Picture from mum's notebook.
I would like here, to tell you a little bit about our Charles - a little, very black man we found in Salisbury whilst living in a private guest house, where he was employed as a waiter. The relationship and friendship we shared with Charles is very common throughout Rhodesia between Europeans and their servants. His proper name was Kaparza, and someone long before us had christened him Charles. Many of them had European names or silly names like sixpence, porridge, tickey (for the small ones, which is the nickname for a threepenny bit) and sometimes names made up by themselves, sometimes an employer with a juvenile sense of humour! We had no idea what Charles would be like as a houseboy, as our only experience of him was as a waiter, but we liked him and felt sorry for him as he was so very often scolded by the over houseboy for not setting the tables properly, that in the end the landlady of the guest house decided to fire him. We told him we were going back to Bulawayo to live and would he like to come along and be our houseboy and he was very happy to do so. He turned out to be a very good servant in every way and a faithful one, remaining with us through all our various transfers during the time we lived in Rhodesia and Zambia, and he was most unhappy when we left him behind when we travelled to Denmark to live in 1956. Charles was with us for over four years.
Charles and Esther (nanny) carrying Anne-Marie
There are many families in Rhodesia who have servants in their employ who have been with them for 10, 20 years or all their lives, and they stay out of choice, not because they are slaves and have to, and many of these servants are fond of their white employers and take a keen interest in the happenings within the family. One of our old servants appeared out of nowhere after many years absence, to tell my mother how sad he was when my brother was killed in an accident. He also comes at irregular intervals to hear news about the family and to get a shilling from my mother to buy 'kaffir beer' which was his main weakness and in the end, the reason for his dismissal as houseboy! We were just as fond of Charles as he was of us, I think, and every month when we paid him his salary we kept some of it back, as he could not save, (gambling was his weakness!) and he very much wanted to have some money put by, so that one day he could buy a wife. When we left for Denmark in 1956, we had saved over £30.- for him to buy a wife! He could not hope to get a good young wife for that price, but net best, one that had been returned to her family for one reason or the other, like maybe her previous husband had not kept up his payments on her! Charles was not only a very good houseboy, but also a clever cook, and although he could never read a recipe out of a book, he could always remember how to make something once he had been told or shown how. He did not like me messing about in the kitchen which was his undisputed domain, and if I tried making a cake or dessert, he would mutter and say "I make, I make, Madam" - my presence was definitely requested out of the kitchen! Charles had his own funny little ways. For instance, we once had 'sundowner' guests and they had stayed too long, in his estimation, as sundowners usually only last from about 5.30pm to after 7.00pm sometime - he would simply ring the dinner bell at the appropriate time this causing the guests to rise and say 'oh well, dinner-time - we'd better be on our way' which is exactly what Charles had intended them to do!
Charles was always clean and neat, dressed for work in a white khaki drill suit and a white apron over this. When we had guests for dinner, he added a bright red fez on his head. This business of being clean had its drawbacks too, as one day my husband came back home unexpectedly whilst I was at work, and traced a certain unusual smell to our kitchen. In the oven, he found a pair of newly cleaned sand-shoes, drying out in readiness for the evening when we expected guests for dinner and our roast was to follow the shoes in the oven!! Poor Charles, he could not understand why he warranted a telling off for this, as he was only preparing to be a shining white and clean waiter for the evening for the expected guests! Catholics, I believe, pray to St Anthony when they cannot find things... we just asked our Charles as he could always find lost or misplaced items! He had full charge of the house whilst i was away at work all day. Like most humans, Charles had his weaknesses - his were drinking occasionally and gambling whenever he could get away with it! However, these were mainly indulged in on Sunday afternoons when he, like most other African servants were free from after lunch until breakfast on Monday mornings, and we felt it was not right to interfere.He gathered with his friends in their favourite places to drink, talk, gamble and just be together. Sunday evenings were, and still are, I am told, a noisy and busy time for the police, keeping order after these somewhat boisterous gatherings! Monday usually finds them sadder but wiser, though mostly without much trace of their free afternoon and evening showing.
Another picture from the notebook.
Next: More about Charles...
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