BILL AND MAUREEN 1962 →

Fed up with the traditional ‘great trek’ to Cape Town for our holidays and looking for a change we went off to the South Coast with the Stocks family during the April/May school break.  We had a cottage at Warriorsrust a M.O.T.H. holiday establishment just south of Port Shepstone.  Despite ‘Perky’ the very ‘sergeant-major’ of a manager, we had a really great and memorable family holiday.

In the mid-70's, Standard Finance – the HP and leasing subsidiary of the Standard Bank - was in dire straits. The Board (basically the Bank) headhunted Tony Harvey from competitor Fincor Finance in Bulawayo. Tony was a sales/marketing-oriented person who had little interest in ‘administrative’ matters. Consequently, he in turn headhunted me from UDC, where we had worked together previously, to salvage that side of the business with an offer I could not refuse.

I joined on 1 July, revamped the entire credit control and collection systems, etc, restructured the departments and then, after a couple of years embarked, with the Board's support, on designing and implementing a new computerised debtors system.  During this exercise – which was personally very stimulating – I uncovered a substantial amount that proved a substantial contribution to the company’s results.

April/May school holidays 1977 and we again decided to go to Natal but via Cape Town to see the folks.  We spent only about a week there which was just too short for my Mom who as we left told me: “Don’t ever do this to me again!”.  We joined the Stocks family at the ‘Dawn View Hotel’ and again had a really super time with many stories to tell.

Army call-ups were a regular feature and in the absence of the CEO on regular Police Reserve call-ups I deputised for him.  Meanwhile I had been transferred into the Army Pay Corps, had been commissioned as Lieutenant and had then been promoted to the rank of Captain.  

Suffice to say, the finance company was turned around.  As independence loomed it was very apparent that considerable skills were going to be lost to the Bank itself and it was in consequence of this that the then head of the Group asked me to transfer to the commercial bank.  In the late 70’s the country was under sanctions, stringent petrol rationing and in a war situation.  I had exceeded 36 years of age and in the hiatus of all that was going on, felt that joining an international banking organization almost assured that, provided I delivered the goods, job security and all that entails, was secure.  This obviously included the possibility of being transferred to another Group office in the event of the country degenerating into civil chaos or the like.  We willingly acceded to the offer – my letter of appointment I had re-drafted three times to ensure pension etc was protected.

Heather had finished school and although she originally wanted to train as a teacher attending college in Natal, she decided she was not prepared to leave us with all the political uncertainty.  We persuaded her to do a good secretarial course instead, which she did at the polytechnic.

With independence came many changes. An expat CEO was brought in, sanctions against the country were lifted and markets were opened up.  One cannot believe the relief that was finally felt when it appeared that the bespectacled terrorist leader to whom the country was handed over by Britain in February 1980, whom we all dreaded, actually sounded reasonable.

It was around this time that my sister, Glynn, telephoned to ask if we had ever given any thought to emigrating to Australia as they had decided to leave South Africa. Indeed such a move had crossed our minds but property prices were seriously depressed, we had educational issues to think about and could not commit ourselves.  Fortunately we did not follow suit as they left Sydney and were back in Cape Town roughly twelve months later.

On an impulse I went out and bought air tickets for Maureen and I to fly overseas to get over everything.  We arranged for her folks to move into the house to look after the children and took off in late August 1980. First stop Italy.  We just adored Rome.  Went to Naples and Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii before returning to Rome and then flying to Frankfurt.  A Rhine trip, although in drizzle, was brilliant and then to England.  We had arranged for Heather to send a telegram to friends John and Pat Bird who had earlier returned to the UK, were living in Worthing but were, we had heard, very miserable, saying: “Will call you Saturday 7 p.m.”  Hoping to deceive them into thinking they should expect us to telephone.  We picked up a hire car at Gatwick airport on Saturday afternoon and parked a short way from their house with a few minutes to spare.  At exactly 7.00 p.m. we rang the front door bell.

Such was their surprise, they both burst into tears.  They had been dressing to go to a party, awaiting our ‘call’ - but we had a drink and ended going along with them.  We toured up though England via Stratford-on-Avon where we visited our first English pub – to Rochdale in Lancashire where Maureen had been born and where we met members of her family. Then on to Blackpool where we stayed with Jack and Joan Street.  Down through Chester to Devon and Cornwall and back to John and Pat.  We attended a rugby match at Twickenham between Surrey and Zimbabwe – we actually were captured on TV and saw ourselves later that evening on BBC. (Ed: We later heard that a friend of Bonnie's in Scotland had seen us on TV and had phoned Bonnie to tell her.)   A day in London and back home – six fabulous weeks!

I was the driving force in getting the Bank’s network of 50 branches on-line - securing an import licence for the computer equipment with great difficulty, then managing to source a Canadian Aid substitute, and creatively then substituting 6 ATM's on the currency licence - so ensuring that SCB had the first ATM network in the country.  Modems were impossible to secure locally and currency could not be obtained for import however, we sourced these privately from the UK through personal contacts and at virtually no cost to the Bank.  This led further to a successful credit card launch and I was personally responsible for visiting MasterCard in London and negotiating membership.

I was promoted to Administration Executive the No. 3 position in the Bank, which carried a very broad and diverse portfolio.  I was the only Zimbabwean to be selected to attend a SCB Group senior management development-training programme.  This took place in 1988 at Templeton College, Oxford followed by an outward-bound course in the Lake District.  It was whilst in UK that I received notification that I had been appointed to the SCB Zimbabwe board as an Executive Director.  I was also appointed to the board of the finance company and other Bank subsidiaries.

When the second most senior executive retired, I put forward a plan re-shuffling some responsibilities and persuaded the CEO to consolidate that position with mine and I thus became Senior Executive.  In this capacity I acted CEO in the latter’s absence.

In 1991 I arranged with a colleague in New York for me to pay them a visit to formalize operations regarding the bank’s US dollar account there.  Maureen came with me and we had a week in New York staying with Peter Thompson at his home in Connecticut.  A very posh area with close neighbours such as Ivan Lendl and Diana Ross.  We walked the major streets/avenues in downtown Manhattan on the Saturday but regrettably did not manage to get across to the Statue of Liberty but could see it from Battery Park. We did a ride through Central Park in a horse-drawn carriage. 

From NY we flew to Orlando and spent several days at Disney World and other attractions – we were like a couple of kids.

We left and flew to Miami and thence to Rio de Janeiro.  I bought Maureen an emerald ring and we did the usual sight-seeing including the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer and took the cable-car ride up the Sugarloaf.  We went to a Samba show and on the way back we were mugged – or more correctly – Maureen was mugged by street waifs!,  just 50 metres from our hotel. We do not have fond memories of the visit.

In February/March I organized a trip to the Far East. Flew first to Perth where we stayed for a few days with Gerry and Dee Musson. We managed a visit to Freemantle by train with a cruise back on the Swan River. From Australia we flew to Hong Kong where we stayed with John and Bella Kivits. We celebrated our Pearl wedding anniversary there – I had in the back of my mind a boat-cruise up the Pearl River but we were side-tracked to spend the day on a visit with the Kivits to Macau.

From HK we flew to Penang where we had a brilliant week including a parasailing session for me before heading to Kuala Lumpur. We were hosted at a dinner by David and Jean Moir and enjoyed the stay. 

Arriving back at the hotel after visiting Raffles Hotel for dinner and having a Singapore Sling toasted to my Mom we found a flashing signal on our telephone which was a message to tell us that Mom had died that morning in Cape Town.

Early the next morning we managed to get our return flights changed so that we could get to Cape Town for her funeral before going on a cruise through the Singapore Staits with the local country Manager for SCB Chris Harrison who was hosting some big-shot US film producer.  I actually swam in the straits!  We stopped at Mauritius on the way back and had a long wait at night to get the Cape Town connecting flight.  

And so to the sad event of Mom’s funeral before heading back to Harare.

Owing to a problem in the bank in India, in mid-1992 I assumed control of Zimbabwe in an acting capacity but carried both jobs for some 11 months until a new expat CEO was able to take up his post.  Holding down the two top jobs for that length of time and without relief was a significant responsibility.

In mid-1993 the Group announced that it had embarked on implementing 'Functional Management structuring' and as such a No. 2 position was to become redundant.  I was asked to consider a regional role which I agreed to do, but, having been under substantial stress asked that I be allowed to first recharge my batteries and took some seven weeks leave.

On return, the job description for this regional post had not come to hand.  After to-ing and fro-ing with queries to London, I one afternoon manipulated a discussion to the point that the CEO suggested that I consider taking early retirement which, after due consideration of many factors, much soul-searching and negotiation, I did.  I knew from being a Trustee on the Pension Fund that the Bank should ask me to go on pension rather than the other way round otherwise a huge reduction in pension would have resulted!

The London HR contact was David Kuwana who had worked for the Bank in Harare. He flew in from Botswana and met with us at home in the December and we agreed a sum to be paid for my agreeing to go.  Whilst I did receive the ‘basic’ amount, my understanding was that a further amount would be forthcoming and when it did not I finally consulted lawyer Bob Stumbles, paid a lot of money for his services and failed.  

I reckon I had lost out on (been cheated of!) over £10,000!  (A huge amount at the time!) New CEO McKenna had also attempted to do me out of my benefit under the company car scheme but I won the day and the Mercedes, which I was very fond of.  After taking the balance of my considerable accumulated leave my official date of pension was 31 May 1994.