Life at Bata — The Place We Called Home (Book ready April 9th - 2026). Born in 1961 to a Dutch father working for the Bata Shoe Company and a Rhodesian mother, Frans Bijsterveld grows up between continents and cultures — from Ceylon and Kenya to the Bata Shoe Estate in Gwelo, Rhodesia. At the heart of the story is life on the Bata estate: a self-contained company town where work, family life and community were closely intertwined. With its houses, pool, sports facilities and

This book is about the Gwelo Combined Amateur Boxing Club, which fought at all levels between 1968 and 1978 and slightly beyond. For that reason, it can be seen as a snapshot of Rhodesian boxing in that period, and the lead-in also includes a brief history of Gwelo and Rhodesian boxing. The very first book dedicated to boxing in Gwelo and Rhodesia . They didn't know it then, but the lives of two young boys were about to change forever. That was the day Chris and Marc Ashley

In 1944, Buddy is a 10-year-old girl living in Selukwe, Southern Rhodesia. She and her younger brother Jody are being looked after by...

[Proceeds to the Zimbabwe Pensioners' Support Fund] Anecdotes from the African wilderness . . . Make no mistake, Timot’s world was...

A true account of my family history. Two men sail the high seas from Lisbon, Portugal, and land in Mozambique. One eventually becomes the...

Whether stuck on a long flight, at the back of a bus or even lying in bed, the marking of time will quickly give way to a world as rich...

(expected publication date: mid 2026) . Putting cheese vats over their heads to guard against police truncheons, rioting Dutchmen long ago gave rise to the term cheese-heads . No one riots any more (despite recent events!) – they just complain. The Dutch like to defy the odds: despite a very generous welfare system and the fact that it’s almost impossible to fire anyone, the economy works like a well-oiled machine. Does Dutch tolerance work? Everyone knows that drug la