Freckles & Doubt

It's true that Rhodesian culture had a certain hardy settler, bloody-minded-individualist ethos - they did, after all, calmly declare themselves independent of Britain when they felt it to be necessary. On the other hand, it was also - and still is - an insular culture with a high degree of conservatism, despite the mad antics of its subversive lunatic fringe. I think people like my grandmother were far more the norm than Doris Lessing: if not, she wouldn't have been the scandal she was.