The 70-year-old woman was surrounded in her little garden by brilliant red bougainvillea next to her cottage in the grounds of a Harare home for the elderly. Born in Widnes, near Liverpool, she came here aged 12, has never been anything but British and would not be able to support herself and her ailing husband in Britain, so she qualifies for a UK resettlement scheme. She doesn’t really want to go back, but they may have to.

She had the document, “Resettling in the UK: Information for Potential Applicants,” delivered by the British Embassy last week after she and friends from the home were told about the scheme at a tea for its residents at the home of the British Ambassador, Andrew Pocock.

She didn’t want to be named because she fears her reluctance to leave may prejudice her application for resettlement, if she goes ahead with it. “I am extremely happy here. We have a beautiful cottage, an outlook we will never have again and our neighbours are all total friends,” she said. She worries about the volatile political situation, but, she says, “I feel confident we could live here and no harm would come to us personally.”

Rather, it is anxiety over the possibility of political unrest flaring into open conflict and bringing the country’s already crippled infrastructure to a total halt that bothers her. “We may be faced with the situation where we have to go.”

It will be lack of money and medical care that will make them return to the UK. “My husband’s pension wouldn’t buy a slice of bread, so we have been supported by our daughter and son-in-law in Australia. He is 60 now, and getting close to retirement, and we cannot expect them to keep on supporting us. They have their own situation to look after.”

Her 82-year-old husband is in an advanced stage of a degenerative disease. The neurosurgeon who used to treat him was killed in an aircrash last year. They have an “excellent” general practitioner, but he does not have the specialist’s skills.

“He is going to need more and more care. He’s very vulnerable to falling, and if he hurts himself and needs surgical attention, the hospitals are insisting on $1,000 up front,” she said. “The medical aid wouldn’t pay the charge and we couldn’t possibly afford that. It’s also very stressful for me, as his only carer. I am constantly anxious,” she said. “When the resettlement scheme came into focus, we began to think that we would be needing more help in our older age."

There are eight British nationals in the home, which has a total of 60 residents. Welfare workers say that severe penury amongs elderly whites in Zimbabwe has been eliminated almost completely after a major effort by local and international charities to provide them with food and cash.

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