On 17 May 1934 No. 3385 Trooper Lumholtz joined the British South Africa Police
in Southern Rhodesia. He had left his native Norway to seek his fortune as a farmer in
South Africa, but decided the harsh conditions of the South African veldt were not for
him. A chance meeting with someone similarly minded set him on a career he might
not otherwise have envisaged, and from which he only retired 22 years later, going on
to join the Grain Marketing Board, where he was employed for a further 20 years,
before retiring to Cumbria, where he now lives.
This is a highly personal account, which takes the author's life from first joining the
Force to the tragic death of his first wife in 1947. For the first four years he served in the
District Branch in the Midlands Province, based in Gwelo. Then, after leave overseas,
he joined the C.I.D. and was transferred to Bulawayo.
From an historian's point of view, the next five years are probably those of greatest
interest, not merely because the author explains in detail the precautions taken in
anticipation of war being declared. Mr. Lumholtz, by the very nature of his duties at
the time, was personally involved and this is probably the first account of the Colony's
preparations for the coming conflict ever published. There was no Special Branch
then, but the activities of the author and his colleagues quickly established a sound
basis for one, collating intelligence on the activities of enemy aliens in Mozambique
and South Africa, as well as within Rhodesia itself, throughout the early years of the
war.
A transfer to Umtali was shortly followed hy marriage to his first wife. Beryl, whom
he had met while on leave in the Cape, and whom he plainly adored. Apart from
anything else, marriage took the edge off more humdrum work than he had grown
used to during the heady days in Bulawayo. The end of the war brought a spell of
overseas leave and it seems the realities of wartime Europe came as a nasty shock. For,
apart from the importance of his duties and the long hours spent carrying them out
while stationed at the border town of Umtali, life had been far from unpleasant during
those years.
Those who have lived in Rhodesia for any length of time will recognise many of the
names mentioned, even to the unfortunate nickname acquired by the author's
Sergeant Major Hughes Hall in the '30s. There are, however, one or two inaccuracies;
for example. Sir Edgar Whitehead was not ousted from office hy Ian Smith, but by the
Rhodesian Front under the leadership of Winston Field winning a general election in
1962 and, being a successor to George Dobell, it is within this reviewer's personal
knowledge that Cashel Police Station did not boast the luxury of having married
quarters in a bungalow behind the Charge Office - they were all part of one long
building, with the early morning radio schedule clearly heard in the bedroom next
door! Be that as it may, memory plays tricks and these lapses do not detract from an
entertaining account of life in a more carefree Rhodesia than many experienced some
years later.
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