At first he was told that the matter would have to wait until the Survey Act was passed. When it had been passed he was told that the surveyor had died; he asked for a private surveyor who was working in the district to be put on to it and was told that the Minister would consider it. Martin found the Department unsympathetic when he brought forward specific applications for plots. The V.M.B. drew up and forwarded a full Memorandum, and when Martin next saw the officer and the Minister he was told that Melsetter would have to wait until Parliament sat again. In July, eighteen months after his first visit, the officer came again; he had no constructive plans, and his chief concern seemed to be that the Government could not trace all owners of vacant stands, but said these could be sold as soon as the new Act was in force.

The V.M.B. found that the continual dust was quite beyond them: a watercart had been considered but would not be the answer, and they asked if the Government would help them to tar the streets. The Regional Roads Engineer said the Government had helped in some places on the � for � system, and advocated the use of Primax or Lomix at about �200 a mile, but the Board�s application for financial assistance was turned down by the Department of Mines and Works as the cost was too great. An experiment was tried with applications of oil but no great improvement resulted, and in 1938 stone chips on a village street were tried but progress was very slow with only three boys to crush the stone by hand and the experiment was abandoned. The problem received constant attention, and in 1939 the �450 a mile cost of tarmac material in Melsetter was considered prohibitive. With �60 from the Road Council the drainage was tackled with stone culverts and streets were regularly gravelled.

In spite of the many difficulties social occasions continued to be well supported and welcomed as a respite from the problems. The V.M.B. took over the lease of the Gymkhana and Sports Ground from the Lands Department, applied for a lease for 300 acres for 15-20 years, and sublet at �1 a year to the Gymkhana Club, which had worked and spent a lot of money as the pioneer of the Sports Ground.

With the new Course in full operation and the first permanent building � the weighingroom and secretary�s office � erected in 1935, the Meetings set the pattern for Rhodes� and Founders� weekend, when everybody attended all the functions and worked extremely hard to make them a success.

In 1936 the Club arranged camping sites for the weekend. The V.M.B. gave l0/6d for advertising and arranged for wood and water supplies and sanitary facilities. The charges were 2/6d for adults, with children free, and supphes were available of milk at 4d a bottle, butter 1/6d a lb, vegetables 1�d a lb, and eggs 1/- a dozen.  Sometimes families camped in the Memorial Hall, bringing in beds, bedding, cooks, food, crockery and cutlery, and of course the children, and it was all great fun.

The weekends started with Tennis Championships on Saturday and Sunday, and the Calling of the Card on Saturday evening was a great occasion, with everybody packed into the small hotel lounge. Sometimes undenominational Church services were held on Sunday.

Monday was the big day with everyone who owned horses entering all the events themselves. It was difficult at times for spectator mothers, with small children at foot or in prams, as it was often very wet and muddy or else such a glorious day that the sun was far too hot and there was no shade anywhere and nowhere to sit except on the ground.

The festivities ended with a dance in the empty Meikle�s building, which took a week to convert into a ballroom with a resplendent result. The walls were covered with greenery, flowers arranged in huge pots round the wall, coloured lanterns and decorations hung from the ceiling, the floor was polished to slippery perfection and a bandstand erected.

 

The Allotts� band was a popular feature, and supper was laid in the adjoining room. The bar, run by the Stewards all day on the course, was set up in the cellar for the dance and stayed open all night. A good time and many arguments were had by all who came for the Melsetter Meeting.

Sometimes for an exceptionally good cinema the Allotts collected friends in their Ford Safari car, which held eight, left at four o�clock, and reached Umtali in time for the eight o�clock show. Afterwards they got thermoses filled with hot coffee and proceeded home, stopping en route for a picnic supper. The journey was enlivened by singing to the accompaniment of guitar and ukelele. They usually got back about 3 a.m., and quite often ended up with a swim in the hotel swimming bath or went on to the Waterfall. Once Rupert Cronwright was dared to, and did, climb up the steep and very slippery side of the Falls.

Mr. and Mrs. Bothma took over at the School, where keeping the hostel full continued to be a problem. State wards were sent as boarders, many of whom were undesirable and difficult children. Local farmers were unwilling to send their children to the School under its primitive conditions, but Shelagh and June Nethersole did start as boarders in 1939.

In 1938 the Sinclairs bought Albany, on which Boshoff had built a small house. The day they moved to their new home they parked their truck on Heathfield and rode the last five miles on horseback; Jim the six-months� old baby was tied on the nanny�s back and she walked. Roadbuilding was only one of the many urgent jobs which needed immediate attention those first years: ploughing (at first with donkeys and a single-furrow plough), fencing, planting, stocking the farm, and getting the house in order, all took time. Pat planted four acres of paspalum and Rhodes grass the first year, the beginning of a later expanded pasture planting programme. In 1939 a magnificent crop of different varieties of wheat was destroyed by locusts.

Ken and Patricia Nethersole with their small daughters settled on Springfield, having bought it and Mermaid�s Grotto and Forest Glade. Ken planted a peach orchard but it did not pay so he dug out the peach trees and in due course established his excellent apple and pear orchards. Their dam is well stocked with bream and bass and they have
established trout in some of their rivers.

The death of John Martin saddened the community. He had been President of the Farmers� Association for nearly thirty years, Member of Parliament for Eastern for fourteen, and was an outstanding leader both nationally and locally and many tributes were paid to his integrity and outstanding gifts.

The Prime Minister and the Minister of Agriculture met farmers and announced new regulations to stamp out A.C.F.: infected farms were to be fenced immediately, with loans on easy terms, any infected herd was to be placed under Government supervision until it could be disposed of, and 85% compensation would be paid; all expenses of supervision and marketing would be borne by the Government, and, after the removal of the herd, all infected farms were to be kept free of cattle for two years.

Arrangements were made in 1939 for slaughter stock from A.C.F. areas to be transported to Umtali by Railway lorry, the start of what later became routine for all slaughter cattle. Cattle from free areas were driven on the hoof to Umtali, a slow business with many attendant snags: finding drovers, locating strays, watching for sore feet and overtired animals, and following up the herd to check that all was well. Some cattle were even sent on the hoof to Salisbury: after the Birchenough Bridge was built requests were made for the re-opening of the stock route down the Biriwiri valley via the Sabi Bridge and Wedza, joining the main Salisbury road at Bromley.

A circular drive was opened with one-way traffic going down towards Everglades and returning via the Waterfall, with cuttings for cars to pull aside to view the scenery. Users were grateful to G. E. McLeod for allowing a right of way across a corner of Everglades which eliminated any gates. Melsetter was sad when Mrs. McLeod died at Everglades.

Guy Fawkes bonfires on the Market Square were organized some years, and Dingaan�s Day was sometimes celebrated, with a very big occasion in 1938 with tent accommodation for approximately 150 people in the village. In 1938 and 1939 preparations were made for a joint celebration in Melsetter, with Chipinga and Cashel, of Rhodesia�s Golden Jubilee in 1940, but all plans were cancelled when the War started.

Administration of the Memorial Hall was difficult, and sometimes the V.M.B. managed to get a district Committee to run it but little interest was taken and the V.M.B. Secretary did all the work and administered the Hall funds. In 1939 an application for a grant of �200 for renovations was turned down as the State Lottery Trustees considered this a matter to be dealt with by the local authority. The local authority had no funds, but somehow the money was raised and guttering was erected and painting and pointing done. It was hoped to replace the wooden pillars with brick ones, but they have lasted until 1970.

By 1940, with a new switchboard installed in the Post Office to take the increased traffic, the district was served by three party lines which covered enormous distances and linked the scattered homesteads. Few people in Melsetter have ever had the time or inclination to abuse party lines by listening to others� conversations, but there was once a bad offender. When a neighbour, already carrying on a conversation on the line, heard the click of a receiver, he said: �Frikkie, I can smell you�ve been eating onions.� And Frikkie, taken aback, immediately said: �I haven�t.�

For Territorial training Melsetter Platoon and Lemon Kop Platoon met regularly at their respective ranges for practice shoots. Weapon Meetings were very busy occasions, with visiting teams from Fort Victoria, Umtali and Chipinga all under canvas for the weekend. In August 1939 a week�s military training camp was help at Lemon Kop range,
and in September a so-called final shoot was held as it was assumed that all territorials would be serving in the army very shortly but in the event the platoons carried on for some years.

It was not practicable to visit Ebenhaezer at Buffelsdrift every five years as had been hoped, and the Martin Trek Cairn was dismantled and the stones were brought to Melsetter and piled on the village square. The five year anniversary services were then held on the new site, with a camp erected on each occasion for the many visitors. In 1939 the Ebenhaezer Committee started on plans for a more permanent Meniorial and stone was quarried on the commonage for the building.

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