Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Mary Bland Swanepoel

  • Mom’s Light Music Favourites

    Mom’s Light Music Favourites

    Next to Mom’s piano in the lounge was a glass-fronted darkwood cabinet. In it was her collection of sheet music – classic and light popular. The overflow was in her piano stool; the padded tapestry lid was hinged and opened up to reveal more sheet music.

    Here’s some of her light music collection

    S.1186-2014

    Sheet Music
    Print
    Show Me The Way To Go Home; Music sheet for Show Me The Way To Go Home by Irving King, published by Campbell Connelly, 1925
    Irving King
    Campbell, Connelly & Co.
    London
    1925; 1921
    Lithograph, intermediate pages composed of printed text

    And a list she made as an ‘aide memoir’

    Here she is playing at Azalea in Pietermaritzburg. Note how she deftly ducks answering my excellent suggestion:

    Matron Rose ended the session with, ‘Mary Poppins, come and eat.’

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Annie’s Consolation

    Annie’s Consolation

    Or: Moenie worry nie
    Or: There, their, they’re

    The big annual prize-giving took place in 1972 and I didn’t win a single trophy, cup, certificate or handshake. But I was not to worry, Annie insisted. Here’s the letter she wrote me from George in the Southern Cape where she spent the only three years of her ninety outside Harrismith:

    15th

    Have just received your mother’s letter, containing the report on school prize-giving. Good for you son – I’m very pleased with your results. I’m sure you are not upset about not winning a cup. Think of the bother of cleaning them. In any case you can always show off the Bland Racing Cups!

    Love to all

    Annie

    Annie's letter to grandson Kosie

    So there! Who needs to win trophies anyway? Unless it’s for horseracing. That’s different and highly prized. Even if that sport may have contributed to losing the farm.

    I just love the characteristic unemotional, no-nonsense approach. That’s me Gran! The feature pic is Annie in George, looking queenish with matching twinset and corgi accessory.

    Annie at __'s wedding in George

    Here she is in George again round about the same time, in a dress and uncomfortable shoes cos it’s a wedding. Corgi at her feet. Not her corgi, mind you. She didn’t do animals, she played golf and drove motorcars. Also owned and ran a Caltex garage and a Volkswagen motorcar agency. At one time she sold 1200cc VW Beetles for R1199.

    I think these are the vaunted Bland trophies up on top of the cupboard in the dining room at 95 Stuart Street. Horse-racing! Now those are trophies worth polishing!

    Party gathering in the dining room at 95 Stuart Street Harrismith OFS. Hugo Wessels moustache; Sheila on Wikus de Bruyn's lap (Warden)

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Methodist Organ Grinders

    Methodist Organ Grinders

    I often say My Mom Mary played the organ in the Harrismith Methodist Church for a hundred years and I had to go to church twice every Sunday for all those years and more.

    I exaggerate.

    Her predecessor, Uncle Wright Liddell actually played for longer than she did, and he was the organist for sixty three years. I’m not sure how long Mom was. A guess: Uncle Wright died in 1967, so it was before that that he pulled Mary aside and said I want you to take over from me. So if Mary played and sang from ’67 to ’97 it was thirty years. I must ask her.

    Here’s Uncle Wright when he was little – out at Witsieshoek at a wedding. He’s the liddellest Liddell seated on the steps front right.

    The pic is from the lovely story of the Cronjes of Witsieshoek. Mom always spoke of Corrie and Len Cronje. Corrie’s daughter Liz Groves-Finnie has written the family story. If you want to read it, write to her at lizfinnie@gmail.com – she’ll tell you where you can read it.

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Update – Some of Mary’s Concerts

    Update – Some of Mary’s Concerts

    Hi Koos

    I remember you were “putting together” music played by Mum – I found these:

    From the programme “Musical Evening. In aid of the Hospital Fund” 8 March 1957

    Trio with Trudy Else & Esther Mouton –  “Eriskay Love Lilt” by Coleridge Taylor and “Passing By” by Edward Purcell and “Funiculi Funicula” by Danza

    Trio with Mona du Plessis and Esther Mouton.”Stil soos die nag”

    Verskeidenheidskonsert ten bate van Winburg Weeshuis 24 Mei 1957:

    Front cover billing:

    Damestrio: Ester Uys – Trudie Els – Mary Swanepoel

    Eriskay Love Lilt

    Passing By

    Wiegeliedjie – Mozart

    Somerstemming – Schubert

    In this hour of softened splendour – Pinsuti

    Funiculi Funicula – Danza

    From the programme of the “Hospitaal Konsert” 23 November 1957:

    Piano solo: Pierette by Cecile Chaminade

    Piano solo: Rustle of Spring by Sinding

    Trio with Trudy Else & Esther Mouton -“The dream of Olwyn” and “Come to the Fair”

    Sang en musiek konsert ten bate van M.O.T.H. 30 November 1957

    Piano solo “Autumn” and “Warsaw Concerto”

    Duet with Trudy Else “Somerstemming and One Alone”

    Now you know.

    Cheers

    Sheila

  • The Battle of Harrismith

    The Battle of Harrismith

    . . 1966 and all that

    Mom Mary and Jo Hastings were nursing sisters at Harrismith Hospital. They got on well. She was a lovely person, says Mom Mary.

    When the time came for them to leave Harrismith for pastures new, Jo’s husband Michael said to Mom:

    ‘You know, there’s been a Hastings in Harrismith since 1066, but now the last one is leaving!’

    – Harold cops one in the eye at that other battle –
  • Guard the Manse

    Guard the Manse

    Raise the drawbridge!

    Mom tells of the time when The Formidable Terror, Tim Michell, our Methodist dominee’s youngest with a reputation for disturbing the peace, ran into our youngest sibling Sheila.

    One fine day Mom and Sheila went to visit Dorianne and Tim at the manse, next door to the old Wesley Hall in Warden Street. As soon as they arrived the Moms, looking forward to a peaceful chat, shoo’d the kids out to play outdoors.

    In no time Tim came wailing into the house complaining of something and demanding, Who are these people!? Dorianne said soothingly, ‘Timmy my boy it’s Mary and Sheila and they’ve come to visit.’

    Well why did you open the door!?

    Apparently he was not impressed as Mary and Dorianne collapsed with laughter.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    In the picture Tim left, Sheila right, Dries Dreyer in the middle

  • More Mary Memories

    More Mary Memories

    We used to do ballet and a bit of tap dancing in the Masonic Hall. Cathy Bain gave us dancing lessons. Dossie and Ursula were very supple, me not so much.

    Singing: Sometimes we’d get together at the Methodist Manse. Tommy vd Bosch would play his guitar and sing ‘Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care, the master’s gone away!

    Trudi Els and I would sing, Heigh Ho Come to the Fair; Kom Dans Klaradyn; and Because, as a trio, with PietNel van Reenen’s sister Dalene. Mamie Smith (Putterill) would play the piano.

    I was the hockey captain even though Sylvia Bain was a better player than me. I played centre forward and Sylvia was centre half. Joey de Beer was in charge of getting the balls back to school. We would walk back, crossing over the railway line on the pedestrian bridge with zinc tin sidings. We would hit the sides with our hockey sticks and make a big noise!

    Bobbie or Bertie Bland died in WW2 of malaria.

    Me: Wasn’t it WW1 Mom?

    Or was it WW1? she muses.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    The bird?  Just holding the place till I find a relevant picture.

    Now (Feb 2025) Mom learned her dear friend Trudi Els passed away.

  • No Selfies on 1st April

    No Selfies on 1st April

    Phoned Mom on my birthday. I’m 69, she’s 95. She joked that she would not be posting any pictures on the computer today. That’s selfies on social media to you. Reason being she had bitten down on a hard old chocolate biscuit and broken half a tooth. This leaves her with one and a half missing front teeth, hence no self-taken photos of her this year.

    Not that there ever have been any!

    –oo0oo–

  • Past Perfect Profundity

    Past Perfect Profundity

    Do you remember Una Elphick? asks Mom. I do, and I can see their flat in Herano Hof* in my mind’s eye, I say. A baby grand piano in their small little lounge. That’s right, says Mary, impressed at my longterm memory. This would have been ca.1960. Ever complimentary, she continues, She played the piano beautifully. As well as you? I ask. A slight, telling hesitation, then, I think better. Ja? I query. Well, she could play anything reading the music, but not so much by memory. Miss Underwood would give us a star once we had learnt a piece to her satisfaction, and another, different star when we could play it by heart. I could learn to play by heart quite quickly. She stuck stars on, but later she didn’t buy stars anymore, she just drew stars with crayon on her noticeboard. I quietly think, I bet you had the most stars, but of course I’m biased.

    Molly had a birthday today and I got a cupcake which Sheila ate, she says. That triggers memories of baking. Scottie – legendary Harrismith English teacher Helen Scott – made wonderful cupcakes. With little wings – butterfly cupcakes. It was quite a performance when I picked her up (in her VW Beetle) to take her to cake sales. Trays on the back seat and she would balance a tray on her lap. Mrs Hartley, _____’s mother, made delicious coffee cakes which I would buy for you kids’ birthday parties.

    She’s on a roll. They owned Hartleys Cafe. Once at Hartleys I went in and there was a Black person ahead of me and she barked at him, Can’t you see there’s a person here who I must help? I was mortified, says Mom. I should have walked out. Yep, but that would have been regarded as very strange and wrong at that time, I reassure her. I’ve always known where I get my underdog bias from!

    As we’re saying goodbye she remembers: We got cut off the night before last, she says. ‘Yes,’ I said, impressed at her short-term memory, ‘just when we were about to say something profound!’ Mary hoses herself and says, Yes, like, ‘It was a lovely day today,’ or ‘The wind blew today.’ Yep, something like that, I agreed.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    • Herano Hof visible in the background, behind the pomptroppies. Hey! BEHIND the pomptroppies! Focus!

    Music came in handy back then too. Polly du Plessis and Verster de Wet loved listening to me play. Your popular songs? No, they loved the classics. Beethoven, Chopin, etc. OK! I think she could have played chopsticks, those teenage okes loved Mary and would have sat staring at her!

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • The Rajah’s Team

    The Rajah’s Team

    Mom tells of Sparrow Bester’s father coming to our place in Stuart Street – actually, he’d probably have come in the usual way in Hector street as he lived just a block away in Warden Street – to ask to borrow some sheet music. The Besters were a really musical family, says Mom. Sparrow was chosen for The Canaries, nickname of the Free State Jeug Koor.

    Sure, said Mom, What are you looking for? She had a big collection of sheet music kept in a wood and glass cabinet and under the seat of her piano chair. “Rajah’s Team,” said Mnr Bester. Or so Mom heard.

    Mom said no, sorry she didn’t have that and thought to herself, I’ve never even heard of it!

    “Oh,” he said, puzzled that she didn’t seem to know it, “From that new movie Dr Zhivago.“

    Ah, said Mary, figuring it out: Lara’s Theme. And she did have it.

    “I thought so,” said Mnr Bester.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Jeug Koor – Yech Koor we would say jokingly, but actually Youth Choir

    That was ca.1965 and now is 2024 and Mary at 95 still plays Lara’s Theme to “the oldies” at the home.