The Rorkes Drift North

This entertaining memoir is set in Gatooma (Kadoma) during the time the country Zimbabwe was still known as Rhodesia. It is largely an account of a family history that touches on the lives of so many others and their memories.

The book will be of interest to anyone who has lived in or loved Africa. The story unfolds to reveal how the author’s parents built a farm and a business from crown land with only a dirt track leading through it. Interwoven in their lives between the successes and failures of the farm, their children arrive, bringing a whole new dimension to family life. The characters of the extended family further enrich the story along with intriguing neighbours who bring in even more colour and contrast to the unfolding picture.

The challenges the author’s parents faced were daunting. Through sheer determination, hard work, ingenuity, long hours and many years, they built one of the finest farms in the area.

Rhodesia was at the time a paradise and this book is a valuable record of history as a dramatisation and a true slice of life as it once was. There are glimpses of real-life conditions within these telling pages of the exploits of the Rorke family.