tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53585499246007291532024-02-08T05:45:21.319-08:00The Story of TriangleRhodesia Rememberedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06644511584084003690noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5358549924600729153.post-18531209633413802922010-11-29T01:56:00.000-08:002010-12-04T04:11:53.642-08:00Part 2 Triangle After MacDougall<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span">Part 2 from the book Murray MacDougall and the story of Triangle which was written by C. R. Saunders<br /><br /><b>A. THE SUGAR INDUSTRY BOARD</b></span></span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And so MacDougall had proved that the lowveld could be tamed, that a variety of crops could be successfully grown, though subject to natural hazards, and that sugar production was a real prospect. The spectacular success of his lone agricultural pioneering feats was not attended by a comparable financial success, and it </span></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">was on financial grounds alone that the Government somewhat reluctantly stepped in and took over Triangle, although Parliament was swayed by the conviction of some of its number, notably Captain Frank Harris. Minister of Agriculture, and Mr. W. Richards, member for Fort Victoria, that one day a great industry could be born from MacDougall's efforts.</span></span></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Sugar Industry Act was promulgated by the Parliament of Southern Rhodesia on 22nd December 1944, and although it was intended primarily as an instrument enabling the Government to take over and develop the "Triangle Sugar Estates Company", it was a document remarkable for the extremely wide powers conferred on the Board. With excited vision the drafters of the Act apparently persuaded the responsible Minister and the House to agree to enable the Sugar Industry Board not only to pursue all aspects of the manufacture of sugar, but also to grow grain and fruit, to manufacture pulp and paper, to enter the timber and furniture industries, to brew and distil alcohol and make spirits, to prospect and develop coal, lime or other mines, and generally develop the lowveld on a grand scale.<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Mr. (later Sir) Donald McIntyre, a dedicated opponent of government participation in the Triangle venture, gave vent to his feelings during the debate when he said "The only thing the honourable Minister seems to have forgotten is the steamship to go from the Indian Ocean up the river to where the Triangle Estate is so as to bring the cane down. I hope the Minister will not decide to put in the powers to run a steamship company because I have drawn his attention to the fact that he has forgotten it."<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The later problems of the Sugar Industry Board were compounded by the apparently rapid evaporation of the Government's zeal as reflected in the Act, and its subsequent reluctance to back up its inherited vision with the finance necessary properly to give practical expression to its announced intentions.<br /><br />In spite of the very wide horizons envisaged in the Act, it is certain that the real intention of those that mattered in high places was to administer the development of the Triangle Sugar Estate as a pilot </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">scheme, to determine the economics of sugar cane production under irrigation in the lowveld, and to develop the Estate as a viable entity for disposal to private enterprise.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To spearhead this daunting operation the Government appointed as the first Chairman of the Board the then Secretary for Agriculture and Director of Irrigation, C. L. Robertson, the self-same fellow Scot "Robbie" who was one of Mac's few allies twenty years previously. Fortunate indeed was Government's choice, for Cecil Robertson was no less remarkable a man than MacDougall in his own right. In fact it was very largely Robertson who persuaded the Minister not to abandon Triangle.<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Before taking the opportunity to examine the role and record of C. L. Robertson and his Board at Triangle, it is timely to recall, as Robertson himself did in delivering a paper to the South African Sugar Technological Association in 1954, that the first record of any attempt to grow sugar cane on a commercial scale in the country was not in Triangle, but in the Wankie District. It was here that in 1927 Mr. P. D. Crewe, who owned the farm Nantwich which is now part of the Wankie National Park, obtained a lease on 19 000 morgen of government land, obtained financial backing from sugar industrialists in Natal, and formed the Crewes Rhodesia Sugar Estates Limited. The plant cane had to be brought up from Natal, and only 150 acres, instead of the 150 morgen required by the lease, had been planted by the end of 1929. By the end of May 1930, 250 acres had been planted with a further 1 100 acres of land cleared and ready for planting.<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The stand of cane was reported to be very promising, but unfortunately in the winter of 1930 a very severe frost was experienced, and more than half the cane was destroyed. The project was abandoned and the investment loss was recorded as £10 000. It was probably a doomed venture anyway, with no irrigation, and frequent frosts at altitude of 3 000 feet above sea level, but it certainly had the effect of making Natal's sugar men wary of investment in cane-growing in this country.<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ROBBIE TAKES OVER</span><br /><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">To return to consideration of the new Sugar Industry Board, C. L. Robertson's Board comprised himself as Chairman, Sir Andrew Strachan (from the Treasury), and Messrs. D. E. McLoughlin, D. A. Edwards, W. E. Richards and J. C. Elsworth. Robertson also insisted on an ex-officio seat on the Board for the Director of the Department of Research and Specialist Services.<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The Board purchased the shares in MacDougall's Triangle for £60 000, and all liabilities in the way of loan advances were taken over, being covered by the book value of the assets. The amount paid according to Robertson was "regarded as goodwill, and owing to them, and Mr. MacDougall in particular, for his initiative and perseverance in developing a promising industry in the face of many initial difficulties."<br /></span></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We who came after have inherited uncritically an assessment that the Sugar Industry Board's tenure of Triangle was not successful, but this verdict does not survive objective scrutiny. Taking stock of what the </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Prime Minister, Godfrey Huggins, once described as "the Government's ugly baby!" and to which Cecil Robertson had said "that may be so, but I visualise it growing into a lusty youth!", the Chairman found that he had 418 acres of cane, but that sugar production from the mill had not exceeded 100 tons per annum. One of the Board's first steps was to acquire title to the whole of the ranch, previously held only under option to purchase, as an immediate survey revealed extensive irrigation possibilities in addition to those existing. Robertson lost no time in availing himself of the expert agronomic and disease control advice which Mac had lacked, and a detailed cane survey showed a severe smut problem, (smut is a fungus disease of great importance in sugar cane cultivation), and this caused great problems with cane yields in the first few years, necessitating many fields being ploughed out and replanted.</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span lang="EN"> <p align="justify">A research programme was instituted, and the soil survey was extended, together with an assessment of the irrigation requirements and potential. It was concluded that about 2 500 acres of land suitable for cane could be commanded by enlargement and extension of MacDougall's canal, to a total length of 18 miles. A further seven mile extension would bring in an additional 2 500 acres.</p> <p align="justify">As it was assumed owing to the seepage and evaporation losses in the long canal, that 1 cubic foot of water per second (cusec) would be required for 35 acres irrigated, it was decided to limit the irrigation scheme to one serving 2 500 acres. This involved enlarging the canal in its upper reaches to render it capable of passing, when lined, up to 75 cusecs, the limit authorised by the Water Court for diversion of normal How from the Mtilikwe River. Additional water storage works were required to tide the Estate over periods of low river flow, and a suitable dam site was located 5 miles upstream of the Jatala Weir. Here the Esquelingwe Dam, capable of storing 2 800 acre feet, or 700 million gallons, was completed by the government by the end of 1946. Enlargement and extension of the canal was completed in 1948, but it was found that the old original section leaked so badly under higher low rates, that it was considered unsafe to pass more that 35 cusecs down the old earthen canal without lining it with concrete, a project which would have been beyond the Board's resources. This fact, and theoccurrence of disastrous droughts in the 1946/47 and 1948/49 seasons, caused the Board to decide to limit further the initial pilot scheme to 1 500 acres of cane.</p> <p align="justify">The area planted was extended from 418 acres in 1945 to 1 173 acres in 1953, and all the while new cane varieties, and water and fertiliser treatments, were under assessment at the experimental section, with slow but constant benefit to the Estate in the shape of increased cane yields and higher sucrose levels.</p> <p align="justify">The original second hand mill was still not complete when the Board took over in 1944, and spares and replacements were difficult to obtain immediately after the second world war. Finance was tight, and Treasury largely unsympathetic to the necessary demands for an increase in the loan capital on which the Board depended. Government refused <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">t</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">he Chairman's request for permission to raise capital in the open market. Robertson and his fellow members were subject to much ill-informed criticism and sniping. Robbie had retired from the Civil Service in 1946, but agreed to continue as Chairman of the Sugar Industry Board. He must sometimes have wondered whether all the responsibility and harassment he bore as Chairman was worth the £300 per annum which he received from the Government, but his unswerving faith and remarkable patience and wisdom sustained him throughout the trials and tribulations of nursing Government's "ugly baby".</span></span></p></span></span></span><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo29029.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo29029.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 29" /></a></span></span><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">MACDOUGALL'S Mill</span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Steam-driven gantry to unload cane from tractor-drawn trailers</span></span><br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "> <a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo30030.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo30030.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 30" /></a></span><br /><div style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">P</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>UBLIC RECOGNITION.</b></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>MacDougall's investiture with the O.B.E. by Sir Humphrey Gibbs,<br />Governor of </b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><b>Southern Rhodesia</b></span></div><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>TWO KEY FIGURES IN TRIANGLE'S HISTORY</b><br /></span></span><br /><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo31A.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo31A.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 31 A" /></a></span></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><b>C. L. ROBERTSON,</b></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>C.B.E., B.A. (Hons.), B.Sc. (Eng.) (Hons.), M.I.C.E.</b></span></div><div style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Chairman of the Sugar Industry Board</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1944-1954</span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo31B.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo31B.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 31 B" /></a></span><br /><div style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">GUY M. HULETT,</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Chairman of Triangle Ltd.</span></span></div><div style="font-weight: bold; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1957-1962</span></span></div></div></span><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo32.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo32.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 32" /></a></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Vast fields of cane shimmering in the Lowveld heat. Ancient Baobabs left standing like sentinels.</b></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: medium; "><br />In 1948, when the whole project was in jeopardy due to the setbacks of smut and drought, the Government called for an independent enquiry by two experts who fortunately reported favourably, and one of whom, Dr. H. H. Dodds, Robertson lost no time in engaging as a consultant. Things slowly improved, and by 1950 private enterprise was interested,though the price offered was unacceptably low. Robertson's insistence on good records and accurate accounting produced a sound assessment of the cost of the sugar the estate was now producing, and it is interesting to quote his figures for 1952:</span></span></span></p><span lang="EN"><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Costs per ton of cane milled</b><br /><br />Planting costs (proportionally)<br />£0 3s 2d<br /><br />Cultivation costs<br /><span lang="EN">£0 </span>13s 8<br /><br />Cutting costs<br /><span lang="EN">£0</span> 3s 5d<br /><br />Transport costs<br /><span lang="EN">£0 </span>4s 8d<br /><br />Agriculture £1 4s 11d<br /><br />Milling cost<br /><span lang="EN">£0 </span>18s 6d<br /><br />Administrative overheads<br />£ 1 2s 2d<br /><br />Total cost per ton of cane £3 5s 7d<br /><br />Cost per ton of sugar produced (at 10:1 cane: sugar ration)<br />£32 16s 0d<br /><br /><b>PROFITABILITY AT LAST</b><br /><br />In 1953 the estate showed its first real profit, in spite of a disastrous frost and an unexpected delay in delivery of new milling equipment, and renewed interest by private enterprise was manifest. Robertson had been in the habit of sending his old friend MacDougall reports on the progress, and in 1954 sent him a copy of the ninth annual report, to which the original master of the estate responded by writing as follows:</span></span></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">"Dear Robbie,</span></span></i></p> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span lang="EN"></span></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Many thanks for your letter and report. Your report is a masterpiece of brevity and information. Well done. Some of the figures of cane returns should make the Natal people think. </span></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I do hope the deal goes through and that you don't have to drop too much money on it. Don't forget the way to Glendale when you are passing through.</span></span></i></div><p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Kind regards to you both.<br /><br />Yours sincerely,<br />Mac."</span></span></i></p> <span lang="EN"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The people in Natal did more than think about Triangle, and in 1954 Triangle was purchased by a syndicate of Natal farmers, and the Chairman of the Sugar Industry Board, his mission accomplished after a difficult decade, tendered his resignation to the Minister, The Hon. Geoffrey Ellman-Brown, who replied:</span></span></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">"Dear Mr. Robertson,</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">. . . It is with the greatest reluctance that I accept your resignation and in so doing, / should like to place on record myGovernment's sincere appreciation of the outstanding services which you have rendered not only to Government but to the country as a whole during your term of office.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">I think the steps which have been taken to pioneer the development of sugar in the Sabi have effectively paved the way for the establishment of a major industry which will be of immeasurable value to the future economy of the country and the Federation as a whole.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At all times the operations of the Board under your chairmanship have been of the highest order and have always- reflected an excellent standard of efficiency and enterprise.</span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Once again may I convey to you my most sincere thanks for the frank and friendly manner in which you have resolved your problems, both with the Departments and myself, and to say that now on the termination of your services your presence and goodwill will be very much missed by us all.</span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Yours sincerely,<br /></span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">G. Ellman-Brown."</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Let us now look closely at Cecil Robertson. He was that rarecombination of efficient administrator and warm human being. Hecorresponded regularly with colleagues and ex-employees of the Board, and scrutiny of the surviving correspondence by permission of his widow shows that he was regarded with enormous affection and respect by all. One of the secretaries, R. P. Deary, wrote "As a Chairman you are a Secretary's nightmare, as a chief you arc an inspiration, and I am proud to have had the privilege of working with you." Ken Sinclair and Ben McWilliams, both Managers of Triangle under the Board, wrote to their Chairman in terms which can only have arisen as a result of great confidence and trust in him, and a fellow Board member, Mr. V. Dankwerts, wrote to his Chairman at the termination of his membership:</span></span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><i>'I think ex Board members owe you a great debt for the lessons you taught all of us while we had the privilege of serving under</i> </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">you shall never forget your unfailing tact, tenacity and courage in dealing with what sometimes seemed insuperable difficulties. At the same time you never failed to treat all your problem children </span></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">on the staff in such a human way. It often made me feel quite humble and unchristian.</span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It will be interesting watching Triangle from the touch line "</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In writing of Robertson, too, another fellow Board member, D. E. McLoughlin, was moved to express the classic quotation "A prophet is not without honour save in his own country". Robbie's widow felt similarly about the lack of official recognition of her husband's outstanding contribution to his country, a conviction deepened by the Cabinet's refusal to meet the unanimous request of all the I.C.A. committees in congress, conveyed through the chairman of the Natural Resources Board, that the new Kyle Dam, the construction of which Robertson had planned and encouraged for many years in his many overlapping capacities, should be named after him. It is of interest that in 1977 the water impounded by the new Darwendale Dam near Salisbury was named Lake C. L. Robertson, a belated but worthy tribute.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">After Robbie's passing, the Rhodesian Institution of Engineers inaugurated the C. L. Robertson Memorial Lectures, and the initial delivery by Roy Roberts, O.B.E., was a moving tribute to a former chief. It is quoted in full in the belief that it is a record and a tribute which deserves wider circulation than can be achieved in the annals of the Institution:</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">"It is an honour and a privilege that / greatly value that I have been asked to introduce the series of C. L. Robertson Memorial Lectures' which begin this evening.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It is a fitting thing indeed that the Council of our Rhodesian Institution of Engineers should have thought to commemorate in this appropriate fashion its first President, and an outstanding and greatly loved member of our profession.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">C. L. Robertson has established not one reputation, but a number, in the hearts and minds of those who knew him. He will live in our memories as an engineer, a scientist, a public administrator, a man of public affairs, and finally — as a man — a man of outstanding character and lovable qualities, of whom it can perhaps with truth be said he had no enemies.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">As an engineer, he pioneered water conservation and soil conservation, so that his name is unshakably linked with the great movement that has made Southern Rhodesia the best conserved country in Africa. His name is joined to many of the great engineering achievements in this country since World War 1 I need mention only Triangle and Kariba.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">As a scientist, lie initiated work of great value. In his early days in the irrigation branch, as it was then known, he began the regular gauging and computation of river flow that gained many valuable years for the present hydrological branch of that department — it was his foresight that set up systematic </span></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">gauging of the Zambesi River at Livingstone in 1925 that bore fruit thirty years later in helping to make possible the Kariba scheme. About the same time he greatly improved the beginnings of the meteorological services, and started Noel Sellick on a course which led to most valuable results. In other directions, also, such as his membership of the Rhodesian Scientific Association, and in his interest in pest control after his retirement, he did much for science.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">As a public administrator, despite a deceptively gentle manner, his qualities were well known and deeply respected. He had a gift of seeing quickly to the core of a question, and of disregarding the inessential. I served under him when he was Director of Irrigation and later Secretary for Agriculture and Lands, for more than 20 years, and I can claim to know him well.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Then as a man of public affairs. He served on innumerable public bodies, committees and councils. I will mention only a few. He was a keen Rotarian and was elected to its highest post in Africa, in which capacity he visited the United States. He was Chairman of the Sugar Industries Board, and despite all difficulties and much ill-informed criticism he succeeded in proving the economics of an industry which is blooming vigorously today. But perhaps his greatest achievement was in his work for our natural resources, beginning in the far off days in the 1920's when I was a junior member of a team that began it all, and ending with his chairmanship for a number of years of the Natural Resources Board that he had done so much to create.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And lastly, as a man. And here, I think, he shines more clearly even than in his more specific roles. As I have already said, it is difficult to imagine that he had any real enemies.</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">He was loved and respected by all. But let it not be thought that he was gentle and ineffectual. He could be most pugnacious and aggressive, showing the greatest perseverance and determination in all matters of principle which he would never desert.</span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Ana so we honour him today — a great Rhodesian. I will now ask you to rise in silence for a few moments in memory of Robbie.</span></span></i></p> <p><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Thank you."</span></span></i></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This was Cecil Robertson, O.B.E., under whose chairmanship of the Natural Resources Board the number of I.C.A. committees had increased from 15 to 88.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">This was "Robbie", one time ally of MacDougall who had made a six-day trip by mule cart from Fort Victoria to Triangle for their initial meeting, had shared his vision, inherited his troubles, and striven mightily to see the potential of Triangle materialise. He had served his country well in many fields, not least in his chairmanship of the Sugar Industry Board, in which he had achieved his appointed tasks of developing Triangle as a pilot scheme, determining the economics of sugar production in the lowveld, and developing the estate as a viable entity for disposal to private enterprise.<br /></span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Judge C. L. Robertson and his colleagues only from what they achieved, and the wretched reputation accorded the Board by history to date is seen to be ephemeral and unsubstantial, as are so many wrong judgements and tarnished reputations, which, though engendered by personal jealousies and uninformed comment, and lacking any substance, nevertheless persist and are magnified. Certainly there were grave shortcomings and inefficiencies to be found on close scrutiny, much of it due to the difficulty of obtaining anything but a handful of first class staff who were prepared to work in the harsh climate of Triangle for the wages the government was prepared to offer. But on balance the Chairman and his dedicated few undoubtedly achieved their appointed objective. May the nonsense about the Sugar Board now forever disappear from our heritage.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Honour the memory of C. L. Robertson at Triangle.<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><b>B. THE NATAL SYNDICATE</b></span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Ownership of Triangle by a syndicate of Natal cane farmers introduced another dimension to the lowveld, the concept of settler farmers.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">On a visit to Rhodesia in 1954, Nainby Starling became aware that the Sugar Industry Board was interested in disposing of its Triangle interests to private enterprise. He was impressed by the potential, and passed the news on to a number of prominent sugar farmers who formed themselves into what is known as "The Natal Syndicate", which, after negotiating with the Board and the Minister of Irrigation in the Southern Rhodesia Government, entered into an agreement with the Minister on the 4th June, 1954.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The Natal Syndicate was not the only organisation interested in the acquisition of Triangle, and it is on record that the Board actually opted for sale to a group of Hollanders, with interests in the East Indies, who made a rival bid. The one factor influencing Government to sell to the syndicate was the intention, propounded by the syndicate and enthusiastically supported by the Government, that a major settlement scheme, involving immigration of young farmers from Natal, should be responsible for production of the bulk of the cane to be milled at Triangle when adequate irrigation water for large-scale development became available.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In terms of the agreement the syndicate purchased, for just more than the estate had cost government, 12 000 acres of Triangle Ranch, and certain plant, machinery, equipment, vehicles, livestock, and standing crops. Furthermore the syndicate leased with the option of purchase the remaining extent of Triangle Ranch of approximately 80 000 acres.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In order ultimately to implement its undertaking to government to establish a major settlement scheme, the syndicate, which now operated as a company under the designation of Triangle Limited, decided to place three "guinea-pig" or experimental settlers on the land with a view to investigating the economic requirements of such a scheme in general and of individual holdings in particular.</span></span></p></span> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The Board of the company at that time consisted of G. W. Hammond (Chairman), M. G. Howson, K. H. Edmonds, E. K. L. de Bufanos, M. N. Starling, O. W. M. Pearce, H. Simpson, and J. R. Camp,<br />(who was the only Rhodesian). M. Nainby Starling was appointed General Manager, and J. H. R. Eastwood, a partner in the accounting firm of Allan and Harsant, was appointed as a trustee during the formation of the company.<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><b>THE FIRST PLANTERS</b></span></span></p><span lang="EN"> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The company had decided that the three selected guinea-pig planters should inter alia have the following respective individual qualifications:</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(a) One with considerable knowledge of and experience in the growing of sugar cane. (M. N. Starling).</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(b) One who was in possession of sufficient private means to be in a position to finance and develop the establishment of his farm with minimum assistance from the company. (W. H. Hingeston).</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(c) A Rhodesian citizen, (J. H. R. Eastwood).</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Nainby starling thus relinquished his position as General Manager and he and W. H. (Peter) Hingeston took up their farms towards the end of May 1955, and Ritz Eastwood approximately a year later. Rupert Taylor, a retired Group Captain in the R.A.F., who had been appointed Secretary to the company, became General Manager, and C. A. Gibbs was recruited as Secretary.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The acreage under cane was increased from 1 100 acres in 1954 to 1 400 in 1957, and the amount of sugar produced increased from 1 600 tons in 1954 to 4 500 tons in 1957, but in spite of this progress the company ran into financial difficulties. A number of factors were responsible for this state of affairs, among which were a gross underestimate of initial capital requirements, low cane yields due to a number of agronomic factors and greatly aggravated by that old bugbear excessive flowering of the cane in 1955, and an old and inefficient mill and factory plagued by breakdowns and unavailability of spares.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">There was also a stalling problem, and turnover was high, which was most disruptive. Several of the artisans in the mill were enticed to stay with promises of favoured consideration for settler farms as and when the company developed this aspect further, but still the company was bedevilled with personnel problems.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The three pioneer planters were great characters in their own right, and added their own personal touch of interest and colour to the embryo lowveld community. It tends to be overlooked that those early days saw a life-style which was rough, uncomfortable, and isolated, and a far cry from the comparative case and luxury which later success brought. A shared trip to "town" (Fort Victoria) once a month demanded a drive along 55 miles of an atrocious corrugated road providing choking dust in the dry months and clinging slippery mud in the wet. demanding the opening and shutting of nine farm gates (twice each), and quite impassable when the Mtilikwe and Tokwe Rivers flooded the low level bridges in summer. What bliss it was to emerge swearing, dirty and </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">bothered from the lowveld track at Ngundu and glide onto the luxury of the old strip road to Fort Victoria.</span></p></span><span lang="EN"> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At home the settlers lived in a variety of temporary buildings, bathed in an old tin tub, and required a fair amount of initiative and hard work in carving their homes and attendant creature comforts from the virgin bush.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Nainby Starling was a charming fellow, coming from a well-known Natal family, a provincial cricketer and keen sportsman, superb host, who ultimately sold his farm and went to live in Salisbury. Ritz Eastwood, accountant-turned-farmer, was innovative and imaginative in his farming lay-out, another keen cricketer and a man of great charm, but whose wife was never really happy in the bush, and he was the first of the "guinea-pigs" to sell up and leave.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Peter Hingeston, still farming on his beloved "Stonehenge" at the time of writing, is the undoubted doyen of the sugar farmers. A military man with a distinguished career first as an aviator in such romantic old aeroplanes as the Avro 504K, SE 5 single seater fighter and Wapiti, then later in Spitfires, Hurricanes and Mosquitoes, he was Senior Air Officer (Administration) in the Middle East in the 1939-45 war. He then became Adjutant General and was the youngest Brigadier in the Union Defence Force, and was promoted to O.C. Wits Command and O.C. Natal Command, from which post he retired and came to Rhodesia. His ingrained military precision is still evident in the disciplined layout and management of his farm, and it is a privileged person who shares his crystal-clear reminiscences of that age on Triangle Ranch.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In spite of steady improvements in all aspects of the varied problems besetting the syndicate, the financial position steadily deteriorated, and in 1957 the Board faced major problems which were aggravated by a lack of confidence between the syndicate and the General Manager. Rupert Taylor's resignation was accepted during the latter portion of 1956, and W. H. Hingeston was persuaded by the Board to assume the responsibility of General Manager in addition to running his own farm. Cedric Gibbs remained as Secretary.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">A rapid reorganisation of the Fields Department resulted in greatly improved cane yields, but the die was cast, and many members of the Board, faced with the need for greater expenditure, had lost confidence, resulting in them initiating negotiations with Guy Hulett, known to all of them and having access to the far larger amounts of capital necessary to restore Triangle's financial health.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">In the meantime, in order to avoid a complete financial collapse,the Board of Directors of the syndicate had arranged a loan of £100000 from the African and Overseas Ranching Company, and decided to dispose of its herd of 2 000 head of stock, which raised approximately £20 000. Prior to this, however, the lack of ready cash had made it necessary for Hingeston and Gibbs to pay all company salaries out of their own pockets for two months.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Towards the end of 1957 agreement was reached between the Board and Guy Hulett whereby the latter acquired 99% of the shareholding of Triangle Limited on the payment of £2 per £1 Ordinary Share.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">With the passing of the Natal Syndicate from the scene was closed another chapter of the Triangle Story, although many of the characters and their works endure to this day.<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><br /><b>C. ENTER GUY HULETT<br /></b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><b><br /></b>If MacDougall's vision and dogged determination first kindled the spark of the irrigation development of the Lowveld, and the SugarIndustry Board and Natal Syndicate nurtured the flame, then the advent of Guy Hulett on the scene really set it alight.</span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The grandson of Sir Liege Hulett, the founder of the long established Natal firm of Sir J. L. Hulett & Sons Limited, Guy Hulett was General Manager of the company when his father Mr. A. S. L. (Albert) Hulett died shortly before the Managing Director Mr. W. E. R. (Reggie) Edwards in 1948. After deliberations by the Board of Directors as to the advisability of one man holding dual office, it was nevertheless unanimously agreed that Mr. Guy Hulett be appointed Chairman and Managing Director.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Like his grandfather, Guy Hulett was a man of vision and tenacity of purpose. He soon demonstrated that he was also a man of drive whowas determined to advance the fortunes of the company for which he had a fierce loyalty.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At the time of his appointments, Huletts owned three sugar mills at Darnall, Amatikulu and Felixton, two mill sites at Tinley Manor and Entumeni, a tea estate and factory and fairly substantial cane lands at Darnall, Umhlali, Kearsney, Felixton, Mtunzini and Gingindhlovu. In consideration of the greater return on cane farming. Guy agreed to plough out the tea estates and planted the land to cane. One of the people participating in this venture was a young overseer named T. Goss whose first job under Hulett was to see to the planting under cane of the previous tea estates.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Guy Hulett was anxious to expand the company s interests outside of South Africa and although he negotiated the acquisition of Zululand Sugar Millers and Planters Limited in 1957, he found little room for further expansion in South Africa and accordingly focussed his interest further afield. At this stage he had already received a tentative approach to acquire Triangle from the Natal Syndicate.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">He went on to form a company to grow and mill sugar on the Mhlume Estate in Swaziland, and offered 30% of the shares to the Colonial Development Corporation. He also embarked on an ambitious and exciting venture to develop a sugar industry at Kilomberu in Tanganyika. Negotiations with the government of that country reached an advanced stage, and Guy had stationed on the embryo estate Watson-Paul, a surveyor responsible for field lay-out, and D. de Ruyter, an able sugar chemist with experience in the industry in the Dutch East Indies. The project appeared most promising, and trials conducted by Hulett's men were in an advanced state when the government reneged on a previously given undertaking to construct a railway line on which the viability of the scheme depended.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Guy Hulett unsuccessfully sued the government, as a result of which he was locally discredited, and he was forced to pull out of </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Tanganyika. On his way back to South Africa, he met Nainby Starling of the Natal Syndicate, who for the second time endeavoured to interest him in the acquisition of Triangle, and this time he had a quick look, made a snap decision, and directed his Tanganyika-destined capital to Rhodesia in a move which was to change the face of the lowveld.</span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Some of the people who had invested in the Natal Syndicate were finding their participation in the venture to be something of a financial embarrassment, and so there was a certain amount of relief experienced when Guy Hulett made his definite interest known. Furthermore, in one of those unexpected developments which characterise all our doings, it so happened that among the persons to whom the Huletts purchase of Triangle brought much needed relief were one or two who had been outspoken critics of the Huletts organisation and their milling policy and capacity in Natal. Thus it was that in taking over Triangle, Guy Hulett bought a company and as a bonus earned somewhat begrudging gratitude from a number of erstwhile critics</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">He sent his cousin Jack Hulett, currently General Manager at Darnall, to Triangle as General Manager, and took over most of the remaining staff of the syndicate, among whom were John Edmonds, who had an agricultural diploma but was helping out as a welder, and Don Rawson, a Section Manager, at the time of writing both still working for Triangle as Field Manager and Section Manager respectively. At first Guy Hulett was adamant that Cedric Gibbs should be replaced as company secretary by one of his own men, but Hingeston talked him into giving him a chance, and Hulett subsequently became a great admirer of the integrity and administrative ability of C. A. Gibbs. There soon followed the first transfer of members of Huletts staff to Triangle, a practice which over the years has proved of inestimable benefit in providing experience and expertise to a new industry in this country. Bob Udal, Brian Mahon and Jasper Pons were transferred as Section Managers, and Watson-Paul and de Ruyter came down from Tanganyika as Field Manager and Factory Manager.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Guy was anxious to initiate major development, and appointed to his Board Eric Hockey and Eric Palmer of Salisbury, both well-known businessmen, and from Rome he recruited as Managing Director for his new estate Tom Threlkeld, who had been working for the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">At that time Triangle's fields comprised only the North and South fields near the original mill, and the Jiri, Gungwa and Makari fields to the South lower down Mac's canal, and to advise on further development Guy engaged Colonel Hopwood, recently retired Director of Irrigation in South Africa. He quickly saw that the potential for gravity feed on the old canal system was almost exhausted, and recommended a scheme to pump the water and irrigate by overhead spray. Dr. Graham Shuker, a young agronomist, was sent up from Natal to conduct a soil survey on a large block of land destined for development.</span></span></p><p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">MacDougall's unlined canal leaked very badly, and while it carried 75 cusecs of water at Jatala Weir, by the time it reached Makari it only held about one third of that volume, the rest having gradually </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">seeped out and made its way back to the nearby river. A scheme was therefore devised to install a major pump station (PI) on Selby's Pools in the Mtilikwe River to pump water back to replenish the canal, and then at the canal's end another and larger pump station (P2) was planned to irrigate the new cane fields. Four Rolls-Royce diesel engine pumps were installed at PI, and a further nine at P2.</span></p><span class="Apple-style-span"> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The new spray irrigation block, some 3 600 acres in extent, was in process of being cleared by the Government C.M.E.D. on contract and planted by the field staff, and it was at this stage, in November 1958, that Guy Hulett sent to Triangle as Field Manager, T. E. S. Goss, who had shown a flair for development projects of this nature, and was to leave his mark indelibly on Triangle.</span></span></p> <p align="justify" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Goss soon terminated the C.M.E.D. contract and bought mechanical equipment for the company, and the planting of cane on the new sections, already well under way, proceeded apace, in what was to be the world's biggest single-pump-station overhead irrigation block, named Sections 1 to 6. Bauer equipment from Austria was installed to spray the growing cane.</span></span></p> <p align="justify" style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">When Terry Goss first came to Triangle from Mhlume, Guy Hulett had said to him "Watch out, because this place Triangle will always fight you back", and the warning was to come true almost immediately. On 23rd December 1958, in an exceptionally hot summer, four and a half inches of rain fell in two hours on the new Section 4 fields, and a raging torrent engulfed the fine new P2 pump station. Only the nine diesel filters proudly embossed "RR" were sticking out of the water when Goss visited the pump station in the grey light of dawn. This was a disaster, as irrigation of the new cane was completely dependent on the pumps, and at Christmas time it was unlikely that a normal repair service would be available. But there is nothing normal about Rolls Royce service, and with splendid cooperation the agents journeyed from Bulawayo to Triangle over Christmas, stripped the engines and pumps down, and removed them to Bulawayo for the complete overhaul which was necessary after their immersion.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The new young cane in the world's largest spray block was now completely at the mercy of the elements, but mercifully it rained on several occasions just at it seemed that the stressed and wilting cane would wither and die. The pumps and motors were returned in the nick of time. No one knew anything about the overhead irrigation of cane at that stage, and although the scheme appeared successful, it was admittedly inefficient and governed by guesswork. Nevertheless, the old mill produced 11 000 tons of sugar in 1959.<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><br /><b>THE KYLE AGREEMENT<br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><b><br /></b>No further expansion was possible with the water available, but Guy Hulett had from the outset set his mind on a much larger scheme at Triangle, for which vast quantities of water would be required, and negotiations with the Minister of Irrigation, Mr. Geoffrey Ellman-Brown, were now finalised.</span></p> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">An enormous amount of work had been done on planning the </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">construction of the huge Kyle Dam where the Shagashe River joined the Mtilikwe near Fort Victoria, where MacDougall and Gifford had sat and dreamed so many years previously. Robertson and his colleagues and successors in the Irrigation Department, later the Ministry of Water Development, had planned the whole operation to the finest detail, but the government would not construct the dam until it had negotiated a firm commitment by a user to purchase the water.</span></p><span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">And so an historic agreement was concluded between the Minister and Guy Hulett, the salient features of which were as follows:</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Government: (i) Agreed to construct the Kyle Dam and the Kyle Canal.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(ii) Agreed to allocate the water from the Kyle Dam in the following order of priorities:<br /><br />The first 6 cusecs to the Municipality of Fort Victoria;<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">the next 160 cusecs to Triangle Limited;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">the next 40 cusecs to Hippo Valley Estates;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">the next 4 cusecs for minor consumers at the Minister's discretion;<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium; ">any remaining water to be allocated in the ratio 4 parts to Triangle and 1 part to Hippo Valley.</span></p> </span><span lang="EN"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span"> </span></span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Guy Hulett: (i) Agreed to pay for the Kyle water whether or not it was used.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(ii) Agreed to surrender Triangle's water rights to 75 cusecs from Esquilingwe.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(iii) Agreed to purchase land at Triangle.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(iv) Agreed to contribute £300 000 towards the cost of the dam.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(v) Agreed to contribute £25 000 towards the cost of a road from Triangle to the railhead at Mbizi.</span></span></p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">(vi) Undertook to have a further 6 000 acres under cane at a cost of £750 000 within three years.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">It may thus be seen that Kyle Dam was constructed specifically to irrigate Triangle Sugar Estates, and that Guy Hulett contracted to pay for the water, even if he did not use it, at a rate calculated to amortise the capital cost, plus interest and administrative costs, over an agreed period. Guy Hulett regarded Triangle as his "baby", and he had absolute confidence in the future of the lowveld irrigation scheme. He had no hesitation in committing his company to massive investment in the enterprise and to that effect the company's current debentures were raised to finance Triangle.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">The governments irrigation department and its contractors consolidated their proud record in the feverish activity which attended the construction of the graceful great arched dam wall at Kyle, and the huge canal which snaked its concrete way from the off-take point as Esquelingwe Dam down to nearby Triangle.</span></span></p> <p align="justify"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span">Guy Hulett had set his sights on 15 000 acres of cane at Triangle, the sugar from which he calculated would supply the whole of the</span></span></p></span><p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; text-align: justify; "> If MacDougall's vision and dogged determination first kindled the spark of the irrigation development of the Lowveld, and the Sugar Industry Board and Natal Syndicate nurtured the flame, then the advent of Guy Hulett on the scene really set it alight.<br /><br />E<b>XPANDING THE MILL<br /></b><br />Meanwhile much planning and thought went into the milling capacity necessary to mill the cane from the new fields. A new mill nearer the new fields was required some twelve miles south of the existing mill, and for this a whole new milling train and factory would be required. Meanwhile Mac's mill could not cope with the total cane from the old fields and the new spray block Sections 1 to 6 now in full production, and so Huletts devised a daring plan to solve the problem in a succession of moves.</span></span></span></p> <span lang="EN"> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>A second hand 66 inch milling train, destined for the new mill, was purchased from the Zululand Sugar Millers in Empangeni, and this ZSM Mill was transported to Triangle and was erected in tandem with Mac's mill for just one season. In the closed season Hulett planned to take the whole complex down and transfer it to the new mill site. Everybody thought him mad, but with his team from Natal aiding local stalwarts Andrew Stoddart (Mill Manager), Ken Guthrie (Chief Engineer) and Dolf de Ruyter (Factory Manager), the job was accomplished in the<br />nick of time.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>Mention of the old mill brings to mind an anecdote that illustrates the character and ingenuity of Guy Hulett and his men: an agreement was being negotiated with the refineries to take all Triangle's raw sugar, and Guy Hulett had agreed in principle to forego the right to make white sugar. Things were not to his satisfaction at some stage of his negotiations with the refineries, and he threatened defiantly that he would manufacture white sugar. The refinery management laughed, knowing that there was no sophisticated refining equipment at Triangle, but Hulett told de Ruyter to produce ten tons of white sugar for sale, which he did, and it was sold properly packaged, as plantation sugar in the Fort Victoria district. (The single packet—1 lb., l/7d.—on display in the museum is to our knowledge the sole surviving example of this spirited production drive.) Point made apparently, and the Triangle-Refineries negotiations presumably proceeded more realistically.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>As Triangle developed, Guy Hulett threw himself wholeheartedly into fostering its welfare. He was a tireless man, a veritable human dynamo, who led by example in working like a slave, and expecting his employees to do the same. He suffered fools badly, and never permitted his subordinates to become familiar. Terry Goss relates that Guy used to leave Durban by car on a Friday morning, drive all the way to Triangle, and arrive at about noon on Saturday. Never pausing for the niceties of greeting his senior employees or announcing his arrival, he would drive straight to the mill, park his car outside and walk straight inside. Gibbs and Goss had to keep their eyes peeled for his arrival, and then hurry to catch up with him as he bustled into the mill, firing searching questions. Cedric Gibbs was the Company Secretary, </span>and Terry Goss Field Manager, later a director, but to Hulett they were "Gibbs" and "Goss", and he was "Mr. Hulett", none of this first name familiarity.</p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>The Huletts chairman had two mottoes — "Do It Now", and "Bhuka ne Mehio" (See With Your Own Eyes), and these stood him in good stead in his days of dynamic development. He used to spend the Saturday afternoon of his Triangle trip going through the books, and woe betide Cedric Gibbs if there were any errors or unexplaineditems. One of the matters which constantly it him was the legacy of the old Triangle debt to African and Overseas Ranchers, its remnant now converted into a minority shareholding option. He could not abide the thought that anybody else had a stake in his empire, or that he was beholden to anybody.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>He had similar views concerning the settlement scheme, and tried everything possible to shed the three guinea-pig settlers he had inherited. He had from the start refused to take over Triangle under the previous concept of a large scale settlement farm project, and the government had no option but to drop this idea or he would not have proceeded with his bid for Triangle, but in the end he somewhat reluctantly agreed to retain, and honour Triangle's obligations to, the three original planters.<br /></span><span><br /><b>RIVAL INTERESTS EMERGE<br /></b></span><b><br /></b>Although Guy Hulett had the immense satisfaction of seeing Triangle developing at a gratifying rate, not everything was rosy. Like MacDougall he was not really very friendly with R. O. Stockil, who, following Triangle's lead, had started with small scale development on the neighbouring Hippo Valley Estates, and relationships between the two concerns were not typical of good neighbourliness. On one occasion the road through Triangle fields to Hippo Valley Estates, which was the shortest available route but was not a declared public thoroughfare, was being considered for declaration as a public road. Guy Hulett and his men without further ado ploughed up the road and planted it to cane on the grounds that it unnecessarily split a field in two and was more valuable as agricultural land.</p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span>Following on the reputation earned by MacDougall's grapefruit in the Fort Victoria area in particular, Stockil had started a fine citrus estate near MacDougall's old camping site at Bendezi on the Lundi. However, he soon saw the great potential of his neighbour's sugar project across the fence, and resolved to follow suit.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-family: georgia; "><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">As will have been noted. Hippo Valley Estates had a very small allocation, bottom priority of available water, from Kyle Dam, and to supply the new estate the government agreed to build Bangala Dam lower down the Mtilikwe River from Kyle. Guy Hulett foolishly opposed the construction of this dam, and in the ensuing court case he was over-ruled and lost a certain amount of face. He stoutly maintained that the reason for his opposition was a fear that the use of this dam, utilising the same Kyle Canal, would interfere with Triangle's irrigation scheme. His opponents, on the other hand, were equally convinced that his </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">opposition was based on the desire to retain a monopoly on sugar in the lowveld for himself.</span></p><p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; font-family: georgia; "><span><span>Bangala was an obvious dam for the government to construct to serve the rich potential of the Hippo Valley Estates, and it is difficult to escape the conclusion that Hulett was motivated by purely selfish notions in his opposition to the scheme.<br /><br />There were even darker storm clouds on the horizon for Guy Hulett in Natal.<br /><br />There had been prolonged rumblings in the Natal sugar industry, where there had long been an excess capacity for milling, and millers were competing rather over-vigorously and irrationally for planters' cane. In addition, the sugar refining capacity was already "over- machined" to the extent of approximately 20% in 1962 when The Natal Estates at Mount Edgecombe committed themselves to spending million on a new refining house.</span></span></p> <span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia; "> <p style="text-align: justify;font-size: medium; ">What follows now is quoted from "The Take Over of Huletts", by R. G. T. Watson, which appeared in the Tongaat house journal "The Condenser" in December 1962.</p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; ">"<span>Clearly The Natal Estates' intention was to consolidate its position as a refiner by improving the quality of its product, to compete in the refining field, and to fill its re-melt house by attracting supplies of raw sugar from other plantation mills. Thus the seeds of conflict with established refining interests were sown.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; ">I<span>n the opinion of the writer the decision of The Natal Estates to terminate its agreement with Hulsar (Huletts South African Refineries) with effect from June, 1962, and to appoint C. G. Smith & Company Limited as its selling agents, was the Sarajevo shot that sparked off the war.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span>At 4 p.m. on Tuesday, October 16th 1962, Mr. Guy Hulett, Chairman of Sir J. L. Hulett & Sons Limited, called on Mr. W. B. Collier, Chairman of The Natal Estates Limited, and informed him that Huletts had made a take-over oiler of 400 cents for each fully-paid R2 ordinary share in The Natal Estates Limited. As was generally known throughout the industry, discussions had been taking place between The Natal Estates and Tongaat with a view to exploring the possibilities of a merger, which would be of mutual benefit to both concerns. Consequently, on receiving Mr. Hulett's announcement of the take-over bid, the Chairman of The Natal Estates at once got into touch with Tongaat, inviting representatives of that company to attend a meeting of The Natal Estates board called for the following day. On Wednesday, October 17th, the Tongaat representatives met the Natal Estates' board of directors, and ways and means of helping The Natal Estates in their predicament were discussed. On the same day Mr. G. Vernon Crookes, the Chairman of Reynolds Bros. Limited, acting as spokesman for the C. G. Smith Group, informed The Tongaat Sugar Company that his group of companies would give full support to Tongaat in any </span>action they might take to protect The Natal Estates. Tongaat welcomed and accepted this offer, and in this way a consortium came into being composed of the following companies: The Tongaat Sugar Company, Limited, Crookes Bros. Limited, The Gledhow-Chaka's Kraal Sugar Company Limited, Pongola Sugar Milling Company Limited, Reynolds Bros. Limited, C. G. Smith & Company Limited, and Umzimkulu Sugar Company Limited. The C. G. Smith group was fully represented during the negotiations which followed.</p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span>On Thursday, October 18th. Mr. C. J. Saunders, the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of the Tongaat Sugar Company, informed the Chairman of the Natal Estates that Tongaat and the six companies of the C. G. Smith Group had decided to make a counter-offer for Natal Estates shares, the terms of which would be communicated to the Natal Estates shareholders before October 31st, that is before the closing date of the Hulett offer. On the same day the Standard Bank of South Africa Limited informed Tongaat that it would stand behind it in respect of any bridging finance which might be required in connection with the counter-offer. Mr. Hulett was not available for comment at that stage but subsequently announced through the Press that 'shareholders of Natal Estates will be well advised to hold their hand until the other offer is made. . . We will consider the consortium's offer and in the light of that will reconsider our offer to the Natal Estates shareholders."</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span>At 1 p.m. on Friday, October 26th, Mr. W. B. Collier announced that the consortium had made a counter-bid of 500 cents for each fully paid R2 Natal Estates share, conditional upon 90 per cent acceptance, but the conclusion had already been reached by those conducting the consortium that to continue competing for Natal Estates shares against any further bids which Sir J. L. Hulett & Sons Limited might make, or any attempt to try to purchase in the open market, would fail. The principal reason for this assumption was that since Mr. Hulett's announcement that shareholders should wait for the consortium's counter-offer, it was apparent that a market operation was being conducted by Sir J. L. Hulett & Sons Limited for the Natal Estates shares. In fact, the market price of Natal Estates shares had touched 575 cents on October 25th.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span>At 3 p.m. on Friday, October 26th, Mr. Guy M. Hulett held a press conference at which he announced that his company had acquired control of The Natal Estates Limited. Mr. Hulett had achieved his first objective.</span></p> <p align="justify" style="font-size: medium; "><span>The consortium's main objective, namely, the rationalisation of the sugar milling industry by the re-grouping of operations, could now only be achieved by a major change of strategy in the struggle for control between Huletts and the consortium. For the consortium to succeed in its objective which it believed would be of general benefit to all, and most important, to the country as </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; ">a whole, the struggle was thus directed against Huletts itself. Consequently, on Friday. October 26th, exactly one hour after the Hulett press conference, representatives of the consortium called on Mr. Hulett and informed him that the consortium had decided to make an offer to the shareholders of Sir J. L. Hulett & Sons Limited, the terms of which were as follows:</span></p> <p>To holders of the 7J per cent Cumulative Preference shares of Rl-R.1,50 in cash for every share held. This offer was conditional on the offer to ordinary shareholders being successful.</p> <p align="justify">To holders of ordinary shares of R1 each — R4 per share in cash for 50 per cent of the shares owned by each holder. In addition, ordinary shareholders who accepted the offer were invited to tender all or part of the balance of their holding for sale to the consortium at the same price of R4 per share. Such additional shares would be accepted by the consortium to the extent that acceptances of the main offer fell short of the consortium's requirement of 50 per cent of the total ordinary share capital.</p> <p align="justify">The offer to ordinary shareholders was conditional on the consortium acquiring 50 per cent of the issued ordinary share capital. At the consortium press conference which took place at 5 o'clock on the afternoon of October 26th, at which the offer was disclosed, it was emphasized that the purpose in not bidding for more than 50 per cent of the ordinary share capital was to enable existing shareholders to retain an interest in their company and thereby to share the benefits that it was expected would accrue from the regrouping of operations. The consortium had no intention of forming a monopoly in the industry and in the event of the offer to Hulett shareholders being successful the companies concerned would continue to operate as independent entities.</p> <p align="justify">The meeting between Mr. Hulett and the consortium representative was conducted with dignity. Mr. Hulett summed up by saying that he thought the offer rather low, but that he would investigate it, and after consultation with his board, approach the consortium again. Unfortunately he flew to Cape Town where he enlisted the aid of two insurance companies who said that they would support the market at over 400 cents. This sparked off the market operation. Mr. Hulett did approach the consortium again on Tuesday, November 6th, but the point of no return had then been reached, for while he was suggesting a compromise, the control of Huletts had passed into the hands of the consortium.</p> <p align="justify">At noon on Wednesday, November 7th the consortium announced that it had acquired 51 per cent of Hulett's shares. Thus the fight for the take-over of Huletts, and the opportunity it would give of rationalising the sugar milling industry, ended."<br /><br />The inevitable had happened, and Guy Hulett suddenly found himself out of office and the proud firm had been taken over by the consortium.</p></span><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-family: Georgia; "> <a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Page49.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Page49.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 49" /></a><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Cane Cutter at work in cane previously burnt to remove foliage.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-family: Georgia; "> <a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo50.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo50.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 50" /></a><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Bundled cane being loaded into a Hilo (high loading trailer) for transport to the Mill.</b></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo51A.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo51A.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 51 A" /></a></span></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><b>Triangle Mill and Bulk Sugar Store as it is today.</b></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; font-family: Georgia; "><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Photo52.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Photo52.jpg" border="0" alt="Page 52" /></a></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>The Prime Minister, The Hon. Ian Douglas Smith, I.D., M.P., and Mr. T. E. S. Goss, Managing Director, at the opening of the new Agricultural Training Centre which characterised an era of unprecedented progress for Triangle Ltd. and its people.</b></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This was a bitter blow to Guy Hulett, and although he had no ambitions in respect to his personal wealth, he resignedly retired to the comparative obscurity of his farm at Compensation.</span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">One thing is certain: After MacDougall, Guy Hulett was more responsible than any other person for changing the face of the hot and sleepy lowveld into one of bustling agricultural development, and the people of this country owe him an eternal debt for his confidence and dynamic approach to what he recognised was an enterprise worthy of massive capital investment.</span></span><br /><br /><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">D. THE CONSORTIUM AND TRIANGLE<br /></span></span></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">In far-away Natal a mighty battle between rival giants of the sugar world drew to its close, and Guy Hulett, tough maestro of an empire and of Triangle, was finally ousted on the 7th of November 1962, his control to be replaced by that of a consortium of interests, principally represented by the Tongaat Sugar Company and the extensive Crookes-Reynolds-C. G. Smith conglomerate.</span></span></b></p><span lang="EN"><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Master-minding the financia infighting which led to the take-over was Christopher J. Saunders, a young graduate of the Universities of Cape Town and Oxford and heir to his father's power at historic Tongaat, and his wisdom and vision and deep humanity were to have a profound influence on the people of Triangle when he succeeded to the Chairmanship in later years.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Chris Saunders drew great encouragement and support from the colourful character Fred "Chaka" Gillatt of Gledhow, who had always loved Rhodesia, and believed in its vast potential. He was probably more responsible than any other person for persuading the C. G. Smith interests in the consortium to invest in Triangle in the days ahead, for it was well-known that G. V. Crookes was initially far more interested in the Swaziland sector of the external interests.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Chris Saunders was also fortunate in the support and cooperation he enjoyed from the courteous, dignified and charming George Vernon Crookes, the quiet but undoubted boss of the C. G. Smith Group, for while Vernon Crookes could muster considerable economic muscle, it was not his disposition to make the running in the boardroom of the new masters of Huletts and Triangle, but rather to lend his powerful backing and experience to the new deal.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">In a masterpiece of personnel selection the consortium invited to be its Chairman one Ross S. Armstrong, a great man, modest and capable, widely respected and liked by all parties concerned in the new Consortium. Ross Armstrong was a sugar grower, and as a former Chairman of Huletts S.A. Refineries had considerable experience in the sugar industry, besides being a powerful figure on the boards of a diversity of leading commercial and financial houses in Natal.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">There could not have been a better choice to weld together into a meaningful force the potentially disharmonious styles and philosophies <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 16px; ">of two great sugar producers, who were now united in a consortium conceived to counter a take-over threat by Guy Hulett, and thereby to implement a much-needed rationalisation of the sugar industry in Natal.</span></p><div style="text-align: justify;">When the consortium took stock of the empire they had wrested from Guy Hulett, they received a nasty shock, and some of the participants could be excused for thinking they had gained for themselves an operation which was well on the way to being out of control financially. There were suggestions that Huletts had been indiscreet, even reckless, in their borrowing and commitments at the time of the battle.</div><p></p> <span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Fortunately in the person of J. Morton Taylor emerged the man to introduce the sound financial reorganisation to create an acceptable order out of the mess. Huletts was in a potentially disastrous situation immediately after the take-over, and was then timorously blessed with g00d fortune, and good weather.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">At this time the Rhodesian operation at Triangle was poised for a spectacular leap forward, and the huge finance required was raised by selling the Swaziland interests at Mhlume to the Colonial Development Corporation. This in itself was not simple, as Guy Hulett had managed to engender a mutual dislike in his company's dealings with the C.D.C. in Swaziland, and just before the take-over, relations were severely strained. The C.D.C. were not over-friendly towards Huletts management, and this was undoubtedly a factor influencing the consortium to divest itself of Swaziland and concentrate its external efforts on Triangle.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">At Triangle, the stall watched the take-over battle from afar, and with a little apprehension, for they were Guy Hulett men. For three months after their leader fell, they heard little, but wisely decided to press on as before, whatever the outcome.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Eventually a six-man delegation of agriculturalists, economists, and sugar technologists arrived at Triangle, their mission one of assessment for the new owners, and fortunately they found the estate in top gear, spick and span. They were impressed, and reported accordingly. As a result, the consortium under Ross Armstrong gave Triangle as strong a commitment as had MacDougall and Hulett, and again it was "all systems go". </p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The new mill had crushed its first sugar on 20th October 1962 , and under Mill Manager Harry Fotheringham the necessary further milling expansion was planned and implemented. MacDougall's mill was installed in tandem with the 66 inch milling train, and from Chaka's Kraal in Natal another 48 inch mill was purchased and also installed to create a total milling capacity of 270 tons of cane per hour.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">There were inevitable changes in management at Triangle. Tom Threlkeld, the Managing Director, left to join the Sugar Sales organisation in Salisbury, and for the second time the position of C. A. Gibbs was in doubt, as there was some foolish talk of dispensing with the services of this proud and hard-working individual, and replacing him with an administrative man from Huletts in Natal. This apparently arose because Gibbs was rather short with a certain young man who had come up to Triangle to assess the functioning of the new acquisition.</div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">This time it was T. E. S. Goss who persuaded Ross Armstrong that "Gibbo" was a loyal and valuable servant, and he was accordingly retained as Secretary, and then rapidly became Business Manager and a member of the Board, to which Terry Goss was appointed just before him.<br /><br /><b>AN ERA OF SPECTACULAR DEVELOPMEN</b>T<br /><br />The sugar price was climbing to a breath-taking new high, and the pace of dynamic development intensified, as further lowveld bush was cleared and planted to cane. To spearhead their field development the company could not have had a better man than Goss, dynamic, authoritative, and very highly motivated. He loved the pace and excitement of that era, and at his side was a remarkable hydrological engineer, an Italian named Renato Toti, who had come to Triangle under Guy Hulett just before Goss, and now really came into his own. Brilliantly perceptive, impetuous and utterly confident, Toti thrived on the hectic scene attending the devising, designing and installation of a massive irrigation scheme in virgin bush. He brought water in rapid time, this time under overhead irrigation, to the new schemes of the "twenties and fifties" sections, after sections 7-20 had been put to flood irrigation.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Also playing a notable part in the development drive was Jack Swart, an experienced and astute contracting land surveyor who had had a major share in the Kariba basin development. He set to, to survey the bush of Triangle, setting up areas to be knocked down and ripped by the land-clearing firms of W. R. and J. L. Gulliver, and others.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">To Jack Swart goes the credit for 'siting' the attractive Triangle village behind the ridge where it now lies, as it had been the intention of management to build the village above the Goss house towards where the cotton gin now stands, which would have been most unfortunate.</span></div></span><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">All over the lowveld, feverish activity was taking place. The land adjacent to Triangle on the west bank of the Mtilikwe was part of the great Nuanetsi Ranch, a subsidiary of the giant Imperial Cold Storage Company, whose Chairman was the experienced and influential Ivan Wentzel. Armstrong, Saunders and Taylor saw the mutual advantages of a partnership with Wentzel and his organisation, and accordingly Gibbs was instructed to negotiate the formalities of a land deal with its neighbours whereby Triangle Limited and the Imperial Cold Storage Company, Nuanetsi's owners, formed two subsidiaries, the Mtilikwe Sugar Company and the Tokwe Development Company, to irrigate the rich soils west of the Mtilikwe and south of the Lundi Rivers. Triangle held 51% and Nuanetsi 49% of the shares in these companies, and large weirs were designed and built under Toti's direction on the Mtilikwe and Tokwe Rivers to irrigate these properties, although the long-term intention was to utilise water from the huge proposed Tokwe-Mukorsi dam to bring the scheme to full fruition. This will assuredly yet come about.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">At the same time as Gibbs was tying up the Nuanetsi deal tor his company, across at Hippo Valley, Sir Raymond Stockil, then Chairman <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; ">and Managing Director of Hippo Valley Estates Limited, rather surprisingly acquired the adjacent land on Essanby Ranch from his financially embattled brother Stanley and in a controversial land transaction then negotiated to sell the land to a partnership including a number of Mauritians who planned to set up Nandi Sugar Estates in competition with Hippo Valley and Triangle. Government, using disbursements from Federal funds, constructed on the Chiredzi River the Manjerenje Dam, later named Lake MacDougall, to irrigate the new estate, but the whole scheme collapsed due to financial problems.<br /><br /></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">At Triangle the picture was rosier, and the consortium soon made its presence felt, not least with the provision of staff amenities. Better housing was planned and constructed, and African welfare took a giant leap forward with an estate-wide system of beerhalls and football fields, including a magnificent stadium which the employees chose to name "Gibbo Stadium" after C. A. Gibbs. A private hospital was planned and built after abortive attempts to interest Stockil in a joint medical venture, and a magnificent country club was constructed. A European primary school was named Murray MacDougall School, and at the opening Mac delighted the children and startled Ministry of Education officials by declaring a holiday, an unauthorised action which they could scarcely countermand. In a nice parallel gesture the African community named their first primary school Dunuza School, after Mac's legendary faithful waggoneer and right-hand man. then a colourful figure settled on an estate scheme for old retainers. Tom Dunuza died on 26th July, 1972, but the memory of this proud and entertaining character lives on at Triangle.</span></div></span><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The new owners of Triangle honoured the agreement and interests of the three original settlers, and in a move which was widely acclaimed settled six of its section managers around lands which MacDougall had originally developed north of the old mill. These six — Bob Alderton, Mike Botha, Barry Gutridge, Jon Morgan, Duncan Starling and Bob Udal — had served" the company well as section managers and had opted to branch out independently as cane planters on their own when the opportunity was offered.<br /><br /><b>OPENING OF THE NEW MILL<br /><br /></b>Murray MacDougall. to whom Guy Hulett and the consortium had brought due acknowledgement and honour when others were pressing their own claims as "pioneers of the lowveld", died aged 83 on 30th May 1964, just before the official opening of the new mill.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The mill was officially opened on 21st June 1964. It was a glittering occasion. A vast assembly of guests gathered in the picturesquely bedecked sugar store, and the inaugural showing of a magnificent promotional and historic film of the development of Triangle brought a touch of the momentous to the gathering. The London Daily Sugar Price was climbing steadily towards the magical figure of £100-0-0 per ton, and it was a time of euphoria. Among the distinguished guests were the Hon. Sir Humphrey Gibbs, Governor of Southern Rhodesia, and the Hon. Mr. D. C. H. Uys, Minister of Agriculture in South Africa.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">In a characteristic address, Ross Armstrong suggested that the Rhodesian Lowveld sugar industry was the seventh wonder of the country, following the Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe Ruins, Wankie National Park, Lake Kariba, the Tobacco Industry, and the Umtali Oil Pipeline He announced the inauguration of the Murray MacDougall Scholarship scheme, the creation of the Murray MacDougall Museum at Mac's old house, and the immediate presentation to all guests of a prestigious brochure on Triangle, specially commissioned for the occasion. He drew to the attention of his assembled throng that, but a thousand days before the country had imported 50 000 tons of sugar annually, and yet in the past year the lowveld sugar harvest had been 140 000 tons, with 62 000 tons exported to Britain, the United States and Canada.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Reaffirming the confidence of the company, Armstrong declared in ringing tones "we shall build here a place of health and happiness for all peoples of the lowveld and Rhodesia."</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">It was a time of tribute, and also a time of sadness, for Mac's chair was pointedly empty.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">It was also a time for reflection, and Prime Minister Ian Smith spelt out the Government's investment in the lowveld irrigation scheme at £5.6 million, and that of the big companies at £10.8 million, of which Triangle's was by far the major share. He painted a rosy future for the whole vast canvas of the lowveld..</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">There was also the hint of future resolution required, and perhaps the P.M. gave a subtle chilling hint of the proposed political moves ahead when he said in his opening speech "I hope I have brought home to you the vastness of the lowveld potential — this is typical of what is available to us throughout this country, but to make this potential bear fruit we need, in addition to vast sums of money, the will to go forward, and the preparedness to assume the risks involved — and both of these require great confidence in our future here."</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Hot on the heels of the gala opening of the mill followed another historic event, the ceremonial opening of the railway line from Mbizi on 28th September 1964. The Railways Road Motor Service had performed manfully in moving lowveld sugar by heavy truck along the road which Guy Hulett had helped to build, and in the one year ended June 1964 had moved 238 000 tons of goods between Mbizi and Triangle. The long-planned railway line was distinguished by two great new railway bridges, those over the Lundi (1 389 feet) and Mtilikwe (1 097 feet), by far the longest railway bridges in the country.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">In a charming ceremony which was both dignified and jolly, Sir Humphrey Gibbs performed the opening honours and invited the assembled guests to accompany him on an historic train trip from Mbizi to Triangle, during which they were wined and dined with the proud splendour of the dining cars of that vintage.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Ross Armstrong, his job in settling the consortium on a coordinated path well and truly performed, retired at his own wish on 9th December 1964, and he was succeeded as Chairman by C. J. Saunders. Apart from anything else, Armstrong deserves credit for his efforts to reconcile the undoubted hostility between Triangle and its neighbour Hippo Valley, between whom there was a lot of suspicion, little joint consultation, and generally a rather pointless feud.<br /><br /><b>SETBACKS AND DIVERSIFICATION<br /><br /></b>These were heady days, but within a few months Triangle was dealt two staggering blows: the world sugar price, long noted for its erratic pattern, fell to an all-time low of £12-0-0 per ton, and the Government's Unilateral Declaration of Independence in November 1965 brought in its wake international sanctions and automatic forfeiture of international sugar contracts, which were already entrenched and held the promise of spectacular advance.</p><span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">This was the time when it was really brought home to the management of Triangle what good friends they had in the parent company in South Africa. Apart from the problems afflicting Triangle, the cane belt in Natal experienced catastrophic droughts, and soon the wonders of Triangle became the headaches of Huletts. Morty Taylor, Managing Director of the Huletts Corporation, strove heroically to stave off financial disaster, and in this he was assisted by two happy choices he had made to participate in his Head Office management team —R. Addison and R. K. Ridgway. Morty Taylor and Huletts supported Triangle to the hilt, asking only that great efforts be made to cut the anticipated operating losses to a minimum, but the strain of those trying times undoubtedly had a serious effect on Taylor's health, and soon it became obvious that he was not at all well.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The company management's answer to its many problems was to tighten its belt where possible, to reaffirm its continued confidence in public, and to turn its attention more feverishly to a diversification programme on which it had already embarked.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">A start had previously been made on the manufacture of stockfeeds from milling residues, and the subsidiary T.A.F. (Triangle Animal Feeds) was expanded and modernised. The company's own cattle project, on its extensive tracts of bush not irrigated, was strengthened, and a policy of intensive feedlots and breedlots was developed.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Cotton became a major crop in those lands not required for the enforced lower level of sugar production, and a modern cotton gin, whose acquisition was a triumph for the initiative and subterfuge which Rhodesians had had to adopt in order to survive in the face of the hostility of the international community, appeared as if by magic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">MacDougall had grown "baccy" on Mpapa, and now this ancient soil again saw the blessed/cursed weed, as a Burley tobacco project produced high class filler and cigar tobaccos.</span></div></span><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Winter wheat appeared on the estate for the first time since the quelea had played havoc with MacDougall's crops, the successive emerald green and then golden hue of a vast chequer board of wheat fields contrasting strongly with the massive acreages of cane. Bananas and pawpaws were grown intensively at Mpapa on the Tokwe-Lundi junction, and experiments with soya beans, rice, and tropical fruits were intensified at the company's own Guy Hulett Research Station.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Triangle struggled but survived, shrugging off the unprofitable years as inevitable dips in the fortunes of a great company.</p></span><span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Soon a further grievous blow was delivered in the shape of a crippling illness to "Gibbo", Cedric Gibbs, now Managing Director, and for whom the new high level road bridge over the Mtilikwe River had been named. Gibbo was flown to Johannesburg for an operation, but he never recovered from a post-operative complication, and the lowveld mourned his passing. His funeral, attended by many hundreds of people of all races, was a moving tribute to a man who was the complete company servant.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Childless, C. A. Gibbs had treated Triangle as his baby, and each morning before dawn journeyed from his home near the Old Mill to tour the mill, check the sugar production, attend to his office, and then go home for breakfast, only to return with the office staff at the regular time. He identified completely with his company, worked tirelessly, and with T. E. S. Goss formed an excellent team. He had been responsible for all the coordination of development in the frantic developing years, and shouldered all the company's administration with a minimum staff, delegating very little. We shall not see his like again.<br /><br /><b>THE YEARS OF CONSOLIDATION<br /><br /></b>From Durban to sit in Gibbo's chair was sent the young R. K. Ridgway, appointed as General Manager, while Terry Goss remained as Resident Director (Agriculture). Dick Ridgway had been personal assistant to J. Morton Taylor, and a staunch supporter of Triangle. Ridgway soon became Managing Director, and joined Frank Davidson, chairman of a large forwarding and shipping organisation in Salisbury, as fellow Rhodesian Directors with the long-serving Terry Goss, Eric Hockey, and Eric Palmer.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">It was at about this time that Triangle was introduced to another man in the parent company, a person who was to take over from J. M. Taylor as Managing Director of the parent company in Natal, and who was to have an enormous and beneficial effect on Triangle's development. Dr. C. W. van der Pol had been recruited by Jack Hulett and Chris Saunders from Big Bend in Swaziland to join the Hulett organisation. He had had experience at Doornkop and prior to that had been with the Sugar Milling Research Institute both in Durban and Australia. He had obtained a Doctorate in Chemical Engineering and apart from his technical ability he was to show a tremendous flair for administration and management leadership.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The years of spectacular development temporarily over. Triangle continued to consolidate its investment and implement its long term plans for increased productivity and improved staff conditions and facilities, in spite of political uncertainty and adverse trading conditions. To these unwelcome factors was added intermittent adversity: failure of two new turbines in the company's power station crippled the overhead irrigation scheme for months, and proud green fields of cane were sadly reduced to withered yellow remnants, but survived; just as they had fully recovered, many fields were struck by a widespread frost of unprecedented severity, and Triangle awoke one chilly dawn to the awesome spectacle impeccable Judge Pittman summed up the findings of the Commission in the phrases "The Government must not lightly destroy contracts, especially its own", and "bearing in mind the sanctity of contracts, we think that the public interest positively requires that there be no interference".<br /><br /><b>THE GOLDEN YEARS<br /><br /></b>But one would not expect a great company to be daunted or deterred by these setbacks.</div><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "> <p style="text-align: justify;">There is possibly no more arduous manual labour than cutting and stacking cane, and more particularly in the fierce summer heat of Triangle. The company's management and Board of Directors have for a number of years been deeply conscious of the fact that though Triangle's success owes much to its soils and irrigation water, the inspiration of MacDougall, the confidence of Guy Hulett, and the skill and initiative of its management and technical staff, all these would have amounted to nothing in the absence of the sustained and industrious efforts of a labour force which has literally carved a great enterprise out of virgin bush by the toil of its muscles and the sweat of its brow.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">Accordingly when once the profitability of the company had been established and the funds were available, the company committed itself to an intensive programme to improve the living and working conditions of its African employees in particular. A massive on-going housing construction project, a commitment to increase workers' wages at an accelerated rate, the recognition of merit as the only criterion for advancement, and an enlightened system of employee representation and industrial negotiation — all these confirmed Triangle's position as leader of the lowveld and a highly significant national entity.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">It was here that the true worth of Dr. van der Pol to the Triangle scene was really manifest. Kees van der Pol has a hard-headed but visionary perceptive quality in the business world, and he was particularly concerned in the field of human relations. He was the dynamic force in Huletts philosophy of managing for change, in Rhodesia as much as in South Africa, and there is no doubt that he has been an enormously strong ally of Terry Goss, who had been entrusted with putting philosophical thoughts into meaningful practice in the strained climate of a siege economy brought about by sanctions and national political turmoil. It is a remarkable tribute to Goss that having come all the way up the ladder, and having been largely responsible for creating the green cane oasis of modern Triangle from virgin bush, he was now able to assume and wear so successfully the highest administrative mantle of his organisation.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;">The agricultural side of the company had always been largely directed and run by local staff, and with Terry Goss becoming Managing Director following the departure of Dick Ridgway, on promotion to Durban, his mantle as fields boss for so many years fell on the shoulders of J. M. Burton, graduate of Natal University, and Estate Agronomist since 1963, now Agricultural Director. Terry Goss was appointed Executive Chairman of Triangle in 1977.</p></span><p></p><p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">It is a remarkable tribute to Goss and Burton and their staff that Triangle Estate, blessed by soils far less rich than those of its neighbours, has consistently yielded cane and other crops of an exceptional standard.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">The administration of the company, which had always been run separately as a fairly autonomous Hulett subsidiary, had been superbly founded and fostered by Gibbs, but in the 1970's great strides have been made in making Triangle even more independent financially. Master- minding the financial reorganisation has been Dick Addison, who has accumulated a wealth of experience over many years in the structure and financing of the sugar industry in Southern Africa.</span></div></span><p></p> <span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">On Dick Ridgway's departure to higher things in Durban, the quiet and unassuming Cedric Theuma became Triangle's right-hand man in the business field, but he was tragically taken from the company by a fatal illness at a young age on the threshold of his career. With Triangle becoming more financially independent, the administrative reins are now held by Dennis Sargeant, the company's first Financial Director, an able and efficient administrator recruited from South Africa. After hours Sargeant's financial wizardry gives way to more unorthodox performances, for he is a noted magician and member of The Magic Circle.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The milling side, for the management of which the company has relied heavily on staff seconded from Natal, among whom Bruno van der Riet and Don Webster in recent years have performed nobly, reveals a remarkable success story. Triangle mill is a curious hybrid of the old MacDougall, ZSM and Chaka's Kraal mills, modified and added to times without number, and yet by technical skill, motivation and attention to detail the mill staff have consistently outshone their competitors.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Here let no-one underestimate the enormous advantage enjoyed by Triangle in being in a position to call on the assistance of the technical services expertise of Huletts in South Africa. In the absence of such advice this story would have been a completely different one.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Outside the mill door and in the villages a scheme of beautification by means of spacious green lawns and well laid-out gardens, tended so lovingly by that great character Bob Stirrup, endowed outdoor Triangle with a cool and restful atmosphere, complimented by a system of superb outdoor sporting amenities for the more energetic members of the community.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Perhaps the best-known components of these sporting amenities are the Gibbo Football Stadium, the Alan Kennedy Polo Field (named for a Wright Rain Irrigation engineer and friend of Triangle who was tragically killed in an air crash), and of course the magnificent golf course, groomed and trimmed and manicured by that charming gentleman Charles Brockway, an ex-professional cricketer who has lavished as much care on this massive expanse of irrigated turf as ever he did on the twenty-two yards of his native Dorset cricket pitches.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">In the golden years of the mid-1970's Triangle recognised its full potential in adverse sanctions-affected trading conditions, and the Huletts Corporation Accounts for 1976 reveal a staggering 53% of total</div><p></p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Huletts Group profits emanating from Triangle, and for the second successive year the mill recorded the highest overall sucrose recovery in Southern Africa. '</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">A major milestone in the company's history occurred on 1st November 1974, when Hippo Valley and Triangle in 50-50 partnership bid successfully for the Mkwasine Estate, which the Sabi-Limpopo Authority had rescued from the Nandi debacle in 1965. Under the drive and energy of Chairman H. J. Quinton the Authority had successfully initiated a stirring scheme to put the new estate under a 16 000 acreage of wheat and cotton, but it had always been intended that the scheme irrigated from Lake MacDougall, should be taken over by private enterprise. </p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">And all the while the company has steadily pursued its policy of advancement and betterment of its staff. At the time of writing the largest agricultural organisation in the country, and second only to the Railways as employers of labour in one organisation, the green oasis of Triangle must be a prized emerald in the crown of whoever rules the country. It is perhaps here that Triangle faces its newest and greatest challenge — always steering away from involvement in political controversy, the company has steadfastly plotted its own course of advancement on merit and non-racialism, refusing to be stampeded by political events or outside pressures, in the belief that what is best for Triangle is what is best for all its people — shareholders, management and employees</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">As I write, the terrorist forces of an alien philosophy threaten the estate. Section employees sleep behind barbed wire fences, protected by security systems, and normal nocturnal and social activity is curtailed But the spirit of Triangle and its inherent wealth of resources and people will surely surmount this threat as it has others before.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">At (he Triangle Sugar Mill Opening in June 1964, The Hon. G. Ellman-Brown, Chairman of the Rhodesia Sugar Association and a Director of Hippo Valley Estates, said:</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">"Mr. Chairman, you have rightly paid tribute to the memory of MacDougall, and made reference to the foresight of Guy Hulett but, I suppose in modesty, you have said very little about the part Triangle has played and indeed is playing in developing this new industry.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen, whilst a lot of publicity has been given to the development of the neighbouring estate, Hippo Valley, I am sure they will be the first to acknowledge that the impetus not only in the development of the industry but also in laying the foundations of an export potential, was started and indeed led by Triangle.</p> <p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">It was Triangle who proved that sugar cane could be grown on large acreages at a cost that would compete in world markets. I go even further and say that it was Triangle who proved that, in spite of violent fluctuations in the world market price of sugar, the investments over a balanced period could yield a reasonable return to shareholders and also provide a surplus for development.</p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; "></p></span><p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">This latter achievement by Triangle is, to me, their greatest contribution. It has given confidence to others, and far from trying to retain the major role they have encouraged a cooperative organisation to intensify research and marketing and out of it all has emerged the Sugar Association which I have the honour to represent today." This narrative seeks to record faithfully a remarkable story of human endeavour and a steadfast, orderly, and far-sighted development of a great natural resource for the greater good of a country and its people. If in so doing the story of Murray MacDougall and Triangle emerges in the perspective defined so clearly by Geoff Ellman-Brown, and thus brings due honour to great men and the historic estate which they have owned, directed, served, and wrestled with, then I shall be well satisfied.<br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">THE END<br /></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">APPENDIX A<br /></span></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b><br />THE MURRAY MACDOUGALL MUSEUM</b></span></div><span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">By 1963 the historic MacDougall homestead atop Mac's Hill, successively used by General Managers and then ordinary employees of Triangle, had begun to show unmistakeably signs of wear and deterioration, despite its fundamentally sound construction.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">In that year, Mrs. Nan Goss, recognising its aesthetic and historical values, approached Mr. Ross Armstrong, Chairman of the board of directors, with the suggestion that the buildings should be restored and made into a museum. Consent and cooperation from the board was readily forthcoming, and a committee was formed to implement the proposal.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The complex of buildings consisted of the main living room with wide verandahs, two bathrooms, and a store room, with a kitchen appended at the rear, a thatched two-roomed bedroom-study block, and four rondavels. two of which dated to 1923, the others being added later.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Once cleaning and restoration was complete, the main living room was adorned with MacDougall relics donated largely by Mac and his wife, and a collection of historic photographs and documents was put on display in a number of carefully compiled albums. Mrs. Ethelwyn Strover contributed an enormousamount of work in gathering, collating and mounting a remarkable collection.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Regrettably it soon became clear that handling of the albums by the public was rapidly leading to unacceptable deterioration, and a need was felt to expand the scope of the museum. Expert advice was sought, and the company was fortunate that Dr. Reay H. N. Smithers, O.B.E., D.Sc., Director of Museums and Monuments, agreed readily to come to Triangle to assess the situation. He subsequently arranged visits by Mr. E. E. Burke, O.L.M., Director of the National Archives, and Mr. C. K. Cooke, then Curator of Monuments. These three gentlemen produced a composite plan, the broad outline of which was as follows:</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">(i) MacDougall's living room to be restored as authentically as possible as a period pioneer residence. Fortunately photographs of the interior at the time of Mac's occupation were available.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">(ii) One rondavel to be restored as Mac's sleeping quarters.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">(iii) A story of MacDougall the man to be portrayed in the thatched double-room block.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">(iv) A new building to be constructed, so as to harmonise with the aesthetic qualities of the site, and to feature an ongoing story of Triangle from earliest times to date.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The company gave its enthusiastic blessing to the scheme, and the requisite finance was made available. It is a pleasure to record Triangle's gratitude to the three originators of the new proposals. Mr. Burke has subsequently been a tower of strength in the provision of historic material, and a public appeal for suitable relics for the restoration was met with a generous response by many Rhodesians</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">Reconstruction was complete by March 1976, when the museum was formally opened by Mr. C. J. Saunders, Chairman of the board, with many visitors and dignitaries attending an appropriate ceremony in front of the stone where MacDougall's ashes lie.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The whole complex on Mac's Hill was declared a National Monument on 31st January 1975 by Rhodesia Government Notice No. 86/1975, and in terms of the agreement with the Trustees of Museums and Monuments, the company provides all necessary care and maintenance of this complex. In an improvement programme initiated in 1977, Mrs. Terry Donnelly, Senior Staff Artist of the Museums and Monuments administration, has kindly contributed invaluable flair and advice to add to the greatly appreciated efforts of a number of company employees who have given readily of their time and ideas to create a unique feature of which the company is justifiably proud.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-size: medium; "><span class="Apple-style-span">The Murray MacDougall Museum, together with MacDougall's incredible pioneer irrigation works comprising the Jatala Weir and Tunnels, are now both National Monuments entrusted to the people of this country and maintained free of charge on their behalf by Triangle Limited.</span><br /><br /><b style="font-family: Georgia; ">APPENDIX B<br /></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><b style="font-size: medium; "><div style="text-align: justify; display: inline !important; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px; "><b style="font-size: medium; "><br /><span class="Apple-style-span">MURRAY MACDOUGALL SCHOOL<br /></span></b></span></div></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><b><br /></b></span>Prior to 1961 the handful of European children on the Estate were schooled by their parents, taking advantage of the Government's correspondence schooling scheme, or were sent away to boarding school. With the large development of the Guy Hulett era, the numbers of children requiring primary school education started to increase, and Triangle's first school was planned and approved by the Ministry of Education.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">It was suggested that the school should be named after the founder of Triangle, and Mrs. Nan Goss, Chairman of the School Committee, was authorised to write to MacDougall asking him whether he would agree to the school being named "The Tom MacDougall Primary School" after him. His reply was as follows.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Dunollie,</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Box 28,</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Fort Victoria.</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">13/2/61.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Dear Mrs. Goss</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Thank you for your letter of the 3rd.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">The idea of calling the school after me is a very nice gesture and I thoroughly appreciate the nice thought behind it.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">My name is Thomas Murray MacDougall, and 1 have always been known as "Murray", but the Christian name doesn't matter, so please yourself.</span></div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Again thanking you for the honour you suggest paying me.</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Good luck</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">Yours sincerely</span></div></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; ">T. M. MacDougall"</span></div></span><p></p> <span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The first Murray MacDougall School duly opened for the first term of the 1961 school year, housed in MacDougall's old workshop/wagon shed behind the homestead on the hill, and now marked by a concrete slab near the museum gate. Mrs. Johanna Swart, wife of one of the Section Managers, was the first Head and only teacher, and the fourteen founder pupils were Andrew Baker, Victor, Vivienne, and Gerald Bester, Lesley Dunn, Gary Goss, Kerry Gutridge] Daniel Jacobs, Patti Lewis, Robin Mortlock, Ronnie Mullin, Angela and Cheryl Pollard, and Cheryl White.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The following year, 1962, the school was moved into a new house just completed in Stanley Cooke Road, the house at present occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Harold Mellett. Mrs. Swart, as Headmistress, was joined by Mrs. Elsalou Hingeston as an additional teacher, and there were fifty-one children to teach.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The company had negotiated with the Ministry an agreement whereby Triangle Limited would construct a new school, to be leased, staffed and operated as a Government primary school by the Ministry of Education, and in the third term of 1962 pupils and staff moved into the third home of the Murray MacDougall School, a complex of new classrooms forming the nucleus of the present school.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The splendid new buildings stood in an area of lowveld bush below the new club building, and on 29th March 1963 the Hon. Secretary of the School Council wrote to the company's Business Manager, C. A. Gibbs, pointing out that:</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">"At a recent school council meeting the Headmistress reported that several snakes had been found in the school playground. It would, therefore, be very much appreciated if the company could permit the use of the Bulldozer for one morning to clear the grounds around the school."</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">With typical generosity the Business Manager and the Field Manager (T. E. S. Goss) immediately set in motion arrangements which culminated in the creation of the magnificent green irrigated sporting amenity subsequently named the Gibbs Field.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">A formal opening ceremony on 6th September 1962 was attended by Mr. and Mrs. MacDougall, Mr. Threlkeld, Managing Director of Triangle, Mr. H. E. Pegg. Regional Director of Education, and the School Council/P.T.A. comprised of Messrs. K. Guthrie, J. Jacobs and B. Warren, and Mesdames N. Bcster, B. Dunn. G. Guthrie, and T. Lewis.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">From those pioneering days the school has gone from strength to strength, the efforts of the children and staff handsomely justifying the school motto "ENDEAVOUR". Quite a tale surronds the search for a suitable school motto, and the assistance of Mr. Pegg, Regional Director of Education, and Mr. Les Sharp, Headmaster of Fort Victoria High School, was sought. Many enterprising suggestions were forthcoming from these eminent scholars. Mr. Sharp suggested AGE QUOD AGIS (whatever you do, carry it through), or DISCE PRODESSE (learn to be one of us)' and finally E OFORTIBUS DULCEDO or alternatively FORTITUDINE DULCEDO or FORTITUDINE SUAVITAS, all being accepted Latin translations of the classic quotation "Out of the strong came forth Sweetness from Judges XIV verse 14 with its interesting connotations for Triangles history. Mr. Pegg suggested CARPE DIEM (seize the opportunity) or PELLE MORAS (Don't delay), and being asked what the highland MacDougall clans motto BUAIDH NO BAS meant, and whether it would be suitable, obligingly researched the matter and advised that the translation "Victory or Death" was stirring but hardly suitable for an infant school!" (sic). "ENDEAVOUR" seemed highly appropriate for the context of Triangle as an exhortation to its young citizens, and so it was adopted.</p> <span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The parents of the school have made notable efforts to assist the school and as a result of their fund-raising efforts the school now boasts a magnificent hall (with generous assistance from the company's board of directors and the Lions Club of Triangle), a fine swimming pool (with $2 per $1 from the State Lotteries Trustees) and more recently a school library and craft room again with the aid of the Lions and the ever-generous company.</p> <p></p><div style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; "><b><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Murray MacDougall School is one of which both the local community and Mac might well be proud.<br /></span></i></b><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><i><br /></i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">APPENDIX C<br /></span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><b><br />THE MURRAY MACDOUGALL SCHOLARSHIPS<br /></b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium; "><b><br /></b>At the opening ceremony of the new mill in 1964, the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mr. Ross Armstrong, announced the inauguration of two scholarships worth £300 each per annum for two Rhodesian high school pupils to attend university. The company considered this would be a worthy endowment commemorating its founder, and contributing to the country's future by sponsoring higher education for some of its outstanding young men and women.</span></div><span lang="EN"> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">The scholarships are awarded by a committee comprised of representatives of both the company and the Ministry of Education, and currently each award is worth $1 200 per annum for four years.</p> <p style="text-align: justify; font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">To date the details of the fortunate scholars are as follows, showing school attended, university and degree.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1965 </b><br />R. P. Fynn<br />Southampton and National College of Agric. Engineering, Silsoe, Bedford, M.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">A. M. McKeag<br />Churchill, U.C. Rhodesia, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1966</b><br />C. W. Shcrwcll<br />Prince Edward, U.C. Rhodesia, B.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">B. McLeod (Miss) Fort Victoria, Rhodes, B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1967 </b><br />T. P. Whaley Prince Edward, Cape Town, M.B., Ch.B(curriculum not completed).<br /><br />H. Viljoen (Miss) Umtali Girls High, Cape Town, B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1968</b><br />P. B. Hassell Churchill, Cape Town, B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">N. E. Morris Peterhouse, Dublin, Ph.D.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1969 </b><br />J. Tapson (Miss) Nagle House Convent, Umtali Girls High, Cape Town, B.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">S. D. Levin Hamilton High, U.C. Rhodesia, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1970 </b><br />M. B. Rouse (Miss) Salisbury Girls High, Cape Town, B.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">J. I. Micklem (Miss) Oriel Girls High, Queen Elizabeth, U.C. Rhodesia and Royal College of Music, Ldn., B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1971</b><br />E. Baillie (Miss) Queen Elizabeth, Canterbury, London, B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">I. Kalvaria Milton, U.C. Rhodesia, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1972</b><br />M. J. Abrahamson Milton, Cape Town, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">R. G. Mitchell Northlea, U.C. Rhodesia, B.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1973</b><br />T. S. Harris Milton, Cape Town, B.Comm (Hons.)</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">M. E. Bacon (Miss) Salisbury Girls High, Cape Town, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1974</b><br />H. G. Cracknell (Miss) Salisbury Girls High, Cape Town, B.Sc.<br /><br />L. Robinson (Miss) Queen Elizabeth, Cape Town, B.Sc.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1975</b><br />M. Mavros (Miss) Arundel School, Edinburgh, B.A.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">L. Lowe (Miss) Chikore Sec. School, Umtali Girls High, U.C. Rhodesia, MB.Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1976</b><br />N. J. H. Bashall Milton, Cambridge, LL.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">B. M. Conacher (Miss) Oriel Girls High, Cape Town, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "><b>1977 </b><br />C. A. Michie Oriel Boys High, Cambridge, MB., Ch.B.</p> <p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; ">D. Peters (Miss) Eveline Girls High, Natal (Pietermaritzburg), B.Sc.Agric.</p> <p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">End of Book</span><br /></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><a href="http://thestoryoftriangle.blogspot.com/2010/11/1-murray-macdougall-and-story-of.html" style="font-size: 16px; ">Click Here to Return to Index</a><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"></span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sincere thanks to Colin Saunders and family for their approval to digitise Colins book</span></span></span></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Recompilation completed by Eddy Norris, for no or intended financial gain but rather as a ORAFs initiative to record the memories of Rhodesia and its people for future generations.</span></span><br /><br /></span></span></span><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>APPROVAL TO USE</b><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">You have my permission to proceed with your circulation of my history of MacDougall and Triangle.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Best regards</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Colin Saunders (Sqn Ldr , Medical VR)</span></span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Book was made available to ORAFs by Neill Jackson, thank you Neill.</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Thanks to my son, Paul Norris, Paul Mroz for their assistance and special thanks to Robb Ellis for his on going support.<br /><br /><b>Eddy Norris can be contacted on <a href="http://www.blogger.com/mailtoLorafs11@gmail.com">orafs11@gmail.com</a></b></span></span></p><p></p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span><p></p></span><p></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: medium; "></p></span><p style="font-family: Georgia; "></p><p style="font-family: Georgia; "></p><p style="font-family: georgia; "></p><p></p><p></p><p></p></span><p></p><p></p> </span><span lang="EN"> </span>Rhodesia Rememberedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06644511584084003690noreply@blogger.com53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5358549924600729153.post-83646380726464641962010-11-27T22:35:00.000-08:002010-12-04T04:16:51.929-08:00Part 1: The Story of MacPart 1 from the book Murray MacDougall and the story of Triangle which was written by C. R. Saunders<br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=BaobabTree.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/BaobabTree.jpg" alt="Baobab Tree" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Here was an idle corner of old Africa, devoured by anthills and long grass, tangled with tall trees and chance-grown shrubs, inhospitable to man, parched and withered through long months, yet with wild waters wasting in their season.<br /></i></div><i><br /></i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>And one man came with his wagons, accompanied by a Swazi piccanin, and he loved this land and made it his home.</i><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PART I</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />THE STORY OF MAC</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify; font-style: italic;">This is the life story of a legendary Scot, a man of vision and courage, who, at the beginning of this century, came from far off places to the wild lowveld, saw its great potential, and determined to tame it. Many men followed his inspiration and prospered.<span style="font-style: italic;"><br /><br />This is the true story of Murray MacDougall, founder of Triangle and lone pioneer of the Lowveld's irrigation schemes.</span><br /></div><br />Thomas Murray MacDougall was born on 4th March 1881, on the farm Auchnashelloch on Loch Awe, Argyllshire, Scotland, close to the family seat at Dunnollie Castle, about which Sir Walter Scott wrote "Nothing can be more wildly beautiful than the situation of Dunnolly, the ruins are situated on a bold and precipitous promontory, about a mile from the port of Oban." The MacDougalls were a proud and independent Highland family, known for their initiative and love of adventure, and so it is not surprising that many sons of the clan had seen distinguished military service down the centuries.<br /><br />It was traditional amongst the Highlanders or those parts that on the birth of a son the head cowman should carve from a cow's horn a porridge spoon, and the infant MacDougall was duly presented with a fine spoon which is preserved in the museum to this day.<br /><br />Murray MacDougall had a good start, with coarse-ground oatmeal porridge to begin each day, and plenty of fresh air and exercise on the farm, for his father believed firmly that youngsters should have a strict and vigorous upbringing. As a Highland lad growing up on his father's farm, Murray showed at an early age that he had inherited in full measure his ancestors' qualities of rugged resourcefulness and zest for life,<br /><br />His father was a farmer who also owned interests in a banking concern in Glasgow, and during a severe recession of that time the family suffered crippling financial setbacks, and so it was that at the age of fourteen it was found necessary that the young lad should leave school and seek work in an attempt to assist the family. He found employment as a general hand in the shipbuilding yard of the giant firm Cammell, Laird & Co., where he soon gained the admiration and respect of his much older workmates.<br /><br />It was here that MacDougall gained a love of things mechanical, as well as the practical expertise which was to stand him in such good stead in the years ahead, and as an interesting sidelight he gained something of a reputation for his ability to cook steak on a shovel for his workmates.<br /><br />MacDougall was known as Murray to his family and his closest friends, and as "Mac" to everybody else, and he was never called "Tom" by anybody except in his late life. This appellation, to his great annoyance in his last years, was incorrectly credited to him by an ignorant or presumptuous Rhodesian press, presumably on the assumption that anybody with the first name Thomas should be called thus. (The management of Triangle Limited blundered similarly in the early 1960's by calling the company's first locomotive Tom MacDougall', and by so labelling a framed photograph hanging in the company's main office block. It is a fair bet that anybody reminiscing, either wistfully or proudly, about his close association with "Tom" MacDougall in the good old days, is guilty of name-dropping and did not really know him well.)<br /><br />At the shipyards Mac met many interesting characters, and listened spellbound to their stories of distant places, and his urge to travel and thirst for adventure led him to sign on as a hand on a cattle-boat which was sailing for the Argentine. He left with the blessing of his family, and throughout his life maintained the strong family ties of his clan, despite his fiercely independent spirit and prolonged absence from the Highlands of home. He treasured through all his wanderings his tangible links with his clan and family, among which were a locket given him by his mother and father, containing their miniature portraits, and an inscribed bible from his mother, and all his life he had a MacDougall tartan rug on the end of his bed.<br /><br />Having arrived in South America, he made his way through several countries, seeing something of Brazil, serving in President Castro's army in Venezuela in 1898, and eventually landing up in British Guiana (now Guyana), where he obtained employment in the sugar-cane fields of Demerara, for a salary of six pounds a year and his keep! A mistaken idea has somehow arisen that MacDougall obtained his inspiration to grow sugar-cane at Triangle in later years' because he recognised instantly the similarity between conditions there and those of Demerara. Nothing could be further from the truth, as the Guiana fields were in swamps, requiring ingenious drainage systems to avoid flooding, and providing an interesting opportunity to transport cane to the mill on rafts.<br /><br />Mac acquired a life-long aversion to pork while at Demerara, as there was apparently a large population of feral pigs gone wild and living in the cane. These were called to be fed on molasses by blowing on a cowhorn and they were regularly harvested and used as a staple ration for the men. One skill of great subsequent benefit which Mac picked up at Demerara was that he learned the principles of surveying, a factor essential in Demeraras canal and drainage system, and later to be a priceless advantage in his early days at Triangle when laying out his irrigation system.<br /><br />The hard work and rigorous outdoor conditions in South America ensured that MacDougall matured physically, and by his twenty-first birthday he had filled out and was a tall and strong man.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AFRICA CALLS</span><br /><br />Early in 1902 Mac again succumbed to the urge to move on, and he eventually obtained a working passage in a ship bound for South Africa from the United States, whence he had travelled after leaving Guiana.<br /><br />On arrival in Cape Town Mac enlisted in the South African Constabulary to serve the Crown in the Boer War, but before he saw active service the war ended, and Mac was discharged from the force and set about finding a job. He travelled to Natal and joined a cartage firm. He soon demonstrated a natural flair for handling transport animals, and in a very short while he obtained a wagon and a team of mules of his own, and became an independent transport rider. His services were much in demand, and he carted supplies through Northern Natal and Swaziland, eventually making his way to the Eastern Transvaal, where there was great activity on the goldfields in the Barberton/Lydenburg/Pilgrim's Rest area.<br /><br />The bracing climate, bare hillsides, and rushing mountain streams must have reminded Mac of his Highland home, and this impression was probably reinforced by the presence of many of his countrymen in the district. Indeed there had for so long been so many Scots working in the area that President Burgers of the Transvaal Republic, on a visit to the region in 1872 named one particular camp MacMac, a name which has persisted to this day. MacDougall spent three happy and vigorous years in this historic district, further enhancing his reputation as a skilled transport rider and a man of good character and high principles.<br /><br />During the summer rains it was not possible to do much work in the haulage business, and Mac took to travelling around and seeing the country at these slack times. So it was that in 1906 he travelled north on horseback, leading a pack animal with his kit. He crossed the Limpopo and pushed on northwards through the lowveld bush until he reached the Mtilikwe River, in which vicinity he spent an enjoyable few weeks hunting, and making the acquaintance of the handful of Shangaans who lived along the lowveld rivers of this wild, unexplored, and virtually uninhabited corner of Southern Rhodesia.<br /><br />MacDougall fell in love with the area, probably among the first white men to fall victim to the strange fascination of the lowveld, and he vowed to return one day.<br /><br />Trekking back to the Transvaal, he secured a contract at Pilgrim's Rest carting supplies for the hydro-electric scheme being constructed on the Blyde River, below the Bourke's Luck pot-holes, to supply power for the goldfields. For two years he worked on the scheme, saving his money and investing in better wagons and pack animals, taking time off to serve as a volunteer in (he Zulu Rebellion over the border in Natal in 1907. and being awarded the campaign medal.<br /><br />At the end of 1908 he decided to make the move to Mashonaland, and he led a party northwards through the wild country he had traversed two years previously. In his party were six white men, a coloured man, and nine blacks, including a young Swazi piccanin, Tom<br /><br />Dunuza, who had joined Mac at Carolina in the Transvaal on a previous trip, and who was later destined to become one of the great characters of Triangle.<br /><br />Crossing the Limpopo, the party trekked straight on to Salisbury, where Mac lived for the next four years, delivering stores and supplies, mining equipment and building materials to the gold mines in the Mazoe Valley and surrounding districts. He became famous throughout Mashonaland for his skill with his mule teams, and once drove a fully laden wagon up the very steep hill to the Bernheim Mine at Mazoe, which was regarded as an extraordinary feat in those days.<br /><br />In 1912 famine following prolonged drought threatened the south-eastern area of the country, and the Government appealed for help in carting grain to the starving African people of the Victoria district. Mac travelled with his grain down to the Bikita and Zaka area, and took the opportunity to revisit on horseback the uninhabited area on the lower Mtilikwe. He experienced again the irresistible fascination with which the lowveld had earlier gripped him, and decided to do something about it.<br /><br />On return to Salisbury he applied to the administration for rights to 300000 acres of land between the Mtilikwe, Chiredzi and Lundi Rivers, but, as there were no maps of the region and no surveys had been performed, there was an understandable delay in formalising his grant, but he was given an option on the land. Mac moved to Triangle, followed naturally by the sturdy young Tom Dunuza, but before he could contemplate any development, the Great War broke out in 1914.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MAC THE WARRIOR</span><br /><br />Along with so many of the cream of the Empire's youth, MacDougall answered the call to arms, travelling from Triangle to London, and enlisting in the First King Edward's Horse. He went abroad with the British Expeditionary Force, and served with distinction in the First Battalion, the 18th London Regiment, attaining the rank of Captain. His great experience with the mules so vital to the war efTort in the First World War led to his appointment as Brigade Transport Officer. He was twice mentioned in dispatches, and was awarded the Military Cross. His army pay-book, preserved in the museum, records the award as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">"CITATION ON OCCASION OF AWARD OF MILITARY CROSS TO<br />LT. T. M. MACDOUGALL.</span><br />Lt. Thomas Murray MacDougall, London Regiment, for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty when bringing up a train of pack mules with supplies to his battalion. With exceptional skill and fine judgement he sent his convoy singly through heavy barrage, afterwards re-assembling them and delivering his supplies without casualties. This occurred in complete darkness, and his example of personal courage and decision was invaluable to his men.<br /><br />Battle of Messines<br />June 7th 1917."<br /><br />MacDougall took great pride in his work, and his iniative and practical bent of mind led to his invention of an ingenious mule saddle designed specially for carrying ammunition for the field guns.<br /><br />On his discharge from the army after the armistice, Mac's Commanding Officer sent him the following commendation:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Lt. T. Murray MacDougall acted as brigade transport officer for almost a year — his thorough knowledge of animals and transport work was of great value at all times. He understood the management of men and how to get things done. He has always behaved with gallantry, notably in the Ypres Salient — the operation including the battle of Cambrai in November and December 1917, and during the withdrawal after the great German attack on March 21st 1918, when he succeeded in bringing all the animals and transport of the Brigade intact through an extraordinarily difficult and trying period — an extremely capable and efficient officer.</span><br /><br />William J. Mildren<br />Brigadier General<br />Commanding<br />141st Infantry Brigade"<br /><br />As soon as MacDougall was brought back to London with his unit at the end of the war, he hurried back to Salisbury intending to lose no time in returning to his beloved lowveld to start development of his ranch, but he was furious on finding that while he had been on active service his land had been promised to somebody else. Unable to make any headway in his protestations in Salisbury, he returned to London determined to assert his rights in the highest places. In later years he recalled with a broad grin how he demanded, and was granted, an audience with the Directors of the British South Africa Company, during which he thumped the boardroom table and expounded his claims in uncompromising language.<br /><br />To their eternal credit these influential gentlemen upheld his appeal, and, clutching a precious document authorising his grant to his promised land, Mac boarded a steamship bound for Cape Town.<br /><br />When MacDougall commenced his return to Cape Town the great 1919 influenza epidemic was raging, and many of the crew were smitten by the disease during the voyage. MacDougall's strong constitution enabled him to escape the illness, and he fell to willingly to lend a hand wherever needed. Thus it was that his tremendous initiative and versatility were fully utilised by the captain of the ship, and Mac found himself acting at various times as purser, steward, assistant mechanical engineer, and navigation assistant.<br /><br />On arrival in Cape Town it was round that the flu had the city firmly in its grip, and many poor people, in particular, were dying from the disease. An appalling situation had arisen due to a high mortality in District Six, as most people were afraid to enter the slums lest they too should succumb. Shrugging off the danger, MacDougall undertook to transport bodies of deceased persons from District Six to the cemeteries, the only payment he requested being a case of Scotch whisky.<br /><br />He eventually arrived back in Salisbury, re-established his rights to his land, and was granted an option on 300 000 acres of land, now roughly comprising the properties of Triangle, Buffalo Range and Hippo Valley Estates, for an ultimate purchase price of fourpence an acre.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">EARLY DAYS ON TRIANGLE</span><br /><br />Murray MacDougall had always wanted to ranch cattle, and in Fort Victoria he met another well-known character, Mark Spraggen, with whom he struck up a partnership. They named the property Triangle after the registered cattle brand which Mac purchased from a fellow farmer named Van Niekerk, as the poor chap was going out of business and had a very simple brand which almost defied alteration in a period when rustling and brand-changing was not uncommon. For a few pounds Mac purchased both the registered brand itself, in the shape of a simple triangle, and the branding irons to go with it.<br /><br />Mac rode down to the ranch with his cattle and his wagons, forded the Mtilikwe, and pitched camp under a large baobab tree across the Cheche stream, not far from the present new supermarket. It was said by his old hunting partner Scrubbs Hartshorn that Mac spent his first night on Triangle Ranch under the old marula tree on Mac's Hill beneath which his ashes now lie in a simple stone monument.<br /><br />A clean water supply was one of the first necessities, and with a handful of Shangaans armed with picks and shovels, and a few sticks of dynamite, he sunk a well near the Cheche, close to the present mill site, making a rough windlass from mopani poles, by means of which the earth and stones, and eventually the water, were hauled to the surface in a bucket on a rawhide rope. Then came the construction of the cattle dip, on the eastern bank of the Mtilikwe River close to the present C.A. Gibbs Bridge.<br /><br />MacDougall then set about making a home for himself, and for the site chose Mac's Hill, making his first dwelling of sunbaked "Kimberley" bricks, and topping it with a high roof thatched with reeds. The site commanded a splendid view of the country for miles around, and a breeze usually made the site more tolerable than the baking plains below. One morning Mac was busy in the workshop, when, hearing a footstep behind him, he turned to see a strapping young man standing there, proud and erect. "Master, 1 have come", he said. It was Tom Dunuza, who had wandered away from Triangle seeking work elsewhere when Mac left for the war. Hearing on the grapevine of Mac's return to the lowveld, he had travelled day and night to rejoin him, never doubting the rightful glad welcome awaiting him. He soon threw himself into the many tasks Mac allocated to his supervision.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MAC'S CATTLE</span><br /><br />Mac's cattle thrived on the sweet grazing, for the lowveld is splendid ranching country, and MacDougall was extremely proud of his burgeoning herd. There were many lions on the ranch, and they accounted for a number of the cattle, and leopard and wild dog also<br /><br /><br /><br />exacted a toll, particularly of the younger stock. For a brief period Mac also suffered losses from rustling by tribesmen from across the Lundi River, but this ceased dramatically after one particular incident: a herd-boy reported that he had found a dead calf, and on going to investigate, Mac saw crouched over the carcass a form which he took to be a wild dog. He fired, killing the culprit instantly, and was amazed to see an African man sprinting away from the dead calf into the bush. On closer inspection Mac found that he had in fact shot and killed a cattle thief in the act of butchering a young calf. His companion escaped to spread the word, and no further trouble was forthcoming from that quarter. Mac proceeded to report the matter to the police, but after a brief investigation no further action was taken.<br /><br />There was an abundance of wild game on the ranch, and hunting both for sport and for rations was a regular pastime, impala, kudu, zebra, buffalo and sable were plentiful, while many Lichtenstein's hartebeest were present, and roan antelope were not uncommon, both these latter animals being used for rations. Eland were common at certain times of the year, and elephant were found all over the ranch, particularly in the rainy season. Hippo were numerous in the Mtilikwe and Lundi Rivers and were used for rations and for the making of rawhide riems and sjamboks when cut into strips, hung from a tree, and twisted with a heavy stone as a weight. MacDougall stated that he never saw giraffe or wildebeest anywhere north of the Lundi River, and certainly not on Triangle ranch. Guinea fowl and francolin were plentiful, and the fishing for bream in the rivers was good. Mac was a keen birdshot and angler, and many hunting and fishing parties were arranged with visitors and a few neighbours such as the Francis Brothers of Bangala Ranch. In later years it became traditional for successive Governors of the country to make an annual winter hunting and fishing trip to the Chipinda Pools on the Lundi River, and the well-read outdoorsman from Triangle Ranch was always a welcome guest at His Excellency's camp. One visitor who came to Triangle every year for many years to spend the winter with Mac was his sister Marjorie, in later years tragicallv killed in the London 'blitz' in the Second World War.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the success of the ranching venture was short-lived as cattle prices fell to rock bottom levels with the post-war depression, and by 1922 Mac had to sell most of his cattle, retaining only a small dairy herd and his trek oxen, and the partnership with Mark Spraggen was dissolved. Spraggen moved to Fort Victoria, and from Marumbini on the Sabi-Lundi junction, where the partnership had established a small trading post, he opened a recruiting organisation supplying labour to the gold mines of the Witwatersrand.<br /><br />Spraggen acquired a dubious reputation which was not really deserved, and he was not the only suspect character with whom Mac associated. At one time he befriended Cecil Barnard, known as<br />"Bvekenya", a renowned ivory poacher, and on the only occasion Barnard was apprehended by the B.S.A.P., for shooting a hippopotamus, MacDougall saved him from going to gaol by lending him £10.0.0 to pay a fine. It was said that MacDougall always knew from the "bush telegraph" when a B.S.A.P. trooper left Zaka on horse patrol to the Triangle area, but on one occasion his intelligence system failed him, and a young trooper came riding up the hill just as Mac was entertaining Bvekenya, at that time a wanted man. He was hastily bundled under Mac's bed, where he remained safely hidden until the policeman had finished his tea and spent an hour or two chatting to his host.<br /><br />Lest the impression be gained that MacDougall was in some way disrespectful of the law, let me hasten to add that he was nothing of the sort, but as a man's man in a rugged frontier area he had befriended many an interesting character of the times, and a rough camaraderie invariably grew up between such independent souls in remote areas.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE EPIC IRRIGATION STORY</span><br /><br />Murray MacDougall's cattle bubble had well and truly burst, and he turned his attention instead to the irrigable potential of the rich alluvial soils of the northern section of the ranch, determined to bring water from the Mtilikwe River to his lands. He appealed to the Government for help, and in 1923 an engineer travelled from Fort Victoria by mule cart to survey the scheme. A furrow was pegged out, and a site on the river bank selected for the construction of a weir. But when Mac came to dig for the foundations he found nothing but sand, and in any event if the weir site were moved upstream, a considerably increased acreage of irrigable soil would be brought "under command" of his irrigation furrow. So it was that he moved a little way upstream and started to build the Jatala Weir on a ridge of rocks which ran right across the wide river, and which he had always considered to be the most favourable site for the venture.<br /><br />The fact that the Government's Irrigation Department considered him to be impudent, misguided and high-handed, and the presence of two large granite kopjes directly in the path of his proposed canal from the amended weir site, did not in any way deter this rugged and resourceful Scot.<br /><br />Triangle's pioneering irrigation engineering works are now a National Monument, and a bronze plaque on site records the facts simply as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"From this weir, built in 1923, Thomas Murray MacDougall led water from the Mtilikwe River through two tunnels, hewn by hand over seven years for a distance of 1400 feet through solid rock, and thence to his lands through a canal eight miles long. This historic enterprise was the first development in the Lowveld's great irrigation project.</span><br /><br />Erected by The Historical Monuments<br />Commission of Southern Rhodesia<br /><br />It is an inspiring experience to visit this site today, and to sit quietly on the rocks and contemplate this place in the years of its construction.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The epic story of this herculean task, undertaken against all odds and contrary to professional opinion, by a single white man and a handful of Shangaans, highlights the sheer pluck and determination of Murray MacDougall. The 450 metre tunnels took seven years to complete, during which time work was discontinued for six months each rainy season when flood waters rose over the tunnel mouth. Instruments for levelling and measuring were improvised with ingenuity and skill for the construction of the tunnels and eight miles of canal, and Mac used a rifle's sights to plot with unerring accuracy the points at which his tunnels would enter and emerge from the massive granite obstructions.<br /></div><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo009.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo009.jpg" alt="Page 9" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">The party that trekked to Rhodesia in 1908. MacDougall holding the puppy.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo10A010.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo10A010.jpg" alt="Page 10 A" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE OLD AND THE NEW</span><br />MacDougall's first home on the hill (Above), and his new homestead as it is today on<br />exactly the same site (Below.)A</span><br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo10b010.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo10b010.jpg" alt="Page 10 B" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo11011.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo11011.jpg" alt="Page 11" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">MACDOUGALL'S JATALA WEIR</span><br />The first irrigation engineering development in the Lowveld and now a National Monument</span>.<br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=photo12012.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/photo12012.jpg" alt="Page 12" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;">MacDougall with his first mature cane.</span><br /><br />Not only the tunnels were remarkable as an early civil engineering feat in an age and at a location without sophisticated mechanical equipment: the enormous ditch between the two tunnels, dug by two oxen pulling a dam scoop; the massive approach to the Musiswidzi siphon; the great siphon itself, characterised by massive homemade concrete pipes built on site and still bearing the imprint of the shuttering — all these works performed in arduous and remote conditions by a single-minded untrained Scot and his willing toiling team of Shangaans, sweating and labouring with picks and shovels, shifting earth and rocks with wheelbarrows and spans of oxen; all this identifies Thomas Murray MacDougall as a man apart, a true pioneer who was a visionary, and spared not himself to realise his vision. He saw this parched and wild land and its rich and ancient soil, and he knew that if only it could have the blessing of plentiful and regular water, it could produce an abundance of food crops for man.<br /><br />MacDougall shouldered aside the protests and obstructions of a sceptical Irrigation Department (he named them the "irritation department"), but one civil engineer, a fellow Scotsman named Cecil Robertson who had designed the Muswiswidzi siphon and who was to have a profound influence on Triangle over many years, saw that Mac was not deluded, but gifted, and "Robbie" stood steadfastly by the lowvelder all his days, supporting and assisting him by any means possible, and taking MacDougall's side against his critics.<br /><br />During the long years before Mac's irrigation scheme was completed, and following the misfortunes of the cattle venture, he took a number of jobs, particularly transport riding, to meet his expenses and provide a simple living.<br /><br />At last in 1931 the water was led for the first time on to the prepared and waiting lands, and Mac wasted no time in planting a variety of crops, watching with enormous satisfaction and pride as the seed germinated and the plants flourished.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE BUILDING OF THE HOMESTEAD</span><br /><br />During those long months when the floods prevented work on his tunnels, Mac diverted the attention of his work force to the construction of his homestead and headquarters on Mac's Hill, replacing his first temporary home with more substantial buildings in place of his original rondavel and rough open circular dining room. He built a living room on the present house site, and a combined bedroom-office which still stands today and in which "The Story of Mac" is portrayed, but he soon<br /><br />become irritated with his living room, and decided to rebuild it in more dignified and substantial form.<br /><br />He made his own burnt bricks, found a limestone deposit near the Lundi River and burnt his own lime for the pointing between the bricks, and set about improvising a most effective pit-saw by means of which he sawed his own timbers from the estate. Thus was built in 1926 the magnificent pioneer home which today is a National Monument.<br /><br />Most of the woodwork and superb ceiling panelling was made of Pod Mahogany (Afzelia quanzensis), Lead wood (Combretum imberbe) and Knobthorn (Acacia nigrescens) which was selected, felled, logged, sawed and fashioned by Mac and a remarkable home-taught African craftsman named Willem, who had come from South Africa with Mac. Mac made his own door and window fastenings from pod mahogany, and, as in his Highland home, a fireplace and high ceilings were included as a matter of course.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;">MACS OUTBUILDINGS<br /></span><br />Several solidly constructed rondavels were erected for use by visitors, and a separate kitchen added at the rear. As a bath was both temporarily unobtainable and expensive, Mac fashioned his own of cement in a small bathroom on the north side of his residence, and only in later years was a conventional bath installed next door. A "Rhodesian boiler", 44 gallon drum heated by a wood fire, provided a plentiful supply of hot water, but Mac's early guests complaincd that while the water might be scalding, the cement bath had a decidedly chilling effect on the rear end of the bather! On one memorable day Mac had staying with him a guest, who was occupying the rondavcl nearest the main dwelling, and they had gone out fishing early in the morning. When they returned at dusk, the guest was startled by a leopard which dashed out of his rondavel as he prepared to enter. No-one was harmed, but what a story he had to take back to Salisbury with him.<br /><br />But undoubtedly the most famous and picturesque outbuildings were the MacDougall toilets, known as "longdrops" of which there were two. Access to the one still preserved as an integral part of the National Monument involved a steep descent of rough-hewn stone steps skirting a precipitous drop. There was no door, and the open doorway faced east, with an outlook over an open plain below the hill, later developed into an airstrip, and now the site of Rufaro Village. Early visitors spoke of the magnificant game-viewing from this convenience as one sat and contemplated life, warmed by the rising sun. The other loo', further west, faced the setting sun, and has now collapsed.<br /><br />Mac's toilets, situated as they were over deep clefts in the rocks, required no plumbing, but a water reticulation system he devised on the hill had a disastrous fate. All water for the homestead had to be hauled up the hill in an improvised bowser drawn by two patient and powerful oxen, and Mac decided to utilise the rainwater off the roof of his main dwelling. A guttering system was installed and led into a succession of home-made covcrcd round concrete tanks, from the bottom one of which water was to be pumped into a huge concrete reservoir built behind his bedroom.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Just as the system was complete, it was struck by lightning and suffered severe cracking. Mac interpreted this as an evil omen, and the system was abandoned and never used. Instead, for the rest of his days on Triangle the patient oxen continued to haul all domestic water up the hill from the well below.<br /></div><br />Other structures on the hill were concrete tanks for curing riems from gameskins, using mopani bark to tan them, and a small slaughter pole where carcases of game animals shot for meat were hung.<br /><br />Stores and supplies had to be fetched from Fort Victoria by oxwagon, travelling along the old road through Chivamba's and the Bikita and Zaka districts, and this route was impassable to the wagons during the rains, when horseback was the only means of transport. In later years when he had cut a new road MacDougall occasionally collected supplies from Messina for variation, his wagon being absent for several weeks on such trips.<br /><br />Mac was particularly proud of his wheat, a sample of which was sent to London by the Ministry of Agriculture, receiving a most enthusiastic and favourable report from a prospective importer. He also grew magnificent lima beans and achieved success with an early cotton crop, while sub-tropical fruit such as bananas, mangoes and pawpaws nourished in the local conditions, and Triangle citrus, particularly MacDougall's grapefruit, developed a considerable<br /><br />reputation. Mac was inordinately proud of his "baccy", the burley tobacco he grew on the alluvial soils on the north bank of the Lundi, east of the great hill Bendezi, where a trusted Shangaan friend named Marilele had his home. Twists of Mac's tobacco were sold in trading stores all over Victoria district, many owned by personal friends and frontiersmen like the colourful Australian Ben Brewer.<br /><br />Mac's crops flourished, he cleared more and more land for irrigation, and soon had more than two hundred acres developed. Many intrepid visitors came to admire his efforts, and MacDougall entertained them royally. His sister Marjorie came out from Scotland each winter to stay for several months, and the remarkable Brig. E. P. Hartshorn, a tough one-armed military veteran of great charm and artistic talent who was Mac's hunting companion for many years,<br /><br />made a long pilgrimage from his home in Johannesburg, and later in Swaziland, each winter to hunt on Triangle and the surrounding lowveld. Hartshorn was employed in the public relations field for the giant Schlesinger organisation in South Africa.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">DISASTER — AND THE COMING OF SUGAR CANE TO THE LOWVELD</span><br /><br />So well did Mac's winter wheat do, that he made arrangements to import a combine harvester from Massey-Harris in Britain. However, just as the cars were beginning to ripen, a vast horde of quelea, (a small gregarious species of seed-eating finch), descended and stripped the crops. Mac sent a terse telegram to the Massey-Harris agent in Salisbury: "Cancel harvester. The birds have done it for you." Worse was to follow, and a succession of swarms of locusts passed over Triangle, destroying all Mac's crops, in spite of the traditional banging of tins and various methods of destruction by which Mac and his helpers attempted to stem the invading hordes.<br /><br />Gloom descended over the homestead, but Mac refused to give in. Brigadier Hartshorn recalled in later years how he had been staying at the ranch, and Mac had been unusually restless and irritable. Long after Hartshorn had retired for the night, he awoke to see a lamp burning in Mac's bedroom, the shadows revealing that Mac was pacing round and round his room, from which mumbled muttering could be heard. He called out "What is it Murray?", and MacDougall came down to his rondavel, sat on his bed, and said "I'll fix the little blighters, Scrubbs! I'll grow sugarcane like we used to in Demcrara." Thus, in an inspired effort to beat the pestilential red-billed quelea and red locusts which threatened the first agricultural development of the lowveld, the determination of this rugged Scotsman brought about a decision which was to change the face of the area. So it was that in 1934 he applied for permission to import a load of seed-cane from Natal.<br /><br />His application was treated with disbelieve in some circles, but with the help of C. L. Robertson, who had then become Director of Irrigation and had always supported his countryman, MacDougall was eventually granted a permit for three lengths of cane. Armed with the permit, MacDougall set off for South Africa in his recently acquired Model A Ford, declaring his meagre three sticks of cane on his return to Beit Bridge, but neglecting to mention the much larger number he had lashed under his motor car He later drove across a drift on the Limpopo, bypassing the Customs, with a further lorryload of Natal cane. From these humble beginnings was to grow a massive industry.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MACS MILL</span><br /><br />MacDougall's cane grew with splendid vigour in its new lowveld home, and it is probable that he obtained from the cane's donors in Natal a sprinkling of sound cultural advice to add to his previous experience gained many years before on a different continent. For several patient years now he set about bulking up a cane crop from his small initial planting, always looking steadfastly ahead to the longed-for day when he would make his first sugar.<br /><br />He had already set about planning the acquisition of the milling and factory machinery necessary to wrest the sweet reward from the ripe cane stalks, and feverish activity and much coming and going from the ranch house on the hill was inevitable. Mac went again to Natal to secure his requirements, and with the great and knowledgeable assistance of a Mr. John Murray of Durban, he soon had contracted to purchase a variety of second-hand equipment from various Natal organisations, principally at Beniva, La Mercy, Umfolosi and Mount Edgecombe. The total cost of the milling equipment was £4 500, and in part payment for their Beniva milling equipment, the firm of Crookes Brothers accepted an offer of shares in the Triangle venture.<br /><br />The first necessity was to cut a road from Triangle to the main Beit Bridge/Fort Victoria road at Ngundu, and this included the construction of drifts across the Mtilikwe and Tokwe Rivers. Mac himself laid out the route, leaving his faithful work force to clear the track while he was busy in Natal. He acquired a further old second-hand truck to add to his ancient Foden, for he would have to cart all the mill components by road from the railhead at Beit Bridge.<br /><br />This great task of cartage of massive and assorted items of machinery in two ancient trucks took two years, and was remarkable for two reasons: firstly, certain items were dumped in the lowveld bush near the road when the onset of rains forced a halt in the exercise, and so phenomenal was the bush growth, that Mac could not find his property until the grass and bush had died down in the following dry season; learning his lesson, Mac prudently hauled other items into prominent trees with rawhide ropes when a similar situation arose the following season. Secondly, Mac's habit of calling in to break his journey and quench his thirst at that well patronised waterhole, the Lundi Hotel on the river of that name (later the Rhino Hotel), led to him meeting there a hotel employee, Miss Marjorie Cooke, in 1937. She was to have a profound influence on MacDougall's life, and in later years she recalled how the rugged and kindly Scot with a twinkle in his eye had called lo her to join his party at the bar, saying "Come into the body of the kirk, lassie".<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It seems probable that Mac developed for the Lundi Hotel an affection not entirely related to its provision of liquid refreshment, and he was a frequent caller. The same establishment was concerned in an amusing incident involving MacDougall at another time. Realising three days before Christmas that he was short of essential supplies, Mac despatched to the pub on foot a piccanin with a five pound note and a request for two bottles of Johnny Walker whisky. On the third day the exhausted youngster reappeared empty-handed but bearing a helpful note saying "Sorry no Johnny Walker, will Black and White do?"<br /></div><br />Soon some two acres on the chosen mill site on the east bank of the Mtilikwe was littered with hundreds of pieces of machinery, carted by Mac's two drivers, his nephew Colin Sproull, and Tom Dunuza the Swazi man who had graduated from commanding an ox-wagon to controlling one of the trucks.<br /><br />Mr. Ken Kean. an engineer from Natal, was engaged in August 1938 as Chief Engineer and Mill Manager, and what a fortunate choice this was, as Kean was a mechanical wizard, and very efficiently created order out of chaos at the mill site. It was in 1938 that Mac took the advice of his close friend Billy Moubray and set about the formation of a properly organised company. Triangle Sugar Estates Limited was formed with Mr. W. Moubray as Chairman, MacDougall as Managing Director, and the other two directors were the late W. Paley of Fort Victoria and the late D. M. Milne, then Manager of Meikles Limited in Fort Victoria. Paley was a forwarding and consigning agent for the legendary Zeederberg ox-wagons and steam-wagons which hauled mining and agricultural produce and supplies in the district, and Milne, always keen on development projects, extended much-needed credit to many a small-worker or farmer.<br /><br />MacDougall had always been something of a one-man band, and his involvement with the number of others in the new company introduced several interesting characters.<br /><br />Geordie Muir, Mac s book-keeper for many years, was an outstanding character, a little grumpy, but loyal and industrious, and always retaining a sense of humour in somewhat primitive administrative conditions.<br /><br />Billy Moubray was a tremendous ally in the Triangle enterprise, and it is interesting to rccord his part in his own words:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I come into the story really merely in the background. Mac and I were very good friends ever since I first met him in the beginning of 1926. In temperament we were quite different. I am an East Coast Scot, slow and cautious. Mac was a West Coast Scot from the Highlands, with all a Highlander's virtues and vices! But being a big character, Mac had big virtues and big faults. Perhaps we acted as a 'foil' to each other, and for that reason we got on very well together. When Triangle Sugar Estates was starting in 1938 and in the years following, I had to do most of the Salisbury end of the business, and try and put over Mac's habits in the best possible light! To give you two little instances: Mac sent me a telegram "Obtain permission to import Sugar Mill from Natal". The Customs sent me a form asking for the total weight of the machinery. I wired to Mac. Mac replied in pencil on half a sheet of paper "Put 400,000 tons, what the hell does it matter". He was quite right of course! Mac came to Salisbury to ask the Treasury for £500 to buy cattle to run on Triangle whilst the Mill was building. He was given the money. On the way back to Fort Victoria he stopped in Umvuma, saw some old machinery that he thought would be useful, and spent the whole £500 on the spot. 1 got a 'phone message to proceed at once to the Treasury. Hector Lovemore, who looked after our affairs there, was positively dancing up and down. "You can't do this sort of thing, you really can't, it's outrageous, whatever am I to say to the Minister?" I had to spend a considerable time smoothing everyone down. I used to spend a month at a time down on Triangle in those years working in the Office, trying to get all the papers in order and helping Mac with the correspondence. In spite of Mac's rather un-businesslike ways, it always struck me that he had the most extraordinary memory for details. When papers got mislaid or lost, as they frequently did, Mac's memory usually got us out of the difficulty. He was, of course, loo, a remarkable organiser. He did practically the whole of the field-work himself, with, I think, one other European from time to time. In fact, the whole of the development expenses of buying the Mill, erecting it, putting in all the irrigation works and planting the cane,, was done at an absolute minimum of cost. Any big company, or the Government, would probably have spent three times the amount that we did. When the Government took over from us they at once about trebled the staff, with, I think, no great compensating advantage."</span><br /><br />Moubray described Ken Kean as "the key-man in the building of the mill, and a wonderful chap." It is fascinating to read Kean's own personal reminiscences of those dawn-to-dark construction days:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">"Triangle was very wild in those dayst any amount of game etc. We lived in reed huts down at the mill site. There were only two of us on construction for the first few months as the company had run out of money. When I arrived there I had to sit on a lorry from Beit Bridge as Mac was laid up with a poisoned foot, having been bitten by a scorpion. After a very hot trip I eventually arrived at "Mac's" house and we chatted well into the night. Mac was very worried as no one would believe that sugar could be made in Rhodesia.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">I squeezed some juice out of a few sticks of cane and boiled it outside over an open fire and concentrated it into sugar by stirring it with a piece of wood. I then got his cream separator, drilled holes in a syrup tin and lined it with butter muslin. Then separated the crystals from the molasses. I filled two Herald tobacco tins with very fine sugar, which Mac took to Salisbury. He was very friendly with Mr. Frank Harris who way Minister of Agriculture at the time. They had a meeting with certain Government people and from that Mac got his first loan from the Government.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">When I first arrived there Mac had a trading store near the homestead. Old Mr. George Muir was Mac's bookkeeper, quite</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> an old character. He later built a store near the mill, broke down the old store and built a house for me nearby as 1 had a wife and three young children. My two girls went to school in Fort Vic, and the son was home with us. Those were hard days, lots of sickness amongst the natives.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A Mr. Jock Ferric from Zaka took Mac's store over at the Mill which later was shifted near the new bridge across the river."</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> (This of course refers to the old low-level bridge built in 1942.)</span><br /><br />The brickwork of the boilers was done by a lovable character called Ted Gourlay, a proud stone mason of the old school, and Kean recalls that during construction a young European who had been engaged to help him, and who was apparently more interested in conversation than hard work, approached Gourlay as he laid furnace bricks and said "You know what, Teddy, I am engaged to be married." Ted looked him up and down and said "Young man, you should remain a bachelor, like your father before you."<br /><br />A feature of the mill was a fine square-section masonry chimney, built by two brothers named Blignaut. Kean's assistant was a steam lorry driver turned fitter named Jock Crane, and the electrician was an Italian Joe Coupia (or Capouya?).<br /><br />Ken Kean wanted a photograph of Mac atop his mill, and went to no end of trouble to rig up a bosun's chair with the aid of some huge gum poles which were ncccssary to erect the pans and evaporators, and for which Tom Dunuza had been sent to Glenlivet with a wagon. It was<br /><br />a remarkable feat bringing the 80-foot poles down to Triangle over the rough Zaka-Triangle road through the hills, but Dunuza managed, and Kean duly managed to hoist MacDougall into the air and secure his photograph.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE MILL OPENING</span><br /><br />At last the great day arrived, and the mill was completed and running and ready for its ceremonial opening on September 11th 1939, and what a gala occasion it was. The opening ceremony was performed by Miss Marjorie MacDougall, Mac's sister, whom everybody loved and who came out from London each southern winter to spend a few months with her frontiersman brother. She later died in the London blitz, and Mac lost one of his staunchest allies.<br /><br />Invitations to the ceremony were printed, and various dignitaries were invited. The Prime Minister, Godfrey Huggins, had hoped to attend, but stayed in Salisbury, as the colony had been at war since September 3rd and he needed to stay in the capital. Captain Frank Harris, Minister of Agriculture, was to have been guest of honour and to have delivered the main address, but he too was required to stay in Salisbury, and his speech was delivered by Mr. van Broembsen, the Civil Commissioner in Fort Victoria. The guests camped out next to the road just south of the mill, and early on the morning of the opening dav Ken Kean and young Capouya had a front wheel puncture while driving their half-ton truck from the homestead to the mill, veering off the road and into a tree. They both went through the windscreen, and eventually arrived at the visitors' camp streaming with blood, but fortunately not seriously injured.<br /><br />Kean bound the starting wheel of the mill engine with white asbestos cord, Miss MacDougall tied a sprig of Scottish heather and an elephant hair on the big flywheel, and Mac had a Scottish standard (still preserved to this day) fluttering over the mill. After the speeches the expectant guests watched as Miss MacDougall cut a silk ribbon and opened the steam valve to start the mill, but for a moment nothing happened. MacDougall who was standing nearby leapt on the platform, kicked off a hapless piccanin who had thrown a lever in the wrong direction, corrected the lever's position with another well-aimed kick, and with a puff of steam and a rousing cheer the first crushing season in the lowveld's sugar history was under way.<br /><br />There was only 45 acres of cane at the start, and only one crusher and two mills. The insatiable appetite of the boilers was fed by firewood chopped by a special gang, and 96 tons of raw sugar was produced in that first season. Mac was ecstatic, and even his severest critics and other skeptics grudgingly admitted that perhaps his enduring faith and dogged determination has been justified.<br /><br />Murray MacDougall personally drove the first lorry load of sugar all the way to the refinery in Bulawayo, and it was joyfully received by Mr. Stanley Cooke, known to all as "Sugar" Cooke, who was manager of the refinery and who had always believed that MacDougall would deliver the goods in the end.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">TROUBLES AHEAD</span><br /><br />But Mac's hour of triumph was darkened even in those days by financial storm clouds on the horizon, and in 1940 Mac and Billy Moubray went to Natal where John Murray took them to see Mr. G. Crookes of Crookes Brothers, one of the largest sugar companies in Natal. George Crookes and one of his companies, showing remarkable confidence, came to the rescue and took up the balance of the unissued shares in Triangle Sugar Estates Limited.<br /><br />Later, Stanley Cooke proposed that Triangle amalgamate with the refinery, and after much negotiation it was decided to launch a new company, the prospectus of which was issued in May 1941. But the company was never floated, and the Southern Rhodesian Government stepped in with additional finance, insisting on partial control, a situation which did not ever really work.<br /><br />Eventually a crisis point was reached, and in May 1944 the country's young sugar industry was the subject of a lengthy debate in Parliament. Hansard reveals that the sixth session of the Fifth Parliament debated hotly a motion proposing the nationalisation of the sugar industry, and this was introduced by the Minister of Commerce and Industry and seconded by the Minister of Finance. The original motion called for the Government to take over jointly the Sugar Refinery in<br />Bulawayo and the Estate at Triangle.<br /><br />The refinery, started by the Hornung family from Sena in Mocambique, appears to have been highly unpopular in Parliament, and the proposal for the joint acquisition was soon dropped. There was far more sympathy for MacDougall's venture; Mac had raised Government loans totally £103 000 and had spent £80 000 of this amount by May 1944. In a lively debate the Minister of Agriculture, Captain Harris, with a sense of history in the making summed up the situation when he said "The whole question today before us is whether we shall develop that very rich part of the colony or leave it for another generation to do."<br /><br />With that, the amendment was carried "That the house approves the action of the Government in obtaining an option to purchase all the shares in the Triangle Sugar Estates, Limited, at a price of thirty shillings a share, that is to say, for sixty thousand pounds, with a view to the development of a sugar industry and for the development of agriculture generally, and recommends that the Government exercise the said option forthwith." It was an unusual non-party free vote of the house, and was carried by 15 votes to 9.<br /><br />The outcome was that MacDougall sold out to the Southern Rhodesian Government who formed the Sugar Industry Board to take over the concern. The basis of the agreement was that the Government gained ownership of the Estate and all its assets in return for a cash payment of £60 000 and the liquidation of MacDougall's debts. C. L. Robertson, Mac's great ally, was Chairman of the Board, and Mac remained a while in an uneasy position as Manager. However, the supreme individualist MacDougall was unable to fall in with the management style demanded by an orderly civil service, and being a man of action more than words, he was soon in hot water. On one occasion he bought a small bulldozer without first consulting his colleagues, and clearly this situation could not last. So it was that early in 1945 MacDougall took leave of his beloved Triangle and Africa, and returned to his Highland home, at that stage still in the grip of the most terrible war in history. Mac was then 63 years old, and too old for active service, but he was determined to do his bit for the old country, and managed to get employment on a fishing fleet at Stornaway in the Hebrides, where he spent two years in this vital food industry.<br /><br />In 1947 the cver-resourceful man got himself a lift back to Salisbury on a freight flight which took thirteen days from London, and he soon returned to the Victoria district. Shortly thereafter he arranged the finance to purchase the farm Glendale 16 kilometres south of Fort Victoria, and he pulled down and rebuilt the old house on the hill overlooking the main Fort Victoria-Beit Bridge road and facing the massive hill Cotopaxie, perhaps better known to the local Africans as<br />Nyanda.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">MAC AND MARJORIE</span><br /><br />Whenever he visited Salisbury he called in at the Land Bank where Marjorie Cooke was working, and the old mutual fascination first sparked at the Lundi Hotel was rekindled. They decided to get married, wondering why they had not done so years before, and the simple civil ceremony in Salisbury on December 28th 1949 was attended only by Bill and May Moubray and a young man named Bulman. Mac introduced his bride to his friends at the New Year's Eve Ball in Fort<br />Victoria a few days later, and those who thought they knew the rugged old bachelor better were convinced that it was a practical joke.<br /><br />Murray and Marjorie were blissfully happy together, and forged a great and enduring companionship. Life at Glendale was full of interest, and the MacDougalls soon gathered a large circle of friends in and around Fort Victoria. For the next few years they camped each winter on the banks of the Lundi under a huge baobab near Bendezi hill, where Hippo Valley citrus estate now stands. They used to take their horses with them, and had many adventures riding through the bush after buffalo and other game, and they both loved fishing for the bream which seem to have been larger and more numerous in those days.<br /><br />Their old friend Brigadier "Scrubbs" Hartshorn often joined them, and this remarkable man, who had lost his right forearm below the elbow in the Great War and subsequently learnt to paint with his left, produced many delightful paintings and sketchings of their camping trip, some of which are today displayed in the Murray MacDougall Museum. Mac never forgot his old retainers in the lowveld, and was greeted as a legendary figure on his visits, making many an old Shangaan heart glad with a gift of venison or mealie-meal.<br /><br />In 1955 the MacDougall's toured England and Scotland in a Dormobile motorised caravan which they had ordered, and in 1957 they sold the farm and set off for Australia, where they spent more than a year, also visiting New Zealand and Tasmania. Mac even spent some time logging in a timber camp for the experience — no mean feat for a man of 71.<br /><br />Returning to Fort Victoria early in 1959, MacDougall took up a long-standing offer from his late friend Alfred Gifford, settling on 100 acres overlooking the great new Lake Kyle, where Mac and Gifford had sat thirty years previously and dreamed of a great dam to irrigate the lowveld. Son Jim Gifford honoured his father's promise, and the MacDougall's soon had a comfortable and attractive home on the hillside, which they named Dunollie after the ancestral home in Scotland. They loved Kvle, and spent many happy days and nights on their houseboat "The Gannet".<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">PUBLIC RECOGNITION AND THE TWILIGHT YEARS</span><br /><br />Mac was never one to seek the limelight, and wanted no part of a thought originating in Fort Victoria to have the lake formed by the Kyle Dam named Lake MacDougall. In another move which was far stronger, the I.C.A.s of the country united at their annual congress and unanimously urged the Natural Resources Board to name the great new dam the Robertson Dam, but this too was rejected, and "Kyle Dam" it remained, called after Kyle Farm, thus named by one of the Francis brothers who owned this land on the South bank of the Shagashe River. Invited to attend as a V.I.P. the opening ceremony, performed by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Edgar Whitehead, MacDougall offered an excuse about going to Nyasaland, but allegedly went fishing mumbling that he did not want that lot talking about him!"<br /><br />In the New Year Honours list of 1962 Thomas Murray MacDougall was awarded the O.B.E. by Queen Elizabeth for services to his country, and when the day of the investiture arrived Marjorie put a tie on him and took him to Government House where he was decorated by the Governor, Sir Humphrey Gibbs. Mac hated wearing ties, but was over-ruled by his wife on this occasion. However, his pride was satisfied as he insisted on wearing to Government House his old sheath knife, without which he would not go anywhere.<br /><br />As the Government had refused to name after MacDougall or C. L. Robertson the lake formed by the dam built to irrigate Triangle, scene of their pioneering triumphs, the citizens of Fort Victoria, led by an enterprising young man named Tony Carver, collected funds and bulldozed both officialdom and granite to create the scenic Murray MacDougall Drive around the perimeter of the lake. In later years the Government, curiously contrite, named as Lake MacDougall the beautiful expanse of water formed by the construction of the Manjerenje Dam on the Chiredzi River to irrigate the Mkwasine estates. Mac's friends were glad of this official tribute, but as he had had no association with any part of this scheme, it seemed somehow less appropriate than the idea previously canvassed by his admirers in Fort Victoria.<br /><br />Most knowledgeable lowveld residents recognised in full measure the visionary feats of MacDougall, and he and Marjorie paid several visits to their friends on Triangle, among whom were the first planters, the Starlings, Hingestons and Eastwoods. The reminiscences at these meetings of persons who had shared in the great glory of Triangle's development must have been utterly fascinating to those who love a successful human story.<br /><br />The author first met MacDougall in 1962 when a Government Medical Officer in Fort Victoria. Dr. H. M. Strover, a great friend of Mac's and my "boss" at that time, was away on leave, and Marjorie phoned to say how worried she was about her husband's illness. The old man, ill but defiant, apologised for his wife's carelessness in troubling a stranger, and submitted unwillingly to examination. A diagnosis of severe lobar pneumonia necessitated treatment in hospital, and this news was not popular to the independent soul who had never really had much use for doctors. I drove my station wagon on to the back verandah, borrowed a mattress from a spare room, and carried the protesting pioneer of Triangle out to my car with the very necessary assistance of the household cook, my younger brother, and young Paddy Strover, both of whom had come along for the ride.<br /><br />Mac was terribly ill and weak at first, but after a few days he started to rally. In the course of examining him I found on his back a small scar, as yet unknown to his wife. He confessed with a diffident smile that it had been inflicted with a knife wielded by a drunken sailor whom MacDougall had prevented from molesting a young lady in a South American port some sixty odd years previously.<br /><br />As Mac progressed in his illness he told me about the Triangle days, and he helped to weave a web of fascination for me. I kick myself still for not recording more details about a mysterious system of ruins somewhere near the lower Lundi, which he had never got around to exploring after initially stumbling unexpectedly on them, and which he always suspected to be a fabled lost city of the lowveld. There was probably nothing in the tale, but MacDougall's magical reminiscences were in part responsible for a young medical officer leaving a Government post in Fort Victoria and seeking employment with Triangle Limited.<br /><br />The management of Huletts, who had by now gained control of the Estate, acknowledged and lauded Mac's pioneering role on Triangle, and on April 2nd 1964 the MacDougalls were picked up in Fort Victoria by the company's private aircraft, and flown over the whole area. One can imagine the wonder and pride which stirred his heart as he and Marjorie gazed down at the sparkling waters of Kyle, Bangala and Esquelingwe, and the great Kyle Canal snaking its way for 60 km through the massive green hectares of cane on Triangle and Hippo Valley to the dark green orderly citrus estates on the Lundi, while smoke billowed into the sky from two giant sugar mills. Murray MacDougall's dream of a great sugar industry was a dream no more, and there were tears in the old man's eyes as he watched the chained bundles of cane being unloaded at Triangle Mill.<br /><br />The branch railway line from Mbizi was on its way to Triangle and Chiredzi, and soon the sugar from the two factories would be transported by rail to the refineries elsewhere. Mac confided to some of us that he would die a happy man if he could stand on the footplate of the locomotive hauling the first load of sugar out by rail from Triangle to Mbizi. He was to be guest of honour at the official opening of the new Triangle Mill by the Prime Minister in June 1964, an event he looked forward to with eager anticipation, and he had received a special note from C. A. Gibbs, Business Manager of Triangle Limited, informing him that he need not wear a tie to the ceremonial opening.<br /><br />But it was not to be, and the indomitable spirit was finally stilled on 30th May 1964 when Thomas Murray MacDougall died from a stroke in St. Anne's Hospital. Salisbury. Down in the lowveld Mac's old hunting ground along the Cliredzi River was the scene of a touching moment, as Ray Sparrow, having received a telephone call, went sadly to Kwali Glen on his Lone Star Ranch where Scrubbs Hartshorn had come to spend the winter as he had done for so many years. "Mac's dead" was all he was able to mumble in response to the greeting of the white-bearded old warrior. Hartshorn, eyes moist, slumped into a deck chair and stared a long while into the river, his grief shared by his old cook MBangwene, who had shared many camps with the two of them under the bright stars of the lowveld winter nights.<br /><br />A memorial service oil the village green at Triangle was attended by many of his friends and admirers, and hundreds of Africans from all over the lowveld gathered to pay homage to the legendary "Meke", for lhey remembered him as a man of strength and justice, an accomplished Shangaan linguist, who had travelled among them many times on his horse, carrying only his gun, a bag of tobacco and a bag of salt on his belt, sharing their evening fires and their mealie-meal porridge, shooting game for their meat, and helping them out with food in times of drought and hardship.<br /><br />Later in a simple ceremony, performed by his old friend and companion. Brigadier Scrubbs Hartshorn, Mac's ashes were laid to rest in a large rock under the marula tree in front of his house on the hill.<br /><br />A few days later, at the gala opening of the mill at which MacDougall was to have been the guest of honour, at the express request of Ross Armstrong, Chairman of the Board, Mac's seat of honour next to the Prime Minister was left vacant when Ian Douglas Smith performed the opening ceremony, a poignant and moving tribute to the passing of a remarkable person.<br /><br />Truly, this was a man among men, and his example of courage and determination remain as an inspiration to many of us. his memory perpetuated by the Murray MacDougall Museum, the Murray MacDougall Scholarships and the Murray MacDougall School. I have a feeling that the rugged spirit of Mac keeps watch over his beloved Triangle from the top of the hill to this day.<br /><br />End of Part 1<br /><br /><a href="http://thestoryoftriangle.blogspot.com/2010/11/1-murray-macdougall-and-story-of.html">Click Here to Return to Index</a><br /><br /><p></p><p style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Recompilation completed by Eddy Norris, for no or intended financial gain but rather as a ORAFs initiative to record the memories of Rhodesia and its people for future generations.</span><br /><br /></span></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><b>APPROVAL TO USE</b><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">You have my permission to proceed with your circulation of my history of MacDougall and Triangle.<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Best regards<br /></span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Colin Saunders (Sqn Ldr , Medical VR)</span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; "></p><p style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Book was made available to ORAFs by Neill Jackson, thank you Neill.</span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Thanks to my son, Paul Norris, Paul Mroz for their assistance and special thanks to Robb Ellis for his on going support.<br /></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Eddy Norris can be contacted on <a href="http://www.blogger.com/mailtoLorafs11@gmail.com">orafs11@gmail.com</a></b></span></span></p></div>Rhodesia Rememberedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06644511584084003690noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5358549924600729153.post-46432752462154728352010-11-27T21:52:00.000-08:002010-12-04T04:19:26.626-08:001. Introduction: Murray MacDougall and The Story of TriangleBook: Murray MacDougall and The Story of Triangle written by C. R. Saunders<div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">INDEX</span><br />Foreword — by T. E. S. Goss<br />Author's Note<br /><br /><a href="http://thestoryoftriangle.blogspot.com/2010/11/part-1-story-of-mac.html">Part I — The Story of Mac</a><br /><br /><a href="http://thestoryoftriangle.blogspot.com/2010/11/part-2-triangle-after-macdougall.html">Part II — Triangle after MacDougall</a><br /><br />A. The Sugar Industry Board<br />B. The Natal Syndicate<br />C. Enter Guy Hulett<br />D. The Consortium and Triangle<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Appendices</span><br />The Murray MacDougall Museum<br />The Murray MacDougall Scholarship<br />Murray MacDougall School<br /><br />End of Page 111111<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</span><br /><br />Cover: T. M. MacDougall and Tom Dunuza at their last meeting outside Triangle Limited main office, April 1964.<br />Frontispiece: Portrait of T. M. MacDougall.<br /><br />The party that trekked to Rhodesia<br />The old and the new<br />Jatala Weir<br />MacDougall with his first cane<br />MacDougall's Mill<br />MacDougall's O.B.E. investiture<br />Two key figures<br />Vast fields of cane<br />Cane cutter at work<br />Loading cane<br />Triangle Mill<br />Opening of the training centre<br /><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=StoryofTriangleCover.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/StoryofTriangleCover.jpg" alt="Cover" border="0" /></a></span><br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/?action=view&current=Certificate.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/Rhodesian%20Heritage/Murray%20MacDougall%20and%20The%20Story%20of%20Triangle/Certificate.jpg" alt="Certificate" border="0" /></a><br /><br />MURRAY MACDOUGALL AND THE STORY OF TRIANGLE<br /><br /><a href="http://s193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/?action=view&current=MacInnerPage.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z273/orafs/MacInnerPage.jpg" alt="Mac" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">THOMAS MURRAY MACDOUGALL</span><br />1881-1964<br /><br />Photograph: E.T. Brown</span><br /><br />An epic of land, water and man.<br /><br />Copyright Triangle Limited, 1977.<br />ISBN No. 0-7974-0284-5<br />Published by Triangle Limited<br />Printed by Belmont Printers, Bulawayo.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FOREWORD</span><br />by T. E. S. GOSS,<br />Executive Chairman, Triangle Limited.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation of Dr. Colin Saunders to write a foreword to this book. Dr. Saunders has made a profound study of the life of Thomas Murray MacDougall and has been largely instrumental in the establishment of a modern and most interesting Museum at Triangle which deals with all aspects of the development of the sugar industry in Rhodesia from Thomas Murray MacDougall's day to the present. His consuming interest in the history of Rhodesia has qualified him to set down all the relevant facts of his subject, and his outstanding effort ensures that this particular piece of history will be handed down to posterity factually and in true perspective.<br /></div><br />T. E. S. GOSS<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">AUTHOR'S NOTE</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">The story of MacDougall's pioneering feats in establishing the possibilities of large-scale irrigation in the South-Eastern lowveld of Rhodesia is one of the great epics of human endeavour of our time, and his single-minded faith and determination provided a solid foundation on which were built the fortunes of a great company, whose example has already been followed, with success, by neighbours, and by other organisations which one can only hope will increase vastly, in the interest of our country.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">There have been two objectives in the preparation of this narrative: firstly, to assemble faithfully and objectively for posterity a remarkable story, of which there was no other complete record, and to make available this story in the Murray MacDougall Museum; secondly, to accord due honour to a great man, and to establish without question his rightful status as the man who started it all. Mac eschewed publicity and demanded no tribute.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">From what follows, let the reader judge for himself MacDougall's role in the history of the lowveld.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a pleasure to record the assistance of many friends in the preparation of this booklet, amongst whom Mrs. Marjorie MacDougall has been a patient fund of information; Mrs. Ethelwyn Strover before me was assiduous in her collection of details from a host of contacts and acquaintances; Mrs. Carol Rambo has battled cheerfully and successfully with the doctor's proverbial scrawl; Roy Briault has been responsible for some of the photographs; Basil Digby has provided biographical details of Guy Hulett; Ted Burke, Director of National Archives, has provided original photographs, reproductions, a lot of advice, and has kindly consented to comment on the manuscript; Mrs. Madge Robertson has readily made available on loan her late husband's documents; Jill Osborne provided one of her incomparable baobab sketches at short notice, and the printers have been more than cooperative.<br /></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, the Directors and Management of Triangle have afforded every assistance and encouragement, ever since they agreed enthusiastically to the suggestion by Mrs. Nan Goss that the museum project should proceed, and my wife Jenny has been an unswerving ally when she could have expected more attention to herself and our children than to another one of my hobbies.<br /></div><br />Colin Saunders.<br />Triangle. July, 1977.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Bookman Old Style'; line-height: 18px; text-align: left; "><p style="margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.75em; font-size: 13px; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; line-height: normal; font-size: 16px; "></span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Sincere thanks to Colin Saunders and family for their approval to digitise Colins book</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Recompilation completed by Eddy Norris, for no or intended financial gain but rather as a ORAFs initiative to record the memories of Rhodesia and its people for future generations.</span></span><br /></span></span></span><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; "><b>APPROVAL TO USE</b><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">You have my permission to proceed with your circulation of my history of MacDougall and Triangle.<br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Best regards</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Colin Saunders (Sqn Ldr , Medical VR)</span></span></span></span></p><p></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Book was made available to ORAFs by Neill Jackson, thank you Neill.</span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small; ">Thanks to my son, Paul Norris, Paul Mroz for their assistance and special thanks to Robb Ellis for his on going support.<br /></span></span></p><b>Eddy Norris can be contacted on <a style="color: rgb(34, 85, 136); " href="http://www.blogger.com/mailtoLorafs11@gmail.com">orafs11@gmail.com</a></b></span></span><p></p></span></span></div>Rhodesia Rememberedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06644511584084003690noreply@blogger.com0