A compelling personal account of living through the atrocities as Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, whilst bringing up a family on a farm amidst the chaos. As a trained nurse, newly married to the son of the Governor of Rhodesia during the UDI years, Susan writes compellingly about bringing up a family on their farm in Matabeleland in the midst of the unfolding terror and growing number of atrocities. Above all it is a human story. Sometimes shocking and always moving, there is also warmth and humour as Susan creates a gripping picture of the conflict and tells of her family’s survival when many of her friends and neighbouring farmers didn’t. The book is a testament to the courage displayed by so many people who were tested day after day by almost unimaginable horrors.
As a trained nurse, newly married to the son of the Governor of Rhodesia during the UDI years, Susan writes compellingly about bringing up a family on their farm in Matabeleland in the midst of the unfolding terror and growing number of atrocities. Above all it is a human story. Sometimes shocking and always moving, there is also warmth and humour as Susan creates a gripping picture of the conflict and tells of her family's survival when many of her friends and neighbouring farmers didn't. The book is a testament to the courage displayed by so many people who were tested day after day by almost unimaginable horrors. The Litany Bird is the popular name of the Nightjar, a largely nocturnal bird found throughout southern Africa. Its haunting call sounds like 'Good Lord, Deliver Us.'
Can You Hear the Drums is a unique collection of eye witness letters from Zimbabwe documenting the country's journey into lawlessness, turmoil and economic mayhem. Told through the eyes of an ordinary Mum living in a country town, this book is about what really happened in Zimbabwe at the start of the 21st Century. It's not about propaganda, rhetoric or revolutions but about real people: how they survived, endured, adapted and never gave up hope. Sometimes sad or frightening, often absurd and touching, the letters are interspersed with news clips, humour and absurdities that all became coping mechanisms for everyday survival in a country in meltdown. Can you Hear the Drums covers a five year period from 2000 to 2004.
Bwana Kakuli is the true story of a spoiled young woman who meets the man of her dreams and follows him to wildest Africa. Spanning over 70 years, it is a story of adventure, passion, humour, courage and of a deep love, for both her man and the wilds. Told in her own words, this book relates how difficult it must have been to adapt to this new life and to become subservient to a man like Kakuli. The humorous escapades with strange creatures, as well as the encounters with some of Africa's most dangerous animals, make this book well worth reading.
Sir John Herschel, one of the founders of Southern Hemisphere astronomy, was a man of extraordinarily wide interests. He made contributions to botany, geology, and ornithology, as well as to astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics. Throughout his scientific career he kept a diary, recording his public and private life. The diaries from 1834 to 1838, years he spent making astronomical observations at the Cape of Good Hope, are reproduced in this book and prove to be much more than an ordinary scientist’s logbook. They present personal and social history, literary commentaries, the results of close observations of nature and numerous scientific experiments, the excitement of travel, political intrigues, gossip, and philosophical reflections—all interpreted through an alert and versatile mind. In the present transcription, the material has been enriched with selected correspondence of Sir John and his wife Lady Herschel (née Margaret Brodie Stewart). Sir John devoted his working time at the Cape primarily to a systematic observation of the southern sky, complementing his earlier “sweeping” of the northern sky at Slough, England. He later became one of the founders of photography, but at the Cape he used a simple optical device, the camera lucida, in the production of numerous landscape drawings. Many of these, along with reproductions of sketches contained in the diaries and botanical drawings made by Sir John and Lady Herschel, are used to illustrate this book. Sir John was also a leading figure in the foundation of the educational system of the Cape and a supporter of exploratory expeditions into the interior. As the son of Sir William Herschel, in his day the most famous British astronomer and the discoverer of the planet Uranus, Sir John was already celebrated when he arrived from England. Every individual of note, resident at the Cape or visiting, went to see him. He was supported in his work by his wife, who ran an enormous establishment and bore a huge family, but who nevertheless found time to travel in the country around the western Cape with him and to assist in his observations. The diaries and letters are supplemented by especially valuable editorial notes that provide much needed and highly interesting information concerning persons and events mentioned and described by Sir John. All the original manuscript material used in this volume is archived at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Sir John’s camera lucida drawings are from the South African Public Library in Cape Town.
Another rip-roaring adventure from the pen of Terry Hayward. "Who Takes This Woman" sees the action beginning in a wedding in a chapel beside an African river with elephants as uninvited guests. The action then moves into a courtroom drama and a kidnapping but returns to the veld and to lions and crocodiles, all of which will keep you turning the pages. Jack Delaney and his sidekick, Mo Dhlamini (Shla-Mee-nee), prosecute both poachers and smugglers in the courts of law, but in their spare moments they track kidnappers and escaped prisoners from highrise cities through and across bushveldt of the "Big 5" Game Reserves. Visits to gang leaders in prison and clashes with mob hit-men are all part of their daily action. Now the mob are trying to take over, illegally if necessary, a Big 5 Game Reserve near an international border so it can be used as a staging post to smuggle wild animal parts and illicit diamonds out of the country and drugs back in. Mo and Jack must now do what they do best, and that is put a spoke in the bad guys’ proverbial wheel.
