Kris Massie's memories of Kitwe.
Part 16
We visited and played in numerous small and large towns and were also shown much of Scotland during our time there. On each coach trip we had an elderly lady who informed us of every inch of history, including the crumbling cairns and what they were when whole. In Aberdeen, our most northerly stopping off point, we attended a reception given by the Provost and I had to make my first speech of which there were many in the years that followed. The first is always a nerve wracking experience!
We also visited the magnificent Edinburgh Castle and found the centre of Edinburgh itself to be lovely with many preserved old buildings. Scotland is full of historical places - Stirling Castle in Stirlingshire was another, and my clear favourite of all on the west coast, Culzean [pronounced ‘kul-lain’] Castle on the Ayrshire coast, built to perch on a cliff top. Dwight Eisenhower stayed there four times where there are still mementoes in ‘his’ suite. The outside quad has cannon still in situ and from there one could peer over the wall and watch wave after wave crash on the rocks. We also visited the Trossachs, a woodland glen not far from Loch Lomond. It was autumn in the Northern Hemisphere and we were awed by the wonderful leaf colours.
All in all we won some of our tour games but lost more due to our lack of international experience. Many of the latter (apart from South Africa) had difficulty in raising teams as hockey vied with tennis, netball and softball. We were of course not permitted to play against South Africa, still in the throes of apartheid and banned from any contact.
I had sadly to give up playing at the end of 1972 because I developed problems with disc lesion in my neck – perhaps the aftermath of the ‘shock wave’ from the diving board mishap. I was instructed by a consultant at Nkana Hospital that to continue playing would lead me to life in a wheelchair in five years.
What a sentence and devastating blow. I had to take it on the chin and appeased my disappointment being unable to stay away and umpired for a while.
During one of the games the girl in the back position constantly interrupted me saying 'did you see that …' in the end I blew the whistle, walked over to her, held out my whistle and said' perhaps you would like to umpire instead …' she kept quiet after this!
Birthday parties for our and the neighbours children were a whizz! No matter what games were organised for them, they played their own and this allowed the invited mothers to have a good natter round the teapot!
Needless to say from the 70’s we suffered a lack of the basic commodities, sugar, salt, butter, flour, cheese etc and kept our eyes and ears open plus contact with the ‘grape vine’ for the imported arrivals. There would incur a mad dash to whichever town or shop had a delivery. Mufulira was the town most likely to stock up on where an Asian Trader never let us down!
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