Accessing the Past in Lockdown

July 18, 2020 / stidyatkusane / 10 Comments

“Somewhere, deep down in the heart of each one of us, something yearns for the old land, and the old kindly people”

R.L.Stevenson

Maybe it has something to do with the current uncertainty, the depth of longing for all to be well again, but as lockdown drags on I find my thoughts drifting back, more and more often, to my youth. Right now, it seems a much safer place to be. At least you have the comfort of knowing what happened and how it all worked out.

I think there is more to it, though, than a mere desire to retreat to the warmth and innocence of childhood. All our lives are an amalgam of past, present and future. Trying to see clearly and to record what has been seen helps me work out how I got from there to here.

It is also a chance to meet my parents again, back the way they used to be. Each generation passes on something to the next and by looking afresh at what they did and thought is a way of discovering how they have lived on through me.

The difficulty of doing this is, of course, being able to gain access to one’s past. Over the years my memories have grown hazy and dim. The further back I go, the more fragmentary they become.

Sometimes they takes on the aura of a dream, a few tangible threads emerge from the miasma that is my brain. I clutch at their dim outline. At other times, just looking at an old photograph or reading an old letter, will bring long-forgotten things back to the surface.

What I am certain of is that the pivotal event of my early life occurred when I was about nine-years old. It was the year my father decided to relocate us from our smallholding outside of Salisbury to a remote farm in the Eastern Highlands of Nyanga. If anything can be termed a life-changing experience for me, this was it.

The property he purchased was in an incredibly beautiful part of the world.

I can still recall, with pin-point clarity, the journey there, driving up through the granite hills and miombo woodland, along a winding road to a crest where the small Nyanga Village lay. From here, the trail dropped down, with sudden abruptness, in to a huge valley, speckled with rocks, bushes and shadows, shimmering in the parchment dry heat as it receded in to the far haze.

Along its eastern flank rose the solid wall of the main Nyanga range. Running parallel to it, on the other side of the enormous valley, ran the Nyangombe River, which would later join the Ruenya which, in turn, flowed in to the mighty Zambezi. Beyond that lay more hills and mountains.

In contrast to the sweltering valley, the plateau on top of the mountains was cool and covered in open moorland and icy streams and seemed hardly Africa. In the rainy season, waves of multi-shadowed clouds would come rolling ponderously over them in never-ending processions.

For a boy of my romantic disposition it was like entering an enchanted world. All was mysterious, unexplored, rich with infinite possibilities. I loved the wildness, the sense of freedom.

Years later, as an undergraduate, I would read Wordsworth’s poem, “The Prelude”. It struck an immediate chord in me:

“Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Foster’d alike by beauty and by fear;

Much favour’d in my birthplace, and no less

In that beloved Vale to which, erelong,

I was transplanted. Well I call to mind

(‘Twas at an early age, ere I had seen

Nine summers) when upon the mountain slope

The frost and breath of frosty wind had snapp’d…”

The mountains Wordsworth was writing about were those of the English Lake District. Mine were distinctly African ones.

There were many of them. On the Eastern side of the farm, the great brooding presence of Mount Muozi rose abruptly up from the plain to its castle-like knob. Even when covered in cloud you could feel its presence; its spirit seemed to permeate the very air. There was something ancient and troubling and mysterious about it which undoubtedly explained why it was held in awe by the locals and had become the focal point for an important rain-making cult.

*View from old lands towards Muozi mountain*. *Note baobab*.

The closer you got to it, the higher it towered above you. Again, the words of Wordsworth’s “The Prelude” seemed to fit:

“…growing still in stature, the huge Cliff

Rose up between me and the stars, and still,

With measured motion, like a living thing,

Strode after me…”

Looking north, from the top of the castle, the main range surged away to Nyangui (“The Place of Shouting”), the big, bulky, colossus that marked the end of the Nyanga range, as well as serving as our corner boundary. It was also the mountain from which our farm took its name.

*Nyangui (“The Place of Shouting”) mountain*. Picture courtesy of Patrick Stidolph.

If Muozi looked like a vessel striving to break loose of its moorings than Nyangui was the bulwark that anchored it back.

Like Muozi, though, it could, when the mood took it, get quite spooky, radiating an air of almost tangible menace, especially when the skies grew sullen and arbitrary bolts of lightning started slashing through the sky. At certain times of the year the wind would grow wild and angry and come hurling down its slopes with an almost end-of-the world fury.

The other mountain which looms large in my childhood memories is Sedze although it was not actually on our farm but situated further back, towards the Nyanga village.

At the one end of it, just above Bende Gap, rose two great rock pinnacles, steeper and more pronounced than any others in the range. From the innermost of the two towers, the mountain sloped upwards in to a massive, domed, bulky, behemoth of rock fitted with clefts and rib-like fissures that gave it the appearance of some ancient animal afflicted by a strange lethargy.

Because of its resemblance to a sleeping pachyderm we always called it the “Rhino” mountain.

Returning from boarding school I always felt elated and light-headed to see the “Rhino” and yet at the same time near to tears because it meant I was almost home again.

Although it slopes were steep and uninhabited, the valley floor below was littered with scores of thatched huts and cattle kraals and patches of cultivated lands. Straggling along the top of one ridge, along which the road traversed, was a cluster of little shops with corrugated iron roofs. This was the Sedze Business Centre. For some reason these old buildings imprinted themselves in my mind; so much so that years later I felt compelled to do a painting of them.

Sedze mountain. View from Business Centre. Painting by Anthony Stidolph.

Our own house was a low rambling affair, close to a stream that ran down from Muozi. Later, my one brother, Paul, would build a slightly more elaborate and stylish homestead near a rocky outcrop, using white quartz for the walls and thatch for the roof. Positioned next to an old baobab, it commanded tremendous views over the surrounding mountains

Having laid idle for years, turning this stretch of Africa back in to a farm was hard work. There was plenty of bush to clear, furrows to dig, fences to put up. Because we were always short of cash, all the children were expected to chip in during the school holidays.

We were always a close family. The bond between us all, already strong, was strengthened during the Nyanga years.

In some ways it was a cloistered childhood. Outside my siblings and the farm mutts I had no companions or acquaintances to share it with. This did not make me unhappy or fretful. Nor did it bother me that I was not able to participate in all the entertainments and amusements – movies, parties, dating, sport – that other teenagers took as a matter of course.

Being so restricted and yet so active actually had its benefits even if I didn’t always fully appreciate them at the time. I developed an early love of nature which has never left me. I created a world of my own in to which I could slip away unnoticed. I learnt how to fall back on my own resources.

When I was not on the farm, I was away at boarding school, an institution I hated because it took me away from my beloved mountains. What strikes me now is the narrowness of life in it.

Ours was, of course, a segregated society and only white boys were allowed to attend the school. Beyond the cleaners, the ground staff and the kitchen workers we had little personal contact with the local African population.

It was a life, into which the great affairs of the world seemed hardly to intrude. Nor did any of us ever really bother to question the racial and quasi-Imperial doctrines of the time or the fairness of the system in to which we had, as relatively privileged white children, been born.

It was only during my final years at boarding school that the world of politics began to force its way in to my life.

In elections held in December, 1962, the right-wing Rhodesian Front, who had promised to deal ruthlessly with the nationalist menace and to entrench white rule permanently, had swept to power. One of their first demands was that the country be granted independence.

For the next three years the RF Government would be engaged in a series of fruitless negotiations with the British. With the situation at stalemate, it had become more and more obvious that we were headed for some sort of showdown. As young and ill-informed as I was, even I had become aware that, beneath the carefree surface of my life, the political sands were shifting fast.

On the 11^th November, 1965, it finally happened. For weeks beforehand there had been much talk and speculation and an atmosphere of considerable excitement had built up, even among us schoolboys. Now, before a hushed nation, Smith made his big announcement – Rhodesia had declared its independence from Britain.

The effect was dramatic. Suddenly, politics occupied the minds of everybody in the country from the remote farms to the government offices, from prospector to priest.

It was an epochal event. Not only did it change the course of all our lives but it would eventually trigger a lot of soul-searching for me.

Caught in the same fusion of fear and excitement as everybody else, slowly, hesitantly, my attitudes began to change. Over the following years I would increasingly find myself wondering about the wisdom of the course of action the RF government had embarked on, especially once the Rhodesian Bush War began to exact its heavy toll.

I also started to look more critically at the society I had grown up in. Cut off as I was from the mainstream, even I could see that Rhodesia was not exactly a centre of cosmopolitan artistic energy and progressive thinking.

My family background, no doubt, played a factor in this growing awareness of the world around me. As a pilot, my father had travelled the length and breadth of the continent, as well as working in Arabia and Europe. Unlike many of his fellow countrymen who were hidebound, conformist and set in their ways of thinking (little realising they represented an age that was passing) his exposure to other people and cultures had left him relatively open-minded and tolerant about politics and race.

*My parents and youngest sister: Monica, Nicky and Reg Stidolph. Nyangui in background*.

Although he exuded a natural authority, my father was also at heart, something of an outsider, a maverick, a free thinker. While I may not have inherited his unwavering self-confidence, I like to think I did get a dose of his individualism, curiosity and refusal to be pigeon-holed.

In other areas we were different. I was the fourth son in a family of seven children and this undoubtedly impinged on my temperament. Whereas my three elder brothers were practical like my father I took after my mother, inheriting her artistic side. Unlike my brothers, too, I had no aptitude for the sciences.

Looking back at it all now, from the perspective of old age, I realise how much of my character and how many of my views and attitudes were forged back then. It also makes me realise how lucky I was to have the childhood I did.

Living in those beautiful surroundings helped foster my imagination. It taught me to see things and to value solitude and worship the ordinary dirt that sustains us. It also showed me that without peace and quiet you can miss your inner voice.

In that sense, those early years of deprivation and isolation helped prepare me for life under lockdown. I grew up used to keeping my own counsel and finding my way through the thickets.

Of course, the fact that I now live in one of the most breathtakingly scenic parts of the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands – the Karkloof – also made my incarceration a lot easier to bear…

*Sunset over Kusane Farm in pre-Lockdown days*. Myself, sister Sally and her daughter-in-law, Tammy. Picture courtesy of Craig Scott.

Booking out in Lockdown

July 4, 2020 / stidyatkusane / 14 Comments

If there is one thing the Covid-19 pandemic has bought in to sharp contrast it is the deep divisions within society. Whereas some, have grown weary in the face of the protracted lockdown and adapted a devil-may-care attitude towards it, others have continued to shy away away from any form of social contact, concerned the virus is still raging.

Like many people, I have, at times, found myself perplexed by the ANC governments handling of the crisis. Some of its more stringent rules and regulations, for example, seem to have very little to do with logic or rationality or protecting our health. By the same token I can understand the need for caution and am reluctant to take any unnecessary risks which might expose me to Covid-19.

In part this stems from hard experience. Because of my compromised immune system (in my case damaged lungs) I have suffered from three bouts of pneumonia in the past. The first was so debilitating there were times when I wondered whether I was going to make it through.

It was, without doubt, the most frightening experience of my life and cured me of any appetite for misplaced displays of false bravado.

Which has meant that I have spent most of my lockdown time incarcerated alone at home. It is not something that has bothered me too much. There is solace to be found in solitude.

One of the few things I have missed, though, is my weekly trip to the Karkloof Farmer’s market. For me it has become a regular Saturday morning ritual.

Normally, I like to rise early and set off across the valley when it is still flooded in a honey-tinted light. No matter the time of the year, it is invariably beautiful then, with the sun’s rays lancing the plain in shafts, creating long shadows behind the rocks and trees.

The air is fresh, too, with a tingling, clean smell and the grass seems to dance as the wind ruffles through it. On the other side of the valley, the Karkloof hills rise up blue and purple and mauve and pink against the soft, early morning sky.

Sometimes, if I am really lucky, I might even get to see some cranes.

Once inside the large, metal-framed hall, my first order of business is to visit the coffee stand. The lady who works behind the till knows me so well I don’t even need to give her my order – one Americano with hot milk. I then take my cup of steaming coffee out to the verandah where I sit and watch the dairy cows grazing in the pasture below.

My next port of call is the artisan bread stall and then the Greytown cheese maker whose mature Boerekaas cheese I love. After that I might buy a steak for my evening braai.

The final and – by far – most important part of the ritual involves browsing through Huddy’s second hand book stall, in the far corner of the hall. Over the years it has proved to be a veritable treasure trove for me and I have uncovered many gems.

I have always loved the war poets, especially Wilfred Owen, so was thrilled to pick up an excellent biography on him by Jon Stallworthy, as well as one on Siegfried Sassoon written by John Stuart Roberts.

In similar vein, I was also able to obtain John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War.

All three books are meticulously researched and exceptionally well written, describing, in detail, not only Sassoon, Owen and Tolkien’s experiences in the trenches of the first world war but showing how each, in turn, tried come to terms with the horrors they had seen.

While, obviously, not the most cheering of subjects to read about at a time when we are faced with our own insistent drums of doom they do serve as a reminder that troubles are constant, a given in life.

Perhaps because my father worked there, I have always been fascinated by the legend of “Arabia” and in tracing its development in the successive stories of the explorers who helped to create it.

Although these early travellers were, for the most part, men, one of the exceptions to the rule was the indefatigable Gertrude Bell. Wanting to find out more about what drove this exceptional woman, I was very pleased to be able procure a copy of Janet Wallach’s Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell.

A woman of fierce intelligence and focus- she was the first woman to graduate from Oxford with a history degree – her bold expeditions deep in to the Arabian desert led to a passion for the Middle East that lasted to the end of her life (she is buried in Baghdad). Her sensitivity towards its people and their culture set her apart from many of her era. Finding an ally and kindred spirit in TE Lawrence, of Lawrence of Arabia fame, she would go on to play an instrumental role in the creation of the modern state of Iraq.

When I was going through my Kenya colonial history phase, it was at Huddy’s I found Elspeth Huxley’s marvelously evocative The Flame Trees of Thika, The Mottled Lizard, Out in the Midday Sun and Nellie: Letters from Africa; as well as James Fox’s White Mischief and Beryl Markham’s superb West with the Night, which Ernest Hemingway bluntly described as a “bloody, wonderful book.”

When this endless source of good books dried up because of lockdown, I was forced to fall back on my own resources. I decided now might be a good time as any to give my private library a revisit.

I began by dipping in to the four-edition Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell because I felt that if anybody could help me make sense of our confused and unsettling times it was him.

I discovered Orwell at a relatively early age and he has remained a strong, if not always comforting, presence in my life ever since. With his unflinching honesty and clear, precise, prose style he has, over the years, proved an incomparable guide for me.

As a young man, Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War and subsequently wrote about it in Homage to Catalonia. The experience left deep emotional scars but also provided him with a valuable insight in to two of the major social dislocations of the Twentieth Century – in the shape of the former Soviet Union and the former Third Reich who, in supporting the opposing sides in the civil war, fought what has been called a “world war by proxy”.

Orwell’s fear of the dangers posed by autocratic leaders and absolutist governments would later find expression in the two books for which he is most famously remembered.

In his allegorical fable, Animal Farm, he showed just how easily those who have toppled a repressive regime can take on its trapping and habits. Having lived through a couple of revolutions myself, this is something I have got to see, first hand, in both Zimbabwe under ZANU-PF and in South Africa under the ANC.

There are other interesting parallels with today. Decades before “political correctness” and “cancel culture” became recognisable concepts, Orwell battled to get his trenchant masterpiece published because it was so obviously aimed at the Soviet Union who had been Britain’s ally during the second world war.

Orwell’s bullying boar, Napoleon, was transparently Stalin; his intellectual idealist rival, Snowball, obviously Trotsky. The prophet of revolution, Old Major, was a compound Marx and Lenin.

His usual publisher, Victor Gollancz rejected the book, as did Faber and Faber whose then director was no other than TS Eliot. Jonathan Cape also turned it down because he thought it unduly offensive to make the Bolsheviks pigs. Orwell responded by writing “balls” in the margin of the rejection letter.

The book was eventually published by Secker in August, 1945.

In his last, chilling, work, 1984, Orwell offered a similarly scary scenario, opening a horrific vista in to a suffocating world of party tyranny and non-stop surveillance.

Orwell’s writings would, in turn, influence a new generation of writers who picked up his torch of idealist humanitarianism. Amongst these is Margaret Atwood whose own books – such as Oryx and Crake, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Year of the Flood – have offered fictional excursions in to a nightmare world that could be just around the corner.

The warning signs are certainly there. It is not news that something is badly wrong with America, to say nothing of what is going on in both China and Putin’s Russia.

Indeed, with state surveillance back with a vengeance and fake news everywhere, I often find myself wondering what Orwell would have made of our times and how he would have reacted to the likes of Donald Trump, a man whose greed, small-mindedness, lack of empathy for the sufferings of others, promiscuous lying and abuse of language, encapsulates so many of the vices he warned us against.

Before sitting down to write both Animal Farm and 1984, Orwell obviously posed himself the question – what happens if we continue down the road we are already on? At a time when the dumbness of the many plays in to the hands of the scheming few it is perhaps something we ought to be asking ourselves now…

Having reacquainted myself with Orwell, I decided I might as well go the whole hog and read some Atwood too, so got out my copy of Curious Pursuits, a collection of her essays and journalism from 1970 to 2005.

Despite Atwood’s own dystopian visions of our future, her writing in this book is full of humour, charm and telling detail. A common theme in many of her essays is how women negotiate society’s obstacles.

Not too surprisingly, the book also includes an essay on Orwell in which Atwood acknowledges the debt she owes to the author and talks about the influence he had on her own writing.

Also, of great interest to me, was her Introduction to ‘Roughing it in the Bush‘ by Susanna Moodie because Moodie was married to a distant ancestor of mine.

Atwood is obviously an admirer, having also brought out The Journals of Susanna Moodie (first published in 1970), regarded by many as her most fully realised volume of poetry.

Hoping that it, too, might reveal some concealed truths about our topsy-turvy times, I also dug out my copy of Lewis Carroll’s epic nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark,

For some reason, I have always found it more accessible and much funnier than Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland books.

For those unfamiliar with the poem, it describes the adventures of nine tradesmen (all of whose professions begin with the letter ‘B’) and a beaver who embark on a quest to capture a “Snark”. There search is not made any easier by the fact that none of them actually knows what a Snark is although there is a worry it could be a “Boojum”, an equally mysterious creature which can “suddenly and softly vanish you away”.

Their method of luring the Snark out of its hiding place is eccentric, to say the least:

“They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;

They pursued it with forks and hope;

They threatened its life with a railways share;

They charmed it with smiles and soap”.

Making a hard task even more difficult is the fact that the map they are using to look for the Snark is completely blank…

The Hunting of the Snark was originally illustrated by Henry Holiday. Again, I must confess, I prefer the more recent, 1976 ,Ralph Steadman drawings because his wonderfully warped, ink-splattered style seems custom-designed for Carroll’s off-the-wall, phantasmagorical tale..

Another odd fact about the poem is that Carroll reputedly wrote it backwards, writing the last sentence first.

There have been numerous theories as to what it all actually means. Some see the voyage as a search for truth and meaning; others think it is about the pursuit of happiness (a view Carroll, himself, apparantly favoured). There is another view that it deals with our existential angst.

This last theory ties in with my interpretation of the poem – that what they are desperately seeking is a cure for Covid-19.

Why else would they hunt it with soap?