Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Miss Underwood

  • 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 Concert

    The Concert

    Mom Mary told me about the concert in the Harrismith town hall again and there was more detail, which I add here.

    Griet Geyser, who played the violin, suggested a tribute concert to her tutor Professor Bloch. Fellow violinist Helmut Brunzlaff and everyone else thought it was a good idea, especially when they added the piano tutors. So it became a tribute to Professor Bloch, Miss Underwood and Miss Thorburn.

    Una Elphick and I decided we were going to play a duet on the grand piano – you know they had a grand piano in their flat? It filled the lounge. Well, we chose a challenging piece: Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, you know: da da da dum!

    We started practicing separately and then we got together and we just couldn’t synchronise – we just weren’t in time. Una put on her metronome ‘tick tock’ but that didn’t help. The only thing that got us going was Una counting out loud. That worked and we got better and better and played it beautifully if I say so myself.

    More of the music they and other Harrismith virtuosos played here. Although, that may have been a different concert as that one was in the kerksaal – church hall.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~