Out on a Limb: Life with a Disability and Stories of a Time Past

FOREWORD

As teenagers Senator Edward M Kennedy and I have a shared history. Born a month apart in the same year, we both had our legs amputated above the knee. While his procedure was conducted very publicly at an expensive American clinic the Georgetown University Hospital, mine was more anonymously done by an equally talented surgeon (Mike Standish-White) in Salisbury, Rhodesia. Both countries shared parallels in the wars they were fighting. In November 1973 the Americans had just ended (lost) the war in Vietnam. Rhodesia in 1979 was desperately fighting a war on three fronts and it too, like Vietnam, was destined to become a Marxist socialist country.

Conscription into the Rhodesian Military was mandatory as soon as one turned sixteen or as soon as formal education ended. There were ‘skates’ and bad boys, blaggers and liars, no matter who you were you ended up somewhere in the machine. I was to all intents and purpose out of the melee as we emigrated to England after my first year at Salisbury’s Oriel Boys High School and I was to do my O level’s in UK. As you will read, I returned home and volunteered as probably one of the youngest soldiers in the 1st Battalion the Rhodesian Light Infantry (The RLI).

I too had my AKA, the same as Edward Kennedy. AKA (above knee amputation) and given the abundance of Soviet and Chinese supplied AK47 rifles it’s probably better to refer to its proper term, a trans-femoral amputation. But while he recuperated as a twelve year old in the Hamptons I was back in uniform as a 17 year old. I had been in the Rhodesian Army barely six months.

This is not another book about the Rhodesian war, although it is a predominant feature. As an amputee I continued to serve in the Rhodesian Army and then on into the very early years of Zimbabwe. This is a story of returning home to serve my country right at the end of the bush war and taking more risks than was sensible after the end of Rhodesia.

There were as many scrapes after the war as during the war. As a soldier I was never shot at or involved directly in the violence of war. As a civilian I have been shot at, wounded and held up at gun point proving that being a civilian is far more dangerous than being a soldier!

I am indebted to the many published authors of the Rhodesian war who have inspired me to write this, Tim Bax, Craig Bone (who still owes me a picture!), Hannes Wessels, Andrew Balaam, Mark Adams, Chas Lotter, Alexandre Binda, Jonathan Pittaway. I am grateful to surviving soldiers such as Clive Dredge, John van Stan, Dave Strivens and Piet Olivier who continue to refresh me with their wealth of anecdotes. I am particularly grateful to Ian Scott (Scotty) who gave me priceless advice on how to publish the book which gave me the final shot of enthusiasm to see this through.

Permission to use copyright pictures is gratefully acknowledged, other copyrights are acknowledged.

Permission to include articles on Operation Enterprise and the battle of Entumbane is gratefully acknowledged: Mike Norton and Mick McKenna

Most of all, to my Mother who reminded me of many anecdotes that I had forgotten. To my Father for the family photos and my eldest brother who took my somewhat matter of fact accounts, persuaded me that this was a book and wrote this, my story. Thank you all.

NOTE BY THE EDITOR

This second edition includes new chapters on rehabilitation, the Matabele uprising and British Military Advisory Training Team (BMATT). Nearly all the chapters have been extensively edited or re-written.

I am indebted to all of those who have helped me. Ralph Hutchings for sharing his encyclopaedic medical knowledge and giving me the correct diagnosis for the Baker’s cyst as well as the amputation details. Family and friends who speak Shona and N’Debele. As well the Rhodesian Railways group who helped with engineering terms. And finally readers who have challenged and corrected my facts.

Chapter 1 Colonial Africa

The disintegration of the Congo and the arrival of traumatised Belgians in Federation , exhausted and terrified having narrowly escaped the butchery and savagery of the communist uprising was ‘proof’ that colonial administration and order in Africa was at an end. Algeria was invested in a savage civil war which, by 1961, it was clear that French politicians had abandoned the pied noirs, something in which the British were about to do to their own colonial, ex-pats. Elsewhere in Africa independence from colonial powers was gaining momentum, The wind of change is blowing through the Continent. Whether we like it or not . The South Africans didn’t like it, nor did they like MacMillan or his message. With that very clear signal from Britain and how their future would be decided for them they held a referendum and voted to become a republic without further cultural or political interference from Britain. Most of West Africa was either independent of Britain or on the cusp of independence, as was the jewel in the British crown – Kenya. It was said that MacMillan used Bismark’s often used, and misused, quote that ‘the colonies were not worth the life of a single Grenadier Guardsman’ , his old Regiment. Perfidious Albion.

The Federation of Northern Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland was hanging by a political thread. No matter that the Queen Mother and the Queen conducted royal tours of the Rhodesias in the early 1950s, politicians were setting the agenda. It was the troublesome Southern Rhodesians who were a fly-in-the-ointment. The old saying was ‘Northern Rhodesians went home every three years, Southern Rhodesians went home every night’. As if to lend weight to the expression the Southern Rhodesians made sure that the hydro-electric power turbines at Kariba were sited on the south bank where the infrastructure, industry and skill was. Electricity for the Copperbelt was ‘exported’ to what was soon to become Zambia. The Italian construction company Impresit released their workers as the power came on line giving rise to a Trattoria in every city and town of the Federation. The Zambesi dammed behind the wall at Kariba gorge. The Batonka damned the Europeans for invoking the wrath of Nyami Nyami as they were re-settled miles from the river, away from their ancestral lands. Operation Noah attempted to save wildlife marooned on top of koppies that were now islands in this vast inland sea.

In Odeon and Gaumont cinemas Britain had actively promoted colonial settlement in the newsreel prior to the main feature, now it was having a change of heart. My grandparents had believed the settle a land rich with opportunity for European settlers, commentary and sold-up and moved to Africa. After all, there was no money and no employment at home with the tens of thousands being demobbed. Having emigrated and settled, they were now unsettled by the volte face of the British government. Post-colonial independence was going to happen - on Westminster's terms - not ours. Southern Rhodesia had been autonomous and self-governing since 1923, it was the most industrialised country of Federation and had its own small Army and Air Force.

My father had already been sent to Southern Rhodesia to work as a trainee manager on a tobacco farm in 1948/9 by his father on a one-way passage, no remittance. My mother, who had had an itinerant childhood (India and England), moved to Durban and then up to Salisbury at roughly the same time.

My grandparents’ generation were aghast at the notion of ‘native independence’ having anticipated the inevitability of the slaughter of Partition in 1947, butchery in the Congo and Nkrumah's plundering of Ghana. The consequences of their society, their thinking and their politics were to unfold as my future. Of course, I was oblivious to all of this on Friday 25th August 1961.

Figure 1. Dad, friend and Mum 1956

Chapter 2 In The Nick of Time

I was a beautiful baby – so I was told?

No doubt the sun was shining, it was after all, Southern Rhodesia. The country boasted having 260 days of sunshine per year and August was the sunniest month and I was the sunniest baby. It being August the Jacarandas would have been coming into bloom carpeting the avenues in sweet smelling mauve flowers. The Lady Chancellor Maternity Hospital was in the same grounds as the Andrew Fleming Hospital and surrounded by Jacaranda and Flamboyant blossoming trees. As a new arrival my father was permitted to ‘view’ me but not my snot-nosed, bare-footed brothers who were kept in the car for fear of them bringing their colds and other communicable ailments.

Admirable concern – but misguided. Within a couple of days I was brought home to our rented cottage in the North Eastern suburb of Chisipite that was our home. ‘Cottage’ is a generous term for what was actually a ramshackle jerry-built garage and which had been inexpertly ‘developed’ into a house. The master bedroom was the original garage with a concrete floor that was level - the only part of the house that was level. The rest of the house was built off the side and back of it, sloping with the ground down towards the septic tank that was too close to the house and little more than a covered tank that would overflow in the rainy season. I was the best of the babies, placid, didn’t cry and slept when I was meant to.

Chapter 3 The Jet Set

Being a baby I was ‘unconscious’ to the events that formed the next two years of my life. What I do know is that it was an itinerant lifestyle as our parent’s marriage disintegrated around us. Barely weaned, we took the Union Castle from Cape Town to Southampton for our visit to England and for me to be shown to the family. Actually, it was a trip arranged around my father’s military course at Warminster and the family coming along too were added extras. It was a long trip starting with a three day railway trip from Salisbury via Bulawayo and Francistown to Cape Town. It must have been a tedious journey, my oldest brother remembers innumerable stops along the way with hawkers trying to sell us anything and everything whenever we stopped in Bechuanaland. The train was pulled by a variety of steam locomotives and being second-class travellers we had to keep the windows either shut or at half-mast to avoid smuts sweeping in and blackening us. As fun as it was to lean out into the slipstream there was always the danger of catching one in the eye. Every evening the Orderly came to yank up the green leather couchettes to make bunk beds and then to unfold an expertly made sheets and blanket ‘sleeping bag’. Boldly emblazoned on the fawn coloured blanket was RR for Rhodesia Railways. In fact everything had RR on it, the mirror, the zinc sink, crockery, cutlery, the windows…. The zinc sink was a novelty. Hidden beneath the hinged table top was this little round sink with a spring-loaded, press button cold water faucet that was revealed every morning for our ablutions. Water would dribble out of the taps with the inadequate pressure of a gravity feed. There was a small sign NOT drinking water, there might have been an exclamation mark too, to make the point. Little did we know that the water was stored above our heads in a long tank. Air conditioning was via a grille which one opened for air or closed for warmth. The clerestory was a feature of old RR rolling stock as was the brown and cream livery mimicking Pullman, and almost succeeding. The loo at the end of the carriage was a primitive excrement excitement. A spring-loaded pan that, when ‘flushed’, would fill with water and then snap away to dispose of contents upon sleepers blurred by speed as we passed over them; speed was a relative term. THAT is why the very clear and firm instruction over the loo was – Do not use the lavatory at stations.

We sailed into Southampton, a grey depressing day. Welcome to England. Mother was immediately admitted into a nursing home with post-natal depression combined with the tail end of jaundice that she had suffered during the passage. Someone in the family must have cared for me – or I went in there with her. Who knows? We moved from place to place. While dad was at Warminster we took lodgings with the vicar of Luggershall in the diocese of Salisbury and on the edge of Salisbury Plain. He was an unpleasant man. The vicarage décor was sombre Victorian, dark green, heavy brocade drapes, velvet covered chairs worn through at the arms, a taxidermi’d peacock displayed in glass case and a threadbare Persian rug. When sunlight managed to pierce the gloom a million particles of suspended dust reflected in the stale air. Mother was readmitted into the nursing home.

Mercifully we returned to Africa, this time by BOAC Comet. By now I was mobile – I could stand albeit unsteadily. My older brother had been enlisted into the Junior Jet Club and as a member was given a guided tour of the cockpit. Determined to make my own mark I found that I had an adoring and captive audience so I stood up in my cot clinging to the edge. The front row craned their necks, Oo’d and Ah’d at the adorable baby – a star turn. With a gummy grin and determined to go out on a limb for my adoring crowd I went for the full, free-standing act… and promptly fell out of the flying cot. A full 5 second count allowed me to summon-up a scream (hurt feelings) followed up by 3 minutes of desperate attention to return the cabin back to serenity and calm. My audience abandoned me not wishing to be associated with my fall from grace.

Chapter 4 What’s In a Name?

We moved to a rather smart house not far from Government House and much closer to King George the 6th barracks (abbreviated to KG6 or KGVI) in Highlands. My father used an old African bicycle, big black and heavy, to get to work, the Morris Minor was Mum’s. Our packing cases arrived from England several weeks later from which the china was carefully unwrapped and other domestic assortments were reappointed in their new home. Dad was an inventive man, realising that children are always more interested in boxes than what’s in them arranged the boxes as a five-room den. This was the greatest way for mum to get a rest, away from 3 over active children. We were easy to find, we were in the vegetable garden in the boxes. By now I was walking (just) in my Start Rite sandals that were especially bought for me in England. Brother was parading around in his paratroopers’ uniform made by Triang, a present for his birthday, I had my ‘knee’. My ‘knee’ was a source of great amusement in the family, ‘knee’ being short for knitted blanket. I was beginning to speak but couldn’t say knitted blanket, only kni so that is what my comfort blanket became known as. Heaven help the person that tried to separate me from my kni. Mum became quite desperate as the blanket was trailed through the undergrowth collecting twigs, grass and that most difficult of things to remove – Blackjack seeds. It also stank from constant sucking.

The playing-to-the-audience episode on the Comet was a precursor to how loud I could be. Dressed in pristine whites and covered in a clear plastic bag à la Clint Eastwood poncho, mum was determined to keep me virginal white for my Christening. The other two were similarly plastic wrapped and given a pre-event threat to behave and not to EVEN THINK of getting dirty. We arrived at KG6 chapel where I was given to a stranger who made the mistake of picking me up and holding me. Worse was to follow. In what could be interpreted as an early form of benign water boarding I was rotated slightly beyond the horizontal and had a teacupful of cold water drizzled over my forehead while something was mumbled. There was also the smell of burning as some strangers stood nearby holding candles.

Unhappy, I let rip. We started at a sedate High Church procedure and ended with the parson galloping through the order as my vocal onslaught put him and the assembled in to a disorganised rout. The vicar did his best to soothe both me and my way into the Christian faith, he failed on both counts. My brothers in their Sunday best kept their pilot tee shirts and shorts pristinely white, without the giveaway splashes of red Rhodesian dirt. It was an ordeal that both my parents and the parson were glad to hastily conclude.

What are God Parents mummy?

The barracks would be visited at several points in our collective lives, all under different circumstances, sometimes openly, sometimes clandestinely. Dad’s office was directly across the car park from the church where our mauve and cream Triumph Standard baked in the afternoon sun. The arguments had already begun, an opening skirmish developing in to a serious row was over my names and would continue as a thin-skinned scar as the marital war started to escalate ending in divorce two years later.

I was Nicholas Timothy John Winch. The first name to be dropped was John. Mother refused, point blank, to allow me to have that rather common name. Father was determined to have his way and, knowing the parson, had slipped it onto the Christening register. Second to change was the Timothy to Tristan thus becoming Nicholas Tristan Winch. I already had a name change by deed poll before I could walk.

There were several dramas preceding the eventual storm of divorce. Rob, a sweet child, was playing quietly on the sitting room floor when he started to wail, and then cry. At the wailing stage no attention was paid to him. When he cried he was eventually seen to and the horror of the situation revealed. He had stuck his hand into an empty tin can with the lid still attached by about ½ an inch so that it could be drained. As he pulled his hand out the jagged lid caught across the palm and heel of his hand, the more he pulled the deeper it cut. He started to cry when it already had become quite a deep and long wound across his tiny three-year-old hand. He didn’t know to stop pulling when it hurt. He was taken straight to Casualty as A&E was then known. It took weeks to heal and he carried a vivid scar on his palm for the rest of his life.

Then there was tribal disagreement between the garden boy and the house boy - ‘boys’? They were young fit men. This was a lot more serious than I suspect we were allowed to know. There had been a full-on fight in the khaya and threats to kill. Dad was called home from the club to sort it out and for all his failings at the time he sorted it out there and then. I think the garden boy was eventually sacked which was a shame as he had made as a gift to us children one of those incredibly detailed coat-hanger-wire model cars. Even now they are made in rural communities from wire, mealie cobs and a piece of thin cane. African children ‘drive’ their cars as they walk to school steering the model in front of them using a steering wheel at the end of a long cane connected to the front wheels. Ingenious.

Other excitements included the lottery of who would take the other two to school or nursery. If mum drew the short straw (most days) they would be deposited at the gates of Highlands Kinder Garten in plenty of time for assembly (in the open air with a stirring rendition of All Things Bright and Beautiful). The last time dad was allowed to drop brother off at school he was so late that he joined during the first lesson and was sent to the headmistress to explain his lateness – as a five year old? Such was the personal chaos of our father, hard to imagine he was a sergeant in the Federal Army. Kinder Garten was a world of Janet and John early readers, Cuisenaire coloured arithmetic rods, covering one’s school books in brown paper and having your mum