Yay! Science! Botany in this case: I just found out what the very first flower I ever drew was/is: A Canary Bird Bush Crotalaria agatiflora.
I suppose for a school project? I collected a few in our garden and drew the flower and the leaf. I was fascinated by the shape of the flower: like a yellow bird, butterfly or ship.
I saw this on iNaturalist.org thanks to prolific iNatter @troos (Troos vdMerwe) and there’s a lovely twist: He photographed it in the favourite gardens of a favourite schoolfriend of my Mother Mary’s!
Harrismith 1945 matriculant Joey de Beer became Jo Onderstall and became a founder member of the Lowveld Botanic Society and the Lowveld Botanic Gardens in Nelspruit, now Mbombela. She wrote the book on Lowveld flowering plants.
– Jo Onderstall’s 1984 book –
A lovely full-circle kind of story.
~~oo0oo~~
Joey matriculated with Mary in Harrismith in 1945. When she heard Mary was going nursing she expostulated: What A Waste Of A Good Brain! She was right, but Mom decided she needed to do something that earned her a salary and cost her widowed Mom Annie nothing. Typical Mom. Joey went on to study phys ed teaching in Bloem, then married ‘doctor/farmer’ Bill Onderstall. They moved to Nelspruit in 1950. Bill gave Jo a camera for a wedding present and so she herself took a lot of the pictures in the articles and books she wrote. I didn’t know her mother Bessie de Beer had been chair of the Drakensberg and Eastern Free State branch of the Botanical Society, so Jo followed in Bessie’s footsteps. Must tell Mom that. Jo herself seems as self-effacing as Mom. She writes in the introduction that her name on the book ‘is but the visible tip of an iceberg’ and the fact that she took most of the photos is mentioned nowhere. All other photographers are acknowledged, but even the fact that she took the front and back cover pictures is only added in the ‘errata’ – like an afterthought! I’m guessing some of her friends insisted on that.
~~oo0oo~~
Yellow bird! Who remembers Johan Pheiffer who came from the city to Harrismith to visit his cousins the du Plessis in the dorp, whipped out his guitar and sang Yellow Bird?
~~oo0oo~~
Later: Mom said, ‘Thanks for this.’ Sheila read it to her. She didn’t know Bessie had also been involved in things botanical. She did know that Bessie used to take people for the drivers test. ‘You would drive her round the block and she’d say OK, you have your licence. None of this parking into a garage stuff.’ So says Ma.
Her good friends Joey de Beer and Dossie Farquhar said Mom must take science. She found it hard, but enjoyed it. She didn’t like the science teacher, Swart Piet du Toit, though. There was also a teacher called Wit Piet du Toit, who later was called Whitey. Wit Piet married one of the girls he had taught in Std 6. Beautiful girl. Later he married Doris.
Bertie van Niekerk was tall and impeccably dressed and rich. He wore a big hat, drove a lang slap American car and rode beautiful horses. One was called Bespoke and the rooineks were too scared to tell Bertie you didn’t pronounce that as though it was haunted.
I remember him in a tall hat – not a tophat, though, I don’t think – and a black coat with tails – the Afrikaans word ‘manel‘ springs to mind, but quote me at your peril. Special Vrystaat horseriding gear. ‘n maneljas, amiright?
Dad remembers him winning one ‘Best Farm Horse’ (beste boerperd?) award at the show: Everyone had to put their horses through their paces. Their mount had to stay put when the reins were tossed over its head and left to dangle; it had to not flinch when its owner cracked a whip next to its ear; and other stuff. After he’d done all he needed to do, Bertie kicked his boots out of the stirrups, got up on the saddle, stood tall and looked around. Then he removed binoculars from his pocket and gazed around serenely, still standing on the saddle, his horse dead still and calm.
The crowd loved it and roared their approval! A few might have muttered ‘windgat,’ maybe?
~~oo0oo~~
I wish I had pictures! The pics above remind me of what I saw at the show all those years ago – horses stepping exaggeratedly with a rider or pulling a cart. A trap? Lots of brown cows and then one brown cow was mysteriously chosen as the champion. Also jars with jam in them and crocheted doilies and amateur paintings, some with a gold dot on the frame, some a silver dot and some a brown dot. Some no dots. But memory is dodgy, so it’d be great to see authentic Harrismith pics from back then. They’re out there somewhere.
Mary Bland and Sylvia Bain, cousins, decided there was NO WAY they were going to miss the dance in the Harrismith Town Hall. This is quite possibly Mary’s single biggest act of defiance or wilful disobedience in her whole life. See, they were meant to be in Durban then, to start their midwifery course at Addington Childrens Hospital.
But to the dance in the dorp they went. Mary with Pieter, who she later married; and Sylvia with John, who she later married.
The next day they left (by train?) and in Durban they got their new quarters and their new uniform, which they loved: ‘It had a long fishtail headdress down the back almost to our waists. It looked beautiful.’
Also, their new matron was Mary Hawkins and they knew her sisters in Harrismith and in fact, Mary’s Mom Annie had dated her brother ‘Hawks’ Hawkins for quite a long while.
– Addington Childrens Hospital – Maybe by 1949 it looked more like on the right? –
When they were summonsed to Matron Hawkins’ office they waltzed in merrily feeling glam and looking forward to a warm Harrismith welcome; only to be met with a frosty blast and a good dressing-down from Bloody Bill, as Mary Hawkins was known by those who knew her! Or sometimes Bloody Mary. She had been the Matron of all SA nurses in the war, and this was shortly after the war, and she was in no mood for nonsense. They were LATE starting their course and she’d not cut them any slack just cos they were from her home town!
– Mary left and Sylvia, new in Durban – ca.1949 – day off – Mary Bland and Sylvia Bain before they became wilfully disobedient – Hey! At least they did get their certificates in the end! – they thought the training was not as good as at Boksburg-Benoni hospital –
Somewhere there’s a newspaper photo of Mary and Sylvia with a New Year crop of fresh Durban babies. Must find it.
– Ah, here it is – Sheila had it –
~~oo0oo~~
The feature pic shows Mary and Pieter also in 1949, also outside the Town Hall, but another occasion.
~~oo0oo~~
pics from skyscrapercity.com; and kznpr.co.za – thank you. kznpr is Hugh Bland’s site; Here’s the cover of Hugh’s book on the Addington Childrens Hospital:
Hugh Bland and Mary Bland are related if you go way back to Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland and John Francis Adam Bland, so they have both played a part in the Addington Childrens Hospital. Hugh didn’t deliver any babies, though, so his role was way less important than my Ma’s.
Big sister Barbara Swanepoel Tarr met Rabbi Moshe Silberhaft, the travelling rabbi, who I wrote about some time back. He very kindly gave her a book.
Barbara tells of her voyage of discovery looking up old Jewish friends. This post is snippets from a letter she wrote:
Many of the names and surnames have been mentioned to me in conversations over the years with my parents and some I knew personally and grew up with. We’re still lucky enough to be able to contact our folks, Pieter Swanepoel (98) and Mary Bland Swanepoel (92), who now live in Pietermaritzburg and still have amazingly good memories. They fill in the gaps with names and places and help make our history come alive.
In Harrismith, the Royal Hotel was built by my great grandfather Stewart Bain and was sold to Mr. Sookie Hellman; the Central Hotel was built by his brother James Bain and was sold to Mr. Randolph Stiller.
– the extended Stiller family –
We lived in the Central Hotel for about three months in 1960. Mom and Dad had bought our first house in town – 95 Stuart Street, and were waiting for the tenant’s lease to expire. There we got to know the Stiller family (Isa was a young girl at school, I think) and Becky Kaplan, the receptionist. The Deborah Retief Gardens were our playing fields, under the watchful eye of Ted and Fanny Glick, sitting on their balcony in Van Sandwyk Flats No 1.
Fanny Glick and my grandmother Annie Bain Bland were the best of friends. Sunday afternoons these two characterful old dears would pick up the three Swanepoel kids in Annie’s big cream Chev and tootle down to the Park on the Wilge River. There we were each given a sixpence and left to our own devices at the round kiosk. ‘Glick’ and ‘Anna’ (that’s what they called one another) enjoyed tea and scones in the Chevy, and us three would swing, slide and no doubt fight on all the wonderful ‘things’ in the playground.
– See Anna and Glick, great friends, on a drive – we’re in the back seat –
Around 2015 a bee flew into my bonnet, and I started looking for old Harrismith High School scholars. Finding Ivan and Brenda Katz in Joburg was a gem of a find; I also found another strong Harrismith sister, Adele Cohen.
In 1961 in Std 1, I received my first bicycle for Christmas – a blue Raleigh that kept me going to matric in 1970. I remember going into your Dad Eddie Cohen’s shop for a patch, a new tube, a bell or just to look around. All too soon, the three Swanepoel kids were finished with school and our bikes were no longer needed. Happily they became the property of new owners…the three Cohen kids.
Joy Kadey, your parents’ shop, Jack Kadey’s Jewellers, still stands and is very much alive. Now called Louis’ Jewellers. While the name has changed, very little else has changed in the shop and in the whole building, thanks to Louis Nel and his daughter Erika Nel du Plessis (the owner). She has managed to make time stand still in a little place of long ago. Absolutely worth a visit to this ‘lil ‘ol shoppe’ of our childhood. Erika and husband Pierre du Plessis live in Louis Green’s old home in Warden Street, which they have also restored beautifully. One of Harrismith’s magnificent old homes.
Other Jewish people from old Harrismith are Essie Rosenberg Lunz, John French (great nephew of Fanny Glick, who sent a Facebook link on the Harrismith Jewish Cemetery), David Babbin, son of Isaac and Joey Babbin from the Tickey Bazaar, where you could buy ‘everything.’ How I loved that shop! Walking in through the door took one into an amazing fairyland. Baskets of all sorts on the floor, glass compartments of sweets at mouth-watering eye level, and counters of ‘what you will,’ and everything that could hang was hanging …just ‘as you like it’…..it was all there!
Who knows more about this lovely story? Let me know!
~~oo0oo~~
Andrews Motel on van Reenens Pass was a well-known landmark to anyone who drove the busy N3 between Jo’burg and Durban. The unusual triangular, or pyramid- or ‘wigwam’ -shaped chalets were visible as you drove by. Later called The Pyramids Motel, I see Leon Strachan called it Klein Giza!
Old Mr Andrews had retired to Harrismith and was now dying. He asked his GP, Mike v Niekerk to please scatter his ashes on top of Platberg.
When the time came, Mike took Mr Andrews’ nephew to the airstrip on 42nd Hill. Clutching the little box he got into Mike’s plane; they took off, circled, climbed and headed for the western end of nearby Platberg, that iconic mountain that most people who live in Harrismith claim as their own. When the time was right, he signaled to the nephew to open the window and empty out the ashes as requested by the old man.
The nephew did; he opened the box; opened the window; and flicked out the ashes. Which blew straight back into his face and all over the interior of the plane!
Mike turned and landed back at the strip. Says he spent the rest of the day spitting out Andrews Ashes!
Some of the ashes surely must have landed on top of Platberg though? As requested. Maybe.
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s a great painting of the western end of Platberg – the end nearest the aerodrome – by Alan Kennedy, artist who grew up spending holidays with his uncle and aunt Leo and Heather Hilkovitz at magic Little Switzerland Hotel.
We should have been more Biblical. Us Swanie kids should have listened in Sunday School and been a lot more faithfully Biblical. Maybe even evangelical?
Doesn’t the Bible say quite clearly and unambiguously, ‘Obey Your Father!’? or ‘Obey Thy Father’? And patriarch Pieter Gerhardus Swanepoel said quite clearly and unambiguously, ‘Shoot Me When I Turn Sixty!’
We shoulda been obedient children.
~~oo0oo~~
Luckily for him (now aged 100 – 2022) the Bible might also say ‘Obey Your Mother.’ Does it? Lemme check.
Yep. Ephesians 6 v1 – Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right.
~~oo0oo~~
That command – disobeying it – coulda had serious consequences! Our disobedience (or mine, as a son) could have led to this:
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, . . . that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother (Ah, Mom woulda saved me) lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place . . . And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die . . . (Blimey! But ‘God Loves Ya!’ Eish!) – Deuteronomy Chapter 21 v18
Scottish courts have an office of The Keeper of the Rolls. We don’t have a Rolls to keep, but we do have a vault-keeper.
In every generation there is (hopefully) a vault-keeper, one who guards the links and knows they are precious. author Dani Shapiro, paraphrased.
In our family our Keeper of the Rolls and Vault-Keeper is Sheila in her flat on the Berea in Durban.
– eish – photo albums – what an old-time ‘cloud’ looks like –
Sheila’s busy scanning, saving and tossing to try and get some space back! Her lucky friends are receiving envelopes of pictures with the admonition, ‘Take these and go!’
I catch what I can and add to my blogs, my digital vault. Parked now ‘on the cloud.’ One day – a book? Maybe even an old-fashioned paper one?
We drove off the dirt road and onto a green hill, stopped the light blue Holden station wagon and walked up to the top of the low hill which ended in a steep cliff overlooking Natal down below. We were on the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment and about 30m below us (I’d guess) was a nest, just as Robbie Sharratt had told Dad there would be, and on the nest was an eagle chick.
– location Normandien Pass arrowed – detail in inset –
The main reason the ole man had taken his dearly beloved son on a rare outing was his new Canon FT QL SLR camera with a 200mm telephoto lens. It needed a subject, and there was the Black Eagle chick right there in the hot sun. Aquila verreauxii, now called Verreaux’s Eagle.
The way I recall it, we got pics of the nest and the chick, and a parent landed on or near the nest while we waited, but I could be imagining that part. Wonder where those Agfa slide pics are? I’d guess this was ca.1965 when I was ten years old.
If you’re writing an olden days blog you run out of material. Only so much happened from when I was born till I met Aitch, which is the timeline of this blog – my Born, Bachelorhood and Beer blog. So there’s recycling. Here’s a post I wrote in 2014, twice updated and embellished:
~~oo0oo~~
In high school we had an older mate who was in the Free State koor. He was famous in Harrismith for that. You could say he enjoyed Harrismith-wide fame. His nickname was Spreeu but we called him Sparrow. Everyone knew Sparrow – Chris Bester – and everyone knew Sparrow was one of ‘Die Kanaries – Die Vrystaatse Jeugkoor.’ Fame! Travel! Bright lights! Girls threw their broekies at the Kanaries! OK, maybe not.
One day a buzz went round school that Septimus – apparently he was the seventh child – Smuts, Free State Inspector of Music was there – here! in Harrismith, city of song and laughter – to do auditions for new members for this famous koor.
We were there! Me and Gabba. Neither known for having the faintest interest in warbling before (my membership of the laerskool koor a distant memory – I was over the trauma). Nor any other form of culture come to think of it, other than the fine art of rugby. Gabba was a famous – beroemde, kranige – rugby player, having been chosen for Oos Vrystaat Craven Week in Std 8, Std 9, Std 9 & Std 10. Strong as an ox, great sense of humour, good heart.
People were amazed: “What are YOU ous doing here?” they asked as we waited in the queue. We just smiled. We’d already missed biology and PT.
Septimus was a dapper little rockspider full of confidence. He gave Gabba exactly three seconds and sent him packing. Gave me ten times longer and said ‘Nice enough, but no range.’ So back to class we went, crestfallen look on our dials, mournfully telling our mates and the teacher that we COULD NOT understand how we’d been rejected and there must have been some kind of mistake. Tender-rigging, maybe? Maybe our voices were taken out of context?
– Gabba in choirboy mode – Seppie at the piano –
The maths teacher Ou Oosie raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes, but they were a bit hidden behind his thick black plastic bril. But we stuck to our story: It had been a longtime deep desire of ours to sing for our province and the rejection cut us deep. And maybe the keuringsproses was rigged.
It became my & Gabba’s standing joke over the decades that followed. Every time we met we’d have a lekker laugh. Then he’d update me on our hoerskool athletics records: his for shotput and mine for the 100m sprint. Mine was eventually beaten about twenty years later. Gabba said ‘hier’t n nuwe oukie gekom wat soos die wind gehol het.’ His shotput record probably still stands, as far as I know. It was a mighty heave. I choon you, verily, on that day in 1972, he stooted that gewig moertoe.
We may have scored E’s and F’s on most of these, but on 7.2.1.8 Intelligence and Dedication we surely got an A? Also, if we’d known that Septimus the choirmaster had ‘n besondere liefde vir die gedrae polifonie van Palestrina se koorkompetisies,’ we’d have practiced that shit.
~~oo0oo~~
spreeu – starling, but mistranslated and verengels as ‘sparrow’
verengels – anglicised; corrupted
Die Kanaries – ve canaries
Vrystaatse Jeugkoor – Free State Youth Choir; it must be confessed we would mock it as the Yech Choir
broekies – panties; maybe bloomers
beroemde, kranige – famous, outstanding
Oos Vrystaat – Eastern Free State; our neck of the woods
bril – spectacles; eyeglasses
hier’t n nuwe oukie gekom wat soos die wind gehol het – a new guy arrived in the dorp who ran like the wind
keuringsproses – like ‘Harrismith’s Got Talent’ – y’know, judges; impartial??
stoot a gewig – shotput
moertoe – a long way
‘n besondere liefde vir die gedrae polifonie van Palestrina se koorkompetisies – fuck knows
~~oo0oo~~
Here’s Sep and one of his choirs with which he gained moderate regional fame. Of course he dipped out on international acclaim by not signing up me and Gabba as a duet.
~~oo0oo~~
For those sad mense who doubt Gabba’s dramatic talents and aspirations, I give you evidence:
Some 50 years on, R.I.P Gabba! You’ve moved on to that Great Shotput Circle in the Sky. Choirs up there will welcome you, I’m sure.
Sheila sent me a surprise postcard. So I have re-posted this 2015 blogpost about a Magical 1969 Tour, and attached the postcard at the end. Enjoy the Olden Daze!
~~oo0oo~~
The Kestell bus was like a half-loaf, but still the metropolis of Kestell – which we regarded as a sparsely-populated Afrikaans suburb of Harrismith – couldn’t roust enough boys to fill it, so they decided to invite some Harrismithians along to add wit, charm and Engels to the proceedings. Or anyway bulk.
So one fine winters day Johan Steyl announced in the assembly hall that Kestell was inviting fine, talented, well-behaved Harrismith boys to join their ‘seunstoer’ to South West Africa. It would be for fifteen days in the July holidays, and the cost would be twenty five South African 1969 Ronts.
Leon ‘Fluffy’ Crawley, Harry ‘Pikkie’ Loots, Pierre du Plessis, Tuffy Joubert and I said YES! and then our parents said yes and forked over the cash, so we were off! Now Sheila’s postcard reminds me that Jan van Wyk – who would be chosen head boy in matric the next year – also went along.
– an actual pic by Fluffy, care of mother Polly’s Kodak! –
It was boys-only, a seunstoer, but Mnr Braam Venter of Kestell took his young daughter along. She was about Std 4, we were Std 7 to 9. She was very popular and soon became like the tour mascot, second only to Wagter the tour dog – who was actually a found holey corobrick with a dog collar through one of its three holes and string for a leash.
The short bus had a longitudinal seating arrangement. The rows ran the length of the bus so you sat facing each other, sideways to your direction of travel.
We all bundled in and set off. After a few hours we had the first roadside stop. Mnr Venter lined us all up outside the bus and said ‘Right, introduce yourselves,’ as the Kestell ous didn’t know us – and we didn’t know them. Down the row came the names, van Tonder, van Wyk, van Niekerk, van Staden, van Aswegen, vanne Merwe, van Dit, van WhatWhat, Aasvoel, Kleine Asenvogel, Marble Hol. Fluffy standing next to me murmured ‘Steve McQueen,’ but when his turn came he let out with a clear ‘Leon Crawley,’ so I said ‘Steve McQueen’ out loud. Without a blink the naming continued before I could say ‘Uh, just kidding,’ so I became ‘Ou Steve‘ for the duration.
– Augrabies Falls – by Leon Fluffy Crawley –
Our first stop was Kimberley, where we camped in the caravan park and had some fun; then on to the Augrabies Falls on the Gariep (Orange) River, stopping at the roaring dunes near Hotazel in the Kalahari en-route. On from there to the borderpost at Onseepkans.
~~oo0oo~~
When we entered South West Africa we headed straight for a pub. The first pub we found. Us fourteen to sixteen year-olds. That’s cos we knew something.
We went to the Fish River Canyon. Like all canyons, it is billed as the biggest, longest, deepest, whatever, in the (insert your province, your country, or ‘world’ here). We stood on the rim and gazed down. Then Harry Loots and I couldn’t stand it; so – against orders – we zipped down the pathway, slipping and sliding down as fast as we could on the loose surface. Before we got to the bottom we decided we’d get into big kak if we took too long, so we reluctantly stopped and returned to the top, a lot more slowly.
– Steve Reed’s pic from 1993 when he did the full hike –
We camped next to the Vingerklip, or Mukorob, or Finger of God, near Karasburg, a sandstone rock formation in the Namib desert, while it still stood. It fell down nineteen years later on 8 December 1988, so that was obviously not our fault, nê. About 30m high from the vlaktes at the base, the little neck it balanced on was only about 3m by 1,5m, making it rather precarious.
– vingerklip as we left it – promise ! –
Later we camped near Windhoek where Dad had arranged that I got fetched by some of his relatives I had never met, to overnight at their home. Third or fourth cousins, I suppose. In the car on the way to their home they had lots of questions, but before I had finished my second sentence the younger son blurted out “Jis! Jy kan hoor jy’s ’n rooinek!” (Boy, You can hear you’re English-speaking!) and my bubble burst. All of my short life I had laboured under the mistaken and vain impression that I was completely fluent in Afrikaans. Hey! No-one had told me otherwise.
~~oo0oo~~
– a Welwitschia plant in the Namib desert – pic by photographer Crawley (Fluffy) with Polly’s Kodak camera –
On to the Brandberg, where a long walk would take you to some rock paintings. I chose not to make the walk. Pikkie did, and remembered: ‘the terrain was barren, hot as hell, and rock strewn. The rocks had a rich red-brown colour, and I thought it was amazing that the local indigenous people had painted a white lady, which according to legend was the Queen of Sheba, who they would probably never have seen! Some people wanted to pour water on the paintings but I think Braam stopped them and of course today I realise that he was a hundred per cent right in not letting us do it. If we all poured water on it it would have been washed away by now!’
– new Okakuejo gate –
We got to Etosha National Park after dark so the Okakuejo gate was closed. We didn’t pitch our tents that night to save time, simply bedding down outside ready to drive in first thing the next morning. On spotting us the next morning the game ranger said ‘Net hier het ‘n leeu eergistraand ‘n bok neergetrek.‘
– Namutoni camp, as we saw it! Fluffy’s pic again –
On our way back, we passed Lake Otjikoto, the ‘bottomless lake’:
– cichlid fish, Tilapia guinasana –– that’s us at the ‘bottomless’ lake – Fluffy the photographer – with his Ma Polly’s Kodak –
The Hoba meteorite next. Weighing about 60 tons, made of iron and nickel, it is still the largest single intact iron meteorite known, and also the most massive naturally-occurring piece of ferronickel known on Earth’s surface. Don’t worry, it’s estimated to have fallen 80 000 years ago.
– this pic from July 1967 –– 1969 – Fluffy’s authentic Kodak pic of the meteorite –
On the way out of SWA we reached the South East corner of the country, heading for the border with the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, when we spotted something tangled up in the roadside fences. Turned out to be a few springbok, some dead, some still alive but badly injured. As we spotted them one of the farm boys yelled out, ‘Ek debs die balsak!‘ He cut off the scrotum, pulled it over the base of a glass cooldrink bottle. What? we asked. Once it dried he would break the glass and he’d have an ashtray, he explained. Oh.
The alive ones were dispatched and all were taken to the nearby farmer who gave us one for our trouble. It seems some hunters are indiscriminate and less than accurate and the buck panic before the onslaught and run into the fences.
– looking at them I would never have guessed they had potential ashtrays a-hanging ! –
That night we made a huge bonfire on the dry bed of the Nossob river or one of its tributaries and braai’d the springbok meat. It was freezing in July so we placed our sleeping bags around the fire and moved closer to the bed of coals all night long. Every time we woke we inched closer.
A wonderful star-filled night sky above us.
~~oo0oo~~
edit: Updated since Fluffy found his 1969 pictures of SWA. Taken with Ma Polly’s Kodak camera. So now our story has real pics, not just internet pics. – Harry says: Even reading it a second time brings back great memories! Fluffy asks: Can you guys remember the freshly baked brown bread we bought from a plaas winkel… Twee Rivieren… On our way back… Pretty expensive if I remember well – 17 cents . .
That was an unforgettable fifteen days! We’re so lucky to have enjoyed such an adventure. We still talk about it. For many years after – fifty-plus years – I kept the oxwagon axle hub I had found in the veld and written everyone’s name on.
*put pic of hub here*
Pikkie tried to get us to go again in 2019 – fifty years later! Inertia, work, family and all the usual shit put paid to that great idea. No longer could we just say, “Ag pleez Daddy!” and go without a backward glance, as we did in 1969! Adulthood sucks.
~~oo0oo~~
seunstoer – boys tour;
Wagter – Rover in England; Fido in America;
nê – y’understand? capiche?
“Jis! Jy kan hoor jy’s ’n rooinek!” – Your Afrikaans Are Atrocious; or Boy, You can hear you’re English-speaking!
Ek debs die balsak! – ‘Dibs on the ballbag!’ or ‘I lay claim to the antelope scrotum’;
Net hier het ‘n leeu eergistraand ‘n bok neergetrek – Right here where you’re camping a lion killed an antelope the night before last; ‘Be Nervous’ was the message;
– another view of Otjikoto ‘bottomless’ Lake – about 100m deep vertically, but then leading off horizontally into caves beyond that – Fluffy pic– a hillock covered with rocks – who are walking on boulders – near Augrabies Falls – authentic Fluffy pic
~~oo0oo~~
The 2021 surprise from Sheila: A postcard I wrote on 7 July 1969 while on tour:
Can’t say I remember ‘Sorris Sorris.’ I see it’s just north of the Brandberg, so maybe we camped there?
Vrystaat Confessions 