ABSTRACT
Mwinilunga-the name means ‘master of the Lunga (River)’—was the most isolated of all the Northern Rhodesia bush stations. Indeed, in the Copperbelt newspaper, The Northern News, the name was a by-word for unsophisticated remoteness, the butt of unkind stories and cartoons. Therein lay half its charm. One felt privileged to be in such a beautiful place where so comparatively few Europeans had set foot, proud too of one’s ability to withstand and conquer isolation. There were admittedly days when one looked wistfully at the signpost pointing the dusty road to Solwezi and the World. Others when, sweating on one’s bicycle along some bumpy bush path, one looked up and saw a jet plane, a silvery aluminium tube with
wings, 35,000 feet above, in which passengers no doubt sat comfortably sipping white wine on their way possibly to London, possibly to New York. Ah, if only for a day.
