If you are from London, you have many books about past life in your town. If you are from Harare, not so many, in part because Harare is just that little bit younger than London. This is a book created out of letters sent home by a young wife after moving to what was then Salisbury in 1909, shortly after the city’s founding.
I am struck by how very little seems to have changed. People are in and out of each other’s houses, without calling in advance; people take pride in not being thrown by accidents and emergencies (I am not quite Rhodesian yet, she confesses at one point, when she weeps after an unplanned 10 mile hike with a baby); and people love a little drink at sunset. ‘I’ll never think of Salisbury without the sundowners,’ she says, and 110 years on it’s still the case. Her mother, who she wrote the letters to, was obviously worried about her moving from England to the colonies, and the letters are remarkable for the enthusiasm with which she adopts her new country. I guess pioneers are self-selecting.
I was also very interested to learn that Rhodesian women were thought to be ‘fast.’ She assures us this is the wrong impression (sadly I agree). Apparently it comes form a book called VIRGINIA AMONG THE RHODESIANS, which was a huge hit. I am naturally in hot pursuit of a copy to find out that hot 1900s goss