Coming home to Kitwe

Kitwe

October 18 2011

But we know all things work together for those who love God even grotty accommodation! If we hadn't been there we wouldn't have met Harrison, or met Kenworth also thanks to Harrison. Harrison took us to a new guest house which was lovely but not before he had introduced us to Kenworth

Kenworth drove us round Kitwe with love and patience. What joys the morning held. We called in at his tavern in the second class trading area and then to the old Kiwe High Schools - the girls' renamed Helen Kaunda. There I met the current head but the place was still the same and as I knocked on the door of the head's office it was as though it were that awful day again in 1963 knocking on Miss Swart's door. There were the clasroom blocks and the tuck shop and the hall where we sang and perfomed , had assembly and wrote O level and A level exams. Truly wonderful that it was all just as
I had remembered it.

Me with the current head mistress Freida who was thrilled to meet an old pupil. I came to the school in 1958 when it was just one year old

Talking to a current pupil 

Kitwe Boys' High School where my brother Nigel was a pupil

Kitwe Hospital took me unawares. As I walked towards it and remembered the last day I had been there, January 27 1967, to collect my Mum's things after she had died I found myself in tears. I don't know when I last cried for Mum. It is all such a long time ago now but again it was as though it were yesterday.

Kitwe Hospital where my Mum died on January 24 1967

Then to St Michael's church where standing in the parking area was the Dean - one Father Harry - my age and a server when I was at St Michael's. St Michael's is now a cathedral. Archbishop Rowan had been in Kitwe last week and thousands had come to the stadium to hear him.  Jicky wishes that I had gone with Father Harry to look at the records for my confirmation  and also my mother's funeral and Dad's wedding. The house for the Dean is there next to the church and where the rector once lived now resides the Archbishop of the province of Central Africa so Kitwe has become a hub of importance.

The cathedral of St Michael's Kitwe

Talking with Father Harry

Remembering the people we once knew at St Peter's  - James and Stewart, Pat and Lionel, Canon Eaton and many others 

We went to look at houses and on the way passed the Little Theatre and also the guide hall where I had been awarded my Queen's Guide  in 1963. 

Outside the guide hall

Same Sign 

165 Kantanta Street still as I remembered it but looking run down and scruffy but the same old mango trees. My father was a horticulturist and wherever we lived we had a beautiful garden. Kenworth said all the mine houses had been sold to the sitting occupants. 

The front of 165 Kantanta Street with an empty swimming pool in the front garden! .

The old mango tree at the back 

We found the mine nurseries and went back to the Rhokana Hospital now run by the Chinese but looking very nice indeed. I was a patient there twice as a child and worked there in 1969 just before going to Dalton House in Bristol. They no longer tip the slag as the Chinese reprocess it to extract more copper and the old slag heaps are also being taken away for reprocessing. The Chinese are everywhere. 

Nkana Mine Hospital 

But the new  President Sata - King Cobra - has promised to change many things. We are here three weeks after he came to power in a peaceful transition. People seem to be glad to have him. His first utterances and appointments and sackings have been very well received with some women in high places. Zambia to me has always seemed to be  a peaceful place not always doing very well but just getting on as best they can.

Back down memory lane, Harrow Crescent was much changed but the old sisle plants were there where my little brother nearly blinded himself one Saturday morning when in my care. On the whole the once pristine tarmacaddamed roads are a mess with little tarmac and many potholes.

Could they be the same ones?

Harrow Crescent 

The Astra Cinema has gone but the Jupps house is still there behind a very high wall and with an Indian owner. I recognised one other house which we had lived in ( we lived in at least 8 houses in Kitwe but we didn't go looking for many. The SA Mutual buildings are still there but I couldn't remember exactly which shop had been the Hobby Shop. There were the buildings where Dad recorded his weekly gardening programme each week - "In your Garden" at 9 every Sunday morning - theme tune "An English country Garden".

Coronation Square - renamed Kaunda Square  - where the Hobby Shop once was

As we drove around the shape of the town as it had been began to fall into place and memories of all sorts came back. I saw the way we used to cycle to school every day and the offices where Mum worked and the boma. 

The old Skyline Night club 

The Skyline night club is no more. That's where we went for the outing Stewart  arranged for our youth group - The Pre 23 Club - a night out with a striptease artist. I went with Bill Miles and remember sitting with my back to the girl too embarrassed to watch! We drove past the Edinburgh Hotel - ah those crepe suzettes - and I remembered the Dairy Den opposite where we used to hang out.  Up at Parklands Shopping Centre I found a wig shop and hurriedly tried one on but somehow raven black hair and voluptuous curls just don't seem to suit me any more!!

We even found Frederick Knapp School - renamed but uncannily just the same. Now with 1800 pupils - as has the girls' high school,  The children are split and go to school either in the morning or the afternoon alternating term by term. Hard work for the teachers. Education for all by 2015 is one of the millenium goals.

At my old Primary School Frederick Knapp. I left there 1957 

With current pupils and the old school bell 

I guess there are other things I could have done or gone to look for but without transport and in the heat it was difficult. We did try to find the house my parents built in the bush but didn't have enough time. I am so thankful to have come back and taken some pictures but more to have relived the memories and the years of my life which I spent in this once attractive copper mining town in the halcyon and privileged days of Northern Rhodesia - privileged that is for the white population but this is a new day and a new era and this is now Zambia. And I will care about Zambia and pray for the country with new insights and new love and who knows, maybe one day will be able to make another visit. How I would love to come back with a child or a grandchild to feel Africa and know it for themselves. I feel myself to be a child of Africa even though most of my adult life has been lived somewhere else and the adult part of me has inevitably grown away. The child lives on in this place.