Discord at ‘Old Farts’ and My Roots.
Every Thursday we, the ‘Old farts’, meet for a drink and a chat to resolve all the problems of the world never planning to create any new ones. Of course, being of an age most things seem wrong if not damn confusing in the world during these times. For us, in our young days colour and gender were definitive. We now know we were wrong in this simplicity whether we want to admit it or not. We all tend to forget all the previous generations had similar or much worse challenges than those of today. That is why we oldies generally feel groups like ‘Stop Oil,’ ‘Extinction Rebellion’ and the anti-meat lobby instil enough doubt about the future of the world thus ingraining fear for the young to bring children into this damaged world have it wrong. There have always been doomsday soothsayers, all proven, thankfully, wrong to date. Further, some of the things we see now, us oldies consider outside normal human behaviour or nature and at the very least confusing to our semi-senile brains.
“We should remember the human race’s survival relies on its reproduction. Do not become vain and think you are here for some greater purpose. For this to occur a male and female are required. Without this, there is no future.” - Peter McSporran
Last Thursday started as usual with us dribbling in one by one, time is not so important at our age, in our normal manner at around 6 o’clock in the evening at our favoured meeting place, a local restaurant and bar tolerant to our noisy discourse and laughter. We speak loudly as some of us are very deaf. Each member brings his events and concerns of the week for discussion. It can be in the form of car problems, this, especially me, subjects cover from gardening to ailments. Certainly no romance or athletic feats. Our group consists of two English men, a joiner who became a successful computer entrepreneur and while retired still happy to investigate any low-hanging opportunities, especially in the property world, an English retired lawyer handy for a legal opinion. The English contingent has recently been depleted by three Englishmen leaving, one voluntarily we think due to our views of the world being too far outside his own. A further concern to him was our willingness to over-generously tip our waiters. This seemed to give him palpitations. Do all Labour supporters suffer from this? A further two Englishmen, long-standing members, left to spend their twilight years nearer to their place of birth. Hopefully not too close to the dismay of their children despite it being a joy to their grandchildren. The remainder consists of an English speaking South African, which means; not Afrikaans. An ex-bean counter who is an avid hunter returning to Africa to do so on an annual basis. Next, a retired forthright German luxury car executive, who worked in both Brazil and South Africa, then myself, a Zimbo-Scot and finally a fairly new arrival in the form of a Dutchman who has worked most of his life in the Far East returning there shortly to fulfil a contract at seventy years old.
We are also married to nationality-diverse women. All of us are never offended by questions on our own or our spouses' roots. What has been blown up in the Palace in London me thinkest was pre-meditated. No softer victim than an old woman.
“I often get asked about my heritage because of my accent. Where are you from? Not just the country but the actual location seems to be of interest. Like most I am proud of my roots, never taking offence by a question about them.” - Peter McSporran
The average age has probably dropped since the two Englishmen left. In addition, the passing of Patrick, our Irish member, we are now perhaps not averaging over seventy but very close. We all have vivid imaginations as sometimes we do often talk about women in a non-romantic manner.
“We old men if we are pragmatic must accept life would be exceedingly difficult without our female partners.” - Peter McSporran
This week it started as normal with the lawyer bringing us a huge homemade pork pie made by his wife. A proper pork pie. The hunter produced air-dried duck breast and finally, the car executive brought some peri peri crisps from his home in Bavaria. This is what set the events of the evening off. The heat from the peri peri crisps took us all by surprise, beers to the rescue, before happily sharing with our host landlord to see his reaction. After his surprise followed quickly with a glass of water he was so taken by it that he decided to share it with the unsuspecting barflies much to all our amusement and hilarious laughter from him. Luckily, all took it well. When he ran out of victims in the bar he moved onto the kitchen staff to share the painful treat. He did not have the courage to try it on his restaurant guests. Finally, as his partner only started later in the evening, he requested us to keep some especially for him as a surprise. His reaction had us all roaring in laughter. All this noise seemed to upset one customer who, despite the cafe area where we were sitting, being nearly empty, came and sat right behind the forthright German and started a loud telephone conversation on speaker phone with what we presume was his family. Perhaps in Brazil?
After a few minutes as the phone was being held close to the back of the German’s head, irritating to us all, the German politely asked him to move. This request received a sharp retort that we were being equally noisy. This was despite us being there first with plenty of other seats available. It should be said the football was also playing on the TV to add to the noise level. As previously stated we are all nearly deaf so we are inclined to speak loudly, especially with background noise. Now our friend, being German, does not mind speaking his mind. Of course, also ensuring what he said was not considered racist, he now forcefully asked him to move. Events escalated very quickly finally with both of them on their feet looking like fists could fly. Something that has never happened in the Thursday group even during the very heated Brexit arguments. The Dutchman then foolishly decided to be the peacemaker, speaking in English while the others were arguing in Portuguese. This was of course to no avail with the German and his verbal combatant getting angrier, neither would back down. Luckily, the landlords intervened and resolved the issue before there was any bloodshed, which would likely be our German friends as he was a good forty years older than his adversary. The Dutchman then questioned why we tolerated such behaviour to which the ‘joiner’ informed him, “Listen, mate, he has been a member a lot longer than you.”
“Never take the side of a perceived adversary even if your friend may be in the wrong until peace has been achieved. Then you can raise your disquiet, that's what friends do.” - Peter McSporran
As usual, we then dribbled out all dispersing by nine pm. I am looking forward to this Thursday night, it may well be back to its normal boring meetup. I do have Rozanne making some peri peri crisps to take along just to remind us of the previous week’s fun. What else can old men do for fun?
A Big Bang and Entry into Farming Politics
On the 16th of August 1981, we were enjoying a relaxing Sunday afternoon at home on the farm when our world suddenly shuddered followed by the noise of what appeared to be a huge explosion. Our windows rattled and in fact, a few cracked in the lounge. This was followed by ongoing minor explosions and in what appeared to be only minutes, rather than hours, soldiers in uniform were seen running through the farm away from the presumed source of the noise, Nkomo Barracks at Nyabira. This was some twenty kilometres away from the farm as the crow flies. What could be happening? Had the South
Africans launched an attack against us? Wherever the soldiers were running to, it could not be much further as in front of them was Darwendale Dam on our boundary. Joe Whaley a few minutes later said they had even reached his farm in Norton even further from Nkomo. We presumed they were ex-ZANLA cadres integrated into the Zimbabwean army and having experienced Rhodesian raids on their camps in Mozambique knew survival relied on speed. Hence, their retreat was impressive both in speed and distance. Late that afternoon, the explosions declined and the BMATT trainers informed the local authorities that there had been an explosion in the Nkomo magazine. Seemingly this had been overfilled by arms and ammunition collected at the cessation of hostilities the previous year. Instead of being stored safely in the individual magazines, the overflow had been stacked up outside the buildings but inside the protective earthen walls including the safety entrance tunnels meant to restrict any conflagration. Some explosives, perhaps heated by direct sunlight, set off an initial explosion followed by a continuing chain reaction of explosions for six hours.
Of course, our fear was repercussions. Would the white population be blamed, or would they round up, us local farmers? Neither, luckily, unlike a year later when there was sabotage at the Airforce base at Thornhill in the Midlands with many of the remaining white officers and pilots being charged with treason without reason, spending an extended painful time in prison.
“In Africa, even today, as in the heyday of the Zulus, punishment of innocents is still used as an example to perceived opponents or offenders rather than justice.” - Peter McSporran
For us, the main outcome of this was our club, some three kilometres from the magazine, was virtually destroyed with the roof blown off and the cricket ground and tennis courts littered with unexploded bombs and rockets. To our delight and surprise the army did clear the armaments and rebuilt the club although slightly smaller, unfortunately, no better than it was before. I think Phil Vermaak was the chairman at the time and had to do all of the liaison work. It was several months before the pub or tennis courts could be safely used. A Captain Patrick Gericke was detained but shortly released heading straight to South Africa. Should that raise suspicions?
I suppose my first entry into farming politics was as chairman of our local Farmers Association (FA). The Commercial Farmers Union, which represented all commercial farmers in Zimbabwe had a structure made up of Commodity Associations, such as grain and oilseeds for example, including cattle representing each of the producer groups and then District Branches made up of FAs in their respective areas, there being some seventy FAs throughout the country. Each commodity association and each branch had a voting representative on the CFU’s council which had a President and Vice President further supported by professionally run departments such as labour affairs, economics etc. including a weekly self-financed magazine. Branches and associations had their own staff and executives looking after their dedicated needs. Farmer associations were all voluntary with wives often acting as secretaries to their husbands as chairmen. The system seemed to work well although not including smallholder or emergent farmers, it did allow diverse participation.
As chairman of your local Farmer Association, you were required to attend Branch. Therefore, representation on branches changed following each new chair’s election. Nybira was unique in that our representative at Branch was not the Chairman rather the incumbent who was a long-term volunteer for the role in the form of David Stokes. This was mainly due to the fact that David enjoyed going to town, almost on a daily basis, unlike most farmers who avoided town like the plague. Town normally meant unpleasant meetings with bank managers, accountants, doctors and dentists. Town, of course being the capital, Salisbury, only to become Harare in 1982. David’s farm management methods were completely the opposite of most. Normally farmers in those days spent long days in the fields and sheds supervising operations, much of it labour orientated from planting, weeding, reaping and curing. With controlled marketing, it was not a management task for Rhodesian and early Zimbabwean farmers unless you were growing what was known as a non-controlled agricultural commodity such as pigs, sheep, vegetables, timber, tea and fruits. David was also a racehorse owner who never missed a race meet no matter how busy the farm was. He did not even employ a manager, he left all the day-to-day running of the farm to what in those days we called Bossboys, that is, foremen. It must have worked as he owned many racehorses, ate out most days and drove the most up-to-date Mercedes car. In fact, one car he ordered was stolen along with eight others on the delivery vehicle somewhere in South Africa, to then be tracked on an aeroplane in transit to the Congo where many of the stolen 4x4 and luxury vehicles from South Africa ended up.
Therefore, as chairman of the Farmers Association due to David’s representation of us in higher office, our experience in farming politics was limited even as chairman. In the meantime, I had become one of the biggest, if not the largest groundnut (peanut) growers in the country winning groundnut grower of the year on one occasion. Through field days on the farm and talking about groundnuts my confidence grew in airing complaints about prices and varieties to such an extent the Branch, to keep me quiet voted me in as their representative on the Oilseeds Association. Little did I know for the next fifteen years with a three-year break, I would be involved in farming politics.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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