War hero and would-be Rhodesian liberal reformer; Born Janurary 6, 1915; Died March 21, 2007. The death of Hardwicke Holderness at his home in Cheltenham last week marks the end of the great "liberal" era of Rhodesian and Central African politics .
He was 92 when he died; a courageous, highly intelligent and - above all - humorous man, husband, father and friend who will never be forgotten.
Unlike so many liberals who fought valiantly against the effective dictatorship of Ian Smith during the 1960s and 1970s, Holderness was born in Rhodesia into a privileged white community that felt more British than African. But it produced some pretty remarkable people. Holderness was one of them.
Born in Salisbury in January, 1915, he was the son of Jim Holderness - who went to Southern Rhodesia when he was 17 - and Connie Thwaits, from South African stock.
He was educated at Rhodes University College and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes scholar. He met his Glasgow-born wife, Elspeth, in the Cairngorms on the eve of the Second World War.
After the war, they married, returned to Rhodesia and he became a leading lawyer and with Elspeth became campaigners with the late Sir Garfield Todd to try to change the face of European rule in a colony that had enjoyed self-government since 1923 but which was honeycombed by unimaginative post-Second World War immigrant racists.
Hardwicke was a founder of the influential National Affairs Association and the imaginative but largely ineffectual Capricorn Society that tried to act as a bridge between the races.
He was an excellent MP during the life of Rhodesia's Eighth Parliament when Garfield Todd was Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia (1953-1958) during the golden years of the ill-fated Central African Federation.
Holderness was a legend in his lifetime but when he died few people in Britain, where he lived following his decision to leave Rhodesia in 1975, knew his heroic military background. He was one of Southern Africa's most highly decorated RAF pilots, ending his war service as a Wing Commander DSO, DFC, AFC.
When I met him on the eve of his 92nd birthday, the wine flowed and so did the laughter. Some of his final words to me were that had the liberal experiment succeeded in the 1950s, the destructive careers of Smith and Robert Mugabe would have been avoided.
Hardwicke Holderness is survived by his wife, Elspeth, and daughters Dinah and Grizelda.
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