Birthday Parties

Birthday parties on the farm were occasions where our cousins from the farm next door would join us for an afternoon of fun and games and excitement.

On one such birthday, my father made us a lucky dip.  He cut a hole in the side of a large cardboard box and filled it with wood shavings.  My mother carefully wrapped up small gifts in the form of colouring-in books and wax crayons.  It didn't seem to matter that all the gifts were identical, it was still very exciting to put your hand through the hole and feel around for the moment when your fingers came across the anticipated gift. 

My very first birthday recollection was when I turned four.  My mother made a fruit cake, which was a great disappointment to me, as there was no icing on top.  I was obliged to share the cake with my father whose birthday fell in the same month as mine, and as he suffered from stomach ulcers, was unable to eat anything really sweet.  My cousin from next door who was fifteen months younger than me, came to my party.

The candles were duly lit and as I blew them out, a reedy happy birthday was sung to me.  Then it was my cousins turn to blow out the candles.  He took a big breath and promptly spat all over the cake!  My mother who could on occasion be fairly diplomatic said "Never mind, we'll just cut this bit off".  The cake, which I really didn't much like in the first place, suddenly became even less appealing.

My aunt from next door always gave me books for my birthday, which I treasured.  When I turned eight, she gave me a book all about the life of Davy Crockett, and nestled between the pages was a crisp one pound note.  At this point, I felt quite rich.  Another cousin of mine had previously given me a Davy Crockett hat, and so with hat on head and gun in hand, and singing the Davy Crockett song, I re-enacted all the Davy Crockett escapades around the farm, feeling for a period of time like I was "the king of the wild frontier".

From an Almond to an Apricot

My father would from time to time sell a few cattle or a horse or two at the local sale yard, usually to pay for our school fees.  My middle sister once went with him to a cattle sale and simply by removing her sunglasses, managed to buy a cow and a calf.  In all the seventeen years I lived on the farm, I can only remember having two good years where we had bumper crops, so to speak.  The rest of the time, it was a bit touch and go.  My parents were always looking for new ways of making extra money. 

My mother and my aunt next door use to raise turkeys in anticipation of the Christmas season.  One year a request for live turkeys appeared in the Farmers Weekly.  A railway truck was duly booked and the two groups of turkeys were chased from different directions to the nearest railway station.  It was pretty hard going for the turkeys, as there was a gale blowing and they were being driven straight into it.  By the time they reached their destination, they were extremely exhausted, however once they were herded into the railway truck a new surge of energy seemed to revitalilize them as the one group spied the other, and an almighty fight broke out.  Unfortunetely, by the time they reached the purchaser, half of them were dead.

On another occasion my father planted sugar beans.  These did exceptionally well and after being placed in bags and taken to the railway station to be sent away, we merrily jumped into our car and went on holiday, confidently feeling that the beans would take care of the finances.  Sadly though, the beans never made it off the station platform, and to add insult to injury my father was presented with a bill for demurrage.

The best story of all was when Thrupps put an advert in the paper looking for almonds.  This was like a gift from heaven, as there were loads of almond trees in the grove to the left of the old house.  They were of a slightly different variety from the usual ones, being more round in shape.  We could however attest to their excellent flavour, as we use to crack them open and eat them all the time.

Totting up the extra money that would be available for Christmas shopping, their hopes and dreams were dashed once more when they received a curt note from Thrupps saying that they weren't looking for apricot pips,  Farm life was never dull!

Going to boarding school

My mother was one of the forerunners of home schooling.  Reluctant to send us to boarding school at the age of six, she taught each one of us in turn the three R's until we were nine, and then bravely sent us out to face the wolves of life.

My big sister was obviously the first to depart, and I remember that fateful day as if it were last week.  She cried so much that I gave her one of the hankies my grandfather had given me for Christmas.  They had the days of the week printed across the front of them and I think it was Monday I felt compelled to push into her hand.  I remember her hanging onto the door handle of the car, as if by some feat of strength, she could keep it from driving away.  We sadly left the school and drove off into the night, until all the street lights slowly disappeared into the distance and we were surrounded by the inky blackness of a moonless night.  I cried on and off all the way home.  For me it was like the end of an age of innocence.

My big sister who had been in contact with about as many people as my middle sister and I, found it difficult to adjust to this strange place with its penguin-like teachers.  She told me later that she had no idea who or what they were, but thought they might be angels.  My mother in her lack of wisdom, had omitted to teach my big sister how to write in cursive, which caused her to be hit every day for three weeks until she managed to master this art.  Needless to say, this had a devastating effect on her.

My middle sister, after having also been taught by my mother, departed at the age of almost nine.  This too had a terrible effect on her, causing her to continuously count the buttons on her dress.  One, two, three, four, five.  One two, three, four, five.  One two, three, four, five.  Then it was my turn to be taught.

I found life on the farm incredibly lonely without my siblings.  I would sit myself down at the old oak roll-top desk in the corner of the sitting- room and do my best to concentrate on the work at hand.  Although I learnt to add and subtract, to multiply and divide, and to read and write, the loneliness of it all was just too much for me.  When I reached screaming point, I would corner the Fox terrier behind the desk, and cracking my miniature whip on the floor, would tearfully demand that he talk to me. 

My arrival at boarding school was tempered by the fact that both my sisters had already spent a number of years there, so I knew what it was all about.  That didn't mean to say that it was all plain sailing for me though.  I had many a lesson to learn, and many a hiding to endure.  In fact I was hit so much in the first few years, that I very quickly learnt how to catch the stick I was being hit with in mid air, and run away with it.  Such was life!  

Eggs, eggs and more eggs

The best kept secret in South Africa and indeed Africa, is found in a little room at the top of the Fort Durnford museum.  One of Africa's most complete bird egg collections.  Fort Durnford is situated at the top of a koppie a short distance from the Escort bacon factory.  Yes, that same factory my beloved Honk was sent to. 

During the First World war, a young man found himself travelling up through Africa, where he had the opportunity to collect innumerable eggs. These he sent back to his mother, wrapped in cotton wool and placed in tea caddies.  This little room at Fort Durnford, has drawer upon drawer of the finest egg collection I have yet to see.

As a child I was a very keen collector of eggs, which I stored in a large rectangular girdle box filled with mealie meal.  I was very proud of the seventy four eggs I had managed to steal from the poor unsuspecting birds over a period of time.  My first attempt at egg collecting had to be abandoned, after they all went rotten in the Queen Elizabeth commemorative, coronation mug my mother was given by one her sisters.  I learnt the hard way that every egg I found, had to be blown.

My middle sister and I loved the hen house.  It was warm and inviting and the gentle murmur of the chickens was almost like a lullaby.  We used to sample the fowl food, a combination of crushed mealies and laying mash, which I think contained bone meal.  It seemed to taste alright, and we would sit on the floor on piles of hay, contentedly licking this unusual meal from the palms of our hands.  I once held my hand underneath a hen who was about to lay an egg and was rewarded after a short while with her hot, wet, eggy treasure.

Collecting eggs is a very absorbing hobby and I spent many a holiday climbing up every tree imaginable to raid birds nests.  I was very lucky not to have encountered any snakes in my insatiable quest for eggs, as many a time I would slip my hand into an abandoned nest.  If I did find any eggs, I would place them in my mouth in order to leave my hands free to climb down the tree again.  My father taught me to scan the veld, and pinpoint where the birds had been sitting once they had flown out of the grass, and then to scout around for their nests. 

This collection was a real delight to me and, I would gaze at it again and again, lining up all the eggs in pairs from the biggest to the smallest.   One day though, and I couldn't tell you to this day why, I took each egg one by one, and crushed them in my hand, until nothing remained of my collection.  I threw all the bits of egg shell into the long grass, and with my heart breaking, turned and made my way back home.