Vrystaat Confessions

Category: 2_Free State / Vrystaat

My Home Province in South Africa

  • Early Bird Book

    Early Bird Book

    Way back around 1968 a new book appeared at 95 Stuart Street Harrismith. I was fascinated. Nearly as fascinated as I’d been when cousin Jack Grundling was reading Valley Of The Dolls and left it in the big wooden bookshelf in our long, dark, carpeted passage. That novel must have been good, as Mom actually physically took it from me, saying ‘You can’t read that’! Oh? Censorship!

    Oh, well, back to the bird book, Birds of the World,

    by Oliver Austin, beautifully illustrated by Arthur Singer. I was fascinated by the orange Cock-of-the-Rock on the cover. Fifty years later the book was on my bookshelf in Westville and I was sad recently to discover other bookworms also liked it and had got into it in a big – and deep – way. It was riddled with holes. I copied the pages with the plates I remembered best before turfing it out. Hopefully a whole extended family of borer beetles went with it!

    Roberts bird book and this book fuelled a lasting fascination.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Valley of the Dolls – by Jacqueline Susann was about film stars, their raunchy pecadilloes and their use of ‘dolls’ – amphetamines and barbiturates. Time magazine called it the ‘Dirty Book of the Month,’ probably thinking ‘that’ll kill sales,’ but that and other anti-reviews made people think ‘that sounds interesting,’ and the book was a runaway commercial success, becoming the best selling novel of 1966. I mean, a review saying ‘Dirty Book of the Month’ might have made Mom Mary not buy it, but it likely had cousin Jack head straight for the bookstore! So there it was: From one metropolis to another – New York to Harrismith – in no time.

    By the time of Susann’s death in 1974, it was the best selling novel in publishing history, with more than 17 million copies sold. By 2016, the book had sold more than 31 million copies. In 1967, the book was adapted into a film. Like the book, the reviews were scathing, but it was an enormous box-office hit, becoming the sixth most popular film of the year, making $44 million at the box office. Author Jacqueline Susann had a cameo role in it as a news reporter, but she said she hated the film, telling director Robson that it was ‘a piece of shit.’ – wikipedia

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Birds of the world: a survey of the twenty-seven orders and one hundred and fifty-five families, by Oliver L. Austin, (1961); Illustrated by Arthur Singer; Edited by Herbert S. Zim, New York, Golden Press; Many reprints were made and it was eventually published in seven languages over many years. I think ours was the 1968 edition published by Paul Hamlyn;

    ~~oo0oo~~

    bookworms: The damage to books attributed to ‘bookworms’ is usually caused by the larvae of various types of insects including beetles, moths and cockroaches, which may bore or chew through books seeking food. Mine were little brown beetles. Buggers. I’m procrastinating about checking all my other books! Must do it . .

    They’ve got into my books before, the blighters!

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Canadian Pipe-Layers and DamPaddas

    Canadian Pipe-Layers and DamPaddas

    On March 24, 2015 Danny Moodley wrote a comment on that wonderful website Facts about Durban – and this brought back distant memories:

    Danny wrote: I started work at the Killarney Hotel in 1962. The first Durban to Johannesburg oil pipeline started in 1964. The Contract was given to the Americans. I was offered a job. The contract was completed in 1966. The name of the contractors were McAlpine Somerville. The Artisans came from Canada, USA and Britain. Most of us South Africans were assistances. This contract was given by the South African Railways And Harbours.

    McAlpine and Somerville – that name brought back memories! Memories of new people with strange accents visiting us at 95 Stuart Street in Harrismith Free State from Canada and America. One lady did beautiful rich pastel paintings of Inuit children (Eskimo children as we called them then).

    When they left Harrismith we were left with a few of those beautiful portraits – wonder where they are today?

    – this similar-looking pair of 1960s paintings are on ebay for R9 000 –
    – more like this –

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    McAlpine started in Britain and Somerville in Canada, both in the fifties. Both became huge pipeline companies. Their SA project was a joint venture. Driving along the roads I remember seeing the signs McAlpine & Somerville near the pipeline; I seem to recall seeing them near Sunnymede and near Swinburne?

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    A few years later came another influx of workers, called locally – and tongue-in-cheek – ‘Die DamPaddas.’ They arrived to build the Sterkfontein, Driekloof, Driel, Woodstock and other dams for the Tugela-Vaal water scheme, where water was stolen from Natal and pumped uphill to Joburg; canals were dug, and a power station was drilled into the mountainside at Oliviershoek Pass.

  • Rust in Warden

    Rust in Warden

    Rust in Vrede means Rest in Peace. Rust in Warden was anything but peaceful on account of an invasion of hooligans from the Last Outpost of the British Empire – a flock of unruly wimmin studying to be teachers back in March 1976. It took us gentlemen from behind the boerewors curtain in the salubrious Johannesburg suburb of Doornfontein to bring some decorum to this rustic spot.

    Rust, meaning ‘rest’ was Tabs Fyvie’s farm in the Warden district with a lovely empty farmhouse which we colonised, spreading sleeping bags on the wooden floors. Overflow slept on the lawn. Beers, ribaldry and laughter. Tall tale telling . .

    – Liz believes me; Brenda thinks ‘Ja, right . . ‘ –
    – Hill entertains – the lasses believe him; I think ‘Ja, right . .’ –

    . . can’t remember eating . .

    And thanks to sister Sheila we have 1976 pictures!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • Mona’s Wake

    Mona’s Wake

    A gathering of a flock of du Plessis is always a very special occasion. Not an orderly occasion. Not a quiet occasion. Just very special. Mignon, Jean-Prieur and Jacques-Herman celebrated their Mom Mona’s wonderful ninety years of Mom, Music and Magic at a wonderful venue outside Harrismith – where I forgot to take any pictures! If anyone has any, please share a few – especially one of that magnificent pub of Rob and Cindy’s! – but also of the people, of course!

    – J-H Mignon and J-P at Lala Nathi –

    People poured out of the woodwork from far and wide. Austin, Texas; Vancouver, Canada – even Marquard, Free State!

    We almost didn’t get there:

    – this could have been unforgettable in a bad way – but we had Zelda to sing to us –

    . . but get there we did.

    – our hosts –
    – mense – a formidable clan –

    Later we found out we – me, sister Sheila and old Harrismith friend Zelda Grobbelaar – were stuck there – the Ford needed big repairs – so Bess put us up in her lovely home:

    – I had teddy bears in my bedroom –

    When we didn’t show up at the du Plessis gathering that evening, I texted them:

    My car got locked up in a ballet studio among the tutus.

    – that part was true, check it out:

    Ranger in ballet studio

    . . and I got plied with strong liquor by three gorgeous chicks and clean forgot about any other friends I might have.

    Oh, that part was partly true as well.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Thank goodness the Ford went vrot. It was diagnosed with terminal head gasket, whatever that means. I thought it was premature after only 300 000kms, but the upside was this meant we got an extra twenty four hours in the dorp the metropolis. We visited all and sundry, had supper with Bess; had breakfast and bought rusks at Something Lekker owned by a local lass; and then we lunched with the du Plessis clan while they ran around organising that Mona be laid to rest next to her husband and their Dad Pollie, who has been waiting patiently in the Harrismith cemetery for Mona to join him for decades. Patiently? Maybe.

    I can just hear Oom Pollie. After he’d got over his joy he would comment on the very smart coffin, worried about the price. He’d relax when he heard it was made by Oom Jan, gratis and for niet. Then he’d harumph that it took Mona joining him for the grass to be mowed round his grave. Then he’d sing Hello Dolly!

    To get back to KwaZulu Natal, we hired a brand new Toyota Corolla at Harrismith Avis – of course our dorp has an Avis! Not only that, look at this: They’re the reigning champions!

    We visited Georgie Russell; and Mariette Mandy at The Harrismith Chronicle where she had already written about the gathering for her wonderful hundred-and-plenty-year-old local newspaper. I’ll post that when I get it. I’ll also link to any other reports of the day I can find. And add pictures.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    . . . after a suitably polite interval I think Oom Pollie would also murmur hopefully, ‘Did you bring any cigarettes?’

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Late Monday afternoon, after we’d left, the family carried out Mona’s wishes

    – Jean-Prieur, Mona & Pollie in the mowed grass – Platberg behind –

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Driving home in a brand new car where all the knobs work was a novel experience – and hey! it had six forward gears! That brought back memories of another Toyota thirty two years earlier . .

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Two weeks later I was joined by good friend Allister Peter to drive back to the dorp in the rental to go and fetch my Ford Ranger from Riaan who had fixed it up like new! We bumped into John Venning at the coffee shop – and it turns out these two old bullets are fishing n drinking chinas from way back – apparently there’s a thing called The Grunter Hunt down in the Eastern Cape and they have indulged. And frolicked.

  • Harrismith Town Hall

    Harrismith Town Hall

    It’s quite an amazing building for a dorpie! When it was being built sensible locals called it Bain’s Folly, believing the mayor Stewart Bain – my great-grandad – was overdoing things. What’s wrong with the dorpsaal we already got!?

    – the old town hall / dorpsaal – perfectly adequate if anyone had asked me! –

    Do we really need this. concerned citizens may have asked?

    and this inside (thanks to Sandra & Hennie Cronje and Biebie de Vos):

    Well, ready or not, we got The Grand Old Man of Harrismith’s dream town hall:

    Building operations:

    Newly-completed:

    In front of it was the market square, which later was turned into an ornamental garden once cars with tighter turning circles than ossewas were invented:

    The main entrance and the stage after a recent revamp:

    And the setting for this beautiful building is spectacular:

    In the end the townsfolk liked it, some called Stewart Bain The Grand Old Man of Harrismith, and he was given a fancy funeral when he died in 1939.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • Mary Frances Bland Pictorial

    Mary Frances Bland Pictorial

    A Pictorial Timeline

    • Ongoing – needs work:
    • Better dates (which will fix some wrong sequences) and
    • Captions –
    • Born 19 Sept 1928
    • Mary with big sis Pat
    • See Platberg?
    • Sister Mom at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital
    • Addington beach Durban
    • Scottburgh beach
    • Honeymoon Lourenco Marques
    • Winter wedding 1951
    • Mary & Trudy
    • Trish eskimo, Mom eskimo, Dad & Sheila
    • Birdhaven townlands
    • Mary with Trish & Jessica
    • Swanepoel ladies
    • with one son & two grandkids Jessie & Tommy
    • 90th birthday
    • 80th birthday
    • 80th birthday
    • – Four Generations –
      Annie, Mary, Barbara & Linda
    • Mary MOTHWA
    • Mary Rotary Ann
    • First Grandchild Linda Mary Tarr
    • Sheila & Mary
    • Mary & Jean Coleman
  • Cocky and the Cockatoo

    Cocky and the Cockatoo

    In tiny cages. Cocky the African Grey Parrot and Jacko the Australian Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. We grew up with them and didn’t think anything of parrots in cages. Poor things.

    – their cages behind Francois –
    – Jacko on Jabula – our pedal-car was ‘Happy’ –

    But when you see a free-flying one and realise Jacko never flew five metres, never mind five kilometres, it makes ya think. Friend Steve Reed ‘shot’ this one in his neighbour’s tree in Brisbane, and put it on his blog.

    Also left-handed, I see – as was Jacko. Cocky was right-handed.

    – free-flying in Brisbane –

    I commented on Steve’s blog: So amazing to me that this can be a bird that flies free and visits you! We had one in a cage, poor thing. My old man got him from an old lady in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal who had had it for – you know – forty years, and then he had it for – you know – forty years. These numbers don’t get reduced. They grow.
    And we grew up with Jacko. Who suddenly laid an egg and became ‘she,’ but kept her name Jacko. Poor thing.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    And what happened to them? “Given away” yet again. To a ‘Mnr Boshoff’ in Krugersdorp or Klerksdorp, who ‘trained’ parrots and put on shows where he would demonstrate how Jacko could ‘dance’ and Cocky could ‘talk.’ He was very well-known and that made it a good thing. Except well-known and ‘respected’ bird-cage people aren’t always what they say they are. Here’s what a raid on a parrot breeder found when the South African vice-president of the parrot breeders association’s aviaries in Randburg were raided this week: 150 dead parrots and the live birds in cages in shocking condition! Strange how almost all people who keep wild animals say how they LOVE them, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all Dancing Bears – they’re kept for money, fame, personal ego, etc. For their humans, not for the animals themselves.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Here they are flocking in the wild:

    – thanks kidcyber.com.au –

    Mea culpa: While raising kids we let them keep things in cages too! Only fair to admit that! A gerbil, a hamster, a snake.

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Free State Action 1851

    Free State Action 1851

    A magistrate’s life could be kept very busy back in 1851 if ruffians, escaped prisoners, adulterers, inebriates and horse thieves had their way . .

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Fascinating info from eGGSA.org

  • Come With Me To The Station

    Come With Me To The Station

    The old man inviting me to go someplace! How’s that!? I hopped into the old faded-blue VW Kombi OHS 153 with alacrity. This sounded interesting. We never went to the railway station. We’d go near there to the old MOTH hall and occasionally to the circus field when the Boswell & Wilkie’s Big Top was pitched there! But never to the station itself.

    ‘We’re fetching a family from Italy. The father is coming to work at the Standard Woollen Mills and they can’t speak English,’ says the old man. He picked up Italian in Italy around 1943 to 1945, first wending his way up the Adriatic coast in the Italian campaign and then later on involved in the post-war stuff armies do after the end of WW2, y’know, loafing, eating, drinking, before flying home, having traveled the length of Italy south to north and into Austria.

    He kept up the language over the years mainly by fraternising with Boswell-Wilkie** circus folk when they hit the Vrystaat vlaktes on the circus train and pitched the Big Top next to the railway line on the west edge of our famous dorp.

    This exciting station trip was in 1965 or thereabouts. So we got to the stasie, the train rolled in, and there hanging out of a window was a family of four: Luigi, Luigina and two sons about my age, fresh from Italy out. They were probably staring at my bare feet. But I’m just guessing.

    – we met Claudio with some fanfare – maybe not this much –

    I carried one suitcase to the kombi and then from the kombi into the Royal Hotel, where my great-uncle Smollie Bain was the barman. His Dad owned the hotel and I think he stayed there all his life.

    – the Royal – here’s where we took Claudio to stay – it was shortly after this photo was taken –

    Soon Claudio and Ennio were in school, Claudio a standard below me in sister Sheila’s class, and Ennio a standard or two lower. They got a house in Wilge Park and so started many happy visits and sumptuous Luigina meals with the Bellatos – I can still picture her kitchen so clearly. And sundry happy adventures with Claudio.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    The only time before this anything Italian might have rolled up at Harrismith stasie might have been these Italian things ca. 1914.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    ** Boswell-Wilkie Circus: Every few years for a while we would suddenly have clowns, lion-tamers and acrobats in our home! They all looked very ordinary, frankly, in their normal kit; except Tickey the clown. He and his daughter were instantly recognisable even without make-up because of their small stature and strong faces.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Ah! Claudio read it and responded with compliments and corrections:

    ‘Excellent Koos. The year was 1967 – 24 March. Otherwise pretty accurate. A good read and great memories. ** laughing emoji – thumbs-up emoji ** Well done.’

  • Early Bird Books

    Early Bird Books

    We grew up with Roberts Bird Book in the house. First edition, but about the sixth impression. It still had its dust jacket with the kingfishers and bee-eaters beautifully depicted on it. Mom and Dad still have it – I took this pic at their home in Pietermaritzburg. We also had a newer McLachlan & Liversidge edition of ‘Roberts.’

    Here’s the plate I turned to in eager anticipation after hearing a wonderful and startling nocturnal call while camping in the dennebos with Stephen Charles Reed:

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Another bird book on the shelf at 95 Stuart Street. This one you collected cigarette cards. Keep smoking till you have the complete set!

    ROBERTS, Austin | Our South African Birds
    Johannesburg and Cape Town, United Tobaccos Cos, Westminster Tobacco, Policansky Bros 1941; hbk, 25×21 cm, 106pp, colour illus with 150 cigarette cards and five colour frontisp.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~
    Later this beauty arrived. Published in 1961 we got it some years later:

    Bloody insects have got into it now!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~