The Sky Came Tumbling Down
This book is the FIFTH book in a series of six comprising the author’s big game hunting memoirs. It covers the period 1968 to 1983 and explains the author’s commitments to reducing the populations of elephants (by 2500) and hippos (by 300) in the Gonarezhou National Park, in the early 1970s; to capturing and translocating 30 hippos; and, following his promotion to Provincial Game Warden, to re-structuring the sport of falconry nation-wide. It explains his involvement in the DDT environmental pollution saga in the late 1970s; the circumstances of his transfer back to Main Camp, Hwange National Park; his incidental involvement with the brutal slaughter of an estimated 20 000 to 30 000 Matabele civilians by Robert Mugabe’s Presidential Guard (5 Brigade) in 1983 - which made the author a target for Mugabe’s infamous Central Intelligence Organisation (C.I.O.). This forced the author to resign and to leave Zimbabwe. The title of this book alludes to the fact that it had been the author’s ambition to be appointed to the post of Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of Hwange National Park; that he got there; that he reach up and touched the sky - briefly - whereafter it came tumbling down around him and he had to abandon all his ambitions and his passions in a hurry, to escape the country with his life; and with the lives of his wife and his family.
This book is the FIFTH book in a series of six comprising the author’s big game hunting memoirs. It covers the period 1968 to 1983 and explains the author’s commitments to reducing the populations of elephants (by 2500) and hippos (by 300) in the Gonarezhou National Park, in the early 1970s; to capturing and translocating 30 hippos; and, following his promotion to Provincial Game Warden, to re-structuring the sport of falconry nation-wide. It explains his involvement in the DDT environmental pollution saga in the late 1970s; the circumstances of his transfer back to Main Camp, Hwange National Park; his incidental involvement with the brutal slaughter of an estimated 20 000 to 30 000 Matabele civilians by Robert Mugabe’s Presidential Guard (5 Brigade) in 1983 - which made the author a target for Mugabe’s infamous Central Intelligence Organisation (C.I.O.). This forced the author to resign and to leave Zimbabwe. The title of this book alludes to the fact that it had been the author’s ambition to be appointed to the post of Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of Hwange National Park; that he got there; that he reach up and touched the sky - briefly - whereafter it came tumbling down around him and he had to abandon all his ambitions and his passions in a hurry, to escape the country with his life; and with the lives of his wife and his family.
This book is the FIFTH book in a series of six comprising the author’s big game hunting memoirs. It covers the period 1968 to 1983 and explains the author’s commitments to reducing the populations of elephants (by 2500) and hippos (by 300) in the Gonarezhou National Park, in the early 1970s; to capturing and translocating 30 hippos; and, following his promotion to Provincial Game Warden, to re-structuring the sport of falconry nation-wide. It explains his involvement in the DDT environmental pollution saga in the late 1970s; the circumstances of his transfer back to Main Camp, Hwange National Park; his incidental involvement with the brutal slaughter of an estimated 20 000 to 30 000 Matabele civilians by Robert Mugabe’s Presidential Guard (5 Brigade) in 1983 - which made the author a target for Mugabe’s infamous Central Intelligence Organisation (C.I.O.). This forced the author to resign and to leave Zimbabwe. The title of this book alludes to the fact that it had been the author’s ambition to be appointed to the post of Provincial Game Warden-in-charge of Hwange National Park; that he got there; that he reach up and touched the sky - briefly - whereafter it came tumbling down around him and he had to abandon all his ambitions and his passions in a hurry, to escape the country with his life; and with the lives of his wife and his family.