She actually did. My sister Barbara’s granma lived at 131 Boom Street Pietermaritzburg.

Born in the bedroom on the left on 15 December 1922

Right across the road was this school. Going to the Afrikaans school would have meant a bus ride, and Oupa was frugal.

And so started the ver-engels-ing of Dad. The rooinek-erisation. Pieter Gerhardus became ‘Peter’.

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*ver-engels – Anglicisation

*rooinek – Boer word for Poms – anyone from ‘England’ – any of those islands left of France. Literally ‘red necks’ – but not America rednecks. NB: This excluded those Irishmen who fought for the Boers against the plundering, wicked, invading, looting Poms.