Eventually, in 1958, the Roads Department decided Dad should be moved to Ladybrand. I think Dad was overjoyed at the transfer because he was very fond of the dorp – as we all eventually came to be. Stepping back into the shoes he had vacated 18 years previously must have considerably eased the transition for him. One can just imagine his delight as we crested the last hill above town and saw the lights of Ladybrand twinkling down in the valley. The house we moved into was a little forbidding in appearance but it was in fact a comfortable and happy house. The only shortcoming was that it had only three bedrooms which eventually led to me moving out on the stoep, so everyone including Granny, could have a bedroom.
The property itself was huge and had largely been allowed to return unhindered to Nature. Dad immediately looked approvingly at the substantial garden area out in front of the house and it really wasn’t long before his interest in gardening revived spectacularly. The front had supported a garden but weeds had taken over while the property was unoccupied. Dad also decided that a fair-sized patch on the side of the house would make a vegetable garden while on the rest of the ground nature could do whatever she pleased. It’s interesting to note the variety of fruit trees that were in that garden : Cherry, Apricot, Peach, Mulberry, Quince, Pear, Fig and Pomegranate. There were also a Walnut and an Almond tree but the latter always flowered far too early and its blossoms were invariably taken out by frost. The cherry tree bore beautiful cherries but rapacious gangs of starlings cheated us out of a lot of that fruit. The pears and pomegranates were good eating but the rarest and for me, best of all, was the fruit of a tiny mulberry tree. There was a huge mulberry tree behind the house and more further into the property but the fruit they bore was insipid. Dad also planted strawberries in due course.
Dad got his vegetables going in the good soil – Beans, spinach, lettuce, carrots, radishes, onions, peas and potatoes, all flourished under Dad’s green fingers. I recall eating spinach here for the first time and enjoying it. I still do. Dad loved his veges and I recall how on a Sunday night, he would place some fresh lettuce leaves on a plate and then tip a soft boiled egg over the leaves. A few radishes completed the mess and some vinegar would be drizzled over it. The rest of us would have finished our suppers and we waited and watched while Dad fiddled around with his treat. I’ve mentioned vinegar before – it was by far Dad’s favourite condiment. I don’t know if it helped his dyspepsia much but he poured it over everything. Ummm no, just not over his mieliepap.
The work he put into the front garden drew favourable comment from the neighbours. He planted flowers all along the path leading from the front gate to the stoep, as well as just below the stoep wall. In the latter beds stocks were planted which afforded me their heavenly scent when I was sleeping on the stoep. The path beds had all sorts such as salvia, carnations, snapdragons, Iceland poppies, petunias, pansies, portulaca etc. Along the front fence, he planted wisteria which grew substantially, even after we no longer lived there. Along the Western wall of the house he had me dig a deep trench which he filled with rotting leaves and fowl manure and he planted sweet-peas. It was another crop of giant flowers which filled the air with their aroma. Later he planted nasturtiums in the same bed which also flourished.
Dad’s chickens came with us of course and were soon scratching away in the run which a previous occupant had left. Dad built a little “afdak” out of corrugated iron sheets and laid down a concrete floor in it. With perches, this was home to our birds. Trouble was, they were no longer just “Dad’s chickens” – they were mine as well because Dad passed the baton of looking after them to me. I had to feed them crushed mealies twice a day, mix up some laying mash for them late in the afternoon, collect the eggs and on Saturday mornings, shovel all the droppings out of their coop for storing in a drum where they would mature and wash the coop down with Jeyes fluid. I managed quite well but in High School winters, tennis would swallow up my chicken feeding routines and time and again, I’d be in trouble for not being there to mix their lay mash. The little ladies would go to bed bloody early in winter and I’d be berated for neglecting my chores. I tried to make up for my lapses by using hot water to mix the mash but I don’t think that impressed Dad.
Make no mistake though, I liked the little beggars and even though I inherited Dad’s queasy stomach where things scatological are concerned, I somehow got accustomed to chicken poo and working with piles of it didn’t worry me. After a few years, we lived in a house near a large unoccupied erf on which termite mounds still stood and on Saturdays, I’d go across with a bucket and spade and dig out the contents of a termite mound for the chickens. They would go quite bananas when I dumped that bucket of wriggling termites in their run and peck madly at them, never mind that their legs were being bitten till blood ran.
We soon started attending church at St James Anglican Church, over which the vicar, Rev Ben Chatfield presided, supported by his wife Birdie. Dad’s brother Bill was married in the same church in 1946. Dad was soon drafted into the Church Council either as a sidesman or a churchwarden, while I was roped in to be a server. For some years, there were few members of that church that attended as faithfully as the Lyles. Sunday evenings after service was spent having tea with the Chatfields in the Rectory. It was a cosy set-up which persisted for years. The Chatfields were transferred to Ficksburg, to be replaced by Rev Tee but the Sunday tea habit continued with the Tees as well.
Then came Dad’s (And our) break with the church. I never really did understand why he stopped going but it had to do the wealthier members of the church council like Raymond Howell and Quentin Coaker. Raymond Howell had been a regular visitor to the pre-war Lyle home, when he arrived in Ladybrand as a penniless, humble chemist. By the time Dad returned to Ladybrand, Howell had “arrived”, married the boss’s daughter and built a beautiful sandstone house in the choice part of town. He was by now really puffed up with his importance and could barely be civil to “Padmaker” Dad. It would be putting it mildly if I said Dad disliked him. Something happened at a church council meeting which enraged Dad to the extent that he could not reconcile his hatred of Howell with his church attendance and he simply stopped going. We were all free to go of course but none of us ever did.
Frankly, it was a relief for me not to have to go. I was bored with the whole church thing and paid lip service to faith anyway. I don’t know if Dad’s “faith” still existed or indeed, if it had ever existed. If it had, it had simply gone underground and he never spoke of it again as far as I can recall.
When we arrived in Ladybrand, the Provincial Roads Department was building a tar road from Bloemfontein past Thaba ‘Nchu, Ladybrand, Ficksburg and Fouriesburg to Bethlehem. Once the unit building it neared Ladybrand, the workers’ families were resettled in pre-fab houses in various parts of Ladybrand. At one point Dad was placed in charge of the construction unit as well as his own maintenance unit. The job came with a comfortable prefab house near the erstwhile hospital and Dad could not really say no to it. But we had not been settled there many years when they decided the construction unit once again needed a superintendent and we had to vacate the house. Oh I hated that move because I loved living up there.
When Dad was in charge of both units, he arranged a Christmas tree for the kids at their workshops. He even rented an old Afrikaans movie and screened it there. I think it was the following year which saw a picnic arranged up in Nurseryhoek. It included “Boeresports” as well and to our utter astonishment, Dad ran and won a footrace which included much younger men. Tubby Kerneels Smuts came a close second.
Dad was more on the clerical side of roadmaking and wasn’t deeply involved with the engineering side. Yet he took an interest in the whole process and just loved roadmaking. He was a great fan of Caterpillar equipment. The maintenance unit used mainly Galion graders but Dad preferred the smaller, more trustworthy Cats. He was in charge, while the road builders were in town, of a bulldozer operator named Matthysen. He too was a great admirer of Cat and he was one of those lucky people who was supremely happy in his job. Dad used to say that it was a joy to watch Matthysen atop his D8 or D9, operating with precision and finesse, like a king on his throne. (Years later I ran into one of Matthysen’s daughters-in-law at a bank branch and via her, conveyed to her husband Dad’s admiration for his father) Matthysen had even managed to get hold of a most distinctive Cat working cap from America to complete his picture.
We then moved to a modern, split level brick house which belonged to a teacher, Terblanche. I had a room on the level where the car was housed – I was happy but I don’t think Mom ever really liked that house. In this time, Dad had a most shocking heart attack and we all feared for his life. He eventually recovered and went back to work and then came a new shock. They wanted to move Dad to Bethlehem but Dad was definitely not keen to start anew when so close to pension. He opted instead to retire. I was already working and had completed my Army training, Terblanche gave notice that he wanted to occupy the house and so, off the folks went yet again. This time they rented a thatched house which one Dr Thompson had built some years before. They didn’t spend much time there because Dad heard about a Municipal scheme whereby an economic house was built and loans were offered to persons of modest means. He bought the house which sold for a mere R7 500, a loan which could be repaid over an extended period and moved there in 1966.
Dad in the meantime, sought and found work as a bookkeeper for a panelbeating business, Coertzen Motors. He worked there for some years and when the business folded, he found work at a similar job at the old Norwood Coaker factory. Dad’s incredibly neat and attractive handwriting coupled with his ability to work with figures, made him ideal for the job. His quiet, self effacing personality also endeared him to the management. Inevitably, time caught up with him and illness scotched his ability to keep working. Amongst others, Parkinsons Disease had reared its ugly head and he had a tremor in his right hand which grew steadily worse. In 1975 he had some unknown attack – could have been a stroke – which landed him in Ladybrand Hospital over Christmas. Mom and I feared the worst on that occasion but Dad somehow recovered and came home. But he was a shadow of his former self and had to quit the job at the factory. Dad made it through 1976 somehow but on 3 January 1977, his heart beat its last and a good, kind man went to receive his reward. We laid him to rest in the Ladybrand Cemetery and in later years, arranged for a plaque to be set in the Wall of Remembrance at St James church, for both Mom and Dad.
ANECDOTES, ODDS AND ENDS
Many things still remind me of Dad, even now. I cannot start a crossword without feeling Dad eagerly looking over my shoulder. He really was very good at crosswords and I’ll always have this image of him sitting cross-legged on his bed with a puzzle, a cigarette burning away in the ashtray and his trusty old dictionary lying open. I still have the dictionary and after all these years, there are still traces of cigarette ash in it.
Peaches will always bring back Dad to me. He grafted a late peach branch onto an early peach stem and lo and behold, he had a tree which bore fruit twice in a good season and at least once in less favourable conditions. I think few things gave him more pleasure than to eat a huge, juicy peach off his tree. Mom’s blind Aunt May delighted in being guided to the tree, to feel for a peach to which she could surrender herself.
Aunt May was actually visiting Mom and Dad when he passed away. Mom always maintained Aunt May had psychic abilities and we were uneasy because she averred that Dad had not passed over because something was holding him back. It’s easy to dismiss that kind of thing as the ravings of a senile old lady but Pat and I took on the task of disposing of his personal effects. Dad had a solid sea chest which we had never seen open and it turned out to contain letters written between him and Mom while they were courting, amongst other things. We simply decided to bury them in a hole which the gardener had dug and allow them to return to the soil. The odd part was Aunt May suddenly announced that Dad was at peace and had passed over – it was as if something which had been troubling him, had been resolved to his satisfaction. We’ll always wonder if he just wanted their private letters, to remain forever private.
Another rather strange occurrence involved Honey, a little Toy Pom which Pat had found in the bank and had brought home. Dad was especially fond of this tiny dog and tragically, she passed away quietly while lying on his lap. She had cancer. Some days later, Dad happened to look through the lounge window at the door and he swore he saw Honey or a dog very much like her, scratching her back on the bottom of the privet hedge. Honey had been in the habit of doing exactly that. Shaken, he went to the kitchen and told Mom what he’d seen and she, astonished said she had also seen a dog in the yard that looked like Honey. The maid and gardener were asked to search the yard for the dog but nothing was found and the perimeter fence was as secure and dogproof as always. It would be easy to dismiss the whole thing as just a mental aberration on Dad’s part because he was pretty shaky towards the end but Mom also saw the dog so were they BOTH hallucinating?
Dad never lost his love of sport and games. At the “padhuis” as we called it, he created his own putting course and we played our rough and ready version of the game, with great enthusiasm. Another “sport” which Dad invented was “bowls”. We had no woods but Dad had a nice collection of ripe gem squashes which worked surprisingly well as makeshift woods. Because they were slightly oblate spheroids, rather than round, the squashes even had a measure of bias like the real thing. We played up the front garden path at Voortrekker Street as well as on the lawn of the final house, Killarney. Pat remembers us accommodating a young girl from Pretoria once who was a member of a visiting choir that was on tour. That afternoon when dad came home from work the gem squashes came out and we proceeded to play our bowls. At first she watched us with a very sceptical attitude like “these people are seriously weird” but it didn’t take too long to convince her that we were having fun and she joined in with glee.
Dad was a big supporter of local rugby in our early years in Ladybrand. He and Mom would pack flasks of tea and biscuits and go and religiously watch the matches at the rugby field. He often also would provide transport for young players to play town matches in neighbouring towns and could cram three big blokes into the back of his Chev and drive to Clocolan or Excelsior or wherever. We were recently reminded of this era in Dad’s life, when Pat managed to make contact with Piet Fouche. Pietie was in primary school with me and was crippled with clubfeet which caused him to walk awkwardly. Yet he was enthusiastic about sport, playing cricket during playtime at the Volkskool and starting rugby when he reached High School. He played fullback at school and eventually for the town team as well. Despite his disability, Pietie was a remarkable fullback, somehow always managing to get under a ball kicked upon him, never missing a catch. Dad admired Piet greatly and called him the best fullback he’d ever seen. I met Piet in Clocolan years after school and conveyed to him Dad’s sentiments and I could see he was pleased and surprised that someone thought he was great. He was such a modest man with lots of genuine guts.
This talk of rugby has reminded me of a “fight” Mom and Dad once had in Trompsburg. There was a rugby tour in around 1955 and Tommy Gentles and Popeye Strydom were two ‘Bok scrumhalves who each played a match in the tour. The folks somehow got into an argument about the merits of each of the chaps – Mom for Tommy, Dad for Popeye. (Popeye I should mention was an Old Grey, like Dad). It turned into a shouting match, with Dad snarling that she did not know what she was talking about and storming out of the front door to fetch his car. I got the fright of my life, thinking Dad would never be coming back. Turns out he drove around for a while in order to cool off and then came back, much to my relief. I assume he apologized but I doubt if he conceded defeat. Dammit man, Popeye WAS the better scrumhalf!
Dad liked to create rockeries. He amassed a collection of well-weathered sandstone rocks when we lived in the Padhuis, picking them up on his trips into the district and carting them home. He created three tiered sandstone beds in the shape of card suites – diamonds, hearts and clubs and populated them with indigenous succulents, which really made a beautiful display, even when ordinary flowers were not in season. His last sandstone bordered bed was in the Killarney garden but he didn’t plant succulents in this bed.
A neighbour Tok Swart, when Dad moved into Killarney, watched him planting the privet hedge which enclosed the property and laughingly exclaimed that only Englishmen ever planted hedges around their properties. That hedge became my responsibility after Dad died and even though I used up several electrical hedge trimmers, I faithfully kept those tireless privets tidy and trim for many years. Dad made sure I’d stay busy even after he had gone.
I’ve touched on Dad’s cars but to recap. The picture alongside was Dad’s first car as far as I know. I don’t know whether he owned it or whether it carried a PAO number plate, like all his post-war cars did but it’s certainly an impressive machine.
His first post war car was a Ford. He definitely did not like that car, the wiring of which burnt out. Next came a 1948 Chevrolet, followed in 1953 by yet another Chev. We’d been in Ladybrand for about a year when in 1958 he was given the car I personally admired most, a turquoise Chevrolet Biscayne. It really was a beautiful car which, if one manages to spot one today, still looks great. I think that might have been the first one to be subsidized and did not carry PAO number plates. Next came another Chev, a 1962 turquoise model with a white top. This was the car I learned to drive on, and while not as handsome as the Biscayne, was an attractive car too. His final big car was a Chevelle – not bad but lacking the class of its two predecessors. It was also the first car in which I had an accident – and also the only one. Pat, her boyfriend and I skidded one night on a muddy street after movies and the car slammed into the gutter, causing some damage below the rear door. We sold that and I passed on my 1973 VW Beetle to Dad and eventually to Mom as well, after she’d learned to drive.
Whenever Irish dancing is shown on the TV I’m reminded of Dad. He used to be able to do a hoppity skippety dance, which looked not unlike the “Riverdance” style we know today. He never let on what it was or where he learned it but remarkably, he was able to do the little shuffle well into his later years. How I wish the fancy cameras every totes today were available back then.
The only one of his grandchildren that Dad ever met was Michael, Pat’s first boy. Heather was just a year old when Dad passed on so he missed her. Neil had not been born yet.
Who can forget Dad’s legendary JAMS! The iron tripod with the primus underneath it and the big white enamel dish were where he cooked his jams. He never over sugared his jam as he wanted the fruit to be tasted. He would sit listening to the radio, pore over crosswords or read the newspaper or magazines all the while patiently keeping an eye on his gently cooking jam. Then he would test it in a saucer with ice underneath it until the consistency was just right. On one occasion he made grape jam and fished out every single pip and skin. The end product was the most beautiful, crystal clear grape jelly. He also perfected the art of making quince jelly that was crystal clear and delicious. His peach, apricot and tomato jams were the best. If Dad had entered any of his jams at the local, annual Agricultural Show he would have won gold. Pat recalls that when the annual school bazaars came around dad always gave bottles of his homemade jams. She was always a bit embarrassed because we never contributed cakes and biscuits and fudge like other kids’ parents. Then at one bazaar she found out quite by chance that Dad’s jams were in fact much sought after and that people actually “booked” them in advance.
Dad’s only other foray into the culinary arts was once when Mom was sick in bed. He decided to try his hand at making pancakes. Dad overdid the baking powder a bit and ended up with inch-thick pancakes. We ate them but he never tried again. While Dad never actually cooked again, he was an expert mint sauce maker. Whenever we had mutton or lamb, which in the days of affordable meat, was every Sunday, Dad would pick fresh mint in the garden and laboriously cut up the leaves finely, before soaking the result in his beloved vinegar. His real speciality was carving meat – a skill which I SHOULD have learned from him but never did. Didn’t matter if it was chicken, mutton or lamb, Dad would hone his bone-handled knife and holding down the meat with an ancient fork from the same set as the knife would proceed to turn out perfect slices of meat.
Leading on from that memory is one of the Sunday mutton sometimes being almost inedibly tough. No problem to Dad – out would come the old Husqvarna mincer (One can STILL buy hand cranked models) and the obstinately tough meat would be ground to an edible texture which was great on bread and butter and even in scrambled eggs. (I now wonder what happened to that Husqvarna – that was made to last forever).
We never realized how deeply the army had inculcated discipline in Dad until I reported to Tempe for my own training. The folks and Pat came to see me at the gate so I could get rid of the “despicable” civilian clothes I had worn to camp. We were standing at the gate talking when a couple of officers came by, so I leaped to attention and saluted smartly. Mom and Pat were greatly amused when Dad stood stiffly to attention as well. Had he been wearing a hat, he’d probably have saluted too. This respect for army officers extended to teachers as well. On the first day of High School, Dad and a work colleague attended the first assembly in the school hall and were seated on the stage. When the Head and the teachers filed onto the stage as well, Dad and his colleague nervously stood up, just like all the kids did. Pat and her friend were considerably chagrined by the silly behavior of their fathers.
As I wrote earlier, Dad never had any alcohol problems. However alcohol once got him into deep trouble with Mom. He had had a visit from MPC for Roads in the Free State, Mr Kosie Pansegrouw and accompanied him to meetings with various farmer groups. Towards the end of the afternoon, they were in the region of the Maseru Border crossing and Kosie suggested they all pop into Maseru’s Lancer’s Inn to slake their thirst. Dad didn’t for a moment think to phone Mom and warn that he might be late but as inevitably happens in a pub, time speeded up dramatically and come sunset, Dad was not home yet. He eventually rolled in well after 8, all smiles and just a tiny bit tipsy. Mom was not impressed and attacked him verbally but Dad just laughed and said she was wasting her breath, because he was too drunk to appreciate or understand what she was going on about. It wasn’t the fact that he had been drinking that irked Mom. It was the fact that he had not phoned to warn that he might be late.
Years later I audited at Rouxville branch and had with me a colleague whose uncle was Mr Pansegrouw. We were invited to lunch with them and I used the opportunity to tell Oom Kosie how he’d got my Dad into trouble. He was highly amused.
I also recall that Dad used to take the Padmakers for a drink at the Grand Hotel, every year on the day that the Roads Department closed down for the Christmas break. I doubt seriously if Dad could afford more than one round but he always kept to the tradition, no matter what.
Pat recalls that Dad used to bring back certain sweets for us from Bloemfontein. She remembers something called “Edinburgh Rock” which I no longer recall. I do however remember Dad buying Callard & Bowser butterscotch sweets, in their distinctive boxes. He also brought back fancy Easter Eggs for Mom and more often, huge boxes of fabulous Black Magic chocolates which she loved.
Both Mom and Dad were avid cinema goers. The old Astoria in Ladybrand had shows on Wednesday evenings, Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons and evenings. In later years they also had a showing on Monday evenings. The folks soon discovered that seats J5 & J6 suited them best of all. They were close enough to the screen for their eyes so those seats were crossed off first, the moment Ella Reynolds in the box office, put up new the seating chart. In the post war decades, the British were churning out stacks of war movies, mostly black and white. The moment a new programme was published we’d all look out for films by companies like British Lion, J. Arthur Rank etc because we knew Dad lapped them up. “Reach for the sky”, “The Dambusters”, “The Desert Rats” were just a few of the many fine British made films. The first film I recall seeing at the Astoria was either “Green Dolphin Street” or “Lawrence of Arabia”. As time passed, the folks moved forward one row to K5 & K6 when their eyes had degenerated just a bit more. On the occasions when the turnout was poor, it was quite funny to see them sitting way out in front, with not a soul anywhere near them. And the ultimate horror today, smoking was allowed and carried out with great gusto!
The Astoria eventually closed its doors, when the drive-in eclipsed it in popularity but TV eventually did the same for the drive-in. The folks and Pat used to support the drive-in but I had already started working so I don’t remember much about it. I don’t think I ever forgave it for forcing my beloved Astoria to close. Unhappily, Dad never got to view TV. He would have loved the sport coverage available today, especially rugby and cricket.
We’ll never know why but Dad was anti-semitic. He actively disliked Jews and was particularly incensed by people on the radio or on film that he perceived to be Jewish. On the radio John Silver and Tony Jay were probably the most hated of all while a movie with Lawrence Harvey in it was a definite no-no. The odd thing to me is despite not liking Jews, Dad had admiration for the Israelis and admired their hard work and guts in Israel. I don’t know whether the family had a run-in with Jews sometime in the past or whether it was an inherited family foible. Dad never let on whether or not he approved of Hitler’s extermination policies and we never asked.
Another thorny issue for Dad was Granny. We were well aware that those two really didn’t get on particularly well. Dad ensuring that she had a roof over her head and bread on her plate, did not seem to cause Granny to look with favour upon her Son-in-Law, which in turn merely exacerbated Dad’s antipathy towards her. One table habit of hers which drove Dad up the wall was her insistence on getting the last speck of custard out of the jug or off her bowl, scraping inside the jug or bowl with her spoon and making an irritating racket. Pat and I would also glare at Granny who was either blissfully unaware of our collective disapproval or just didn’t give a damn. We always feared a major eruption from Dad but it never came – he really was too much of a gentleman to beat up nasty little old ladies, either verbally or physically! Granny was dreadfully self centred and dare I say it … lazy. She wouldn’t bring up her two girls on her own and simply palmed them off on orphanages. She did nothing around our house to earn her keep, rarely even washing dishes. She didn’t worry at all that she had a decent room while I slept on the stoep or in an outside room, (not that I minded) and just took it as her right. Dad was not alone in disliking her I’m afraid – I felt even more hostile towards her than Dad did.
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