My first memory of Christmas was when my parents bought a poultry farm in Kuilsriver in the Cape in South Africa. They bought me a wind up gramophone with some records they must have picked up in a second hand shop. I remember the titles of two of the songs and have the tunes in my head but as I am tone deaf nobody else recognizes them. The one was called On the Sidewalks of New York and the other Has Any One Seen Kelly, Kelly of the Emerald Isle.
Subsequent Christmases always brought a book or two one of which was a Biggles book. I loved the adventures that Biggles got involved in. We then moved to Fish Hoek where my father built his own house. I remember the first Christmas there when my paternal grandfather came to lunch. Grandfather Goodwin was all of seven foot tall with no fat but a physique to match his height. My mother would cook a huge leg of Pork and a couple of chickens as Grandpa would devour a whole one himself!
Father had built a lounge dining room with a spring floor. The Fish Hoek Old Time Dance Club would dance there every Friday. One of the members had a son, Donald Rowley some five years older than me and the two of us learnt all the wonderful old time dances especially the Strauss waltzes. I last saw Donald when I was fifteen I think when he left for Northern Rhodesia to work in a bank. He subsequently left for Australia and we still correspond!
A special Christmas was in 1959 when I was an air hostess for British Airways based first in Manchester later at Heathrow. My colleague Sue invited me to her home for Christmas in Prestbury. We went to midnight mass and came out to a white Christmas.
The lunch was memorable especially the Christmas mince pies. Warm from the oven we would open them up, pour in a dash of whisky and add a slice of blue cheese, replace the top and oh how delicious! I make them every Christmas! The following day we went Beagling over the Yorkshire hills, walking miles following the hunting Beagles. Sue married a pilot, Doug Croll, while I went back to South Africa.
Years later Sue traced me through Personality magazine and we met here and a few times later in England but sadly have lost touch.
Fast forward to Varsfontein Farm in Paarl in the Cape. My daughter Susan had married Johan (Lofty) Loftus and they were under managers at this thoroughbred stud farm. The manager, Hennie de Jager lived in the main house, a Cape Dutch rambling building with an enormous kitchen. One year I cooked a whole suckling pig with the proverbial apple in its mouth! There were always lots of friends and relations and a Nativity play for the young ones.
One year we planned a family holiday in Mozambique and my youngest son TJ and I my grandson Shaun, now a teenager drove up in my one ton Nissan bakkie with no 4 x 4 capability. We were a week or two earlier than the planned departure and had booked a campsite at Pandane on the coast. The track from Inhambane was thick sand and although we let down the tyres, TJ had to drive like hell to avoid stopping or stalling while Shaun was flung around in the back dodging knives and pots and pans! As we got to the gate of the resort we sank into the sand! Fellow campers came and towed us out. Then we were stuck until we were due to leave. Christmas day saw us eating peas with mayonnaise out of tins and asparagus and mayonnaise! Thank Heavens the wine and beer had not run out!
We were due to meet my elder son Mick at the larny Cardosa Hotel in Maputo and arrived thoroughly disheveled with a large blag plastic bag of soiled clothes that the stately Major Domo gingerly took straight to the laundry! Now Susan is notoriously late for everything but the following day when we were quaffing beer at the Casa do Sol she arrived dead on time at our one o,clock rendezvous! I will do the tale of Captain Ron and that holiday early in the New Year!
One year my dear friend Joy – and how we met deserves a blog of its own – brought her two sons Garry and Ryan to camp in my Garden in Langebaan. My other friend Joy Bianchi sent her grandson Ryan Pienke came and brought his Motswana friend Bakkie. Another tent went up. My grandsons, Jacques and Shaun were there. In next to no time the six youngsters had crossed the divides of not only race but diverge backgrounds and banded into a happy band of friends.
Now in Langebaan, a sleepy, largely Afrikaner community there was a dance hall called Flamingoes. The youngsters were keen to go but I had reservations as although Apartheid was gone there remained in these small communities a very shall we say reserved outlook on mixed race relations. Jacques pleaded with me and said. “Don’t worry GranMols we will not allow anything to happen to Bakkies!” The next day, all safely tumbling out of their tents I heard from someone that they had virtually formed a posse around Bakkies to make sure that he was safe from any unpleasantness!
My Christmas present from Ryan and Bakkies was a hard cover book – Jamie’s Kitchen that introduced me to Jamie and his down to earth cooking. Ryan is now an accountant in London and I have sent the book back to him. Bakkies is an Aeronautical engineer in Canada. Garry lives and works in Cape Town and has a son called Baden, Ryan lives and works in Johannesburg and Jacques lives in Cape Town, is due to get married to Danielle in January and move to Johannesburg. Shaun has become a wind farm engineer and works in Europe and South Africa.
TJ married Maud on 23rd December one year and Maud brought her Afrikaans family to Langebaan for Christmas! I was living in a small corrugated iron cottage while Susan was in the small main house. My kitchen was tiny! I had decided to make this a traditional English Christmas and cook roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. In the end there were thirty five guests with Tiaan and Sabine having arrived from Botswana.
We started with oysters from the Lagoon and then with the help of Sabine we fed the guests who tucked in with much gusto still on a high from the wedding! Every Christmas I insist upon a toast to The Queen and my roast beef was so well received from the Afrikaner guests that they happily stood and lifted their glasses to her!
Finally Christmases in Tofo in Mozambique. One year it rained and rained. Grandchildren were there from Botswana with Ryan and his brother Glen. They were sitting around drinking coffee early in the morning when there was a loud squealing heard coming from below our cashew nut tree! There Nic (my neighbour and owner of Turtle Cove) was supervising the killing of one of his pigs for that night’s Christmas feast! He was obliged to offer us a free dinner!
Another year I met Graham and Cheryl when they were camping at Turtle Cove, our neighbouring lodge. As they were alone I asked them to join us for Christmas. At first light that morning Graham went down to Tofo Beach and bought a kilo of fresh swordfish which he turned into sashimi accompanied by much beer that was unbelievable! My ham emerged from the Dutch oven looking as if it could grace any cookbook once bedecked with fresh pineapple and a wonderful Christmas ended with a sauce made of Tipo Tinto, the local rum bought in the Tofo market over the pudding!
I will end with some pictures of the last time we had Christmas at Tofo with TJ and Maud’s children Greg and Neve and Jose our loyal caretaker having done the traditional decorations!
Happy Christmas all!
Molly's Musings On Life And Travel 