Birthdays at boarding school!

On the landing just at the top of the broad, highly polished, red staircase, were two life-sized statues.  The most prominent one was a statue of a seated Mary, dressed all in blue and white, with a dead and bleeding Jesus lying across her lap.  The other, a very benign looking Joseph standing in the corner, placidly surveying the scene.  During the day, one hardly noticed the statues, but at night when the landing was dimly lit and the shadows played across the walls, they took on a whole new dimension.  They always terrified the daylights out of me, and had the hair on the back of my neck standing straight up as I ran past them at full speed. 

Next to the statue of Mary and Jesus was a glass display cabinet filled with all sorts of exciting things one could purchase to give away as birthday gifts.  Crosses and medals and silver chains and strange relics of saints, but best of all, holy cards.  These were cards depicting various biblical scenes.  Jesus disappearing into the clouds, Mary surrounded by angels and pointing to her "immaculate heart", and various saints depicting their particular functions.  For example, I was given a card once with saint Jude for hopeless cases glaring out at me.  I was more than a little peeved by that gross insinuation.

As my birthday approached, so did the excitement begin to well up inside of me.  How many cards would I receive?  Who would remember me?  Would my mother still order the rainbow cake I had become accustomed to receiving each year?  All these questions, and very important ones too.

Walking into the refectory on the morning of my birthday, I could hardly wait to catch a glimpse of my place at the table, to see how it had been decorated.  With my heart swelling in my breast, I spied all the holy cards reassuringly fanned out around my place, and in between, beautifully arranged small flowers of all shapes and colours.  Best of all, my special friend has given me my hearts desire, a gleaming sheath knife in a leather case.  One glance at the bottom of the refectory told me that my mother had not disappointed me. Two large boxes lay on the table.  The rainbow cake ordered from the local Anglo Swiss bakery in the one, with its green grass and farm animals and chocolate fences on top, together with one dozen assorted cream cakes in the other. 

I slowly let go of my breath.  I have been remembered.  I am still loved and appreciated, but best of all, there is a whole year ahead of me before I have to go through the entire doubting process once more.



  

Going on Holiday

Going on holiday was always very exciting, simply because financial constraints dictated that we went away very infrequently.  One particular holiday to Cape Town stands out vividly in my memory for a variety of reasons.

My father decided that we would travel straight through to Cape Town, without a over night stop, and this meant that we would have to leave extremely early in the morning.  I can remember hearing the hissing of the paraffin lamp as my father walked down the passage to our room.  It was three o'clock in the morning!  We had hardly been able to get to sleep at all with the anticipation of the planned journey, but now we were definitely wide awake.

Shivering, partly from excitement and partly the early morning chill, we piled into the maroon car, our breakfast securely positioned in a square tin on the shelf behind us.  Snuggled up together under a blanket, we settled down at the back of the car to complete our interrupted sleep, while my father expertly negotiated the hundred or so kilometres of dirt road which led to the tarred National road.

The journey was very long and very boring.  There was hardly a car on the road, so one couldn't count cars to while away the time and there were just so many telephone poles one could count before succumbing to car sickness.  Being the height of Summer, it was also extremely hot, especially driving through the Karoo.  We really didn't know what to do with ourselves in this steaming hot car.  I can remember my middle sister and I stripping down to our knickers and pouring water all over our bodies from the canvas water bag, which usually hung outside at the front of the car.  My mother developed a massive headache from the heat and ended up draping a wet towel around her head and neck.  My father, much to his credit kept on going, with only a few short spells of terrible driving from my mother to relieve him.  He almost single-handedly drove the sixteen hundred kilometres from our farm to Cape Town, finally reaching our destination at nine thirty that night.  What a trip!!

On our return journey two weeks later, it was decided that we would leave in the afternoon so that when my father had had enough driving, we could stop somewhere at the side of the road, to enable him to get a few hours sleep.  At about eleven that night, we pulled off the road so my father could assemble the stretcher bed under a tree.  My big sister slept in the front with her head on my mother's shoulder and my middle sister and I lay on the back seat, mostly squabbling.  I must have been very annoying because she grabbed my foot and bit my little toe.  In retaliation I smacked her and she stormed out of the car with her blanket and lay in the middle of the National road.  My mother screamed which woke up my father, who angrily packed up his bed and got back into the car.  It was many hours before we had the courage to speak again.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, apart from the fact that for about four hundred kilometres, we alternately played follow the leader with a hearse.  Needless to say,  there wasn't too much talking at this juncture either.

End of year dance

At the end of every school year, there was the customary end of the year dance for all those girls completing their schooling.  This was a time when the school leavers could really go to town with beautiful, expensive party dresses.  Coming from a family where money was exceedingly tight at the best of times, this was especially thrilling for my big sister.  My one aunt who was a fashion pundit, directed my mother and sister to all the right shops, where magical creations hanging behind drawn curtains were trotted out one at a time for close inspection.  After much deliberation, a beautiful, delicate pink, chiffon dress with yards and yards of flouncing skirt was eventually decided upon.  After all, this was my parent's first daughter to reach the end stage of her schooling.  Satin shoes, a pale pink see-through stole, and a necklace and handbag borrowed from my aunt completed the ensemble.

The long anticipated evening arrived, when the beautifully dressed school leavers were allowed to parade through the children's quadrangle over-shadowed by it's central palm tree.  This too was a time when for once, all the boarders were allowed to hang out of the upstairs windows, exclaiming with many Ooh's and Ahh's and gazing with great admiration at all the finery on display.  This was a true fairy-tale scene.

The only unusual part of this pageant was the fact that partnering them to the dance, were their fathers!  So there were these beautifully dressed girls with coiffured hair accompanied by portly, graying, balding men.

All the mothers were obliged to sit around the edges of the hall, while their husbands twirled and waltzed their daughters off their feet.  My father said everything was going well until someone decided to play the Flight of the Bumble Bee!  Sweating profusely and breathing heavily, he finally collapsed into a chair.  Meanwhile, my mother was having her own embarrassed little dance around the hall with one of the nuns, not quite knowing who was leading whom.  Johann Strauss was in great demand that evening.

In my mind's eye,  I can still see the photograph of all the girls with great big smiles and twinkling eyes, their stiff petticoats straining to be released from the confines of the chairs.

As far as I can remember, that was the last time such an event took place at the convent.  By the time it came for my middle sister's end of year dance, the scene had completely changed with not a single father in sight.  The whole event now consisted of an afternoon tea, with lots of cream cakes from downtown Anglo Swiss bakery, a talk by the Mother Superior and a presentation of metal crucifixes.  Perhaps there had been a revolt by the girls against their dads!  Who knows!  All I know is that that was the end of a particular era.

Boarding school food

I can say with all honesty, that I often felt very hungry at boarding school.  We invariably entered the refectory in single file and in complete silence.  After the customary grace, we were either allowed to talk or not, depending on which way the wind blew for our Boarder's mother.  While we ate our food, she would walk up and down reading the mail received that day, before passing it on to the lucky recipients.

The refectory was a large rectangular room accommodating about ten or eleven long tables, which lined the walls of the room on both sides.  A number of serving ladies would walk around the tables dispensing the food for each meal.  Mealie meal porridge, followed by a couple of slices of bread, spread with whatever you happened to have brought from home after the holidays, was a normal breakfast.  There was always a large pot of tea at the top of the table, together with ten cups heaped one on top of the other.  If we happened to be having a silent meal, then we used a sort of sign language to indicate the amount of tea we wanted.  The index finger, upright and standing to attention meant a full cup, thumbs up meant half a cup and the pinkie meant a quarter.  Just to get back to the serving ladies for a minute, there seemed to be a passive aggressive spirit lurking amongst them.  If for example we were having cabbage or spinach and you whispered "Not too much please", you could be rest assured that you got the biggest of spoonfuls slapped onto your plate.  Conversely, if there was something you really liked and said "Can I have a lot please" you ended up being given a minuscule amount.  You soon learnt to keep your council concerning culinary matters and just hoped for the best. 

We all had our favourite meals and for me it was Saturday nights and Sunday lunches.  Saturday nights were ice-cream nights.  We always had dollops of ice-cream waiting on our plates as we entered the refectory.  I always dribbled syrup all over mine, before scooping it onto a piece of bread.  In this way, I could make it go further and kind of chew my way through the cold toffee-like mess.  On Sundays, you could always count on there being a slice of beef, a couple of roast potatoes, a spoonful of peas and a slosh of gravy, followed by jelly and custard.  Stewed tomatoes on bread and soggy marmite toast were another two of the more tasty meals we had during the week.

Sunday breakfasts were also very memorable and consisted of corn flakes with warm, sugary milk followed by pork sausages.  Unfortunately, I was seldom at breakfast on account of having to catch a bus to take me and a number of other girls to the local Anglican church.  We used to put our sausages between two pieces of bread and stuff them, wrapped in tissues, into our blazer pockets,   All the way through the service, we had the undivided attention of the minister's Cocker Spaniel who sat waiting patiently in the isle next to us, and drooling onto the red carpet.  The smell of that porker wafting between the incense, must have been agony for him.

After the service, tea and toast with lashings of marmalade was served to those who had taken communion.  If truth be told, the vision of the marmalade toast floating before my eyes, far outweighed any spiritual fervour I might have thought I had, and so, I couldn't wait to be confirmed, so as to get my teeth into that crunchy toast with the amber coloured marmalade jewels glistening on top. 

Snakes

There are numerous venomous snakes living in South Africa, of which the Rinkhals and the Black Mamba are two of the better known.  We encountered snakes all the time while living on the farm.  I never really got used to, nor developed a liking for them.

On occasion my father would find a mole snake in the veld, and after popping it into a hessian sack, would come home with his prize slung over his shoulder.  Even though the snake was one of the harmless variety, it still sent a shiver down my spine as I watched it's slowly writh in the bottom of the bag.  My father never killed Mole snakes, but took them back to where he had found them, and let them lose again.

My mother had a number of encounters with snakes over the years.  Being a city girl, she spent her first fifteen years on the farm, checking for snakes under all the beds and in the cupboards. The very night she decided to give up this habit, was the night a snake came slithering across the room from under the dressing table.   My friend from Germany has a similar phobia about snakes, and so when she visited me a few years ago, she went through the same ritual of looking under all the beds and tables and chairs, much to my amusement.

Between the bathroom and the kitchen with it's large wood stove, was an enclosed veranda with a sort of flagstone floor.  It was here that my mother witnessed a large Rinkhals disappear down a crack between the stones.  She quickly fetched my father's shotgun and poking it down the hole, pulled the trigger.  Fortunately for her, nothing happened, and she had the presence of mind not to try again, otherwise my father might have come home to a very grizzly finding!

Once when my mother was watering the garden, she noticed in her peripheral vision, a piece of the hose sitting up next to her.  On closer inspection, there sitting a short distance from her was a Rinkhals, his hooded head flattened and ready to strike.  My mother, bless her cotton socks, ran so fast, she completely missed the entrance to the house.

My father once found a huge rock with a large pothole gouged out of the top, from millions of years of being open to the elements.  He thought it would make an ideal birdbath, so he proceeded to get it transported down to the old house on the back of the trailer, to be incorporate into our garden.  It wasn't more than a few days before we noticed the dogs going crazy and barking incessantly at the rock.  My big sister who was always very brave, got on all fours and peered under the rock to see what they were barking at.  There, all curled up and having a bit of a snooze, was the most enormous snake imaginable.  Out came the shotgun, and the interloper was quickly disposed of.  Unfortunately we never really took to the birdbath after that.

All in all, snakes were part and parcel of living on a farm, and one had to be aware at all times when walking through the veld, that to step on a snake, would not be the wisest thing to do.  Being cold-blooded, they would usually lie sunning themselves right in the middle of a pathway.  My son stepped over one such snake while walking in the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains.  Fortunately for him, he didn't step on it and so came home rather white faced to tell the tale.

Picnic's revisited

Picnic's were always a big favourite for all of us, and many a time we would get together with our cousins from the farm next door, and take ourselves off for the day to enjoy a nice, relaxing picnic in some beautiful, tranquil spot.

On one such day, we decided to go to a place known as "Golden Gate," which was situated a distance of about one hundred and thirty kilometers from our farm, in a stunning range of mountains quite unique to anything else this beautiful country of ours has to offer.

We all piled excitedly into the back of the little maroon coloured car, and set off for what was meant to be a day of pure bliss.  A day where we could put all the worries and cares of the world behind us, and concentrate on having a nature-filled top up.  Sadly, things very quickly started to go wrong.

It was when my mother leaned over and asked us to pass her an egg sandwich, that we discovered that we had left the tin full of sandwiches sitting on the kitchen table at home.  My mother who was quite philosophical about life said, "Never mind, I'll just have one of the cookies instead."  We all looked at each other in dismay.  Where was the biscuit tin?  Without missing a beat my mother then went on,  "Well, at least we still have the roast chicken and the chocolate cake."  You guessed it!  The only thing we had remembered to bring was the cream coloured, enamel kettle for boiling the water on an open fire, in order to make the tea.

My aunt and uncle very kindly shared their food with us that day, and the only way we could reciprocate was by lending them the one thing they had left behind, the cream enamel kettle for boiling the water in order to make the tea!

After my aunt from the farm next door died, my uncle took all of us to the river in his newly acquired old green truck, affectionately known as the "chorrie."  He had a habit of going really fast, especially over all the worst parts of the dirt road.  With each bump, we would be flung up in the air for a few seconds, falling all over each other in a big heap on our descent.  We found this hilarious and would urge him to go even faster.  I have subsequently heard from a friend of mine living in Germany, that to ride in this manner in her country is completely illegal. On reflection, it could have had dire consequences had one of us been tossed out and had landed on our head!

A day out in the baking sun always meant that we came home looking like boiled lobsters, and feeling as if we had received second degree burns.  In spite of the blisters and stiffness and discomfort, all in all we were left with feelings of great happiness and satisfaction.  A day well spent! 

A trip to the movies

It always astounded me as to just how many movies some of my school friends managed to process during the holidays.  We were very lucky to be able to see one movie and on rare occasions two.

Our closest bioscopes were forty something kilometres away, going in opposite directions from our farm.  The one was called the Gaiety and boasted plush, red, velvet seats and pulsating neon lights around the outside.  The one in the opposite direction was held in the local Town Hall with it's fold-up type benches. 

It was always a bit of pot luck when going to the movies, as there was no way of telling what might be showing on any particular night.  Not being all that blasé, we enjoyed anything that moved across the screen, especially the cartoons.  Pathe news with it's loudly crowing cockerel would proclaim to us, all the interesting worldly events.

My uncle from the farm next door, took all six of us children to the Gaiety one Friday night.  It was a wildly raucous ride, having us singing at the top of our voices all the way there. However, the trip back home was much more subdued, on account of the fact that Fridays turned out not to be movie nights.  What started out with so much promise, turning into bitter disappointment.

My sisters and I always dressed ourselves up in our "Sunday best" when going to the movies.  Our voluminous stiff petticoats carefully squeezed into the back of my father's car.  My middle sister who loved to wear makeup, had my father ordering her to "take that stuff off your face" before we could enter the foyer of the Town Hall.  My poor middle sister and in hindsight, my poor insecure father.

Once when the reel snapped, we had the local townsfolk rise to the occasion, with someone whipping out an harmonica and playing a cheerful tune accompanied by much whistling, stomping and clapping from the rest of us.  

Coming home was another story altogether.  My father frequently used a short cut, which required us to open and close seven additional gates on the way home.  At this point, we usually pretended to be asleep, which had my softhearted mother doing the job for us.  Shame on us!

Once while watching Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddie declare undying love across the Canadian Rocky Mountains, we had a cloudburst.  On the way home and at my father's bidding we were required to remove our socks and shoes, tuck our dresses up into the bottom of our knickers and wade across every sheet of water or rushing spruit, which showed up in the headlights of the car.  This was necessary to determine the depth of the water so that the car would not stall.  My mother who was a bit of a worrier, made all sorts of squeaky noises and probably said a prayer of two, just in case she saw us disappear over the side of the road and into a muddy donga. 

Going to the movies, was always a bit of a mission and never to be taken lightly.  It doesn't surprise me now, that we only endured one such experience each holiday.

Bushman paintings among other things

Bushman paintings or Rock Art as it is also known, dates back thousands of years. These magnificent paintings or rock carvings can be found all over Southern Africa in caves and on rock shelters.  We were very lucky as children to live not far from one such site.  These happened to be on a farm about seven miles away.  After first having obtained permission from the owner of the farm, we would set off with our bottle of tea and tin of biscuits, to spend a blissful afternoon in the warm Winter sun.  One had to take a car to get there and then walk across an icy cold river with socks and shoes in hand and trousers rolled up to ones knees.  This was always a very exciting trip and had us all squealing with delight as we forged the river, slipping and sliding on the slimy rocks and occasionally falling into the chilly water.  Up on the other side sitting on the dried grass, we would rub our numb feet briskly with our socks before putting them back on again. 

The paintings were a short distance from the river and depicted the Bushmen running across the overhanging rock on an antelope hunt.  Little red stick-like figures brandishing spears in their hands, and the antelopes charging off and around the corner of the overhanging rock.  I never ceased to be amazed at the beauty and accuracy of these drawings.

Once when we went to view another set of paintings on a farm the other side of the small town closest to us, we discovered a huge sheet of ice.  In Summer, this would have been a small pond where the cattle and sheep could come to quench their thirst, but in Winter when the temperatures fell below freezing point on many occasions, these ponds would be iced over.

This particular afternoon is deeply etched into my mind. When skating is not part of ones culture, an afternoon skidding across a patch of iced over water was thrilling beyond belief.  I have this photo of my big sister about to throw a large chunk of ice into the grass, while my middle sister, a third cousin and I, with serious looks on our faces, contemplated the slippery trip from one side of the patch of ice to the other.  Life couldn't have got any better than this.

Boarding school revisited

I always found returning back to boarding school after each holiday very difficult.  Lying in bed, I would cover my head with my blankets, and pushing my face firmly into my pillow, would as quietly as possible, shed more than a few tears.  It was always the same at the beginning of each term.  I would be woken in the middle of the night by the distant whistle, as well as the slow chuff, chuff, chuffing of a train being shunted into a siding.  I would lie motionless in bed, as I waited for the train to gather momentum until all the chuffs began tripping over each other, in a frantic effort to reach the finishing line.  At this point, fresh tears would spring to my eyes, as the cold reality of being at school once more, and not on the farm hit home.

We slept in a very large dormitory with about thirty beds, as well as matching lockers and chairs.  At one point, I refused to have my locker standing next to my bed at night, as there seemed to be noises emanating from it.  Each night, much to the amusement of the other girls, I would pick up my locker and trundle it to the opposite side of the dormitory, only to retrieve it once more the next morning.  This must have gone on for a good six to eight months.  I was convinced that there was a little man living in my locker.  On reflection, I was probably going through some sort of crisis in my head.  

Having to get out of bed at night to go to the bathroom was a major problem.  As many children will know, that there under the bed, resides a large animal, ready to pounce at a moments notice.  When I felt brave enough, I would stand on top of my bed and jump as far away from it as I could in order to live to tell the tale.  A mad dash down the dormitory and across the washroom with large shadows playing across it's walls, and into the toilets, would have my heart pounding wildly.  A moment of great relief, before having to make the mad dash back again.  On those nights when I didn't feel brave enough, I would find myself dreaming of floating down a nice warm river.  In the cold light of day, I would have to deal with the fallout and the subsequent embarrassment.

Amateur concerts

Concerts were always an integral part of growing up on the farm, and whenever our cousins came to stay with us during the holidays, we would spend and inordinate amount of time perfecting our concert, which would be staged for our parents.  We would usually need to use the dogs as part of the cast, and invariably they would be pushed to the fore, bedecked with ribbons and bows.  They were very long suffering, as they stood with embarrassed looks on their faces and heads hanging low, wondering what next to expect.

My big sister, who was the dare-devil in the family would perform a whole lot of tricks on her horse, culminating in  galloping past the audience, while standing up on the back of her horse, and finally galloping past once more riding past with one foot on each of the backs of two horses.  It was all very exciting!  We would get together with our cousins and using scraps of material, make all sorts of different costumes.  Like everything else in life, the preparation was the real fun part, and could go on for many days before the concert was staged.

Our parents would be seated in front of the "stage", while we sang and danced and acrobatted our way through each item.  At the end of it all we would be rewarded with enough encores and bravos to satisfy the hungry need every child has, for recognition and acceptance.

My grandmother was very musical and at the age of forty something, took herself off in a cart and horse each week, to learn music at a place which was at least ten miles away from their farm.  Later on, she taught both of my sisters as well as one of my cousins to sing.  Although I was a bit too young at that stage,  I do remember her sitting at the piano and singing lustily, while playing a whole array of negro spirituals.

My father taught himself to play and many an evening when the family was visiting us, we would all congregate around the piano and have a big sing-song.  My one Scottish uncle who used to share the piano playing with my father, would play and sing all these wonderful Scottish songs with great passion, crying all the while into his whiskey.  We just loved him to bits and no holiday would have been complete, without my uncle taking us on a trip down Scottish memory lane. 

Visiting the neighbours

Visiting the neighbours was always hard for me, as I had great difficulty in speaking their language.  I would stand at a distance and watch my father, who I might add was fluent in four languages, chat away merrily with Mrs. P from next door.  She had three great big strapping sons, the eldest of which it was rumoured, had single-handedly loaded his truck with forty, one hundred pound bags of mealies before breakfast.  When the workers arrived, the task had already been completed.  I found Mrs. P quite intriguing, for the simple reason that she had a really bad set of dentures.  When she laughed, she would quickly bring her hand up to her mouth, to hide the fact that lunch was still lurking around the corners.

One of the farm workers arrived one morning with a new set of teeth.  My father interested in knowing where he had managed to get them, and so quickly too, was told that at the local police station, there were any number of sets of teeth. One just had to go and try them all out to see which ones fitted the best.  It was no coincidence that right next door to the police station, stood the mortuary!

Occasionally I went with my father to visit old Mr. and Mrs. De Wet, who lived on a farm about fifteen kilometres away.  They seemed firmly stuck in the previous century, still riding to town in their horse and cart.  My gaze seldom left the top of Mr. De Wet's head, which seemed to be covered in greenish lichen.  Mrs. De Wet was always decked out in an assortment of clothing spanning about fifty years, offset by a large floppy bonnet.  Apparently she became ill once and took to her bed for ten days without removing her shoes!  On entering their very humble abode, my father and I disturbed a broody hen, who was sitting on a clutch of eggs in the sideboard.  With much squawking and clucking, she quickly jumped down and sprinted out of the front door.

The only English speaking neighbours we had were Mr. and Mrs. B and their spinster daughter Violet, who had a strange turn of phrase, quite unique to herself.  When she did speak, which wasn't very often, she talked about off-legged turkeys, off-handled cups and lah-de-dah pigsty's.  My mother recalled her commenting once about the "comical" weather we were having!  I always felt a bit sorry for her, as I sensed that life hadn't turned out quite as she might have wanted it to.  Living an isolated life with a domineering mother and laconic father was not an ideal situation.  Both Mr. and Mrs. B would eventually lie in state in the rondavel next to our old house, before joining my relatives in the family plot.  Whatever happened to "comical" old Vi after that was any ones guess.  She probably just slipped back into the woodwork, from whence she had come!

Heavenly haystacks

Once in while our neighbours Mr. and Mrs. B would invite two of their grandsons from Johannesburg to visit them.  Mr. B, a rather large, morose looking man rode a big horse, but Billy and Neil their grandchildren, would ride over to our farm on lowly donkeys.  Kleintjie (little one) and Lemonade.  Donkeys at the best of times are extremely stubborn beasts, but these two were exceedingly difficult.  Many a time I've watched as the boys approached us, pushing their donkeys from behind. 

These two young boys were a bit of light relief for us, as friends were few and far between.  They too had lots of interesting games to play from leap-frogging onto the backs of the donkeys, to tunnelling into haystacks.  We always had loads of haystacks for the Winter period when the grass had all but disappeared, and the cattle feed needed to be supplemented.

The cutting of the grass was one of those heady times of the year.  The sweet scent of the swaying, shimmering grass never ceased to cause me to catch my breath in sheer delight.  To lie on my back in the middle of a field of grass listening to the humming of the bees, and the various insect calls was heaven.  At the height of Summer when the sun beat down relentlessly, I was rewarded with not only the steamy smell of crushed grass, but also the different aromas of the crushed wild flowers.  On those occasions, while thoughtfully chewing the end of a newly plucked stalk of grass, I felt I could conquer the world.

My father always allowed us to sit on top of the hay once it had been loaded by pitch fork on to the trailer, and we would have this amazing ride bumping along the rutted roads, and hanging on for dear life to the steel frame at the front end of the trailer.

The best game of all was tunneling into the centre of a haystack.  It took all day to hollow out the inside and turn it into a sort of cave.   Once we had neatened it nicely and pulled out any stray bits of grass from the "ceiling", we would sit down with a tin a condensed milk, and using old teaspoons, contentedly work our way through the sticky, sweet mess.  After that, there didn't seem to be too much else to do, so by the light of a torch we would crawl back out into the world again, and with a great sense of achievement, make our weary way home.

Australian outback

When I reached the start of the teenage years, I discovered all these wonderful love stories in the magazines my mother bought.  These could only be bought in the larger towns, which were about a 40km distance from our farm.  Many a time I was sent into the cafe to see if the new Woman, Woman's Weekly, Woman and Home and Woman's Own had arrived.  There would be great disappointment if they were late, or we had come too early.

The best of all the magazines was the Woman's Weekly, which had numerous stories set in the Australian outback.  Usually some rugged, widowed sheep farmer, advertising either for a housekeeper, or a governess for his children.  Very often the respondent was a star-crossed nursing sister, getting over a broken relationship, and wanting a bit of a change in her surroundings.

As soon as I arrived back from boarding school, I would dive under the table next to my mother's bed in order to check through the magazines, putting them in sequence, so as to have a nice, long, uninterrupted read, once I got around to it.  This I might add, was done surreptitiously, and not without a certain amount of guilt.  What did my mother think of my sudden interest in romantic stories?

I can remember one freezing day in July, getting dressed in my warmest clothes, taking a blanket, an orange and a pile of Woman's Weeklies, and making my way, accompanied by an icy wind, to the back camp behind our new house.   The large pile of leaves from the recently threshed mealies, afforded a small amount of protection from the Antarctic blast.  Wrapping the blanket around myself and burrowing into the leaves, I contentedly sucked the juice from my softened orange, and settled down to read the final chapter of yet another exciting outback story.

I lost count of how many times I read the last sentence, but with each reading, the thrill I felt never diminished, "and the two shadows melted into one."  I still remember it after all these years, only now with great amusement as to how little I needed to keep me happy in those days.  I literally fed off that sentence for years.  "and the two shadows melted into one."

Lambs to the slaughter

Lambs to the slaughter


After the lambing season had ended, and before the lambs grew too big, all the ewes as well as their babies would be rounded up and herded into the large milking shed which stood in front of the big dam.

The time had come, as it did each season, for the lambs to have their tails cut off, as well as to be neutered.  All the farm workers would line up, each holding a lamb securely upside down in front of my father.  He would pull out his pocket knife, which he had carefully sharpened on the large whetstone, which lay on the ground outside the side door of the shed, and proceed with the operation.

First the tails were cut off at a suitable length, and then the top of the scrotum was cut off and the exposed testicles removed by Pompi the old shepherd.  He would do this by squeezing the scrotum between his thumbs and forefingers, then deftly pulling out the tiny, pink testicles, with his teeth. I never tired of watching this process.  When I think of it now, I realise just how primitive we were.

Each lamb was then earmarked with a slit in one ear and the shape of a v cut into the other, for later identification.  After being liberally doused with a sort of antiseptic, the lambs were then released to find their mothers, who made guttural noises and snorted and stamped their feet until they found their blood-stained, bleating babies.  Feeling very sorry for themselves, they would look to their mothers for a comforting drink of milk.  Mothers it would appear, are the same the world over, protective and anxious about their offspring.

My big sister and I always watched the castrating and branding of the bulls, while sitting on the high stone wall surrounding the kraal where the process took place.  My middle sister couldn't handle anything like that, so she use to stay at home.  After the testicles had been removed and the red hot branding iron had sizzled it's way into the tough skin with a big DJ, which were my father's initials, the farm workers would congregate around a braai chatting and enjoying the fruit of their labour. 

The smell of barbecued sweetbreads would waft through the air, as my big sister and I happily made our way back home, well satisfied with the morning's excitement.

Casual church

Although there were Large Dutch Reformed churches in every big, small or tiny dorp in the country, finding a church of English origin, was much more difficult.  Not that I saw my parents go to church that much when we lived on the farm.  My mother however, managed to get a church to send us very nice pictures with biblical tracts on the back.  As a small child, I would line them up and gaze at them for long periods of time, wondering what this young boy had done that was so bad, so as to cause his father to want to stab him with a knife.

A roving minister came once and spent the night with us, in order to  baptise me in the morning.  For dinner that night, my mother cooked a guinea fowl my father had shot a few days before.  It turned out to be as tough as old boots, and had the minister chewing his way through it, and spitting out bits of buckshot ever so often, and saying politely "I haven't tasted game for years".  My guess is, that after that meal, he wouldn't want to taste it again and for many years to come.

I can only remember going to church a couple of times when I was a child, in the little town closest to where we lived.  Yet another roving minister had arrived to conduct the service.  Being very small and rather bored, I fell asleep, only to awaken when a large bowl with money in it was offered to me.  With no hesitation, I dipped my fingers in and helped myself to a couple of shiny coins.  My father who hated having his kids do anything wrong, pinched me on my arm and sternly told me to put them back immediately.  He then stuck his hand into the top breast pocket of his jacket to extract the folded, crisp, one pound note he had carefully placed there.  This he did with great aplomb, slapping it down in the middle of the big bowl.  All eyes were on the bowl, as Mr Hobson the sidesman reviewed my father's offering.  A couple of used bioscope tickets.  My mother who had a wonderful sense of humour, said she saw Mr Hobson's eyes grow as big as saucers and she imagined him saying to himself "Hobson, do you see what I see?"

My father who hated looking foolish, blushed crimson and quickly exchanged the bioscope tickets for the pound note.  Personally, I think it served him right for pinching me!

Embarrassing Roof Rack

I went through a very awkward stage, as many children do, of being highly embarrassed with the car my father drove, especially when we were either being dropped off or fetched from boarding school.  I was unable to see any other car that looked remotely like ours, a small, maroon, mud-caked car with a heavily laden roof rack.  I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me, so that I didn't have to endure all the stares.  At that point in time, I was unaware that beyond themselves, most people didn't really care a continental!  For me it was painful to have to carry my ancient, old suitcase up the stairs and into the dormitory, together with my rolled up bundle of blankets.

When I think of it now, I take my hat off to my parents who gallantly ploughed their way through corrugated dirt roads, slipping and sliding and getting stuck when it rained, or alternately having everything covered in thick, brown dust  during winter.  It was a real mission to get us to and from school and took on average four to five hours of difficult driving.

Once while coming to pick us up from school, a flock of Guinea fowl flew over the top of their car. Only when they arrived at their destination, and after everyone who passed them, seemed to be laughing and pointing in their direction, did they discover that one of the birds had misjudged it's flight path, and was now dead and dangling by its neck from the side of the roof rack.

We did however, have a mishap with the roof rack which was not amusing at all.  It happened when we stopped to buy something from a shop in the town where our school was, and left the car unattended.  On our return, not only all the suitcases, but also the roof rack had disappeared without a trace.  Apart from losing everything we needed for school, I also lost Rosemary,the only doll I every possessed.  She was smartly dressed in skirt, jersey, hat and knickers knitted for her by my grandmother.   This was a real loss as she was my security doll, lying comfortingly on my pillow.  The theft of the suitcases was also a very big thing for my parents to deal with because I overheard my father say to my mother "Well, I suppose this means, I'll have to sell another cow at the sale yard next week."

My Christmas dress

My mother made all our clothes when we were children, right down to our knickers, and when we went to boarding school, not only did she make our school dresses, but also our pyjamas and dressing gowns.  My father, not to be outdone, bought a huge roll of orange and white striped towelling material, and proceeded to run up numerous swimming towels for us.  He then got it into his head that he could also make us face clothes.  These were the bane of our existence!  I hated them with a passion, as did my sisters. 

When each term ended and before the holidays began, we would conveniently lose them, in the hope that he would buy us regular sized ones, like everyone else had.  No such luck!  He would just sit down at the sewing machine again, and make us a whole lot more. 

There was a character in the annuals called Desparate Dan.  Everything he owned was of gigantic proportions, so eventually we dubbed these giant monstrosities that my father kept churning out "Disparate Dan" face clothes. 

Once a year we were allowed to choose a Christmas dress.  These were bought from a store by the name of Harding and Parker in a town about forty five kilometres from our farm.  There was a very nice assistant there who wore a lot of makeup, and had a hairstyle which consisted of small kiss curls, which marched across her forehead like miniature tin soldiers.  It didn't matter which dress you put on, the response was always the same  "You look so sweet".

Although we were allowed to choose one bought dress each year, there were always monetary constraints attached, which I found out quite early in life.  Having made my choice one particular December, and no sooner had "you look so sweet" left the change room, than my mother sort of pecked me on top of my head with her bunched up fingers and said "It's too expensive.  We can't afford it.  You'll take the striped one, besides, it makes you look much fatter".

To the great surprise of the kiss curled assistant, by the time she reentered the cubicle, I had done a complete turnabout, nodding in the direction of the striped dress, which I didn't like at all.

It was with a heavy heart that we made our way home that day.  The pretty, frilly, chiffon dress still hanging in the showroom, waiting to be owned by some lucky little girl who would look "so very sweet" in it.

Beauty - my big sisters horse (5)

My big sister always rode a beautiful mare by the name of Beauty.  She belonged to my mother, and over the years produced a number of very handsome foals.  Unfortunetely her good looks belied her nature, which I would describe as the Cruella of the horsey world!  She bucked most of the time and would often run alongside barbed wire fences in an effort to dislodge her rider.  My big sister who was quite fearless and took great delight in breaking in horses, would have none of it though and allowed her to get away with nothing.

At this point, my middle sister having gone through the sad demise of her horse Lucky, found herself a small, feisty little horse whom she named Guy Fawkes and sometimes Crackers.  He went like the wind but had a mind of his own and would invarably charge down the hill and straight into the dam behind the cowshed and sit down in it, with my sister still on his back.  This caused us great amusement.  I can still see my middle sister jumping off and swimming her way out of the dam, while Guy Fawkes sat half submerged, with flattened ears and a smug look on his face.  That was obviously his secret weapon! 

We had a nice piece of flat, open ground where we used to race our horses.  In years gone by, this used to be a favourite spot for a New Years day event where we had our own "day at the races"  This all came to an abrupt end when I was four or five, and after my grandfather broke his hip and my grandmother packed up all her belongings and left the farm, never to return again in my grandfathers life time.  Still, it remained a wonderful race track which saw numerous races with various cousins and friends who came to stay during the holidays.  Wonderful memories!

I'll get you later

All through my childhood I was obsessed with wearing a hat of some description, so when my middle sister snatched my hat off my head while we were playing next to the dam behind the cowshed and ran off with it, I was incensed and let out a bloodcurdling scream.  My father who was in the cowshed came running out thinking something terrible had happened to one of us.  When he saw that we were both fine, he turned to me and said "I'll get you later" before charging after my middle sister.

Terrified at what "later" might turn out to be, I ran as fast as I could past the cowshed, down the hill and into the small gate on the other side of the old house.  Charging into the grove of almond trees to the left of the house, I climbed up a tree which had hardly any branches on it.  At about the height of three metres, I found a small branch to sit on, vowing and declaring to sit there all day and all night if I had to.  Unfortunately for me, the branch was too thin to carry my weight, and so with a noise which sounded like the crack of a pistol, the branch broke and I found myself falling backwards onto my head.  A terrific pain shot through my shoulder and I virtually knocked myself out.

How I got home that day I will never know.  Not only did I see stars, but the whole star spangled banner went past my eyes as I staggered and stumbled as best I could through the trees, across the veld and back to the house. I managed to make it to my bed, before collapsing into a deep sleep. How long I slept I don't know, but when I awoke, I found a number of anxious faces peering down at me.

My father who usually had to be begged by my mother to take us to the doctor when we needed one, thought this time that I really should be checked out.  I on the other hand having experienced the setting of four broken arms by the time I reached the age of seven, together with the accompanying chloroform to knock me out, refused point blank to be going anywhere.  Eventually nothing was done, and the broken collarbone mended itself after about six weeks or so.  As for falling on my head, I found it to be quite useful in explaining away my poor scholastic results.  One thing is for sure though, I would go to all sorts of lengths to avoid my father "getting me later".

My horse Ginger (4)

After having lost Patches, I then had to look around and find another horse to call my own.  I came across a reddish brown gelding with a white mark on his forehead.  When I screwed up my eyes a bit, it looked as if it could be a crude looking G, and so Ginger came into my life.

He turned out to be the most terrible ride.  When we raced, which we frequently did, all the other horses would run in a straight line, but not Ginger.  He would do a sort of sidewards foxtrot.  Consequently, I never won a race, but would bring up the rear, coming in at an angle.

Although he was such a difficult horse to ride and had me flying over his head when he pulled up short a few times, I persisted with him.  No one thought much of him, so I wasn't in danger of having anyone buying him from under my feet, and that was a big consideration.  Although it was all a bit of a love hate relationship, I probably rode him for the next two or three years.  However, I was soon to have  another rude awakening.

Arriving home from boarding school for yet another holiday, I was unable to find Ginger.  I looked all over in the usual places, but he was nowhere to be found.  In desperation I asked my father if he had seen him, and he went all quiet and confessed that he had sold him.  I went ballistic!  How could he have done such a crazy thing?  Didn't he know that that was my horse?  I demanded that he give me the money he had received for him.  If I didn't have my horse, then I wanted what he had been sold for.  I think it began to dawn on my father what a terrible mistake he had made, because eventually he gave me the fourteen pounds Ginger had been sold for, with which I bought an A-line dress and my first pair of heels. It was a hollow victory though, and never felt right.

I don't think I ever got over the loss of Ginger and can't remember ever having had another horse again.  These two major losses coupled with the thoughtlessness of my father were all too much for me.  I sort of gave up on people after that.

My horse Patches (3)

Quite by accident, I discovered this amazing horse.  I thought he belonged to us and that my father owned him.  He was a light grey horse with darker grey splotches all over him, from which he derived his name Patches.  I fell in love with him immediately.  He was one of the most gentle horses I ever rode and went a long way to allaying my deep seated fear of riding.  Imagine my anger and disbelief when I returning home from boarding school one holiday only to discover that Patches no longer resided on our farm.

It happened like this.  My cousins from the next door farm came down one day to pay us a visit and lo and behold, who should be riding  Patches but my cousin.  I was flabbergasted!  "What are you doing on Patches" I asked her.  "Oh" she said " I liked him so much, I asked my father to buy him for me"  I was horrified!  In my book, one didn't do things like that.

It transpired that Patches belonged to one of our farm workers and therefore he could easily be approached in order to conclude a transaction.  For me, it felt like a double betrayal.  Firstly, that my uncle could buy the horse I had been riding for quite a long time for his daughter and secondly, that my father had not been able to see that that was the horse I was attached to, and therefore approach the farm worker himself in order to procure a sale.

Among other things I learnt that holiday, was that one, I couldn't always have the things I wanted, and secondly that not everyone had the same set of values or the same way of looking at life that I did.  That was a very hard and painful lesson for me.