Harmony and Discord in Africa: Memories of Childhood in Southern Rhodesia

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In 1949, newlyweds Tom and Angela Huleatt-James left war-torn Europe for a new life in Africa. Fleeing the grey skies of post-war Britain, they were attracted to the idea of farming in Southern Rhodesia and determined to work there for a better future. In this book, their son Mark tells the story of their adventures in Africa and his childhood and education in Southern Rhodesia. This was the time when European hegemony in the area was at its zenith. The difficult years of the Great Depression and World War II were over and an agricultural and commodities boom was under way. Mark Huleatt-James details his memories of being a young child in this period - from a love of wildlife to the social life enjoyed by Europeans at the time.

Reviews

'This is an important work. It is a gentle, humorous memoir of an idyllic coming of age in post- World War II Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) and is also a poignant tribute to a vanished age of family and community. But it is also a reminder of white settlerism's last gleaming before the pent-up grievances of the repressed African majority would lead to armed conflict and, ultimately, majority rule. The core of the work lies in the author's remembrance of things past; but his juxtaposition of the past and present lifts the book from being just another slice of Rhodesiana.' Knox Chitiyo, Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and Chair of the Britain Zimbabwe Society

Author Bio

Mark Huleatt-James was a solicitor and partner in a City of London law firm until his retirement in 2009. He was born in 1950 in what was then Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia and lived in Africa until 1972. He is a director of ILFA, a charitable organisation set up for the purpose of building legal excellence in Africa.