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.’
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
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.
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!
Dad, I can’t think what to have for our third supper camping. Don’t wurrie Jess, I’ll do the first night, you just do two suppers. What’ll you do Dad? she asked, maybe regretting opening her mouth. Don’ wurrie Jess, I have a plan.
Her query had reminded me that our cottage came with three stainless steel braais, two built-in, and three braai grids, and two huge bags of charcoal – not your garage forecourt size – and eight plastic-wrapped bags of braaihout. I packed the grid, a bag of braaihout, fahlahter, safety matches, and two T-bones. I was going to become a brauer. How hard could it be?
At Bonamanzi there’s a built-in brick braaiplek, no grid. I go scouting the sixteen sites, only two occupied, and find one. Collecting twigs as I go. At dusk I set the well-packed pyramid-shaped pyre alight and stand back watching the blaze with satisfaction, marveling at how easy this is and how okes gaan aan about their secret and foolproof ‘methods,’ etc and blah blah. When I have glowing hardehout coals – and admittedly still a bit of flame, I’m hungry so I sandwich the Spar-marinaded vacuum-packed very thinly-sliced bargain T-bones into my nifty snap-shut stainless steel braai grid that came wif the cottage, and plop them on top of the camp grid over the red hot coals. With a bit of flame. I’m attending them noukeurig when the other camper drives in in the dark and I make the mistake of shouting across my coals, How was your drive?
Turns out he thinks he should tell me. He bustles over and tells me. I didn’t catch his name but if it isn’t Earnest it should be. Great detail about how their drive was not good, no elephant. Then where he’s from and what his 4X4 is and which one he actually wanted to buy (Nissan Pathfinder / Nissan Patrol) and how – exactly how – he built his own camper trailer on his parents farm and what he kitted it out with with his own hands and how although the trailer was old, the wheel bearings were still shiny silver when he took them apart. Also the pros and cons of a gazebo.
I’m shuffling and he’s getting into his stride and I’m polite. A fatal combination, which brings Jess with a torch to say, Dad you’ve burnt the meat!
Arts n Crafts were not I nie. I made a skinkbord in houtwerk and it was coming along nicely. I could envisage a gold OK maybe bronze medal at the Landbou Skou. One of those ribbons, a rosette, maybe a card saying ‘excellent dovetail joints’ or some such.
Sanding was a pain tho, so when Giel wasn’t watching I gryp’d the belt sander and ‘sped things up.’
Oops! That machine has quite a kick! Varktap. End of my skinkbord!
Sheila, tell me again where Generaal de Wet fits in to Ouma’s family. Apparently he won a battle in the Freestate where the Hysterical Tour is headed right now, so I need to brag about my connections.
When the Brits win the battle Ken Gillings is brainwashing us about, I tell them about Annie and her love of Mrs Queen, but this battle I’m gonna need my Boer connections.
Who else can I claim?
~~oo0oo~~
Sheila: Not de Wet, but de la Rey and Botha
Not de Wet – but de la Rey. Ouma’s ouma (her mother’s mother) was Boer Generaal Koos de la Rey’s sister – she married a Bezuidenhout and produced a daughter who married a Bodenstein and they produced Ouma. So we are directly descended from de la Rey’s father, not Gen Koos de la Rey himself.
Boer Generaal Louis Botha was married to John Bland’s first cousin, Annie Bland Emmett. John FA Bland II was Granny Bland’s husband. He was a lawyer in Harrismith – his own wife called him Mr Bland!
Mr John Bland and Annie Bland Emmett were both grandchildren of Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland – the first Bland who came to SA in 1829. He became mayor of Mossel Bay – the main street is named after him. I have the letter of introduction he had for the Cape and the ship captain’s receipt for his passage on the Nautilus; Hugh Bland has the ring he was wearing. He married a du Plessis and had lots of kids.
There is something about the English Blands from Harrismith going to Ceylon as POWs during the Boer War, but I’m not exactly sure who they were – must have been two of our Granddad Frank’s brothers?
~~oo0oo~~
Me:
Aha! So: General Koos de la Rey had a sister who had a great great great great (4 greats) grandson: Me, Koos.
Anyone who fought for the Brits?
~~oo0oo~~
Sheila:
No, not four greats – just two.
Sister of de la Rey married a Bezuidenhout. Her Daughter married a Bodenstein. Then her Granddaughter (our Ouma) married a Swanepoel. Ouma and Oupa Swanepoel in Maritzburg.
So her Granddaughter was Ouma. Her Great Grandson was our Dad. And her Great Great Grandson was YOU!
I don’t know of any Pom soldiers.
And that’s it, I’m afraid.
~~oo0oo~~
So I’m two greats down from the sister of ‘The Lion of The West,’ and have zero bragging rights in any Freestate battles, zero connection to Die Dapper Generaal De Wet! *sigh* Gonna have to keep my mouth shut on this Hysterical Tour outing.
They actually called it stoei, and it was considered character-building, but all I could think of was sweaty smelly bodies, encountered way too intimately for my liking. I dunno why, but I wasn’t fond of smelling okes’ buttholes. Same when I played slot and 8th man in rugby. But this was early in my life, before under 11 rugby, and before Heilige Giel made me a man.
Stoei oefening was in the Harrismith Masonic Hall in Bester Street, across the road west of the town hall. And when you’re secretly more interested in the petrified tree lying on the lawn outside than in a new stranglehold to grip a sweaty ou in, you should perhaps realise you’re never going to go far in this, the sport of kings (ja, ja, depends who you ask). Maybe I’d have done better wrestling in the Pharaohs’ days, when it seems they weren’t quite into ‘grappling’ as much. I’d still be the oke on the left, though.
When you arrived at the Masonic Hall back in my heyday of wrestling, ca.1964, you’d first have to go up the beautiful wooden staircase with its carved banisters and get a grip on the thick heavy mats stored against the wall, then dump them over onto the ground floor, then roll them out. They were there to prevent you getting hurt by the hard floor, as hurting you was the job of the other ous. When the torture ended and Ma came to fetch you in the light blue Volksie you had to schlep them back up the stairs and store them away before you could escape.
The coach was a meneer Joubert, and his sons – Anton and Leon – were kranige stoeiers. And kranig is what you needed to be if you wanted to advance in stoei. To the next level, where stronger okes could bend you into even tighter shapes and get you to smell your own butthole if they felt like it. That wasn’t really one of my sporting goals and I think it showed.
Around about then I developed asthma and I suspect the smell caused it.
Inside the hall – now a furniture shop – showing the ceiling I stared at while knotted; that petrified tree; the Masonic Hall foundation stone laid by an ancestor ‘Worshipful Master’ Alex Caskie, with another ancestor ‘Warden’ James Bain – Thanks for the pics are due to Horst Muller of https://www.ruralexploration.co.za – his site is very interesting, worth a visit!
~~oo0oo~~
See what I mean about stoei? – “Cave paintings in the Bayankhongor Province of Mongolia dating back to Neolithic age ca.7000 BCE show grappling of two naked men surrounded by crowds.” Give me the 150 million year old tree any day, thanks, it seems more civilised.
After a five-night wilderness trail in Mfolosi Game Reserve, we went for a game drive in my kombi on the way out of the park. We being Doug, Andre co-pilot and me driving. Kingfisher Canoe Club canoeists all. Needing a leak after a few bitterly cold brews I left the wheel with the kombi trundling along amiably on the gravel road and walked to the side door of the kombi, ordering Hawarden to take over the driving.
Not good at taking orders, he looked at me, waited till I was in mid-stream out of the open sliding door and leant over with his hiking stick and pressed the accelerator.
The driverless kombi picked up speed and I watched it start to veer off-road, necessitating a fast shake, a squeezed premature end to my leak, and a dive for the wheel.
I agree not a completely successful trial, but it predated Musk. And I’d suggest better than his efforts, as no-one died.
There are many “Methodist” denominations throughout the world, not only the 1960s Harrismith, Orange Free State version, although that is the most important one. About 112 are listed in wikipedia. So there must be around 112 methylated ways to get to heaven, I spose. Do you think methamphetamines . . Nah! Many – or most maybe? – Methylated dominees will deny whatever I mutter on the topic of their booze doctrine, but this is sort-of what they sort-of think, I think.
They gloss over Jesus and His wine. Jesus was a lot more pragmatic and accommodating than His Methodists. If He tried that water into wine trick in 2023, He’d be in trouble with this modern-day kerk! They would turn that trick of His into a whine. While it seems Meths are at pains to say they don’t actually BAN grog – no fatwas – they tut tut about it, and suggest that much-ignored Evangelical and Catholic tactic called ‘abstinence.’ The one that doesn’t work. That tactic. This is surely an opportunity for someone to start a 113th Meth sect: One that fearlessly BANS Booze! Methodists seem to have very few Thunderous Hellfire-and-Brimstone Sermons! There’s a gap in the market, surely?
This from one of the many Methodist websites out there: Abstinence from alcohol “witnesses to God’s liberating and redeeming love, and is part of living into the life God has prepared for us. We start there. We start with abstinence as faithful witness, and as the norm for guiding our behavior.” The fact that ‘where they start’ is 100% non-biblical? Well, the Bible is full of suggestions . . it’s a guideline . .
In 1960s Harrismith we didn’t get any of the above doctrine, sanks goodness. We got Mary Methodist who played the organ beautifully, coached the choir, sang in the choir, served on the Women’s Auxiliary (where women were kept away from any thoughts of usurping the patriarchy), kept us kids in line, or tried to, AND ran a bottle store. Which bottles contained liquor. She did all of these things well, and with love, did my Mom Mary of the Methodist Church and of the Platberg Bottle Store / Drankwinkel. Sanks goodness, Amen.
Do Methodists call for prohibition? Almost. They want “public policy calling for the strict administration of laws regulating the sale and distribution of alcohol.” Give them half a chance and they’ll prohibit, bottle stores will close, and the mafia will have a new income stream.
Well, despite the best efforts and misinformed intentions of the Grog Police, if there is a place as boring as heaven, if it is a good place, and if anyone is going there, Mary Methodist is most definitely at the front of that queue. St Peter won’t even ask to see her ID or her liquor licence. He’ll just wave her right through. I have no doubt about that. Especially if I happen to be doing St Peter duty at the time.
~~oo0oo~~
Sundry wafflings about booze by sundry Methodist if you’re interested:
Important Harrismith History: Our dorp’s two bottle stores dutifully providing much-needed succour to the grateful townsfolk, including many good Methodists, were the Platberg Drankwinkel and the Horseshoe Drankwinkel. Sister Sheila tells the lovely story of the Aberfeldy farm school where the subject one day was Engels. The teacher asked, Class, who knows the Afrikaans word for Horseshoe? And quick as a flash her friend Elsa du Plessis answered “Drankwinkel.”
Platberg bottle store, Annie’s Caltex garage, and the Flamingo Cafe. OHS 155 parked illegally in the foreground.
Hey, we had written four exams already and we had a five day gap before our last two exam papers. Fluffy and I were on the loose, and when Gabba said Kom Plaas Toe, we were bok for that. Gabba had a bakkie and a plaas. For us footbound townies that was Nirvana! Or heaven. Or an attractive proposition ek sê.
Let’s go!
First we made a brief stop for Gabba to buy beer with the pooled monies. He was legal, we were still currently unfairly disadvantaged – underage – so we subcontracted the tender.
We waai’d via the tar N3 to near Swinburne, then level with the gravel to Kiesbeen.
Gabba’s was an interesting farmhouse. You walked over the ruins of a fallen room or two in full sunlight till you got to what used to be an inside door, but was now Gabba’s main entrance. This section had some roof. Just inside the door was his fridge with a big glass jug on top – one of those with two ears to lift it by. That full jug would come into play later.
First the beers – we finished them talking n laughing. Then that jar filled with umqombothi – traditional beer – and we finished that. Now we were thirsty. You know how it is: Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min. Shakespeare, I think.
Gabba was the brains of this outfit: We’ll phone Frank! he announced. Frank Aveling said Kom Plaas Toe, so we drove over there. More beer. We finished Frank’s beer. Now Frank was the brains trust: No problem, we’ll drive to town. I know a guy. We piled into his green Datsun 1800SSS. And then I thought I’m Gonna Die.
Low-flying on the gravel road behind the mountain to the gravel Verkykerskop road, then down 42nd Hill on the tar N3 into town. Loud WHUMPS as we hit dips followed by road silence but high revs, and then louder THUMPS as we hit the ground again. Narrow bridges flash by with Frank not moving his foot from where it was planted in die hoek. He and Gabba talking away as Fluffy and I sat in the back, me (and maybe Fluff as well?) shitting myself, thinking, We Gonna Die! Buh-liksem! I was used to low flying with Steph de Witt, but this was ‘nother level! Maybe I’d had too little beer?
In town Frank had a connection who topped us up with a small case of marginally illegal after-hours beer from behind the Royal Hotel pub. Another stop to throw stones at a first storey window for Penny to shimmy down the drainpipe and join us, and we were off like a dirty shirt. Back to Frank’s place, and now he seemed to be in even more of a hurry, very keen to get home! I’m Gonna Die!
The next night there was a helluva thunderstorm and I remembered I should maybe tell Mother Mary where I was, I slingered the phone hanging on the wall at Gabbas. 260 asseblief.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!? Mas can be a bit dramatic, nê? I’m here at Rudolph’s with Leon, I said formally, hoping using their formal klasregister names would make Ma think I was with two august and responsible gentlemen. Well, you better stay there in this storm. Come home tomorrow, said ever-wise Ma Mary.
This we obediently did.
~~oo0oo~~
Postscript: I think I got higher marks for my four pre-Kiesbeen subjects than my two post-Kiesbeen subjects. Maybe cos my head was filled with adventure! I wonder how Fluffy and Gabba’s pre- and post- marks compared?
~~oo0oo~~
Kom Plaas Toe – Let’s do some hard, focused group swotting and exam preparation in quiet surroundings – Gabba’s sensible suggestion
ek sê – verily
waai’d – sallied forth
Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min – Ah, some Yankee oke called James Thurber, not William: One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough
(voet) in die hoek – pedal to the metal
Buh-liksem! – gosh
slingered – wound the phone handle
260 asseblief – two six oh please; To the live person at the telephone exchange; Sometimes Oom Lappies Labuschagne
klasregister – like a police docket
~~oo0oo~~
Gabba’s classmate Leon Strachan sent me a glimpse of his non-rugby talents with the comment: 😊 😊 kan jy glo dat Gabba ʼn koppie so kon vashou!
kan jy glo dat Gabba ʼn koppie so kon vashou! – Gabba was not only a three-times Craven Week rugby player. He also was skilled in the arts.
Vrystaat Confessions 