Oscar, Bravo, Papa

From Great North Road

Oscar, Bravo, Papa .....

On a hot summers day, as a six year old boy growing up in Kasama in 1952, I found myself surrounded by sophisticted radios and speakers when I stood in awe high up on the second floor of the Kasama Airport control tower listening to the tinny crackling voices of the pilots as they contacted the tower to anounce that they were in Kasama air space.

Dave Davis, Uncle Dave to me, was one of the air traffic controllers and had agreed to look after his son John and myself, while Celia his wife and my parents went up to Abercorn.What better place than the airport to bring two inquisitive young boys.

Perched on top of the tallest building in the Kasama area,I kept listening to the discussions between the control tower and the pilots ... Oscar, Bravo, Papa and other code words were constantly being exchanged interspersed with snippets of local gossip. None of the planes landed on the dusty airfield as it baked under the hot African sun, but flew high out of sight as they winged their way to Entebbe, Ndola, Lusaka, all places that were foreign to me.

After several hours, Uncle Dave who had instructed me on how to switch the microphone on and of, left me in charge of the control tower, John was two years younger, while he went to inspect the piccanini kia.

No sooner, had he disappeard down the stairs, when the radio crackled to life." Oscar, Bravo, Papa. This is Victor Jock-Strapable, how do you read Kasama ?" Nervously, I switched on the mike, " Hello " I bleated, my heart racing, where was Uncle Dave when I needed him most. Mr Jock-Strapable was very understanding when I explained that Uncle Dave was in the P.K.. After a few minutes talking to my new found friend, he wished me a good day and steered a course for Mpika.

Shortly after the airwaves went silent, Uncle Dave reappeared, and John and I excitedly told him about our encounter with Mr. Victor Jock-Strapable. Uncle Dave congratulated us on our maturity in running the control tower in his absence.

That night and for many nights after I dreamt of the magic of the control tower, and that some day I would control the planes as they flew overhead racing to their exotic destinations, perhaps even Kitwe. I was well into my early twenties when my dream was cruely shattered by my Dad, it was then that I found out that Mr. Victor Jock-Strapable, was in fact Uncle Dave. Apparently, while I was controlling the skies over Kasama, he was using the back -up radios located on the ground floor of the Kasama International Airport.

Contributed by Ken Miller

March 2002