On the 50th Anniversary year of the RLI, let's remember all those brave fallen men, black and white, who fought to save Rhodesia.

A poem to my father

I was only a little girl when my father went off to fight,
We were told ‘Be good for Mummy and be sure to lock up tight.’

‘I’m going to play with pop guns,’ my Dad, he’d told me then,
‘Take care of your little sister ‘til I get back, I know not when.’

He’d waved his happy wave before he disappeared out of sight,
And I never saw my Dad after that dark and fateful night.

Very many times since then I have asked the question why,
Did he have to leave that day? I wish he hadn’t, I can’t lie.

What was the awful urgency that he needed to go away,
‘He was fighting for our safety and our birthright,’ Mum would say.

As the years have drifted past me, I have come to understand,
The need for one to belong to something and for a man to defend his land.

He had fought through fear and frustration, he had watched his brothers fall
But he never forgot his mission when he heard the Fish Eagle call.

With glasses full and ready, it’s time to remember all those so brave,
As we look back with distant longing at the country they couldn’t save.

I’m so proud of my soldier father, for he fought for my right to say,
I’m a Rhodesian through and through and will so be to my dying day.

Jenny Martin
Reprinted by permission from Silverling Inspired, publishers of "In the Shadow of the Tokolosh". The story of four young men growing up in the wilderness, as the last remnants of colonialism in Africa. While the world and its attitude changed around them, they found themselves fighting to save their way of life, in a land that did not share their views or values. Set in the Zambezi Valley, where the white man made his last stand in Africa.

In the Shadow of the Tokolosh
In the Shadow of the Tokolosh