A house on the Gaika Mine
Fun and Games on the Gaika
Living on the Gaika Mine was almost as good a living on a farm. There were so many places to discover. First there was the scrap yard behind the houses with all the old mining machinery and equipment to rummage through wondering what it had all been used for in its day. Obviously, boys having imaginations fuelled by the comics they swapped gave them plenty of opportunity to convert old water tanks into forts or army tanks.
Fun and Games on the Gaika
Like the Globe and Phoenix Mine, the kopjes surrounding the Gaika Mine were honeycombed with ancient mine workings and derelict mine shafts with treacherous holes which Keith Keitzmann and his friends threw stones down to hear them splash far down in the dark. These tunnels were also home to creepy crawlies but the biggest fright Keith remembers was the time they disturbed a big owl that flew straight at them.
After a while they lost interest in deep dark holes and turned to the glare of the mine dumps. They were out of bounds. Robbie Mawdsley’s brother had suffocated there when a tunnel he and his friends dug collapsed. Keith and his friends were careful to stay off that particular dump: it was softer, more sandy, closer to the mine and next to the road and the mine offices.
The dumps were of different ages, each had it’s own character. Some were still being built up by the mine sludge, some were very old and withered by the rain with deep gullies and lots of places to hide and live out their dreams as cowboys and Indians or Foreign Legionnaires in the Sahara. Gavin James and his brother from the Roasting Plant (just over the railway line) Ken Nicholson, Dolf and Les Landman, Trevor Bowden, Morris and Clive Menhenick and many more joined in the fun. The dumps held many attractions, from riding up and down (pre BMX riders) to hopping onto bits of corrugated iron and tobogganing down the slopes.
The dumps kept their interest for many years until the swimming pool and the pinball machines at the café caught their attention. But that’s another story…
Many thanks to Keith Keitzman of New Zealand for a copy of the painting by Patricia Turney given him by Dolf Landman for his 50th birthday (many moons ago!) and all the memories.
21 Comments
betty
August 3, 2012So much more fun to do things that were forbidden! Sounds like a wonderful and secret playground for all kinds of imaginings….as usual, your descriptions “take me there.” I would have loved to had the experience with the owl….we have two, who mated right in front of us, while we were taking an early evening walk……
It is amazing that you have so many people contributing to your memories with facts and names….you must have email coming constantly from all your old chums!
Diana
August 3, 2012Betty, The blog has taken on a bigger dimension, embracing the whole community we knew, and is so much richer for it.
Maureen Paine
August 3, 2012Edward Mawdsley was in the same class as me and I remember well when he was suffocated – two boys were digging tunnels in the mine dump and the tunnel collapsed. The other boy ran for help but, sadly, it was too late for Edward. This happened soon after QQJS opened.
Diana
August 3, 2012Maureen, Strange how freak accidents run together, what a tragedy that was, as well as the electrocution in the school’s first year.
Barbara Kaulback nee Robertson
August 6, 2012Sue Bath and I decided to test our nerves by bicycling straight down the side of the big dump. After several minutes of questioning our resolve to be as brave as the ‘boys’, Sue pushed on the pedals with me sitting on the carrier. It was a painful and terrifying experiment and (call me a wimp!) never to be repeated!!!
Keith, do you remember how we all loved listening to your ‘Little Richard’ records?
Diana
August 10, 2012Barbara, I must admit to being a wimp too!
Keith
January 20, 2014Hi Barbara, Oh yes!!! Little Richard was the centre of a hate campaign with parents. Ha Ha!!! It was such fun those days. All a big adventure.
XXX
Keith
Penny Nicholson Erasmus
August 8, 2012My dad was mine manager of the Gaika Mine for 10 years and I was born in 1969 and lived on the mine until about 1976. My dads name was John Nicholson, better known as Nick and his brother was Ken Nicholson mentioned in this article. Do you have any pictures of the main Mine managers house?
Diana
August 10, 2012Penny, I am publishing a pen and ink drawing of the mine managers house this morning. I don’t have a photo of it. Perhaps one will come to light following this blog.
Kim Candy
November 26, 2012Those large white mine dumps were very intimidating, as a child I was terrified of them as my dear mom (Patricia Nicholson) always told us about the boy who had suffocated, we thought she was just putting the fear into us but I see now it was very true.
The Gaika mine was our playground as children we always had to be aware of the deep shafts that were everywhere we would throw rocks and never hear them drop!
We also had 31 steps going up the back of house which we thought was pretty entertaining and spent hours playing on them…
My older brother Kevin and younger brother Neill set out to make a tree house, Kevin sending Neil up the tree to place the blank for the foundation and of course accident prone as Neill was he fell out of the tree luckily he fell forward as the back side was a sheer drop with yet another shaft to the side of it..My poor mother !
Diana
November 27, 2012Kim, Yes, our games were pretty simple then, but kept us outdoors from dawn to dusk. Imagine what US Environmental Safety would say and do about the open mine shafts! But I dont believe anyone actually fell down one. We never had a tree house but I had a wonderful Wendy-house at the bottom of our G and P mine house and my Mom brought us Mazoe Orange and Marie biscuits slathered with butter and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. We rode our bikes everywhere.
Leigh Toselli
January 21, 2014Loved this read – very visual takes me back to a childhood holiday in Kamativi, Rhodesia with Joe Nolan!!
Diana
January 21, 2014Leigh, glad you have enjoyed the memories Keith shared and they ring true to the Rhodesian mining experience.
sue knight
January 21, 2014I remember visiting the Gaika Mine manager’s house when an old lady called Mrs Vowles lived there. I do not remember any more about her except I think her husband had been the mine manager. She gave us a copy of a
biography of Lawrence of Arabia signed by him.
Diana
January 21, 2014Sue, yes, Mr Vowels was the mine manager of the Gaika in the 50’s. Wonderful gift! I hope you still have the book. I’m sure there is a good story behind it.
Lilian Robinson (Phillips)
March 19, 2015Through a second cousin, Ian Phillips, I have come upon Diana`s blog and am so interested. I was born in Selukwe in 1930 and came to QQ when I was 6 months old. My dad, known as Hippo Phillips, worked on the Gaika Mine and later on at the FRoasting Plant. After school at the Gwelo Convent I worked for the Municipality and for a few years at Gaika Mine. W.G. Vowles was the Manager and Mrs. Vowles would send little notes down to the office, mere scraps of paper, and I remember the house. For some years in the 30`s and 40`s we lived in a house which had been the Mine Club and this was close to the Mine Mill and I had a wonderful free time cycling round the Mine.
Diana
April 4, 2015Lillian, yes those were the days of frugality…my mother also wrote notes on scraps of paper, saved bits of string and wrapped things in newspaper. We did have wonderfully free lives on our bikes. Enjoy the memories.
Lynn Fowler Bell
November 18, 2014I had forgotten those names and Robin Mawdsley brother’s accident. I lived on the Roasting Plant with Bert and Babs Arnott for a while as my parents were building a house outside Que Que. Do you know what happened to Gabby Turnbull? I presume he carried on teaching forever.
Diana
November 20, 2014Gabby of course died many years ago. There’s discussion of him in the school blogs I posted some time ago. So glad you are enjoying browsing the stories.
Diana
Lilian Robinson (Phillips)
March 19, 2015Diana – Wonderful to read about you and many others – I am 84 and only left Zim in 2010 – my parents spent a few years in Greenham Avenue , next door to the Woods, I remember when Len Wood got married!! Also the Royal visit and of course your dear father. In 1953 I was working for the Bulawayo Board of Executors when I was asked if I would like to man the Que Que stand in the Hall of Cities. a This was the superb Exhibition put on in Bulawayo for three months. I can`t remember what it was called, perhaps the Rhodes Centenary Ex. or the Central African Ex? Wish I had kept pictures and pamphlets. The Queen Mother and Princess Margaret visited us and the Royal London Ballet and Covent Garden Opera performed. A very familiar name from the past Alice Bradley. My love to her.
Diana
April 4, 2015Lilian, I have been searching for someone who remembers the Central African Rhodes Centenary Exhibition. I’ve got the officical catalogue and guide but would love to have some anecdotes for book 2…what do you remember of the Que Que stand or personal incidents that happened?
Leave A Response