@TeamFuloZim Rate my Sunday dinner. Blade, Trenance onion and tomato gravy,veggie and NFGB 🌶️ Be nice ,I am new here.

#KingsMemoirs Part Three — From Ardbennie to Morgan High. The years rolled on at Ardbennie Primary School. Ardbennie Primary School The lessons learnt, the lifelong friendships forged, the eisteddfods, the plays, the sports and all those little moments that seemed ordinary at the time but have somehow stayed with me for more than five decades. One of my most memorable moments came on stage. Our school plays were sometimes staged at nearby St Anthony’s Hall, away from the outdoor “lawn stage” that served as our assembly venue in the centre of the classroom blocks. I had a role in one particular play that I have never forgotten. My close friend Michael Finch played the King, while another pupil played his Queen. I had a rather interesting supporting role. 😂 At one point I had to eat a banana on stage. Then, according to the script, I casually flipped the banana peel onto the floor before sitting down in “obedience” as the King and Queen made their entrance. Everything was going according to plan. Until the King stepped onto the banana skin. WHAM! Michael crashed to the floor. The rest of the cast went into immediate “shock”. And suddenly I was surrounded by the King’s men, baying for my blood. 🤣🤣🤣 The play ended in tears. Mine. 😂😂😂 The funny thing is, even then I wanted to play the King. But the playwright, Mrs Rodrigues, clearly had other ideas. Looking back, that was one of those priceless school moments I wish we had been able to capture on camera. My parents were in the audience that evening, along with the other proud parents. If any of my old schoolmates, teachers or their families happen to have photographs from that performance, please get in touch. I would love to see that banana peel again. 😂 And then it was time to leave The final year at Ardbennie rolled on quickly. Before I knew it, I was sitting in Mr JS Stoddard’s Standard 5 class, my final year of primary school. Then came the moment every schoolchild eventually faces. It was time to say goodbye. I was leaving Ardbennie Primary School and heading to Form One at Morgan High School. Oddly enough, I don't remember thinking much about missing my friends. There was a reason for that. The education system was structured along racial lines, and for Coloured pupils in Salisbury, the next destination was usually another designated school. Most of my Ardbennie friends were heading to Morgan High School. Others might go to St John’s High School. If you were in Bulawayo, there was Founders High School. In Gwelo, Nashville High. There were also designated schools such as Baring and Embhakwe for pupils in other parts of the country. So there was always the possibility that schoolmates would meet again somewhere down the road. For most of us from Ardbennie, though, Morgan was the destination. Morgan High was conveniently located near the Coloured suburbs of St Martins, Sunningdale and Ardbennie, as well as the predominantly Asian suburb of Ridgeview. But arriving there as a little boy from Ardbennie was intimidating. The sheer scale of the school. The new faces. The pupils arriving from other primary schools. The boarding houses filled with pupils from outside Salisbury, some coming from as far away as Umtali and Enkeldoorn, now Chivhu. It was an eye-opener. And then there were the pupils from the Asian community. For many of us, Morgan was where we first really interacted with them. They were affectionately known as Bhai Ouens, or Bhai Mensa, “Bhai”, meaning brother. And suddenly, this boy from the ghetto was sitting next to Bhai Ouens and chicks, many of them sons and daughters of well-to-do shop owners. That was quite an equaliser for me. 😂😂😂 But if I'm being completely honest, it wasn't the boys who distracted me. I was a boy just beginning to lose his childhood voice and taking an interest in girls. And those Asian girls had me mesmerised. 😂 Sitting next to them in class and watching them toss their flowing hair was enough to completely distract me