Description

Philip Greenhow’s father, following service in the R.F.C. in World War I, bought a thousand acres of virgin land in Southern Rhodesia. There, enduring loneliness, poverty, and the rigours of early pioneering life, he created a farm. The books starts with the backgrounds of Philip’s parents, describes how they met, and their subsequent family life in the colony between the wars. The author was born there in 1937, and went to boarding school from the age of eight. He contrasts his strictly ordered life at school with the freedom in the wild which he enjoyed at home. During his holidays he roamed the veldt, often with only a rifle and his dogs. There he encountered Africans and wild life, and climbed the surrounding kopjies to find hidden caves and the remains of ancient burials, fortifications and Bushman paintings. Meanwhile his parents and brother were having their own struggles with life, his artistic mother dealing with hers with pragmatism combined with a lively sense of humour, but always pining for England. In 1953 the author joined the Royal Navy as a cadet at the R.N. College at Dartmouth. The book ends with the tragic deaths of his brother and father, and the return to England of his mother in order to start a new life.