JANET AFRICA
Janet Margaret Christer was born in the mining town of Broken Hill, in Northern Rhodesia on the 10 May 1960. (Her name was chosen even before her three brothers were born – she was named after her two grandmothers).
Broken Hill had the largest lead mine in Africa – it also extracted zinc and chrome. While digging in the mine in 1921 some important Stone Age fossils were discovered – they were named the Broken Hill man (Homo Rhodesiensis) which now resides in the Natural History Museum in London. So, Janet’s birth was just one of three momentous achievements for this small town in the middle of Africa. Broken Hill was renamed Kabwe when Northern Rhodesia become independent and changed its name to Zambia, in 1963.
In 1962 Janet’s father Roy who worked as a civil engineer with the Rhodesia Railways was transferred to their head office in Bulawayo, in Southern Rhodesia.
It was in Bulawayo that Janet did her schooling. She attended Moray Primary School and Montrose High School. Both schools were associated with Scotland.
It was soon evident that Janet was a natural at sport and she represented her junior school at athletics, swimming, hockey and netball. Without any formal training she did particularly well at swimming beating girls that had years of formal training. Her fame preceded her and on her first day at high school she was invited into the headmistress’s office. The headmistress, who had been a Rhodesian national swimmer, expressed her delight at having Janet at the school. To her amazement Janet stated that she would no longer be participating in competitive swimming as she didn’t want broad shoulders.
This highlights some of Janet’s special attributes; she was a kind, compassionate and courageous person but was a straight talker and didn’t have any hidden agendas. She was a loyal and trusted person
Janet continued to excel at sport at Montrose playing first team netball, hockey and tennis. She was the captain of the tennis team and was a school prefect and a house captain. She left school after completing her GCE “M” Levels and attended the Bulawayo Technical College studying for a business diploma.
In 1979 she moved down to work in Johannesburg in South Africa. She married Gary Cox and they had two children, Joanne and Michael. Janet worked as a public relations officer for the French company Telemecanique. In 1996 Janet and Gary got a divorce and Janet married Graham Grover and they had one daughter Samantha.
In June 1996 Janet’s eldest brother Peter was killed in a car accident at the age of 45.
Janet always had a passion for working with children and combined this with her sporting background to start a Playball franchise where she visited the junior schools in the Centurion area teaching the small children ball skills and a love and a confidence in sport. Many children have been very successful in various sporting codes following the early and positive intervention by Janet.
At the end of 2005 Janet and Graham emigrated to the UK settling in the Milton Keynes area.