Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Una Elphick

  • 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~~

  • Mom Mary 93

    Mom Mary 93

    Written on the day, posted (very) late.

    18 September 1928 plus ninety three years gets you to today. So if you were born then you’ve had around 33 968 sleeps.

    Quite something, Mom! Happy birthday, we feel very lucky to have you with us and be able to listen to your stories, and hear your memories and enjoy your piano playing. Love you lots!

    I listen to the Chopin and Mozart etc you used to play and I say to the expert pianists playing: Huh! You shoulda heard my Mom!

    She recently said she thinks the best piece she played was the duet with Una Elphick in the town hall of Beethoven’s 5th symphony. ‘You know the one,’ Mom says to me: ‘Da Da Da DUM . . Da Da Da DUM . .’

    They practiced separately and when they got together they couldn’t ‘gel,’ it wasn’t working. They tried using a metronome, tick tick you know. No good. Then Una said I’ll count, one two etc. That worked, they clicked and . . ‘best piece we ever played! ‘

    ~~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~~~

  • Thanks, Sister Dugmore

    Thanks, Sister Dugmore

    On 19 December 2015, Sheila wrote:

    This was taken at the sad occasion of Jean Coleman’s funeral yesterday. Jean was Mum’s great friend in Harrismith in the 50’s & 60’s. They lived in Hector Street, opposite the du Plessis’ first home.

    Mum says when we still lived on the ‘townlands’ on the way to the waterworks, Jean would often ‘phone and say “Have you got a little visitor?” – once again her son Donald had gone missing *** and she knew exactly where he was – he used to walk all the way to our farm to visit his great mate, Koos. The two were inseparable.

    Mary Methodist is Anne’s godmother. The Colemans left Harrismith in about 1964.

    While we were standing around chatting yesterday, Anne suddenly realised that she, her brother Eddie, and George Elphick (whose daughter is engaged to Anne’s son – small world) had all been delivered by Sister Dugmore at the maternity home on Kings Hill.

    “So were we!” chorused Koos & Sheila!

    So we had to have this pic taken!

    – born in the same spot – Eddie Coleman, George Elphick, Anne Coleman Immelman, Sheila & Koos Swanepoel –

    Duggie Dugmore’s maternity home – and below what was left of it the last time I visited. )

    Kings Hill2.jpg
    – Anglo-Boer War doctors house – then Duggie Dugmore’s maternity home – Kings Hill –

    More from Sheila: George Elphick is an architect in Durban. His parents John & Una, also left Harrismith in about 1964. They lived in Lotsoff Flats where Una had a grand piano in their tiny sitting room!  She was a very talented pianist and used to accompany Mary Methodist, Trudy Else and other singers. We used to have ‘musical evenings’ in our home in Stuart Street – wonder what the neighbours thought?  John Elphick, bless his soul, had an enormous reel-to-reel tape on which he would record the proceedings.  I have had these tapes put on CD – no Grammy winners here – but just to have this music preserved is so special.  I have Mrs Euthemiou singing ‘La Paloma,’ William vd Bosch singing and playing his guitar, Harold Taylor singing ‘Til the sands of the desert grow cold.’  Harold lost his leg at Delville Wood and on tape he tells us that he learnt the song on board ship en route to Alexandria in Egypt, in World War 1. So now you know.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    *** Donald once did a big ‘going missing’ on the beach somewhere on the KwaZulu Natal Coast. That time the police were called to help find him. But – as always – he was just exploring. He’d have made it home sooner or later, I’m sure.

    He and I once walked home from the Kleinspan school – a distance of less than a kilometer – and got home somewhat later than our folks thought we should have.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Duggie in a nutshell: What a wonderful epitaph!!

    – what a great epitaph!! –

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    We’ve just heard Una Elphick died this year. – R.I.P –