From Facebook, on Monday I learned it was International Women’s Day. I noted many of my lady friends congratulating themselves on the day and I stupidly, tongue in cheek, queried if they were allowed to openly call themselves women. My Zimbabwean women friends, by instant return, retorted we are from Africa. We can call ourselves women! We are women! It was nice to learn some people in this world are still clear on their gender. I have taken no part in any fora discussing gender, a subject on which fools should fear to voice an opinion. For a reformed male chauvinist, I have thought I could offer no enlightenment on the subject over these past years, considering recently whatever I failed to learn from biology class at school has been blown out the window. Unlike in my youth when I thought I could tackle anything, I have learnt with age it is better to keep your mouth shut in subjects sensitive to others however confusing it might be to understand. When I farmed in Zimbabwe prior to land appropriation both my livestock managers were gay. One was female and caucasian and one was African, black and male. One I had to defend from the police and his fellow colleagues, the other had no such problems. These double standards can be found throughout the world for many varied reasons in regard to sexual orientation. Mostly for petty or perceived grievances with no supporting logic to substantiate them. Of course, in the Rhodesian army, even if you were a conscript, you would be thrown out for homosexuality. Few people in those days would openly admit to being gay as it was an unwanted stigma in that conservative society. Therefore, nobody openly admitted it, except for a few who thought to use it as an avenue to escape the rigours of a bush war. They quickly learned the error of their ways. To this day homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe and most African countries. I personally have no problem with people’s sexual orientation, I am afraid in my present incomprehension I still consider a male and female person to be the sex they born with. I must admit I get embarrassed when I mistakenly walk into a ladies toilet, let alone thinking it is the place I belong. Sadly the celebration of International Women’s day I felt was ruined following an inane interview of two people who owe their media status to one partner’s denunciation of his birthright, not by achievement or contribution to society. Much was made about race which appeared to refer to a private conversation between two family members in this particular interview. Surely families can discuss what they like behind closed doors? However, there is a distinction between discussion and abuse. It would appear the Scottish Parliament fails to recognise this with the new “Hate Crime Bill”. Politicians should rather be focused on making our streets at night safe for women to walk home safely without fear of assault or worse.
I should also record I never received any instruction on the “birds and the bees” either in my home or school. I guess as we lived on a farm, my father presumed I could witness what was necessary to know. Actually, in giving it some more thought that’s probably not true, I think his protestant background would have made it impossible to talk about such things to his children. I must check with my younger siblings about their experience. I do not know what other people of my age received as guidance at home or school. Pretty sure there was little or anything offered on the subject to nearly all of my generation at home or at school.
While at Keil we did have an informal chat in prep one evening lead by that evening’s supervising prefect, Joe Thomson. It was about homosexuality, with him telling us it was a phenomenon that was natural in both humans and animals. He was a very clever chap well-liked by all with what were radical views in those days. Joe was from Campbeltown and became a Regis professor and a Commissioner of Law publishing many academic law books. He was happily married in 1999 to Annie Cowell, however was known to have had a number of gay relationships prior to this. Unfortunately, cancer took him in 2018. Out of interest, same-sex relationships only became legal in Scotland in 1981, well after England.
"umm, aah, yes, well umph..."
As for our tutors teaching us anything about sex, I am convinced our headmaster would have struggled to say the word sex never mind talk about it or instruct other members of staff to do so. In fact, once being among a group of boys caught jumping the school wall to liaise with some local girls in a large house next door, we were brought before him. By the way, all the houses in that area of Dumbarton were large with overgrown gardens, ideal for clandestine meets or smoking even in daylight. Once we were in front of him I believe he wished to explain to us the dangers of “liaising” with “unsuitable” local girls. Thereafter, following about fifty umms, aahs, yes, well umph the meeting culminated in an extended silence. After a while of staring at him watching his face redden with the passing of time awaiting some sensible discourse we unilaterally left without permission. I think that was the closest we got to sex education at that school other than Joe’s lesson.
The Medical Mishap and Biopsy Results
On Monday of this week, we ordered our lunch, a takeaway from a local restaurant. We do this from time to time as we enjoy the food and importantly it supports the local community. Every Monday, O Vintem restaurant in Penela offers Cozido Portuguese. Boiled pork, the ears, feet, sausage, black pudding, ribs etc with vegetables. One of our neighbours kindly collected it and delivered it to our house. Delicious. You are asking yourself, what does this have to do with my medical update? Well, it was such a nice day we ate it outside on the verandah deciding to have red wine with it as a treat. I have had about two glasses of red wine since my diagnosis and instruction from my cardiologist. He advised me to avoid alcohol until he has fixed my heart. Needless to say following the meal and maybe more than two glasses of wine later, I suddenly did not feel so well. I checked my BP and pulse. Not good, a pulse of 154 and BP 90/45. I am on medication to lower my BP, for me this figure was very low. I did not mention the self-inflicted medical mishap when I saw my cardiologist later in the week.
At that meeting, he changed my heart medication in preparation for a proposed procedure under anaesthetic. From what I gather they stop your heart then shock it back into action, hopefully getting rid of the arrhythmia. Otherwise, he was really ecstatic about my recovery from the surgery.
In addition, I learned from the biopsy results, that the tumour they removed from my stomach weighed 1.7kgs (3.75Ibs). The cancer was identified as Leiomyosarcoma, an aggressive, rare form of cancer. As it had not spread to anywhere else in my body, the surgeon thought it in this case it was perhaps not aggressive. Gratefully they believe they removed all of it. No cancer was found in the margin tissue removed along with the tumour or the part of my small intestine.
The Highlights and Lights Out for Keil
From my previous blog perhaps you think I hated everything about Keil except that is not quite true. My dislike was probably more due to my outright abhorrence of discipline and my academic underachievement due to lack of interest. It is amazing, I could be attached to my desk for many days well into the night without absorbing anything. Not an easy feat nevertheless I achieved it. I have an active mind so I am certain I spent my days in the hills or on the river fishing in my own mind whilst physically sitting at my desk. No wonder teachers repeatedly asked me to pay at least a little attention. I did enjoy some of the teachers including Mr Anderson, our ex Chindit officer English teacher, who more importantly doubled as our sailing master. In summer sailing took place on a Tuesday and Thursday evening, Saturday and Sunday afternoons too. We had our sailing boats at the Royal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club, based at Rhu near Helensburgh. Different boys went out each time, normally once or twice a week, benefitting most in missing cricket and at least one night’s prep. We always stopped for fish and chips on the way home, a real treat with hot chocolate served back at the school. This was the only time we were allowed in the kitchen.
My Art teacher was equally a great guy, a large man with a flowing beard who often placed me top of the class for my work. He never tired of singing the praise of Sandro Botticelli, his favourite artist. The other teacher who I respected was the deputy headmaster and main school housemaster, Ian McDonald, “Wee Aye.” He was short and repeated “aye” “aye” in a disbelieving manner when he took the time to listen to us boys. Wee Aye lived in the schoolhouse so attended every meal. We used to count how many times he chewed a mouthful of food. Always twenty without fail. He was the one man who knew what was going on in the school and the man you could approach for a fair hearing. He was tough, when required he would use the tawse nonetheless was always fair. I believe he was demoted from deputy headmaster as the Governors wished for an academic as the deputy headmaster after I left. Wee Aye taught technical subjects, his influence and benefit to the school were huge. I found the headmaster, Mr Jeffs, ineffectual, isolated from us with little empathy toward the pupils. Not only did we have to attend the local church every Sunday we would also, on a Sunday night, either receive a service conducted by the Scripture Union or worse from him. Why did people believe by making religion compulsory and shoving it down your throat you would follow Christianity. Taking up religion is very much a choice. Being compelled has the opposite effect I fear.
“aye”
“aye”
“aye”
One of the benefits of Keil was we travelled much of Scotland visiting other schools to play rugby. The senior teams and colts always fared well, except the younger boys and B teams were mostly beaten. We just did not have the numbers. With our regime, we hardened quickly and at the senior level, we were formidable. Of course, the Edinburgh Academy, Glasgow Academy, Hutcheson Grammar and other schools were much larger than us. The Glasgow schools having in excess of 1,000 pupils. I still remember those cold, frosty mornings running onto the rugby field in Glasgow being unable to see the rugby poles, let alone the other team due to the thick smog. Shirt collars and nostrils would have black coatings after every visit to the city. I remember always coming back from Rannoch School covered in cuts and bruises. They had the worst and stoniest pitches of all the schools we visited, we, however, had the muddiest on the banks of the Clyde.
I loved rugby, although not very talented, threw myself into each game with much enthusiasm. I started attending the school clinic where continuing headaches were diagnosed as a concussion. Eventually, they became very frequent. In hearing the doctor telling the matron if I had another head injury he would prohibit me from playing rugby in future. That was the last head injury I went to matron with. This may explain or provide an excuse for much regarding my later life behaviour.
One of the sad things about leaving Campbeltown Grammar was the fact that Keil was a boys-only boarding school. So our time there did not really prepare us for a life integrated with the female sex. At Keil, boys looked forward to the church only in the hope there would be a young woman to look at across the pews. Most females that attended that church, unfortunately, had blue rinses. Boys whose parents collected them for permissions became very popular if they had a sister. She did not have to be particularly good looking. When we got older we were allowed to go out by ourselves and watch a movie. This normally entailed a trip to Glasgow, the youth would have murdered us if we went to a local cinema. I had a pen friend once, who in my mind was a girlfriend whom I organised to meet on one such outing. I had met her during the school holidays as she visited her aunt and uncle on Mull. Well, it did not go well. Purely, because she wrote to me and sent me probably one Valentine card I considered her a girlfriend. That was as close as it went. She may read this as we made a connection almost 40 years later. Mind you I was not the only boy at Keil that had imaginary girlfriends. Every Valentine’s day there would be a copious amount of cards. The cat was let out of the bag one year when the prefect handing out the mail said he could not believe how many of us had girlfriends in Dumbarton. He gleaned this from the postmarks. There is no doubt most of them were sent from themselves to themselves. It would have been infra dig to be seen not to have a girlfriend. Boys, after all, can be cruel. God forbid if it was found your mother sent you that card!
Long after I left in 1967 the school opened up to girls and included day scholars in a vain event to survive. Girls were welcomed in 1978. All private boarding schools had a tough time then. Keil just did not have the numbers to sustain itself. A good reputation in academia and sport did not save it. The school finally closed in 2000. I read this week there is shortly only going to be three private boarding schools for boys only left in the UK. In my day there were many and Keil was considered one of the top in Scotland. To add injury to insult the main school building burnt down in 2013. The grounds had been subdivided and luxury housing now occupies the long-abandoned sports fields. I never had any inclination ever to go back there despite the many times since leaving school I have passed through Dumbarton.
The Golden Years, Farming, Family and Friends
With Rydal Farm bought we expanded our crop production into soya, seed maize, wheat, seed wheat and later potatoes. In addition, we introduced a small boiler unit on Rydal Farm with a contract to supply the Irvines, the largest poultry producer in Zimbabwe along with being family friends. Rydal had a dam, which we heightened, at the same time, tried to strengthen the wall. Unfortunately, the dam had been badly built, we could not enlarge its holding capacity unless we destroyed the existing dam and started from scratch with a new core trench. I did not consider that viable as the existing stored water could grow all our seed quotas comfortably. In addition, we had some flow rights from the river on our eastern boundary which was perennial. We extended the irrigation to cover all but the furthest 60ha from the dam which allowed for a good rotation, especially for seed maize which could not be grown in the year following a maize crop. We purchased a second seed maize quota making this farm a viable stand-alone unit. To support this, we built seed-handling sheds and poultry houses.
On Diandra, we expanded tobacco and groundnuts supported by 8km of underground cement mainline. To do the crop expansion we purchased tobacco bulk curers as they could furthermore be used to dry groundnuts as well as cure tobacco. All the ground nuts were harvested with groundnut combines, Lillistons from the USA.
In the meantime, my sister-in-law decided she would rather sell Mede Farm and invest her money in a property in town. At the time she was working in the UK. We put in an offer for the farm which she accepted, so now Diane and I owned three farms and leased one. On Mede Farm, we immediately built a dam and installed irrigation. From time to time I also leased land for grazing cattle and at one stage between youngstock, fattening and breeding herds had some 2,000 head. We eventually cut back to 400 breeding cows and their followers though continued to fatten a large number of bought in steers every year using TMR mobile mixers. A fantastic tool. We used crop residuals, milling offal, molasses and should I say it, chicken litter from Rydal to fatten the cattle.
It should be noted that I received a letter of “no present interest” from the Government on all the properties, which falsely gave us the security of tenure. Do not trust Governments.
I was learning a bit more about business other than farm production having been elected to chairman of the Oilseeds Producers Association which in turn placed me on the Oilseeds Agricultural Marketing Authority. The association additionally owned a small high protein business, Nutresco, to pioneer high protein products from soya and other oilseeds. At that time the association also purchased a farm for research and support to the farming industry. This became the world reknowned ART farm under the stewardship of Richard Winkfield. This was to help fill the research gap left with the demise of the government's research and extension service. I was elected onto the Seed Co-op Board and present when we took the Co-op into becoming a public listed company on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE). A very interesting exercise with many lessons which held me in good stead for the future.
There was one investment I made that offered no return whilst giving myself and my family great pleasure. That was in The Shenga, a 45 foot, 45-tonne monohull boat on Lake Kariba which could comfortably sleep ten. It had a two-man crew towing fishing tenders behind it. This was purchased with a group of friends. This gave my family and invited guests a week's holiday on Lake Kariba at least once every two months. We had wonderful holidays, game viewing, fishing for tiger and bream or simply enjoying the spectacular Kariba sunsets with a sundowner in hand.
These were surely the Golden Years...
Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.
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