It was my birthday this week and I have been inundated with birthday wishes from friends and family around the world. White Zimbabwean farmers are the new stateless people cast asunder against their wishes by a brutal illegal regime while the world is happy to criticise but without the willpower or moral courage to remedy. Needless to say, I was so delighted to receive the birthday wishes in a myriad of forms which is possible in this modern world. This got me thinking about my friends and how I had made them, some close and dear some more friendly acquaintances. As yet none of my enemies, real or perceived, have sent me a message as I write this on the said day at lunchtime.
For those that sent me birthday wishes a very big thank you. Your greetings warmed my heart.
"Friends and family are everything."- Willie Robinson on a call on my birthday.
How true is this? In a couple of the messages I received from some of my more elderly friends their loneliness was tangible in their poignant messages. So if you have an elderly friend or family member, get in touch with them today, not tomorrow. Just saying hi will mean a lot to them in knowing they are in your thoughts.
As I mentioned, I had a surprise visit from one of my prized friends, along with another who was not secretive about his movements. To be honest, all my friends are prized; they mean so much to me, and friendship is one of, if not the most important, pillars of me having had a happy life. Yassars Toor's arrival last week, camouflaged so very effectively by Rozanne and Erik Wiersma, as mentioned before, giving us a wonderful time, allowing us to reminisce about our times in some of the remote parts of Africa and also the bright lights of London when we had visited head office to attend the various meetings that all corporates seem to require in abundance.
As usual, I have gone off on another tangent. Back to friendship. Having these two here prompted me to think a bit more about my friendships, not the individuals but how they came about. When I left school, I did not keep in touch with any of my school friends, despite being in a boarding school where friendship alliances were critical for survival. Unlike my daughter Storm, who has just returned from a reunion with her close school classmates in Kenya. I certainly cannot blame geographic location as that has never obstructed my continued friendships in later life. Logistics are not a barrier for them to get together, being spread across the globe. Perhaps I hated school so much I did not want to retain anything to remind me of my days there.
The same can be said of the Merchant Navy, although I did not hate it. In fact, for many years, I kept in touch with my closest friend while there, fellow cadet Dave Fanshawe, who left at the same time as me to become a successful banker. We somehow lost touch. I am the first to admit I was a very poor correspondent or responder in my earlier years. My parents would say it was non-existent. They told me, ”It was like writing to the dead.”
The same cannot be said of the friendships I made at college. To this day, I have remained friends with my ex-roommate from my first year there, Mike Clerk, who has acted as a conduit to all my old housemates during my time there. We have had reunions in recent years, and all, including spouses, get on, despite the intervening fifty years since we were agricultural students.
Once in Rhodesia, my friends were primarily farmers or mates from the army. Army friends are the oddest. In operational circumstances, you put your whole trust in them and them in you, but honestly, this could not be said when we returned to civilian life.
“Circumstances can lead to exceptional friendships, I have learned, no more so than shared hardship.” - Peter McSporran
In saying this, I still have many friends from the army, and doing business with them was much easier than with those who had not served. We will carry a common bond throughout our lives; unfortunately, recently, we have more and more been informed of another comrade in arms' passing. While farming in Zimbabwe, more of my friendships were brought about by the commonality of farming, be it through being neighbours, at meetings, at cattle sales, agricultural shows and field days.
With some success in farming and my entry into farming politics and business, my friendship pool broadened or at least more diversified in their means of making a living. From making new friends at Borrowdale racetrack to business, my friends now included town dwellers along with farmers from further afield on my visits to the far flung regions of the country while in office at the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU). For a while, four, Kevin O’Toole and Warwick Small, both townies and Vernon Nicol and myself became both friends and business partners.
“Never go into partnership or business with a friend nor lend or borrow money to or from them if you wish to remain lifetime friends.” - Unknown
We four proved this advice can be wrong, but in many other instances, I found this to be true.
Then, after losing the farm and being forced to move to Zambia, we found ourselves befriended by black and white Zambians, including some foreign residents. Zambia is a very friendly nation, which proved much a wonderful benefit to us in both friendship and establishing ourselves in that country.
Most of these new Zambian acquaintances remain very good friends today. They included businessmen and women, bankers, lawyers, and, of course, farmers. Then, with the creation of AgDevCo and my work with Phatisa, my travels and the meeting of new business associates and work colleagues once again introduced me to a much more diverse group of friends, such as Erik and Yasser.
“Friendship supersedes political affiliation, religion, nationality, sex and circumstance. If one of these becomes a barrier in your friendship, then you cannot deem them true friends.” - Peter McSporran
I have been lucky to make many lifelong friends, admittedly only after leaving school. Many of them regularly contact me today, helping me to feel happy in my elderly years. I should mention that some of my best and closest friends have been and are female. Luckily, Rozanne approves of all my friends; I have seen in others that it has not always been the case.
“Some partners would like to select or at least approve of your friends. This is a very weak foundation in trying to maintain a lasting friendship. True friendship is spontaneous, not selective.” - Peter McSporran
In May of 1995, I opened the Bulawayo Agricultural Show, held at the same time and in the same venue as the Zimbabwe Trade Fair in that city. My main focus of that speech was equity to the access of water by agriculture. All urban water storage up to that time was by state, especially the bigger dams for scheme irrigation and domestic use, and by farmers for their own use. Municipal councils, industry and mines expected the state to supply them with water, and in times of shortages, it was not uncommon to claim the first call on farmers' private dams in preference to those that built and owned those dams. I think I chose water as then as it is today; Bulawayo was critically short of water and, at the expense of the farmers, it was tapping off the water from whatever source it could find, including the Nyamandlovu aquifer at the expense of farmers who had been using it for years. At that time, there were grand schemes to bring water from Zambezi to Bulawayo, which is undoubtedly still in some Government planning office as I write. The fear was that the water in the aquifer would be overpumped and a resource that had supported food and livestock production in that arid part of the country would be depleted. While I spoke at Bulawayo, I was referring to the whole country with the cities demanding that the use of water for irrigation from state dams be stopped and allocated to them.
“It is wrong that in times of water shortage, mining, industry and urban dwellers take precedence over agriculture, who together with Government, are the major investors in water storage.” - Peter McSporran Bulawayo show opening speech 1995
Funnily enough, I can remember that show along with the cattleman's dinner where I sat opposite Nigel Hardy and his mother, the owners of the beef breeds champion animal. Along with their champion bull, they also showed a heifer that got recognition for its antics as it careened around the showground after being spooked by a spectator. It was later reported in the Farmer Magazine as being a bull causing mayhem including some damage to horses and riders. A few weeks later, a long letter appeared in the magazine disputing the facts as reported with Nigel’s signature. I think his mother probably wrote it. Who ever heard of a young Zimbabwe farmer writing a short letter to the press, let alone one that took up a full page?
Of interest, John Connely won the reserve with a Hereford bull, surprising as these two animals were at the opposite end of the frame (size) spectrum. Different breeds, yes but also different types. The Limousin is a large framed continental breed, while the Connelys bull was of the more traditional British type, short in stature, rather unlike the more favoured bigger American version. The judge that year was Glen Klippenstein, from the USA, who I had brought down by car from Harare after he had spoken at a Hereford Society field day up there. What interested me was when judging, I, and most judges, try to stick to a type, avoiding some criticism, but in this case, Glen had not. It certainly got us all talking, all being renowned critics at the ringside.
Late last week I listened and read about the British Budget. I am not a Labour supporter but can understand the frustration of the British people who, with little alternative and with hindsight probably regretting voting Labour into power. I am not going to discuss this as although a British citizen by birth, I am not allowed to vote in that country, having been a non-resident for some fifty years. Notwithstanding that, I was shocked by the removal of the free inheritance status of farmers and the introduction of a twenty per cent death inheritance duty on all assets over a million. Why do you ask? Well, I am a simple person, but without even referring to what the farming leaders are saying about the devastation it will cause just using some rudimentary figures that I could gather from the internet, I worked out that the Government in its wisdom or ignorance has decided to decimate the British Farming Family Community.
The average farm in the UK is two hundred acres, and the average price of farmland is £11,000. This value has no relation to its production earnings, rather it is a speculative value. That means the land on an average farm is worth £2,200,000 before improvements. At the very minimum, most farms will have a million pounds worth of assets in improvements, tractors, equipment, and livestock. I would say this is an ultra-conservative figure. So it would appear, using these publicly known numbers, that when the average farm owner dies, he or she leaves an inheritance of £3.2 million, for which he is allowed an allowance of £1 million, leaving £2.2 million to be taxed at the new prescribed rate of twenty per cent. There may be other details I do not know, but at face value, that is what it would seem. Therefore, his benefactors in receiving the property and assets as a going concern will have to find £440,000 for inheritance tax. The UK Government's own figures show that the average return on capital in farming is point five per cent (0.5%); therefore, the average farm income on the £3.2 is £16,000. Farmers do not have cash, so they will have to borrow the money, paying between 4% and 8% interest; let's say, therefore, on average, they pay 6%, which means they will be paying more in interest than their annual income without the capital component. I personally believe if this inheritance tax remains, Starmer will be doing precisely what Mugabe did in regard to the UKs future ability to feed itself . It may be slower, and a lot less violent but will be just as painful to the farmers and their families and harmful to the nation as a whole. Funnily enough,
“Land prices are driven by corporations and wealthy individuals who have made their money or are using that of others from enterprises and investments outside of agriculture. It is hard to fathom why a government targets those who make a living from that land, who feed the nation and have been the custodians of that land for many generations.” - Peter McSporran
I am just adding this last sentence on Friday evening after reading an artlicle in the Spectator saying Starmer was mimicking Mugabe. It would appear I am not alone in my views of the etremity of the action.
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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