Discipline is my theme for an Introduction
Well, we Scots lost against Wales this past weekend at rugby. Why? Most likely due to lack of discipline. Even worse the red card was for an exact duplicate of the Irish foul that lost them the game the previous week.
I have never been one to adhere to discipline at school or in my personal and social life. However, I think I have been conscientious at work, both in my own self-discipline and instilling it in others. As many who are closely acquainted with me will know, I erred in play to the other extreme. I first witnessed this “double-life” behaviour in the army. Some members of the various units I was involved with could only be termed as reprobates in civilian life. During their rest and recuperation breaks from the bush, they would drink every last cent, while causing havoc with family, friends and perceived enemies alike. I even knew some who volunteered to go back early as they had run out of cash and exhausted their family’s tolerance. Meanwhile, back in the bush, they would convert into trustworthy, reliable soldiers. Why? Discipline! Armies know how to instil discipline in a fashion probably not found appropriate in civilian life. If you want to succeed in life, you have to instil discipline in yourself and those around you where it is required.
“Discipline need not be instilled with a whip or harsh words, motivation, reward and example can suffice.” Peter McSporran
Unfortunately, many of us may run a successful business but do not adhere to this in our private lives. I am afraid I am one of these. Here I am talking about my behaviour, relationships and health. I think overall, on all three of these I would get a fairly low rating. I have done many stupid things, top of the list probably driving after having a drink. My first marriage broke down for many reasons. I am sure my behaviour was a major contributing factor. Equally in the eighties, I paid little heed to my health and fitness. In my younger days rugby, farming, and the army kept me fit and healthy. Today I am back to the weight I was when I left the army in 1979, brought about by diet, exercise and more recently my ill health. I find when I am bored or stressed, I eat. What are your excuses? Age has reduced my reliance on the use of drink to enhance my supposed alcohol-induced happiness. Drink, increased my weight, especially beer, it had a way of stimulating my appetite. I used to suffer from severe PPD (Post Pissed Depression) the following day, especially if I remembered an incredibly foolish incident. I am not advocating total abstemious, just a little more discipline. Just as Fagersons teammates felt frustrated by his actions on Saturday when he received the red card, I am sure my family and friends at times would have felt the same about me. Unfortunately for them, I would have ignored the red card although the next day would have agreed with the call on reflection.
“The question is, how do you stop yourself doing something you will regret later? Especially when you are having fun. It is a recognition of consequence. Overindulgence in alcohol deadens your ability to comprehend this.” Peter McSporran
Medical
Next week is a big week. On Monday the 22nd of February, I have a review with the ERAS team to see how my recovery is progressing. While on Thursday the 25th I meet with the surgeon and get a prognosis on both my surgery and biopsy results.
Meanwhile, I had my delayed appointment with my ophthalmologist who administered another injection into my eye to try and reduce the thrombosis damage. The eye had deteriorated as my original scheduled appointment fell in the week of my stomach surgery. Hopefully, over the next few months with further injections, the damage will be reduced. I opted to go private with this treatment last year and the cost of each injection sure makes my eyes water.
My Life Story - Campbeltown
Kintyre is a beautiful place, with lovely rolling hills, in those days populated by large numbers of red and white cattle. Yes, Ayrshires. All supplying milk to the local creamery. Employment was agriculture, coal mining and fishing, making the peninsula fairly affluent. Somehow I did not get the same feeling about the town at that time. Its loch filled with effluent was certainly not, sparklingly clean nor reflected affluence. The pier head and some strategic street corners always attracted unemployed men and elderly gentlemen passing the time of day. Those corners with vacant plots often had tinker families congregating. I had never witnessed such behaviour on Mull. The people spoke with a different accent and had perfected the mannerism of “slow speech.”
The local kids all treated me as an “Teuchter*.” A derogatory term in meaning, sort of accepted with pride by most people from the Highlands and Islands. Who would want to be identified as a “Sassenach**.” Yes, everyone south of the Highland line was known as a “sassenach” not just the English. At first, as we all do, young or old, we often latch onto the first friendly people who welcome us into the community. Of course, this has many pitfalls, especially when not knowing their social standing or reputation, be it true or false. I once mentioned that some of my new friends at school resided in Park Square; my aunts immediately banned me from going there again suggesting I find alternate friends as soon as possible. Seemingly anyone from Park Square was of dubious background. There seemed to be no exceptions, I am sure this was not a valid comment. Later in life, though, I have found the over-friendly welcomers to any new community usually do not remain friends for long. Of course, there are some exceptions.
“Beware of over-friendly people whenever entering a new community or workplace. Funny, I also found the same with my staff to a much lesser extent. There are exceptions notwithstanding those, it is better to take a conservative view in building friendship. They are like evangelical churchgoers, treat with caution.” Peter McSporran
I sort of carried on with my feral habits swopping the hills and shoreline for the streets. A poor exchange. I slowly made friends, including Jim McPhee who remained a friend throughout my school life. Other friends were Alistair Bell, Joe McGill and Kenneth Coppen. None of them went to the same school as me, they attended Millknowe School, I Dalintober. We would meet most evenings and run wild on the streets. We even tried to half-heartedly form a gang meeting in a pigeon coup joined by a few other local boys. Ours was a non-violent gang whose main pastime was entering many of the vacant buildings in Campbeltown. How the police seemed to know every time we entered a building despite its location was beyond us. After a few warnings, my aunts sent me to the Life Boys*** to try and keep me off the street. I attended for a while but soon got bored and reverted back to the streets. The pier also often attracted me. Either to catch small fish with a hand line or watch the days catch being unloaded and sold. From time to time, the fishermen would give me a cod or a bucket of prawns to take home much to the delight of my aunts.
When I left Campbeltown in 1962, I lost touch with those guys. Unfortunately, Kenneth Coppen lost his life at sixteen years old on the MV Quesada boat disaster when eight men and boys drowned in 1966. She sank while on a pleasure trip just off Davaar Island, which lies at the Campbeltown loch entrance. Alistair and Joe remained in Campbeltown as far as I am aware.
My grandfather was a very quiet man while my grandmother was chairbound due to ill health. My youngest aunt Catherine was tasked to look after her and ensure I was fed. My aunt Mary was the boss concerning what went on in the house, including my control, although Elizabeth was the kingpin with regard to finance. While I was there, the aunts bought a shoe shop, Mary managed it. After my departure to senior school, she and her husband took over McGrory’s, best described as an emporium selling everything from fishing tackle to fridges. This was close to the pier head, benefitting from the summertime tourists that arrived by steamer from Glasgow. I saw little of my aunts; during the week they were at work, I was at school. The exception was most evenings we would have supper at nine o’clock when all would gather for this which always included cakes. Grandfather called them “snasters****". On Sundays, if we did not go out to the farm, we always had a roast for lunch, and I would be sent to Locarno Italian Cafe to buy their signature ice cream as dessert. What I did after school during the week until supper did not seem to concern my keepers providing police were never involved.
At the weekend, Elizabeth went golfing being the local women’s champion on many occasions. She also played badminton in winter. She, on occasion, took me, but rarely. It was rumoured, although she remained a spinster, she had a long ongoing relationship with one of the married men there. Maybe that is why she did not take me very often. On a Sunday evening, I found myself going to church with her, rather than the alternative of sitting at home watching Songs of Praise. Only in winter though, summer nights were for the outside.
My grandfather worked for the council but spent whatever free time he had out at his brother Charlie’s farm. I would have to go and get his Revor Plug tobacco for his pipe every Friday from the local co-op. Grandfather kept a barrel of salt herring in the coal bunker, which I enjoyed. It was not a favourite of the ladies of the house. Interestingly, he still used a cut-throat razor which he sharpened on a belt behind the kitchen door. He was always very tidy both in appearance and dress. He did not drink beer or spirits but always had ginger wine fermenting inside the cupboard in the lounge dedicated for just that purpose. He seemed to move slowly but got things done. I do not know when he rose but it was very early, long before anyone else in the household and was also the first to bed. When I walked with my hands in my pocket, which was most of the time, it irritated him.
As an aside, their coal was delivered by means of horse and cart. I was amazed at how patient the horse was standing in the street untied, while the coal man carried the coal on his back, often up three flights of stairs.
When I went home for school holidays, my grandfather always made me his favourite breakfast, scrambled egg cooked with minced meat. The bus used to leave at 7 am and take 4 hours to get to Oban where I would catch the boat home. Changing buses in Lochgilphead always gave me stress. Mind you only two buses were waiting there for the Campbeltown bus. One destined for Glasgow one for Oban. The return trip normally saw my father deliver me when some money would change hands before leaving for home—no doubt for my keep. I always suffered from car sickness but never bus sickness. Why?
Next week Campbeltown Grammar School and an introduction to Keil School.
Investing in Agriculture
After the completion of the first tobacco curing season, I then concentrated on developing irrigation. We started with a diesel engine along with portable aluminium mainlines supplying sprinkler lines to allow for mobility and versatility. We moved the irrigation between the tobacco and groundnuts with the irrigated tobacco planted on the 1st of September. The groundnuts we started planting on the 15th of September. To ensure good yields, the groundnuts had to be planted before the end of October. We began planting rainfed tobacco on the 15th of October and expected a loss of the lower, low-value leaves due to a reaping clash with the irrigated crop. The irrigated crop we focused on yield, to be honest, some of it would have been more suitable as roofing tiles rather than a pleasant smoke. We went with the portable irrigation system to save on the capital cost of expensive, permanent underground mainlines coupled with electrical power line installations down to the pumping station. I further saved capital expenditure by having the tobacco graded at a commercial grader. This saved on the capital cost of storage facilities for ungraded tobacco and all the equipment required. We bulked the tobacco in slat packs with deliveries to the commercial grader every three weeks. The charge for grading was collected on the sale, therefore helping with cash flow. Grading was completed after harvest so this allowed me to concentrate on getting my army commitments for the year behind me before the next growing season.
With my neighbours’ guidance, my second year as a tenant farmer was very successful and with that my father-in-law agreed to sell the farm to my wife, Diane, and I. Having successfully grown tobacco and had an excellent yield in our first groundnut harvest, we felt bullish. By then our accountant, both for us and my father-in-law was John Knight, the senior partner at Coopers and Lybrand. Eventually, with his assistance as a moderator, a price was agreed upon. Both John and my father-in-law were sceptical I would pay off the farm in the agreed ten years. The price, $250,000, was a huge amount in those days. In fact to the extent that my father-in-law asked me to sign a letter of irrevocable commitment in agreeing to support my mother-in-law in the event of the debt not being paid off after his death. This was in the event of something happening to Derek, as he was unsure of his own farming enterprise’s future. At that time, with the war looking lost, many whites left Rhodesia, especially young people. His son, Micheal, was still on full-time National Service in the Police Support Unit, the police force’s military wing. He need not have worried as when Micheal returned to the farm, after a short sojourn overseas, he proved himself to be a top farmer. We paid the farm off in three years.
I had also transferred from the army in 1979 to PATU (Police Anti Terrorist Unit), which allowed me much more flexibility regarding security commitments. Call-ups were more numerous but rarely extended beyond two weeks at a time. Equally, call outs could be at any time, even between scheduled duties. This meant more time on the farm, but security commitments were more unpredictable.
The one cost which both Diane and I agreed as a priority was to build a house. This we commenced in 1980, although I laid the foundation to demonstrate my commitment to Diane early on our second year on the farm. Meanwhile, my father-in-law bought Mede Farm down the road where he relocated his cattle, and I leased the tobacco land. The house was superior to ours by then and we had our first child, Storm. We moved there temporarily until our farm builders completed our new home. I could now buy cattle with access to the farm for grazing, my walking bank.
I expanded tobacco production on both farms in the 3rd year to 100ha. The second farm had only conventional wood-burning tobacco barns. To cater to increased production, I converted some of these barns into a Chongololo system using a hot water kettle instead of a heat exchanger. Using a kettle (low-pressure boiler) in place of heat exchangers would further save on curing fuel. At that time, to assist with curing, I made my first managerial mistake. I took on a friend's son as a favour instead of interviewing a suitable candidate for the job. Unfortunately, although capable, this young man was not happy being stuck on a farm; this was evident in his commitment which fell short of my expectations. It may have been that I asked too much. Whichever, it did not work out, I did not listen to the lessons I had learned in the army.
An agreement was reached ending the war, and power was handed over to Robert Mugabe by the British in April 1980. It coincided with Diane and I moving into our new home on Diandra with a second child, on the way. Many more people left Zimbabwe at this time. When I arrived in 1972, there were some 300,000 whites; at Independence, only some 60,000 remained. John, Clem and most of the district decided to stay. Probably for the wrong reasons. We felt we had committed too much to leave, both in fighting the war and our farm’s development. At that age, we could have easily gone somewhere else to start again. Remaining was a massive gamble in my life which would bring many rewards but also immense loss.
Next week, the Golden years.
Teuchter* - A person from the highlands and islands in Scotland
Sassenach** - Someone from the Scottish lowlands or England
Life Boys*** - Junior wing of boy cadets
Snasters**** - A broad disparaging name for sweets, chocolates or cakes
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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