I was born in Kroonstad and while I was still a baby, we moved to Winburg. I naturally recall very little of those early days. Mom’s mother Granny Ruby von Schlicht lived with us and she occupied a spare room in the old house which we occupied. A wire fence separated our yard from a Voortrekker graveyard and needless to say, the house was reputed to be haunted. I grew up with the story that at certain times of the year, Granny would be woken in the dead of night, by the noise of an unruly meeting which seemed to be happening in her room. She always talked about a big book which fell on the floor with a crash and she was sure it was a Bible. Mom often talked about Granny announcing at certain times, that the Boers were having their meeting again last night. Oddly enough she didn’t seem much alarmed by it.
Another odd happening was my parents waking up in the night to the sound of knocking on the wall of the bedroom. The knocking moved from wall to wall until all four had had knocking coming from them. I was a tiny baby and apparently I was sitting bolt upright in my cot, staring at the wall and screaming my head off. Goodness knows what I could see! Dad went to check on Granny to see if she had been knocking and she denied all knowledge of the knocks. One might have sought a reason outside, such as kids playing a prank but only one was an outer wall and kids could not have accessed the three inner walls.
Next door to us lived the Jacobs couple and they had lived in our house sometime before us. They once asked the folks if they had seen or heard anything abnormal in the house, because they had experienced unsettling things, the details of which now escape me.
My sister Pat was born In Winburg and one of the few things I recall about those times, was sitting in the car waiting for Dad outside a house which the local doctor used as a nursing home. My sister had arrived but I had to wait for a while before I could see her. The house is still there as is the house in which we lived. When I audited there I should have checked with the current residents if the Boers still had their annual meeting in the spare room but I didn’t – sorry.
We moved to Trompsburg in the late 40s, to a house which was attached to a shop which housed a clothing shop called DJ NEL. The house was situated on a large erf which was adjacent to an even bigger garden/orchard. The whole property, garden included, belonged to the Graham family or more specifically to a Dr Graham. We did not have access to the garden which was well stocked with a variety of fruit trees. The doctor passed on shortly after we got there and we learned that the house had been used as a nursing home in his time. Old Mrs Graham was our feared landlady and Mom used her liberally to scare me and to keep me in line. She looked just like the pictures I had seen of Queen Mary – all dressed in black, Victorian clothing and balancing an extravagant hat upon her head. When she came to visit, Mom would be on her very best behavior because accommodation was scarce and we just couldn’t afford to antagonise our landlady.
Mrs Graham came to call one day and I perversely decided I also wanted to hear what she had to say. Mom quietly asked me to get out and play but I just ignored her and sat staring at this wondrous old lady. Mom repeated her command somewhat louder and stroppy little Yours Truly succinctly said, “JOU GAT”. Luckily I don’t remember the occasion and am repeating what my Mom told but I can easily believe that I must have raised eyebrows to say the least. I got whacked good and proper Mom said and when Dad came home, I had a repeat hiding. From then on, Mrs Graham and a sore bottom were indelibly linked in my brain.
But where did this Afrikaans phrase come from? Well, the son of one of my Dad’s “Padmaker” colleagues lived close by and he had come across to play. He was older than me and Afrikaans, so I picked up his language rather than him picking up mine. Inevitably rude words feature strongly in any new vocabulary so we presume I acquired all Gielie Venter had, including "gat". Some time not long after, Gielie’s Mom came to call on my old lady and the subject got round to Gielie and me. Mom complained that I had cottoned onto this rude Afrikaans word “Gat” and she had given me a hiding to get me to stop using it. Mrs Venter then revealed that Gielie had come home with the word “hol”, a degree or two worse than “gat” in their estimation and they suspected he’d got it from me. The two Moms then reasoned that we must have been digging a hole somewhere in the garden and as I had been tanned for saying “gat”, I sommer used the English “hole” and gave it an Afrikaans flavor. So, if I said “Ek grou ‘n gat” I’d get a hiding and if Gielie said, “Ek grou ‘n hol”, he’d get one too. The world is a confusing place when you’re small.
I must have picked up Afrikaans pretty quickly because by the time I went to school, I was fully fluent. I somehow taught myself to read English before school. My dad had a collection of National Geographic Magazines which were given to me when I was sick in bed (Which was often) and I think my curiosity was piqued by the pictures I saw and I wanted to know what the captions said. Also, Granny used to read to us and I recall being able to read “Pookie Puts the World Right” one of Pat’s books, from watching and listening to Granny. What school taught me was to read Afrikaans and before long, I had joined the Municipal Library and was reading English and Afrikaans books. I absolutely loved reading and still do.
The school in Trompsburg had only an Afrikaans medium into which I fitted quite happily. Until my sister started going to school there were only two “Rooineks” (Oh how I detested that epithet. Didn’t matter that I was as Afrikaans as any of the other kids – I was still a “hated” Rooinek, never a fully fledged Boertjie!”) in the whole school – myself and Arlene Graham, our landlady’s granddaughter. Arlene was a clever, curly topped, blonde kid who constantly challenged my “First in the class” position which of course set us even further apart from the Boertjies than ever. I remember going to see Arlene at her Granny’s house and she showed me something I’ve never seen again: coal flowers. On a tray lay some large lumps of ordinary coal, over which had been poured ammonia (I think) which had caused multicoloured, foamlike “flowers” to grow on the coal. I have read that Victorian housewives sometimes used the method to brighten up their drab homes. I’ve always fancied trying it for myself but alas, with Eskom hogging all the country’s coal, I probably never will now.
The Afrikaners, even as late as the 50s, hated the British for their cowardly tactics during the war and their kids sure picked up the vibes and insults. It just wasn’t fair because I hadn’t fought in the war and anyway, I had sympathy for the Boers and even had a Great Grandfather who was a Boer sympathiser in Kroonstad where he had a blacksmith shop. Yep, Rooinek was just about the most inflammatory name you could call me back then.
In Std 1 Bertie van Vrede was with me. He might have been with us earlier as well but I don’t remember. He was born without legs and got around by swinging his body between his very powerful arms. Bertie was an outgoing, cheerful lad who did not let his impediment slow him down. In the playground, he roughhoused along with the rest of us and he even used to take on several of us in wrestling matches. Our puny arms could not compete with his gorilla-like arms and we always came second when wrestling him. He was not very bright and did poorly at school. English appeared in the curriculum in Std 1 and Bertie had to learn “Twinkle twinkle little star”. His version went, “Tintel, tintel tintel snaar”. Teacher would put up a picture on the board of a man lighting a fire in a stove and we’d make up simple sentences. Bertie said. “Jim fires de vuur”.
An Afrikaans newspaper in Bloemfontein did a collection for him and a little three wheeled, hand-powered cart with bicycle wheels was created for him. He could then get to school totally unaided. He was tough and likeable and we always treated him just like one of us.
Years later, I started work in Fauresmith and was on duty in the pub as barman when the door opened and I heard a sort of dragging, shuffling noise but no-one appeared. I was mystified until all of a sudden this legless chap heaved himself onto the barstool and perched there. I immediately recognized Bertie and we had a joyous reunion. He was working at the telephone exchange and to my amazement, was already married with a kid. He told me that he had been fitted with legs but that he preferred to get along without them. He still rode a trike but now it was motor powered. Quite a fellow was Bertie. I wish I knew what happened to him.
I was in Std 1 when I had the misfortune of being chosen to be a toy soldier in a play which our idiotic teachers were putting on in the Town Hall. I hated every minute of that tripe – the ridiculous costume of a pair of white pantaloons and a red top in some shiny material while wearing a thing on my head made of black crinkle paper, which was supposed to be a busby, was massively offensive especially since I had to repeatedly go to the house of some woman with a sewing machine, for fittings. I think I may have had a line to say but am not sure but having to give up my free afternoons to go for rehearsals was annoying beyond all bearing. For two nights running, I had to get into that damn costume and appear on the Town Hall stage with the rest of the little fools who had been roped into the “play”. TEACHERS! Note well, I have taken your name, number and rank and one day I will repay you idiots for the things you put me through........
At the same concert, Pat was a fairy but at least she had a believable outfit and could have been mistaken for a rather tall fairy. After the show and back home, Dad insisted we get back into our costumes for a photo shoot and helped perpetuate that crime for all our days. In Pat’s snap, she’s a fairy with shoes and white socks on, which by the scowl on her face pissed her off no end – her indignation knew no bounds because Dad would not allow her to go barefoot. Fairies don’t wear flippin’ shoes Dad!
Something I recall from probably 1952 or 1953 was a Sunday School Picnic. The Dutch Reformed Church arranged a picnic for all Sub A and Sub B kids on a nearby farm known as Langseekoeigat. All kids were invited, irrespective of their church affiliations so I also went along. A big red lorry loaded us all up on the market square and took us out in a cheering, screaming, laughing mob to the farm. The trip on the back of the truck would have been reward enough for me – man, it was so exciting! All we had to bring was a big floppy hat and a tin mug for the coffee. We descended on the little spruit, which ran through Langseekoeigat, like a plague. There were huge, drooping willow trees for shade and just a trickle of water in which to play and build dams. The morning passed like a flash and I would have been happy for it to go on forever. Soon the braaivleis fires were alight and stacks of proper farm boerewors were sizzling and popping. All lunch consisted of was a chunk of bread and a generous piece of wors, washed down by some moer koffie. You just don’t see that kind of wors in the shops – it was thick, not tightly packed and full of little cubes of spek. I’d know it if I ever met it again – I’ve just never struck wors as good again.
I returned to Trompsburg for an audit in a year when the school was celebrating its centenary and one of the attractions was a “cross country” golf game on Langseekoeigat. Oom Boet van Schalkwyk, who originally hosted our picnic and I chatted about that picnic which he also remembered vividly. That was nostalgia at its best. While we were talking, he pointed out an enamel bath on clawed feet which was being used as a water crib for the farmyard animals. When our erstwhile home was pulled down along with a few other buildings in the area, to make way for the old age home which is there now, that bath came out of the house and was sold to Oom Boet. The bath had come down a bit in the world but was still working hard!
For many years the dam on the farm was the biggest dam in private hands, in all of South Africa. I suppose it has been overtaken by now by another dam somewhere but I recall the Railways used to buy water from that dam for their steam engines. The cross country golf mentioned earlier took place all along the edges of the dam. It wasn’t taken very seriously, given that it was cold winter’s day and many golf bags had bottles of Old Brown Sherry in them, with which to keep the cold at bay. There were plenty of laughs as many of the players were not even golfers and the hilarious tee-off even made the SABC-TV news that night.
If you’ve read a few of my stories, you’ll probably have noticed how often alcohol has featured. Well, let me tell you about the very first time I encountered alcohol. I must have been 4 or 5 and I had just helped my Mom mince some meat in the kitchen. Little savage that I was I loved to clean out the mincing machine and eat the raw meat and onions – my idea of steak tartare! I liberally sprinkled salt over the mince before eating it, which of course, made me thirsty.
I then drifted off into Mom’s pantry to see if there wasn’t something good to drink there but all I could find was a bottle of methylated spirits. (There was no fridge in our house back then). I was enchanted with the purple colour of the meths and opened the top for a sniff. I recall thinking that it smelled OK so why not try a mouthful. WELL! That stuff tasted absolutely vile and cruelly burned my mouth so that I just swallowed what I had swigged. I set up a wail and upchucked my mince and some of the meths. Mom came a-running and rushed me to the doctor who had a surgery very close by. The effect of what remained in me was almost instantaneous and Mom said I was so drunk and silly she couldn’t do a thing with me. The doc advised her to just let me sleep it off which she did and no permanent damage was done. Tramps and other denizens of the gutter, usually end up on “Blou Trein” but John Lyle being part Irish, had to START on it.
Talking about doctors, I really wasn’t a robust little guy. Sickly and fragile rather summed me up. I spent much of my young life sick in bed – whatever childhood disease was going around, I would contract. I had measles, rubella, chicken pox, whooping cough etc and lots of colds and flu – everything in fact except mumps. I don’t know how I missed that one but I’m not about to go looking for a perfect tally. Dr du Plessis was our doctor and still one of the dedicated practitioners that did house calls. He pulled me through all my sicknesses, including a bout of food poisoning which nearly did for my Mom and me, after we had eaten chocolates which were off. He saw to it that my tonsils were ripped out before I was six and packed me off to Bloemfontein Provincial Hospital when appendicitis threatened at nine years old. Dear old Doc – he didn’t have much hope for me and warned my Mom that I would not see out my teenage years if we stayed any longer in that old house.
Needless to say his prediction did not come true because I started picking up once we left Trompsburg. I actually saw him once when I audited there and he was quite delighted to see me. I reminded him of what he had told my Mom and in all seriousness he replied that neither Mom nor I would have lasted much longer in “that house”. He did not elaborate on what it was about the house which was sapping our strength, so that is still open to conjecture.
We left Trompsburg in 1957 when I was in Standard Four but just before we were due to leave, the school was visited by school doctors. I have been myopic all my life and for most of my early Primary School days, I couldn’t see a damn thing on the blackboard. I was able to hide the condition as I have a good memory and didn’t need the board. I just hated the idea of wearing glasses – that was for sissies. (Idiot!) But I knew my game was up when that school nurse stood me in front of the eye chart and I could not even read the top line! She made me stand ever closer until at about 3 feet away I could see the top line at last. She exclaimed in horrified tones, “My hene kind, JY’S BLIND!” Next thing, my dad received a summons threatening further legal action if he had not taken me to an optician within 30 days. That he should be accused of child neglect just didn’t seem reasonable to my Dad but when I admitted that I could not see the world clearly at all and he was completely stunned. Luckily we moved to Ladybrand where there was an optician within those 30 days and the problem was solved. I was more than 11 years old when I saw the world the way it really is for the first time.
Today we all sleep on proper inner spring or memory foam mattresses but in those days, we kids had to make do with coir mattresses. In case you don’t know, coir is the fibre from the outer husk of a coconut and it was used to fill a striped slip the size of a bed. The stuff was by no means soft like down but it formed a reasonable bed. A little annoyance was the coir’s tendency to stick through the material and unexpectedly prick one. After years of use, the coir would flatten out until it was biscuit thin and quite hard. For this problem, a team of black women would call round at one’s house, empty out the mattresses onto bucksails and tease and plump the coir until the dust filled the air. The now fully revived and puffed up coir would turn the slip from a flat, hard slab to a fat, bouncy monster into which one could subside happily at night. I had a coir mattress in the army as well but I doubt if they bothered much about troop comfort – as long as it made a nice square bed to satisfy inspection requirements, it would do.
We stayed in Mrs Graham’s house for the full 8 years that we were in Trompsburg. Early on my parents heard rumours of strange goings on in the house so father and mother and two kids, all slept in the same, large bedroom. Granny slept in a room at the far end of the house. Next to the main bedroom was also a bedroom which was used for guests – as a kid I coveted that room but my parents were adamant that we kids would never sleep there – no explanation why. In all the time we lived there, neither Pat nor I were witness to anything inexplicable but our occasional guests were often unhappy there. Mom had an old blind spinster aunt, Auntie May who visited us annually and slept in the room. She obviously could not see anything but on one occasion she complained about my Dad winding the clock in the passage at all hours of the night – we had NO clock in the passage or anywhere else in the house. She also complained about someone using a treadle sewing machine, sewing long runs like sheets, in the night. Likewise, it was not us. Strange smells also sometimes assaulted her keen sense of smell but as the place had been used as a nursing home, it wasn’t all that surprising.
We had Mom’s Uncle Pietie and Aunt Madge Retief and their daughter Monica staying with us once and Mom used to tell that something had alarmed the two ladies considerably during the night, to the extent that they all ended up trying to sleep in the same bed. We never did find out exactly what it was that they either saw, heard, smelled or felt but it certainly unnerved them
Oddly enough, the Chatfields, our vicar and his spouse, often overnighted in the room and they were never once troubled by any strange goings on.
The really odd happening occurred when my Mom’s sister Aunt Doreen came to visit. They were sitting at our large dining room table which stood in the corner of the lounge. Doreen could see all the way down the main passage which formed a t-junction with a second passage at the end of the house. The latter passage had doors at either end which led to the front stoep and the backyard. The door to the stoep was always kept locked by means of barrel bolts.
Doreen suddenly exclaimed that there was an old man standing at the point where the passages met. When Mom looked, she saw no-one. They then walked down to where the old fellow had been seen and reasoned he must have exited via the backyard door as the front door was still bolted shut. Just outside the back door sat our maids having their breakfast and they had not seen anyone exiting the passage. Doreen described the old man as being dressed in a type of tweed, a most uncommon material at the time. What was known about old Dr Graham that he was in the habit of wearing a tweed suit, something Doreen could not have known. Who did she see that day? Sceptics will conclude she must have had a brief moment of hallucination but our family is convinced that she saw the ghost of Dr Graham doing his rounds in his old nursing home.
Trompsburg still had the bucket system for the disposal of sewage in those days and our house had a substantially bigger privy than the norm. The sewage disposal men collected the bucket via a flap at the back of the building and did not need to access the room around the front way. It was a substantial distance around to the front via shut gates in any event. Regularly a blob of candlewax would appear on the seating boards, always in the same place. The maid who kept the place scrupulously clean would scrape off the wax but it would always return. Obviously one would immediately assume some homeless wretch was sleeping there – it was certainly big enough – but Dad sometimes had to go out to the privy in the dead of night and never once did he surprise anyone there.
I went back to Trompsburg sometime in the seventies, while I was auditing at Edenburg. Our house was still standing but it was obvious that no-one had lived there for years. I heard much later that tenants seldom stayed long there and I can’t help wondering why. Perhaps Dr Graham did not approve of his later tenants and scared them off.
Mom used to tell that Dad, who was a Road Inspector, had risked his job to help Dr Graham’s son fulfill a promise to his father to have him buried on top of a little spitskoppie at the farm. All went quite well with the digging of the hole on top of the hill but they eventually struck rock which could not be budged. Against all rules and regulations Dad supplied them with a couple of sticks of dynamite which normally would have been used to help build roads. The rock was shattered and Dr Graham laid to rest. Perhaps the good Doctor had put up with us for the 8 years we lived in his house, in return for Dad having made it possible for him to rest looking out over his beloved farm.
Today Guy Fawkes Day has fortunately been almost phased out. In the 50s it was a day to rival Christmas to us kids. Dad always shelled out a few hard-earned bob for fireworks every year, which he would set off in the street outside the house. I enjoyed the fire fountains and skyrockets but was averse to bangs. I’ve always shunned loud noises which physically hurt my ears and it used to annoy Dad when I would watch the firework display with my fingers in my ears. Later in life, the crack of a rifle and thunder of bigger guns were complete agony to me – it felt as if my ears would start bleeding. The next day I would run around and collect up all the spent fireworks which I’d keep for a while – skyrockets were the hardest to find!
Our back gate backed onto the market square and the market premises came equipped with a large brass bell. Naughty schoolboys would ring the bell incessantly on November 5th and fan out from the market place on their mischief forays into town. A favourite bit of troublemaking was to steal front gates off their hinges and go and throw them down in the spruit. Dad used to secure ours with wire to prevent this. One year a whole mob of boys stole the parked nightcart and ran it some distance out of town. Luckily it was empty at the time and not in immediate use.
Up over the hill at the back of town, the township folk had their own celebration going. They probably could not afford fireworks and with a curfew in place, could not roam the town’s streets either but they could build a bonfire. For days before Guy Fawkes, you would see kids begging for discarded oil at the garages, which they would carry home in little cans and use to soak the bonfire wood. Whether they burnt a “Guy” I don’t know but that bonfire must have been pretty spectacular nevertheless because they worked on it for ages before the day. Isn’t it strange how that day persists despite all efforts to stamp it out. It should not have had any meaning for ANY South African, whether black or white and yet it did.
Christmas was an exciting time to be sure. Some days before the 25th, Mom and Dad would spend an evening making decorations for the lounge out of crinkle paper. There was very little in the way of tinselly baubles and strings the way there is today and lights for a Christmas tree were just unheard of. We never had a tree in fact and Father Christmas used to leave our presents at the end of our beds. On Christmas Eve Granny would take us out walking to tire us out to prevent us from trying to stay awake for a glimpse of the big chap with the beard. A neat pillow slip would be laid at the end of the bed and we would be enjoined to go to sleep promptly otherwise Santa would pass us by. He never did and we never caught him delivering either. Waking up before dawn on Christmas Day, we’d peer at the end of our beds and be bowled over by the way that pillow slip now bulged. Waiting for the opening of presents was almost unbearable and I would lie and try and imagine what there was waiting down there. It was easily the most exciting time of our young lives.
Then we’d get dressed and in the very early years, head for church in Springfontein. In later years the service shifted to the Masonic Lodge in Trompsburg and as the Anglicans dwindled in number, to our lounge. I never recall eating any turkeys in our home at Christmas or ever for that matter – it was always our own home-grown chickens. In those days, chicken was the luxury in our home which we saw on special occasions like Easter and Christmas and rarely at other times, while a leg of mutton was common fare. What one pays for a piece of lamb or mutton today, would have fed our whole family for a year! Our cockerels were hatched in our yard and grain fed so they were jolly good eating. I remember Mom’s chicken stuffing and roast potatoes with much affection. Mom would make her own Christmas pudding months before Christmas and the custard poured over the pud was also home-made.
One more memorable aspect of the Christmas season was when the shops mounted a toy display in a prominent window of the shop. Lees’ shop was the first shop one encountered coming home from school and I simply would not pass by without stopping to look and dream about the toys crammed in there. Another shop further along whose name I cannot recall, had an even bigger window to covet by. I saw a toy there one year I badly wanted but all my hints at home fell on deaf ears and I still wonder which lucky little guy got the toy instead of me.
In those times, it was traditional for the men who served the community in menial jobs such as shop deliverymen, nightcart men and so on, would come round to the house for a “Christmas Box”. Dad would have a bottle of sweet wine and a bagful of coins with which to “treat” them. I don’t think Dad could afford much and the wine he gave was only about a tot, but it seems as if it was the principle rather than the size of the “Box” that mattered. On the other hand, the chaps would get around to enough houses to get motherlessly drunk anyway, so it didn’t matter if your contribution was modest!
Little boys, it is assumed, are not interested in little girls early on in life. It’s kind of a sissy thing to admit you even notice a girl – I mean, they’re all sort of eeyeww, you know what I mean! Yet I recall a little girl in Sub A catching my eye. Considering how short sighted I was, it’s amazing I could even see her at all! Her name was Essie Louw and short sighted or not, I know she was pretty because when I returned to Trompsburg for an audit, I mentioned her name and one of the ladies at the bank brought some magazine cuttings of when Essie was all grown up and ready to marry. Rooi Rose, an Afrikaans magazine had chosen her as bride of the year and written a full length article about her with lots of photos. I still have copies of that Rooi Rose somewhere. I sure knew how to pick them, even in Sub A because she made a beautiful bride.
I don’t recall her after Sub A and in fact recall no further crushes until Std 2 when Louise Lombard joined our class. I’ve got a photo of that class and I can’t for the life of me see why she attracted me. I think my myopia was reaching a serious level possibly and maybe what I saw was “Mooi van ver maar ver van mooi”. Anyway, her father had Welkom Kafee and perhaps that fact is in the attraction equation somewhere.
In Std 3 we got a new magistrate named Craven, brother, I think, of the famous Dr Danie. His daughter was Yvonne, a fleet footed little girl with a huge mop of hair, pulled back into a ponytail and really very cute indeed. I fell, hook, line and sinker but so did my pal Tollie Wilken. I could remain insouciant when she was around but not Tollie. He could not hide his admiration and gawked at her without a trace of embarrassment. If he could manage to contrive for us to walk past their house, he’d stare unashamedly in hopes of the adored one showing. She did once and two young male hearts frantically skipped beats when she called a greeting to us! She had a breathy, lispy, babyish way of talking which was just too much and when she ran, which she could do very well, her hair and ribbons streamed out behind her in the wind. Come to think of it, I have no memory of her face – I have just assumed she was pretty. By this time, my myopia had reached a level where her face would have just been a blur. I think it was that honey-blonde hair in a gorgeous ponytail which caught my eye because I damn well couldn’t see anything else.
Ah yes, little Yvonne, I really adored you and I’d give much to see what you look like today ….. or indeed, what you looked like yesterday as well! By the time I started Std 4, she was no longer with us and I recall no heartbreakers in that class at all.
While I’m thinking about Tollie, he really was a naughty little beggar and I’m sure our folks didn’t regard him as very good company for me. He was always present when some mischief was being brewed, like when Gielie bought a packet of 10 Cavalla cigarettes on his mother’s account at Lees for us to try out. Tollie was all for it and I did not want to be left behind so we drifted up to an old quarry near the township road and lit up. We did not inhale and just puffed a bit and for the life of me, I could not see what the grown-ups saw in it. On the way back home, Tollie insisted we chew on some eucalyptus leaves to counteract the tobacco smell – of course it doesn’t work and the leaves taste even worse than the cigarettes.
But Tollie exceeded the bounds of common decency one afternoon when we were playing up a tree while Pat and her friend were playing underneath somewhere. Bright spark Tollie thought piddling down on the girls would amuse everyone but when he did exactly that, Pat rushed inside and in tears reported what Tollie had done. Dad was furious and chased Tollie home, banning him from coming into our yard for good. His family was transferred to Koffiefontein eventually where we heard that he had constructed a canoe to use on a mine dam and a younger kid was drowned while trying to row on the dam in it. I wonder what eventually happened to him.
We left for Ladybrand soon after the start of Std 4 and yes, I had my crushes then too and more so because I had specs with which to properly see what I was mooning over. But that’s another story.
Trompsburg Town Hall was the entertainment heart of the town. Apart from travelling shows and school concerts, once every two weeks, they would show a film and the whole town would get dressed up as if going to church and descend on the Hall. We little guys universally deserted our families and went to sit right down in the front row where we could “see the movie before anyone else did”. Cowboy and war movies were special favourites because we could abandon any reservations we might have had and scream and stamp our feet as if demented , during tense or heroic moments on the screen. Gosh, it was so much fun.
Once in a while, people like Jamie Uys would arrive and show their latest movie in the Town Hall. I remember Jamie bringing “Daar doer in die Bosveld” on tour from dorp to dorp. Posters went up to announce his coming and though it was a week night, everyone was set to go – everyone being Gielie and Tollie mainly as far as I was concerned. John Lyle would have to stay home and cry himself to sleep because it was a school night. I was so disappointed that my pals would see the movie and I wouldn’t, I literally burst into heart-rending sobs in my pillow. All of a sudden Dad (Bless him!) relented, bundled me up in my gown and off I went to see ‘Daar Doer in die Bosveld”. I recall absolutely nothing about the old black and white film but I was THERE and that was all that mattered.
Strongmen like Rex Ferris and Tromp van Diggelen used to tour the Platteland with their shows, which consisted of them performing incredible feats of strength and showing off their considerable muscles. I never went to any of those but I spent hours looking at the awesome posters they put up beforehand. I went to one variety concert where I saw a man playing a saw with a violin bow – I remember nothing about the rest of the concert but I sure remember that saw sounding weirdly like a violin.
Intervals were exciting times at the Town Hall because the café a block down would close during the first half of the evening to give the owner a chance to also watch the movie. But come interval, he would have to run like hell to try and get to the café before the ravening mob reached it. The crush in that café during interval was unbelievable and I often wondered how many blokes simply walked out without paying. Pat remembers the café catching fire shortly after one of those mad stampedes and everyone was back in the hall. Luckily the owner and his wife were cashing up so they were able to get the stampeders back again, to help quench the fire! They stopped the movie and waited while the café was saved and eventually everyone went back and watched the rest of the film. That could only happen in a small town – so much action and entertainment you could never buy in the city!
Granny von Schlicht was always around no matter where we went. One can choose one’s friends but one can’t choose one’s relatives and I think, in all honesty, that if I had the option, I would not have chosen Granny. I don’t think she liked me at all and always favoured Pat, the apple of her eye but the feeling was entirely mutual, as she had not done a damn thing to endear herself to me. We lived in a state of barely suppressed antagonism which sometimes erupted into “warfare”.
Like the day I was playing building little roads and bridges out of mud in the backyard. (I was a “padmakers” son after all) and got the brilliant idea of using a matchbox to make nifty little mud bricks. I was disappointed when they “flopped” when I tried to pop them out of the matchbox. I had a vague idea of how bricks were made and that they were “baked” by means of fire and I figured that was all my “bricks” needed to come out hard and stackable. I found some proper fullsized bricks and a small sheet of iron and proceeded to build a little oven. I could make my fire under the iron and place the wet bricks on top of it to dry. I had nicked a box of matches from my cigarette smoking parents and got twigs together and started my fire.
The fire was burning merrily in my oven and I hoped was drying out my bricks, when who should walk by but old Tattletale Granny. She stared in horror at my wee enterprise and shot into the house as fast as her legs could carry her, to report to Mom that “John is making fires in the backyard”. It was factually incorrect – she made me sound like a flipping arsonist – it was only one, well controlled little fire and not a series of backyard conflagrations the way she made it sound. The bricks were a failure needless to say because they had dried into gnarled and twisted bits of mud but I have throughout my life, been tempted to do the experiment again with different mud and perhaps something like straw, to bind it. I never have because, jeepers if there is one thing which would have brought that old lady back to haunt me, it is making little fires and I could not take THAT chance.
Sunday afternoons was walkies time for Granny and us kids – Patty in her stroller and me on foot. On the plus side, she sometimes had Nobby chocolate covered toffees to share with us but on the negative side, more often than not, the graveyard was where she would head for. Why it fascinated her I don’t know but we’d wander around for ages, admiring the blocks of granite and marble and the statuettes of angels. I enjoyed those walks though and we went to all points of the compass in the course of time.
Granny was burdened with the awfully German surname von Schlicht. She opened a little account at the big shop called Tromp & Kie not long after we got to Trompsburg. She was more than a little indignant when her first account from them was addressed to MRS VON SCHITT. Another shop owner jokingly referred to her as Mrs von Sleg but Granny did not appreciate his sense of humour at all. Yet another thought she was Mrs van Vlieg. I think most people eventually opted most sensibly for just calling her “Mrs Von”.
Granny had some buddies she often used to go and call on. Miss Matty was a strange little lady who often wore a fox pelt around her neck. We found it a bizarre item because it was the entire skin of the fox, head with glass eyes and full tail included. Imagine wearing something like that today. The Animal Anti Cruelty activists would have YOUR skin around their own necks before long. There was also Mrs Steyn who had a goldfish pond in her garden that I remember, while Pat recalls that her son kept guinea pigs . Granny’s Afrikaans was atrocious and as would be, I suppose, Mrs Steyn’s English so how they communicated I can’t imagine. Granny was also friends with Mrs van Wyk, a cake baker of note. Mom always got two cake from her on our birthdays – a white one and a chocolate one. Believe me those cakes were beautiful and scrumptious and once ingested, would keep a bunch of kids screaming and running madly, high on sugar, for hours.
There was also an old couple who lived in a house opposite the police station that Granny visited with me in tow. I remember being given some strawberries to eat which had come from their garden. I was sent out to play in the garden and spent the rest of the afternoon looking up into trees, in hopes of finding the strawberry tree. I didn’t know the damn things grew on the ground.
Sometime in the early fifties, new identity cards became a requirement and one applied through the Magistrate’s office, where the necessary photos were also taken. Granny wanted to look her best on her card and so went off to Lees’ shop to buy a smart but pricy new hat. Came the day when she marched across to the Magistrate’s office in her Sunday best, her magnificent new hat perched artfully on her head, to have her photo taken. Imagine her disgust when the first thing the photographer did was peremptorily order her to remove her hat. I doubt if Granny ever forgave the Nats for that because it was their damn Government that had prevented her from looking her best on her card.
She was very superstitious and clung desperately to her beliefs, against all common sense. For instance, she would cover up all her mirrors when a thunderstorm was brewing as she believed that mirrors attracted lightning. And heaven help us if a pair of knives ever crossed on the table – it was sure signal that a fight was brewing in the house. Mind you, this last one could have found support because a fight between her and Dad was almost always imminent! I don’t even remember what some of the things were that she believed in but they would have been ridiculous, no matter what.
Another of her quirks was her “secretive” smoking. We have no idea why she would not smoke out in the open, seeing Mom and Dad smoked but smoke alone in her room she most certainly did. I recall a brand of cigarette called “Max” which came in a tin which looked like today’s packs and not the flat tins like Mills. It had a slide off lid and I was always intrigued by the one Granny had and in which she kept whatever she smoked. I don’t remember what she bought but Flag rings a bell as does Cavalla.
Another time I trod very hard on Granny’s corns was when she had bought Pat and I each a beautiful woolen blanket. It must have been quite expensive and even though Granny was the donor, I liked it. Still, I incurred her wrath, which for once, was fully justified, when I was ill in bed. I remember the occasion vividly still but I can’t explain why I did what I did. I started pulling the fluff off the blanket and making little lumps of the fluff, calling them my sheep. I just kinda got the bit between my teeth and created a whole flock of “sheep”, in the process denuding the blanket of all its insulating properties! All the sheep together formed one Brobdinagian sheep which is probably when my dastardly deed was discovered. When asked what the huge ball of fluff was, I explained lamely that I had been “playing sheep”. This more than just about anything else, confirmed Granny’s belief that I was just BAD and that I was out to be as nasty as humanly possible to her. She once said that my quick temper would land me in jail one day but on this occasion there wasn’t anything malicious in what I did ………. Really, I swear!
The Cold War between Granny and I persisted to her end. I remember one Christmas towards her end, I quite innocently bought her what I considered an amusing little present – for once I really wasn’t even being slightly malicious. It was a pottery toilet ashtray with room in the cistern part for a matchbox and grooves and a receptacle in the seat on which to rest the cigarette or to dispose of ash. A motto said “To Rest Your Weary Ash”. Boy, did that old lady take offence at that. In high dudgeon she went off and showed Mom exactly what I thought of her! In all honesty I hadn’t started out with ill intent but after her complete lack of anything resembling a sense of humour, I successfully suppressed any twinge of regret I might have felt at the misunderstanding.
I wasn’t alone in my dislike of Granny. Dad really didn’t like her nor she him. It’s measure of what a miserable old woman she was that Dad had given her board and lodging unstintingly for many years without her ever being the slightest bit grateful to him. She just accepted it as her due, not her privilege. An annoying table habit with which she would drive Dad up the wall, was scraping the last traces of custard off the bottom of the custard jug. She’d sit there blissfully unaware of the dirty looks she was getting and clatter away in the jug until we were sure Dad would hit her. He never did unfortunately.
The manager of Barclays Bank when we arrived in Trompsburg, was Piet Uys. His daughter Anne also worked in the bank with him and my folks were quite good friends with her. One year I had the brilliant idea of making a little kite with a couple of planks, some wire and brown paper. Needless to say it was a dismal failure but Anne somehow got to notice my failed flyer and undertook to build me a proper one. She went up the road to Mr Clements’ house where there was a bamboo thicket and selected suitable ribs for her kite. I remember she was painstaking about making the kite, which was to be much bigger than the one I had envisaged and I soon became bored. Anne persevered and a beautiful kite was born – much too smart for my grubby and destructive paws. We all went out on the Smithfield road over a week-end and Anne and Dad flew the kite successfully. It went miles into the sky and was terrific but my idea had been hijacked and it was Anne’s kite, not mine. I had envisaged a kite I could trail behind me as I ran down the street, not one which could fly into the bloody stratosphere and require miles and miles of twine!
In the 8 years we lived in Trompsburg, we had two vicars who were based in Springfontein – Rev Chatfield initially and later, Rev Webb. Chatfield was moved to Ladybrand several years before we were so we met up with them again later. I do remember that Pat started walking in their house in Springfontein, but not much else. Services in Trompsburg were conducted in the little Free Masons’ Lodge – Chatfield was a Mason himself. Walter Webb was a big, hearty man who, as Mom often put it, was inclined to draw the long bow. He used to tell outrageous stories about how he had served in the British Secret Service and quite seriously claimed that he had a direct line to Buckingham palace. During his time, we stopped using the Masonic Lodge and services were conducted in the lounge of our house. Anglican numbers had drastically dwindled by then.
Mrs Graham’s fruit orchard adjoining our yard was full of very tasty looking, luscious fruit during one December and it was just going to waste. No trouble to Webb – he found a spot in the fence where he climbed through and proceeded to steal fruit like a schoolboy. I guess the sin lay in the good food going waste, not actually in stealing it.
He was always kind to Pat & me. After church and a good lunch, he would take us up to the café and buy us each an ice cream cone. We had no fridge in those days so we never saw ice- cream in our house. Those Sunday afternoon treats were really looked forward to and appreciated. They were eventually transferred to Ficksburg where we once went to visit them.
Across the road in the bank worked a young lad by the name of BRIAN CROSS. The bank did not supply refreshments in those days and the best Brian and his colleagues could afford was Rooibos Tea. They approached mom to make the tea for them as they had no facilities in the branch. Several times a day, the cleaner would pop across with cups on a tray and Mom would pour some tea from the pot which would stand on the stove all day brewing quietly. Our house actually reeked of the stuff. Brian Cross moved away in due course and became a big wheel in Staff Department before his demise some years ago. Rooibos tea is so highly thought of today that it’s hard to imagine that there was a time when it was considered third rate compared to Ceylon tea.
We’ve always had pets. A home without pets is just not a home somehow. I had Robbie, a heft y boerboel who was my buddy and protector. He had a habit of walking around with half a brick or a bit or rock in his slobbery jaws and we really didn’t know why. He would also lick the whitewashed walls of our outbuildings presumably for the salt in the wash. When we first arrived, I was not allowed out of our back gate which opened onto the busy Market Square. Robbie was seen to block my way when I tried to walk out – he took his guarding duties seriously. He was not the kind of dog who would go looking for a fight. If Piet (My companion and minder) Robbie and I walked in the streets, dogs would rush up to their fences and bark madly at Robbie but he’d just ignore them and trot past proudly holding his brick in his mouth. Particularly vociferous was the Postmaster’s Doberman who really fancied having a brawl with Robbie. Then, one day he somehow got out of his yard and rushed out to tackle Robbie. Robbie stood his ground and grabbed the belligerent Nazi by the scruff of his neck, shook him a few times and let him go. That big sissy ran back to his yard yelping like a whipped pup and ever after, if we passed the house, he’d run away and hide. Robbie eventually died in Ladybrand.
Mom had a fox terrier called Lassie when we arrived in Trompsburg. Lassie got out of our yard and into the street where sadly, she was run over. Mom was physically ill for days, as she mourned that dog. Ever after, we were all sworn to keeping our dogs safe by making dead sure gates had been closed behind us. Leaving a gate open was about the worst crime we as kids could commit, especially once we had moved to Ladybrand. Mom had another foxy called Jeannie and she also went to Ladybrand.
I was introduced to the responsibility of pet ownership when Gielie gave me a white mouse called (Most originally!) Mickey. I had to feed and clean the mouse’s cage and that was for years, my Saturday morning task. We were always under the impression that Mickey was a male but she stunned us all in Ladybrand when she produced a litter of minute, pink babies, as wild as their father, an obviously very determined field mouse. We never did find out how the coupling was achieved because the cage had no holes and was covered in a very fine mesh. Mickey was quite tame and walked around on my bed when I was ill. I once stuck her in a matchbox and threw her up to the ceiling but failed to catch her when she came down. She thumped down on the floor and was knocked silly. I burst into tears and Dad came running and dropped the tiniest bit of brandy into her mouth which revived her – I lied that she had fallen off my bed, not that she had been an experimental matchbox test pilot. I never did confess that awful sin to Dad but Mickey survived and went on to make me a proud Grandpa.
I don’t know if silkworms count as pets but I had plenty of the little wrigglies over the years. Mrs Victor was a lady who worked at Tromps’ sweet counter, where I used to buy a sixpence worth of “bokdrolletjies” and get a solid brown packet full for my money. I think she liked me! I could get leaves from a big mulberry tree in her backyard for my worms as well as some jolly delicious mulberries when they were ripe. I’d climb about in the tree, ostensibly looking for the finest, most tender leaves but actually scoffing mulberries. I never mentioned it to Mrs Victor but I’m sure she knew what I was doing but didn’t mind me helping myself to the bounty.
Dad once brought home a little hedgehog which was promptly named Horace. He was an intriguing little animal, nocturnal and very shy. If one startled him or picked him up, he would simply roll himself into a prickly ball and wait for one to leave him alone. He slept through most of the day and we quickly lost interest in him as we could not successfully interact with him. Oddly enough, I have no recollection of what happened to him.
We have always had chickens or rather fowls as we called them but they were not really pets. As far as I can remember, we had mainly black Australorps which were hatched from eggs which our hens produced. Whenever an old hen became broody, out would come a half drum for a coop, a soft nest and a clutch of 13 eggs. Dad always insisted on 13. What a thrill it was to take the cover away from in front of the drum and we’d see little yellow heads poking out inquisitively from the hen’s plumage. Baby chicks are the most gorgeous little birds as they swarm around their Mom’s legs when she goes scratching for them. All too soon they grow into lanky and ugly teenagers and before you know it, there’s a whole new crop of Australorps crowding around at crushed mealie time. Dad had plenty of success with his settings – the ol’ rooster had obviously been performing his task pretty well because we seldom had dud eggs. Naturally the cockerels were fattened up for the table and it fell to old Annie, the kitchen maid, to lop their heads off at the appropriate time. Chicken was a luxury which only appeared on the table at Easter or Christmas and occasionally on some special Sundays. They were fantastic eating and the hens always kept us well supplied with eggs. For my whole childhood, eggs constituted the main ingredient of our suppers – fried, boiled or scrambled, we ate them with relish. Best food you can get – everyone should keep chickens.
We had a greedy old hen which burst open its crop, causing her feed to simply drop out of her as she pecked. Dad got hold of her and using a sterilized needle and some black thread, he simply sewed her up again. I’m not sure if it was the same hen but we had one old clucky who took up residence next to the stove in the kitchen on winter nights. Pat even recalls Dad bringing in half frozen chickens and thawing them in the stove’s warming drawer, during a late cold snap.
I also had a couple of bantams which Gielie gave me – a little rooster and his hen wife. The cock was known as Gielie Paptoes because he had hopped into a three legged pot with hot putu pap in it, while the servants were having their meal in the backyard. He burned his feet hence the silly name.
Mom had a budgie that she was determined to teach to speak so every night before bed she’d go into the spare room with him and in the dark, keep repeating, “Pretty boy” ad nauseum. Give Mom her due, she kept at it for ages but that bloody bird never uttered a single human word. I’ve forgotten his name (Bimbo possibly) but it should have been “Pretty Dim”.
Strangely enough, I don’t recall us having a cat in Trompsburg although the name Stripey floats up in my mind when I think of cats. There are snaps of little me with a cat but they might date back to Winburg days. A cat called Spats figures somewhere but neither Pat nor I can place it exactly.
Circuses came to Trompsburg on at least three occasions that I recall. I think the earliest was probably Pagel’s Circus because I still recall Granny telling how Mrs Pagel used to work in the box office and cheat people of their change. The next circus I recall was Boswell’s circus and I have vague memories of the tent being erected and the animals arriving in their cages. I’m not sure if it was Boswell Wilkies or just Wilkies that arrived during the summer school holidays but it was with great excitement that we schoolboys watched the wagons and caravans, trundling in from the station. At one stage we even ran all the way out to the station to see what else there was but it was wasted effort as they’d already offloaded the wagons. Once again, putting up the tent was amazing – three hefty black guys with sledgehammers would stand around a massive tent peg and hammer it into the ground, perfectly synchronized and taking turns to smack it without smacking each other. Watching all that work going slowly to our way of thinking, it never looked as if they’d finish in time and yet come evening all the coloured lights would transform the drab tent into something magical.
We actually went to one of these circuses but I don’t recall which one – possibly Wilkies but dammit, I remember Ticky the clown and not much else. I think my poor eyesight prevented me from seeing much of the show which is why I don’t remember details. An odd detail I recall is Granny talking us for a walk down to the circus area the next day and my picking up a Rhodesian sixpence there. Those rigging crews sure could clean up after a performance because there was not a trace of the hullabaloo left from the night before.
Soon after we got to Trompsburg, a funfair set up shop on the town side of the Smithfield road bridge. It must have been a tiny affair because all I recall was being put on a merry-go-round horse and going round and round.
As I previously said, we used to have movies in the Town Hall every second Saturday. Any picture which featured Al Debbo and Frederick Burgers would ensure every kid in the town would be there to watch it and scream with laughter at it. It didn’t matter that they were really puerile rubbish – we went to see Oom Al’s huge pop eyes and laugh ourselves silly at his antics.
My Dad had an old His Master’s Voice gramophone and among the 78s was a record of “Bokkie” sung by Al Debbo and one of my fondest hopes was that one day I might own his “Hasie” single and try though my folks did, they never found a copy of the record for me. I do have it on MP3 now though, along with Bokkie (Die trane die rol).
Al also used to tour the Platteland with a one man live show. Our house was diagonally across from the Magistrate’s Office and we were outside on the stoep having tea when we spotted Al coming out of the office, presumably having bought a licence for his performance that evening. Mom pressed a piece of paper and a pen in my hand and urged me to run across and get his autograph, which I did. He looked ever so NOT like the Al Debbo I knew from the movies, being deep in conversation with another man and frowningly serious. He barely glanced at me as he took my paper and pen and scribbled his name on it.
Gosh, it was a let-down to find out that Oom Al was just another grown-up after all and not the slightest bit funny. And no, I no longer have that scrap of paper.
FOOTNOTE : Some years ago Sonja my wife, heard that some people we knew were flying from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town to attend an “Al Debbo Concert”. She was mystified that anyone would spend money on air tickets to go and see Al Debbo. Turned out the concert was actually by “IL DIVO”, the classical vocal group.
Odds and ends keep occurring which don’t seem to fit in anywhere in my narration and this little story is one of them. Dad had a weak stomach and it didn’t take much to make him lose his tummy contents. Changing a nasty nappy was physically beyond him so I doubt whether he did much pyjama drill. As previously mentioned, we did not have waterborne sewage disposal in Trompsburg yet and buckets were the order of the day. A truly heroic black guy named Flip was responsible for the removal of our buckets and conveying them to the nightcart on his shoulders. I don’t recall ever seeing Flip in daylight hours but I recall seeing glimpses of him at work in the road, outside our bedroom window. I have a mental picture of a chap wearing gumboots, what looked like black rain apparel and a sinister black sou’wester hat on his head. Dad used to leave a big mug of coffee and a substantial slab of bread and jam out for Flip when our house was visited. The mind absolutely boggles that one could even think of eating on a job like that, yet old Flip seemed not to mind that he was an olfactory disaster or that his job was about as unpleasant as jobs can get.
The night came when old Flip tripped and dropped his bucket right outside our front gate. Dad had a garage which used to be a stable, some way down the street and he had to leave via the front gate to get to his car every morning. Unhappily, Dad had had no warning of the disaster which had befallen Flip on the previous night and he walked out of the gate, took one look and promptly lost his breakfast. He retreated into the house, looking I should imagine, pretty ashen and shaky and probably struggled to describe to Mom what his eyes had beheld out in the street. When he eventually got going again, he left by the back gate and went right round the block to get to his garage. Poor Dad, that experience must have haunted him all his days. It haunts ME and I wasn’t even involved!
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