Berth Control, a Delivery and Deliverance

One of Edgar Whitehead's last efforts as the Acting High Commissioner of Rhodesia House in London was to try and set up an organization to vet immigrants.

Berth Control, a Delivery and Deliverance
Churchill and the Conservatives lost the election after the war. The newly elected Labor Party launched a war against dockworkers. Troops worked as scabs during the dock strike in Liverpool which delayed Edgars departure for Cape Town.

It was Government policy to give priority to Rhodesian Servicemen and their dependents returning home for the limited shipping space available. However, there was no proper machinery for giving second priority to key immigrants urgently needed. Rhodesia House was flooded with applications. Many were unsuitable and a few undesirable. But they had insufficient staff to vet them. Edgar wrote a lengthy report to Huggins on the problem suggesting action which ultimately led to the setting up of what became known as the 'Berth Control Committee!'

Whale meat from Iceland and Norway and canned South African snoek had failed to gain popularity with the British public despite severe rationing, shortages, scarcity, controls and austerity during the war. Much to the public's anger, the shortages increased and persisted for years after the war ended. Edgar's very last official function was to present a gift from Rhodesia's farmers of one hundred tons of beef to the British Government.

The British Minister made a fulsome speech of gratitude.

Edgar could not resist saying in his reply, "You know if we were to do this again in ten years time you would accuse us of dumping."

The High Commissioner returned from his four month leave the first week of July, 1945. Edgar handed over to him at once. Edgar was given a terrific party dubbing him the 'liberated High Commissioner'.

The Conservative Party and Churchill, in particular, who had seen Britain through it's 'darkest hour' were defeated in the election that early July. The Labor Party's landslide victory was a surprise, which should have alerted Edgar to the reception he might expect as a returning Serviceman to Rhodesia.

Edgar said goodbye to relatives and friends before he boarded the train for Liverpool. There his departure was delayed two days by the dock strike, but finally, with only half the cargo loaded, he embarked for Cape Town and his beloved farm Witchwood on 14th July 1945.


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The historical novel Whitewashed Jacarandas and its sequel Full of Possibilities are both available on Amazon as paperbacks and eBooks.

These books are inspired by Diana's family's experiences in small town Southern Rhodesia after WWII.

Dr. Sunny Rubenstein and his Gentile wife, Mavourneen, along with various town characters lay bare the racial arrogance of the times, paternalistic idealism, Zionist fervor and anti-Semitism, the proper place of a wife, modernization versus hard-won ways of doing things, and treatment of endemic disease versus investment in public health. It's a roller coaster read.