TOTT 17 January 2019

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January 17, 2019
NO LONGER AROUND: The Central Private Hotel, which later made way for apartments
The golden old hotel era
In the heyday of Port
Alfred, circa the late
1800s/early 1900s, the
village was a magnet for
visitors.
Obviously, this did not
lessen, although with the
advent of the petrol-driven
motor car, and later the train,
visitors from Grahamstown, who
seemed to make up the bulk of
the tourists, were able to make
their visit to the sea for a day,
and then go home the same day.
SERENDIPITY
... with Bev Young
There was a plethora of
accommodation establishment –
somewhere in the region of 18,
in various guises.
A few offered a bed only,
while others advertised “evening
meal”, as an enrichment.
The enchantment,
as we look back
almost 200 years
later, is that there are
a few of these
buildings left in
e x i st e n c e .
Sadly, the Central Hotel was
demolished, making way for
modern apartments.
With a drive around the town,
one is able to, if you are wellinformed,
identify some of the
older establishments.
Pseudo warfare in the African bush
An insider’s look at conflict which created Zimbabwe
ROB KNOWLES
Local author Digby Pocock
revisits his life as a veteran of
the Rhodesian bush war that
ravaged the country, now
Zimbabwe, for 15 years from July
1964 to December 1979 and led to
the deaths of thousands of
soldiers and civilians. He gives an
honest account of his feelings
and challenges during the
conflict.
Born in the UK, Pocock’s father
was a mining engineer who
travelled broadly in the execution
of his duties, which accounts for
his sister being born in India and
his brother in South Africa.
Pocock grew up on a farm in
what was then southern Rhodesia
(now Chimanimani, Zimbabwe).
Assuming he was to be a farmer,
he attended the Royal
Agricultural College in
Cirencester in the UK before
returning to his family homestead
where he found that, through an
error of dosing in the cattle dip,
the animals were dying and the
farm was lost.
It was at this stage that then
Rhodesian prime minister Ian
Smith announced UDI (unilateral
declaration of independence),
and Pocock joined the British
South Africa Police.
It is clear from Pocock’s writing
that he, like many former
Rhodesians, was frustrated at
Britain’s reluctance to grant the
then Rhodesia independence as it
had already broken the federation
it had proposed between
Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe),
Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and
Nyasaland (Malawi) and granted
the other two countries
independence from the British
crown.
But frustration soon led to war,
with thousands of Cuban/Russian
trained operatives entering
Rhodesia and causing havoc even
before the civil war began.
The infiltrators, referred to as
terrs (terrorists), acted as agent
provocateurs and relied heavily
on the support of local citizenry
to ensure their safe passage from
bordering Mozambique and
elsewhere, and for their supply of
food and places to stay.
Po c o c k ’s rapid promotion in the
police, from new recruit – a lot
older than was usual – to his
appointment to special branch
and the criminal investigation
department was meteoric, but
this is not a standard story of
police investigative work. It is the
story of a police officer in the
throes of war, and is more likened
to the story of a soldier, a leader
and a man fiercely attempting to
make sense of an ultimately
destructive and senseless war
that claimed many lives and
poisoned the minds of the
indigenous people into
committing some horrific crimes.
Having been told that the army
would conduct “pseudo” raids on
“terrs” and their encampments,
Pocock shrugged off any criticism
of his actions and recruited his
own spies among the population
in an attempt to infiltrate the
enemy and forestall plans of
dest ruction.
Pocock writes from a first-hand
perspective, giving his views on
the situations he found himself
in. He does not hide his
frustration at some of the
decisions made by those higher
up in the hierarchy and his own
feelings toward the forces who
had invaded his land.
He takes matters into his own
hands and, by and large (aside
from a particularly nasty incident
where he was shot in the leg and
spent time in hospital) won the
day. He must have kept
meticulous records as he is able
to detail the exact number of
weapons, ammunition and other
items taken on these pseudo
raids. His description of the
fighting, usually under the cover
of darkness, shows the hostility
and very often the incompetence
of those he was fighting.
If you are a former Rhodesian
this book will no doubt bring
back memories of the bush war
and the very real suffering of
those involved. To a new
generation, it will highlight the
Book review: Rhodesian
Special Branch Pseudo
Warfare by Digby Pocock
thought processes of the
protagonists in a war that
ultimately led to the current
Zimbabwe.
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