OK, not really; more a reverie on drink – a nostalgic lookback on a bottle store. Platberg Bottle Store / Drankwinkel in Harrismith, the Vrystaat. The Swanepoel family business. We all worked here at times. You could say we were raised on grog.
– the dark side –– the pale side –
We were talking about the trinkets, decor and marketing stuff. Like those big blow-up bottles hanging from the ceiling. Turns out big sister Barbara kept some of them from way back when:
Younger sister Sheila has some whisky jugs; and I found an old familiar brandy-making figure online: the Oude Meester bust. We fondly remember Jan Jan die Oudemeester Man! Jan Robertson, the rep who would visit us to sell his popular product.
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This is where the big blow-up bottles were displayed, along with the striding statue of Johnny Walker whisky; Dewars White Label whisky’s Scottish soldier ‘drum major;’ Black & White whisky with their black and white Scotty dogs; Beefeater Gin’s ‘beefeater’ in his red uniform, etc. Spot them below. All were shouting a loud Drink More! and in small print; um, drink responsibly.
BrandyAle had people’s best interests at heart when they told you how drinking BrandyAle would “Fight the High Cost of Living.”
Methodists are pretty strongly anti-alcohol, so I believe it is testimony to Mother Mary’s organ-playing skills (and her much-loved status among all who know her) that we could run a bottle store six days a week and still be Methodists on the Sabbath! (Kidding! It was the collection plate. Kidding!).
I was born in Harrismith in 1955, as was Mom Mary in 1928, and her Mom Annie in 1893. Annie thought “the queen” of that little island above and left of France was also the queen of South Africa (and for much of her life she was right!).
I attended the plaaslike schools in Harrismith till 1972. A year in the USA in 1973 as a Rotary exchange student in Apache Oklahoma. Studied optometry in Joburg 1974 – 1977. Worked in Hillbrow and Welkom in 1978. Army (Potch and Roberts Heights, now Thaba Tshwane – in between it was Voortrekkerhoogte) in 1979 and in Durban (Hotel Command and Addington Hospital) in 1980.
I stayed in Durban, paddled a few rivers, and then got married in 1988. About then this blog’s era ends and my Life With Aitch started. Post-marriage tales and child-rearing catastrophes are told in Bewilderbeast Droppings.
‘Strue!! – These random, un-chronological and personal memories are true of course. But if you know anything about human memory you’ll know that with one man’s memory comes: Pinch of Salt. Names have been left unchanged to embarrass the friends who led me (happily!) astray. Add your memories – and corrections – and corrections of corrections! – in the comments if you were there.
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Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me. So go’n re-look at some posts you’ve enjoyed before and see how I’ve improved over time (!). It’s just as my friend Greg says: ‘The older we get, the better we were.’
Sister Sheila has been doing some research on our early ancestors: Some genealogical sleuthing. We all know one should be careful what ye seek – ye may find!
We now have a new colourful ancestor – the Cape’s first ‘Bergie‘ or homeless person. He was probably one of the many unfortunates that the ‘civilised western world’ ‘captured’ and/or ‘owned,’ enslaved or sold, or otherwise dominated. In addition to our ancestors Louis van Bengal, Maria van de Caep and Lijsbet van Abyssiania, there’s now Amsoeboe van Timor: born around 1640 in Pekanbaru in Indonesia.
– indonesia –
Amsoeboe van Timor’s movements from Indonesia to Mauritius (1676) to the Cape of Good Hope (1679) – Amsoeboe, his wife Inabe van Timor, and daughters Iba and Baauw are sent by the ‘Dutch East India Company’ (VOC) from Batavia [Jakarta on the Indonesian island of Java] on the hooker Goudvink to Mauritius – a VOC outpost (buitenpost) governed from the Cape of Good Hope which latter colony is itself governed from Batavia. Their unnamed son, however, remains at Batavia. They are described as a ‘politically exiled, but un‐enslaved,’ family from Timor .
The commander on Mauritius at the time is a ‘reformed privateer’ (! – do pirates ‘reform?’) Hubert Hugo. There, the family is accused in 1677 of conspiring with Company slaves and exiled convicts to overthrow the colony, massacre its officials, and escape. Note how they are ‘un-enslaved,’ yet accused of wanting to escape! Amsoeboe and his family are all separately interrogated in a pre‐trial investigation by Commander Isaac Johannes Lamotius and his council. Also implicated in this conspiracy is a Company soldier Hans Beer, ‘concubine to Iba.’ Two conspirators hang themselves. Behr ‘dies mysteriously during interrogation.’ (I’d call that tortured to death, most likely).
Washing his hands of the pickle by claiming no authority to legally try Amsoeboe and his family, Lamotious (so, like Lamontius Pilate?) sends them to the Cape of Good Hope in 1679. There, the family settle amongst the colony’s free‐population, and – most likely being in abject penury – apparently start a brothel.
Their household ‐ one of the small colony’s two operational brothels – is censured by Commander Simon van der Stel and his council in 1681, authorizing the fiscal to arrest any offenders he finds there. The 1682 census enumerates seven unnamed members for this family ‐ including presumably three daughters of Amsoeboe’s daughter Iba. Amsoeboe is now recorded as Paay [‘Father’] Timorees or Moor ‐ and his wife as Ansela van Timor. After the death of his wife Inabe in 1682, the Orphan Chamber makes an inventory of the impoverished family’s meagre worldly goods.
Iba – now known as Anthonique ‐ joins the Stellenbosch household of freeburgher Jacob Aertsz: Brouwer and his twice‐widowed wife Agnetha Rix. Brouwer assaults his wife regularly and on one occasion also another free‐burgher’s wife. He later viciously assaults Iba (1686) with a broomstick soon after also whipping his slave Tido van Goa. Tido dies from his injuries.
In 1693 Iba jointly baptizes her three daughters, each adopting their own biological father’s name.
Amsoeboe next appears in the records in 1692 as a miller with both daughters in the Cape District alongside free‐burgher Gerrit Theunisz (from Utrecht) ‐ concubine to Iba ‐ which couple is again recorded in 1695.
Death: Amsoeboe van Timor passed away on February 4, 1708. “The body of an old black, known as Paay Moor [Amsoeboe van Timor, exiled from Batavia and Mauritius], found dead in the gardens in a small hut. He was accustomed to beg his food in the town. The Fiscal & surgeon & secretary of justice went to examine it. It is believed that he died of natural disease & great poverty. The body being partly decomposed, (it) was buried on the spot.”
Research on the Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) results of the family are fascinating. Mitochondrial DNA is passed only from your mother, unlike your nuclear DNA which you inherit from both parents. Read more at wikitree, but just one finding of the research is that Ansela and Iba could not have been biological sisters (confusion, I thought they were mother and daughter?), as their descendants do not share the same mtDNA haplogroup. One of Ansela’s descendant’s results yielded identical matches to:
1 African American individual
1 individual from the Democratic Republic of Congo
4 Zanzibaris
2 ‘South African Coloureds’
1 ‘South African Indian’
1 ‘South African White’
67 South African Bantu-speakers.
Besides being one of my ancestors, Amsoeboe was also the Cape’s founding father of the Erasmus, Blom & De Jager families – innit lovely to see how apartheid was all built on myth and bullshit!? Isn’t it tragic to see how poor people are targeted?
We went to Durban around this time and stayed in the Impala Holiday Flats, self-catering. Free Staters on the loose in Durbs-by-the-Sea!
We probably drove down in OHS 154, a beige Morris Isis – or in OHS 155, a pale blue VW 1200 Beetle, along the narrow national road between Joburg and Durban. I remember talk of dreading the infamous “Colenso Heights” – apparently the most challenging section of the route.
The high-rise we stayed in was in Gillespie Street one street back from the Golden Mile, or Esplanade. If you took all Harrismith’s houses and stacked them, you’d have a building like this. I remember the lifts and I remember getting back tired and full of sand from the beach. I don’t seem to recall the beach – weird.
This post needs work by someone who knows what they’re on about. This is almost as confusing as the Bible’s begats. Advice: If your name is John, name your son Basil. Or Cyril. Or Percy. Anyway, here goes with what I’ve got:
Our distant cousin Hugh Bland has been doing some wonderful detective work sniffing out the Bland family history. He’s of the Blands that trekked north, to the lowveld and on to Southern Rhodesia (if it was called that yet?), leaving their cousins behind on a farm at Oliviershoek on the Natal-Free State boundary. Maybe on a farm called Oliviershoek.
Today Hugh found the grave of Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland.
Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland was born in 1799 in England. His parents were Reverend John Francis Bland (born 1764 Fordham, Cambridgeshire died 1807) and Elizabeth Adams (born Dunfermline, Scotland. He arrived at the Cape in 1825 on the good ship Nautilus, under the care of the ship’s captain, a Mr Tripe. The voyage cost his family £42.
He got a job on a wine farm, in the Drakenstein area of Stellenbosch, met his future wife Cecelia there (du Plessis?), married her, packed their belongings in a Cape cart and trekked to Mossel Bay. They found land on the Gourits river and settled there. Their first son, John Francis Adam, was born in 1836, followed by eight more children. John the eldest then married Petronella Johanna ‘Nellie’ de Villiers and had a son, John Francis Adam II. He and Nellie left for inland while the baby JFA the second was just a few months old. They headed for Colesberg, Bloemfontein, Winburg and on to Harrismith, where they settled ‘in a house not far from the centre of town’ – 13 Stuart Street, maybe?
Back in Mossel Bay, Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland (JBA) became mayor and the main street was called Bland Street. Maybe it still is? He died in 1861. His grave is now hidden in thick bush on a farm in the Wydersrivier district near Riversdal.
When Hugh Bland visited die Kaap ca.2010 the farmer very kindly took him to the gravesite. Hugh says you can still read the inscription on the gravestone – it’s indistinct, but there’s no doubt that it’s JBA’s grave. He says it was “quite a moment” for him – JBA was buried there 156 yrs ago and Hugh wondered when a Bland last stood at that grave.
Hugh put two proteas – which it looks like he skoffel’d out nearby? – on the grave; then laid his shadow down next to his great-great-great grandfather and took this pic:
– Hugh Bland’s shadow next to Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland’s grave – left – Mossel Bay – right – Blands Drift on the Gourits River –
Valuable memorabilia from Hugh:
Prime Minister’s wife’s letter to the Rhodesian Blands
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The Harrismith Branch of the Blands:
Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland had a daughter, Annie Emmett Bland, who married Louis Botha, Boer war general who became the first President of the Union of South Africa in 1910.
He also had a son John Francis Adam Bland (JFA), born in 1836.
This JFA I later trekked inland ca.1861 to Harrismith in the Orange River Colony with a small baby – John Francis Adam Bland the Second – JFA II. This started ‘our branch’ of the Blands, The Vrystaat Blands. One of them – I must try and find out who – would end up as a prisoner of war in Ceylon for doing the right thing and fighting for his new homeland against the invading, thieving, plundering British in the Boer war of 1899-1902.
John Francis Adam Bland II married Mary Caskie, who became the beloved Granny Bland of Harrismith. They had five sons of whom our grandfather Frank was the oldest, again: John Francis Adam; JFA III.
Hugh found out that JFA the First died on 10 September 1891 aged 55, and is buried in the lost, dusty, verlate metropolis of Senekal, Vrystaat. In Harrismith Granny Bland buried her husband JFA II and four of her five boys, including JFA III. As Sheila said, ‘What a tragic life.’ Poor Granny Bland! She loved her namesake grandaughter Mary, our Mom, and she lived long enough to know us, her great grandkids before she died in 1959. So in that she was Lucky Granny Bland! We knew Bunty, the only child who outlived her, very well. He died in 1974 and joined his father JFA II, his mother, and his four brothers in the propvol family grave in Harrismith.
JFA III married Annie Watson Bain – our lovely granny Annie Bland. Known as just Annie. They farmed racehorses and clean fingernails on the farm Nuwejaarsvlei on the Nuwejaarspruit outside Harrismith on the road to Witsieshoek, towards the Drakensberg. He died in 1943 while my Mom Mary was still at school. Pat was nursing in the Boksburg-Benoni hospital. Pat also died at age 49 in 1974. Mom Mary then looked after Annie until she died aged ninety in 1983. Mom Mary is still alive and well. She turned ninety in September 2018 (update, 95 in 2023). Nuwejaarsvlei was later submerged under Tugela river water pumped up the Drakensberg to fill the new Sterkfontein dam. Drowning vleis is environmental destruction, BTW!!! Grrrr!
(I’m hoping sister Sheila will fact-check me here! Also that cousin Hugh will tell us what happened to the misguided Bland branch that didn’t stay in the Vrystaat, but got lost and ended up in Zimbabwe. They lived near Oliviershoek for a while before trekking on. Hugh tells tales of transport riding, ox wagons, meeting Percy Fitzpatrick, farming in Rhodesia and other exaggerations . . . you know how historians are).
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Must add:
A Bland grave pic – Harrismith cemetery
Annie’s oldest daughter Pat Bland – married Bill Cowie, and had two daughters Frankie & Gemma; Bill worked in Blyvooruitsig on the gold mine; We visited them once, and would see them on their way to their wonderful Wild Coast fishing trips. They called Blyvooruitsig ‘Blayfore or Blayfaw,‘ and pronounced Gert as though it didn’t have an ‘r.’
Mary Bland second and youngest daughter – married Pieter Swanepoel in Harrismith in 1951.
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Bland might sound bland, but hey, the surname is thought to derive from Old English (ge)bland meaning ‘storm’, or ‘commotion.’ Don’t use dictionaries that say, ‘dull, flavorless, or just plain ‘blah.’ Rather use the Merriam-Webster that says it means ‘smooth and soothing in manner or quality;’ or use vocabulary.com that says it means ‘alluring;’ or try ‘flattering’ from the Bland Family History on ancestry.com; That’s better. A new motto for the coat of arms, maybe? Blands ain’t bland.
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Some of the information on Josiah Benjamin Adam Bland first coming to the Cape I got from Sheila’s book And Not To Yield about Susan Bland. Susan was born in Harrismith, had a brother Willie, married a Theo Allison and lived seven miles outside Harrismith – west, I think, near Sarclet? – farming ostriches for a while.
And Not To Yield by Penelope Matthews, Watermark Press – ISBN 978-0-620-58162-2
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Mom’s more contemporary assessment of her Bland, the Eastern Vrystaat Nuwejaarsvlei branch of the Bland Clan:
She didn’t know her dear Dad Frank’s father – he died rather young. He farmed on Nuwejaarsvlei and sent his son Frank to Michaelhouse. After high school Frank went straight back to the farm, he didn’t do any further studying or training. Mom thinks her grandfather must have had some money, as he built his wife a rather lovely house in town while still on the farm – 11 or 9 Stuart Street. After Frank lost the farm (maybe because as Annie once told me reproachfully when she saw me covered in mud one Christmas morning at 95 Stuart Street, “You know, I never once saw Frank with dirty fingernails!” I loved and admired my gran Annie but I just knew that day that what me and Sheila and Jemma had done in getting covered in mud at the Kakspruit down Hector Street past the du Plessis’ house that Christmas morning was not a bad thing. We washed off in the horse trough and made it to church that morning, I’m sure looking like spotless sweet little angels. JC and FC both would have nodded approvingly, methinks. I’m sure we got presents later that day, so there’s some proof that the Religion of Father Christmas is an understanding, forgiving one.
Frank lost the farm – too many racehorses and too few sheep? – and he and Annie, older sis Pat and Mom moved to town into Granny Bland’s home. Frank bought a filling station in Warden Street in town. When he died – early like his father before him – Annie surprised traditionally-minded people in town by carrying on with the Central Service Station. It was near the corner of Retief Street; later she moved it half a block nearer to the Town Hall, to Caskie Corner, probably the prime spot in town, on the corner of Southey Street. In time she rented spaces to the Flamingo Restaurant and Platberg Bottle Store. Between the Flamingo and the VC Cafe in Southey Street was the ramp up to her workshop, where At Truscott fixed cars for her.
Granny Bland was a Caskie. Maybe she owned Caskie Corner? I asked Mom Mary and she thinks her gran Mary Caskie Bland may well have. And that would be how Annie could move her Caltex filling station and garage to the best corner in town from half a block down Warden Street – and later how Mom Mary could move the bottle store next door to it from round the corner in Southey Street.
Vrystaat Confessions 