CANON
JOHN ADAMS
was
born in Blackheath, London in 1929. He was the eldest of 3 children,
with a younger sister and brother, Sally and David. Six months
before the war in 1939, his parents Ronald and Sheila decided to
move out to Bulawayo, Southern Rhodesia, as his father had been
offered a job and they had had reports of the good education and
weather there.
He
worked for 5 years (from 1956 to January 1961) as assistant priest
at St Margaret's Church, where he also became involved with the
Brooking and Birnie families in North End and the Merchant family
in Queens Park. He spent most of his working life in Southern Rhodesia,
through the Federation, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe.
After
a three-year stint in London he married Brenda and took her back
to Rhodesia, where sadly she died 5½ years later. Because Brenda
had had open-heart surgery, he took Bishop Burrough's suggestion
to go back through USPG; they might have been able to expedite
her return if her health deteriorated.
He
explained that 20 to 25 years ago the Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel (SPG) and the Universities Mission to Central Africa
(UMCA) had united to form the United Society for the Propagation
of the Gospel (USPG). The UMCA was formed as a result of David
Livingstone preaching to Cambridge University about the slave trade
in East Africa. It started with a direct assault on 'Nyasaland',
and the first bishop, Charles McKenzie who went up the Shire River
with Livingstone, died there. Later, on the same trip, in 1862,
Mary Livingstone died and was buried at Shupanga, Mocambique.
John
retired to England five years ago and is living in a retired clergy
flat in Lingfield, Surrey.
Click
on John's button to find out more about aspects of his
life in Rhodesia.
ALISON
BODILLY (née Brooking)
was
born in Blantyre, Nyasaland in 1938, and lived there until she
was 6 years old, when her parents, Leslie and Ruth Brooking moved
to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia. Her father was transferred there
by his employer, Barclays Bank. She has 3 sisters and 1 brother,
Janet, Faith, Roger and Marjorie, all younger than herself. She
was educated first in Blantyre, briefly in Pietermaritzburg, South
Africa, and then Bulawayo, at Baines Junior and Evelyn Senior Schools.
She
decided to train as a teacher at Grahamstown Training College,
South Africa, where she spent 3 years after senior school. She
specialised in her third year as an infant school teacher and her
friend Margaret qualified in domestic science.
After
returning to Southern Rhodesia, she taught for a year in Bulawayo,
before getting married and sailing with her English husband to
the United Kingdom.
Click
on Alison's button to find out more about aspects of her life
in Rhodesia.
CELIA
ROWELL (née Merchant)
was
born in Farnham Common, Buckinghamshire in 1945. She has an older
sister, Eve. Her parents, Eddie and Winifred Merchant, disillusioned
with England after the war, went out to live and work in Bulawayo,
Southern Rhodesia in 1951, where they lived and worked for 10 years.
To encourage new colonists their fares were paid by her father's
employer the Bulawayo Chronicle. He went first, followed later
by the family. Celia (aged 5) remembers the boat trip out with
mixed feelings, but loved the long train journey from Cape Town
to Bulawayo.
Celia's
family left Rhodesia in 1961, partly because the situation was
deteriorating, with riots in the Industrial Estate in Bulawayo
and the Mau Mau problem in Kenya. She also found out years later
that her mother had cancer and wanted to be operated on in England.
Her father left a year before her mother and herself to find work
and a home in England, where Eve was already studying.
Click
on Celia's button to find out more about aspects of her life
in Rhodesia.
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