REVIEW...

"Nestled in a knotty pine cabin "Up North" (USA) I've just finished reading LETTERS FROM WANKIE.  While I was entertained and enlightened by your challenges and adventures, I was more impressed by your attitude throughout your time in Hwange. I can only imagine what it must have meant to be transplanted to a remote and culturally divergent area at that age and I marvel at your ability to embrace it all.  I could hear your voice as I read.  Thank you for writing"....Marjorie Floyd, President, Strategic Marketng Resources, Inc., Sarasota, Florida, USA

ALL BLOKE'S BOOK CLUB, London, England

Meet the Author, Patricia Friedberg to discuss

LETTERS FROM WANKIE: A place in colonial Africa

JULY Date and time to be announced.

UPCOMING EVENTS -

UPCOMING EVENTS - 

Bel Aire, California

ANNUAL LUNCHEON
Hosted by THE ISRAEL BOND FUND 

KEYNOTE GUEST SPEAKER
scheduled for 2015
Patricia Friedberg, British Author of 
21 ALDGATE & her Memoir,LETTERS FROM WANKIE: a place in colonial Africa 


LUXE SUNSET BOULEVARD HOTEL, Bel Aire, CA

CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND

CAMBRIDGE LIBRARY BOOK GROUP 

"Meet the Author" Patricia Friedberg 
Discussing her memoir LETTERS FROM WANKIE: 
a place in Colonial Africa

Shelford Library
Cambridge, England

AUGUST 6th, 2014
www.patriciafriedberg.com

Many thanks for the chance to read, Patricia Friedberg’s Memoir,  Letters from Wankie. It is a valuable addition to the FLAME LILY FOUNDATION's Reference Library of more than 600 non-fiction books on Rhodesia.

Please convey my best wishes to Patricia. I notice that she travelled back to England on the Carnarvon Castle in March 1956. I too travelled to England on the Carnarvon Castle eight months later, so we have that in common.

I passed through Wankie (now Hwange) in December last year. The old Baobab Hotel is a prominent landmark (photo attached) that has not changed much since the 1950s.

Kind regards,

John Redfern

Hon National Secretary

Flame Lily Foundation

PO Box 95474

0145 Waterkloof

Tel: +27 12 4602066

Website: www.flf-rasa.co.za

Permission was granted for use of the following excerpt to WANKIE FRIENDS NEWSLETTER   

NUMBER 65  WANKIE FRIENDS  MAY  2014

Patricia Friedberg’s “Letters From Wankie—A Place in Colonial Africa” .... 1954

A  mere sixty years after Rhodes first ventured into the African Interior, we were setting out on a similar journey, though this time we wouldn't be the only whites heading for Rhodesia and we weren't bumping along in an ox cart. There were at least two hundred thousand settlers who'd gone before us. Many were British working class, others adventurers, some just like us, wanting to begin a new life in a young, underdeveloped country. ...

Another train journey, this time overnight, through rugged country, across the Limpopo River,

heading for Rhodesia. The train chugged its way through the high veld up to the border town of Louis Trichardt. While it was still light we saw the gold mine dumps and the shanty  towns close by. African children waved. Wildlife oblivious to the oncoming train looked up and stayed exactly  

where they were, causing the driver to pull to a sudden stop and jolting our luggage from the rack onto the floor. Monkeys sat on broken-down carriages pushed off on the sidings; old men begged at every stop; young boys ran alongside the train, giggling and holding out their hands for anything they could get. Nothing to cool us down, and even worse if we opened the window- we tried it once only to be covered in red dust blowing in from the parched land.

We passed African villages where naked children played and mothers fed their babies far too close 

to the railway tracks. Emaciated cattle searched for food as tick birds sat on their backs looking for their particular form of nourishment. The tiny washbowl in our carriage ran out of water. We asked for more. There was no more. We wiped the sweat with once white hand towels and longed for the sun to set. And when it did it was cold. We cuddled up on our bunks, hoping for fewer stops and an earlier arrival. It was not to be.

At midnight we were stuck in Beit Bridge — the town on the border of South African and Rhodesia. 

A knock on the door, tickets, passports ... we fumbled in our luggage, found them and handed them over. The guard said something in Afrikaans.

"What did he say?"

David, wrapped in a light blanket, answered, "He said you will get your passport back when we change crew."

"Any idea when that might be?"

"Don't worry — the next lot speak English — you'll feel safer then." He returned to his bunk and immediately fell asleep.

I was up for the rest of the night.

In the light of the early morning I saw my first baobab tree — a sight to see — as I stood in the 

corridor of the train getting my first view at the Rhodesian landscape.

A guard came walking through.

I turned to go back in to the compartment just as the train came to a halt.

“Why are we stopped?" I asked.

"Elephants crossing the railway tracks. It happens all the time," the guard answered.

Which, of course, being in the middle of Africa — it had to be.

The only elephants I'd ever seen were in the circus, and here they were, stopping a fast moving train.

"It's why we never get anywhere on time," the guard remarked nonchalantly. . "Normal occurrence."

In the distance there were more baobabs close to a crudely fenced village where children sat in a 

circle playing some sort of game. There were women with babies strapped on their backs and old men in deep conversation, it seemed, taking no notice of the train or the elephants. I felt as if I might be on the film set of The African Queen, except, so far, there had been no sign of a river from the time we crossed the Limpopo.

Source: LETTERS FROM WANKIE by Patricia Friedberg. ISBN 978-1-56825-165-3

Rainbow Books Inc., Florida, USA 2013 pfriedbe@gmail.com, legaciesliterary@gmail.com

www.patriciafriedberg.com

Thank You, Pat for allowing the Wankie Friends May Newsletter the above excerpt from your book.

May you always have ...

J Franky J

Trivia65 04 May 2014

Love to share, Health to spare & Wankie Friends who will always care.

BOOK CLUB  ALERT

FIND REVIEWS and Discussion Questions on 
this Book Club Favorite by clicking on the title. 

• 

Letters from Wankie (Patricia Friedberg)

Letters from Wankie: A Place in Colonial Africa Patricia Friedberg, 2013 Rainbow Books 260 pp. ISBN-13: 9781568251653 Summary Letters from Wankie is a unique true story based on the collection of some 500 air letters the author, British-born Patricia Friedberg, wrote home to England in the mid-1950s during the first two years of her marriage to her...

http://www.litlovers.com/reading-guides/14-non-fiction/9769-letters-from-wankie-friedberg

See also: www.21aldgate.com Reviews and Questions for Discussion.

REVIEW / TELFED MAGAZINE, March 2014 Issue /

The SA Zionist Federation (Israel)  http://www.telfed.org.il/Magazine

Add "LETTERS FROM WANKIE" by Patricia Friedberg to your club's Book List

OPINION Really?  You’re Not in a Book Club? BY JAMES ATLAS You’re gossiping not about people, but characters.

copy and paste this URL into your browser : http://nyti.ms/1rcMuqf

PRAISE for LETTERS FROM WANKIE

I have been reading your wonderful book, Letters From Wankie/Author Patricia Friedberg, and loving it. It really transports me back to when Rhodesia was still young and had more wild animals than wild governments. Super book!!! Thanks for so generously sharing the country through your lovely eyes. 

I love the following on Page 44...

"Why are we stopped?" I asked.
"Elephants crossing the railway Tracks. It happens all the time," the guard answered.
The only elephants I had ever seen were in the circus, and here they were, stopping a fast moving train.

Luxmih Eve-Lyn Forbes

For further info and events visit Facebook:  21ALDGATE/LETTERSFROMWANKIE/AUTHOR PATRICIA FRIEDBERG

SARASOTA, FLORIDA / BOOK TALK / NEWCOMERS BOOK CLUBS. PRAISE FOR "LETTERS FROM WANKIE"

Many thanks to the Newcomer's Book Club and organizers Diane Briganti and Gerry Nussbaum
for a chance to meet and discuss LETTERS FROM WANKIE with this wonderfully interesting and
enthusiast group of passionate readers.

MEET THE AUTHOR, Patricia Friedberg

NEWCOMER'S BOOK CLUB 2014

January 14th

Discussion of the newly released memoir

LETTERS FROM WANKIE

To arrange a "Meet the Author" (Skype or In Person) Event for your book club or community organization, contact: legaciesliterary@gmail.com 

For Book Club Members comments, updates, events and happenings.
Go to:
www.21aldgate.com