An African Infancy I understand the Jesuits are reputed to have said, "Give me a child until he is seven, and I will give you the man". The implication of this is that a child's personality and belief system are developed during the first seven, formative years of life, suggesting that these are pretty significant years for any individual. I don't know whether that is true - I think children can change a lot after their seventh birthday, and indeed I hope that what happens after the age of seven can still have a huge influence on what that child eventually becomes. I say "hope" because my own daughter was already seven when I adopted her, and I like to think that some of her better qualities could possibly be at least partially attributed to the way I brought her up from then on. I was born in what was then the Commonwealth country of Northern Rhodesia on 3rd November 1956. It amazes me now to think how soon that was after the end of the Second World War, or "The War" as my parents used to call it. When you are ten, something that happened ten years ago not only sounds like it was a lifetime ago, it really was a lifetime ago! But when you are fifty, thinking of two events which were only eleven years apart, like the end of the war and my birth, you feel that one was hardly over when the other occurred. My father was a policeman and my mother a teacher, and they both had the extreme good fortune, in my opinion, to be employed by the British government in the exciting developing African continent at a time when it was largely unspoilt and life was a great adventure. In those far gone days, there was no such thing as "gap year travels", because young people didn't have need of a year out of real life to experience other cultures. There were opportunities of real, paid employment in all corners of the British Empire for those with a pioneering spirit of adventure, and I like to think my sisters and I all inherited quite a large dose of that from having two parents with wanderlust in their genes - it could explain why we have variously lived in Singapore, South Africa and France! Our family has treasured, flickering early cine film of us in those idyllic African days. My younger sister and I were both born in Livingstone, and there is footage of us close to the famous Victoria Falls, with wild baboons wandering free and the shimmering water rushing perilously close to where we are enjoying the sunshine. I would love to go back there, but suspect now there would be car parks and ticket offices and safety barriers and all the other paraphernalia of a world famous tourist attraction. But in those days, I suspect it was largely unchanged from the waterfall David Livingstone first laid his wondering eyes upon - how lucky my parents were to enjoy it in its natural state! They lived and worked in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) for several years before I was born and for the first seven years of my life, although they did return "home" to Britain "on leave" several times during that period. I remember nothing at all of Livingstone, but do have some memories of life at No. 5 Police Camp in the copperbelt town of Mufulira, where I was living when I first started school; it was the first "home address" I ever memorised. I guess all memories of early childhood are idealised, and perhaps this is even more true if one is ripped from ones childhood home at the age of seven and never able to return to see the reality and put it into perspective. I think it is also true that the brain chooses to forget unpleasant childhood memories and only consciously retains the pleasant ones, so understandably, almost all my memories from that time are happy ones - with a few exceptions. I remember, first and foremost, sunshine, and lots of it. In those days we knew nothing of holes in ozone layers or skin cancer, so we were encouraged to spend as much time as possible out in the sun with limbs and faces exposed. My recollection is that, because of this hot sun, we started school at 8am and finished at 1pm, leaving the whole afternoon to be spent at the swimming baths. Of course, that cannot be true, we must have spent many afternoons doing other things, but I particularly remember the swimming baths, which had a fountain in the middle which only the very brave would venture beneath. I vaguely remember my father trying to teach me to swim, wearing "water wings", and also remember one time cutting my big toe on what was presumed to be glass on the bottom of the pool and having to be taken to the first aid post. It was probably the tiniest little puncture wound, but there was definitely blood, and to a child that seems serious - I also thought at the time that something underwater had bitten me, which was a frightening notion. I remember my mother coming in to wake us every morning with freshly squeezed oranges. No, not just the juice! My memory is that there were the glasses of fresh juice, but then she also brought in the squeezed oranges, and we could eat their flesh once we had drunk the juice. I have no idea why she would have squeezed out the juice then offered us both - perhaps we sometimes refused the actual oranges? But it felt like a wonderful way to be woken! I don't think she took us to the market with her every day - she probably didn't go every day. But I do have a memory of going to a bustling, noisy market with her one morning, as a treat, and being thrilled at all the sights, sounds and smells that surrounded us. Of course, my memory is that all the stalls were run by black people, but that would not have struck me as at all unusual at the time. My world was populated by black people and orange people (I don't ever remember being familiar with the term "white"), and that seemed perfectly normal to me. In our house, there were black men with biblical names who worked for my parents. The one who helped my mother in the house was referred to as the "houseboy", and he lived with his family in a small white house at the bottom of our garden. The one who worked in the garden was called the "garden boy", and I had and have no idea where he lived. Neither of these people looked like boys in my understanding of the word, they were fully grown men and the one I remember best, Samson, I remember as having a grey beard, and I knew he had a family because I had met his daughter, Martha, occasionally when I looked out of the back window of the garage, also at the bottom of the garden. His family had once come into our house when somebody threw a teargas cannister onto a bonfire in our vicinity and it was impossible to breathe properly outdoors; the windows of the houseboy's house had no glass in them so afforded no protection. I'm not sure how these servants were paid by my parents, but I do remember my mother boiling up great saucepans of what we called "mealy meal" for them in our kitchen - and "mealies" were our name for corn on the cob, which grew abundantly all around. We had mango trees in our garden, and banana trees. When the mangoes were ripe, my mother used to sit her four daughters in a warm bath, peel the mangoes then give them to us to eat. They were so very juicy, we would have made a horrible mess had we eaten them anywhere in the house, and perhaps we would have attracted unwanted insects had we eaten them outdoors, so the bath was the answer, and we loved it. The mangoes one buys in European supermarkets have nothing on those wonderful fresh ones from our garden! My father, who I think was quite high up in the CID, had an avocado tree outside his office, and I remember him bringing those that fell off the tree home. We would ripen them on a windowsill, then feast upon them - again, the taste was far superior to anything I have consumed in Europe - but again, perhaps the idealism of childhood memories has a part to play there. We also had a hedge in the garden which bore delicious passion fruit once a year, although we never referred to them as passion fruit - to us, they were granadillas, which possibly was an African word for them. I remember we called tangerines "narchees" - I suppose it was inevitable that we would adopt words that we heard around us daily. I remember one Christmas (or maybe more) we were taken to some kind of huge outdoor sports stadium for "Carols by Candlelight". Everyone was given a wide plastic candleholder with a handle, bearing a lighted candle, and we stood and held these whilst singing traditional Christmas carols. It would be hard to organise such an outdoor event at Christmas in the UK, because the weather was unpredictable, but there, Christmas happened in summer, so it was fine. Towards the end of the carol-singing, Father Christmas was towed out into the middle of the stadium in a sleigh pulled by horses. As far as I can remember, he didn't dole out presents, but it was thrill enough for me just to see him in the flesh - a truly magical experience. I can't remember whether our house had a chimney, but I never had any worries about getting my stocking filled, and I remember Christmases as joyful occasions with mountains of gifts. I remember my delight at being given twin dolls one year, and I remember my mother telling me of her embarrassment one year when I went round telling everyone, "I had a bath for Christmas!" - but I suspect that may have been after we moved to the UK, as I remember that bath clearly, a white plastic doll's bath with a blue folding stand. Another magical time for me was when a travelling funfair known as "Lunar Park" visited the area, and our parents would take us there at night. Possibly it was really quite small, but to a little girl unaccustomed to theme parks and the like, it was vast, and the rides thrilling. I can remember being at the top of the ferris wheel with my father, and him pointing out the Milky Way in the sky. I didn't feel the slightest bit afraid of the height. However, I did feel pretty scared on the rocket ships, as I had not realised beforehand that they went higher once the ride started. There was a lever to press which made the ship you were in soar skywards, and I was half convinced we really would take off, or worse, fall. So I used to hide in the footwell of the ship we were in, and just peep out at the stars whizzing by until we descended again. I loved the sensation of speed, and of course, being with my daddy. Not all outdoor events were a success, however. I remember my parents one year taking the four of us sisters to "the firework display" at, I think, my father's work. None of us girls had any idea what a "firework display" was, and possibly we were expecting something along a similar vein to "Carols by Candlelight". The car was parked, we took our place in the crowds on the field and waited with great expectations until it was completely dark - which happened quite early and quickly so close to the equator. Then suddenly, the first rocket shot up into the sky and exploded noisily. I had never been so terrified! I can remember that fear even now, although I now love firework displays. I think all four of us screamed in terror. For me, the fear was not so much of the loud bangs as of where all those things being sent up into the sky were going to land. They were exploding directly above our heads, so in my estimation what was left of them was likely to land precisely on our heads, and we would be knocked out at best, set on fire at worst. I couldn't understand why my father would have brought us to such a dangerous place! I joined my three sisters in screamed demands to be taken immediately back to the car. I remember my father being angry and embarrassed - well, I suppose if we were surrounded by his work colleagues, many of them of lower ranks than himself, it must have been humiliating to be seen with a cache of wailing little girls who refused to be quietened or consoled and would not shut up until their parents dutifully returned them to the car and home. There were various outings that were made as treats. I remember one place called "The Rodwin", where there was a playpark with tyre swings. These tyre swings were mounted on a maypole-type affair, and if one was pushed round, the other three also went round - a bit like a playground version of chair-o-planes, I suppose. We adored this, and have cine film of the four of us enjoying it. However, I do remember one time an older child walked too close to it, and one of our swings hit this child on the nose. As with my toe at the swimming pool, there was once again lots of blood, and I was always nervous of those swings after that. I didn't want to be involved in hurting anybody. There was a lake at The Rodwin with paddle boats on it, and one day my parents were persuaded to let me and Joy, the sister closest to me in age and size, go out alone in one of them. My memory is that it was a huge lake, but I suspect in reality it must have been fairly small, or I doubt we would have been allowed out unaccompanied. I would have nagged and whined and insisted, of course - from a very early age I was obstinate and determined, never one to take no for an answer. Well, we got to the middle of this lake, and then the paddle that Joy was turning got stuck. Did it really get stuck, or did Joy just get tired? I have no idea. However, my solution to this problem was simply to paddle at double the speed myself with my own handle. Of course, this quite simply had the effect of making the boat spin around and around. This was quite scary for two little girls in the middle of a huge lake, and the faster we spun, the more frantically I paddled, trying to get back to the shore, and the more upset and frightened poor Joy became, and the more we were shouted at from the lakeside! The water churned up and splashed us, the boat continued to spin, and I continued to paddle futilely in the absence of any better ideas! I couldn't hear what was being shouted from the shore, but it sounded increasingly cross, and that just added to the overall sense of panic. In the end, I believe one of my parents came out in another boat with the attendant, and they towed us back to dry land. I had a sense of having done something naughty, but had no idea what my sin had been. I was just glad we hadn't sunk and drowned, because in spite of all those afternoons at the swimming baths, I'm pretty sure neither of us had mastered swimming! Another treat for us, perhaps mainly on wet afternoons, was to drive up to the copper mines and watch the wheels operating the lifts spin around at the top of their towers. We would then drive around the mine, and I remember my favourite part was where there were lots of water fountains spraying water up into the air and all around. I have no idea what part of the copper mining process was actually going on there, but for me as a child it was very entertaining. I said earlier that I was never familiar with theme parks, but I think perhaps the tour of the copper mine was an equivalent thrill for me! In the light of what an ardent animal-lover I became in later years, it is surprising to have to report I remember very little contact with animals from those early years. We did have a white cat called Snowball, of whom I was fond, but my only real memory of him is that he used to kill and eat blue-headed lizards which lived in abundance around our garden, and then sick them up inside the house, to the great annoyance of both my mother and the houseboy. We also had a brown boxer dog called Butch, and I remember he had to be kept tied up much of the time because he chased passing cyclists. I have memories of him chasing my sisters and me round and around our bungalow as well, and being genuinely afraid of him, as I think he used to nip. I think a neighbour at one time had some pet rabbits, and I vaguely recall one occasion when these rabbits apparently disappeared from their run during the night, and a visit from a fox was strongly suspected. My memory tells me that, the next night, my elder sister, Pat, and I sat up all night on our porch and watched for this fox, with the intention that we would rouse the adults and get it killed should we spot it. But I doubt we were really allowed to sit there all night, and in any case, we never spotted a fox. We did occasionally come across wild chameleons in our garden, and I remember bringing them onto the veranda and trying to keep them as pets, though of course as we did not confine them they eventually "escaped". We were all fascinated by the way their skin changed colour, and the way their eyes rolled in their heads. One time I found a caterpillar, and I was allowed to put it in a lidded perforated shoebox with some leaves. Eventually, actually quite quickly I think, it changed into a chrysalis, and I was told it would turn into a butterfly, but was doubtful. I would open the shoebox every day to check, and of course one day, when I opened it, there was a beautiful butterfly! I wish my parents had made me release it there and then, but they allowed me to keep it inside the house, and it was not long before I found it dead in a doorway, evidently crushed when the door had been opened onto it. I can still remember the sadness that such a beautiful creature had had such a short life and tragic end. Other than that, the only wildlife I can remember is that we saw at local wildlife parks, a snake that once had to be shot in our garage, a black insect that once had to be washed out of a sister's ear, and something called an ant lion, which I never actually saw, although I saw the little conical traps it would dig in the sand. I was told the ant lion lived in the bottom of the inverted cone and ate the ants that slipped into the trap, but I never saw this happen, much to my disappointment - I was very much fascinated by tiny things, and the thought of a miniature lion living in the sand of my garden was very exciting to me! I did once also hear of a deadly snake called a "Black Mamba" being found and killed at a neighbour's house, and I remember once a sister having to sleep in a bed with a chair holding the covers off her legs because she had been bitten during the night by a spider in her bed. I occasionally saw centipedes which curled into a tight coil if you touched them with a stick, looking like a delicious coil of liquorice, and ants my parents called "matabeles", which made a very distinctive smell if you trod on them by mistake, but considering we lived in an exotic country, I remember surprisingly little exotic wildlife - but then, familiarity breeds contempt, as they say, and to us children then, the exotic just seemed normal and mundane. I know that I was introduced to zebra at one of the wildlife parks we visited, and I apparently referred to them as "horses in pyjamas", much to my parents mirth, and I do also remember being shown porcupines and told they could shoot their spines out, which I believed right into adulthood - I pictured those black and white spines hurtling through the air towards me like arrows. In fact, they only bristle their spines, and one could only stick into you if you went right up and pressed into it - but I didn't know that at the time. I never had an insect in my ear or a spider in my bed, but I do once remember being told that a tree at the front of our school was poisonous and would hurt you if you touched it. I was never one to be told anything, so of course I boldly hugged this tree then triumphantly demonstrated to my admiring (or should that be horrified?) audience of gathered youngsters that I was still alive and well. However, that very night I came out in a terrible rash all over, and my mother got the doctor out in great alarm. I was asked if I had eaten anything unusual or been bitten by any insect, and eventually I had to confess, in great shame and embarrassment, that I had hugged the tree you were not supposed to touch. Instant diagnosis, and no sympathy at all - I had got what I deserved, served me right! And I knew I had to agree! We went to a Sunday school somewhere close to the back of our house - I remember walking through fields of sweetcorn to reach it. One Sunday morning, I think my father must have had a hangover, and to protect his poor head from the excited early morning chatter or four little girls, he announced to us that it was a special day today, it was "Whispering Sunday". This had the desired effect, we all proceeded to communicate in stage whispers as we finished our preparations to attend the Sunday school. Once we had settled at the school, Auntie Stella, who was the teacher, began her address, and asked us if anyone knew what special day it was today. I was delighted that, for once in my life, I actually knew the answer to a question a teacher had asked, and excitedly I thrust up my hand, demanding to proclaim my knowledge to the world. Auntie Stella must have been as surprised as I was that little Debbie Harris should know the response to this question, and eagerly invited me to tell everyone. With great pride and confidence I loudly announced that it was "Whispering Sunday". There was a momentary stunned silence, followed by a ripple of laughter, and Auntie Stella tutted and told me not to be silly. You can imagine my disappointment - as far as I was concerned, it was Whispering Sunday, and the fact that Auntie Stella and the Sunday School pupils didn't even know was just proof of their ignorance! I think if I returned to Zambia now, or any African country, I would be very aware of the many dangers that exist there with which one doesn't have to contend in the UK. But during my childhood years I was blissfully unaware. The only enduring danger with which I was preoccupied was a ditch close to the police camp's meeting hall, which some older child had told me was bottomless. I wonder now how I could ever have believed that, especially as I felt I could actually see undergrowth on the bottom. But believe I did, and felt terrified every time I had to cross it using a fairly narrow plank placed there for that purpose, imagining how it might feel to be falling for ever and ever. I was certainly blissfully unaware of the political situation, or how precarious was the position of Europeans like myself in a country about to declare its independence. I was aware that often, at night, there was "trouble in the townships", and that covered wagons full of black men in uniforms referred to, as I heard it, as "UNIP" used to head off out of the police camp (or somewhere near) towards these townships, and they would come home late at night, singing. I would see the headlights flash around my bedroom wall, and listen for that wonderful, harmonised African singing, which was like a beautiful lullaby to me. To this day I love to listen to unaccompanied, traditional African singing. Zambia was the place I first encountered disability, and the memory has been with me ever since. I had gone into a shopping area with my mother. I don't recall everything she needed to buy, but I know for a fact that one item she bought was the melody, on record, of the song "Charlene". As I entered one shop with her, I spotted a young boy with a begging bowl, and a little way behind him, an older man with no pupils in his eyes. Now many years later, with the benefit of hindsight and the cynicism that sadly develops with age and experience, I find myself wondering whether this older man were really blind, or whether he just had the knack of rolling his pupils completely up under his eyelids so that he just looked blind. But to a young impressionable child, it was a horrific sight, and, as children do, I suppose I just stared. I don't think I was familiar with the concept of begging, but once I realised what the bowl was for, I started pestering my mother for money to give him. She refused, I guess because she knew that if we gave to one beggar we would be besieged by many more, and she hurried me on my way. But the image continued to haunt me, and throughout the rest of the shopping expedition, I cried and nagged and protested. It could not have been a very large shopping area, because my memory tells me we kept seeing this pathetic twosome as we came in and out of the different shops. In the end, my mother relented, and I was given two pence which I was allowed to put in the bowl. Both Africans said thank you to me, and I was keen to get home afterwards and put them out of my mind. But from that day to this, I have never been able to put them out of my mind. Of course I told the rest of my family the sad tale when we got home, and my mother played her new record, and I cried and cried because I was realising for the first time that there was real human suffering in the world. Every time I have heard that tune since, "Charlene", I have felt that same sadness from all those years ago, and I know that in our family, for a long time I would react to it with tears, so that it became referred to by all of us as "The Blind Man's Song". I suppose our departure from Africa would have stuck in my mind more vividly than other memories because it was the most recent, but also because I found it quite traumatic. I remember being given a tin of toffees as a going-away gift from someone (it was black with pictures of postage stamps all over it), and I remember fighting with my parents because I wanted to kiss Samson the houseboy good-bye and they didn't want me to - but I can't remember who won. I remember travelling overland by train from Zambia to Durban, the only time I actually remember seeing the Victoria Falls, as the train crossed them. We slept on the train, and every time it stopped, Africans flocked around the windows trying to sell us little wooden artifacts they had made. My parents bought me two little black wooden tortoises, which I'm sure I still have somewhere. There were hand signals (which I now understand were political) one could make to the Africans we passed working in the fields - either a "thumbs up" or a shaking, open hand. I had no idea at the time what they meant, but it was fun to make them and see what sign the Africans made back at us. Our final departure was to be a holiday, so we left the train at Durban to board a Union Castle cruise liner. Our parents took us to see the aquarium in Durban, and as we exited I had what was probably the most terrifying experience of my life thus far. There in the foyer, eagerly awaiting wealthy tourists, was a small crowd of rickshaw men. Now I don't remember ever having seen a rickshaw, but that was not the cause of my fear. These black men were all dressed in traditional tribal costumes. I have no idea what tribe they were from, but what I saw were huge men in leather and beads with great brightly-coloured feathered head-dresses. In other words, to me they were Indians, and the only Indians I had ever seen in my life had been those in the movies shooting arrows and killing people. Of course I was certain that was what these men were going to do, and the more they beamed at me, the more certain I was that they were trying to kidnap and murder me. However, my mother must have decided, as we were unlikely ever to have the opportunity in our lives again, that it would be cruel to deprive us of the experience of travelling around Durban in a traditional rickshaw, and so we were all made to pile into one. I don't think my father joined us, and maybe my smallest sister was not included, but certainly I remember we all squashed in with my mother, the rickshaw tipped up and the little girls screamed and screamed! It was like the firework display all over again. I don't recall whether I felt more unsafe because we were just on two wheels and the rickshaw kept tipping as though it were going to fall backwards, or whether it was the thought that we were going to be whisked off to some wigwam encampment then scalped one by one, but oh how delighted I was when we eventually escaped back onto terra firma! The liner docked at East London and Port Elizabeth, then left Africa finally from Capetown, though not before we had ascended Table Mountain in a cable car, and also met a disabled child who was the daughter of a friend of my father's. I have no idea who she was or how my father knew them, but we sisters were all puzzled by this child who was obviously much older and bigger than us but who behaved like a much younger person. She smelt very sweaty, and kept wanting to kiss us. She was treated like a younger child, but still trusted to take us all off to the toilets without the adults at a park we visited. When we asked my parents about her we were simply told that she was handicapped and was born like that. This we accepted, as children do, but the memory rested in my heart and brain of this girl who seemed so different yet so loving. I have poignant memories of sitting at a table on the deck of the liner with my father, sipping original flavour Lucozade (actually, I think that was the only flavour in those days), watching Table Mountain disappear into the sunset as we sailed further and further away. I sensed the sadness in my father as he told us to say good-bye to Africa, but didn't really understand that we were not just saying farewell to a continent, but to the whole way of life that I had enjoyed for my first seven years. For many years to come, I would cry when I heard the Zambian national anthem, and be haunted by recurring dreams when I would be trying to return to our home in Mufulira. Usually, there would be some problem or obstacle that would prevent me, in my dream, from reaching my destination, but on the rare occasions I did succeed in that dream land in returning home, there would always be other people, usually black, living there, who would chase us away.