I remember my first day of school because I was trotted over to the next-door neighbour’s house (the Povey's) for a rendezvous with Fiona Dewar who lived a little further down the road and around the corner. With her being an eldest child and me being a virtual only child, born 15 years after my last sibling, we were photographed, standing resplendent in our immaculate new Henry Low uniforms.
No doubt our mothers had eagerly snapped them up from Saunders Bazaar in previous weeks, a shop that ended up becoming something of a scourge of our school days as we hid in the myriad dressing rooms and cupboards while parents updated our wardrobe. I suppose it was tolerable seeing as we were taken to Haddon & Sly or Meikles afterwards for a Brown Cow or waffles.
Our new uniforms consisted of a dull grey ensemble of socks, shorts, button up safari shirt, navy tie with red stripes and immense floppy sunhat for me. The sunhat must have been de rigueur for all of us as Fiona sports one too, atop a short green dress and small white bobby socks. It beats me why my suitcase of the day looks so battered, perhaps it had been hoarded since my sister last used it.
We’d have been driven to Henry Low in the Dewar’s saloon-like Volvo Station Wagon, windows up while Fiona’s Dad smoked up the cabin with his chain smoking. This would be the story for us every morning as our parents entered a car-pool arrangement where Ian Dewar would take us to school in his battered old VW Beetle and Mum would pick us up in our Renault 10.
Most of that first year of school is something of a blur. Of course we were an all-white class in those days, drawn mainly from the surrounding lower-middle class suburbs clustered around the impressive Morningside Shopping Centre.
The houses in our suburbs weren’t the impressive mansions found in Hillside and Burnside though we certainly didn’t lack for space or functionality. Our house was a multi-extended and rambling double-brick three-bedroom affair on three acres stuck square on the top of a hill with impressive views to the north looking over the City.
We were something of a target for those impressive spring thunderstorms that would roll in with monotonous regularity. The house had a massive black cable out the back of the kitchen to “ground” it and we were regularly the recipient of direct hits from lightning that would crack down on the tin roof and light up the scenery as well as any Hollywood special effect.
The southern edge of our house was quite literally on the edge of town. Across the road from us was a farm (I think dairy) and beyond it was a large reserve that became a game park accessible from Matopos Road. We could vaguely hear the dull roar of the traffic on Matopos Road whilst most mornings we’d awake to the comforting pumping and tooting of the steam trains shunting in the railway yards in Bellevue.
It was probably our proximity to Bellevue and Barham Green that meant our little part of suburban paradise wasn’t quite as well-regarded as those on the east side of Matopos road. Barham Green was then "notorious" as a place for the “coloureds”, the vibrant half-caste population that was then looked down upon by the “Europeans” and shunned by the “blacks”.
Kindergarten was something of a cloistered existence. At the time the experience was a two-year affair of KG1 and KG2, and we were pretty much prevented from mingling with the rest of the school population. Our classroom block was at the southern end of the school, on top of the hill and looking down on the remainder of the class rooms and the main sports fields.
The headmaster’s office was at the end of the corridor of our block, next to Mrs Eyre’s (KG2) room. Behind his office lay the school reception, from memory a genuine switchboard affair with lines being plugged in to reach various locations about the school, the administration section and a staffroom.
At the other end of the corridor was the school tuck-shop where we’d buy Willards chips for the bargain price of 10c a packet. In Kindergarten the flavour of choice seemed to be the benign Tomato Sauce though many of us later graduated to the more fiery spice and vinegar by virtue of its attractive purple packaging.
Our seclusion was guaranteed by a specific sports field that was kindergarten-only and the older kids would enter under fear of the cane. I remember it had a line of swings, an enormous climbing jungle-jim and not much else of interest. The netball fields were also marked out in the area.
Our classroom was a large brick affair with large windows opening out to the south and very little on the northern side, I assume to reduce the glare. Mrs Hahn was a doddery old lady and I quickly gained the impression that my parents didn’t have a very high opinion of her. I think the perception was that she was too old and was hanging on for a pay-cheque.
Perhaps it was just that she suffered by comparison to some of the excellent teachers that lay ahead of us.
She certainly didn’t create much of an impression on me. It seems like she must have done an adequate job of teaching us the alphabet (thankfully using the phonics method) and installing the basics of maths so that by year’s end we could all add up anything that would get us to ten or under.
We did have a student teacher that year who I seem to have better memories of though she must have only been with us for a maximum of six weeks. She was Miss Hunter and was in her final year at the Bulawayo Teacher’s College.
She had long brown hair and seemed to inject a level of life and vibrancy into the classroom that was lacking most of the time. With Miss Hunter learning seemed fun and I was sorry to see her go. Two or three year’s later I did bump into her at a braai at my sister-in-law’s house but she was relatively snooty when with her peers.
No doubt I was a vague memory of another snotty-nosed little brat from years ago but somehow Miss Hunter had more of an impact on that year of schooling than my actual teacher!
Here are some of the scattered memories I’ve retained from that year:
The rods that we used to learn our maths with. They were metrical in length according to the number they represented and each number had a different colour too. I do remember that “7” was black and for some mysterious reason there was only one of them, the rest vanishing before we’d arrived in that class. - There was an array of abacus up the front of the class and Mrs Hahn’s desk was also at the front of the classroom, next to the blackboard and to our left.
- We started on alphabet on our first day because I remember thinking “oh, so there’s some purpose to all those squiggles seen everywhere. This could be interesting.”
- In the first part of the year we had little notebooks that we started writing the letters of the alphabet into, followed by “spelling words” that were checked on a daily basis.
- Once we’d demonstrated sufficient command of our spelling words we reached the big occasion of taking home our first reader. Our readers were a fascinating (not) series that focused on the relatively benign exploits of three children named Sally, Dick and Jane. I named my two bantam hens and rooster after them.
- At some point in the year we were asked to say what we wanted to do when we grew up. I said I was going to be a surgeon so I could work with my brother (who would then have been doing his national service before embarking on a Science degree that culminated with a PhD.)
- School finished earlier than the older grades. The Zimbabwean school day was short as it was, starting at 8am and finishing at 1pm so we must have been finishing around 11.30am I would think.
- We were picked up from a large shelter on the southern school boundary and we’d all sit on these little wooden benches that ringed the walls, suitcases under our legs, waiting for our parents to drive in to pick us up.
- Being rigorously taught how to do a Windsor knot in my tie because the easier slip-knot was lazy and for the “scumbies”.
Towards the end of that year I was page-boy for my brother’s wedding, resplendent in a Grant kilt that has been passed down through many generations. It took place in the impressive surrounds of Main Street Methodist Church. I am certain it was the only time I was ever in the building but I recall it had an enormous brass pipe organ out the front.
I had to carry the rings on a cushion and the wedding photos were taken in the main Bulawayo Park, opposite the National Museum.
Another stand-out from the time was that all of us regularly lost our father's to "call-up". With a nasty civil-war raging around us it was all-hands-on-deck and every man under the age of fifty was expected to do his duty tofight the communist terrorist hordes flooding over our borders.
This meant that our dad's were on a constant rotation of six weeks home and 4-6 weeks on "call-up". With the nature of the war being similar to that of the Vietnam conflict it means the vast majority of my classmates from that era would have grown-up with "Vets" for their fathers, and the statistics of suicide and other forms of self-harm amongst the children of Vietnam Vets is well-documented.
Thankfully Dad was on the older end of the spectrum and saw little of the actual fighting serving as a Chaplain. But he was still required to leave home for extended absense and as our neighbour's son had been shot-up and then killed by a landmine early in proceedings I was very aware of the dangers our men faced.
It was always a teary farewell when Dad left for call-up and after that I'd run inside and lock myself in his cupboard for an hour or so whilst I sobbed my heart out and took deep breaths to draw in the smell of him.
It would also have been around this age that I was taught how to fire a pistol and a .22 rifle on one of our regular trips to West Nicholson. It was in the middle of a "hot-zone" and the threat of attack meant we wore a pistol and holster wherever we went there.
I'm relieved my six year old doesn't need to sleep with a pistol on his bedside table at night!
Our new uniforms consisted of a dull grey ensemble of socks, shorts, button up safari shirt, navy tie with red stripes and immense floppy sunhat for me. The sunhat must have been de rigueur for all of us as Fiona sports one too, atop a short green dress and small white bobby socks. It beats me why my suitcase of the day looks so battered, perhaps it had been hoarded since my sister last used it.
We’d have been driven to Henry Low in the Dewar’s saloon-like Volvo Station Wagon, windows up while Fiona’s Dad smoked up the cabin with his chain smoking. This would be the story for us every morning as our parents entered a car-pool arrangement where Ian Dewar would take us to school in his battered old VW Beetle and Mum would pick us up in our Renault 10.
Most of that first year of school is something of a blur. Of course we were an all-white class in those days, drawn mainly from the surrounding lower-middle class suburbs clustered around the impressive Morningside Shopping Centre.
The houses in our suburbs weren’t the impressive mansions found in Hillside and Burnside though we certainly didn’t lack for space or functionality. Our house was a multi-extended and rambling double-brick three-bedroom affair on three acres stuck square on the top of a hill with impressive views to the north looking over the City.
We were something of a target for those impressive spring thunderstorms that would roll in with monotonous regularity. The house had a massive black cable out the back of the kitchen to “ground” it and we were regularly the recipient of direct hits from lightning that would crack down on the tin roof and light up the scenery as well as any Hollywood special effect.
The southern edge of our house was quite literally on the edge of town. Across the road from us was a farm (I think dairy) and beyond it was a large reserve that became a game park accessible from Matopos Road. We could vaguely hear the dull roar of the traffic on Matopos Road whilst most mornings we’d awake to the comforting pumping and tooting of the steam trains shunting in the railway yards in Bellevue.
It was probably our proximity to Bellevue and Barham Green that meant our little part of suburban paradise wasn’t quite as well-regarded as those on the east side of Matopos road. Barham Green was then "notorious" as a place for the “coloureds”, the vibrant half-caste population that was then looked down upon by the “Europeans” and shunned by the “blacks”.
Kindergarten was something of a cloistered existence. At the time the experience was a two-year affair of KG1 and KG2, and we were pretty much prevented from mingling with the rest of the school population. Our classroom block was at the southern end of the school, on top of the hill and looking down on the remainder of the class rooms and the main sports fields.
The headmaster’s office was at the end of the corridor of our block, next to Mrs Eyre’s (KG2) room. Behind his office lay the school reception, from memory a genuine switchboard affair with lines being plugged in to reach various locations about the school, the administration section and a staffroom.
At the other end of the corridor was the school tuck-shop where we’d buy Willards chips for the bargain price of 10c a packet. In Kindergarten the flavour of choice seemed to be the benign Tomato Sauce though many of us later graduated to the more fiery spice and vinegar by virtue of its attractive purple packaging.
Our seclusion was guaranteed by a specific sports field that was kindergarten-only and the older kids would enter under fear of the cane. I remember it had a line of swings, an enormous climbing jungle-jim and not much else of interest. The netball fields were also marked out in the area.
Our classroom was a large brick affair with large windows opening out to the south and very little on the northern side, I assume to reduce the glare. Mrs Hahn was a doddery old lady and I quickly gained the impression that my parents didn’t have a very high opinion of her. I think the perception was that she was too old and was hanging on for a pay-cheque.
Perhaps it was just that she suffered by comparison to some of the excellent teachers that lay ahead of us.
She certainly didn’t create much of an impression on me. It seems like she must have done an adequate job of teaching us the alphabet (thankfully using the phonics method) and installing the basics of maths so that by year’s end we could all add up anything that would get us to ten or under.
We did have a student teacher that year who I seem to have better memories of though she must have only been with us for a maximum of six weeks. She was Miss Hunter and was in her final year at the Bulawayo Teacher’s College.
She had long brown hair and seemed to inject a level of life and vibrancy into the classroom that was lacking most of the time. With Miss Hunter learning seemed fun and I was sorry to see her go. Two or three year’s later I did bump into her at a braai at my sister-in-law’s house but she was relatively snooty when with her peers.
No doubt I was a vague memory of another snotty-nosed little brat from years ago but somehow Miss Hunter had more of an impact on that year of schooling than my actual teacher!
Here are some of the scattered memories I’ve retained from that year:
Towards the end of that year I was page-boy for my brother’s wedding, resplendent in a Grant kilt that has been passed down through many generations. It took place in the impressive surrounds of Main Street Methodist Church. I am certain it was the only time I was ever in the building but I recall it had an enormous brass pipe organ out the front.
I had to carry the rings on a cushion and the wedding photos were taken in the main Bulawayo Park, opposite the National Museum.
Another stand-out from the time was that all of us regularly lost our father's to "call-up". With a nasty civil-war raging around us it was all-hands-on-deck and every man under the age of fifty was expected to do his duty tofight the communist terrorist hordes flooding over our borders.
This meant that our dad's were on a constant rotation of six weeks home and 4-6 weeks on "call-up". With the nature of the war being similar to that of the Vietnam conflict it means the vast majority of my classmates from that era would have grown-up with "Vets" for their fathers, and the statistics of suicide and other forms of self-harm amongst the children of Vietnam Vets is well-documented.
Thankfully Dad was on the older end of the spectrum and saw little of the actual fighting serving as a Chaplain. But he was still required to leave home for extended absense and as our neighbour's son had been shot-up and then killed by a landmine early in proceedings I was very aware of the dangers our men faced.
It was always a teary farewell when Dad left for call-up and after that I'd run inside and lock myself in his cupboard for an hour or so whilst I sobbed my heart out and took deep breaths to draw in the smell of him.
It would also have been around this age that I was taught how to fire a pistol and a .22 rifle on one of our regular trips to West Nicholson. It was in the middle of a "hot-zone" and the threat of attack meant we wore a pistol and holster wherever we went there.
I'm relieved my six year old doesn't need to sleep with a pistol on his bedside table at night!
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