Dedicated fundraiser for Zim’s children

Mary Vambe

The Queen had been patron of the Leonard Cheshire Homes and Disability Service since 1980. Mary Vambe was instrumental in setting up and then expanding that world famous organisation’s work following the creation of Zimbabwe out of the ashes of war. She was seen by the High Commissioner, Kieran Prendergast, as the ideal person to talk to the Queen

Privacy and concern for the world’s underdogs were stamped like hallmarks on the character of Mary Vambe, first in England in the 1960s and 1970s and then in Africa in the 1980s.

“She was a woman of great Christian faith, courage and integrity and had been since her teens when we first met and were in the same Methodist youth club together,” said Leon Murray, Mayor of Telford, first black vice-president of the Methodist Church.

“She was a truly remarkable woman who raised vast sums of money for African charities and turned her home into a meeting place for men and women and children of all races after 1980,” added Roger Bull, the Canadian High Commissioner to Zimbabwe between 1984 -1989.

A woman of her time, Mary Vambe embraced two of the 1960s most popular causes – the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

At one anti-apartheid meeting in London she heard Lawrence Vambe ( author of“An ill-fated people” and “ From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe”) speak about racism in his country, southern Rhodesia. They fell in love and were married later that year and were together for over half a century.

In 1979, the Vambes left England for Zimbabwe. An invitation to the Vambe home would turn out to be an evening spent with a cross-section of some of the most important people in post-independence Zimbabwe – ministers, MPs, journalists, authors, social scientists and historians. Bull recalled – “I have so many happy memories of long lunches and dinners spent in the scintillating company of the Vambes and my wife, Theresa, and I were so eager to hear their stories that always added to the depth of our understanding of Zimbabwe, its struggles and its hopes.”

Apart from her work with the Leonard Cheshire Homes, Mary Vambe founded her own welfare organization to raise money to pay for African children who could not afford primary or secondary education. She also worked at the Jairos Jiri home for physically handicapped African teenagers and Mary taught hundreds of youngsters how to swim at her always lively home in Harare.

Mary Vambe avoided publicity. When she died, there were few in Britain who knew the depth of her commitment to Africans in general and Zimbabweans in particular. She died at home after a long illness and is mourned by husband Lawrence, brother Peter, niece Katherine, friends in Shropshire and an unknown number of people who she had known so well and helped so much in Zimbabwe.