Usuthu pineapples

I was due to go on leave in 1956 to Australia – I had not seen my family for seven years.  We had just planted a quarter of a million pineapples.  I was Chairman of the Swaziland Pineapple Growers Association. 

I was doing most of the farming and it was essential that somebody be found to look after the farm for the six months while I was away.  We had an excellent Swazi foreman but we needed someone to make crucial decisions, pineapples were a totally new crop for Swaziland.  Anthony Molesworth said he knew a chap who used to be in his scout troop in Tyneside, a surveyor who worked for the Coal Board.  He had just been doing his military service in Kenya. 

I said he sounded ideal for fruit farming in Swaziland, write and see what he says!  We had no reply.  Then came a cable from the Canary Islands saying “On the way.  Arriving in Cape Town next week.”  And so arrived Jack Dobson, Jack-of-all-trades.  He was later ordained and became Archdeacon of Swaziland.   He and his wife Jean now live in active retirement in Swaziland.

The pineapples have done very well and 55 years later the industry is the fourth largest employer in Swaziland.  Jane and I flew into Swaziland in 2005 and much of the country seemed to be blue-grey with pineapples.