To Great Mining Men - A Tribute!

Over the years, many names and faces have been put to memory – most were of friends, some were not. However, a few, like great forest trees stand well above the rest. Men of courage and forethought, men who started with little and often died with less – men who dared to dream...

This piece, I suppose, is pretty self indulgent, but what the hell. So here I’ll raise my hat to one of those old timers:

Leo Goddard, mentor and friend. Taught me most of what I know about prospecting, rigging up of mining equipment and how to use it. From panning off rock samples to blowing the worn-out iron shoes from stamping mills with a quarter stick of dynamite. His stories never bored me and he always gave freely of them, taking me back to earlier times and the mining exploits of his own father. Always smoked a pipe and wore a floppy bush hat, and leather gaiters above his boots, to hold off grass seeds more than snakes, he laughed; always with that Goddard twinkle in his eye.

To me, one of Africa’s greats – what would I not give for one more hour...?

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