Noel’s Story: A Man of Zimbabwe

By Kathy Mansfield

Noel Feldman was born in 1947 in Rhodesia. A mixed-race child classified as ‘Coloured’ in the lexicon of the day. Born to a violent home and abandoned in a Bulawayo Orphanage as a new-born to be brought up by Catholic nuns. Not knowing his mother, his father or any family. Belonging nowhere. A boy alone.
His is an incredible story of courage and fortitude. A bare-knuckle story of a troubled life that would have destroyed most. A mother lost – then found – and lost again. A father – never found and never looked for.
A life of optimism and gratitude for being alive. A life not defined by a tragic start but a life to give us heart. And you can meet him, every day, at the famous Froggy Farm kiosk in beautiful Juliasdale, Zimbabwe, where he now lives and laughs and will bring something to your life as you buy your blueberries from him. If you are lucky and he is in the mood, he might give you his famous Ian Smith impersonation!
One of the multitude who make their way through an unforgiving world – one of the voiceless. Until now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Dec 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781800468399

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Noel’s Story

Kathy Mansfield

Copyright © 2020 Kathy Mansfield

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

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ISBN 9781800468399

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This book is dedicated to Noel Feldman and all the ‘Others¹’ and ‘the voiceless’ who are part of Zimbabwe’s rich history.

I acknowledge those people who shared with me what they know about Noel, people who seem to have taken him to their hearts and become part of his story: Judge Chris Greenland who entered into an email conversation with me about his clear and long ago memories of Noel as a baby, a toddler and then a lad; Ray Clutty who, as a manager there, remembers Noel in his mid-life years, a steady worker at Bulawayo Power Station, with a gift for mimicry; Dave Sheenan, and his family, who patiently answered my What’s App questions across continents and who have given Noel a safe haven in Juliasdale in this latter stage in his life. I would not have found Ray Clutty without a chance conversation with Dalrae Dawson at the Claremont Gold Course fete one day; Terry Dawson, her brother, gave Noel his current position, manning the famous Froggy Farm Stall.

Celebrities all! Thank you.

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1 The Other is the term Judge Christopher Greenland gives to those of mixed-race ancestry in Southern Africa. See further in these pages.

I loved it! It brought back a lot of memories of Rhodesian days. Arcadia was one of my stomping grounds, when I was growing up. can really relate to the history and geography of the story. - Dr Knox Chitiyo

Contents

Foreword

1.The Beginning

2.The Growing Boy

3.School’s Over

4.Mother: Lost and Found

5.Work and War

6.Wife and Life and Family

7.The Road to Nyanga

The Author

Foreword

I met Noel Feldman in 2018 at the Froggy Farm stall, as do many others as they drive or walk the road to Nyanga. At that first meeting I simply bought fruit and veg and a bunch of gorgeous protea flowers to beautify the cottage in Juliasdale where I stay sometimes. I noticed his way with the stall books – his careful recoding of purchases and prices. I noticed how he spoke to customers – a bit tense, wanting the transaction to go well and be recorded accurately, but friendly and open. I drove away with my purchases.

A year later I was there again, with my friend Lita Goncharova. We were on holiday from Harare. Lita is from Ukraine originally, and talks to people. She is interested in them and asks questions that I would not immediately put to a stranger. She asked Noel about himself – after all he was a new kid on the block as far as she was concerned. The answers were intriguing. This man in his seventies introduced himself as an orphan.

The rest, to use a cliché, is history. I asked more questions and Noel was happy to answer. I went back to the stall and talked some more – he invited Lia and me to his place so we could sit longer and in some privacy. There I asked if I could record what had become an interview. Then we had a series of interviews over a couple of years on my infrequent visits back to Juliasdale, and Noel and I made a plan to write his life story.

The story, as well as being that of one man, also describes something of the life story of Zimbabwe, from a point in its time as Rhodesia, to the present day. Noel could be described as one of the marginalized – a ‘nobody’ – and until now, voiceless. But when you read Noel’s story you will see that this is most definitely a somebody we have before us. A man who has overcome circumstances that might have crushed a lesser sort of man. I tracked down the testimony of an ex-High Court Judge who knew Noel many years ago, at the very start of his life, and he describes Noel as ‘a living legend’.

I write short stories, for fun, and sometimes run creative writing workshops and Noel’s story is one I could not have made up. In places I have had to imagine some of the scenes I put in front of you, the reader. I have used a writer’s license to create details and feelings, thought processes and interactions and dialogue. But I have not imagined the essential content of the course of Noel’s life and what happened in it. I managed to speak to, or communicate in writing, with enough people to substantiate its substance and critical facts.

And so – here is Noel’s Story.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

His name is Noel Feldman. He was born in Bulawayo on Christmas Day in 1947, and in the absence of a coherent mother, or any kind of father, the nuns at the Orphanage to where he was transported, decided Noel