Elizabeth Stilwell Vale (McKay)

Elizabeth Stilwell Vale: Memories

My first memory is of the night my youngest brother, Ian, was born on the 1st May 1910, when I was three-and-a-half years old. The fire burning brightly and the old midwife telling me she was going to bring me a much wanted sister and I giving her half-a-crown to do so. The sister never materialized, and the half-crown was not returned. Also, at that time, the excursion out into the garden to view Halley’s Comet, which was at its best then but a very vague memory of a wonderful star with a long tail.

It seemed that shortly after that I learned to read and could hardly await the arrival of The Farmers Weekly to read the Children’s Corner by Aunt Betty. How I longed to write this mysterious Aunt Betty as other children did and have her reply to me in her column, but no one ever offered to help.

Then to school with Aunt Mary, to a little farm school where she was the mistress. What a woman, cycling in all weathers three miles away to her beloved scholars. At that time, she was a spinster, and with her lived Aunt Jessie who slaved to keep us all fed and clean. She had to draw all the water from a well on the plot and look after the cow and her horse, Bethy. Many a ride I had on Bethy’s back when we went out to bring her home to her stable, to be curry combed and fed by her mistress. Bethy was attached to a fragile looking vehicle with two wheels and she sprang away as soon as Aunt Jessie put he foot on the step. Bethy was no runaway horse and was as tame and gentle as a beast could be with her large, brown, lashed eyes. But temperament she had plenty. I am sure she never had a whip on her back in all her life and I think she was in service over twenty years. She managed to have one child, Franklin, which Aunt Mary was given, but he was a sly, mean creature, with all of his father’s bad ways and none of his mother’s good qualities.

These two good looked after four children, my one brother and I and two neighbours' children without a servant, cooking on a Blue Flame stove, no water laid on and no heating.

Aunt Mary taught music in recess, and taught us to sing in class. “Hark the herald angels sing” was one of her favourites and “Trip, trip up and down” on the farms one of the lighter pieces. I was a great favourite, but woe betides me if I did not know my lesson, and my brother and I were often slapped on the hands like the other scholars.

She had first started her teaching career in her own family when they moved to the Transvaal from Kimberley in the 1880s, and fourteen year old Mary took it on herself to teach the younger ones in her family. She later, too, went out, as a governess to various children and then at the concentration camps really became a teacher as they were sent away to Normal College to train. She taught for many years and when she retired still taught music and Kindergarten at a private school in Meyerton.

Mary was pretty, vivacious and attractive and had many love affairs. Jessie was a plain Jane, but I loved her specially. At the age of forty, or more, Jessie got engaged and Mary nearly went mad with anger when she was told the news. I remember how her long black hair came down like a snake when my gentle mother broke the news. Within a few days, Mary was also engaged to a poor victim and they had a double wedding in the church where their old mother had laid the stone.

They both had happy marriages, but Mary to her sorrow did not have children. Jessie had three, so they became Mary’s too. Many a half-crown we got when we visited the old dears. Half-crowns were scarce too, then, and Mary, out of her meagre salary had bought a plot of fifteen acres. How they did it, I don’t know.

My mother gave them lots of fruit, jam, etc. and things which grew abundantly on our farm, but it must have been a tight squeeze in that little cottage to make ends meet, but there was never talk of being “hard up”. Everybody that came to the house was treated very hospitably, and all the beggars and scroungers too – black and white. Aunt Mary used to make her coconut ice for the end of each term for her class. Aunt Jessie’s bread was sent up every day for the poor children.

Everyone learning to write in copperplate handwriting from special writing books and many a poor white got his start from Aunt Mary.

After her dear George died, she lived for 14 years alone in her cottage. The bicycle still took her to the shops until her seventieth year.

She still dried her apple rings on the roof and at night sometimes she would go up with a torch to fetch them. People thought she had a haunted house seeing the light and that kept her safe.

Her first instrument was an organ, which was blown by pedals and many the hymn we learned there. Later she bought an old piano and spent many happy hours at it. She played for dances, she played for concerts and she played for pleasure.

In her 62nd year, she met Douglas. He was helping to put down a long trench to lay pipes for water. She asked him in and later married him. He was homeless and unwanted and liked a “spot”, but she gave him the love of a home, and he appreciated it, and she spoiled him like a child.

One other person I must mention is Oscar. He started work on the railway as a labourer with perhaps a Standard 3 education. One evening he came to ask her to let him one of her outside rooms. It was a lucky break for Oscar. She took him in hand and educated him and the last I heard he was a stationmaster of a very big station. When Oscar married, he was married from her small cottage, and they lived with her for a while.

This then was my first taste of school. After the Aunts had married, other arrangements had to be made. So a governess was engaged. A red haired piece, but she taught us quite a lot and we had our neighbours’ children to keep us company at school.

Our home was a very happy one. We had a wonderful Mother, as kind and patient as a saint.

We were a very big family, four brothers, myself, and then two more brothers. We lived on grandfather’s farm and my Dad was the manager, but my Mother managed us all. My dear Father lived in a world of his own. He was strict with the boys, but there was no communication at all between the children. We all sat at the big table properly dressed, hair combed, no sloppiness dressing gowns etc. We spoke only if allowed, one at a time. We always had a huge plate of bacon and eggs and porridge to start our day with no nonsense like cereals and orange juice.

Dinner at one o’clock when the train passed to the Cape and supper at whatever time was convenient. The longer the days, the later the supper, often sitting out on the lush green ‘werf’ to enjoy the sunset. The dogs, Jennie, the tame springbok, and Nannie, the little monkey playing games around us. Mother often said she thought they must play like that in the Veld. Jenny bounding and taking her long strides to show off the white on her rump, which is only displayed at times like these. We had herds of springbok and blesbok on the farm at that time. Father loved them like children. He remembered the time, before the railway was built, when they came to drink at a wonderful fountain that to this day still flows with its four-and-a-half million gallons a day output. The farm’s name was “Kookfontein” (Boiling Fountain) and it had the right name.

Jenny was one of the wonderful things of our youth. The day Will went to France to war, the herd boy brought Jenny to Mother. She vowed that she was symbol, that, if she could rear her, Will would return. Only one cow’s milk for Jenny, and she loved her little bottle. She grew up with the children, slept in their room, admired herself in the mirror and pinched the dried peaches when she had a chance. She did not like women much and she would butt them if she could, especially when they visited the (outside) PK. She would wait outside until they wanted to go back to the house, and then there would be screams of terror.

Nannie was also a pest. Father would hand make her the frailest of chains and at her leisure she would break them when she got tired of being on the Blue gum tree. She wrought havoc in the orchard and the young grapes, picking them green and throwing them around. When the cry went round “Nannie’s loose”, there was pandemonium. The porridge, which had just been dished up, would have to be covered, for she would defile every plate with her dirty little hands. She would collar the kittens, little bundles of fluff and take them to the tallest cactus, over 20 feet high, and drop them to a sudden death. After a real rampage she would meekly be caught by Father and again be chained for a few weeks. When first she came, she had the freedom of the house, but later was so destructive that chaining was necessary. She died of pneumonia after many years, about 15 I think, to be buried by Father in tears.

The farm had a lovely old orchard planted by the Voortrekkers. Peach, pear, apricot, pomegranate, apple, quince, melon, fig, plum and grape grew cheek by cheek with walnuts and almonds too, and yearly the huge walnut tree yielded a grain sack of nuts. We had to gather them as soon as they fell, or the red ants would be feasting on them as soon as they dried out.

Later we had a Rose Garden which grew in profusion, the scent of which bring happy memories today. La France, big, pink cabbage roses, Frau Karl Druske, with petals like alabaster, perfect and white. Our old farmhouse was usually filled with these scents in summer, and in winter carpets of violets grew under the apricot trees. If a Fete was held in the town, the flowers always were requested from this beautiful garden.

The willows grew on the banks of the streams, and we swung over the clear crystal waters, clinging to the over-hanging branches. Weaver birds, scarlet and black in summer laid their blue eggs in the little baskets of nests which they constructed over the water. What joy, what happiness, and if one did fall in, no one cared.

This water was also our washbasin and bath, and before breakfast all would take their towels and soap to bathe and wash. We had no water laid on to the house, and bathing was in the old zinc bath, which had to be filled with water warmed on the old iron stove. Every precious drop was carried in buckets from the furrow to the house on the heads of the servants. We used to play in the willow roots, red, I remember now, and catch crabs big and small. Open the purses of the mothers to see if they did not have a family concealed. Behind their big pinchers, carefully, in case our fingers were caught and we were punished by the crabs. Frogs were also in those waters and fish in profusion. No pollution then! Tiny little tadpoles to bring home and put in a bottle in the window to see the transition from tadpole to frog. In the icy winter mornings, breaking the ice and bringing it out to eat and freeze. Our hands, like icicles, and later, chapped, for Mother to rub in after we had bathed, with her mixture of paraffin and candle wax.

We learnt from Mother Nature many things, how the calves were born, how they were made, and we needed no sex guidance books!

Mother would take us up the hill to see the sunset and those gorgeous colours will never be forgotten. How to appreciate all the things which come from the all-giving Father – “Ï will look up to the hills from whence cometh my help.” How often have these words come to mind when the dark days of later years came, and they gave me courage and strength. Every morning the little poem

Get up little sister, the morning is bright

The birds are all singing to welcome the light.

A spray of honeysuckle and verbena laid on my pillow and a good morning kiss. I think of the feel of the warmth of her pinafore as she turned from the oven after supervising the baking of the daily bread which she kneaded herself and later taught me how to do. The warm odour of the stove and the smell of freshly baked bread. The bread to be eaten with homemade butter and, always, homemade jam.

All summer the jam pot was going. How many pounds of sugar didn’t seem to matter. First the apricots, stoned of course, and the pips broken into it to give it that special flavour. Later the peaches, figs, quince and apple jellies to be made. Fruit by the hundreds to be canned. Peaches, pears, apricots, raspberries, mulberries, Logan berries, blackberries and strawberries. Name it and there it was in the huge dresser to feed us in the winter. No tropical fruit, of course. The sugar came by the sack, so did the meal for the bread.

One time when there was a war on, Father used to boast that we lived off the farm, buying only tea, coffee and sugar, as the wheat, which provided our daily bread, was also home grown.

The stars at night, clear and bright - Southern Cross and Seven Sisters, Milky Way, all never to be forgotten. The bright moonlight nights full of Mystery & Romance. No sordid knowledge that it was only dried dust and rocks. All the songs of our day were romantic – “Moonlight & Roses”, “Roses of Picardy”.

How happily we sang around the old organ played by Mother and later very much prized piano played by myself with Ian on the violin playing all the old and new songs. Mother and Father quietly listening to our performances, and when friends popped in the table was pushed aside and Mother taught the boys to Waltz. Later the boys took lessons and learned to samba to “Underneath the Stars”, Maxina and Foxtrot and more sophisticated dances.

The Lancers were also popular, Father and Mother taking them through the measures – “Chains”, “Ladies to the Right”! What memories the old times bring – friends forgotten now suddenly remembered by a tune. “The Naughty Waltz”, my first love affair. “Moonlight and Roses”, a dark boy rushing in at six a.m., telling me to get up and try it on the piano. Wonderful, exciting! Now, alas, at Rest long ago. Hours at the piano, he with clarinet, trying this, that and the other.

“The Bells of St. Mary’s”, our family song which all of us say reminds us of each other.

“The Saxophone Waltz”, a tall fair boy with a Sax which he could make sing. And always I sat at the piano. Many, many hours spent happily at that piano. 

I never did much housework, but loved sewing, reading, music and driving fast cars, but that was later.

After the red haired governess, who left to be married, the problem arose - what to do with our girl. Me!

An old friend of the family’s arrived, just in time to say goodbye to Will, who left for France to the tune of “Keep the Home Fires Burning”and “A Long, Long Trail”.

Will was later wounded in France, at his first battle, dangerously, he survived with his pluck and 17-year-old optimism, a shrapnel in his back as big as a walnut. After months of pain he was invalided out and his return voyage was on the ill-fated “Galway Castle”. He was flung into a cold sea with others and survived to tell the tale of a grand rescue by the Royal Navy. Returning to England, he remained on light war work until the war was over. His wound still troubled him and he died a young middle-aged man, after much suffering. A hard case with tons of guts. A big, fat, jolly man in the end that did not care a damn for anyone or anybody.

To get back to my school story, this was to be my last formal schooling. The old friend, who had been a governess to the ganger on the farm and had been befriended by my parents, before the Boer War, had come to say farewell to the family. They were returning to Scotland to retire and would reside in the Cape for the duration of the war. She was asked by my Mother to permit me to go to the Cape with her to finish my schooling. I can imagine my dear parents weighing the pros and cons and at last deciding it was the best thing to do. They feared to send me to formal boarding school as I suffered from a severe dose of chronic shyness. Was like a small doe, and at the sight of a car approaching would jump out of the window and clear to my beloved garden. I hated meeting strangers.

Sending me to the old people was a mistake. My father’s cousins ran a famous girls’ school in Stellenbosch, and once the ice had been broken I am sure I would have been happy there. Anyhow, to the local school I went. I always did well and was coached and bullied by the old governess. Practice at 6 a.m. every morning on the piano, music lessons, Dickens, Thackeray before I reached the age of 12. Completely isolated from the other children, except at school, I learned a lot.

To love the Cape and flowers always my great joy. The sea, where I was dutifully taken every weekend. But I was separated from my home and family for a year at a time. The Xmas holidays saw me joyfully traveling home, a small girl alone. The hot Karroo, past the Vaal River, and back to the beloved farm in the Transvaal.

This lasted for 3 years and then the old people left for Europe. They taught me to play whist and cribbage, to sing all the operas, “Madame Butterfly”, “Mikado”, all the old Scottish songs accompanied by the old man on the flute. ‘Oh the Days of the Kerry Dancing”, “Bonnie Lassie”, Oh!

But I was not unhappy and lived for the letters from home. Sometimes a postal order from the Aunts.

School was now over for me. My Father took over. He had been well educated at Bishops and knew the names of all the flowers. He was a great reader and had a very wide knowledge of all sorts of things. He guided my reading through those adolescent years. I can never remember him being anything but the perfect gentleman with never a swear word in the house and the six brothers had to toe the line. Very quiet, and I think he was very shy. In later years I met two cousins I had not seen for many years, from each side of the family. The one on the maternal side said: “Uncle Charles was the nicest person I ever knew. He used to say ‘Go and cut a poplar pole and fix a line and fish hook for us’, to keep a young child happy for hours on end”. The other said: “I loved Uncle Charles. He was a good sport and on many occasions when we had apple-pied beds, it was at his instigation”.

One story was that he had a learner farmer on the farm. The boys shot a leguaan and put it in his bed, unbeknownst to him. He went to bed saying “Someone has put a candle in my bed” and when he turned the sheets back was horrified to see the reptile. He danced in his shirttails and left the next day for pastures new. Charles loved to instigate mulberry, apricot and water fights. We always had hordes of visitors and it was nothing to have 25 people for lunch on Sunday.

The boys’ room was always packed at weekends with visitors and many a time beds were shared. One man we know, now in a good position, as a boy said to his son on meeting my brother. “See this man, son. One fought for a bed in his house, but we loved going there. It was such a happy house.”

Horseback riding, swimming in the river cricket on the “werf” [backyard], football in winter, fishing and all the joys of a free, natural life. Shooting, too, on special occasions when the larder needed filling, dove pies, where the birds lived in abundance. Partridge, Guinea fowl, always venison in season and Mother’s home made ham, made in her own special way. These were hung in the outside room to mature.

One night two old sons of the road arrived and were given a meal and put their bags down to sleep on the floor of the outhouse. In the morning the tramps were gone and two of Mother’s hams! These old men of the road knew that Mac’s was good for a meal and we had many strange visitors. The bottle had been the downfall of most. Father came in one day and said to mother, “There is a tramp out there that I went to school with”. Mother said, “Bring him in”. They fed him and cleaned him up, gave him a shirt and put him on the road rested and clean. We don’t know what became of him.

Another time, Father went to Johannesburg and always had his boots cleaned by a bootblack. This one said “No charge, Sir”. “Why?” “You fed me and gave me hope and Johannesburg has been kind to me. Good luck, Sir!”

Father had been on that farm from the age of eighteen, straight out of school, before there was a Johannesburg, or a Vereeniging. He must have been lonely, that English youth amongst the Boers. They were kind to him and brought all their legal papers for him to peruse. They trusted him, for there were many skelms in those days, to rob simple people like them. He used to tell us that when they sold the farm, the golden sovereigns were locked in a strong box and put under the bed. Banks were then unknown.

He lived in a wonderful time. To see the growth of the gold fields. He also lived to hear the wireless, built at first by his youngest son Ian. A little crystal set with one pair of headphones, to hear that first broadcast of J.B. Calling. We thought that it was a miracle to hear music at certain times, to hear the news, later to become so commonplace as to be the background to our lives. Mother and Father grew up in Kimberley, but did not meet until they were adults in the Transvaal. Mother's moved there by ox wagon, the trek having taken for three months. On they way their domestic arrangements remained as they had been at home. They cooked their meals in the open and even baked bread. Her Father had sold out to (Cecil) Rhodes and went to the Transvaal to join the Sammy Marks group as an estate manager. Father and Mother met at the home of mutual friends. The friend said, “Edie, I see your future husband coming to visit on horseback” My Mother asked “Who?” “Charles Mac,” her friend answered. “I would not marry him if he had a diamond on every hair on his head”, replied Mother. But she did, eventually, and they had a very happy marriage.

They lived at Kookfontein for 45 years and we were all born there, except for the brother born during the Boer War. When the war broke out they thought it safe to go to Kimberley to grandfather but were caught in the siege and nearly starved to death. Will was kept alive with three other babies milk from a cow my Aunt owned. Mother's eldest child, Olive, her only other girl, was so weak that after the siege of Kimberley she died in Bloemfontein at the age of five years.

Leaving the farm in the hands of an old manager, they went to Kimberley. Father joined the Town Guard to defend the town and was awarded the siege medal. Lord Roberts relieved the town & Father was one of the Chief Scouts to lead him to the Transvaal. He said that when the troops arrived at the old farm, the servants welcomed him and they said, “Today Baas Charles it is you that come. Yesterday your brother Aubrey slept here with the Boers. We asked him 'Why do you fight along with the Boers?' Aubrey answered, “Maybe the Boers win, maybe the English. Whichever wins we will keep Kookfontein.”

Grandfather bought this farm for 8000 pounds, 5000 morgen of beautiful, arable land and a coal mine to boot. Later the mine was worked during the 1930s and the royalties amounted to 21,000 pounds a year. Eventually, it netted a million pounds to the heirs.

It always produced good crops of maize, up to 45,000 bags a year, and never a “mis-oes” (crop failure). But we had terrible thunderstorms there, and my Father was almost struck by lightning on one occasion, when he was knocked down and shocked.

My parents loved parties, and when the boys started dating used to invite the young folk of the town to dance until dawn. A wagon and oxen arrived in town at 5 p.m. To collect them. They arrived at about 7 p.m. and danced, feasted and sang until dawn, when the wagon took them home.

Many a romance started that way, and those who were lucky enough to be invited still talk of those parties. No strong drink, of course, but they needed no self-starters in those days to give it “stick”. Games, outside too in the moonlight - “Twos and Threes”, “I wrote a letter to my Love', Kiss in the Ring, “Postman's Knock”, “Love Ribbon”, etc.

At first music was from a gramophone with a huge trumpet, later by our friends who had, by this time, formed their own bands. Violins, saxophones, Sewanee whistles, cellos, banjos and always the piano. Many a song was sung from “Margie”, “Whispering” to “Tea for Two” and “I Want to be Happy”, my theme song.

Later it was the craze for motorbikes and girls on pillions. Father never allowed me that pleasure.

Time passed & and after, out transport was motorised.

I visited an Aunt & and Uncle & Mac taught me to drive his Ford car. The old Model T. When I came home, I proudly told Father that I could drive “Time we had a car, I think!”

He went off to Jo'burg with a friend, neither of them had the slightest knowledge of cars. Mother said, “Did you buy a new car?”

“No! What for? The man said this one is a bargain and he will be down to give Beth a few lessons and then return.”

Mother said no more.

The old Ford arrived, like uncle Mac's, but second hand. After one day the mechanic returned to Jo'burg and I took him on the three mile drive to the railway station. 

Mother said to Father, “Are you going?”

“No! Are you mad? I don't want to be killed!”

So dear patient Mother went to the railway station with us.

The Boys soon learned to drive & so my driving life started from 1926 to 1966, when I had my first and last accident. I gave up driving and had no wish to drive any longer. I had never had a car pass me and drove like a maniac. I was a menace on the roads. I would have dearly loved to fly, but that was for the birds, not for me.

With parents so protective, I don't know how they even let me drive a car. No horse riding, no pillion riding for me, their beloved daughter. The boys could do, and did everything. Just before this I met a young man, artistic talented and fell very much in love with him. My parents were horrified at the idea. Too young, they said, he must get out of your life. No words were spared, with my heart completely broken, I licked my wounds. He emigrated to Australia and still lives there. We corresponded for a time, but under the lap. I thought that I would never recover and at the time hated my parents for the thing they killed. As it turned out, he was a solid citizen and would have made me a wonderful husband. But they were jealous and could not bear the idea that I was growing up. Putting up my hair in earphones over my ears “Nonsense, let it loose.” Later, to have a trip to Jo'burg for my first shingle. A boyish cut which my Mother copied later. To cut off her lovely long hair. What a shame!

I sulked for a time and was very temperamental. I got over it at last and started to go to parties. The brothers were always there to escort me and bring me home. Many boyfriends. I could have had my pick, but going through he woods, I picked the wrong stick. Life was boring. The brothers all had left to be married or to learn something in the city. They came home weekends & then there was always something to do. But the weekdays dragged. I started music lessons again and enjoyed practising for my ATCL. This exam I never took as just before the finals, Mother burnt her hand very badly and I had to nurse her, keep house and so I never took the final exams. But I loved the Chopin and Beethoven sonatas and learned for those exams

Then I met my Fate.

I had gone to the Cape on holiday to see our old friends who had now returned to the Cape. With my sister-in-law in tow. I got a letter asking me if I could see a sailor in Simonstown, as he had met my brother when on leave in the Transvaal. The sailor and I fell madly in love & he left to come home to his parents in my home village. My father hated him on sight but I had met my Fate & that handsome young man became the Father of my sons. We had a good marriage until the war came, but as with so many others, our marriage ended a few years after the war.

 We had at first lived in town and he was a fireman, then we went farming in the Northern Transvaal just before the outbreak of World War II. My Father & Mother had recently died and I had inherited some money. We loved the farm. It was situated in the Low Country looking over to where Oom Paul's profile was visible to all on fine days in the foothills of the Drakensberg. Our two little sons were five and two and were loved and protected and were a great joy to us both. I remember how P.a. (Percy Alfred always signed his name P.a.Vale) came in from the lands and played with them on the carpet wrestling, and telling the cat to bring in another mouse to play with. Our eldest boy, Colin, was a very good singer and the children used to sing for hours with me at the piano. 

We grew most tropical fruits and vegetables for the market. I loved my home and was never so happy as when I was doing something to make it more comfortable. He, too, altered the whole place, putting in sanitation and electric lights, unheard of in those times in that part of the world.

In 1940 duty called and I was left to face the problems lone, which I was so unprepared for.

I learnt how to manage with the help of an old Induna, Shadrack, who taught me how to farm in the Low Country. He would say “Time to plant tomatoes!”, “Have you ordered the pea seed?”, “Pawpaws next week. Get some boxes.” A dear black friend.

One dark New Year's Eve, he knocked at my window:

“I've found these skelms in your mielies!”

He had two Africans in chains. I replied: “Keep them until tomorrow.”

The next day they arrived, still in chains. “What shall I do with them, Shadrack?”

“Make them work for a week.”

I took his advice and all was well.

What loyalty! What respect! Could anyone wish for more with such a staff. Old Jim, my cook, to see that I ate.

We lived on that lonely farm with not a white soul near, the drums pounding every weekend, the sound of wild Africa. I was never afraid or nervous, except when a bat flew into the house or when I found a bright, blue centipede in my bed.

The farm prospered. I sent fruit to the Cape and seaport towns where the prices were good with the troops in passing ships crying out for fresh fruit and vegetables. Every day I sent away a load, supervising the packing. African maids in bright poplin scarves, which they discarded to pack the fruit, their breasts swaying as they moved. I never saw anything in the least vulgar or unpleasant with them, in spite of their near nude state. They respected me and I them.

The days passed, but the nights were very lonely. P.a. had gone to England to get his commission, and later to the north of Scotland. The war dragged on. My eldest son, Colin, was now the age for school and away he went to stay with my brother Will and his wife and family in Meyerton in the southern Transvaal, a long way from our home in the northern Transvaal. Alan and I became very close, he my only companion in those dark days. He slept with me in the big bed and when I took the load of fruit to the to the railway station in Tzaneen, he was there to help me count the boxes. We used to sing, “Home on the Range” when we came home to that whitewashed farmhouse set between the avenues of the soaring Jacarandas, purple when in full bloom. Holidays brought young nieces and nephews and Colin home for the holidays. The war dragged on. Petrol rationing came in. Colin had to have his tonsils out at Elim Hospital, a Swiss mission station miles away from the farm. I could not be there because of petrol rationing. But at that wonderful mission hospital they were so kind to him and when we fetched him he was fine.

Jim, our cook, had taken the Primus stove along and we made tea on the long road home, lonely then too.

And no tar. Dusty and hot, as I remember. 

I coped, somehow, and lived for the post. Sometimes no letters for weeks and then four or five at a time, some censored. We heard Papa speak to us from London on the wireless when troops from the colonies were offered a chance to broadcast messages to their families. He was an officer in the RN now, and had a very proud family at home. The war dragged on, three brothers in the forces now, all in Egypt. Would it never end? Sugar rationed, and meal. We were lucky to have so much on the farm, and clothing was the only worry. There was wool to knit, from the Navy League. Tractor parts unobtainable now. Must plough with oxen: “Shadrack, please arrange something.” Plenty of labour still, cheap too. Tractor boy three pounds plus food, Shadrack five pounds and Jim three.

Maids two days a week quit-rent labour, and one shilling and sixpence a day extra work. Packing boxes in short supply too, and nails. No more boxes from Sweden, so we had to use saligna boxes now. “Rubbish -We can never use them!” But we did and so became self-supporting. Today all fruit boxes are made from timber grown and sawed in the Low Country.

Papa at last was seconded to the SANF (South African Navy). He came home on leave for the first time since the war began, a changed man. He soon left the farm again to take up his post at the Cape, but was quickly invalided out with an ulcer which had flared up again. He set about the farm with a will; but was soon involved in politics and public life. He became a liaison officer for the troops now being de-mobbed and re-settled in private life again. He did much good work, but this took him away on business in Pretoria a lot.

About 18 months after he returned, my third son, Don, was born at Elim. The day before Xmas we bought him home. The other two loved him very much and three years later my youngest son was born to complete my family. I was 41 years old when he came, a jolly, fat baby so good, and he brought himself up.

Things had deteriorated in our marriage and when my baby was there, we parted. A sad parting. I had idealized that man and put him on a pedestal, and like the old Indian Love Song, I was less than the dust.

Out of this blackness of despair, a new person was born. I went to the depths of despair and felt all was at an end for me. The thought of the boys was too much to bear; the Court had given me custody of them. The eldest had passed his Junior Certificate with honours in all but one subject.

I spoke him about the divorce. “All I want is a university education”, he said. How could I give it to him? Now I was in possession of the farm with eleven thousand pounds on it. This had come about after the war. I was in deep, deep despair. An old friend returned to the farm with me and did much to cheer me, dear Nelly what would one do without friends? We sat on boxes and schemed how to get a vehicle; everything had gone after my desertion. We got it. Shadrack was there to advise; “Make some bricks, Madam, and cut grass, plenty of it.” So I put the labour force on to brick-making. Bricks were then in short supply, and thatching too was needed. Prices of veges had slumped. All the men were home from the war on their farms. I delivered bricks, and always had to giggle to think of me delivering bricks, that proud girl of long ago.

My Afrikaans neighbours rallied round and a basket of fruit from one and a dozen eggs from another and a message to say “How glad to see your light again.”

My English friends waited to see which way the cat would jump. Finally, Colin matriculated with honours in English and got a bursary to go to teachers college. And university, but that's his story, not mine.

Alan left school and started work. Meanwhile, my two young ones started school at the local school, but they did not progress to my liking. It was so hot when they came home, and so early when the bus called for them in the mornings. I decided on boarding school for them. Thereby hangs another tale.

The price of land in the Low Country at this time was rising and I decided to sell the farm – how could I pay interest on the bond and survive? I consulted my lawyer. He said : “Hang on to it!” But my grip was getting weaker. I took it on myself to consult a surveyor and to cut up the farm into 25 morgen plots. Almost at once I sold one, this too help pay off my bond. Then the plot on which my house stood was exchanged for a house in Auckland Park, Johannesburg and some cash thrown in. I had now to build another house. I selected a spot with a fountain nearby, got in a builder and asked him to put in the foundation. I forgot that to build on the slope I had excavate to have foundation. The builder needs 14 loads of stone before he could begin. Every time I went to the station with a load of fruit, I picked up a load of stone on my way home. When I had collected the 14 loads on the building site, I sent for the builder. “Another 14 loads,” he said. I looked, dreamed and lived stone in those days. Now the stone had to be broken up to make concrete. Bricks I already had my own. Sand was easy.

The building of the house was started, and after blood, sweat and tears, it was finally built. Not as big as the old farmhouse we had bought in 1939, and then I found out how men like to “diddle” women. All sorts of “extra costs” suddenly appeared on my bill. But it was comfortable and convenient with all the “mod.cons'. (Note: This meant with electric power. The old house had never been electrified from the main grid, though “lighting plants” had been used to supply light, intermittently, from the very beginning at Ridgeholm.)

This move took us, regretfully, from Ridgeholm, but nearer in both time and distance to town. I sold another plot and reduced my bond and debt.

About this time I let portion of the farm and the new house. The young ones, Don and Peter, had started at boarding school about 70 miles away in Pietersburg. A friend rang to say she had heard the school needed matrons. My little ones had been home for a weekend and expressed the wish that I should join them. That's how I started to work for a boss. Mr. John Harman was that boss. He was the principal of the school and really had the interests of the children at heart and became a second father to all of them. I had charge of 80 boys from 8 to 13 years old, and they were a handful. I loved them dearly. The work was arduous in the extreme and I fell into bed every night exhausted. Long hours; from 6 a.m. until the last were safely bedded at 9 p.m. I never lost a child. I nursed them through mumps, chicken pox and all the children's ailments and had many children, mostly boys, through my hands and learned valuable lessons in nursing and even catering in that time. I had stated, when applying for a job, that the kitchen was out for me. One morning John Harman came to my quarters and said, “Mrs. Vale, you must take over the kitchen. Our catering matron has had an accident and there is no one else to turn to.”

I had seen that vast kitchen, of course, and was scared stiff. There were usually huge 6-gallon pots of food on the Esse stove. The cook was young and also inexperienced, but we managed, somehow, to provide meals for the 150 hungry mouths, staff and children.

I remained at Ireland House for a couple of years and then, with a colleague who had become a close friend, moved to a new hostel for more senior boys. This move was prompted by the establishment of a new English-language High School. Mr. Harman remained the principal. The house into which we moved was old and dilapidated with a stove as antique as the house itself. Now I was in charge of catering.

The boys, most of whom I had known in the previous house, had me in the hollow of their hands. When I was busy in the pantry or the kitchen I would hear hisses; “Matron, what about some grub?”

Out of the window would go raisins, slices of bread with peanut butter, jam or lard. Vetkoek, pancakes, rissoles or whatever was handy. Their rugby team was not strong, and I would tell them: “Win today, and it's cake for the team. Down the street they would come chanting: “Cake, Matron! Cake!”

My opposite number and I would go to cheer them on whenever we could and we really loved those boys. As their matric exams drew near, they would have special food and coffee and cocoa for their studies. They were like our own children and they would come to us with all their problems. The girls from the girls' hostel were invited over for of Quizzes and to Rock 'n Roll, and many a giggle we had to see little romances going on under the noses of the teachers. Some of them subsequently married the partners they had met at these school parties.

On one occasion, when about 70 boys were down with ‘flu, we enlisted the help of the local Archdeacon, a bachelor. He took temperatures, gave out medicine, brought books and games to amuse the convalescents. “A white sports coat and a pink carnation” was their favorite record then. Occasionally I hear from them, all married with families now.

It was at this time that more of the farm was sold and I a took a trip, my first, to Europe. I left the two young ones at school and took a term's unpaid leave. Col was at the university then and he spent weekends hiking up to see me. He asked me to take Al with me to Europe, so off we went to the Cape and boarded the “Edinburgh Castle”. Al had a wonderful time on board, and was a member of the entertainments committee. For me it was a time of rest.

When we reached Southampton, it seemed almost too good to be true that we had managed to cross the sea. My niece, Barbara, met us at Waterloo station. All the way up to London I looked at the roads and wondered if it would be more difficult to drive there than in South Africa. The masses of chimney pots seen from the train amazed me. But dear, green England was a thing of beauty to me – soft green hills and beautiful trees.

London was impressive and overwhelming. The thought that we were in Fleet Street, Trafalgar Square at London Bridge, names so familiar to us and at the same time so fabulous, was almost unbearable. It was fabulous.

We spent a few weeks there and then hired a car for three weeks. We sped up the East Coast, saw the poppies in the corn, the old inns along the way and stayed in Cambridge. All fascinated me. Finally, we crossed the Scottish border and found ourselves in Edinburgh. Princess Street, the dancing near the floral clock, the Tattoo at the Castle, my Scots blood thrilling to the sound of the pipes. They had always had this effect on me.

After a few days we drove west to the Isle of Skye on the Road to the Isles and saw the lovely hills, with sheep dotted on the hillsides here and there. Occasionally we came across roadside stalls selling hand woven scarves and tweeds, caps and gloves all hand-knitted. We arrived at the Kyle of Lochalsch where my man had spent so many war years laying mines in the North Atlantic. It was beautiful, if bleak, to me in spite of the heather now in bloom. From there we crossed on the ferry to the Isle of Skye. We passed by Loch Lomond and travelled on to Oban, where the Queen and her family were imminently expected on the “Britannia”. The weather was forbidding, and she arrived in pouring rain, leaving her children with Princess Margaret on the Royal Yacht. Later, we heard that her sailor husband had ordered the yacht to be moved to safer moorings. I can imagine how thrilled he must have been to take charge instead of always being in the background. Pa had told us of him, having met him at Lancing College where they trained together to be Royal Navy officers.

We traveled on, by-passing most of the industrial towns. We landed at Llangollen, where the Eisteddfod is held yearly, and spent one night in Becton. My hostel colleague and friend, (Dulcie Phillips) had an old friend there on a farm – and what a lovely place it was. The lady had prepared for us to stay but we felt it would be an imposition. We slept at a terrible hotel, one in which, one felt, a murder could have been committed. My son, Al, stayed in Youth Hostels, and my niece Barbara and I economized too, staying at Bed and Breakfasts with the locals. So we met the people and also heard some of the history of the places we visited. At Glencoe our hostess, a Mistress MacDonald, told us the story of the Camerons and the MacDonalds. We sped on, through England, visiting all the cathedrals we could squeeze in, and really enjoyed our trip which took us, at last, into Devon and Cornwall. We spent several days at Barnstable at a Trust House and visited all the local places of interest: King Arthur’s Castle at Tintagel; Clovelly, which nobody can enter by car; its ‘up and down streets’ that have not changed for generations. A beautiful part of England, especially the country and farms.

Time was hurrying on. We had to return the car by the agreed date, so sped back to London, seeing Stonehenge and Winchester on the way. We slept at Slough, easily expecting to be in London in time to return the car, but when we arrived in the city we found ourselves driving around and around searching for, but unable to find the place where we had hired the car. At last my niece said to me in a panic, “Auntie, we are driving around and around Piccadilly Circus!”

That was enough for me. We parked the car and walked to find the garage which was quite nearby. The man said it was the most sensible thing I could have done and sent out to fetch the car.

We had left Al in Devon, “Youth Hostelling”, so I then went on (an organized) tour of Switzerland. At last to fly, which had always been my dream! We landed at Basel, where a bus picked us up. All strangers to one another, but after a few days in beautiful Switzerland, when we parted we were bosom friends. How I reveled in that picture-card beauty and I couldn’t get enough of it. We were taken across the lake at Lucerne to spend a “Swiss evening”, and on the way back in the boat, I found myself singing “Sarie Marais” to our party! Could that be the shy little girl who had hidden under the beds when visitors came to our farm to visit? I had found myself, somehow. Perhaps working for a living had done me the world of good.

When I got back to London, a slim young man carrying a brolly and wearing a bowler hat was there to greet me. It was Al! He said, “ I am not going home with you. I’ve got a job selling carpets in Regent Street”. So that became his career. He now manages one of the biggest furniture chain stores in the Republic.

The Suez business flared up & I found that I would have to fly home; no booking to be had by boat.

Before I left, though, my niece and I took on an independent tour of Italy, calling in at Paris on the way home. We travelled via Dover and Calais and took the train to Paris. Owing to a misunderstanding, though, we missed our train connection to Rome. We panicked! Neither of us knew a word of French. But at last someone appeared who understood our predicament and directed us to find the “Hostess of Paris” at the railway station. She quickly arranged accommodation for us and we caught the morning train to Rome the following day. We traveled on a slow train with all the peasants. Our “wagen lits” were booked for the overnight journey. A woman carrying half a loaf of bread about a yard long got in at a small station. She shared it with some men in the compartment while we hungrily looked on. Later, she left us and we settled down to sleep by removing our shoes, putting our feet on the opposite bunk. We shared to compartment with two Italian men who were kind enough to offer us some of their food and treated us to “gelati” (ice cream). We arrived in Rome at daybreak and soon found the accommodation that we had booked at a small hotel near the Barbarum Square.

Italy to me was wonderful. I felt that I must have lived there in a former life. Strange that I alone in our family had a dark skin and eyes and a Roman nose! All the wonders of Rome are described in travel books, but what for me stood out were the Borghese Museum and the Fountain of Trevi. We of course threw our coins into it, and, as predicted I did return to Rome within a few weeks on my way home to South Africa!

We took off time too for a trip to Capri and stayed at a gorgeous hotel in Ana Capri. The highlight of my entire trip was a day spent at the famous Blue Grotto.

We left Italy regretfully, on a crowded tourist train headed for Paris. We shared our compartment with a couple of Australian girls who behaved like street women. Every seat was taken and the corridors were crammed with people just as in the old days at Xmas and holiday times before people took to the roads in cars in South Africa.

We spent one day in Paris, which I found disappointing, and saw the Follies Bergere. Versailles was beautiful, of course, and Marie Antoinette’s Chapel out of this world. Back in London for a few days and then the long flight home which I thoroughly enjoyed. In those days the flight crossed low over the Alps, landed in Rome, Cairo, Khartoum, Nairobi and Salisbury. It was a delight to look down eventually over the brown veld and mine dumps of Johannesburg.

Colin was there to meet me and I was soon back at school with my two little boys who joyfully welcomed me after my three month absence.

Back to work and to introduce some new items into the Menu for the boys that I had all saved overseas,

Life went on, never really boring, for my days were filled with many things to do. My little boys visited me every day to tell me all their news and plan to the next holidays.

I had managed to buy a new car on my return, & we planned to camp out at the coast. Colin, who had become engaged to a girl he had known since he was a child and was starting to teach at our school. So there were (Vale) pupils, a teacher and a matron at the same school – a family affair.

We joined my brother at the National Park Drakensberg and it did rain. While we were being quietly being washed away, Colin said, “I have something to tell you.”

“I can guess,” I answered.

“You are engaged.”

“”How did you know?”

A Mother’s intuition perhaps.

We went on to the South Coast where Colin enjoyed a time with the young students camping there. We pitched our tent nearby and sat and swam on the beach with the children, not daring to approach those young teenagers. I am afraid my holiday was spent still thinking about preparing food and washing dishes. They enjoyed it.

We traveled on to Port St. John’s and Colin bought a guitar at one of the trading stores and every night the four of us sang at the campfire. It was a happy time and the last we spent with Col as a bachelor. Alan was in England then, still selling carpets and finding out what life was about in London. Later we picked up Col’s fiancée at Port Alfred. I loved the girl – my first daughter and had so longed for one after all the men and boys in my life.

Later Colin and Terry were married on a very rainy day in Magoebaskloof where her father farmed. All the wedding guests had to take turns being ferried up from the main road to the farmhouse in a Land Rover belonging to one of the wedding guests as it was the only vehicle that could traverse that wet, muddy farm road. In those days, sixty inches of rain was the rule. I was happy for the young pair and hoped God would bless them and give them the happiness they deserved. The next holiday we stayed in the Hostel, as I had lent them the car to have a honeymoon.

Pa returned to our lives shortly after this, after years in (Northern) Rhodesia. The kids were thrilled to have a Dad again. He had never forgotten them and always wrote and sent Xmas presents. We decided to give it another go and bought a small mill and shop near the Native Area. Later on, we sold that and bought a general dealers shop and a farm. Alan joined us from Rhodesia where he had now settled. Colin and his wife had gone to London to teach and to practically starve. This we did not know of until they came home. Colin got a post in Somerset in one of the very small villages that we had stayed in near Bath.

We re-built the house on the farm, bought tractors, ploughs, horses and chickens by the thousand and generally made ourselves bankrupt. All my profit from selling my farm in the Low Country went down the drain. Pa left after all the cash had melted away, for pastures new. Alan had met and married in the meantime and we had to give up everything and start again.

Again I went back to my old friend John Harmon and was soon back in harness, as if I had never left. It was all heart-breaking to me and again dark days overwhelmed me. What had I done to deserve all this? The kids suffered with me, having tasted home life again to lose it all in the melting pot of life. 

After a few years at the hostel, I took a post at a big boys’ school in Johannesburg (King Edward School) to be near my third son, Donald, who was learning to be an orthopaedic technician. It was an easier post with only 50 boys in the house, but I was in charge of everything and had a very good superintendent. Colin had now joined the diplomatic corps and was transferred to Salisbury, Rhodesia. Alan was fixed up in a job. Peter had become the head boy at my old school, very proudly too as it now had over 500 boarders. Life was becoming a little easier financially. I was happy at Hill House, my brothers lived in Johannesburg and I saw them and their families often. I enjoyed the big shops and the films on my days off.

Later, when this school built one of the most modern Hostels in the country, I became its Head Matron. It was a responsible job and there were problems. My catering Matron spent most of her nights out and it was always a worry that she would not be there for breakfast for 150 boys and staff. My laundry and sewing Matron, an immigrant, could not use a sewing machine. I made up 500 yards of curtaining for that hostel. She complained of the rough sheets and blankets, and of the food, continually, and that after spending years in a concentration camp!

Finally, we had 50 boys down with ‘flu. I did not pay heed to the pains that had developed in my arm and the breathlessness – and then it caught me. Terrific indigestion, as I thought, after we had eaten meatballs for supper.

Coronary thrombosis! Doctor was called, and I said to him “I am prepared to go.’

“Go where? You’re going to hospital.”

And that’s where I lay for several months. The dear ministering angles looking after me, and being so kind. No one should ever say anything bad about the General Hospital to me.

One night I had a vision or a dream. I don’t know quite what it was. A little girl of about 5 years stood by my bedside beckoning. I thought “Olive! Mother always said what a lovely child you were and it’s true, you are! Don’t take me off yet, Peter still needs me, being in his final year at school.”

I lived to tell the tale, but doctor said it was over for me. I should retire. At this time Colin and Terry came back to live in Pretoria and I lived with them until I was stronger. I can remember how I battled to walk up to the Union Buildings with the grandchildren. My first walks were taken there. But gradually my strength returned and Don and I took the flat next door. He was then finishing his time at the orthopaedic work. He was mad on cars and car racing and that was just another worry for me. I let him carry on and he never knew how many tense hours I spent when he raced. I vowed never to stop them from doing things as my devoted parents had stopped me.

The next thing was that Col was transferred to Sweden and I had to change my mode of living. I had tried again to work, but after a month or two found I could not take it. Al was then transferred to a country town (Pietersburg) and I went along with him and my very musical daughter-in-law. Once again, I was offered a job at the school hostel by my old friend, (the Headmaster, John Harmon). But after six months or so, the old ticker had had it.

Colin wrote to ask me to come to Sweden to visit his family. They had no one to help out and I could be with the children at night when they had to go out to official dinners and cocktails. So on a hot January afternoon I caught the Scandinavian Airways plane for Sweden. We touched down at Nairobi, Khartoum, Athens, Zurich and Copenhagen where I changed planes for Stockholm. We had first found snow in Zurich, but when we reached Stockholm, it was winter in earnest. My first impressions were of a beautiful Christmas card. Everything so still and white. The trees frosted over, and huge spaces of snow and ice. These later melted into lakes and fields. All the queer houses, so different in shape to our South African houses, with their red roofs and white or yellow walls. But to me so very beautiful. I thought: “I’ll be frozen.” But I never did feel the cold as I have so often felt it in South Africa. The houses are beautifully warm with their double doors and glazing and air-conditioning. The garage warm; the car warm, the shops warm.

I thoroughly enjoyed my eight months there and the family did everything to make my stay pleasant and happy. The children and I enjoyed the television when they were out of school, in spite of the language difficulties. My daughter-in-law had to give dinner parties and she always served South African food. The children helped to wait at table and Colin took over the bar.

This was a typical evening: The invitations went out to ten or twelve people. As soon as they were returned the menu was selected. One course might be grape fruit segments which were served just after the drinks when the guests arrived at the stroke of 7 p.m. The children stood at the door to help with coats and snow boots. Ladies changed into shoes in the cloakroom. Each pair of guests came bearing a gift which might be a few flowers, a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine of a pot plant. After the fruit came the main meal, once consisting of Babotie, rice, frozen peas and salads at the main table where guests helped themselves. Wine was already on the small tables, the bottles in their blue and red checked cloths and the tables laid with heavy silver cutlery. There were four guests at each table. It is etiquette to have a second helping. Wines were uncorked by one of the men at each table and he saw to it that everyone had cigarettes and wine. The children cleared the plates away and the dessert was served. Strawberries and cream (once) and apple tart (homemade) with cream on another.

After black coffee, chocolate creams and good conversation was the order of the day. No servants at all were needed. After about 4 a.m. the guests returned home. No Swede allows himself to drive under the influence, and either the husband or the wife, never both, indulges at these dinners. The punishments are so severe that often guests arrive and leave in taxis. At these parties, the nationalities are very mixed. Swedes, South Americans, Canadians, Germans, Italian and Japanese diplomats, so it’s a mixed bag, but English is the common language which all understand. The Swedes are very formal people and there is no such thing as dropping in for tea. The keep strictly to time and would sit in their cars until the exact time of the invitation rather than make an entrance a little earlier than expected. The only time I saw them let their hair down was at a Midsummer Night’s party on an island (in the Stockholm Archipelago).

These island in the Baltic Sea number in the region of 2000. On these are found the summerhouses of thousands of Swedish people. Our “Stuga” (summer house) was thrown in with the lease of our house in town. No one had seen the Stuga until I arrived, but the landlord, Mr. Liden, an elderly millionaire, I believe, did his own repairs and maintenance on the Stuga and assured us that we would not be disappointed. When we saw it. He owned half the island and took us out by car the first time. We quickly left the city behind and joined the stream of cars all traveling south. After about an hour’s ride we arrived at a small jetty and were hailed by a handsome young Swede in a motorboat.  He had been hired to take us to the island. We all piled in, landlord and lady too, with picnic baskets, on our way to the isles.

They (the islands) crowd in on each other and sometimes (houses on different islands) are within hailing distance of one another.

The air was crisp and fresh, and everyone who could beg, borrow or steal a boat was on the water enjoying the first days of summer.

We were not disappointed when we saw the Stuga perched high on the granite rocks which rose from the sea. No beaches as we know them here in South Africa, and fir trees growing in every niche between the rocks where they could find a foothold.

The Stuga was quite luxurious with a fridge, electric stove and hot and cold water laid on. The water came from a well on the island. There were washbasins in the two bedrooms, but no bathroom. Outside there was a shower and toilet facilities were located in a wooden structure well away from the house. All very sterile and clean as all Swedish buildings are. Clearly, we were expected to swim in the sea. It was icy and took some courage at that time of year to enter those cold waters, but we did. Children under seven often wear no clothes on the islands, and one is expected to warn ones neighbours by phone if one wishes to call because they might well be bathing in the nude too!

After our first visit plans were immediately made to buy a boat. Our neighbour, a prominent men’s clothing designer, had one for sale with the added attraction of a mooring close to the town house thrown in. Every Friday in the summer saw us packed and ready for Colin to rush home and change into denims and a jersey for the trip out by boat to the Stuga. It was very exciting. The children and I were always anxious that he might not find the island, but he always did.

On Monday mornings we would pack up and return to town. The journey took about an hour. One morning early, as we were leaving, we saw two deer swimming across from one island to another.

Later, the summer days grew very long and we could hardly believe that night existed. The sun was always in the sky.

The strawberries, raspberries and snow drops came out, so beautiful, and many other daisies and flowers that I did not know. One is not allowed to drop a tin or bottle or anything into the sea, which is as calm as a lake. We always took our rubbish back with us in the boat to be dumped in plastic bags near the boat moorings. Even the waste fro the chemical toilet must be buried on the island before leaving so all goes back into the Good Earth. My young grandson started to fish having had his first lesson from the Landlord himself. He had no grandchildren, and loved to take our children out in his small fishing boat rowing it himself. He and his middle-aged wife did all their own chores on the island where they lived for entire summer. He had risen from being a farm boy to become an industrial chemist and had patented a steel which was both stainless and rust-proof. This put him in the happy position of being very independent. One evening we were invited to his apartment in the city, most t sumptuous with beautiful furniture and pictures. That evening, a cook had been hired to cook and serve dinner.

He liked my son, because he always offered to help the old man. He painted the Stuga for him and did repairs on the house in town that he rented when they were needed.

I very much enjoyed my stay in Sweden, but as winter drew nearer, I flew south like the birds.

Terry and I had a week in London, having traveled by ship and train to England on a Lloyd’s excursion. We crossed the Atlantic, landing at Hull and then on by bus to London, passing Cambridge on the way.

London was very changed in the ten years since my last visit. But we enjoyed the shops and clothing was very much cheaper than it was in Sweden.

We left the children with Daddy and he looked after them very well and we found the house clean and everything spick and span. But no clean shirts, so Terry had to launder some right away.

That was the biggest chore. They had an ironing machine but the shirts had to be hand laundered.

At a luncheon party once, when the South African girls forgathered, I found out some secrets. Margaret had married a Swede. She used only to iron the collars and fronts of his shirts, as he never took his coat off. Each of the ladies had contrived some way to save time and effort. They lived there in that strange land and made the best of it, learning the language as soon as they could and adapting to a foreign life. The nostalgia was always there and talk of home and family. Some would never return, but the love of South Africa was there. Papers and magazines were passed from one to another: Personality, Fair Lady, the Rand daily Mail & Farmers weekly & Sunday Tines were prized items.

Terry and the children accompanied me home on holiday when I returned to South Africa. We traveled by train from Stockholm to Zurich through Denmark and Germany, changing trains twice. We traveled on the Swedish, Danish and German railways. We spent one day in Zurich and were then informed that our chartered plane had been delayed. We over-nighted at the airport where the children were accommodated at the airport’s beautiful nursery. We adults lay on the benches until the call came for our plane. We took off in a real old crock to fly to Luanda, never expecting to get there. At last we arrived at 10 a.m. at Jan Smuts airport, tired and glad to be re-united with friends and family.

(To be continued)