5 b. Filling some of the pot holes in 'Memory Lane'. 1952-59. Our plan for a museum doesn't get off - out - the ground.

If this tale is a ramble down memory lane then it is a lane peppered with pot-holes ... this latest blog goes some way in filling them in. 

                                    1952-59

The old Crambourne R.A.F. barracks the Heather clan moved into in 1952 had been converted into family units and renamed Crambourne Hostel.  Each unit had two rooms, Neil, Lea and I slept in one,  mum and dad in the other. There were separate bath and toilet blocks. We had no running water so took it in turns to fill the kettle and Mazoe bottles from a tap set at the end of the block. All in all it was pretty Spartan.

I have often noted how place names can be singularly misleading. For example there are any number of “World’s Views”.  It seems to me 'Word's View' is only applicable if you find yourself orbiting our planet then, and only then would you actually have a view of the world.  Rhodesia had its fair share of misleading place names (including it's very own "World's View at Inyanga) but one in particular springs to mind, "Glass Rock" situated next to Crambourne Hostel. Now I don't know about you but to me “Glass Rock” conjures up an image of a large shiny marble or quartz rock glittering in the sunlight. Well ‘Glass Rock’ glittered alright...it positively shimmered. The reason being was it covered with literally thousand …possibly millions of shards of broken glass. During the Second World War RAF airmen and ground crew billeted at the Cramborne Barracks would congregate around this large bolder for drinking sessions. When they finished they would simply chuck the gin, rum, vodka, brandy, whiskey, wine and or beer bottle at the rock – no recycling in those days... and so, many years later and after countless drinking bouts, the place became known as ‘Glass Rock’...I wonder if Mum’s relation George paid any part in its creation?

The vast majority of newly arrived immigrant families ended up at Cambourne Hostel and it would be our home for the next year or so. While there Neil, Lea and I attended Nettleton School. That was 1952 a year before the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasalnd came into being. Fast forward seven years to Christmas ’59.  Things had moved on a pace and in the interim the Heather family had left Crambourne Hostel and moved home twice. First in 1953 to 'Hilton' a sprawling pioneer style bungalow on Quorn Avenue in the suburb known as Mount Pleasant, and very pleasant it was too.

Me, Neil, Dad & Lea + kittens outside our mosquito-net covered stoep.

Not only did the house we rented from David Henwood, the proprietor of Henwood’s Chemist, have internal ‘stable doors’ which we thought fantastic but it also came with two living, breathing horses, ex polo ponies, Mouse and Patches.  Unfortunately in Patches' case the 'living breathing' only extend for a couple of weeks as she died shortly after we moved in and was interred at the bottom of our six acre garden...a six acre garden sounds very grand but at least five of the six acres was bush. I should add Patches demise had nothing to do with us, the horse simply died of old age. But his or her passing – I don’t know if Patches was male or female – prompted an ingenious plan. We would set up our own commercial museum...by which I mean we intended to charge an entrance fee.  It was Neil, Lea and my belief, mum and dad were not privy to our plans,  that the good folk of Mount Pleasant and possibly beyond would flock to see our main, possibly only exhibit, Patches’ skeleton which we decided we would piece together with string. The National History Museum in London has dinosaur skeletons, the Heather's Museum would have Patches’. 

There was a large open garage next to the house. A real barn of a place which would be perfect for the museum, not least because it had open roof beams from which Patches’ skeleton could be suspended. In our imagination it was a done deal, the good people of Mount Pleasant and beyond were already queuing up.

As Patches had been buried a full two weeks we guesstimated that ample time had passed for the carcass to have been stripped clean by insects, grubs and such-like... leaving gleaming bleached white bones just waiting to be threaded together with string. So, armed with budzas (adze) and spades we headed down to the bottom of the garden to Patches final resting place and started digging.  We got down no more than six inches and stopped. We had to. The stench was overwhelming, absolutely disgusting...and it wasn’t just the smell either, the ground was literally crawling with maggots, blue bottle flies and every other insect that is attracted by decomposing flesh. The upshot was our ‘museum project’ ended up on our discarded pile of brilliant money-making ideas that didn't quite get off the ground... or in Patches’ case, out the ground. Yes, our 'museum project' joined such brilliant commercial endeavours  as ‘making and selling Mulberry wine made from our very own Mulberries from our very own Mulberry trees and crushed in our very own zinc bath with our very own feet...which remained stained purple for months…our feet as well as the zinc bath.

Brother Charlie came into the world while we were living at Hilton but he wasn't the only new arrival. Apart from the surviving ex-polo pony, Mouse, who actually danced – well, swayed to Eddie Cantor records – we had acquired four cats and four dogs including Tina. Actually that is not altogether true; we had three dogs including Tina. The fourth ‘dog’ was a goat who thought he was a dog, christened Anthony.

        Newly arrived Anthony being restrained for the photo

Anthony arrived at Hilton only a couple of weeks old, a skinny little ‘kid’ and was mothered by our Alsatian Tina. Anthony grew up with our dogs and considered himself a member of the pack... a canine with horns so to speak...and very territorial canine with horns he was too. If Anthony spotted a neighbour’s dog straying into our garden...well, it wasn't pretty. He would circle behind the unfortunate intruder and attack from the rear. An Exocet Missile with a pair of horns best describes Anthony as he charged his target at full tilt. You couldn't help but feel sorry for the poor mutt as Anthony ploughed into it, sending it spinning high into the air. The victims of Anthony wrath rarely returned... once butted twice shy. 

In the winter months, and it could get surprisingly nippy in Rhodesia, Anthony would be discovered curled up in front of the fire with Tina and the other dogs. Looking back now it seems pretty odd having a goat in the house, sharing the log fire with the family but at the time we thought it quite normal.

After Quorn Avenue we moved to 146, Victory Avenue, in Greendale, opposite the quarry and the Greendale cemetery. Dad had left the Prudential and along with an associate of his, Roger Stone, had started the Salisbury branch of Pearl Assurance... which brings us neatly back to Christmas morning 1959...and blog 6...oops blog 5c. has been added!