AN INCREDIBLE woman who fought for Rhodesia’s independence celebrated her 100th birthday last week.
Molly Clutton-Brock, who is being cared for in The Meadows nursing home, St Asaph, celebrated with her daughter, three grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren last Friday.
Molly was born in Cheshire and moved to a tiny cottage in Gelli Uchaf above Llandyrnog in the 1970s.
But her journey to Denbighshire is extraordinary.
Her life changed dramatically when she met her late husband Guy in London during World War II, while she was training in the Neumann Neurode method of physical exercises for young, handicapped children.
In 1948 they moved to Southern Rhodesia where Molly started the first clinic in the country to help physically handicapped African children.
Guy started teaching agriculture at the St Faith’s Secondary School, and encouraged local men (who were all working year round in the South African mines), to come back to Southern Rhodesia to join their families and start up a co-operative farm on the Mission land.
“Molly and Guy always supported the cause of the African people, and after 10 years they lived in a thriving, thrilling, multi-racial community in a racially divided country,” said Molly’s daughter, Sally Clutton-Brock Roschnik.
But their support led them into problems with the white Government who in 1959 imprisoned Guy (and 2000 Africans) for one month under the emergency laws.
St Faith’s Farm was closed in collaboration between the government and the Anglican Church.
“Guy and Molly started all over again in co-operative farming in an unbelievably dry part of Botswana with unemployed youngsters outside Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia,” said Mrs Roschnik.
“They always supported the independence movement and were committed to non-violence.”
In 1971 Guy was deported by Ian Smith's Rhodesian Government, as a Zimbabwean nationalist and co-founder of Cold Comfort Farm, which became a widely acclaimed pattern for racial freedom and regeneration in the poverty-stricken countries of Africa.
“Guy and Molly were lucky enough to find the perfect place for them to live out their retirement at Gelli Uchaf, overlooking the Vale of Clwyd,” said Mrs Roschnik.
“A lovely little old cottage with only cold water and no electricity. They believed in living the simple life and this was it. They had many visitors and always kept very close ties
with their friends in Africa,” she said.
When Zimbabwe gained its independence the couple were invited back 'home' for a visit, but Guy died not long after in 1995 and his ashes were spread at Heroes Acre outside Harare, Zimbabwe.
Robert Mugabe who was president of independent Zimbabwe, declared Guy upon his death, to be the first white national hero of Zimbabwe.
“For all their lives Guy and Molly really believed in living the simple, caring, Christian life, she was always at her husband's side and supported him through thick and thin,” said Mrs Roschnik.
The Britain Zimbabwe Society is preparing a decorated commemorative collection of memories to celebrate Molly Clutton Brock’s 100th birthday, and tributes have been published in Zimbabwean newspapers.