Shadows Of Flight

Richard Jenkins

Description

After eight years as a pilot in the Royal Navy flying jet aircraft from the decks of aircraft carriers, the writer moved to a new challenge---that of starting a farm in the wilds of the African bush in Northern Rhodesia. After nearly twenty years as a successful farmer growing tobacco and maize and ranching some four hundred cattle on an adjoining farm the "Winds of Change" forced him to return to the flying world. Starting as a "Charter pilot" in Zambia he ended his career flying and teaching pilots in the BAC 1-11 aircraft in Cyprus.

Sujets

• Lettres et linguistique

Informations

• Publié par: Book Venture Publishing LLC
• Date de parution: 19 juin 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781641661393
• Langue: English

Extrait

Copyright © 2017 by Richard Jenkins.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
 
BookVenture Publishing LLC
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Ishpeming MI 49849
www.bookventure.com
Hotline:
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Ordering Information:
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
 
Printed in the United States of America.
 
Library of Congress Control Number
2018942546
ISBN-13:
Softcover
978-1-64166-137-9
Pdf
978-1-64166-138-6
…Pub
978-1-64166-139-3
Kindle
978-1-64166-140-9
 
Rev. date: 02/17/2017

 
My book is dedicated to the person who shared many of my experiences and who was married to me for 52 years. Not many ladies would have been prepared to leave a quiet life as a Wren officer and travel to the wild African bush miles from anywhere with snakes instead of shops. Sally was one of a kind and raised two wonderful children now established in their own successful lives in England. So this dedication is to Sally and all those others who shared part of their lives with us.
Contents
Acknowledgements  
Preface  
Chapter 1: The Early Years  
Chapter 2: The Royal Navy  
Flying training  
First deck landings  
Wedding  
Chapter 3: Farming in Africa  
Getting There  
Premier Estate Umtali  
Getting Started  
Spring  
Summer  
Chapter 4: The Black north  
First Look at Mkushi  
Wendy Ann Arrives  
Foundations  
First Crop  
Ian Richard Arrives  
Strike  
Chapter 5: Independence  
Winds of change over Mkushi  
Burglary  
Chapter 6: Charlie Romeo  
Chapter 7: Cattle Farm  
Stormy Weather  
Chapter 8: Presidential Visit  
Trip to England  
Weddings  
Chapter 9: Border Closure  
Chapter 10: Leaving the farm  
Chapter 11: Interlude Charter Flying  
Chapter 12: Leaving Zambia  
Chapter 13: Malawi  
Holiday in America  
Unexpected letter  
Chapter 14: Cyprus  
The Himalayas  
Chapter 15: Retirement  
Author Biography  

 
After eight years of short service commission in the Royal Navy, which ended flying the latest supersonic jet fighter from the deck of an aircraft carrier, the writer moved to a new challenge, that of starting a farm in the wilds of the African bush in northern Rhodesia, or the dreaded Black North. After nearly twenty years as a successful farmer, growing tobacco and maize whilst ranching cattle on an adjoining farm, he returned to the commercial flying world as a charter pilot. He ended his career as an airline training captain, flying BAC 1-11 aircraft around the sunny Mediterranean.
This is the story of an ordinary individual named Richard Jenkins, whose philosophy in life is that “with God’s help, anyone can do anything.” This philosophy stood him in good stead throughout his life, whether being catapulted from aircraft carriers, bracing against the “winds of change” blowing over the farming area of Mkushi in the newly independent African state of Zambia, or trekking up to eighteen thousand feet in the Himalayas.
This book, written in an easy descriptive style, takes the reader on a long, unusual, and fascinating story of his experiences, which have not ended yet.

Acknowledgements  
When I started writing this book, I could not type. I called on several people to assist me. Sally my wife naturally came in for typing more than her fair share, at which time I was getting grammar corrections and suggestions from Betty Turner. I went further afield to Lynda Jones, who offered to help out when Sally could not spare time for typing, and I asked her to make constructive criticisms at the same time. She found my story to be interesting enough to ask for more and more information to be added, where I had thought to gloss over much of the present story and just concentrate on our years in Africa. As a result, I started again from the beginning, making the book the story of my life … an autobiography. So I have Lynda to thank for the extended book with which I have ended up.
Finally, my sister Joan came up trumps and typed the manuscript on her computer for me, taking some ninety-four hours of steady typing.
Without the help of these four ladies this book would never have got off the ground, and I am extremely grateful to them all and hope they enjoy the final article in which they played their part.
 
Richard

Preface  
Lania-Cyprus, July 1996
I n the cool of the morning, sitting at a table in the courtyard of a village cottage in Lania, I set pen to paper, inspired to paint a verbal picture of some of the interesting events of my life and of some of the people I have been pleased to call my friends during the last sixty years.
I have two good reasons for doing this, although I know it will be hard work. Firstly, having spent thirty years in Africa, much of my story will be of that fascinating country, which was feeling the “winds of change” from colonial rule to that of a newly independent African state. At the time, I was young and energetic, as ignorant as youth can be but unaware of that ignorance, as confidence in myself and my ability took pride of place. I was newly married to an equally dynamic, intelligent, and lovely young woman, keen to see me working near home rather than flying away for days at a time with a large airline. So we bravely set out to make our lives in the raw African bush, starting a farm from a piece of Africa that had probably never been farmed before.
We made many friends there who have remained loving friends to this day, the sort with whom you are immediately at ease should you call on them unexpectedly after many years of absence. Many of those friends would like some small written record of what went on in our farming area of Mkushi, and as I have the information, gleaned from a box file of letters written to my parents over those years, and I have the time and inclination to attempt this story, what better reason could I have?
In fact, I have another reason, which may be better.
Family history is in the main confined to the compilation of family trees and tracing back through church registers to names of the long distant past. Unless you happen across a well-known name about whom some historical facts are known or a story has been written, nothing further is likely to be discovered about that person. My father was probably an interesting man in his own way, having been in Cambrai, France, in the First World War at the age of sixteen, whilst in the Second World War, he was at Imphal in Burma when it was cut off by the Japs. But my father was not a communicative man – a family trait I fear – and as I was on the threshold of my life, with little time to waste on past years, the result was that I learned little of interest of a salient part of my father’s life. What of my grandfather, who used to take me as a child to see the Elephant and Castle line trains at Carpenders Park, where he then lived with my grandmother? Apart from the fact that he was a publican who moved around London and the Home counties every few years whilst raising four children, I know nothing of him or his way of life. I blame myself, although it is only now that I have retired that I really have time to think of those of the family who have gone before me. I would love to have a book telling of their hopes and fears and of how they enjoyed their lives. Were they successful? Did they encounter tragedy? What sort of friends did they have and where did they live?
For me, those questions will never be answered, but for my children, my children’s children, and those in future generations, I shall endeavour to give a picture of my life and that of Sally, my wife, who has stuck by me through thick and thin.
If any of our descendants, on retirement or before, have any desire to know anything about that very ordinary individual named Hugh Richard Jenkins, then here it is. It was written for you and for our very many special friends who have shared our journey through life. It is dedicated to the one who has contributed most and participated fully over the last thirty-seven years since I married her, my wife, Sally Elizabeth.

Chapter 1 The Early Years  
I arrived in this world on 29 November 1932. My father, Henry William Alfred, was what was known as a turf accountant (a term he much preferred to bookmaker). After she married my father, my mother, May, was a housewife; prior to her wedding day, she had been a shop assistant. My sister Audrey was born eighteen months before I was, and our sisters Joan and Margaret joined the family within four years after my birth.
Although I was born in a house in Church Road in Wa