Biography

Patricia Thelma McBride Doubell was born on June 1, 1942 in Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa. Her parents were Rev. Patrick AT McBride and Thelma Peebles.

Patricia married Dion Andre Doubell on January 20, 1962. Together they had the following children: Sharon Lee Doubell; Gavin Dion Doubell; David Grant Doubell.

Gedmatch Kit No: T390202

Surnames at 4 Generations:

• Anderson (Scotland)
• Dadswell (Surrey/Sussex/Kent, England)
• Doig (Dundee? Scotland)
• Hawkins (Oxfordshire, England)
• Hemsley (Sussex, England)
• Hulley (Yorkshire, England)
• McBride (Tipperary, Ireland)
• Merry (Oxfordshire, England)
• O’Conner (Limerick, Ireland)
• Peebles (Scotland?)
• Wright (Nottingham, England)

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Lifestory Events

1942
1 June 1942
Birth of Patricia Thelma McBride Doubell
Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa

1942- 1946
Early Childhood in Kensington
Lived in Kensington/Bez Valley - in Kensington Mansions' behind Jeppe Girls' School Playing Fields. Patricia remembers lots of friends; never being home and always running around playing with them.

Patricia and Jean at the fountain outside Kensington Mansions.

Patricia's Dad was away up North when Jean was born (c1945) - but home 9 months' later when Jean choked on a piece of banana somebody gave her. Patricia remembers her father running with Jean to her granny's house because there were no telephones at that stage, and as he ran the banana came out.

1946
1 June 1946
Age 4
Moved to Malvern
Moved to 40 King St Malvern - Mom thinks it was on her birthday. She was 4yrs old.
Two bedroomed house - Mom in bedroom with big window overlooking back garden.
Aunty Joyce had divorced Jenny & David's father - Bill Stewart - and they moved into that room with Aunty Joyce (David was virtually in a cot) and Mom and Jean moved into their parents' room (probably for a year).
Joyce worked and my gran looked after the kids - who proceeded to have every childhood sickness going.

Mom went to nursery school at bottom of Pandora Rd - and the social climate was such that even at 5 they could walk by themselves to the school.

1947
Age 4
Went to Cleveland Jnr School
Started Cleveland Jnr School at 5 yrs old & it was possible in those days to do Gr 1 and 2 in 18 mnths.
This is where Tricia began being called Pat, because she was too shy to say that she wasn't called Pat (her father's name.)
Pat loved learning to read & when they had a Gr1 concert she was most upset because they made her the narrator - and she'd wanted to be one of the actors. What she didn't realise at the time was that the narrator part was more important :-)
Very happy days- everything came easy - except all the teachers said she was 'too talkative'.

1951
Age 8
Thelma gives birth to a stillborn boy - Gilbert
Thelma gives birth to a stillborn boy - Gilbert Paul. (Grandpa wanted to call him Gilbert Wesley - after the missionary - but Granny said she wasn't having a child called Wesley, and the sisters said wehhhh, no Daddy. So Paul after grandpa and granny's brothers).
But either name would have been okay if he'd survived; but he was a very big baby, and the doctor didn't come - so his little heart gave out. He should have been a cesaer baby.

My mom remembers the funeral - picturing her father carrying the tiny coffin. She isn't sure whether she went or not. She remembers her mother coming home.
Grandpa was looking after two kids and murphy's law - the two girls go down with chickenpox. My mom was shocked when her mother came home and had a pure white streak through her hair.

1951
Age 8
Went to Kensington Ridge Primary
Went to Kensington Ridge Primary from Std 3.
Also happy years.

1952
Age 9
Val born
Val born. When she was christened, Tricia (Pat's) parents gave her the honour of carrying my baby sister up the aisle. She was so proud, at 10 yrs old, she was bursting.

1954
Age 11
Went to Jeppe Girls' High
Started high School at Jeppe Girls' High - for 3 years.

Miss Ramsbottom was headmistress - "An absolute lady' - once successfully blackmailed my Mom into behaving when she was sent to her at the office for talking - by simply shaking her head and saying, "Patricia, Patricia." My mom was so mortified that she'd let her down.

Other stories: a social ball eg Dawn Ralph holding a teacher out of the window - who was in on the joke. (Young, blonde with glasses.)

Left after Std 8 because all her friends were leaving to go to business college, & they changed their subjects to commercial subjects.

1956
Age 13
Met Dion
Met Dion on the tennis court (more interested in the boys than the tennis, says she :-))
Used to walk down to movies in the bottom of Queen St. (Right now - 2014 - a Kentucky Fried Chicken.)
Walking, because Dion came to see her on a bicycle.
Dion called Val "pepsi cola' - something to do with her panties showing :-) (She was 4yrs old :-)) - and she knew it was something she had to hide :-)

1957
Age 14
Went to Business College
Went to Business College. Went well - took a bus into town (Jhb) every day.
Did a commercial matric. Got a distinction in Accounting.

1958- 1964
Age 15 >
Worked at General Mining SA
Worked at General Mining SA (part of Anglo American) in the Accounting Dept. - which became 'computerised' - did more work in mining shares than anything. Tricia was bored very early on and hated being tied down from 8 to 4pm.
Stopped when she became pregnant with me because she'd had a miscarriage, and the Dr said 'give up work' straight away.

1962
20 January 1962
Age 19
Marriage of Dion Doubell and Patricia McBride
It was an afternoon wedding - a teetotaler wedding ('How things changed,' smiles Mom :-) ;-)
It was smiling smiling at everybody, & before they knew it they were throwing confetti, and we were leaving.
Honeymoon- 3 weeks at La Crete Hotel in Uvongo (it was the place to go for your honeymoon).
First home was a garden flat in Primrose Hill, and lived there for about 4 years.

1964
26 December 1964
Age 22
Birth of Sharon Doubell
Johannesburg, South Africa
"And then my precious girl was born; and I was so.. not knowing what to do. And I looked at this little baby that the nurse brought to me, and put out my hand to touch her little hand; and she looked at me with knowing eyes, as if to say "Are these my parents? We were very in awe of this little thing - both of us. So much so that Dion wouldn't let me bath her without him around."

1967
1 January 1967
Age 24
Birth of Gavin Dion Doubell
Johannesburg, South Africa
"Two years later, Gavin was born. We could see from the beginning he had curly hair, and he sucked his bottom lip under and was forever more called Mr Magoo by Dion. He was a very happy little soul; refused a dummy - much to Sharon's horror.

1968
25 October 1968
Age 26
Birth of David Grant Doubell
"Unlike my first two babies, David wasn't born two weeks' early, but bang on time. He's been pretty laid back ever since. He was a sociable little baby; undemanding, seldom cried or had a temper tantrum. Dion called him "Bullo Boy," after his favourite spread.

Having children was probably the most special thing in my life."

1970
Age 27
Moved to PE
"Dions's company transferred us to PE. It was quite heavy moving with three small children and no support group. However, we had two wonderful years in Mangold Park. Started to settle, when the company moved us to Natal."

1972
Age 29
Moved to Natal
"Was also happy time. People in Amanzimtoti were wonderful. I didn't like the house as much. Probably 18 months in Toti, and company moved us to Cape Town."

1973
Age 30
Moved to Cape Town
Patricia remembers: "Three small children in a duplex flat, with no garden, was a nightmare. CT is beautiful, but it never stopped raining. The more it drizzled, the more I cried. We were there for a year, waiting to build in Bergvliet, and then the company (Gardner Denver) moved us back to Natal.

Doordrift Gardens Plumstead

But Doordrift Gardens was filled with children to play with. Tessa was the older girl in the complex that all the little girls adored, and she had us jumping on the couches in her house singing on pretend microphones to the very sexy and very new Rod Stewart's "I am Sailing".

There was a fantastic see saw that had a pin missing, just over the wall of our tiny triangular garden area, so you could literally 'fly' it in a circle around the pivet, and slowly come in to a satisfyingly perfect landing. Pilot training of note. I actually went up to my bedroom and sobbed when they fixed it. Gavin had a super dangerous trick where he would hang off the top rung of the jungle gym at the front of the complex by only his toes. (I must actually check to see if Gavin's got peculiarly long toes.) Those were the days they thought tar was a fine playground on which to crack your head open! Gavin never did, but I did give myself scars on my knees that lasted a lifetime from falling on the tar when piggy backing my youngest brother, David. Gavin also went onto the building site behind the complex where there were workmen constructing a Pick 'n Pay (I see on Google Maps that this building is still there) and brought home an exciting new word: "Fuck". This didn't go down well with the Methodist Minister's daughter in my Mom, and so she set about exorcising his mouth with pepper. Unfortunately, it wasn't only his toes where Gavin was freakishly strong, so he wriggled and got the pepper in his eyes instead, which promptly swelled up like the other gateways to hell, and haunted my mother with the spectre of headlines in the next day's paper reading "YOUNG MOTHER BLINDS SON." To this day he doesn't swear as much as the rest of us.:-)

It can't have been nice being cramped up with 3 kids while it was raining non stop outside. I seem to recall it was here in CT, amongst her fellow suffering moms, that my Mom always jokes she learned to drink wine. [I recall a Collings family, with a very snooty mom.] Anyway, after the great pepper pot incident, she made us all a hammock swing from the staircase landing that was a great hit, and lightened the mood, if not the weather.

There was always her worry that we might be surrounded by 'poor whites' in this forced stopover on our way to Bergvliet - whose class could rub off on us as easily as the 'fuck' had on Gavin. When Aunty Val came to visit there was a hilarious incident with her trying to understand a local neighbourhood kid telling her that his dog's name was what sounded to her like "Aartappels" - potatoes in English. I don't remember now what he was actually saying, but it was very funny just for the struggle on her face with the well bred requirement to remain polite in the face of a cultural abyss beyond all translation possibilities.

The class counundrum loomed over our school choices too. First we went to Bergvliet Primary - where my parents were going to build. The school uniform was next level after the casual Toti uniform - dark green layers with blazers and ties and hats - and so was the level of the Afrikaans :-/ I remember that in all the Cape schools we had to sing the National Anthem in Afrikaans in assembly! :-/ Neither Gavin nor I enjoyed the style of teaching and the dark corridors at Bergvliet, so my Mom put us in the 'lower class' local Plumstead Primary.

Bergvliet Primary

We could now walk to school and marvel over the fact that it was still dark, and even the cold taps felt warm when you first arrived. Here, I remember a long field with satisfyingly looming tall trees at the back, and Jimmy Osmond singing "I'll be your longhaired lover from Liverpool - Ill be your puppet or your clown or your April fool" in the background. (On the playground, one of the girls brought a poster of his older brother Donny Osmond, and we thought he was much more sophisticated! Cringe now.)

Our teachers did seem to view us as the cream of the crop, and so we loved it there. My teacher's desks were in a fascinating amphitheatre style that was so different as to strike me as avant garde. The whole school would have a highly enjoyable folk music style sing along in the hall with a young male teacher on a guitar. I remember he taught us the "Green Beret - fighting soldiers in the sky, fearless men who jump and die".

Plumstead Primary

Here I also seemed to have started walking off by myself, and I have images of going to different places to buy my parents presents - special soaps with cars printed on them for my Dad. I also discovered a farm with stables that I wandered into and found I could feed the horses - until they discovered me and kicked me out.

And then just as we were settling, we moved on.

1974
Age 31
Moved Back to Natal
"We rented a house instead of buying because our other money hadn't come through (it was tied up in a stand we had been going to build on in Bergvliet). The kids loved the life; they ran bare feet in shorts from one property to the other up and down DanPienaar Dr. However, by nine months I had had enough, I'm afraid. and persuaded Dion to apply for a job back in Jhb."

Second Dan Pienaar Dr house

1975
Age 32
Returned to Jhb
"Dion joined Eimco, and we moved into a house in Highway Gardens, Edenvale - where we stayed for the next 29yrs. My life was busy and full; my children filled much of it, and I loved it. I was very happy. Both the kids and I made many friends.

Dion was away on business quite a lot. I did quite a few part time jobs to make us extra money. I first ran a creche at my home, when the kids were all at school; I packed pay packets for Fidelity Guards on a Thursday night (sometimes until 2 or 3 o clock in the morning); I worked at a nursery school in Kew; I revised my accounring course and worked in various offices (Matheson & Bremner; Stewarts and Lloyds); I did book keeping and reception at various medical rooms: The doctors' rooms (Dougie Bellingham, Lawrence Retief); a dental technician (Terry Hageman), and optical technician's rooms (Flo & Gerry Schreyer)."

1989
4 May 1989
Age 46
Birth of Dayne Michael Robins
"If I thought having children was great, along came these precious grandchildren. They brought incredible joy into my life. We had fabulous times!"

1991
15 April 1991
Age 48
Birth of Shaylene Tricia Doubell Robins

1996
27 April 1996
Age 53
Birth of Ryan David Doubell

1997
13 September 1997
Age 55
Birth of Aedan Gavin Doubell

1998
16 November 1998
Age 56
Birth of Brent Gavin Doubell

1999
30 March 1999
Age 56
Birth of Camryn Lynn Doubell

2003
27 March 2003
Age 60
Birth of Rohan David Doubell

25 August 2003
Age 61
Moved to Thornhill Manor
"Dion was retired from B&E. During his retirement he joined B & E International for 7 years. We sold our house and moved to Thornhill Manor Retirement Village. It was more like a holiday resort & I had a wonderful life!! The ladies socialized in every way possible; we 'groomed' ourselves, joined art groups, were part of every exercise group: pilates, walk for life, water aerobics; not to mention coffee out; movies; friends; friends; friends!
Then Dion retired 'for real' oh dear & the capital came to a grinding halt.

Slowy a new life emerged and we learned to be together as never before. Hard, very hard at first. Now we both have learnt understanding & patience. We have a standing lunch arrangement with neighbours at 'Dros'. Dion plays table tenis twice a week; & we are still learning how to play bridge woth one another as partners. I joined a monthly book club, as reasing has always been an important part of my life.

Dion & Patricia at Sharon's house 2012

Jean, Tricia and Val 2012

Still & all I would say my family, children, their spouses, grandchildren & their spouses, plus great grandies are the hi-lights of my life. Love them for always! "

Birthdays, June 2024 with Sharon's two children and their four children