I was at Prince Edward from 1954 to 1959. Alex was a master in Rhodes House in the two years that I was a boarder, 1954 and 1955. He was always catching someone doing something wrong and already had his nickname, Foxy, before I got there. On one occasion when the after-lunch rest period was anything but, three of the best with a rhino-hide cadet cane left a bruised derriere striped in shades of black and blue. That was eina. Also had three with a cricket bat from one of the house prefects who eventually ended up doing time behind bars in Zambia. Alex was also a science master. I remember him struggling to get the fact into my thick head that it was the weight of air that crushed a tin can and not the vacuum in the can that sucked the sides of the can in. Besides the classroom or chemistry laboratory, of which I don’t remember too much beyond the snakes in the fume cupboards, it was through the Natural History Club and what followed from that, that I had the most to do with him. We were often in the field with Alex on Sundays or Keith Coates Palgrave (Pinky) on Natural History Club outings. Longer trips were to the Chimanimani Mountains. On the first of these with Foxy and Pinky, we reached the high grassy plateau at the Rhodesia/Mozambique border and camped next to a stream in a grove of trees just below Dragon's Tooth, the highest peak in the area. The trip had apparently taken a lot of organising and when we got to the parking place at the top of the path that was to take us down into the V-shaped valley of the Hironi River and then even higher up the other side, a lorry turned up with a whole load of porters. After much haggling and adjustment of loads, we set off down the steep path. Getting across the rocky bed of the flowing Hironi to the east bank without dumping the loads in the water was quite an exercise and each load generally needed two or three people assisting each other. Most of the porters were not prepared to strip down to the altogether like the whities. That first day, the loads, the river and the prospect of a long, steep climb up to the top camp site the next day did not seem like fun to the porters. All of a sudden we were left to carry all the stuff ourselves. We went up in two groups. I was with Pinky in the first. We had a 410 shotgun and two skinners from the Bulawayo Museum and were to collect birds for the museum. With no porters and heavier loads, mostly camping and museum equipment, we were only able to carry up a limited amount of food - flour, tea, coffee, jam, some vegetables, soups. The second party was to bring up the rest of the food. The first meal with saltless flour pancakes and jam tasted like heaven. By the third day (still without the second party led by Alex) the jam was finished, we were hungry all the time, the pancakes were horribly tasteless and we vowed never to touch them again. A thin vegetable soup didn’t help much, even when we laced it with a few carcasses of the tiny birds we shot. Early on the third day I shot a dassie – meat at last! I couldn’t keep the grin of triumph off my face as I walked into camp with the prize. Pinky decided that we could not eat dassie which resulted in typical teenage incomprehension, huge disappointment and ‘even worse’ hunger for us, but satisfaction for the skinners. Alex arrived with the second group on the third day and things normalised. We had two tarpaulins, one for the ground and one as a roof over us when it rained. When it did rain, we all squeezed in and were tight packed like sardines in a can. Pinky slept on the edge of the group and, of course, got shoved out into the rain every now and again – out of a need for space and not Dassie revenge. Normality meant that plant specimens, butterflies and more birds were added to the collections. Little did we know that Pinky was busy with his tome. Walter Ménage from Old Mutual joined us after a while as the third adult with a car. During 1957/8, we had more trips to the Chimanimani. Those in 1958 were intended to prepare us for Kilimanjaro. As experienced Chimanimani-ists, we no longer needed porters and took only the bare essentials. Dave Walker, Dawn's brother and Queen Scout, was on most of these trips. On one of the trips, we took time to float down the shallow rapids in the Hironi on our backs, feet first, periscopes up and with our hands behind our bums to keep us off the rocks. After Alex saw how easy it was he decided to give it a try. Once was enough. He turned turtle and used his head to test the hardness of the rocks underwater. We stopped shooting the rapids when a large dead python came floating by. On the same trip, Alex pulled a stomach muscle about half way up the long climb to the top camp. He could no longer carry a load and his progress was slow. Gradually we got further and further ahead of him and whoever it was that stayed with him. Between us we had only one water bottle (a mistake). It was hot and humid and the climbing with loads made us all really thirsty. A dripping water seep was all we found. It took a while to fill the water bottle which we took back down to Alex. He eventually got up to the camp site long after us and just before sunset. At the end of a trip, the descent down from Dragon’s Tooth was steep and it was always easier to run than to walk. Thorny creepers growing across the path would catch our feet now and again and sending us tumbling or vastly increase the speed of the decent as we tried to regain our balance. It was normally so damp there that scratches festered within a day or two. On another trip, as we were descending from Dragon’s Tooth, we put some rocks in Walter Ménage’s rucksack and asked every now and again if he was OK. Our curiosity was only revealed to him on unpacking his rucksack at the Hironi. Next morning he quickly identified the culprit responsible for a fresh-water crab at the bottom of his mug of tea. It was on one of these trips that we caught a Berg Adder for Foxy, put it in an aluminium cooking pot, closed the lid, tied the pot in a jersey and put snake with pot and jersey back in the rucksack. Needless to say the rucksack was opened very carefully on our return to the cars, one reason being that there is no antivenom for the Berg Adder. The snake did not last very long in Salisbury as it was totally out of its habitat. Foxy and Ménage took us up Kilimanjaro - a three-week trip that started on 28th December 1958. Before going, we took long walks in the bush for training. On one of these trips, we suddenly realised we were walking on our own footprints. We had walked in a circle, I said it was the second circle but Foxy would have none of it. The Kilimanjaro team was Alex Siemers, Walter Ménage, their two cars, Dave Walker, Pat Phear, John Gilfillan, Guy Molam, Ian Sheppard, Errol Levings and myself. A comment from one of the diaries describing one of our early, open-air camp sites was: “It was difficult getting to sleep as the air was putrid with corny cracks – Mr. Siemers being the main culprit” (extracted from Kilimanjaro Report by Dave Walker, as have been other reminders of the trip). Typical Foxy. His short, quiet guffaw at someone else’s crack was unmistakable Alex. At one petrol stop, Walter Ménage arrived with a ‘lost’ calf on his lap. The store keeper said he would find (!?) the owner. The next piece of entertainment was Walter with his trousers off after sitting on the pincushion-like seed of the mukwa tree. Then he managed to infuriate an Indian lorry driver for parking too close to a corner – but he ‘escaped’ because his car was faster than the lorry. We saw our first crested guinea-fowl in southern Tanganika (Tanzania). In the same region, Foxy stopped to catch a small black-necked spitting cobra on the road. He held it by the tail but it managed to get its head up a bit and spat at me. I felt the poison drops hit me all around the eyes but luckily not in the eyes. That had no effect and consequently Foxy would not believe that it had spat at me. When spitting, a cobra’s head makes only the tiniest of movements. The first attraction on the agenda was Ngorogoro Crater. We got there late and had to camp next to the road on the outer edge of the crater rim and overlooking a small town at the bottom of the rim. After supper, John Gilfillan put a whole dead tree on the fire. The flames were huge. Suddenly we heard a siren in the town below and heard the vehicle racing up to us. We doused the fire and held a blanket in front of the embers as the fire engine raced by. They never found the fire. We then hit the hay and the faint humming we had detected in the tree tops descended – the mosie army, maningi sterek. A rough night was had by all. Alex’s comment: “the worst was when they picked you up and dropped you.” Next day, the Ngorogoro rangers took us down into the crater in their Land Rovers (they used to be good in those days what with double declutching and all). We had heard that if you clink coins together, black rhinos will charge. There was much clinking of coins. Alex did not object as we were sure he wanted to catch a rhino charge on his cine camera. Have you ever felt what it s like when you try desperately to attract attention and get totally ignored? The starting point for the Kilimanjaro climb was the Marangu Hotel near Moshi. Kilimanjaro has twin peaks separated by a wide saddle, the jagged Mawenzi in the north and the higher volcanic crater of Kibo in the south. If one reaches the crater rim at Gilman’s Point, one is considered to have reached the top of Kilimanjaro. However, the highest point is Uhuru Peak (called Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze when we were there) some 300-400 feet higher and on the other side of the crater. We had three or four guides. Before starting the climb, Alex strained an ankle chasing Guy Molam but began the long uphill slog gamely. We passed through banana plantations, then tropical forest, then a bracken forest then a forest of heath trees 25 feet high before we got up to the first hut. Next day Alex’s ankle was holding up. The path took us ever upwards out of the heath forest and through grassy slopes. We reached the second hut in heavy mist. A party of boys from the Duke of York school in Nairobi was there and were on their way down. They were rather derogatory about us having adults to look after us, they had none – but we kept our peace. Next morning there was ice on the nearby stream. It hurts washing in water that cold. On the third day we donned longs and our homemade anoraks dyed in various bright colours. The third day took us into the Afro-Alpine climate zone where the grassy slopes were studded with giant lobelias, then in sleet and hail onto the saddle between the two peaks, a cold vegetation-free desert. Climbing ahead of us was a group of SAS officers with 16 porters. When we got to the saddle, they (the officers, not the porters) came to meet us and asked whether they could take our rucksacks for us. We all declined. It impressed them tremendously that we carried all our own stuff and needed no help – so much for the Duke of York uppitiness. The third hut was at the foot of Kibo at 15 500 feet. Altitude sickness got me there despite being fit from athletics. I had a screaming headache and I could keep nothing down. There was old snow around the hut and Guy and Pat started building a snowlady. She was carried back to the hut but the wind blew her over so she was melted down for water. There were only six bunks in the hut so we all doubled up. Three of the officers slept on the floor. We started the final 4000-foot climb at one next morning in freezing cold and black darkness after having received energy rations, glucose tablets, barley sugar, chocolate and glucose sweets. We took a short rest at the Hans Meyer cave at 2.20 a.m. before starting the final 3000 feet up the 45°scree slope. In the scree one slipped back almost as much as one climbed. We were taking about 3 breaths to every step and had to stop every 20-30 steps to catch our breath. Errol, at 16, was the youngest and was really struggling but continued encouragement kept him going. I had nothing left inside but continued to dry retch every now and again. Alex and Ian also began to vomit. We all reached the crater rim at Gilman’s Point at 5.45 a.m., just before sunrise – 100% success. There air is so thin up at 19 000 feet that one does not comprehend things well and memories of the surroundings, the crater and the walls of pale blue ice in the crater are vague. I could not go on but Dave, Pat, Guy, John and Errol continued and reached Kaiser Wilhelm Spitze or Uhuru Peak, the highest point at 19 340 feet. I came down before the others, had a sleep at the third hut then went on down to the second hut. The others were exhausted when they finally arrived so I cooked supper, rice with chocolate in it which I stirred and stirred – my first attempt at cooking rice. Have you ever had rice porridge? The others were in no condition to complain. The last day was a 33 mile hike down to the starting point at the hotel - limping on both feet. The total distance we had walked was 75 miles. A late start next day took us to the Tsavo Game Reserve and the Mzima Spring with its underwater view of hippo, fish and crocs. The next two stops were camps under the palms on the outskirts of Mombasa and Malindi – coral reefs, very spiny sea urchins, big clam shells and a black and yellow sea snake which excited Alex no end but he left it alone. Then back to Mombasa. A dirt track, a wet rainy night under an inadequate tarpaulin and three river ferries later got us to Bagamoyo, the 400-year-old slave trading station on the Tanzanian coast. From Dar-es-Salaam we turned inland to Morogoro on the Iringa road. The bush camp after Morogoro was home to another armada of mosies. We gave up trying to sleep at 1 a.m. and hit the road. At Iringa we joined the route we had come up on. Four more days of driving and we were back in Salisbury. Strange as it sounds nowadays, the cars had to be serviced every 1000 miles. There were four service stops. The total distance covered was 4 800 miles. Despite the mosies, nobody got malaria. The snake that bit Alex. On our Sunday outings we always brought something back for the Natural History Club. On the fateful Sunday, Alex had not gone out. The guys caught a small snake and were handling it all day but did not know what it was. When they got back they showed it to Alex who also did not know what it was but took it from them anyway. It promptly bit him in the finger. It was a burrowing viper for which there is no antivenom. He was in hospital for two weeks. That was when Jack Gaylard said he had to take all the snakes out of the fume cupboards in the chem lab. We saw Alex a few years ago when he took several of his distant German relatives on a trip through Namibia. His finger was still stiff from that bite. Note that 3 pictures relevant to this period have been sent separately (due to the format of this page) and to which the following captions belong: Picture RMM1: Alex Siemers and R.M. Isemonger with some nyokas in front of the chem lab, PES Picture RMM2: Members of the first Chimanimani expedition at the camp site at the foot of Dragon’s Tooth: back row right, Roy Miller – butterflies, birds; in front of him on his right, Alex Siemers – bossman 1, reptiles; next to him, Keith Coates-Palgrave – bossman 2, trees; front left holding flag pole, Charlie Morris – termites; closest to roof tarpaulin, Rusty Bailey – climbed the north face of the Eiger after he left school; apologies to all the others whose names I cannot remember. Natural History Club flag – Semper aliquid novi ex Africa. Picture RMM3 The successful Kilimanjaro team: l to r, back row - Pat Phear, Alex Siemers, Walter Ménage, Errol Levings, Roy Miller; front row – Dave Walker, John Gilfillan, Guy Molam, Ian Shepard Roy Miller, Windhoek, Namibia. Our deepest sympathies go to Dawn and the whole Siemers family. You were so lucky to have had such an active and caring husband, father and grandfather who did so much with you; one in a million. He also clearly lit the flame in many Rhodesians. Roy and Mara Miller.