Aloe Festival
BEFORE CLEARANCE WAS GIVEN TO train in Mozambique, the squadron paid its annual visit to Umtali on 4 May 1972. The town in which I had schooled had adopted No 4 Squadron and always invited the unit to visit for the weekend of its annual Aloe Festival. Our direct involvement was limited to cocktails with the mayor and city councillors, providing a formation flypast over a colourful parade of floats along Main Street and to crowning the Aloe Queen at the Aloe Ball; the highlight of the festival. Otherwise we were guests of the Town Council who treated us like royalty. 4 Squadron spirits were high and a particularly naughty element had developed amongst the technicians. At the centre were Sergeants Henry Jarvie, John Britton and Phil Tubbs whose every move needed to be closely monitored.
Wives and girlfriends accompanied most officers but the technicians elected to go stag. The unmarried technicians pooled money for a ‘Grimmy prize’ to be awarded to the one who dated the ‘grottiest-looking grimmy’ for the Aloe Ball. This idea of ‘grimmies’ was one adopted from RLI troopers. At the end of a party, the man who had brought along the grottiest (least attractive) grimmy (grotty female) received the Grimmy prize. John Britton decided he could win this prize if he dated Henry Jarvie in drag.
Dressed in a badly fitting three-quarter-length floral dress, lipstick almost to his nostrils and wearing way too much eye shadow and rouge, Henry completed his attire with thick brown stockings and heavy boots. He certainly was the ugliest-looking partner whose actions and antics had everyone in fits. But he and John Britton were discounted from the Grimmy contest because Henry was judged to be grottier than grotty.
As the fanfare heralded the Aloe Queen’s entry into the huge ballroom, slim Henry and big John moved ahead of her approach-line to the throne. Henry pirouetted neatly revealing hairy legs above knee-length stockings; his right index finger in John’s raised left hand. John moved in smooth steps with feet splayed in exaggerated ballet fashion, straight-backed, right arm bent with hand on hip. They continued down the length of the aisle before Henry leapt into the air with arms spread and head back to land horizontally in John’s outstretched arms.
Most people found this impromptu ballet display unbelievable and very amusing, but not so the organisers who were badly put out as it had drawn attention away from the Aloe Queen’s grand entrance. Soon enough the Aloe Queen was seated on her throne and, by the time I had crowned her, all was forgiven and everyone enjoyed a grand evening.
ZANU and ZAPU activities
THE WARS BEING FOUGHT IN the Portuguese territories, like Rhodesia and South Africa, were to prevent liberation movements, inspired and supported by communists, from taking control by force. We all knew that the Soviets planned to form a bridge of states across Africa from which to drive for their ultimate prize, South Africa. Should they succeed the Soviets, and possibly the recently involved Chinese, would have access to the vast mineral wealth of southern Africa and control of the strategically important sea route around the Cape of Good Hope.
As in other African countries, the emergence of Rhodesian liberation movements was made possible by white politicians’ actions and laws that placed many constraints on the black people. Contrary to the glowing history lessons given to my generation of Rhodesia’s pioneers, our black folk were presented the contrary view that their territory had been taken by political intrigue and force of arms before laws were introduced to ensure their subservience. Whereas the N’debele and Shona people attempted to reverse this situation during the Matabeleland and Shona rebellions of 1896 and 1897 they failed in the face of superior weaponry and white rule was established.
Nevertheless the country developed rapidly to the mutual benefit of all Rhodesia’s citizens. An impressive infrastructure was already in place when the African National Council (ANC) was established in 1934 with the intention of gaining black political inclusion in government. This should have worked to everyone’s advantage, judging by later constitutions drawn up by Rhodesians. These all made unimpeded progress to majority rule a clear objective. However the new worldforce, communism, had been created following the Bolshevik Revolution. This new order, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, considered white governments in Africa to be a major stumbling block to its stated intention of gaining total domination of the entire world.
The communists turned full attention to acquiring control of the mineral and oil reserves of Africa and the Middle East that, combined with those of the USSR, was key to gaining the economic subservience of Europe, the Americas and the Far East. This was approached on two fronts. One worked southward from the USSR and the second was to develop a ‘bridge across Central Africa’ from which to launch southward to the Cape of Good Hope. The objectives of the second front were to be achieved by a ‘divide and rule’ philosophy which was to undermine the white governments created by Portugal, Britain and Belgium and promote black nationalist forces to oust them.
The Soviets were fully aware of black inexperience in managing any country they may acquire but counted on this inexperience to bring about situations in which they would move in later and take control without a shot being fired. By using a combination of approaches that enhanced African desire for power, the Soviets exaggerated existing grievances that blacks had against whites and cleverly engineered many new ones. Whether existing or created, the Soviets knew they could get the black folk to take up arms and fight ‘wars of liberation’ intended for the ultimate benefit of the USSR.
Thirty years after the formation of the ANC by Aaron Jacha, and following the formation, amalgamation and fragmentation of a number of black parties, the first act of communist-inspired terrorism occurred when the ‘Crocodile Gang’ of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) murdered Petrus Oberholzer.
White Rhodesians in general held the black folk in high regard, hoping in time to elevate their status, lifestyle and opportunities as the infrastructure expanded and the economy strengthened. But to achieve this meant retaining government in responsible hands. We realised how important it was to deny black power-seekers opportunity to destroy our beautiful country in the manner we could see occurring in newly independent African states to our north. History has proven that we were fully justified in attempting to do this. But instead of lessening burdensome laws on the black folk, more were added, making it increasingly easier for nationalist parties to associate with communist ideals and the communist states themselves. This suited communist planning perfectly. Yet for most Rhodesians talk of communist objectives was not taken seriously. Before we came to properly understand the reality of the threat, we had tended to think our government a bit paranoid in ‘seeing communists under every bush’. When reality eventually caught up with the likes of myself, we were not to know that Russian communism would eventually flounder but we knew for certain that any black nationalist government would destroy the economy and infrastructure of the country.
Nowhere in Africa was more done to elevate the black people within the limits of Rhodesia’s financial resources. At the time there were twenty blacks to every white, placing too great a burden on the drivers of the economy, the whites, who nevertheless wanted to provide good schooling and services to everyone. The great majority of black people were subsistence farmers living as they had for centuries. In less than eighty years their numbers had blossomed from around 400,000 to over six million due to white medicines and the curtailment of tribal wars. The population explosion was way larger than the rate at which schools could be provided and this angered many young blacks who neither accepted nor understood the realities of the situation. Attempts to elevate the economy to improve schooling and create new jobs for black people involved bringing in more skilled white immigrants to the country. But sanctions and mandatory military service for all white male adults had reduced immigration to a trickle by 1972.