When I was seven-years-old I was despatched, by train, to a boarding school on the other side of the then Southern Rhodesia and my world changed. From a life of being surrounded by family and a familiar, comforting, routine, I found myself thrust into a society whose mores, customs and rules were all terra incognita to me. Caught in a fusion of fear and fascination I didn’t know quite what to expect from this new arrangement. Whether I was ready for whatever challenges lay ahead of me only time would tell.

My departure, by train, on that balmy summer’s evening, would set the pattern for the next six years of my life. Three times a year my parents would drop me off at Salisbury station and three times a year they would be waiting at the same station to collect me.

The all-boy boarding school I found myself clanking towards in that old, coal-fired, steam train was named Rhodes Estate Preparatory School (REPS), after the man whose devious machinations laid the groundwork for the seizure of a country: Cecil John Rhodes. Overlooking the glorious Matopos Hills, the school specialised, as its name implied, in preparing impressionable young white boys for the rigours of life in the colony, and fostering a simple pride in the country. It also served as the main feeder school for Plumtree High, one of the oldest and most prestigious schools in Southern Rhodesia, situated alongside the main railway line to South Africa, near where it crossed the border into Botswana.

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The headmaster of REPS, when I got there, was a Scotsman, Mr McClaren, a strict disciplinarian who was nevertheless loved by the boys for his dry, depreciating, wit. In my mind, I can still hear him thundering at me in his thick Scottish brogue when I had messed up an answer: “You are up the pole boy – COME DOWN!!!”

I was always a fairly shy child and, initially at least, I found the forced gregariousness, regimentation and lack of privacy difficult to deal with. I suppose I was lucky in that my one brother, Pete, a couple of years my senior, was already at R.E.P.S. Unlike me, however, he had faced his separation from home in a manner entirely consistent with his straightforward, practical approach to life. He had taken it all in his stride. Determined that I, too, should learn to stand on my own two feet he made a point of leaving me to my own devices for the first couple of weeks.

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Fortunately, I think my easy-going nature and innate cheerfulness helped here, for I soon managed to acquire a circle of friends, was never really picked on or bullied and ended up enjoying my days at R.E.P.S. It that sort of setting it would have been hard not to.

Made up of labyrinthine chaos of granite rocks, kopjes, domes, whale-backs and other formations*, pushed out of the earth aeons ago, the Matopos Hills are an area of breath-taking beauty. Both the Shona and, later, the Ndebele believed them to be the residence of their high God – Mwari for the Shona, Mlimo for the Ndebele – and regarded them as sacred. Mzilikazi, the first king of the Ndebele, was buried there. Eager to stamp his authority on the land, Cecil John Rhodes also chose World’s View (or Marindidzuma – the haunt of the ancestral spirits) as the site of his grave, so impressed was he by “The peacefulness of it…the chaotic grandeur of it all”.

In his funeral poem, “The Burial”, Rudyard Kipling, who had been Rhodes house guest in Cape Town, refers to the hills in his oft-quoted line “The Granite of the ancient North, Great spaces washed with sun.” Whether Rhodes was worthy of all the praise Kipling lavished on him in the poem (“The immense and brooding spirit…Living he was the land, and dead, His soul shall be her soul”.) is, of course, a matter open to debate…

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During the Matabele Rebellion, Rhodes had, indeed, shown considerable bravery by riding unarmed in to the Matopos, with a small group of companions, to negotiate a peace deal with the Matabele leaders. Also interred at World’s View are the remains of his sidekick, Doctor Leander Starr Jameson, whose impetuous and ill-considered Jameson Raid into the Transvaal, had precipitated the Boer War. Encouraged by its failure and the absence of so many white troops outside the country, the Matabele (or Ndebele) – a northern offshoot of the warlike Zulu – launched the first sustained campaign against colonial authority in Africa. Many of Matabele impi would subsequently operate from and seek refuge amongst the hills where even the likes of Colonel Robert Baden – Powell, despite all his scouting experience, would be hard-pressed to flush them out.

On the same smooth granite batholith on which the two lies buried there is another, larger monument, erected, on Rhodes’ instructions, in memory of the ill-fated Shangani Patrol.

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On the afternoon of December 3^rd, 1893, Major Allan Wilson had led a patrol of 16 volunteers across the rising Shangani River in pursuit of Lobengula, king of the Matabele. Cut off from the main force under Major Forbes by the swollen waters, Wilson found himself surrounded, the next day, by an estimated 3 000 Matabele warriors. Fighting to the last round he and his men were all eventually killed.

Before they met their death, the final six reputedly took off their hats and sang “God Save the Queen”. Because of his brave actions – although some historians consider his pursuit of the much larger Matabele force to have been a reckless gamble, on par with General Custer’s last stand at Little Bighorn – Wilson would be elevated to the level of national hero and have a school named in his honour. For his part, Lobengula, protected by the remnants of his loyal impi, continued northwards. He died, by taking poison, when he heard his army had surrendered and was buried, sitting up, in a cave. Disciplined as it was by pre-colonial standards, his forces were no match for the lethal British Maxim gun, which was used for the first time here.

It was a sad ending for a man who, by all accounts, had been an impressive figure and a shrewd opponent.

In the school dining room there was, in my time (I imagine it has long since been removed), a reproduction of the 1896 painting by Allan Stewart depicting this famous episode (the painting would go on to inspire two films: the 1899 short silent war film, Major Wilson’s Last Stand and The Shangani Patrol (1970)). Also hanging from the dining room walls was a large portrait of Rhodes, himself. It used to spook us at mealtimes because his penetrating, pale-looking eyes appeared to follow you around no matter where you sat…

It was at R.E.P.S. that I was to commit one of those life-defining, acts of stupidity that I seem to have a peculiar talent for.

It happened like this. At the centre of the school, there was a swimming pool, below which was a small room that was always locked. Returning from classes one day, I noticed there was a pipe protruding from under its door out of which a strange yellow-green cloud of gas was rising. Intrigued, I wandered over to it, lifted it up and took a good whiff. Words cannot describe the searing pain that engulfed my whole chest. I felt like my lungs had caught fire. I broke out in an immediate fit of non-stop coughing.

The gas I had inhaled was chlorine, one of the weapons of choice in the trenches of the First World War until its usage was banned by international treaty. It is also used, in diluted quantities, to keep swimming pools clean and sparkling but I was too young to know about either of this. Another boy, I don’t remember who, saw me staggering around like a crazy person and realising I was in serious trouble led me, choking and gagging, off to see the sickbay matron. In between further fits of coughing I spluttered out the story of what had happened. I was rushed to Bulawayo Central Hospital, injected and fed all sorts of medicine, and placed in an oxygen tent.

When I got back to school, a week or so later, the pipe was gone. In my absence, I had also become something of a local legend – Chlorine Stidolph was but one of the many names I would be remembered by – attracting a lot of sympathy and solicitude and some good-natured ribbing as well. Later in life, the consequences of my inhalation of poisonous gas would come back to haunt me, my scarred lungs making me susceptible to a variety of respiratory problems.

This moment of madness notwithstanding, I don’t think my parents could have chosen a more right school for me than R.E.P.S.

Based on the British models, it was a school that believed firmly in the importance of open-air life. The headmaster and staff placed great emphasis on physical exercise and besides playing lots of sport, which I was never much good at, we were encouraged to go for long hikes – or “exeats” as they were called – into the country over the weekends. I, for one, needed little prompting. Walking is a pleasure I have always enjoyed for its own sake and I exulted in the freedom of escaping the school’s bounds and getting out into the natural world.

All three of my brothers, who had been at REPS before me, had been keen egg collectors, a hobby I also took up (the older me is strongly disapproving). We were always very careful to only take one egg from the nest, leaving the others for the birds to hatch and rear.

With over 50 species of raptor being recorded in the nearby Rhodes Matopos National Park , it was certainly a birder’s paradise. The park was especially famous for its number of Black (Verreaux’s) Eagles. It still contains the most concentrated population of an eagle species anywhere in the world. The Ndebele believe these magnificent birds are the spirits of the departed dead. Watching them soaring in the thermals it is not difficult to understand why.

Wildlife was also plentiful in the park. There were leopards lurking in the hills while herds of round-haunched zebras, sable, giraffe and fidgety wildebeest grazed in the plains below. White Rhinos were still relatively common. This was classic klipspringer country as well and on our hikes, we would often see them standing outlined on a rock’s crest, like some sort of spirit guardians, as we tramped below.

In such idyllic surroundings, there was certainly enough to satisfy both my curiosity and spirit of adventure. It was in the Matopos that I really began to develop an eye for the detail of country life and nature’s endless variety and mystery. Like many a schoolboy before me, I had that peculiarly – although not exclusively – British desire to explore the unknown and amongst the Matopos kopjes there was more than enough to keep me occupied.

Each term was thirteen weeks broken by a half-term holiday (more when there were public holidays such as Easter and Rhodes and Founders Day). Because my parents lived so far away I never got to go home during these breaks but had to stay at school with a few other, similarly unlucky, boys. To soften the blow, the master who had been left on weekend duty would usually organise a whole day outing for us, often taking us, by vehicle deep, into the hills. Once we reached our destination, we would be left free to climb the kopjes and summit such imposing domes as Mount Efifi. On their top we would stand, awed by the view, with endless roves of monumental granites, of all shapes and sizes, radiating out in every direction, seemingly forever. Sculpted by a millennia of erosion, it was certainly a vista fit for any re-incarnate god.

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After rain, the rocks and domes glimmered silver, which added a slightly supernatural quality to the landscape and contributing to my sense of privilege at being able to observe these ancient forms.

There were also numerous dams – the Matopos, Maleme, Mtshelele, Toghwana among others – bordered by rocks and dense thickets where we would often go to picnic and explore. There was plenty of fish in them while fast swimming duck jinked along the surface and weavers and widow birds chattered in the reed beds. As beautiful and as inviting as the water looked, especially on a hot day, it also concealed a hidden menace – bilharzia, a parasitic worms that penetrates human skin and enters the bloodstream and migrates to the liver, intestines and other organs.

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The cure for this back then (I speak from first-hand experience having been treated several times while I was at REPS) was almost worse than the infection – a large pill that turned your skin a weird yellowish colour, made you feel nauseous and sick and often induced vomiting.

Even in paradise, it seems, there is evil…

In the past, other people had inhabited this wilderness. The first had been the San Bushmen, peaceful hunter-gatherers who had used the outcrops of elephant-coloured boulders as a canvas on which to record both the physical and spiritual aspects of their lives. Often, after hours of clambering and squeezing your way through huge boulders and vines, you would stumble across their beautiful paintings on the under-surfaces of the rock, exquisitely executed in red, cream and ochre-coloured silhouettes. Indeed, the Matopos contain the highest concentration of rock paintings in southern Africa with many dating back to the Late Stone Age.

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In other cases, we used to find clay pots, iron smelters and grain bins, often very well preserved, although these were probably of more recent origin.

Sitting up there, amongst the encircling piles of boulders, in the heat and silence, alone with my lazy thoughts, it was easy to see why the Bushmen had chosen the Matopos as a site for their enigmatic outdoor art galleries and why both the Shona and Ndebele continued to revere these mysterious hills.

They certainly cast their unique grip upon me.

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NOTE: In my day, the area I write about was still known as the Rhodes Matopos National Park so, for this story, I have retained the old spelling. Since then it has been renamed the Matobo National Park and become a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Site. For similar reasons, I have used the old word Matabele rather that Ndebele.

*The word matobo means “bald heads” in Ndebele.