Quite one of my favourites, this would invoke peace. Some of the others caused some melancholy! Not this one.
Category: 2_Free State / Vrystaat
My Home Province in South Africa
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Kathy Putterill’s School
Wild-haired Kathy Putterill ran a nursery school in her home. Their house was on a long thin plot on two levels. The lower level had Shetland ponies on it. And I think she had dogs. I seem to remember small dogs.
That’s about all I remember. They had a funny car. Right? And Kathy enjoyed a smoke and a drink?
Their house (her husband was Leonard, Len Putterill) was where Warden Street T-boned into Murray Street. Below them Murray Street got steep as it rolled down, kinking left just before it crossed McKechnie Street and ducked through the subway under the railway line. Their house is gone now.
Leon Fluffy Crawley and Noeline Bester remembered the ponies! They say Fridays was horseriding. Noeline says it was the highlight of the week and the only reason she hung in there! Fluffy tells how his gardener used to accompany him to school on his go-cart all the way up from Garvock Street – going home would have been easy: downhill!
Fluffy remembers Kathy smoking, and says sometimes you’d get there in the morning and have to wait outside while Kathy got ready – late start!
– It’s Friday! Here’s us three on Kathy Putterill’s Shetland ponies. The brown horse is winning. They always do – if you must gamble, always put a tenner on the brown horse – ~~oo0oo~~
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Chopin Mom Used to Play – Waltz Op.69 No.2
More Chopin I grew up listening to. Beautiful music ingrained in my brain. These tunes brings back sweet memories.
– the lounge on the right – ~~~oo0oo~~~
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Chopin Mom Used to Play – Nocturne E Flat Major Op.9 No.2
No.6 of Mom’s Chopin repetoire – played at night on the Bentley upright while we lay in bed listening down the other end of the long passage. Sometimes she would practice her hymns for Sundays – she played the organ at the Harrismith Methodist church for a hundred-odd years – sister Sheila christened her ‘Mary Methodist’ cos o’ that. Other times were not as classical, nor as holy – that would be when friends gathered round the piano full of smoke and booze and belted out popular tunes with various degrees of talent.
Thanks again to the pianist standing in for Mary now that she’s 91 and can no longer read her sheet music. She still plays, but only her favourite popular tunes ‘off by heart.’
In the comments Sheila informs me it was a Venning – probably mischievous Barbara – who first christened her Mary Methodist. Well, it stuck!
~~oo0oo~~
Vrystaat Confessions 