Ghanzi and the West

One day in 1979 we decided to take a couple of days to drive from Gabs to Ghanzi, in the far west of the country. The road, which was little more than a track, was very slow going and we camped well off the road for one night on the way.

Ghanzi is a small and very isolated village. We had to engage four wheel drive on the way through the town. We stayed at the Ghanzi Hotel, owned by Richard Spring, who was of course one of our customers.

I was sitting on the verandah next to a man who quickly realised that I ran Kgalagadi Breweries, so the beer was obviously on me. The man claimed he had no money anyway, although I understood later that he owned a massive ranch in the vicinity with thousands of head of cattle.

When I introduced myself he said: “Hallowes. Are you related to ‘Shaka’ Hallowes?” “Yes he’s my uncle,” I answered. “Well,” he said, “I was a mechanic on a tank in the Western Desert during the war and ‘Shaka’ was the Captain in charge. Never knew a man who could throw a track like he could. It was my job to put it back.”

Somehow the man had adopted the name Cecil John Rhodes (after the founder of Rhodesia). He had a plane which he flew around without bothering with any sort of passport control. The Botswana and South African authorities had got used to him, I suppose. He also regularly flew from Mafeking to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe. Generally the authorities tolerated him. However, on one occasion he flew into Bulawayo with his son, with no papers as usual. Unfortunately, the ground crew he was used to dealing with were not on duty. (Cecil Rhodes is of course buried on the Matopos hills close by Bulawayo).

“What’s your name?” he was asked.

“Cecil John Rhodes,” was the answer

“And who is this?”

“Also Cecil John Rhodes,” was the answer

 The pair were then unceremoniously locked up.

When the usual shift arrived the next day, they explained the situation.

“Oh, yes, he’s harmless,” the usual crew answered. “That is the name he uses.”

The man and his son were released without further ado.

Also in the hotel for the weekend was a family, all adults, some of whom seemed to be part San. They all had strong accents from the city of Liverpool in England.

It seemed that their English father had married a San woman, with four children resulting from the union. The parents had died and the four children, two boys and two girls, were shipped back to Liverpool to live with relatives. The large property owned by the father had been left in the care of a lawyer, who sold the substantial herd of cattle on the place for his own account. The farm had been left to the children.

Some of the four siblings had married into the Liverpool community. All the four siblings and spouses were now back in Botswana to see what they could rescue from their inheritance. I understood that they were busy restocking the property, but not all of them would stay in Botswana.

They were just in Ghanzi for a weekend break away from the property, which we understood was some way away. 

One of the features of the Ghanzi Hotel was the presence of Billy the Goat- a genuine large white male goat. He was definitely very much part of the establishment. Richard Spring told us that if we fed him a filtered cigarette he would spit out the filter and swallow the rest. The kids had a lot of fun feeding Billy the contents of a packet of filter cigarettes we gave them.