The Second World War and The Rhodesian Years
C.W. Mercer was re-commissioned in the Royal Rhodesian Regiment, and attained the rank of major. As the war concluded, the couple realised their plan of returning to Cockade – but were disappointed in the decrepitude of the house and the socially-conscious, post-war attitude of their one-time servants. After some months, the Mercers obtained exit visas and returned to Umtali, Southern Rhodesia, (now Mutare, Zimbabwe), where they lived for the rest of his life. Mercer supervised the building of a replacement house for Cockade, another hillside venture, and, in 1948, they moved into "Sacradown", on Oak Avenue. The furniture in France was shipped to Rhodesia, as were the Waterloo Bridge balusters (see The House that Berry Built), which had never reached Cockade, but had been stored in England during the Second World War.
Cecil William Mercer died in March 1960.
Read more about this topic: Dornford Yates
Famous quotes containing the words world, war and/or years:
“Fate forces its way to the powerful and violent. With subservient obedience it will assume for years dependency on one individual: Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon, because it loves the elemental human being who grows to resemble it, the intangible element. Sometimes, and these are the most astonishing moments in world history, the thread of fate falls into the hands of a complete nobody but only for a twitching minute.”
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“Good Heavens! For more than forty years I have been speaking prose without knowing it.”
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