Chidikamwedzi; the Valley of the Moon: An African Childhood

In the late 1930s, Ian and Katherine Hammond returned home from seven years working as a surveyor in the jungles of Sarawak (Borneo).  ‘Home’ was the colony of Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe and it was here that they were reunited with their young children Anne and JJ.

Skinny’s passion was the land, and he was able to purchase a tract of virgin bush reserved by the colonial government for white settlers. He would settle it with his family and develop a tobacco farm.

It was at this point that Anne and JJ’s adventure was to start. Everything needed for the farm was loaded onto a large dray drawn by a team of oxen, and the family set off down the track that led out from the settled areas. After fording the drift, they travelled all day through the bush, to camp that night under the small kopje that marked their new land. Their first months were spent in the open as the farm buildings were constructed around them...

Anne remembers her childhood adventure with great clarity and shares it with us.