Kath O’Dea’s Memoir of Zimbabwe — Part One

Intro by Mary W Maxwell

In 2023 I was writing my book, Society Is the Authority, which is mainly about Russell Pridgeon and his book “Everybody Knows.” I realize that I did not know the background of his co-accused, Patrick O’Dea.  So I typed “O’Dea, Zimbabwe” into a search and what came up was Patrick’s sister Kathleen O’Dea. It seems she is the author of a book, It’s a marvelous autobiography called “Marshmallow Fishes.” I ordered it from abebooks.com, and now it is in my hand. It’s also in my spirit — eegads what a book!

It was published in 2014, so it’s not about Operation Noetic. It’s about joy. It’s about being alive. It’s about caring for the people in one’s nation. Let me ask you — offhand — how many times have you knocked on the door of 10 Downing Street to recommend prime ministerial action? I’ll bet not too many. But Kathleen (b 1964) couldn’t help herself. She was driven to help Zimbabwe. She knocked. (She was trying to get Tony Blair to intervene for the tortured and starving people in Zimbabwe.)

Boy, trauma is not a nice thing — imagine having to experience it every day, on and on! In her book, Kathleen admits to having never got over watching people be killed or tortured when Mugabe’s troops were fighting “the enemy” (i.e., whites, but also hundreds of thousands of blacks).

I originally planned to recount, from Kathleen’s book, some scenes of the Bush War, in which her older bro, Patrick O’Dea (and also Russell Pridgeon) were soldiers. But instead I will show you happy scenes. I urge you to buy the book as it’s a real page- turner — describing her life in Africa, England, and now Australia.

And yes, I am trying to show where Patrick hails from. Kathleen herself is a justice warrior. Let us remember that the thing for which Patrick has now been suffering for nine years is The Law coming down on a man who was doing justice-warrior work, trying to protect a helpless boy. Got that?

Patrick already had painful war wounds (in the spine, from hitting a landmine), and I’ll bet that is exacerbated by the sheer unfairness of Operation Effing Noetic (oh excuse me, my typewriter did that!). (You know how typewriters sometimes have a mind of their own.)  So wouldn’t it be nice if Australia could stand up for him and say “Give this guy a break.”

So sit back and enjoy. If you can’t read it now, come back to it later. It is so energizing! Kath came to Australia at age 21 and later played on the Australian team of underwater hockey  [what??] — which later became an Olympic sport.

Chapter One of MARSHMALLOW FISHES

I WAS born in Bulawayo. My dad was Scottish. He had emigrated to Rhodesia when he was in his early 20’s. He had a choice. It was Rhodesia or Alaska. (Shit! I could have been an Eskimo!) My dad, John McGarry O’Dea, was born in Glasgow in 1926. My mom, Daphne Lena Ferreira, was born in Gwelo, Rhodesia in 1927. Her dad was of Portuguese origin.

The name of Gwelo was changed to Gweru when Mugabe came to power. Just like he changed Salisbury to Harare, he changed the names of all the roads in Bulawayo. Overnight, Matabele names or English names became Shona names. I think Grey Street became Robert Mugabe Way.

Before all that happened Mr and Mrs O’Dea happily reared four kids. Patrick, Sharon, Theresa and me. Their first born was named Patrick I was the last, born prematurely. I weighed 3lbs 16 ounces.

All the girls went to convent school and Patrick went to Christian Brothers College. I started swimming before I was five. We lived in the poorer part of town then, North End. Living in those poorer places never affected us. We would look up to the kids who had nicer things but we never felt deprived.

I used to collect all the stray dogs. One was a black bitsa dog (bitsa this and bitsa that!) that we used to call Blackballs. He would go wandering and bailing him out of the pound became an expensive pastime. My dad soon discovered that it was cheaper if he pretended he wanted to give a home to a pet, rather than to own up and say Blackballs already was our pet, but it was a dead giveaway when Blackballs always went nuts when he saw my dad. I think the guys at the pound eventually turned a blind eye.

My dad worked for Rhodesian Railways as a train driver. He would do the Mafeking run into Botswana. Often he would come home with one of the huge tortoises they would find on the side of the railway tracks. My mom was a shorthand typist. She was the secretary to Brigadier Shaw who was later killed in a helicopter crash. It must have been pressurised work because everything was top secret. We were fighting a war. Even as a child I could not understand how that big wide world out there could let this happen.

Our favourite treat was marshmallow fishes. If we didn’t have any money we would hang around the tuck shop and cling to the bars looking pleadingly at the African shop keeper, who was called Jock, hoping that we might get a marshmallow fish for free. He would often swing a couple of free fishes our way.

As a kid those marshmallow fishes made such an impact. It is funny how something like that meant so much to us kids. Sometimes you got to notice that your fish was missing an eye (perhaps the mould didn’t always work properly) and I would feel sorry for that fish. Before I ate a marshmallow fish I would have to make the huge decision to chomp the tail first or the head. I always felt guilty if I ate the head first.

[MM — See what we’re dealing with here?]

Somehow, marshmallow fishes seem to stand for the uncom- plicated innocence of our lives in Rhodesia before so much shit hit the fan and changed our lives and our land for ever. Marshmallow fishes were childhood expectation; our hope and happiness.

It was only when I got to about 16-years-old that I realised how hard it must have been for my dad, a Scotsman, to come as a foreigner to this strange country, Southern Rhodesia. He always used to lie on his stomach in front of the TV and watch the news.

If we were making a noise he would say: “Weesht!” And we would copy him.“Weesht!”we would go, imitating his Glaswegian accent.

All of us O’Dea kids could swim. We were naturals. We all swam competitively and we were always making the headlines. Patrick and Sharon both captaining our province Matabeleland. Sharon then went on from competitive swimming to synchronised swimming for Rhodesia.

Patrick went to Christian Brothers College. He was naughty, so the Catholic brothers refused to award him with his sports colours blazer. So to piss everyone off he managed to get his name on the college cups for swimming and athletics and made the first eleven at cricket and the first fifteen at Rugby. But still they never gave him his sports blazer. Perhaps that’s why he’s such a grump arse. I’m only teasing. I love Patrick to bits.

Ted Broster was my coach and he could see my potential, although it took a bit of coaxing. Getting to that stage, I must have quit about twenty times so it became a joke. My dad would say: “So, Kathleen. Are you retiring this week?” I was about 8 years old. My dad would be one of the judges in competitions and one time he disqualified Theresa. Some of the over pushy parents could not believe it: “He’s disqualified his own daughter!” they said. I loved my dad. He had good values.

We kept making the newspapers as swimmers so being poor didn’t really bother us. Looking back now, I can see that we had status in other ways. Not that I am one for status or material things. I am more concerned about justice.

I remember one of my bosses in Australia, John Brown an ex-air force man, saying to me:“Kathleen, how did you ever swim?” I said: “Why?” He said: “You never look left or right.” He was being deep. He meant in life, because if I sense injustice in anything I don’t mess about. I just put my blinkers on and go for it because I have to try and stop it.

We were taught by Dominican nuns. They were quite harsh. Most of them were German. I am sure I was supposed to be left handed but I was made to write right-handed. If I didn’t, I would get a rap on the knuckles with a wooden ruler.

A psychologist who helped me with post-traumatic stress told me: “Kathleen, you are so determined to make the world the way you want it to be. It is just not going to happen.” Well one day it might.

We used to share the swimming pool with boys from the Milton School but I never had much to do with boys. Boys and girls would admire each other from afar. Just a look was all it took. You could be boyfriend and girlfriend without even talking to each other! My childhood sweetheart was Harry and my friend Tracy’s was Guy. Many years later we all met up again in Perth, Australia, Harry and I just friends, Tracy and Guy now married. Guy and Harry were complaining that they had had to leave Zimbabwe and go to Australia to lose their virginity!

In 1974 my brother Patrick joined the Army. I was about 10 years old. Patrick was 19. I really feared for him because there was so much death in this Rhodesian bush war that was being fought. When they were out on patrol my brother and his mate Jimmy Jeans would sit at the back of the army truck on the rear wheels because if they hit a landmine that would absorb a lot of the blast. One time when they hit a landmine my brother had the machine gun between his legs facing outwards on a sandbag. It was a MAG. Jimmy had a standard FN rifle. The normal procedure if you hit a landmine was to empty your magazine into the surrounding bush in case of an ambush.

After the huge shock of the blast Jimmy felt a tremendous weight on top of his head. Patrick’s machine gun had been blown into the air and landed on his head.

Jimmy had blood pouring down his face as well as tears from nervous laughter. Patrick was nervously laughing too – reaction, I guess, to being still alive. Meantime, Jimmy jokes that he is sure to this day that Patrick wanted either his girlfriend or his motor bike and saw an opportunity to take him out!