Life and the Recreation Hall

believed I ought to speak more often and more openly of my achievements, whatever they are.
I’ve always put this reticence down to my upbringing in Harare Township (1938-1960). The almost obscene nickname for us was Bonirukisheni – born in the location.

Hardly anyone brought up in the ghetto speaks volubly of their achievements, even in politics. My suspicion is that we all grew up feeling it was beneath our dignity to boast. It was up to others to sing our praises.
This will sound crazy to others. But ghetto philosophy and cultural mores can often be outlandish. Beverly worked closely for a while with Nathan Shamuyirira, who I first met at African Newspapers in 1957 – we both lived in New Location. He was my edi­tor on The African Daily News and drove a big green Chevrolet coupe. I had a bicycle – a good one.

Beverly and I were waiting to be ushered into a rather VIP reception at the old Shera­ton Hotel in Harare. I am not sure in what capacity I had been invited to this shindig. I am pretty certain it had little to do with my looks, but my job as a journalist, which has never been in the glitzy, ermine and pearls department.
By then, I had been an editor in Zambia and Zimbabwe, had published regular columns in both countries, had published novels in both countries, had had short sto­ries published in both countries, in the United States, in the then Soviet Union, The Netherlands, Sweden, Egypt and South Africa. I had also been around the world.

I have always contented myself with the statement that I have been published at home and abroad – statistically indisputable.
In the early days of independence, journal­ists could be treated with a modicum of decency. Today, well, that’s a long story.
I had no immediate comment on Beverly’s startling revelation. But I remember smiling sheepishly, like someone offered flattery of the highest order but too stupefied with won­der to respond rationally. Such gushing flat­tery can send you into a spin of self-love. Oscar Wilde – The Importance of Being Ernest and The Picture of Dorian Gray – is quoted as having said – among his many other memorable quotations – something to the effect that people who pretend to be hum­ble are, in reality, conceited.

I like to believe he did not include me in that odious category. Anyway, I’ve decided to oblige Beverly, rather belatedly. Wherever you are, Beverly, here goes: My early life revolved around the Recreation Hall in Harare Township. It was later renamed Mai Musodzi Hall.
That lady performed such prodigious good works for the township folk, she thoroughly deserved this great honour: the Recreation Hall, for some of us, still has the aura of the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal, both of which I have visited. Make no mis­take: this is a land­mark and remains such a stupendous asset of the township, there was no chance that any “Tom, Dick or Harry or Mary” could deserve such an honour.

Long before I went to the Recreation Hall to begin my education in Sub A in 1945, I had become a sort of habitué almost as soon as I could walk. There was the bioscope: every Saturday, whose matinees I attended reli­giously. 1945 saw the end of the Second World War, memories of which are embed­ded in my consciousness as the booming sound of the war planes flying off to the front from Cranborne aerodrome.

I heard the sounds in the Old Bricks, from across the Mukuvisi River, punctuated by mother’s comment that it was all to do with “hondoyaHitira” – Hitler’s war. I developed bad vibes about that little man even before I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.
At the Recreation Hall matinees, I was introduced to Gene Autry, Tom Mix, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, Charlie Chaplin and George Formby. In the cowboy (West­ern) films, we kids rooted for the hero, who dispatched the villains with such glorious panache, we were temporarily persuaded that not all white people could be as evil as our own “Katsekera”.

He was personified by the township super­intendent – this tall, pot-bellied, old white person who struck terror in the hearts of all township folk. As I grew older, having fin­ished my Sub B at the Recreation Hall and moved to the Methodist church near the cemetery for my Standard One in 1947, there was the boys’ club at the hall.
We were introduced to all sorts of sport, including boxing. An attempt at finding my niche as a boxing legend – like Chitsa, Gan­danga and Duri – proved disastrous. One punch turned my stomach to jelly. I decided both my mental constitution and my physical capacity were woefully inadequate for such an attempt. But another window of opportu­nity opened up, as Fate almost always decrees. While at the Salisbury African School (West), now Chitsere, I returned to the Hall as a tenor in my class school choir. I had by then been baptised as William in my mother’s church, the Presbyterian Church.

Before that, my name was Spambaniso. This presented enormous problems in Subs A and B where we used slates: the 10 letters would not fit across the slate. I seem to remember one teacher’s shortening it to “Spamba”.
As William – which I am certain did not originate with that other famous William of letters – I sang tenor in my class choir and among other singers was Mabel Bingo, a pretty girl later to be celebrated as a soloist with the Black Evening Follies, led by Moses “Fancy” Mpahlo-Mafusire. Incidentally, he played a role in ending my rising hopes as an entertainer. But I could be getting ahead of myself here. In

Standard Four, at Chitsere, my teacher, Timothy Chigoma, a distinguished resident and a foot­baller of some note in Harare Township, once remarked: “William, why do you speak as if you are singing?”
In the 1950s, I returned to the hall as an entertainer, and not just as any old garden variety crooner, but part of what some people called a “Class A” act – The Milton Brothers.
We had to be that good – or we would not have been invited to stage a combined show with – of all groups – The City Squads.
Anyone fortunate enough to have watched Joyce Jenje-Makwenda’s celebrated video of Zimbabwe Township Music will remember how passionately she speaks of those four gentlemen – Sonny

Sondo, Sam Matambo. “Pay” Mutunyane and Titus Mkotsanjera.
Their picture, along with those of Dorothy Masuka and August Musarurwa of Skokiaan fame, grace the cover of the video. Joyce does devote some footage and commentary to the Milton Brothers: my late uncle Chase Mhango, my cousin Reuben Dauti and myself.
We also had my other cousin and Reuben’s sister, the late Faith Dauti, as our star attrac­tion. She died at 35 in 1970, by which time the group had broken up and all three of us had moved to Northern

Rhodesia. Faith her­self had come there as part of a group of singers asked to help Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP party in the elections before independ­ence in 1964. I was the lead singer while Reuben took tenor and Chase, the alto. Chase was named Chaston at birth but shortened his name later. He passed on at 75 towards the end of last year and was buried at Mashava. This is, in fact, a sort of tribute to him.
Before he passed on, he disclosed to me a secret: he had possession of our only record­ing with Gallo of South Africa, Hama Nev­abereki.

I wrote that song out of a Dorothy Masuka hit. Our song was the opening hit of our shows, as other groups had theirs: the Expen­sive Brothers had one of the most memo­rable, which began with Zvino yasvika nguva yedu yekupembere ngoma . . .
Faith recorded a few other solos, especially with the African Service of the Federal Broadcasting Corporation. Rosvika Zuva was one of the most popular, whose lyrics I wrote for her. On guitar, during our peak period, was Andrew Chakanyuka who, some people said, could make that instrument speak. He and I were later invited by Dominic Man­dizha to record a number of duets, among the most popular being Kana Uchifamba, which I wrote.

In the early 1990s, when I first moved to Chitungwiza, I heard someone singing the first verse of that song. I was startled but could not react in any visible way. I knew he had to have heard it on the radio.
In fact, unknown to me, someone com­piled the entire set of our duets with Andrew, who was about my age but died young on returning to the country after independence. He had spent many years plying his trade outside the country. I had met him once on his return, outside the Zimbabwe College of Music, where he was lecturing.

I was then on the board of governors for a while, when the late Ben Zulu was chairman.
The Milton Brothers were invited to record some of their hits too. There was a problem with one of them, which we were told could not be recorded because of its lyrics:
Honai rwudzi rwavatema
Runongochema
Nokuti takagara
Navachena . . .

An attempt to persuade us to “water down” the lyrics ended with us not recording the song at all. Charles Fernando was often on bass and Raphael Chimzinga on drums for us. We were all Harare-bred and in our 20s and the men of the Quads were in their late 30s,or early 40s.
Our combined show with the Quads was hailed as one of the most celebrated musical evenings ever witnessed at the Recreation Hall.
My role included sharing a solo with Sondo in that unforgettable gospel hit, Swing Lo.
I took Sondo by surprise, but being the great trouper that he was, he took it in his stride – and the crowd loved it all.

Sondo was a great singer and dancer and, to this day, Zimbabwe has not produced any artiste even remotely as talented as he was.
He was the lead singer of the group, as I was of the Brothers. His death in Kitwe, a few years later, was a blow to the entertainment world of the entire federation. By that time, in the 1960s, politics in Southern Rhodesia, had been thoroughly polluted by the rightwing racists and the British government had con­cluded, at long last, that the federation was an ill-advised, ill-fated experiment.
Incidentally, I had turned up at the Recre­ation Hall again to report on the formation of the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress in 1957. I was then a cadet reporter of The African Daily News, a year after it had been launched amid much brouhaha in every African community in the land. They called it “peparedu”.

Both the Milton Brothers and the City Quads achieved much fame, not only at the Recreation Hall, but in other venues around the country – Cyril Jennings Hall in High­field, Runyararo Hall near the Beatrice Cot­tages and the Stanley Hall in Bulawayo.
We staged a combined show with the best that Bulawayo had to offer then, the Golden Rhythm Crooners, with the late Champion Banda as lead singer. Their guitarist was a liv­ing legend, a man whose artistry was envied by all musicians, including Chakanyuka.

Unfortunately, by some fluke attributable, not to fate, but to human incompetence and bloody-mindedness, our show was held in the Main Beerhall in Makokoba, rather than the Stanley Hall. We both performed as if we were in the Stanley Hall – we owed it to the fans. Most of the singing groups owed their success, as Jenje-Makwenda records, to the Bantu Actors and the Black Evening Follies, the pioneers of the genre.
Mphahlo-Mafusire had been groomed by Kenneth Mattaka, originally from Nyasaland, the founder and leader of the Bantu Actors.
The kafuffle which led to the end of my career as an entertainer had its origins, in a roundabout way, at the Recreation Hall.

A bus packed with the members of the Fol­lies waited for me at the Recreation Hall. Our destination was Rusape: I had been assigned, without any consultation whatsoever, to cover the concert.
It was on a Saturday. African Newspapers did not publish a Sun­day paper – so we had a whole day during which we were not at work. Yet when I arrived home, in Seventh Avenue, New Loca­tion, on that Saturday afternoon, my mother gave me this amazing message: a man had been sent to the house to pick me to go to the Recreation Hall. There, I was to board a bus to accompany the Black Evening Follies to Rusape for their evening show.

I protested in vain: this was my day off and I had performed my off-duty functions as routinely and as lustily as I always did – giv­ing myself a real treat with John Barleycorn.
I arrived at home ready to call it a day or night, until the next day, Sunday, when I might report for work for the Monday paper.
My mother said they had told her, rather categorically, that the bus would wait for me at the Recreation Hall.

What? I almost screamed. Yes, she said, with deadly calm­ness. They would wait for me until I was on board. So, there was noth­ing for it but for me to hop on my bicycle and head for the hall.
I was sloshed, to put it as delicately as I can.

To this day, the two people I remember associating with during the nightmare episode in Rusape were Joyce Ndoro, the for­mer Miss Harare beauty queen who was now a dancer/singer of some distinction with the Follies. She and Jonathan Chieza did a rhumba routine that had most of the audi­ence screaming for more.
Years later, I bumped into Joyce Ndoro on a street in Ndola. We exchanged reminiscences and parted with wild laughter over the Rusape incident. I was saddened, long after my return in 1980, to hear of her death, well before her time. The other notable person was Christine Dube who had once tried for a part with the Milton Brothers.

She was very pretty, but, by a degree of mutual consent, we decided she would not be part of the ensemble. I never heard of her after the Rusape episode. What the ladies did, throughout our short stay in Rusape, was to help me perform as if I was stone sober, which was an Herculean task, except perhaps towards the end of the show when I actually sat in the audience and saw and heard the troupe perform. My condition was noted, but was not entirely relevant when the whole thing blew up in my face. My recollection of the origins of the kafuffle is a little hazy.

What sticks out like a sore thumb was my utter lack of admiration for the Follies’ per­formance. Mphahlo-Mafusire was livid.
So were the senior editors. But I took it philosophically: they were not firing me out­right. I had a chance to redeem myself: stop being a stage performer immedi­ately – in exchange for keeping my job. So, I was that good, was I? I might not have reported with massive enthusiasm on the Fol­lies’ perform­ance in far-away Rusape, but I was still good enough to keep my job.

They kept their word: when the Great Satchmo arrived for one show in the Glamis Stadium, I was the reporter.
I had been helped by Tony Kassanof of the US embassy: I had read up on the Great Satchmo, adding to what I already knew of him – Blueberry Hill, when The Saints go marching In.
The climax was Satchmo’s press confer­ence, during which I asked him the origins of jazz. “Africa,” he drawled.

The late David Ncube (Nyakunu) who accompanied me to the function, joined in cheering that last remark.
Attending the show was an unforgettable occasion, Satchmo and the All-Stars did not disappoint. So, my stage career had ended but I still had a job. In retrospect, I believe my choice was admirable.

As an entertainer I would probably have lived a very short life, considering what has happened to others, not just recently, but even then.
What remains for me are memories of the Recreation Hall. My life would have been absolutely meaningless without it, as would have been the lives of many others who called Harare township their

home.
Beverly, I hope you find this a satisfactory response to your statement.