Ian Manning
AH senior member
Len Vaughan White Hunter, Game Warden, Northern Rhodesia
Len Vaughan, who conducted hunting safaris in Northern Rhodesia in the 1920s when the country was under the control of Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Chartered Company, is someone to note and remember. He later owned what is now the Lochinvar National Park and was the founder of the Kafue National Park when he was in charge of the southern part of the country in 1950. A great friend, he wrote me the attached letter at the age of 86, in 1986. In it, he writes about one massive hunting safari he conducted in 1922:
In about 1983, I was in South Africa taking my steam train trek around the country (A View From the Train) and stopped off in Joburg, where I had placed the family. Someone mentioned that Len Vaughan was working for the city council as a parking warden in the nearby Rosebank parking area. I immediately drove up there ( I had never met him before) and, as luck would have it found a tall, grey and lanky elderly man making his way in uniform between the parked cars. I introduced myself and, in the conversation, asked how he got through the rather unexciting work. "I just let the cars turn into elephant," he replied. We became instant friends, and I visited him in the small flat that he shared in Hillbrow with his wonderful wife. He left shortly after and settled on the coast. We kept up a lively correspondence as I tried to coax his life's adventures out of him. Having owned the cattle ranch on which Lochinvar National Park now stands and describing its incredible herds of game and the fearless Ila hunters who loved spearing bufffalo, it has all died with him. The park is now a disaster, with gypsum mining occupying most of it. The state, the donors, the privatizers perpetuate the disaster. The way forward is to hand over total control and responsibility for the wildlife to the indigenous people, their chiefs and spiritual guardians.
Len Vaughan, who conducted hunting safaris in Northern Rhodesia in the 1920s when the country was under the control of Cecil Rhodes's British South Africa Chartered Company, is someone to note and remember. He later owned what is now the Lochinvar National Park and was the founder of the Kafue National Park when he was in charge of the southern part of the country in 1950. A great friend, he wrote me the attached letter at the age of 86, in 1986. In it, he writes about one massive hunting safari he conducted in 1922:
In about 1983, I was in South Africa taking my steam train trek around the country (A View From the Train) and stopped off in Joburg, where I had placed the family. Someone mentioned that Len Vaughan was working for the city council as a parking warden in the nearby Rosebank parking area. I immediately drove up there ( I had never met him before) and, as luck would have it found a tall, grey and lanky elderly man making his way in uniform between the parked cars. I introduced myself and, in the conversation, asked how he got through the rather unexciting work. "I just let the cars turn into elephant," he replied. We became instant friends, and I visited him in the small flat that he shared in Hillbrow with his wonderful wife. He left shortly after and settled on the coast. We kept up a lively correspondence as I tried to coax his life's adventures out of him. Having owned the cattle ranch on which Lochinvar National Park now stands and describing its incredible herds of game and the fearless Ila hunters who loved spearing bufffalo, it has all died with him. The park is now a disaster, with gypsum mining occupying most of it. The state, the donors, the privatizers perpetuate the disaster. The way forward is to hand over total control and responsibility for the wildlife to the indigenous people, their chiefs and spiritual guardians.
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