Person

Mitchell, Diane

1932-

Diane Mitchell was born in Harare in 1932. She studied History at UCT and graduated with a BA in 1953. A teaching career took her to high schools in various ports in Zimbabwe. In 1975 she undertook the first of the research for Who's Who - a series of bibliographical works on Zimbabwean Nationalist leaders undertaken in conjunction with Robert Cory. As an educator and 'liberal', Mitchell was drawn into work with African school children, particularly in the Field of Fundraising for Salisbury's informal backyard schools (1966). Her concern with grassroots issues also drew her into rural work as an adult educator and she was extensively involved in advising and servicing Savings Clubs and Credit Unions in the Seki Tribal Trust Land. At a very different level Diane Mitchell became active in parliamentary politics as a Founder Member of the Centre Party in 1968. She opposed the RF unsuccessfully in the Highlands seat in 1974 and 1977. As was invariably the fate of talented women in Rhodesia's conservative political environment Mitchell was often reduced to writing speeches for less competent male CP members. Ian Hancock has remarked on the extent to which Mrs Mitchell's talent for getting things done, and her "mercurial mind", were underrated by most of the organisations in which she was active. Di Mitchell held a number of teaching and lecturing posts in Rhodesia and at the time of Independence she was a full-time lecturer at Harare's Poly-tech. While regarding herself as something of a political eccentric, Diane Mitchell's commitment and tenacity in pursuing the liberal cause is self-evident from the Mitchell papers. So, too, are her pragmatic approach to politics and an obvious impatience with the dithering fence-sitters of what was referred to as the moderate middle-ground eg. she was highly critical of the campaign to Organise support for a Settlement's (COSS) "bluff that any move regarding settlement can be treated as anything but political". Indeed it was surprising that despite her impatience with a wavering and ineffective opposition, she remained consistently active in the last remnant of anti-RF organisation, the National Unifying Force (NUF), which only dissolved a few years after independence.

BC969