The English press record our adventurous trip!

I  thought that, before I start the story of my life in Rhodesia,  I would include this newspaper cutting which was printed in the Evening Chronicle, the daily paper circulated in the Bath area in Somerset, shortly after our arrival in Salisbury.

As it is difficult to read, this is a reprint.

BATH MAN TELLS OF 8,000 MILES BY CAR TO AFRICA.

Elephant Gave Them Their Most Anxious Moment.

After a road journey of nearly 8,000 miles from Bath, Mr and Mrs Donald Beak, formerly of Fiveways Garage, Batheaston, and their two children are now settling down in Southern Rhodesia.

They went there the hard way, driving in their own Land Rover through France, across the Sahara and on through Africa, to start a new life in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia's capital.

Now they are making their home in a caravan which they had sent on to Southern Rhodesia by sea.  In their hotel just after their arrival Mr Beak said " We decided to emigrate because of the high taxation in England.  We chose Southern Rhodesia because we thought it would be the most pleasant of the places in the Commonwealth, to which we could go.

WIFE'S IDEA

"Going by road was my wife's idea.  We spent six months planning the trip and another six months getting ready.  We started off from Bath on Jan 22 - my wife Dulcie, our son David, aged 16 and our daughter Diane aged nine, and myself."

After crossing France they sailed on Jan 29 to Algiers.  "On Feb 3, we started what we expected would be the worst patch of the journey, the crossing of the Sahara.  It is waste land of every description - mountains and flats, sand and rock, with no sign of life of any kind.

"Actually it was not as bad as we had expected.  The road is a rough track, but it was negotiable for a vehicle like ours.

"We stopped every so often for water, which was available at wells; there was also petrol at pick up points.

"There is a certain amount of traffic across the desert.  Transport trucks supplying the desert villages make a series of patrols and the Foreign Legion forts keep in touch by radio, so travellers are not completely lost."

THE TRUE DESERT

"The true desert is the section between Tamanrasset and In Guezzam - 250 miles of soft sand.  We got across it in 10 hours and had to dig ourselves out only twice.  I got across by simply driving flat out.  For long stretches there was no road at all and we had to drive by compass.

"We stayed four days at the hotel in Kano.  Here £70 was stolen from my brief case in a hotel wardrobe.

"On the way to Fort Archambault we went through Bongor, the most primitive town we saw on our journey,  The natives wore literally no clothes and were still using the disc ornaments which they carry in the lips and ears.  Some were carrying bows and arrows. They were though very friendly and brought us a bowl of milk.  The roads here were fair, but there were many hazards. We crossed the rivers on primitive native ferries and once we had to make a big detour because a bridge had collapsed.

"Once a bridge collapsed under us and we could not get the car free until 60 or 70 natives had come to our rescue.

"We crossed the equator at 6,000 feet and had never felt so cold in our lives.  We did not have a 'crossing the line ceremony' because we were not quite sure where the line was."

After crossing the equator, the party had an experience which they will remember for the rest of their days.

"Driving along a narrow road we suddenly saw the hind quarters of an elephant - 15 feet away"  Mr Beak said.  "He turned around, blocked the road, flapped his ears and raised his trunk; it was an anxious moment. "He started to walk towards us.  We just banged into reverse gear and drove back 150 yards - and believe me, no car ever reversed so fast!

WADDLED OFF

"For 15 minutes the elephant stood and watched us.  We thought of all the stories we had heard about elephants in that part of the country over-turning cars.  Then the elephant rubbed his back on a tree, turned and waddled off.  We decided to make a dash for it.  We drove towards the spot where he had left the road - only to find him touching distance away.  We just scraped past him racing by so as to give him no time to do anything.  It worked - we didn't see any more of him."

Later they heard lions, and saw a leopard crossing the road at night.

OVER THE BORDER

When they crossed the border into Northern Rhodesia they felt they "were getting somewhere".  By now the miles to Salisbury had come down to 3 figures - all the way so far it had been four.

"We crossed the Zambezi into Southern Rhodesia at Chirundu and drove to Salisbury.  When we started the mileage on our speedometer was 5,160; when we arrived  we had clocked up to 12,896 - we had done 7,736 miles" Mr Beak said.

" We didn't have a puncture throughout the journey. We broke three springs, which we replaced, and we replaced a water pump gland; that was all the mechanical trouble we had.  To drive to Southern Rhodesia is a good trip for an engineer, but it's no ride for a novice.

"And Southern Rhodesia, well here we are now, living in our caravan at Coronation park, Salisbury;.  It looks fine - we like it very much.  I am going to get a job and look around" he added.

My Life Before Charente to be continued :-) 

 

The section of my life story during our overland trip is published on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

A Sale at Last

The later months of 1952 were, by now, flying by and there was still "No Sale" of the motor business, which was very disconcerting, to say the least of it.   Due to weather conditions through Africa, we needed to be away, at the latest, early in 1953, or the journey would be impossible for another twelve months. The annual rains would be starting and roads would be impassable, especially in the Congo.  The Sahara would be closed to all vehicles from June until October.   The ideal leaving time would be from November onwards, so we would arrive in Rhodesia before all the rivers were flooded by the heavy rains, and the floods in French Equatorial Africa would be receding.    We were more or less ready to move at any time, but with the business still like a millstone around our necks, we were getting more and more depressed.  However, Dad was not being idle and more changes to the vehicle were going ahead.   He bought a winch, to be fixed on the front of the Land Rover; this proved to be a  brilliant idea, as would later be proved!

The front of the Land Rover, showing the winch in position

December 1952 arrived; the business remained unsold and the thoughts were that we would have to suspend all plans for another twelve months, when an early Christmas present arrived on our door step!   A buyer appeared, he made a quick decision that this was exactly what he was looking for, and the sale we had all been waiting for was ready to go ahead.   We were quite happy just to take his money and go, but the powers-that-be unfortunately didn't work that quickly.   It was January before the sale even started to go through its official channels. Still with the hope that we would get away in time, we travelled by train to London, during the big smog,  to confirm with the Automobile Association (A.A.) that everything was in order and to check the clearance of the firearms we wished to carry.   The A.A. in turn passed us onto the French and Belgian Embassies.  The French informed us that it was quite in order to carry firearms; in fact they said there should be a law against trying to do the trip ahead of us without firearms - they thought them  a definite necessity!  Finally and happily, the business sale went through and the relief turned into great excitement!

Time in which to get under way was really running out and we consulted a well known travel agency to ask them to please proceed with getting all necessary travel documents and permits needed to cross the various territories.    Between the four of us, we had 72 forms and a great number of identity photographs.  The travel company, for whom we had nothing but praise, was incredible and everything was completed 'post haste'.    Telegrams were sent back and forth to the various consulates (no e-mail in those days!) to progress things as fast as possible. Then there were all the various innoculations; these included Yellow Fever, TAB and various vaccinations.   This caused several days of aches, misery and depression and we even began to wonder if it was all worth the effort.   This was quite short-lived and the sheer thought of what was ahead of us pushed the adrenalin to the fore.   We still had to arrange the shipping for the caravan, now we knew the date when we could 'move out'.   This proved to be fairly easy; we just had to have dates of loading and the final destination!  Everything we needed at the other end was packed into the caravan, so we could tow it to Southampton with us.   Our own transport, plus the shipping of the Land Rover, had to be arranged across the English Channel to Le Havre, then again from Marseilles to Algiers. We needed to have the dates all arranged to tie in with the delivery of the caravan.   This involved a lot of thought, as again weather conditions were a major factor in our lives.   Crossing to France at the end of January, we were unsure what the state of the roads would be (this was winter in 1953!!)  and the last thing we needed was to encounter snowdrifts and icy roads.  A Land Rover which now weighed three tons would not be easy to control on slippery roads.  As any farmer would tell you, the weather is really impossible to predict and it was a case of biting the bullet and just going!   We made our final bookings and the travel agency then commented that they thought they had been wasting their time and we would never get under way!   We never admitted to them that the same thought had crossed our minds a number of times!

The Land Rover with the 'pram back' closed, see previous post.

We stayed in a hotel in Bath for two nights, while we did the final packing of both caravan and Land Rover.   Our limited allowance of clothing and food which we would need for the journey was all wedged under the passenger seats.    For food, we had laid hands on as much concentrate as possible.  With help from a friend, who went to a lot of trouble, we obtained a good deal of American Army Ration food.  We also had a well packed medical kit, including such things as snake bite serum and other items unheard of in English first aid.   There was a camp bed for David, who was bravely planning on sleeping under the vehicle, cooking equipment, spades (a very necessary tool), sand mats and boards in case we should be unfortunate enough to get stuck.   As an afterthought, Dad also fitted a compass to the windscreen!

To be continued :-) 

I have put this section of my life story on Kindle if you should be interested:-

 

See

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/THE-GREAT-1953-TREK-ebook/dp/B008KK0KHU/ref=pd_ys_iyr1

After the War

I started my riding days early! Here I am aged 3 on my pony Meggy

I have only a few memories of my very young years.  I try  to  recall those times, but as I get older, the  process becomes more difficult!  After the war, my father who was an engineer, worked for a spell  at the Royal Air Force base in Colerne, a village about 10 miles east of Bath, Somerset. He wasn't there that long, as I remember, and he soon took over the running of Fiveways Garage, a petrol and service station in Batheaston, a suburb of Bath and on the  London Road just outside  the city.   The business was owned by my paternal grandparents Walter and Alexandra and at that time, in the early 1950's, in a good position to attract  passing motorists on the busy route to the capital.


Having driven past the garage site much more recently, I see that many things have changed; the old buildings have been completely demolished and a car showroom stands in its place. In the last 60 years, with the preference for motorway travel, the old, once busy main road to London, is now used for local travel only. With no passing trade, the petrol sales and service business became unecomonic.

Fiveways Garage -  London Road, Bath - about 1950

With my Dad's job at the garage now established, the family bought a house in Morris Lane, just around the corner from the garage.  It was a large and beautiful property  and my parents had the garden landscaped to include a small bridge over a fish pool at the back of the house. We had kennels under the back of the house where my Mum had a pair of St Bernard dogs, Bridget and Tony. I had a little Scottie dog called Judy, truly the large and the small of it! We also had a couple of stables in a field at the back of the house; my father owned a 17.2 hands high grey Irish hunter called Colonel Grey, while I had a small pony called Meggy, which the reader will have seen above. The pony was shared between David, my half-brother from my mother’s former marriage, and me, but he was never really that much interested in horses. My mother could ride, but never took it seriously. This introduction to horses and riding became a sport which assumed much greater importance for Dad and myself in later years.

Dad on Colonel Grey

Colonel Grey was a beautiful animal, but he had a very odd temperament and only my Dad ever had anything to do with him. If any of the rest of the family went near him, he adopted an "ears flat and teeth bared" attitude; thus I learnt at a very early age to have respect for not only an animal that I did not know, but in this case, one that I did know. 

One of my father’s best stories related to a time when he was asked ride Colonel Grey at the head of a fancy dress parade in the city of Bath.  Dad got all dressed up and went down to fetch Colonel Grey, who, presumably not recognising him, would not let him into the stable!  The end result was that he had to remove part of the fancy dress, mount Colonel Grey and then get redressed while on his back. 

At another time, I also had the privilege of being in a parade in Bath, riding Meggy and wearing a drummer-girl outfit with a top hat and tassel on my head. How proud I was of the outfit at the time!