Anecdote – The Remarkable Kathy and Tobes’ attempt to save the universe.

While this anecdote does not appear in this book it is fairly typical. You can purchase the book on Amazon if you enjoy this kind of thing.

The Remarkable Kathy and Tobes attempt to save the universe.

When we first became friends with Kathy and Tobes they had come to London from Zimbabe. South Africa and Zimbabwe were in upheaval with the apartheid and white rule coming to an end. Kathy’s father had been active in the press and they had been asked to leave.

Kathy and Tobes were free spirits who had dropped out of the whole ‘game’. London seemed free.

At the time they had been in London a short while, had their first child, and were in a hiatus of reevaluation. Both of them had been ejected out of school without qualifications. Tobes was working as a gofor (go for this and go for that) in an advertising company. I don’t think he was enjoying it much. He saw all these guys earning money, designing, having a laugh and knew that, without qualifications he had no way forward. He wanted out. He was in his early twenties. There had to be more to life.

Tobes sat down and asked himself one important question – ‘What did he want to do?’

There was only one answer to that question – he wanted to run a farm in Zimbabwe.

There were only three ways of achieving that ambition. You inherited a farm, bought a farm or became employed as a farm manager by Commonwealth Development Corporation.

Now as none of their relatives owned a farm that they were looking to pass on and they did not have a million quid to spare that really left one possibility.

Tobes made some phone calls. CDC informed him that they only took on people with a first or upper second degree in Agriculture from one of two universities and the best one of the two was Bangor. Bangor University informed him that in order to get onto the course he would need seven O Levels (including Maths, English and all three Sciences) all at grade A and three A levels – in Botany, Zoology and Chemistry – also att grade As.

Now some people with a similar semi destitute situation and not a single certificate to light a fire with might think aah well – another pipe-dream. Not Tobes.

He left the advertising firm with its pittance of pay and got a better paying job as a casual on a building site. It was sufficient to support them. He then enrolled in night-school.

He would come home, have something to eat, play with the baby and go to night class every evening. The weekends were homework. He was dedicated.

In the first year he took 7 O Levels and achieved 7 grade As. He knew he could not afford to drop a single grade.

In the second year he took his three A Levels and again achieved three grade As.

He was accepted at Bangor University on the coveted Agricultural course. In three years he had achieved his degree and was accepted into the CDC. He ran a farm in Zambia and then was moved to a bigger one in New Guinea.

We met up with them in Zambia. Tobes, with the support of Kathy, was running the biggest farm in the Southern hemisphere – bigger than anything in Australia. He was employing thousands of workers. He had put in roads, drainage, schools, medical facilities and houses.

He was looking after the people. It was how it should be done.

Tobes flew me round his farm in his own plane. It was a long way from the bedsit in London. He was living the dream and putting back into the country and its people.

If only everyone cared as much.

Of course, the policy changed. The young management came in. CDC was not so much about development and caring anymore; it was more about the bottom line. Tobes’ ways were not making enough. Corners needed cutting. Caring was a luxury.

Tobes retired and the community declined into a business.

But for decades Tobes had lived the dream and done no end of good.

There’s a lesson for us all in there.