Found In The Attic

As Chapter Ten of Remnants of Empire shows, when European people left NR/Z they packed an eclectic mixture of stuff; often the objects have an emotional value that is far greater than their apparent worth – they might even seem like junk to someone who did not know their provenance. Some of the things originated in Zambia, whilst others came with settlers but they don’t just carry a potent reminder of times lived in the country, they also serve to ground us in our own past.

LONG-LIVED EPHEMERA

Programmes from dramatic societies found their way into many people’s packing. They took up very little space but evoke a wealth of memories. I’m starting with some from the Venus Theatre in Broken Hill/Kabwe that were sent to me by Noel Wright (my former English teacher, now living in Perth, Australia). I’d love to receive more from other places.

Romeo and Juliet had a large cast, but after all this time the advertisements for local businesses are just as interesting as the “real” content of the programme.

The theatre was called “The Venus” because the wartime garrison theatre had fallen into disrepair and rose up again due to the work of enthusiasts such as Lawrence Hall. (I wonder why it wasn’t called “The Phoenix”?) Here is the Venus now. A group is working hard to bring about another resurrection as an arts centre.

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THINGS

All of these things came away with me and have survived since the mid-sixties:

I haven’t had this walking-stick for very long. Isaac our cook (I’m ashamed to say I never knew his surname) gave it to my grandfather in 1964. It was passed on to my father who only recently entrusted it to me. I dare not use it for fear I’d leave it somewhere.

The anthropologist Aiden Southall once said, “It is no more foolish to wear a lampshade on one’s head than it is to use a beer pot as a vase.” This beer pot came from the same village as the stool, it is chipped round the edge so it’s former owner thought it was worthless – I love it.

I don’t suppose they were made in the country, but most European households picked up some souvenirs of the mining towns. I found this in my father’s cutlery draw and am proud to say I resisted the temptation to pocket it! I was always delighted by the Broken Hill crest when seen at a glance and hope the flag that flew over the municipal offices is still in existence somewhere.

I bought this in Cairo Road just before I came to London as a postgraduate student in 1966 – I knew it was BaLuban, but so was most of the carving in Zambia then. (My mother thought I was crazy paying so much for it.)

The chitenge I wore when I lived in a village in the Luapula Province for 5 months in 1966. It’s now faded, stained and has a hole in it, but no one dare throw it way!

Surely everyone brought a drum with them? Made for selling to tourists, not for playing – I bought this one in Livingstone when I was there doing a survey for the Central Statistical Office in 1965.

When the drum was new and I was young (I’ve only just realised that the photograph is printed round the wrong way in Livingstone. My son tells me he could reverse it – that wouldn’t be authentic!)

A remnant of a month’s stay in a Southern Province village in January 1965 – it has a charred side where someone left it too close to the fire – its former owner couldn’t believe I wanted to buy it. I use it as a footstool.

Perhaps I really ought to dust a bit more often. All tourist junk really.

A pipe for smoking dagga (only used once)

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Below is a leaving present given to Rich Moskwa’s father. A representation of Homo Rhodesiensis (we’re now supposed to call him “Homo heidelbergensis”) in silver from the Broken Hill/Kabwe mine

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PHOTOGRAPHS

Photographs nearly always made it into the katundu, but as I say on page 214 of Remnants:
… we realise how few photographs were taken in those days of expensive film and processing and how they now seem to be of the wrong things – the Kariba Dam, the Victoria Falls (again), an elephant in the distance (partially obscured by a tree).

Nkana

Robert Retamel posted pictures of Nkana in the early days on the Great North Road website. Could we build up an impression of other places in other decades too?

Everyone who ventured to the Luapula Province in the old days thinks of it as a special place, partly because the journey across the Congo Pedicle and then over Luapula River, using the pontoon at Chembe. These pictures belonging to JJ Niemandt date back to the 1950s

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JJ Niemandt b7c4d5e7f5g11h1

I carried out research in (then) Fort Rosebery District in Chief Kalaba’s village in 1967, somehow I forgot to take pictures on the hair-raising journey there.

My house in Chief Kalaba’s Village

My next-door neighbours

With my red hair hidden under a scarf the visiting Local Courts Officer thought I was an albino. (If he’s still alive he may remember the expedition to Lake Mweru.)

Today most people go to Mansa on a new road, built on piles across the Bangweulu Swamp, turning off the Great North Road after Serenje – it doesn’t seem so remote now.