribution to a village like build a school or dig a dam. There was a village near the lake shore where the people needed water, so Michael and Christopher Mandona hosted a camp to dig a canal to bring water from the lake into the village and to irrigate the lands. Everyone rejoiced to see the water flow. A week or two later Michael went out to check on the work only to find that the canal had been filled in. The people of the village had been told by political agitators that his was only done so the white people could come and take their lands.
It was all so heartbreaking. There was so much the people still had to learn and so much we still had to teach them but we were never really given a chance. Remember this part of the country was only opened up after the War.
Bye for now and much love,
Mum