A Small Slice of Rhodesian Pie.

#2

A little bit about old Len ,

an RAF Pilot who flew Spitfires during

The Second World War.

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Monday, 20th. August 2012

Our daughter has worked for many years for a lady by the name of
Katy, who runs her business from a lovely old farmhouse not too far
from our own home. Maintenance of big, old houses here in Britain
requires effort, as is the way of any large property which needs to be
kept smart and in a tidy and presentable condition.
Sooner or later, I was introduced to Katy, to see if I could make any
contribution to the upkeep of the premises. After pointing out that I
was getting a bit too rickety for such activities, (thanks to the
passage of time,) it was agreed that I would do whatever I could, and
dodge anything that looked more than just a little bit too
strenuous................ what more can an old man ask for?
On my first day at work, I was introduced to Katys father, Len. He
was sitting out in the garden and I was immediately invited to join
him for a cup of tea. We exchanged greetings and almost immediately
the old gentleman, now well into his eighties, asked, Are you from
Rhodesia?
He had picked out my unique accent which must presumably go
with all old Rhodesians, to the grave? Probably our children, born in
exile, will be able to assume the accents of their various adopted
lands, but for old dogs the learning of new tricks can prove to be
a bit of a challenge.

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Upon the confirmation of Lens suspicions regarding my bona-fides
he pointed out that he had travelled over the Victoria Falls Bridge in
the distant past...............and so we got chatting!
It turned out that he had joined the Royal Air Force during the Second
World War and had spent some time training at Thornhill Aerodrome
near Gwelo, in Southern Rhodesia and at another airfield whose name
he could not remember. Well, this got us both wound up for we
now had a common thread to lead us both back to the past! Well
motivated old men do not just dream dreams, but also have the
uncanny knack of resurrecting more successfully, stories from long
ago years than stories from just yesterday!
Having been born in Gwelo and bred in the Tokwe which was
reached via that grand mining metropolis Lalapanzi, I had made my
first ever journey home, right past Thornhill some sixty-five years ago
which would have been about four or five years after Len had been
barrelling around the skies of the Midlands learning how to fly, in
perhaps, a Harvard?
I told him how an RAF training flight had made a forced landing in
one of my fathers hayfields some sixty miles from Gwelo, during the
war and how subsequent clandestine visits were carried out for less
urgent reasons by other training flights until the C.O. at Thornhill
found out what was up, and banned such activity!
During subsequent discussions we tried to establish where else he had
been stationed during his training and I rattled off the names of any
airfields I could remember. Eventually Len found, with remarkable
ease, after a mere seventy odd years, his log-book which indicated
that he had also spent time at an airfield known as Induna, near

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Bulawayo, so that cleared that one up quite easily! I think Len had
really fond memories of his stay in Rhodesia, and when I asked him
about the fact that he had travelled over the bridge across the Zambezi
River at the Victoria Falls, he told me how he had gone from
Southern Rhodesia to North Africa to carry out his newly acquired
skills and duties as a Spitfire Pilot!
One might reasonably have expected a rail trip to Beira in
Mocambique, followed by a sea trip to Egypt, but Lens group went
overland in a sort of Cape to Cairo adventure which in itself would
have gained him entry to a fairly unique club! I doubt that you would
need many hands to count the number of people who have
successfully carried out that particular odyssey! It has always
seemed to me to be a great shame that Cecil Rhodes vision of a Cape
to Cairo railway never came to much. Better still, in this day and age,
I wonder if a properly built highway going all the way, would not be a
great catalyst for trade and tourism. (Africas numerous potholes
and other peculiarities, excepted, of course!)
Anyway, the group apparently went by rail as far as the line went in
Northern Rhodesia and then on Lorries to the southern end of Lake
Victoria. Then by boat to the northern end of the lake and back onto
Lorries all the way North to Cairo. A great adventure in itself, and
which took a couple of months to complete!
We never got round to any detailed discussion about his flying career.
Safe to say that flying Spitfires in North Africa and Italy would not
have been boring or mundane, but he survived and returned to
England in due course. Now he settled down to farming, got married
and raised a family.

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Len passed away peacefully the other day and my daughter and I
attended his funeral in a little English village churchyard. Afterwards,
we went back to the farm for a gathering to celebrate his long and
happy life.
Katys partner, Neville, had however organised a rather special event,
not usually experienced at funerals! Just before three oclock, and
under a clear blue sky, we all assembled out in the garden, peering up
at the sky. In the near distance there was soon a small plane circling, a
Spitfire no less! And at three oclock, on the dot it made the first of
three or four passes in salute of an old veteran, and a splendid sendoff for one of what must be one of our last World War Two fighter
pilots.
With just a little bit of imagination, is it safe I wonder, to speculate as
to whether Len has rejoined his Squadron?

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I took several photos of the plane as it barrelled overhead. This did
not work well, I have to admit! The various images look more like a
sparrow scooting along five hundred yards away, instead of one of
historys most famous planes, so I lifted the photo above from
elsewhere, to do better justice to the plane, and Lens Memory

Then, from the dim and distant past, I remembered that there was a
Spitfire mounted on a plinth at the main entrance to the Thornhill
Aerodrome, right alongside the main road which led to our family
ranch, once called home.
A little research quickly found a respectable photo of the very plane I
remembered. Once again, with a little imagination, its quite possible
that Len could have mastered the art of piloting a Spitfire in that very
aircraft, all of seventy years ago!

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And, for good measure, just to plump up the story a little, a picture
of the bridge over the Zambezi at the Victoria Falls, over which the
convoy would have passed on its way to North Africa, and a copy of a
letter sent by the Commanding Officer of Moffat R. A. F. Station near
Gwelo, to my grandfather.

When the plane mentioned earlier, made a forced landing in a field

next to the homestead at Rio, it took a week for the news to get back
to Gwelo and for a rescue party to arrive to repair and recover the
plane. Those who had been on board the doomed aircraft enjoyed
the hospitality of my grandparents, to the extent that for a while, quite
a few unscheduled/unauthorised landings took place at Rio. My father
was of the opinion that Grandmas home cooking probably beat that
of an air force mess and the strong Scots accents of both my
grandparents reminded the young British lads of home too, bearing
in mind that they were in a strange land thousands of miles from the

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familiarity of Britain...............the rescue party also dawdled with

repairs, wisely making sure that everything was carefully repaired,
checked and re-checked!
Its true
then............................A break is as good as a holiday!

The hay-field.

We remember them all!