NOVEMBER MEMORIES

WELL I remember Guy Fawkes day as a child. We would dress up a doll in a pram supposed to be an effigy of Guy Fawkes and go to neighbor’s houses asking for “A Penny for the Guy!” and singing “Remember, Remember, the 5^th of November, Gunpowder treason and plot, We see no reason should ever been forgot” Of course the pennies went on sweets generally black and white striped bull’s eyes!

Guy Fawkes’s father died and his mother remarried a Catholic. Guy was converted to Catholicism. He went off to Spain to fight against the Protestant low countries where he was known as Guido. Returning to Britain he subsequently met Thomas Winter who introduced him to Robert Catesby dedicated to restoring Catholic James 1^st to the throne. Catesby found an undercroft beneath the House of Lords and enlisted Guy Fawkes to take care of the gunpowder needed. An anonymous letter prompted the authorities to search Westminster Palace where Guy Fawkes was arrested for treason and sentenced to be hung drawn and quartered. He jumped off the platform beneath the scaffold, fell and broke his neck. Each year Guardsmen search the Houses of Parliament looking for explosives, a ceremonial remembrance.

Here in South Africa the memory of Guy Fawkes is fading into obscurity although families light fireworks on designated areas only. Animals are usually frightened by the bangs and run away so that the SPCA is busy rescuing frightened dogs and other pets. When I was a girl and lived in Fish Hoek everyone went down to the beach and lit their own fireworks. Of course this was dangerous and eventually stopped.

Guy Fawkes coincides as it does with Diwali. Diwali is the Hindu festival of light celebrated over five days during the Hindu Lunisolar month Kartika. The ceremony celebrates victory over darkness, good over evil and knowledge over ignorance. Our Indian communities light fireworks on designated areas.

November is a time when the fall of the Berlin wall is commemorated and of course Britain holds Remembrance Sunday to honour the fallen in both World Wars and other conflicts. Remembrance Sunday on the 11^th day of the 11^th month is always the second Sunday in November when armistice of the Second World War was signed in Potsdam in Occupied Germany by United Kingdom’s Prime Minister Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States and Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Soviet Union.

In March 2000 I was due to attend ITB, the largest tourist exhibition in the world in Berlin, Germany. I had worked out that the cheapest way to get to this city that I had never been to was to drive to Windhoek in Namibia and fly from there to Frankfurt where I would catch a train to Berlin. I was heavily loaded with the travel books that Susan and I produced, Discovering Botswana and Inside Zambia. I duly arrived at the airport in Windhoek only to be informed that Air Namibia’s solitary Boeing had flown to Beira in Mozambique where the Zambezi had burst its banks on the flood plain leading to its estuary to rescue stranded people and deliver food and medical requirements. I sat at the airport for over twelve hours so only departed the next day.

Arriving at Frankfurt airport I was unprepared for this huge airport with its myriad elevators to the various outlets and train stations. I struggled with my boxes of books balanced precariously on a trolley, onto an escalator and down to a station where a train to Berlin was expected an hour later. The train arrived, with the gap between it and the station an obstacle to be surmounted to load the boxes aboard. I looked around desperately for help. Spotting a group of Japanese tourists I gestured with my hands, pointing to the boxes and then pointing to the train. “AH, AH, SO!” The Japs replied and loaded my boxes on board with bows and exclamations. I thanked them sincerely and could only hope that they got the message!

I arrived in Berlin at midnight! It was minus 15 with snow everywhere. Fortunately I had kept the long ski jacket that I bought many years before for a ski trip to Austria and was warm enough. A porter came to help and got me a taxi who very kindly found me a reasonable B & B.

Next day I managed to catch the necessary train to take me to ITB, a huge building and another taxi to deliver me to the door. I walked and walked and walked until I found the Botswana exhibit, my new boots beginning to bite! By the time that week was over my feet were in agony but I was determined to spend the last two days when the show was over to see something of Berlin and together with some other exhibitors caught a tourist bus to Potsdam where the armistice was signed in 1945. I could not face my boots again so put on a pair of sandals with socks. We alighted into deep snow and the tour guide looked at me and enquired “Are these your African Shoes?” I said “Yes” The guide shook his head in disbelief! However after the tour I felt that I had visited a very historic site.

The following year Susan came with me and did not really believe me when I told her just how cold it was. She wore her grandmother’s Burbury overcoat and shivered! We stayed in the old part of the city called Mitte formerly part of Communist Berlin behind the Berlin Wall and were walking along a side road when I glanced to the side to see coats hanging from rails in a small alcove. From the look of the women who were selling these coats and their accents I deduced that they were Russians down on their luck. I took the lead and bought Susan a hip length silver fox fur coat for 35 euros! She ummed and ahed. “This is real fur! I can’t wear this.!” “Look around you, all the Berlin people are wearing fur, besides people at the show will think you are wearing fake fur and this animal was killed a long time ago!”

She was as warm as toast after that and we enjoyed our stay. We had found accommodation in a private flat on top of an eighteen story building. Our beds were on the floor and there was one armchair and a small table. We bought slabs of chocolate filled with liqueur and chomped them in bed with our books in the evenings. Susan is a smoker and had to go downstairs to stand outside the entrance in the snow to have a cigarette! We managed to find our way on the trains and found a lovely warm pub in Mitte that served everything with heaps of potatoes!

We would walk to Potsdamer Platz where the first breach of the Berlin Wall was on 11th November 1989 and at the Brandenburg Gate a month later. From here it was no distance to the Brandenburg Gate and we ventured inside the famous Adlon Hotel on Unter den Linden. This hotel was one of the best in Europe in its heyday but was largely destroyed in World War 2. A small portion of it operated until 1997 when it was restored. We also enjoyed walking to Charlottenburg Palace that was built in the 17^th century and expanded in the 18^th with beautiful gardens.

The next time I went to Berlin I was alone but my friend Tiaan Theron, a tour guide in Botswana and his German wife Sabina were there to visit her parents. They invited me to a Turkish restaurant with their Berlin friends. I was chatting to another Botswana friend when Tiaan asked me to refrain from talking about my varied travels. He explained that their friends had never left Berlin. I could not believe it! However one of them told me to go to the Museum that was situated in a shopping centre. I did and there was the story of Berlin from the time it was a group of small huts on the river.

I was fascinated because it encompassed the growth of the city and the country and eventually the Nazi regime and the basis of Hitler’s creed if you like to call it that based on his book Mein Kampf that chronicled his belief in anti-semitism. I was gobsmacked because I realized that Robert Mugabe the President of Zimbabwe had based his regime on the same creed. Mugabe died recently after completely destroying his country by looting, becoming an absolute dictator and causing so many Zimbabweans to flee to Botswana and South Africa. Today in South Africa we have the EFF the third largest opposition party whose leader Julius Malema was a great fan of Mugabe and whose policies in my opinion mirror that of the Nazi’s of yesteryear.

Now to Remembrance Sunday. Susan and I had attended it in London on a couple of occasions but the one that sticks in my mind is the time we went just after the dreadful attack on the World Trade Centre in New York by terrorists on September 9^th 1963. I had been staying at my son Mick’s house in Hout Bay and arrived to find his maid ironing with one eye on the television. I saw these aircraft approaching a tall building and gasped.” Something dreadful is about to happen!”

Here we were in London in November staying with our friends Andrew and Leane who lived in London and were adamant that we should not attend as a terrorist attack was expected. Susan and I decided that terrorists or no terrorists we were going to attend. I had my trusty ski jacket on and as we came up the steps of the underground I was stopped as I walked under the metal detector frame. The policewoman searched me politely but thoroughly and eventually decided that I had some oil on my coat but harboured no firearm or bomb!

We stood behind a group of young men in Burbury coats who were drinking from hip flasks as they cheered the elderly service men and women, some of whom were in wheel chairs marching by, all having served their country in some conflict across the globe. The young men heard Susan and I chatting and turned round. “The Boers are here!”. We all laughed as they were referring to the Boer War in South Africa in 1888 to 1902 when Britain and South Africa were at war because the Boers had rebelled against the English. Local farmers were called Boers and the British at the time under Lord Kitchener destroyed their farms and put their women into concentration camps so cutting their line of supplies. The Boers were renowned marksmen and moved around the country on horseback. Some Afrikaners of today still hate the English!

Looking across the road we could see the snipers on the roofs watching for terrorists. The Queen arrived and walked entirely alone to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in memory of those service men and women. A minute of silence ensued and not a pin could be heard dropping or a child coughing. Her Majesty was completely exposed to the danger of terrorists except for the thorough security of the intelligence and Police Force. Having laid the wreath as the minute of silence ended the crowd rang with the anthem “God Save Our Queen!”

The Union of  South Africa came into being on 31^st May 1910 eight years after signing the Treaty of Vereeniging that ended the 2^nd Boer War on the unification of the Cape Colony, the Natal Colony, the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony.  Subsequently the country was granted independence in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster.

I was born in 1939 and still remember going to the ‘bioscope’ in Plein Street in Cape Town. We had to stand to the playing of God save the King before the film. Entrance was sixpence and entitled you to a red or green cooldrink. I remember seeing Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald in Naughty Marietta and Bobby Breen with his incredible soprano singing Somewhere over the Rainbow! Years later when we moved to Fish Hoek I had a friend called Maureen who had a lovely voice. We would walk the dunes around Peers Cave that often had a vlei at the base. One day Maureen stood on one dune and I on the other while she sang the same song, her voice carrying across the vlei between us. (A vlei is a stretch of shallow water.) Magic!

I still have a picture of Her Majesty the Queen on my fridge. One year we were in Mozambique at Jangamo Bay when the Royal Wedding of William and Kate was on. I was watching it on the television in a local bar. Mick came up dripping wet from the waves and shook his head at me. “You and your Royals!” I smiled back at him. “You don’t realize that they were part of my growing up!”

Well I remember the day H.M.S Vanguard arrived with their Majesties, King George and Queen Elizabeth and the two princesses. My father had promised to take me to see the destroyer that had served in the war enter Duncan Docks. The day was very hot and his favourite prize pig fainted so I had to listen to the radio while we poured buckets of water over the sow! However my mother’s cousin’s husband was a chauffer for the Government Garage and drove the Royal Family and General Smuts around the city. He told how Princess Margaret was a great mimic and would ‘take off’ the various dignitaries including General Smuts.

Princess Margaret

When the Royal Family were to move upcountry they travelled in the White Train, its coaches pure white pulled by a great steam engine. I was coming home from school, about 7 years old and had to catch a train at Observatory, change at Salt River and catch another to Kuilsriver. My train stopped at Bellville, was shunted out of the way, the passengers all detrained at the station where we waited for the White train to come through. The wait was long and I got very hungry. The friendly stationmaster bought me a mincemeat pie with sticky filling that looked like dead flies but I ate it happily. The White Train duly appeared and I had a good view of the Royal Family through the windows.

I arrived at Kuilsriver station very late with my mother frantic with worry. I had to walk home, some three miles and was further delayed by a flock of sheep being driven to the nearby abattoirs. A Mrs. Brindle lived near our small farm and drove up the gravel road each day like some racing driver. I was slogging along slowly behind the flock when she came through, sheep scattering in all directions with the shepherd jumping to the side in fright while I cowered in the ditch at the side emerging with my uniform filthy! My mother was not amused!

When I lived in Maun for a couple of years my grandsons then grown up would play pool with the Princes who loved Botswana and the Delta where the British Special Forces did exercises with the Botswana Defence Force each year. The Princes were like most youngsters and they enjoyed partying as most young people can in Maun with their bodyguards well in the background. The tale goes that William went home in the early hours with a mate and slept on the sofa. In the morning the father kicked him off the sofa, saying “Who the hell do you think you are, sleeping on my sofa!” quite unaware of who the errant young man was, only the future King of England!

On that I will end this blog and take it to TJ on this very hot Sunday where his son Greg will be prevailed upon to give young Jack, my dachshund a bath as the old back does not like bending down any more!

NAMAQUALAND

I am leaving on the 8^th of September destination Kleinsee on the north west coast of South Africa to visit my daughter Susan. Kleinsee is just south of Port Nolloth and Alexander Bay with Namibia just north of these towns. Jack and I will stay at Kuruman on the first night and Pofadder on the next heading towards Springbok deep in Namaqualand. We had good rains this winter in this area so the flowers should be wonderful. Each year they appear, softer colours down south nearer Cape Town and more vibrant colours as one heads north. The floral kingdom of South Africa attracts tourists from all over the world.

My route takes me from Johannesburg via Vryburg, Olifanshoek (elephant corner), Upington to Kuruman. Kuruman is interesting in that it was here that Robert Moffat the missionary translated the Bible into Tswana, a local language and printed it on his own printing press. His daughter Mary married David Livingstone and they left Kuruman to find Ngamiland in Botswana.

They settled at Kolobeng, synonymous with the names of two men, David and Kgosi Sechele. One was a zealous missionary come there to convert the heathen in the name of Christianity and the other the chief of the Bakwena tribe. Their paths were fated to diverge, Livingstone’s to lead him across the face of Darkest Africa and immortality in the annals of history, Sechele’s to l embrace a strange religion and begin to lead his people into the changing world which the coming of the white man brought to Africa.

The homestead at Kolobeng

Livingstone and his wife Mary and their children arrived in 1847. He built a house there erroneously believing that the Kolobeng River would be a constant source of water. He erected the first school and irrigation system as well as a rudimentary church which was the first Christian church to stand in Botswana.

He began to convert Sechele who finally succumbed to the faith but on pain of forgoing such ancient ceremonies as the rainmaking ritual and forsaking all of his wives except one. For this he narrowly escaped being murdered by his own people.

Here it was that Livingstone lost his daughter Elizabeth and his hope of ever bringing lost souls to the church. He sent Mary and their other children back to England and headed north for Africa and his dream of abolishing the slave trade. Elizabeth is buried at the foot of a tree on the banks of the river together with the artist Thomas Dolman but the house and the church were almost destroyed by a Boer commando although the Bakwena have to take the blame for this. When I was last there the remains of the buildings could still be seen and the lowing of the cattle and the tinkle of goat bells tell nothing of the drama that unfolded in this small corner of Africa.

Next we will pass through Upington that was started in 1873 as a mission station by the Rev. Schroder and named after Sir Thomas Upington, then Secretary General and later Prime Minister of the Cape. A Hottentot chieftain lived here in 1870 who wanted his people to learn to read and write. He petitioned the government in the Cape to send a missionary to teach them. The Rev. Schroder arrived destined to leave his stamp on the town and the area.

 The town sits on the banks of the Orange River now called the Gariep, a San name. The river rises in Lesotho where it is called the Senqu and travels 193 ks to its mouth between the towns of Oranjemund in Namibia and Alexander Bay on the West Coast of South Africa, forming the border between the two countries.

The Camel Statue in Upington

Rev. Schroder realized the potential of the river for irrigation and together with Japie Lutz laid building foundations and hand dug irrigation channels some of which are still to be seen today. Later A.D. Lewis was the brains behind the canal system that supports the agriculture of the region where grapes for wine and raisins are grown among other crops.

Susan and I brought the kids here and we visited the Tier mountain lookout. The early settlers thought leopards were tigers, hence the name Tiger Mountain. The view gives a panoramic picture of the river and its islands.

In the early days the police were mounted on camels to patrol this very dry area and in Upington there is a statue to commemorate their efforts. Another statue is a tribute to the donkeys that used to turn the water wheels and example of which can be found at Keimos just a little further on.

After Keimos you will find Kakamas and here you can turn off to the Augrabies Falls. Mr. G.  Thompson trekked across this barren land in 1827. His party was near starving having had no food for four days, tightening their famine girdles and considering shooting one of the horses. The Hottentot guides were against this fearing death I this thirstland if they were to do so. The brackish water from a gourd that a little girl offered them made them ill. A hunting party of Hottentots set out and came back with a dead zebra. Within an hour the Hottentots had devoured 8 lbs of meat each! There was singing and dancing while the meat roasted on the fire.

That night Mr. Thompson’s party slept on a high bank of the river as they had been warned that the evening before they had slept in the lions path. They were disturbed all night by howling hyenas. Carrying on they could hear the roar of the falls becoming louder and louder.

The San people named the falls Ankoerebis meaning place of great noise. The falls are 183 ft or 56 metres high and in the floods of 1988 7800 cubic metres per second poured over the lip.  These days the Augrabies National Park surrounds the falls.

Susan and I continued towards Pofadder, taking a side trip to Pella. Pella is a mission station started by two French missionaries, J.M. Simon and Leo Wolf, who built the most beautiful Catholic Cathedral here. They knew nothing of building and consulted their encyclopedie des Arts et Metiers that contained details of how to construct a building.

Within two years they finished it. It took more than 200 loads of sand, 400 wagon loads of stones, 200 000 bricks that they made themselves 350 bags of slaked lime and hundreds of wagonloads of willow wood. Today this Cathedral still stands as a tribute to the men of the order of St. Francis de la Sales. A local mining house has taken on the responsibility of maintaining the Cathedral.

The Cathedral in Pella

The nuns greeted us and gave us a tour of the remarkable building, taking us to the graves of the two men. We finally left with a packet of the juicy grapes that they sell. Date palms surround the mission.

On impulse we decided to go to Onseepkans. This little settlement on the Orange River serves as a border post between Namibia and South Africa with traffic moving between Keetmanshoop in Namibia and Pofadder in South Africa.

We were travelling in a low slung sedan and the gravel road was rough. Taking a side track to see if we could get near the river we ended up in a cul de sac, the sand too thick to reverse. Ahead lay a huge boulder and there was nothing for it but to drive onto this boulder in order to turn around! Full marks to the Opel although the undercarriage took some hammering but Susan’s driving skills got us on the way again. Of course the kids thought it all great fun and we stopped for a gin and tonic for the driver while I imbibed a vodka for my nerves!

So on to Pofadder and my proposed journey. I will stay overnight at Pofadder on my way to see Susan. This is the start of Namaqualand proper that is divided into three sub regions, the Namib desert, the Nama Karoo and the Succulent Karoo. Pofadder was named after either Klaas Pofadder, a raider of cattle and horses who was head of a band of desperados or the adder that lives in these hot dry places. Australopithecus was the first human to live here as long as three million years ago. They eventually had the ability to manufacture tools and that improved their diet from plant life to protein by killing rhino, hippo, giant wildebeest as well as smaller prey.

Jan van Riebeek arrived in the Cape in 1652 and was tantalized by tales of the legendary city Monomatapa. He sent several forays north along the coast searching for it. None were successful but Simon van der Stel found the copper mountain or Carolusberg and later successfully extracted copper ore. He explored Hondeklip Bay as a possible port to take the ore to the Cape and built the Wildeperdehoek Pass to get there with convicts. The bay is named after thee large stone that resembles a dog, hence the name Dog Stone Bay.

One year I had heard of an artist who had learnt to paint in goal. On his release he took up residence in Hondeklip Bay where he sold his art. I then drove an Isuzu KB28 4 x 4 and set off over the Wildeperdehoek (Wild horse) pass. It was Camel trophy stuff and I never saw another vehicle or sign of human activity except for the ruins of the building that housed van der Stel’s convicts.

I arrived in Hondeklip Bay to find the artist whose name I have forgotten was standing on the side of a road selling his paintings when I pulled up. He asked me which way I had come and I told him.  He looked at my arthritic hands. “Mam, nobody has been through that pass for yonks and you can’t change a tyre with those hands! “Oh, I am fine! I always carry water, food and of course Tassies!” (A rough red student wine). He shook his head. “Mam, you’ve got balls!”

The Nama people arrived here about 2000 years ago from what is now Botswana. They introduced a new means of power being domestic goats and cattle. The local people still move their livestock in seasonal patterns just as their forerunners did. The Namaqualanders have their feet in the earth and their humour is earthly. There was once a very bad drought and one of the old women of the congregation in a church stood and prayed : “Lord, this story of yours of millimetres and millmetres of rain must stop here. If you send us rain again send us metres and metres!” Her old husband plucked her onto her seat and said “By God, my old wife, who told you that our donkeys could swim? How will we get home?”

Namaqualanders are fond of nicknames and one Pocket Nagel who had never been further than Springbok was invited to spend a holiday in Hermanus on the East Coast near Cape Town about 800ks away. When he arrived at the first traffic light in Worcester he stopped, turned his car around and drove back to Kleinsee. He could not take the traffic!

On to Pofadder, named after either the snake or Klaas Pofadder a rebel who commanded armed bandits and stole horses and cattle. From thereon we should begin to see the flowers. The area is very dry and the road goes on and on. At a filling station you turn into the town itself, very neat and very small. Conservationists and biologists come here to study the tiny xerophytes and animal life. Pofadder is near the Ritchie Falls, the second largest after Augrabies but only accessible after either a two day hike or rafting downriver on the Gariep from Onseepkans.

I will leave you here and tell you more when I return. Of treasure and prospectors and early miners, of shipwrecks and many a tale told by the old ones.

SMARTIES AND THOUGHTS AT MIDNIGHT

Smarties Wot-A-Lot-I-Got

You can buy me expensive chocolates and I will enjoy them but my favourites are Smarties! For those who are not South African these little chocolate pebbles are covered by different coloured crisp sugar that you can suck until the chocolate oozes out or bite sharply into them.  A packet of them goes down well in the middle of the night. I had bought them to make Smartie biscuits but somehow they found themselves on my bedside table!

So I chewed and pondered on many things. Especially childhood memories of Fish Hoek. Along the beach there is a catwalk set into the rocks. The rock pools were a delight of bright sea urchins, pebbles and small klippie fish that darted in and out of little caves. One larger pool was called Skellie, I don’t know why, and we would dive off the rocks into the deep pool.

P.W. Botha became Prime Minister of South Africa and Apartheid had the effect of making South Africa a pariah in the international community of nations. P.W, as he was called, needed money and allowed the Chinese long liners into False Bay. They were after great white sharks for shark fin soup. Suddenly the whole eco system of the bay was affected and the rock pools were emptied of their occupants.

This got me thinking of the diminishing lion populations of Africa. If these great predators are endangered the whole ecosystem of the great parks will be in danger. Susan and I were in Etosha pan, worrying about being late for the gate of Namutoni when we saw this pale lioness in attacking position, her tail stretched straight and her gaze fixed upon a hidden prey.  We held our breath as she stood immobile, the fading light giving a luminescence to her coat. Time stood still until we unfortunately had to depart but the picture has remained clear in my mind and whenever I am in great pain the picture comes into focus yet again, comforting me.

As a girl I loved the train journey to and from Fish Hoek to Cape Town. The rail runs along the sea from Simonstown to Muizenberg with a great view of False Bay. Along this section the train stops at St. James, Kalk Bay and Clovelly. We would go to the bioscope at Muizenberg on Saturday and on the journey back would alight at Clovelly and walk to Fish Hoek along the beach.

These days the road winds between the little towns with the crags of Table Mountain chain rearing on the right hand, the breakers bashing themselves on the rocks on the other side. When my first grandsons were small I took them fishing with little nets for klippies at St. James and we caught two each, watching them swim around the bucket. The time came to return them to their pools and the two boys burst into tears, wailing at the loss of their fishy friends.

When we moved to Fish Hoek my father built our house himself. The lounge/diningroom was on a wonderful sprung floor and the local Old Time Dance club came every Friday evening. One of the members brought his young son, Donald, five years older than me but the two of us learnt to dance these gracious dances. I was around 16 I think, Donald would take me walking on the Fish Hoek mountains singing The Road to the Isles in his lovely baritone. He finally left Fish Hoek to take up a career in banking in Rhodesia as it then was, now Zimbabwe. That was the last time I saw him, but we have corresponded ever since. He now lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife Jan. Donald is also a writer, mostly of poems and over the years has sent me many an amusing naughty poem!

I learnt to waltz at those dances and loved to dance with my father who took long steps when we danced to The Blue Danube! None of my boyfriends could match that! However, one of them could jive and when we took to the floor at Royal Cape Yacht Club, the other dances would retire while we performed!

The Lighthouse on Kalkbay pier

These days the road from Muizenberg to Fish Hoek has become very trendy. Kalk Bay has a restaurant called The Brass Bell on the station where the waves crash against a huge picture window. Further along is the little harbour with a breakwater that keeps the huge waves at bay. My father used to fish off this pier and I was always terrified that a wave would sweep him into the sea. There are trendy restaurants in the harbour now and you can buy fresh snoek straight off the boats. The snoek is a relative of the barracuda, long and silvery with pointed teeth. This fish is delicious on the braai or barbecue, brushed with apricot jam.

Simonstown Harbour yacht basin

The railway ends at Simonstown which was a British Naval Base when I was a girl. A Great Dane called Nuisance used to catch the train to Cape Town where he would round up all the sailors who were a little worse for wear, see them onto the train and escort them back to base at Simonstown. There is a statue to him in the town and also a good book about his exploits.

Just Nusiance

The South African Navy runs the base now and when a boyfriend and I were stranded on his yacht moored in the little harbour, the dinghy having broken loose in the brisk southeaster wind, I radioed the Navy for help. They very kindly sent a boat to take us ashore.

I was awarded my Queen’s Guide badge by Lady Joy Packer at Admiralty house in Simonstown. Lady Packer wrote a book called Grey Mistress about her husband’s destroyer that she followed to ports around the world where her husband Sir Herbert was based. She loved South Africa and wrote a novel called Valley of the Vines a love story set in Constantia in Cape Town.

Lady Olave Baden-Powell came to Cape Town and a pageant was performed in her honour. Fish Hoek Guides were dressed in ancient Greek robes to represent the Dhodhekanisos Islands in Greece in the pageant wearing ancient Greek robes that were in reality sheets! Our venue was a stone amphitheatre just below Table Mountain and the perfect site. I was thrilled to be included and Lady Olave shook all our hands.

Lady Olave’s husband was of course Lord Robert Baden-Powell of Gilwell and the man in charge of the siege of Mafeking. Mafeking as it used to be called is a town on the north west border of South Africa with Botswana. During the Boer war the British wanted to divert Boer troops from the conflict in Natal and a small garrison was to be set up at Mafikeng under the command of Colonel Robert Baden-Powell.

Lord Robert Baden-Powell

The Boer General Cronje was sent to attempt to occupy the town and defeat the garrison. The Boers underestimated Baden-Powell’s resourcefulness. He manufactured structures that looked like railways and guns and then proceeded to make a canon out of scrap that was called The Wolf. This canon was used to fire bits of scrap at the Boers. He also found an old muzzle loader holding up a gate post that they used to fire at the Boers, naming it Lord Nelson. He made grenades from dynamite and eventually even constructed a small railway across the town. All in all he managed to convince the Boers that the garrison was a greater force than they had thought. Here it was that Baden Powell conceived the idea of a Boy Scout movement using children to carry messages and assist in hospitals.

When he and Lady Olave married she started the Girl Guide movement. I was a patrol leader in the Fish Hoek Guides and used to take my patrol hiking up the mountains that surrounded the village. We often camped overnight. I think that time in my life led to my love of adventure and curiosity to experience the bush.

 

 

 

 

LIFE’S TWISTS AND TURNS

Reading this blog over a good few times, it is a bit too much about me but it does illustrate just how chance and other influences can change the direction of one’s life and introduce new perspectives and experiences and make new friends.

I was sixteen when I joined Carinus Nursing College and lived in the nurses’s quarters for a while. One day I was persuaded to go on a blind date. The young man belonged to a sailing family and I was immediately hooked. I remember us sailing to Saldanha Bay on the West coast of South Africa and coming back in thick fog. The Suez crises was on with the canal closed and Table Bay was full of ships having to take the Cape Route. Foghorns blared all around us in the ghostly fog as we weaved our way through the huge ships.

I left nursing, as I was not suited to it. My mother was keen to get me away from my young man so sent me to the UK to join my  father who was tasked with changing the  South African railways from steam to diesel and was inspecting the diesel engines being built in the UK. I sailed on a Union Castle Liner docking at Southampton. From there I travelled with my father to Scotland then down to Manchester and began to look for a job. Seeing an advertisement for crew on a yacht heading for South America I had a choice to either take up the offer or join British European Airways.

I hitched a lift on the back of a Harley Davidson and we rode from Manchester to Chichester where I was to meet the skipper of the yacht. It was the 1^st of May and England had her best dress on, with fields of blue bells and daffodils. I took an instant dislike to the skipper of the yacht so returned to become part of the second intake of air hostesses for British European Airways.

I fell in love with travel and learnt a lot about independence during that time. Returning to South Africa after two years I found a job, dated my young man again but that alas, did not last and I met my future husband who was also a yachtsman.

Two babies later, Susan and then Michael, my marriage was in trouble and I took up riding at a nearby stable. Here came the biggest twist of my life. Jill Perks owned the riding school. She was an interesting person. She was convinced that there were diamonds in the Cape Flats and every riding pupil had to first help to dig the potential diamond mine before mounting their horse! Needless to say we never found diamonds!

Jill rode an enormous thoroughbred called Fra Diavolo. Fra Diovolo (Brother Devil) otherwise known as Michele Pezza was a guerrilla leader who resisted the French occupation of Naples in 1771. He featured in a lot of folk lore and Alexander Dumas included him in a few of his books. Fra Diovolo sauce is a fiery tomato based sauce.

Jill was a tiny woman and looked like a pimple on the huge horse who had a wonderful temperament and was not in the least bit like his namesake. I really took to riding and Jill bought me a little thoroughbred mare who had everything wrong with her!

One day Jill was trying to teach me to jump when two men arrived and stood watching as I fell off again and again. Jill introduced Trevor Botten and his friend Alan Higgins and we all had tea. Trevor asked me if I really wanted to learn to ride. My answer was yes. “Be at Muizenberg beach tomorrow morning at six and I will teach you to really ride!”

Jill had a dream of becoming a playwright. She wrote a play and roped me and my friend Bobby in as the leading lady and man. Bobby was over 6 ft tall and I only 5ft 4. She produced the play at the Masque Theatre main road Muizenberg and it ran for a week. That was my one and only attempt at treading the boards!

Jill finally met Rosalie van der Gught, a lecturer at the University of Cape Town. Rosalie was a brilliant teacher and taught Jill who left her husband and took up with a puppeteer. From there she wrote plays and when she died the Cape Times newspaper devoted a half page to her obituary about her success as a playwright.

But I digress. The morning that I arrived at Muizenber was brisk with the Indian Ocean waves pounding upon the hard sand. Racehorses circled waiting for their riders and I was shown how to get a leg up while a beautiful liver chestnut gelding called Quatre Bra stood obediently. For the next two weeks I walked him around the ring being taught how to pull up my irons (stirrups), crouch like a jockey until my thighs ached, and hold the reins as they should be held.

Finally the day came when I was allowed to trot down the sand track next to a well known jockey in that jockey position while he slapped my back with his stick and told me to get down lower! Then I was allowed to canter and from there on I progressed to riding very good horses and becoming part of the famous Beverley Stables crew. I rode gallops on the turf at Kenilworth and one stands out in my memory.

Trevor had three top class sprinters in his stable and one morning he decided that they would gallop together over six furlongs at Kenilworth racecourse. The horses were Rumba Rage by Drum Beat, a stallion that had been the fastest horse in the world, Eastertide sired by a prolific sprinting stallion, Royal Pardon and Benzol whose sire Silver Tor was not in the Jockey Club stud books but very fast. He put two top jockeys, Stanley Amos and Johnny Cawcutt up on Benzol and Rumba Rage, me on Eastertide. These horses were so fast I hardly took a breath. Trevor very cunningly had me as the lightest weight win the gallop! What a thrill!

My life as I grew ever more passionate about thoroughbreds and I attended the yearling sales, learnt how to judge a good horse and finally married Trevor and had TJ, my youngest son. I often joke with TJ that he exists because I fell off a horse!

Trevor introduced me to Jenny, who was destined to be a friend until the day she died some time ago. Jenny was a vibrant redhead and she and her husband were looking for a house to rent. They had three children. Her husband, Stew as we called him had been a Flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force. I found them a house at Zeekoe (hippopotamus) Vlei (shallow lake) where I lived and Stew taught me how to cook duck le orange.  Jenny and I joined the Cape Hunt and Polo Club and rode to hounds together.

One day Jenny asked me to come and exercise the Cape Hunt and Polo Club hounds up on Sir Lowry’s pass. I fell off and was obviously badly injured. Jenny rode back to the stables returning with a little yellow Volkswagen and a bottle of whisky. She made me gulp  some and split it over me. Jenny told me to keep sipping until we reached Groote Schuur hospital. The young intern who saw us there shook his head and pinched his nose at the smell of whisky, obviously taking me to be a drunk. “How did this happen?” he asked Jenny. “Well you see, we were chasing men in the mountains and Molly got so excited that she fell off!” The intern burst out laughing and sent me off for x-rays. He took one look at the film and told me to go home, lie flat on my back for three months and my broken pelvis would eventually heal!

By chance I met Peter who was editor of the YOU magazine. Peter had a dream of living in the Greek islands and drinking red wine. However he found time to read my first manuscript of July Fever that I typed on an old Imperial typewriter. He remarked. “You have a story here. Go and write it again.” Later he asked me if I had ever had sex. “Of Course, I have children!” “Well write it like it IS!”  He made me rewrite the book five times until he was satisfied! The novel was a great success and made book of the month for a Durban newspaper at the July of 1980.

Eventually I gave up the horses and began to sell houses. I decided that I really wanted to learn to sail deep sea yachts and joined Rod’s sailing academy in Simonstown. Rod had crewed on one of the round the world yachts and was a great seaman. We got on well and he asked me to partner him in the purchase of a Miura, a 30 odd foot yacht built by Van der Stadt especially for Cape waters.

Michael turned eighteen and came into his inheritance. He was keen on hitching as crew on yachts around the Caribbean eventually ending up at Antigua for the famous racing week there. He asked me to come with him so I suggested we sail arou nd the British Virgin Islands after which he could find a berth, hopping from island to island until he got to Antigua and I would fly home. We found an outfit that rented bare boats but this required me to get my Skipper’s ticket. I had a practical test by the harbour master in Simonstown on a blustery day while still in crutches and passed thanks to Rod’s coaching. Mick and I had a great time sailing around the Islands and when I thought we had run out of luck we met a French couple on their old Norwegian trawler bound for Bermuda. We were invited for a drink and I still remember the taste of the wonderful rose wine they offered. They happily took Mick with them and he worked his way to Antigua.

I did very well at selling houses and moved back to Zeekoe Vlei. One day a family bought the house opposite. Ever gregarious, I went over to meet them and that changed my friend Annie’s life. Amazingly we are still friends today!

Annie was a housewife with four children. She could not drive and was housebound when her husband was out to work. Annie had the most infectious laugh and I decided to teach her to drive. The independence this brought her changed her life.  I was instrumental at encouraging her to become an Estate Agent and Annie was off on a journey of her own.

Annie’s boys sailed dinghy’s at Zeekoe Vlei yacht club and eventually David became my tactician when I raced the Miura on Wednesday afternoons at Royal Cape Yacht Club. Annie turned out to be a natural business woman, TJ and her youngest, Lucy were great friends. Rod got together a scratch crew to hire a class yacht at Cowes with the aim of sailing there during Cowes week. I excitedly put my name down. Rod then suggested that he and I and his girlfriend have as sailing holiday around the Greek islands afterwards. I asked Annie if Lucy could come and I would take Lucy and TJ with us. She agreed and TJ still says that was the best holiday of his life!

Rod had hired a 32 foot class yacht. The owner was on board with us and Deca navigation had just come out enabling us to tack very close to the shore. A highlight was seeing the Queen Mary make her way through all these pesky little yachts on her way to the Atlantic. We had a shakedown cruise across to France then returned to Cowes and won the first race in our class!

Then we went off on our flotilla holiday. As Rod was so experienced, we were allowed to do our own thing. We sailed from island to island, the two children loving every  minute of it after which they went home and I flew to Ireland to visit the stud farms there and to see Goffs the auctioneering house.

Another chance meeting led to a friendship that was to last until this day just as Annie’s has. I decided to take TJ, then seven, to ski in Austria. The tour leader was Joy, together with her husband Colin. Colin got frostbite on his finger and was banned from going onto the slopes again. I came back early one day and knocked on Joy’s door to hear Colin’s voice inviting me in. I entered to find him lying in a hot bath with a beer to hand. He hastily covered up the necessary parts and bade me join him with a glass of wine.

I sat on the loo and we had a jolly chat with a few good laughs. Enter Joy to find her husband with one of her tour group! We have chuckled about it ever since and are still the best of friends. Tragedy also struck her after the birth of her two sons when eventually Colin succumbed to the blood disorder that he had.

Of course Susan, Mick (Michael) and years later, TJ all rode. Mick joined the equine division when he had to do his army stint, Susan married a thoroughbred stud master and TJ played polocrosse.

Hard times came and I moved to Philadelphia, very near Atlantis, the town erected by the government for the coloured community, part of their separate development policy. We stayed on a small holding in a little wooden cottage that TJ and I built. He was now at school at Sacs and I was battling to find work. I had some remaining copies of July Fever and took one to a woman I had heard of preparing yearlings for the racing stables. I desperately needed fuel for my little car to take him to school the next day.

A large woman was lunging a yearling. The yearling could not understand what was required of him and kept stopping or bucking or turning to her with a puzzled look. Diz, as I learnt was her name, would break into swearing that would make a sailor blush. She would then lift her head to the sky and apologize to the Lord. “I promise I won’t do it again Lord.” Within minutes the swearing would commence again.

She finished with the yearling and invited me in. I asked her if she would like to buy the book. Diz told me later that she was just as broke as I was and had a bit of cash to buy cigarettes but thought I needed the money more than she did! We became friends and one day she found an advertisement for coal fired Dover Stoves. She bought one for each of us and many a good time was had around my stove with a pot of soup and a jug of wine. Our friendship grew and we had great times together, the stories are too long to tell here but will appear in other blogs from time to time.

Another friend at that time was June Washington. We cooked many a family meal together and when I decided to answer an advertisement for a trip to Mozambique she accompanied me. That is a story on its own but it led to meeting my friend Nic Tass of Turtle Cove in Tofo who has turned out to be a friend for life together with his wife Nelia. More of that in another blog too.

Michael returned from a stint in London after attaining his Accountant’s degree. He decided to buy me a house and we picked Langebaan also on the West Coast but nearer to Cape Town. Here I met Denis Lees and began to take painting lessons with him.

Denis and his wife Laura had a wonderful house with the studio on top at Jakopsbaai (Jacobs Bay). Laura and I cooked many a good meal in their roomy kitchen with glasses of wine to hand. When I moved to Joburg they moved to Taiwan where they stayed for five years teaching English. Denis recently popped up on facebook looking for me. I learnt he was living in Reitz and I travelled down there, only a two and a half hour journey for three days of tuition. He is a wonderful teacher. He has moved on to Balito Bay so I will go and see him there in the new year.

Molly, Dennis, and Eleanor

Susan and I started a little magazine for the West Coast called Out and About on the West Coast. This led to me travelling in South Africa to begin with and we began to take her four children on adventures. When I ventured into Botswana, Namibia and Zambia we produced guidebooks for the three countries. Susan taught herself graphic art and did all the advertisements that I sold. I did most of the travelling and selling but she joined me at times and we had exceptional times together. We marketed the books at the World Travel Fair in London, ITB in Berlin and at the convention centre in Durban.

Diz was instrumental in introducing me to Joy Bianchi. Joy was born on the Isle of Wight and arrived in Africa when she was seventeen. Her brother was working on the copper mines in Ndola in then Northern Rhodesia now Zambia. She married charming Con Bianchi, he with twinkling bedroom eyes and a great dancer. In next to no time she was living in the bush with four children! She had met Diz there when she too was on the copper belt with two children, Sue and Dori. There was a thriving horse community there.

Diz somewhere on the Delta

I met Dori when she joined Diz in Philadelphia with her little daughter Jordan. Sue met her husband, a vet, there and the two immigrated to Australia where they have a chain of veterinary surgeries and two now grown up daughters.

Joy lived in a large old farmhouse in Gaborone. Her daughter Eileen had married an air force technician who had a terrible accident while on duty in Walvis Bay in Namibia. He became a paraplegic and Joy and Con dedicated their lives to helping the family and the two boys Glen and Ryan. Con built a riding stable for Eileen to teach riding and have an income. The boys became friends with Susan’s children especially when Susan moved to Maun in Botswana. Tragically Glen was electrocuted while working in a fuel from plants factory during his grandfather’s final days.

Joy and I enjoying a glass of wine on the West Coast

Tj had been working in London and let me know that he was returning overland. Could I meet him at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe? I did and he greeted me. “My Mother I presume?” Tj was keen to go into the Okavango Delta and so was I. Accordingly we travelled to Maun where I met Tiaan Theron, one of the best guides in Botswana. Tiaan took us to the mokoro station in Moremi where we met our poler who took us into the delta.

The first night it rained cats and dogs. Lions roared! Elephants screamed. We shivered in our little tent but the next day the heat was back. Our poler turned out to be an excellent guide and one morning very early we crept up to within twenty feet of a feeding elephant. The poler kept testing the wind with his licked finger and after a few minutes we retreated. We were captivated by this wilderness and when Tiaan picked us up and joined us for a beer I asked him if he would take my grandchildren into the delta. “Provided they know I am boss and they listen to me!” Many adventures and years later we are still friends.

One year Tiaan phoned me and said he had a safari company for sale. Mick and I persuaded Susan who was then living with me in Langebaan during a difficult divorce to take up the offer. Mick put up the money and Susan and her kids lived in Maun for many a year.

Over the years whenever I went to Botswana I stayed with Joy and we had a very deep friendship. Joy was a top dressage judge in Gaborone so we had horses in common. However finances caught up with Joy during her retirement and she finally relocated to the UK. Her dog Thebe, a harlequin Great Dane, spent the rest of her life with Joy’s one son Ricky who lives in Kleinsee with Susan. Thebe has just recently died. Very sad, as she saved my life twice when under attack at Joy’s house outside Gaborone.

Michelle, Ryan and Jacques fishing in the Limpopo

I cannot talk of Botswana without mentioning Norma Watson and her husband who owned Le Roo La Tau at the time. The name means the footsteps of the lion. We were always welcome there and Steve, their guide, took us on some very memorable safaris. Norma was a patron of the lovely Khama Reserve that is a sanctuary for breeding rhinos.

Eventually Susan and I were doing books for Namibia and Zambia as well. We first went into Zambia when a man in rags with an AK47 under a tree was the road block. How things have changed. Our books became so popular that we were ultimately hosted by top safari outfits such as Robin Pope Safaris and Shenton Safaris as well as Norman Carr Safaris.

Jenny came with me on a walking safari with Robin Pope safaris at Mupamadzi river in the remote north west of the park. One morning we came back very hot and Jenny told our guide that we were going to take a skinny dip in the shallow river. He obligingly cleared thee camp of staff and Jen and I wallowed with bums to the sky cooling off! Jo Pope told us that the other guests had so enjoyed our company that we were welcome any time. Susan I stayed at Nsefu on several occasions.

Robin Pope Safaris

I stayed with Derek Shenton at Mwambo and Kaingo camp often. One night he took me on a night drive and we heard a peculiar mewing sound coming from a lioness. Sometime after I was in Kutze Reserve in Botswana, where there were very curious lions and I heard the same noise. We got into our vehicles immediately and sure enough the pride came walking through.

Time moved on and the road was a long one from Langebaan to Mozambique and Botswana. Mick had married Mandy and lived in Johannesburg as did TJ, married to Maud. Mick had one daughter with his first wife Marie, Meg currently working in London. Mandy had two girls who readily adopted me as a granny. Kate is an accountant and living here while her sister Sarah is living with her father in New Zealand. TJ and Maud were also living in Johannesburg and both Mick and I thought it would be better to move up here. Mick sold the Langebaan house and bought the cottage that I now have in a retirement village.

Joy and her one son live here as does her cousin Gail who has also been a friend for all the years I have known Joy. The other son lives in Cape Town and has a young son. She has recently met a life partner and they travel into Kruger National Park frequently also spending weekends away  at the little known places around the country.

I have made new friends here, belong to Four Seasons Art studio under Sue Prior who has proved to be another friend. The other artists come from all walks of life and were very supportive during my time in hospital for the new hip replacement bringing me a marvelous hamper that also contained goodies for Jack my little dachshund.

I am travelling again. Just come back from Nelspruit and Kruger Park and will be off to see Susan in September where she lives at Kleinsee on the West coast then off to Mozambique for the Christmas holidays. Who knows where next? Probably Balito Bay near Durban for more art lessons from Denis. See him on the internet under Denis Lees and please check in to Four Seasons Studio as well. My adventures in these countries are often featured in the novels I write and the blogs I get out  every two weeks or so.