Hi there,

I didn't go to Codrington, but did live in Mazabuka for a while - please can someone tell me when Kenneth Eva died and does anyone know how to get hold of Thomas, his brother?

John Dabbs is married and living in America.

We're going up North next year - and was looking for lodges to stay in in Zambia - I see Vernon Cantley and his wife run a lodge outside Makushi!

Kenneth Eva was murdered on the farm he was managing in the Eshowe district of KwaZulu Natal. He was murdered just over a year ago. The last I heard of Tomas Eva was that he was working in the Mazabuka / Lusaka district. This information was given to me some years ago by Doug Cantley who is still in Mazabuka

Thanks Rob - are you still in touch with Doug?

Do you remember Betty van Staden - she married Jeuf (sp?) Venter - I heard they were still in Maz. Would love to see her again.

Pity there are no Mazabuka folk going to the Jozi Jol in Johannesburg on the 2nd August - apart from me - and I spent most of my life in Broken Hill!

Hi Beth
Still in touch with Doug. Should you want more information give me a ring on 033 - 343 1106

Thanks Rob - will give you a ring closer to the time. I went out with Derek Cantley - (went to Di Godson's 21st with him!!! - how old am I!!!) Would love to chew the fat with Doug when passing through Maz.

Am having such fun getting onto all the Zambian web sites - see the Elephants Head (now Tuskers) is still going in Kabwe!! My sister had her wedding reception there so we'll have to stay a night there.

My daughter and I were staying at the Blue Marlin in Scottburgh at the time of Kenneth Eva's death - no papers - no cells - no radio - (heaven) that's why I never heard about it! Searched the net last night - how horrific and like everyone says, he was such a wonderful guy. Thomas, Kenneth, my brother Mike and I "stole" old man Eva's bakkie one day to shoot quali - we were racing through the elephant grass on their farm - Kenneth and Mike on the back of the bakkie, when we hit a huge wooden pilon - they flew off the back into the bush, the bonnet flew open and water from the radiator spewed everywhere. Needless to say, four very sheepish teenagers had some explaining to do - after their long trek back on foot, to the farm house!!!

Are you related to the Lusaka Buchanans??

I was at Codrington from 1938 to the early 1940s. Anyone else around who goes that far back? Or did time begin in 1950??

1952 - sorry John!! (LOL) Nice to see someone posting on this site though. You must have many wonderful stories to tell us from the "early MNazabuka days".

MNazabuka - new name for Mazabuka (blush!)

John Seal
I am sure that we would all like to hear more about Codrington in the 1940s - Do please share you memories -
Who was the headmaster?
Do you remember other staff members?
And Pupils!
Who were the stars and what schools and careers did they go on to?
Do you remember the library in the little old kitchen behind the main building of the old school? It was full of relicts and ghosts from those pre-war years.
Colin Carlin
Early - mid 1950s

Hello Colin and Beth. It was wonderful to get such a quick response. Codrington in the 40s... HM was (John) Chadwick while I was there.
Housemistress was Rose Twycross - Miss Tick we called her. Memories...
Recovering from a dose of flu and not at classes. Climbed a tree at the
back of the hostel and fell off a branch at about 6 feet above the ground.
Broke my right arm at the elbow. Miss tick strengthened me with a glass of sherry (My first ever!) while we waited for the doctor to finish his round of golf etc at the Club. When he eventually set my arm I was sent to hospital in Lusaka by the evening train. My Mum and Dad lived there so I was home for the holidays early. But more anon - like how we used to break bounds in our pyjamas to meet the midnight train and take tea with the driver!

Hi John,

I went to school in Salisbury and used to go down to Bulawayo by train for half term. Kids used to jump on at the different stations - share a cigarette from our 50's packet of Styvesant)jump off at the next station, then catch the train back home. My daughter finds it hard to believe that we caught a train let alone spoke to strangers !!!!

Were you at school with Bailie Bean?? His daughter is a very good friend of mine.

Here's a web site for you to look at : www.niner.net/nr/bboard - its the Great North Road web site and a brilliant site for catching up with old friends.

John
I love the story of the midnight tea breaks.
I used to spend the short holidays with Mr and Mrs Edmonds at Magoye. It was too complicated to get home to Abercorn and my great uncle Jack Venning had been Native Commissioner there in the really old days. Mrs Edmonds was an excellent teacher at Codrington and her husband was the Station Manager at Magoye. I used to wait at the "Down" Points and jump the Garrets and ride to the Up Points through Magoye siding. The Driver and the especially Firemen were really hard characters. The tea was harder still - only stirrable with a thumb! Although the trains slowed for the points it was a lively jump and I had to face the right way. Leaving the huge loco was extra fun as the Driver always blew steam so that I had to jump from the foot plate in a cloud of mist and hope for the best!
Colin Carlin

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Colin
Many thanks for that! It reminds me vividly of my experiences. We must have had tea with the driver
on at least five occasions, and we never got caught when we broke bounds! The luck of the devil!
We never tried jumping on or off a moving train.
For a time I had a girl friend who was the daughter of the Mazabuka station master, and I used to break bounds, on my own, to meet her at the bottom of their garden, next to the loos!
This would all make a great Carry On film!

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Hi Beth

Your story is very similar to mine! After I grew out of Codrington I went to PE in Salisbury, as it was in them days. I went by train from Lusaka to Bulawayo and then on to Salisbury. We always arrived in Bulawayo at breakfast time and can still taste the mixed grills! On the train we engaged in such pleasant pastimes as lemonade fights up and down the corridors - you know, with a bottle of lemonade well shaken, held upside down, and then squirted at your opponents. Such innocent pastimes...
The school trains always carried two teachers, one of each sex. I never came across any of them - they wisely kept to their own compartments!

Keep up the story telling....





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John and Beth
I think that we were a tame lot compared to our predecessors! I can't think of anyone bunking out at night except to spook the School PK bin carriers! What were they called then ? - something deeply unacceptable now a days I suspect!
While there were some modest romantic excitements, meeting girls at night, out of bounds, was surely something beyond our ken?

Who remembers Mrs Newham's Scottish dancing classes - Strip the Willow - Dashing White Sergeant and all the rest.
Then there was the extraordinary freedom of "Bob a Job Week" when boarders mixed with day boys and girls and went about the village meeting real people in their homes.

This School site has a reputation for being a bit more than a "hows it now" caching up session although that is good and dynamic too.

Can we record some of the oral history of an extraordinary, very temporary and now long gone era by posting our memories and exploring some of the more difficult issues.

I tried by being rather provocative - what about the rest of you? We lived in a very peculiar culture. Much of it can be justified - British Colonialism at least from the 1920s, had very many good points although all the younger generations would be amazed to hear anyone seriously attempting a defence of what they now regard as the indefensible.

There is a whole tradition of those School trains down South. The barricaded teachers, the essential off-license taxi dash in Bulawayo, the seductions or worse.
For some reason, someone's mother fell off the train and was found the next day walking along the track in a daze of some sort!
There was the kindly matron whose husband had been treed by buffaloes on the Kafue flats. It was a very small tree and every time he let his feet drop from the branches the buffaloes licked his legs. First the boots then his skin. Eventually after some days their abrasive tongues and desire for salt did for him.

There are lots more stories out there - lets have them?
Colin Carlin