1943 February
Family letter from HPV
c/o the Standard Bank of South Africa
Cape Town.
February 3rd 1943. maybe Wednesday
My dear Annette (handwritten name)
As usual I have made an inauspicious start. I began by putting in two of the three carbons upside down and after detecting this (before actually embarking on the letter) I hurried to accumulate a fine score in actual mistyping. And at that very minute the gong for lunch went, 15 minutes early because Mrs. Cook is to go this afternoon to serve at the War-Fund tea place, Thumbs Up, and has to leave here soon.
My lamentations over the mistakes in this letter have led Joan to out upon me: and it is obvious that my discussing of the ups and downs of my endeavours to learn to type accurately have become worse than a bore. Very sad, when they are about the only thing left in which I take any interest. I am exhausted through much digging among dandelions; and among rocks for there is only some six inches of soil over boulders at the place where I have been working this morning.
I am to be numbered now among great men and saints like St. Paul and St. Patrick, George Borrow and Tarzan as one who has handled wild snakes with impunity. Grasping a handful of weeds which seemed suitable for pulling rather than digging I found that I had lifted with them a small snake of maybe 8 or 10 inches. The popular view is that I should have killed it; but I dropped it like a hot-cake (or should it be “potato”?) and afterwards failed to find it among all the jungle. There have been other snakes here; I forget whether I mentioned them. To wit, on the stoop in front of our bedroom door, a striped snake of some 18” or 2’ which gazed upon me benevolently while I was trying to decide whether it should be classed as noxious, and went away into a hole before my decision was reached. After that one of the same sort but much smaller, which appeared to Mrs. Gordon on the front steps and was declared to be of a poisonous type but in effect harmless, since its fangs are so arranged that it cannot poison unless it gets a real good mouthful. It went into a hole under the steps and refused to come out when summoned. Third was a snake of a description unknown to me which was found under the carpet on the lawn when the maid was doing out the room and airing the carpet. Some say that this was killed by the twins; but there is no confirmation. I fear that it may have been and that it was my “Pretty Snake” first described above. Last there was a large puff adder, a real bad species, found just under the stoop in the act of hypnotizing a frog and killed by the Padri.
It is not really apposite but I must now mention that on the stoop there are to be found among the lavender bushes two varieties of grass-hopper one large and the other huge. The former are variegated and very smart; the latter have red bodies with small white spots and blackish back-parts with red spots. And I have forgotten the most important thing about the Variegated which is that they have golden kneecaps.
Of birds there are many kinds and the singing outside our room in the early morning on fine days is a riot. One yellowish-greenish makes noises like a brain-fever bird as well as others more agreeable. There are lots of small white-eyes of the same kind as the New Zealand wax-eyes, which are most pleasant to see.
During the days that followed the long walk (which I have not ventured to repeat) Joan accused me of liver. I was tired and yawned; and she always and perhaps unfairly accuses me of liver when that happens. The digging is making me sleep better, I believe, But although I claim to be much stronger than when I left Calcutta I have to lie down every afternoon and am tired in the evenings. Also there is the diet still; and the acid before meals, which is a nuisance. My gardening wounds are healed though the scars remain; but there is no getting rid of the dirt except by growing new nails and a new skin. Digging by the way is less easy than it might be because there are sizable rocks under the surface of the soil, four to eight inches down.
Joan has told of the walk along the electric cables; but she has not if I mistake not told how her shoes are so smooth on the soles that on slopes where there are grasses or pine-needles she can hardly stand. She slipped and fell on one steep slope and grazed her shins; at a place where once an old bull of the Gordons’ committed suicide; in order to prevent the twins, then very small, from recognizing the skin when hung up they told them that was a pig-skin, for it was their pet.
Much love
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend P.O.Box.222. S.W.70 Howick Place. London S.W.1 England)
AG No 3 Feb 3rd 1943
My darling Annette. Its such a pleasure to be getting letters with some regularity again. Thanks for yours No 2, d; 13.12 rcd on 28.1.43 & 1, d: 29.11.42 rcd on 1.3.43. There must be another from you wandering about somewhere, because you have not mentioned the wooly stuff from Kashmir which I sent in the same parcel as Aunt’s, & which I am sure you must have received, as she got her’s. Your letters are really most interesting & I’ll answer them by sea-mail, since this small space you would rather have used for news, I expect. Actually the news of us goes on much as in previous weeks. The rainy days have brought a new crop of weeks, with which Dad is wrestling on a grand scale. He has done wonders in the garden. He has been doing a lot of actual heavy digging, which suits him well it seems, for he has been more cheerful, which I take to mean that his liver is in better order. Better still he has been sleeping better. It is a pity we could not have stayed an extra month here. We have only about ten days left now. Discovering that Mrs Gordon wanted to get some left-over late peaches of a particularly luscious flavor, which were not worth devoting labour to on a commercial scale, but which would bring in a good many shillings at the fruit & veg: stall run in air of war-funds, Herbert & I & Mrs Cook spent Saturday evening picking them, and since there were still lots scattered about amongst the trees we went again after breakfast on Sun. morning, getting back in time for 11 o’clock tea which is a great institution in S. Africa. After that I was busy till lunch time grading them & packing them in trays. Its so peaceful, pretty & charming in the orchards. The Coloured people who do the picking & packing laugh easily & merry sounds always come from where they are working. We have had several showery days & after them some chilly weather when we put on woolen clothes & were glad of fires in the evenings. It is hot again now & touched 100° yesterday. It did not feel like it when at 3.45 I walked a mile to a tea-party. By sun-time it was only 1.45 since we live 2 hours ahead. The talk was not as interesting as I had hoped, for I had thought it was to be only my hostess, an interesting well-read woman who has spent many years in Kenya & several in Spain just before the Civil War, & I had looked forward to a long tête-a-tête with her. There were four local ladies there as well & though we got the conversation off local gossip on to birds & beasts it was not the talk I wanted. We are glad to have some scraps of news about Mokes & Gavin. Mokes comment that you were not looking afflicted enough reminds me of her complaints when I came home in 1920, that none treated her like a widow. Bernard Tennant promptly gave her a wrist watch as a belated wedding present, which delighted her. I was talking to the woman who took over duty from me at “Thumbs Up” (the war-funds tea garden) yesterday & she told me that she had only just heard after a lapse of five months that her youngest brother is a prisoner of war. Has’nt the paper been thrilling during the past week? It’s nice to think of Churchill & Roosevelt on African soil. So glad you were getting home for Xmas, for Aunt’s sake as well as your own. Best love & may spring coming & good war news cheer you. Mother
Air Graph no 3 from LJT to Romey
Standard Bank of S.Africa. Cape Town. Feb 3rd 1943
My darling Romey. Thank you for letters 83, d. 15.11. & 84, d.22.11.42. 82 has not yet arrived, nor the book you said you posted. Mails are so erratic they will v. likely turn up. From your letters you would seem to have been almost too busy in Nov. The Sorority doings appear to take up almost an undue proportion of time, & combined with Univ. work & war work, to leave you little leisure. However as long as you do not get over-tired I suppose it does not matter. More comment on your letters, which we found very interesting, will go into a personal letter I propose to write shortly. Actually the news of ourselves goes on much as in previous weeks here. The rainy days have brought a new crop of weeds, & Dad is wrestling with them on a grand scale. He really has done wonders in the garden. Discovering that Mrs Gordon was wanting to pick some late “left-overs” on certain peach trees, which were not worth coping with commercially, but which would bring in a good many shillings at the fruit & vegetable stall run for the war-funds at week ends, we volunteered to go & pick. We spent most of Saturday eve. after tea at it, & and went out again immediately after breakfast on Sun. We got back just in time for morning tea (a great institution in this country) & I spent the rest of the morning grading & packing into trays. To one not used to a fruit farm, it is heart-rending to see the lovely fruit which drops from the trees just lying and rotting, or being raked up & given to the pigs. The truth is that fruit that has fallen, especially peaches, is benerally bruised & often has a grub in it, so will not last or travel. We had some chilly days last week & wore woolen clothes & enjoyed fired in the evenings. Pine logs & cones are plentiful here, & make a gorgeous fire in a few minutes. Yesterday was hot again. I hear the thermometer touched 100 degrees, but it did not feel like it to me, though I walked out at 3.45 to a small tea-party about a mile away. Like your disappointment when you had hoped to have a talk with Bob Mcnulty, & other people came in, I was disappointed yesterday, for I had hoped for a tete-a-tete with my hostess, who is an interesting woman & interested in many of the things that I have been reading & thinking about. Several other women were there who were not very interesting, but we had some amusing talk about birds & animals. As they came from many different parts of Africa, the pooled experiences & knowledge was wide. Dad has been doing quite a lot of actual digging with a big garden fork, & it seems to suit him. He has been more cheerful, which I take as a sign that his liver is in better order, & he has been sleeping much better. It is a great pity we could not put in another month here. It is true that we have almost exhausted the near-by walks, but we could start them over again. The longer I am here the more I wish we could get to the mountains and climb some of them. There are ranges all round us. The news in the papers has been simply thrilling, has’nt it? Fancy Roosevelt & Churchill being able to meet on African soil. Even Dad is somewhat optimistic, but he is always warning against wishful thinking. When I all it to do so, my mind is always thinking about a home in England. Love & greetings to C.Susie & Helen, & dearest love to yourself. (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
(handwritten addition) LETTER N82 just arrived.
Family letter from LJT No 5
“Drumearn”.
Elgin
C.P.
Feb 4th 1943
My Dears,
At last letters are coming fairly frequently and it is such a pleasure to have them. The sea mails from England seem to take six to eight weeks. Letters from Grace and Annette came just as last week’s mail was going to post, & earlier letters from Annette, as well as from May & Len came on Feb 1st. Two weeks letters from Romey came on Feb 3rd & another on the 2nd. The letters from Canada by sea seem to take 2 ½ to 3 months to come. Having plenty of leisure here, I have been able to enjoy these letters to the full, reading them three or four times. How incredibly long it must seem since the beginning of the war to all of you in England, who have had to endure so many privations and dangers since the beginning. It seems a long time to us, but what we have had to put up with has been just a flea-bite to what you have had to face. Lets hope Winston’s and Roosevelt’s plans will polish off the Nazis this year. The papers have been thrilling lately. The “Cape Times” is not at all a bad paper, &nd publishes most excellent maps, illustrating the news extremely well. It is streets ahead of the Indian paper, “The Statesman” in that respect. Petrol rationing has caused the newspapers to be delivered much later in Elgin since Monday last. They used to come up by cars to be delivered at this farm by eight o’clock. Now they come by train & we don’t get them till after lunch.
It makes me sad to think that we have only another ten days here. The Gordons have allowed us to feel so much at home in their house, and the neighbourhood has been so friendly that we seem to have become almost part of it, and dont want to up-root ourselves so soon.
Encouraged by the rain, the weeds have been springing up at a great rate, & Herbert is fighting them manfully. Finding that in the ground under & beside the hedges of rambler roses which enclose each outer side of the circular drive, is full of big old dandelion roots, he is giving the whole thing a good deep digging, and incidentally finding many bulbs which Mrs Gordon thought had been destroyed by moles. Apart from the weeding, the digging will benefit the roses, and the bulb can be replanted with some chance of making good. The heavy digging with a fork seem to have suited Herbert. I fancy his liver has benefitted & he has been sleeping better. His digestion is better too, which I suppose makes a difference to his whole system.
I have had two or three outings this week, in one of which Herbert was included. One morning when I was on duty at “Thumbs Up” tea-garden, I met a Mrs Cunningham who used to be in India years ago. Her husband, an ex-Indian army man, has a farm in this neighbourhood. She asked if I would go to lunch last Friday, in company with a Mrs Murrey, a widow with whom I have become friendly. Later the Cunninghams rang up to invite Herbert to go too, arranging for him to meet Col Cunningham at the co-operative Cold Fruit Store near the village, which he runs in conjunction with two other farmers, having failed to get the whole neighbourhood to come in on a big scheme. On the appointed morning, I started to walk the mile to Mrs Murrey’s cottage, but, in the friendly way of the neighbourhood, a car stopped directly I got up on to the main road, and offered me a lift. The driver was one of the local fruit farmers, and we exchanged quite a lot of information during the few minutes that I was with him. Mrs Murrey locked up her cottage, and we started off along the road. Before we had gone a few yards a car stopped & General Tanner (whom I have mentioned in previous letters) called out “Where are you two off to? Want a lift?” When he heard our destination he insisted on not only driving us the half mile to the village, which was where he was going, but about another quarter of a mile or so up the hill on the other side, to the point where our route turned off the high road through the forest. As a result of all this we only had to walk a little over a mile instead of a bit over two (for me, it would have been three). It was a delightful walk through the forest, with a strong breeze blowing in our faces, making it a cool day in spite of brilliant sunshine. The Cunningham’s farm is a rambling and somewhat ramshackle house, with (sad to say) a corrugated iron roof. It is furnished in a rather haphazard style, a good many of the fittings being obviously home-made from odd boxes and bits of wood. The good furniture is somewhat shabby, but the atmosphere of warm hospitality which pervades the personalities of both host and hostess, makes such things of little account. We talked of India, of gardens, of Kenya, where Mrs Murrey spent most of her married life, while we drank tea, and knitted on the sunny stoop. Herbert and Col Cunningham arrived for lunch. Afterwards Herbert was given a bed-room to rest in. Mrs Murrey and I had comfortable chairs, books and knitting on the stoop, & the col. Went back to work. Later Mrs C. came out, & we wandered round the garden, where she is planning a good deal of replanting when the war is over. She & her husband are only just back from two years in Pretoria where he has been back on Military duty, so the garden has run riot. The farm has been looked after by a manager, I understand. A neighbor called in for tea, and drove us all back home, and so ended a pleasant day.
A few days later I went to a small tea-party of local ladies at Mrs. Murrey’s. I would have preferred a tete-a-tete with her, for she is an interesting woman, & not only did I want to hear more about Kenya, but I also wanted to hear her impressions of Spain, where she spent three years just before the Civil war.
Herbert feeling inclined to stick to his gardening on Sunday evening, I went to visit old mrs Pratt, who, though she is a great talker and an amusing one, also likes to hear other people’s ideas, and enjoys visits from new people now and again. How wonderful to be as slender, as upright and as lively at eighty, as she is! I enjoy getting her opinions of life and thought in S. Africa. She has lived here for many years, but spent the early part of her life in many different parts of the world according to where her husbands military duties took him. She has therefore good material for making comparasions.
On Saturday evening and on Sunday morning, in company with one of our fellow lodgers, Mrs Cook, we went gleaning the remains of the crop of some of the nicest eating peaches, “peregrines’, of which the main crop had been plucked & marketed. It was not worth picking these “left-overs” commercially, but Mrs Gordon wanted some for the house, and others to be sold at the fruit stall which is run in aid of war funds. It was a delightful job and better exercise than you would imagine, for many of them were high up on the trees, and to get them one had to stretch up to ones fullest height and beyond, or even to climb into the lower branches. This we left to Herbert, who scratched himself considerably in the process. It was nice work all the same, for it was in such a beautiful setting. On Sunday we got back in time for morning tea at 11 o’clock (an almost sacred function in S.Africa as it is in Australia and N.Z.) After tea I spent the rest of the morning grading the peaches into different trays ready for sale. We fetched in the very last remnants of these peaches last evening, assisted by Padre Martin, who is still here. The farm is all out on pears and the big yellow peaches, which are used for canning. I had never seen these growing before. They are the most wonderful colour. The main colour of the fruit is a deep bright apricot yellow, which nears orange, and as they ripen one side turns a vivid red. They look lovely hanging on the trees, but they are nothing like so good to eat as ordinary peaches. They are much harder and therefore easier to handle, which is what makes them so much more suitable for use in the canning factories. Four tons of these peaches were picked and dispatched yesterday, as well as quantities of pears and plums, and wind-fall apples. The difficulty of the soft fruit is the speed with which it has to be attended to the moment it gets ripe enough to deal with. The Coloured folk who work on these farms are jolly people and easily moved to laughter. Some of the girls were taking a lift in one of the low, four-wheeled mule carts which collect the fruit from the orchards and bring it into the pack-shed, the other morning. The boy driving the cart made the mules trot over the bumpy track & the girls were clinging to-gether as they stood in the cart, and rolling about in gales of laughter. They look nice in their bright green ove-alls. There always seems to be a god deal of laughter going on wherever the pickers are working.
The weather has been variable. After the rain we had some cold days when we enjoyed a fire in the evenings. Pine logs and cones which are available in great quantities all over the estate, make lovely fires in a few minutes. A hot spell followed, and now it is showery again, but not cold. The cool days are nice for walking. We did an amusing and beautiful walk one evening, following the electric power pylons across country. We squeezed under wire fences, crossed orchards, and down over some jolly veldt (approximating to our heaths) to the edge of the river, where we looked across at the Cunningham’s farm about half a mile away by crow-flight. We made our way homewards near the river through the thickets of pine and mimosa, my leather-soled shoes getting more and more slippery as time went on. The hillside began to rise more and more abruptly above the river, till I had difficulty in keeping my footing. At last we were forced to clamber right back on to the high land and home by our outward route.
Best love to you all
LJT
From LJT to Annette
“Drumearn”. Elgin. C.P.
Feb 11th 1943
My darling Annette
Browsing through your letters No 1 of 29-11-42 and No 2 of 13-12-42 quite a lot of subjects crop up to talk about and taking the risk that comments will be stale after so long an interval, I shall wander on through what is in my mind –
It gave me a nice warm feeling to hear that you had bought the 1st vol. of the records of “The Marriage of Figaro”. It is the most absurd comedy, but full of delightful things – I hope you will invite me to a playing of the records when at last we get home – The constant longing to be home has flared up and become more insistant, since the War news has been so good and mere hope is merging into possibility. Jumping back to Mozart – dont you think a lot of “The Magic Flute” is quite delightful? It must be frightfully difficult to find four high sopranos good enough to sing it, but I thought the voices in those Glynbourne records were lovely. I am grateful to Leonard Arculus for introducing me to those lovely records and for focusing my attention on Mozart – of whom previously I had had only a general vague appreciation.
One of the things I hope for in the future is more time to listen to music. I wonder what sort of lives we shall be able to live after the war. Its going to take the devil of a lot of paying for –
Mr Lacey the schoolmaster now staying here, is two years older than I, and tells me he dislikes, almost dreads the idea of growing old. I try to examine myself, but find neither dislike nor dread – I wonder whether I deceive myself and have both feelings carefully hidden – I dont know how Mr Lacey is situated financially – Perhaps there is an economic side to his feelings.
We have had some amusing and refreshing talk since he has been here – He says he is having a little period of rest in which he is “Conrad in search of his Youth”, and we have talked of the books, the plays, the picture, the statues and the music we have loved in the past and many of which we still love where we have time to think of them – He is a refreshment to us after having to talk to Mrs Cook at every meal – I can well sympathize with your feelings of relief when the over-talkative W.A.A.F. left your lodgings.
Its not “just you” who finds good films rare – We remarked it much in Calcutta and I see mentions of it in many of the papers, including The Cape Times last week.
If you come across Hegley Farson’s “Behind God’s Back” take a look at it. Its about Africa and vivid – Possibly things seem a bit savourless to you these days – That is the almost sure result of war-weariness – One can only hold on till the great end is accomplished and hope you will be able to have a really first class holiday then – We admire the quiet and steady way you have worked –
Love as always Mother
Family letter from LJT No 6
“Drumearn”. Elgin.
Cape Province.
Feb. 11th 1943
My Dears,
There is a strong feeling of regret when I think that this is the last letter I shall write from “Drumearn”. We are leaving just as we have got on to friendly terms with several of the neighbouring people. Herbert wonders how he will occupy himself at Cape Town. Its possible that he has slightly overdone the digging in the garden. For the past few days his back has been tired. He gets tempted. At the moment when he feels that he has had just enough, he sees that a little more work will round off some job nicely, and he does it. He has a theory that the only way to regain physical strength is to do a little too much and get tired. It is one of those theories that has a dangerous grain of truth in it, but it needs such fine adjustment, and I fear he went a little too far with it at the beginning of this week.
Partly as a result of this he felt he must refuse the offer of a car drive to Worcester, which is eighty miles away, across lovely country. Mr Ruffle, the Essex man whom I have mentioned before, called at “Thumbs Up” early on Monday morning, when I was on duty there, & explained that he had to return one of the Italian prisoners, of whom he has several working at his saw mill, to the Prisoners Camp at Worcester, & asked whether Herbert & I would like to go with him for the sake of the drive. It was a great chance in these days when petrol is so scarce and cars cannot be hired, nor much used for pleasure. Herbert was tempted but decided against it, but I accepted gladly, and had a delightful day. The road first climbs over the mountains which made the northern rim of the Elgin saucer, making a series of tremendous hairpin bends as it rises steeply through pine forest into open veldt country covered with heaths and such and rising into high rock cliffs and impressive mountain tops. From the top of the pass it becomes apparent that there are several more mountain ranges ahead, an attractive discovery for those who are in a high powered car, and know that a good road runs where they want to go, but it must have been heart rending for the old pioneers who passed this way with their great ox-wagons. The next valley we corssed has not made up its mind whether to grow apples and plums, or concentrate on vinyards, so it has some of both, as well as doing a little grain-growing. We passed through a village or “Dorp” with some pretty houses, a jam factory and a few shops. All its inhabitants are Africanders. It would be a grand place to stay in for walking since it lies on the foot of one chain of Mts and another lies a short way across the valley floor. They pass into the next valley was a gentle affair rising gently from the cultivated areas across swelling heathery hills and dropping into a much bigger wider valley whose floor was at a considerably lower altitude than the one we had left. Not only did it have considerable ranges on either side of it, but its western end was blocked by the tremendous escarpments of the Drakenstein Mts, so steep and so jagged that they look like stage scenery. After a stretch of country not unlike Salisbury Plain (provided you ignored the high ranges in the background) we got on to the level lands bordering the river. Here we were definitely in Wine-growing country. The Breade River, like most rivers which drain hilly districts in countries where rainfall comes at long intervals and in heavy dollops, has a bed enormously much wider than its normal flow requires. It is crossed by a very long and very narrow bridge. The bed is not a stony waste as is the case with most of our Indian rivers near the hills, but is full of reeds and palmeit weed, so it makes a fine green stretch. Worcester on its further bank, is a cheerful bright looking town. Its neat grid of wide streets had no untidy edges from the direction of our approach, but I fear it is too much to hope that it has escaped having slummy districts somewhere, for the Coloured People invariably make the areas they live in look down-at-heel. Though not distinguished by an special beauty, this African town was far more comly than its counterpart of the same size in Australia or New Zealand would have been. The Dutch have left a tradition of good building and design, which influences the modern houses strongly. They do use a good deal of corrugated iron for roofing, but they use lovely thatch, pretty small wood shingles or red tiles for most of the better buildings, and even when the roof is iron, the building usually has some design about it, and it not just a few wooden cubes set down haphazard as so many of the Australian houses are. Nice cream-coloured stone is used a great deal in all this area, especially for public buildings and churches. The prisoners camp on the outskirts of the town, was a nice bright looking place, and the men I saw about seemed well content. A small but spruce hotel gave us an excellent, if not very original lunch. We parted for half an hour’d shopping, and I succeeded in buying two enamel jugs for Mrs Ruffle, which is considered a triumph for jugs of any sort are rare, and glass and china unobtainable, except in the form of ornaments and vases.
I was interested in the range of talk with Mr Ruffle. He came to S.Africa as a young man intending to go into the Cape Mounted Rifles. The family friend to whom he was given a letter of introduction advised him not to join up in that corps, as promotion was terribly slow, and offered to take him into his office. This led to work all over the Union which of course was not a union in those days, and In Rhodesia, so he has wide experience.
12.2.43. Its not possible to use a typewriter in this house in the afternoon, for the sound goes through the walls, and everyone but myself sleeps or rests after lunch. Therefore I could not finish this yesterday, which after a glorious morning turned wet in the evening. During the past week we have been to two charming farms for sundowners. I have an impression of generous roomy white-walled houses: comfortable rooms, well furnished, with plenty of books and great jars of flowers. From the windows or the stoop, magnificent views of orchard, forest and mountain, with foregrounds of bright flower garden, the whole nestling under steeply sloping roofs of velvety thatch, made from fine reeds.
At Miss Murray’s we spent a little time in the pack shed, before going to the house for drinks. Her place, though only about the same size as the Gordon’s, is electrified, with everything running about on endless belts in a most attractive fashion. Washing, grading & so on, are done automatically, but the final packing has to be done by hand, and its interesting to see how fast the Coloured girls hands move. Col Gordon and Miss Murray were the first people to start fruit growing in this district, just before the Kaiser’s war. She has built up her business by her own hard work and report has it that she is now well off. Her home looks like it for it is full of attractive things. The Dennistons, to whom we went a few evenings later, is on a much larger scale: six hundred acres under fruit against the eighty or so of the Gordons’ and Miss Murray, but that farm was planted by Mrs Denniston’s father who was a big financier and detirmined to prove that it was best to grow fruit on a big scale.
A new guest, one Lacy, a school-master from Cape town’s big boys school is having a terms holiday and has come up here to sleep, walk and generally get away from his job and social duties connected with a school-master’s life. He is an amusing, well-read man and loves talking, with the result that we read little after dinner now, but talk till eleven o’clock or past, which is considered late hours in these parts. Herbert and Mr Lacy’s times at Oxford overlapped and as they were both doing Classics they have many acquaintances in common. Our poor Mrs Cook whose idea of conversation is household chat of the mildest with occasional trite remarks culled from the day’s newspaper, sits silent and surprised. She regards us as oddities, no doubt.
Mrs Gordon most kindly took us for a day to a charming sea-side place some thirty or forty miles from here. She made the excuse that she wanted to see old friends, and lunched with them, while we went to a hotel, but she really did it to enable us to see Hermanus, about which we had heard before we left India. It is a lovely spot. There is a big bay rimmed with rocks and stretches of pure white sand, on to which fine surf rolls in. Behind rugged hills rise up steeply and here and there where they stand back a little, the sea flows in at high tide and fills wide lagoons. I would like to spend a holiday there. The drive is pretty, too. One goes through fine country in any direction from Elgin, for there are mountains everywhere.
We have met some delightful people in Elgin and I am sorry to think that we are unlikely to come across most of them again, unless we have to stay over next winter in Africa, in which case I think we shall try to come back to Mrs Gordon.
Herbert and I have been for a brisk walk this morning. It was a grand day for walking. There is a strong fresh wind blowing, and last night’s rain has cleared except for one or two tiny April showers. Now its time for lunch, and the end of the paper must be drawing near, so its time to say good-bye to you all, and send you my love.
LJT
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
February 11th. 1943
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
With some folly I have spent the last half hour in testing the demerits of old carbons. Joan uses seven or eight at a time, and I only three. So there is a theory that I am able to use those discarded by her. She handed me 20 old ones stored up for months past, some of them, and I had the bright and futile idea of typing one sentence with each of them before deciding whether to hand them on to the farm for use with consignment notes or to use them myself. Bad for the temper and a waste of time; for with only one carbon in use the differences apparent are very small.
For me it has not been a successful week: too much time has gone in merely lying about. The idea that I slept better after digging, which was based on two nights’ really excellent sleep has proved to be fallacious. Presumably I overdid the digging; but whatever the reason I have been sleeping badly and have been suffering from a stiff back. We leave here is four days time now and I see with annoyance that I shall not be able to finish the work on which I embarked six weeks ago. Aided by the untimely rains the dandelions have revived before I could get round a second time and the hard soil has defeated my efforts to go over the whole place with a fork.
This enforced lying about in the afternoons has reduced me to gloom. It has destroyed my beginnings of belief in my recovering strength fairly soon. It is unfortunate that the local inhabitants should have chosen this particular time to show us hospitality, for I have not been in a responsive mood.
Joan has been much delighted with a tale out of a book on Napoleon’s Marshals and has suggested my repeating it in this letter for the particular benefit of my elder daughter. It is merely a speech by Lefebvre (the pronunciation of whose name seems to me to baffle conjecture) to the elders of a town in Franconia in 1807 . . . . “We have come to bring you Liberty and Equality, but don’t lose your heads about it for the first one of you that moves without my leave will be shot.” I was more pleased with another which was like some dream: how Berthier the Chief of Staff decided to run a shoot for Napoleon on army lines as if it were a campaign but neglected to see that the 1000 rabbits bought for the occasion were wild; being on the contrary tame and accustomed to be fed they made a concerted rush at Napoleon when he appeared with his gun, hoping to be given lettuce by him, - and when driven back with bludgeons made two truly Napoleonic flank attacks and caught him up again before he reached his carriage.
One way and another I have read a lot this week but I have had no profit and little pleasure from it. There has been more conversation than before owing to the arrival of a new guest, who is a schoolmaster and takes an interest in things on which conversation is easy. But I realize that I stopped reading anything but blue books, so to say, some 25 years ago and I take but a small part in the conversation. However it all makes me thankful that I have not been a schoolmaster. Last night we actually sat talking till 11.30 which is very late for these parts.
Yesterday we went to a small seaside resort some 20 miles away or more, being given a lift by Mrs. Gordon. A beautiful place and reached by a road passing through beautiful scenery; the first part of it we had seen when we were taken out by Mrs. Iron on our second day here but the colours of the trees and fields have changed so greatly since the rain that it might all have been new to us. A gloriously fine day. Today started fine also and remained more or less so till a little while ago when just as we were going to start on a walk it began to drizzle. It is a pity that I spent the afternoon lying on my bed instead of walking then and lying down now.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
February 16th 1943. (Tuesday)
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
We left Elgin yesterday and are now resident at a private hotel in Sea Point which is the suburb west of Cape Town. It occurs to me that the reason why we feel that the whole of this place has a twist and that east is west is that the map distributed to the troops when they passed through on their way to India and studied by us before and after we left Calcutta is printed with the south at the top and the north at the bottom. P.S It is west at top and east at bottom. More confusing still.
Elgin had been very cold during out last week and my general state was one of gloom, especially as the stiffness of my back was such that I feared to dig much in the garden (nothing better for generating heat) and as we had to go out to lunch twice and the digging was on those days tabu lest I should be too exhausted. One of the lunches was at a Farm owned by a rich man and wonderfully equipped and organized; the house like so many of the farm-houses so-called in the Elgin region was like a charming country house, and the garden was a delight. The owner’s hobby was birds. He is the man who re-introduced the guinea-fowl after it had been exterminated in the area, he keeps various kinds of pheasant (which apparently become victims to rats very generally) and he has many species of duck on the “dams” in which water is impounded for the use of the estate. Dams are like our Indian tanks. The other house where we lunched was General Tanner’s; we have mentioned him before in letters. It is where the Stanley cranes menace visitors and bang on the windows of the drawing room with their beaks in search of food. Here we met the High Commissioner for India; it was to keep him busy in fact that we were asked and this proved easy because he was Secretary to Abdur Rahim, one of our Hon. Members in Bengal in 1921-1923, and knows any number of our Bengal politicians. Now I shall have to look him up in Cape Town; it has the compensation that he suggested that I might like to see the latest Indian papers. This will be a pleasure, for often I found myself wondering what had been happening.
Letters from H.D. and from Dr. Jenkins gave us further information about the Calcutta air-raids; I am sorry to have left before these for I should have liked to see what were the reactions of my staff. What did the fire-watchers in my office do when the time came, I wonder; presumably wait in the ground-floor rooms till all was over, in accordance with the government directions that no one should expose himself till a raid was finished.
I left my task in the Gordons’ garden unaccomplished. To my grief, though it must be said that one might now know that it was a garden without being told. A few days before we left I found three more rose bushes which had been completely hidden by weeds, and that was more or less the state of many other parts when we arrived.
I confess to feeling great curiousity as to the reasons why the Gordons are badly off when they have so large a farm with so many acres under fruit. Some saythat they were swindled by their foreman, since Col. Gordon did not take great interest in the details of the work; and others that he dropped money on investments just before he died. It is a great pity anyhow for nicer people you couldn’t meet. One thing is clear; to farm without money behind one and without experience is to condemn oneself to slavery.
It is strange to be in a big town and unable to get a paper or hear the day’s news promptly. Spare copies are not printed and it takes some time for arrangements to be made for a paper to be supplied to any newcomer. Not having made the acquaintance of any other person staying in the hotel I shall have to prowl round to the house of Mrs. Forsyth and look at her’s.
Arguing with Joan the other day I produced the saying “Dirt is in the mind of the beholder” and although this was not deliberate but the outcome of a confused mind I think that it is a remark to be used with effect against the pious. How dangerous is refinement is shown by the fact that Mrs. Cook, our fellow-lodger at Elgin, and her friend were shocked at our mentioning the book of Ruth as literature: they thought it verged on the impious. In moderation I did not mind Mrs. Cook; her soft stupidity was in a way amusing. But my dear Joan could not suffer her whether gladly or otherwise. Which reminds me that our little padre, Mr. Martin, said that nowadays boys do not recognize the most familiar tales in the bible much less any quotations. I would not be surprised if this were less true of England that of South Africa where boys obviously read much less.
Much love
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend (addressed to Mrs A.B.S. Townend. Highways. Great Leighs. Nr Chelmsford. Essex. England)
c/o Standard Bank of S.Africa. Cape Town. Feb. 17th 1943.
No 4
Dearest Grace, This A-G is more than a week late. Our last week in Elgin was taken up with so many visits to neighbouring farms, & one long days motoring for me, that I did not get round to doing more than the mail letter. We got back to Sea Point, Cape Town, on Monday & are settling in comfortably. It is a funny little hotel in some ways, but the great boon is the tiny sitting-room & little verandah of our own. If we had to use the small lounge or else be confined to our bedroom, it would be trying. We had two or three very cold days last week, & whether it was due to that, or whether Herbert had been doing too much, I don’t know, but he did not feel so good & got depressed. He has picked up again now. Mr Ruffle, the man who was born in Stebbing, & whose brother lives in Hedingham, had to drive eighty miles to Worcester, & asked if H & I would like to go with him. H was afraid that his back would get too tired on such a long drive, but I went & enjoyed it so much. It was lovely country all the way & we crossed two mountain ranges, lunched at a nice little hotel in Worcester, & Mr R having concluded his business, we got back for tea. We really felt sad leaving the Gordons, who have been so nice to us. If we have to stay in S.A. next winter, we shall probably go back. Letters from Mrs Harvey, who was so good to us when we arrived, & from a woman I met Elgin were waiting here to ask us to fix up meetings with them. Eileen Forsyth was full of greetings & bubbling with ideas as usual. Moreover she was the bearer of a message from Professor Compton, President of the Mountain Club, inviting us to go up Table Mountain on Sunday, stay the night at the Club Hut to see sunset & sunrise & come down on Monday morning. The climb up or down might be too much for Herbert, but he may go up by the cable-way. Yesterday was the last day of “In Which We Serve”, so we went to see it, & sat weeping copiously. It is a most moving thing. I suppose you have all seen it. This place faces due west across the sea, & we get the most lovely sunsets. The water is very cold, so I doubt whether we shall bathe. It is said that the sea is much warmer round the corner in the Pacific. I am getting boxes from store to-morrow, & when I have got unpacked & sorted, I must see about a war work job. Several people have written from Calcutta saying how little damage the air-raids have done, & that so far blast walls & sand-bag protection have worked well. Nothing very heavy was used in the way of bombs. The A.R.P. & First Air services worked quite well. Several letters have come from Romey, all by sea & taking a long time. It is some time since we got English mail. Edward Magill is in Johannesburg. If we go north later on I hope we shall manage to see him. The papers tell us that Jan. was the wettest & the warmest England has had for eighty years. I suppose wet was better than cold, under present conditions. This afternoon Mrs Ruffle is coming into Cape Town & is kindly taking us to the Assembly (the Cape House of Commons) Quite likely all the speeches will be in Africans, but anyway we shall be glad to see the Parliament in session & hope to get a sight of Gen.Smuts. Best love to you all Please let Anne see this. Joan
From Mrs H.P.V.Townend
Family letter from LJT No 7
c/o Standard Bank of S. Africa. Cape Town
Graham Lodge.
Sea Point.
Feb 18th 1943.
My Dears,
We have only been here a few days, but we are settling down to a new routine, and are comfortably housed. This is a quaint little hotel in many ways, and we should not like it if we had not got our own wee sitting-room and the little verandah, stoop or balcony (You can take your choice of name.) I am writing in the sitting- room and Herbert is reading the paper on the verandah at the present moment. I have induced the native Boy who does the rough house-work, to sweep the sitting-room and verandah before breakfast, so that they are ready for our use. The bed-rooms are sometimes not done till very late, though the early attention to the sitting room seems to have had a good effect, for the bedroom was all swept and garnished when we came up-stairs to-day. Next week I must see about getting war work to do. Today the boxes we left in store are coming here, and I must get them unpacked and do some shopping before I start work.
Our last few days in Elgin were full up with visits. We walked about two miles across country to return books, have morning tea, and say goodbye to one family, and came home with all our pockets bulging with Cox’s Orange Pippins. Our host warned us that they are nothing like as good in S Africa as they are in England, and its true. A favourite apple in this county is one we heard much talk of in New Zealand and Australia: “Granny Smith”, which is said to have originated in the orchard of an old lady in Tasmania. There were friends in the village to say farewell to in the afternoon, including Mrs Pratt. We parted on the cheerful note of the future meeting, for she is coming to Cape Town in April for her annual holiday.
On Saturday we had a long day out. Mrs Blackburn fetched us after she had done her shopping in the village, and drove us to their beautiful farm way out on the opposite side of the railway, close to the northern mountains. Mr Blackburn was in a shipping firm, presumably made money, and went into farming with plenty of capital behind him. The excellent result is a most prosperous estate, which is also a paying concern. He has not limited himself to fruit, though he has a great deal. He has many acres under vegetables and such things as strawberries and raspberries. He has a big chicken farm. At the moment he has 4,000 laying fowls, exclusive of cocks, and young birds. I believe he has a big dairy as well, but we did not see that. One of his hobbies is the protection and cultivation of wild birds. He has brought the guinea-fowl, which had been shot out, back again, by hatching out clutches of imported eggs and turning the chicks loose. The birds are all over the district again now. He has big pens beyond the chicken farm, just patches of the natural veldt wired in, in which he is keeping and breeding many varieties of pheasants. He has the lovely Amhurst and the equally beautiful gold, and silver pheasants, and many others as well. Recently he has made a big reservoir by means of a dam across the mouth of a gully coming down from the mountains, and on this he has established many kinds of duck and other water birds. They are not breeding much yet, but he thinks they will as soon as more reeds have grown up round the edge of the water. It is a charming hobby. We did not see all these things till the afternoon, when we drove round the estate in a car. It would have taken all day to walk. He has his own village and school, and all the Colored folk we saw looked so happy and well dressed compared with the average type.
The first thing to do when we got to the house, was to go and see the Scottie pups, adorable stout little parties a few weeks old, with a friendly happy mother. As I was sitting on a bank cuddling one of the pups, I felt something against my back and cheek. It was Jane, a black setter, asking for a little notice by putting her head over my shoulder. There were horses being groomed, flowers blooming everywhere, and Siamese cats walking about with their air of possession. I went to see some two week old kits. I had never seen such young Siamese kit before. They were sweet things, ivory white with blue eyes. The mother is a beauty. Her eyes shone out of the hood of her basket like deep blue moonstones. It was a fascinating place in which to spend a day. There was so much to see. Mr. Blackburn has done a lot of shooting and there are heads of almost every sort of African game on the walls of the house. We wandered in the garden, sat on the lawn in the sun and talked and enjoyed ourselves very much. A series of naval officers come up to spend leaves with the Blackburns. One was there last Saturday, and he told me he had spent a week there months ago when his ship was in for a refit. Can you imagine what a marvelous change and rest it must be to stay in a house like that? Perhaps I have given a disproportionate amount of space to the Blackburns, but I found their place so fascinating, and their way of living so good.
On our last day in Elgin we lunched with General and Mrs Tanner, of whom we had seen quite a lot during our stay there. The High Commissioner for India, Sir Shafi Ahmend Kahan came up from Cape Town to see them and they thought we should be suitable co-guests. Lunch and the talk afterwards spread out a long time and we did not get home till half-past three. That was the end, except for packing, of a very nice seven weeks at “Drumearn”. I should be happy to go back there.
The weather had turned very hot again, almost too hot for travelling in comfort, by Monday. The train which is supposed to leave at 1.10, was late, and when it came in, it proved to be extremely full. It was difficult to find seats. At last we got into a carriage with a father and mother coming back from a sea-side holiday with a small son and daughter. An elderly lady occupied a seat in the opposite corner, and there had been a girl in the carriage too, but luckily for us all she had found a friend, (whether of old standing or merely temporary I dont know) on leave from the First Division from North Africa, and they spent their time in the corridor with their arms round each other’s necks! Having established our seats, we went out on to the platform at the end of the carriage and stood there to see the last of the Elgin District. It was pleasant out there in spite of smuts, and we stayed there till we had chugged up to the Sir Lowery Pass, and made the descent on the other side. The views from the train are much more expansive than they are from a car, and the blue sea, white sand, mountains and green fields, have all the ingredients for making a first class railway poster. When we returned to the carriage we soon made friends with the family. They were a young Jewish couple from Johannesburg, and very nice. The children were friendly and well behaved. They were thirsty and we had a flask of iced water with us, so were able to give them drinks. We talked all the rest of the way to Cape Town, and the Heims have asked us to be sure to let them know if we are going to Johannesburg, as they would like to take us round. Very good of them to make such an offer to railway journey acquaintances.
Our rooms were ready for us here, and letters of welcome were waiting from Mrs Harvey, who had befriended us on our first arrival, and from a woman I had met in Elgin. Eileen Forsyth, my friend from Calcutta through whom we had got these rooms, had been round to see that everything was alright. She has a little house close by. We strolled round to see her after supper, taking her a box of fruit, and as we returned home we watched a heavenly sunset over the sea. We face due west, and reputedly are not as badly worried by the south-easters as are many other places. Eileen was the bearer of a message from Professor Compton of the S. African Mountain Club, inviting us to go and spend the night at the Club Hut on Table Mountain on Sunday, to see sunset and sunrise, and climb down on Monday morning. I have accepted with great pleasure. Herbert is still not quite certain. I would love him to come, but am not quite sure whether it would be wise.
As Tuesday was the last day of Noel Coward’s film “In Which We Serve”, we went into Cape Town to see it, and both wept copiously. I think it is very good. Yesterday we went into Cape Town again. (Its only ten minutes by bus) to meet Mrs Ruffle from Elgin, who had kindly offered to take us into the Assembly. We met her at 2.30, and went into one of the special galleries where we could be in the front row and so see the floor of the House well. Unfortunately it was not a good day, and no vital debate was going on, so neither General Smuts, nor the leader of the Opposition were there. An Opposition Member was speaking in Afrikans when we arrived, but looking at the dignified room, the old Cape Parliament House and having various notables pointed out to us by Mrs Ruffle was sufficient to keep us from being bored till a Government member spoke in English on a subject about which we had been hearing a good deal the Citrus and Deciduous Fruit Boards. The speaker was Mr Marwick, one of the members for ‘Maritzburg, and an old friend of Mrs Ruffle. Later when we became bored with another speaker in Afrikans, she sent a note to Mr Marwick to ask if he could spare a few minutes to take us into the lobbies and show us round. He appeared almost immediately, and took us to have tea. The tea was good. It was interesting talking to him, and also having many of the personalities in African politics pointed out. He was interested in what Herbert could tell him of Indian legislature, and has kindly taken our address and wants us to lunch with him one day soon. Mrs Ruffle’s late father was Commissioner for Native Affairs, so she grew up in a political atmosphere.
I wont start another page. Best love to you all,
LJT
(handwritten addition in margin) No personal letter this week as an AG will be going in a day or two. How I wish Dad did not feel the cold so much, so that we could come home – As a matter of fact its terribly difficult to get passages – People are still here who came from India with us – My love as always Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town
Wednesday, February 24th 1943.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
It was in my mind to start this letter with the announcement that with several technical improvements I should be in a position to write it with fewer mistakes and less loss of temper than usual. The two blunders in the headings have disproved this before I started, even if the fresh series in this line be left our of account; but none the less I shall chronicle the taking of a new ribbon and new carbons into use, and the expenditure of vast sums on having the alignment rollers put right so that the paper will perhaps no longer shift up to the north east when I reach the middle of the page. The long-cherished scheme of replacing a perfectly useless “Rs” by a plus sign has been abandoned; the cost would be 7/6 and the improvement not worth it.
I made a special journey into the town to pick up the typewriter this morning and thus exposed myself to being stung for a China Flag Day. A grief almost, when I consider that I gave 12/- to the China fund yesterday at the Chinese exhibition; a collection of a few silks, figures and vases, some jade not very good and miscellaneous things well worth seeing but disappointing after newspaper talk that there were exhibits worth 50,000. It was possible also for sixpence to have your name written in Chinese characters, the only sideshow; but as I shouldn’t have been able to read it when written and the Chinese present were abstaining I abstained too. I went in only to pass half an hour before meeting Joan for a lunch with some friends of Mr. Groth, once American consul in Calcutta, at the Civil Service Club.
We met our host outside the door and at that moment just as he had disappeared inside and Joan had followed I spied on the pavement an aged man; “Surely it is Biss!” I exclaimed - and it was. A man once in the Education Department in Calcutta who retired after the last war; it was somewhat of a feat (1) to remember him and (2) to produce his name after all these years. But there was no time to ascertain his address and my reliance on the telephone book for it has proved misplaced.
On Monday morning when Joan was up Table Mountain or coming down from it I showed great energy and initiative; I called on the Indian High Commissioner and being so far lucky as not to find him in I chatted for half an hour with his Secretary, one Muir of the Madras I.C.S. He had been in the Madras Board of Revenue when the Flood Commission went down there from Bengal and had met Sachse and Carter; genial discourse on the report that they produced and after that on Muir’s schemes on the subject of settling colonists in the Tungrabhadra irrigation area which were of interest to me because they resembled the ideas propounded by me for tackling the central Bengal districts under my Development Act.
I have been re-reading the speeches made about that Act in the Legislative Council when first it was brought in. First my own composition delivered and very badly too by Sir Nazimuddin and then various attacks by the opposition and by so-called supporters; the first time that I have looked at them since the Proceedings were published. It has been vaguely my intention to set myself down to the composition of a Manual about the working of the Act but I have forgotten a great deal about it and should have to read it up again before doing anything; now that we have a sitting room one obstacle has been removed, but there is another in the chilliness of the weather. Absurd to talk of this in the middle of a month that corresponds to the English August; and a month that has already had more sunny days than the average August would give us; but none the less, it is chilly out of the sun. There is a cold wind blowing from the South, exhilarating if one is out of doors and on the move but shrivelling to my tummy when I am indoors.
On Sunday when Joan went up the hill towards Table Mountain cableway I went with her for the first lap. It took an hour’s hard walking and the hill path was steep. At first she rejected my offer to take her pack but the first part of the way was so hot and sweaty that when we had breasted the steepest part she changed her mind; it was satisfactory to find that I did not become unreasonably tired in the back as a result. At the Neck where they ought to have got onto a bus (but it was full) I left them and descended to a tea-house where after some waiting I got a cup of tea and then climbed up a steep and pathless hillside to the path by which we had come and so returned to this hotel. On the way I saw a wheel come off a pram which was being pushed by an old lady up the hill and volunteered assistance; I might have saved my energy, for the damage was a broken pin for which no substitute could be improvised and I covered my hands with filthy black grease in vain. Afterwards I became a bit stiff in the legs and this on top of the stiffness in the back which persists since I did the heavy digging at Drumearn is a nuisance.
It is to be said that I was held up also for a contribution to a bucket which a young woman of agreeable manners was trying to get filled with coppers for The China Fund; it was only about ¼ full and her prospects of success were not great, but when it is considered that about half the contents were not pennies but half crowns she probably came near to getting the equivalent.
So magnificent was the sunset two evenings ago that yesterday Joan hurried me out to see one that would be even better to judge by the start. There was a perishing cold wind blowing and it was therefore comic to find by the time we reached the sea-front that the colour had entirely faded and our enterprise was without point. This did make us merry. Strange to say.
The pernicious effect of staying in an orchard is that I shall not be able to buy fruit again without a vague feeling of being swindled. For the big yellow peaches of which I used to eat three a meal at Elgin and which Mrs. Gordon thought hardly worth eating the shop price is 3d. each and there is a similar high price for the pears which lay about in heaps on the stoop of the house. It looks as if on these figures I ate my board-and-lodging’s worth of fruit each day and can look on the bed and the rest of the meals as pure baksheesh. We are getting grapes at 3d. a pound however which seems cheap to anyone who has not plucked them off the vines and even to him probably seems cheap; and when oranges are in question their cost will probably be equally reasonable. In spite of the theories advanced by various of the family in their letters we have not seen many oranges so far. Mary Ow Wachendorf in a letter dispatched in November from Florida but received by us only last week asked for the address of Annette in order that she might sent her citrus juices; I gave Grace’s name and the Highways address, but it may be ages before anything comes of this even though at a cost of /4/- (!) I sent the letter airmail. How good of her and her mother the Baroness Giskra, to think of it!
Have we mentioned in letters that those accustomed to mix with people who speak Afrikaans are in the habit of gesticulating dramatically? the Twins for examp, could not speak of eating without making the motions of one pushing food into his mouth; or of going without pushing with the hand to represent movement. There is an old man staying here who was speaking to his tabl-mate of paying cash and he illustrated it mechanically by making with his hand the gesture of a man counting out notes. This is probably the result of talking to servants who know little English; but at first or even second sight it looks comic. The French are quiet and self-restrained in this respect compared with people here.
I have come to the conclusion that the Bengal Legislative Council as it was in my time compared very favourably with the South African Parliament. Decorum was much greater; here the members talk together quite audibly and there were even two who were exchanging remarks across the Chamber floor from three rows back on each side. Apparently it is permissible to read speeches and apparently also the custom not to listen to any but the prominent men when they are speaking. The afternoon on which we went to listen to the debate was not a lucky one for none of the prominent politicians was there except one whose name escapes me at the moment; interesting all the same. (handwritten note in margin Hofmeyr)
On the sea-front here there is a miniature of which it is claimed that it is the smallest working railway in the world. A circle of some four hundred yards of track; a small station with buildings about 4 feet high; the engine stands some 9” high and there is only one truck on which four children can sit; and a trip costs 6d. The other evening we passed when trial trips were being made; and in my opinion the intent look on the face of the lad who drives the engine, perhaps 17 or 18 years old, was worth more than that easily. What pride and what consciousness of efficiency! Thalassa got a ride for nothing and was delighted . . . . a Pretty Child.
Addenda: Every morning while it is pitch dark there comes a thud against the outer wall of the bedroom; then another louder - it is the newspaper being thrown up from the garden below; we are on the first floor. The South Africans use the word “honestly” to emphasise every sentence if they are girls. I have resumed study of the French linguaphone records, and find them dull.
Much love
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 8
Graham Lodge. Graham Rd.
Sea Point. C.P.
Feb 24th 1943
My Dears,
English and Canadian Mail has been arriving during the last two days, Grace’s No 6 of 27.12., with an enclosure from Gavin, and Romey’s No 89 of 28.12.43, also the book from Romey, which I almost began to fear must have been lost. Three of Romey’s letter are missing and one of Grace’s. I also suspect that something from Annette must be somewhere in the post. It was lovely getting letters again, and hearing how you all were at Christmas time. Interesting that Romey’s letter took the same time as the letters from England. We have recently had a big Indian mail too, so have been well off. The fact that we are hearing of things that happened after we had arrived in Africa, seems to bring our lives into focus with the rest of you again. We are grateful for all letters.
Except that the news from North Africa makes us anxious, we have had a nice week:- nicer for me than for Herbert, because I made the lovely expedition up Table Mountain, and he, wisely, did not. He would have been exhausted, and it would have been hard to arrange suitable food for him. He accompanied Eileen Forsyth and myself as far as Kloof Nek, the saddle between Table Mountain and The Lion’s Head. Tram busses run up to this spot from the Cape Town side, and a motor road winds up from Clifton, a little place a mile or two beyond Sea Point, but we walked up by a track across the slopes of the Lion. Its a good pull up and we found it hot, with our rucksacks on our backs. Herbert nobly insisted on taking mine for the last part of the journey, which took us about an hour. Herbert bade us goodbye at the Nek, and returned via a tea house, for it was, by this time, four o’clock. Eileen and I tramped on another uphill mile to the bottom of the cableway, where we had to wait for half an hour as there was such a crowd waiting to go up. We sent messages to Professor Compton, to say we would be up as soon as we could get into a car. Some people say it is a terrifying experience going up in the funicular, but its far more alarming to look at than to travel in. Looking at it, you wonder whether the cables might not break and the car hurtle to destruction on the cliffs of the mountain, but when you are in the car it seems solid and common-place, except for the magnificent view. For a period of about eight minutes you are suspended in space, with the whole of Cape Town spread out below, Table Bay, Devils Pk, sticking out from the north east corner of the Table, and Lion’s Head running on to Signal Hill from the north-west corner, and the sea and little towns on the west coast of the Cape Peninsular, all like the proverbial map, but far more beautiful. At the top we found Professor Compton in the tea room and we gladly joined him in drinking several cups of tea. He had been up on the mountain all day, presiding at the unveiling of a direction post made of the local granite, which has been erected well back on the Table to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Mountain Club of S. Africa. Gen Smuts climbed up the mountain to be present at the unveiling. Pretty good at seventy years old. He never uses the funicular.
It must have been about a quarter to six when we left the tea-room and it took us just over two hours to cross the top of the mountain to the Club Hut. The distance as the crow flies is about 2 ½ miles, but the apparently flat top of the mountain is crossed by many valleys, into and out of three of which one has to climb to reach the huts. We took it easily, stopped to look at flowers, and to drink at a dripping rock. As usually happens, as soon as one gets about a quarter of a mile or less, from the point which tourists can approach with ease, one leaves all sign of them behind, and might be hundreds of miles from anywhere. Its hard to give any idea of the scenery. You know that the mountain from about half way up its skirts, is protected on the north front, the east and the west, by sheer cliffs, broken here and there by gorges. Luckily for the unskilled climber, the strata of the rock are absolutely horizontal, and form convenient steps. With this aid, two gorges on the west, one on the north and one on the east, are easy to climb, in spite of the fact that they are very steep. The rock climbers have lots of other ways up. There is another square table face to the south, with two spurs of lesser mountains running south from its two corners. It’s close to the south west corner, where the Twelve Apostles run splendidly above the sea, that the Club Hut stands. It is sheltered from the prevailing winds by cliffs of a terrace of the mountain on the east. It is about an eighth of a mile from the main west cliff edge and looks west over the sea, and, from the terrace in front of it, there is a splendid view along the Twelve Apostles, a row of mountains which seem to have been sliced off on their west sides and fall away in cliffs after magnificent sweeps upwards. The general pattern reminded me of the Seven Sisters beyond Seaford towards Beechy Head, but these hills measure their heights in thousands against the hundreds of the Seven Sisters. They vary between 3,000 and 2,000 ft. The Table where the Cableway lands is 3,500. Some points near by are a little higher.
Near the point of arrival much of the vegetation has been worn away, and the effect is of piles of weather-worn pale-grey rocks, lying on top of one another, as it might be crumpets on the marble slab of the shop, only you would have to picture the crumpets as being nibbled into fantastic shapes by mice or other marauders. It would be difficult to get Herbert and Idris along, for so many shapes of toads, birds, prehistoric beasts and such, can be seen all over the place, that they would be indulging in one of their favourite pastimes. As soon as the tourist zone is passed, the vegetation becomes much thicker, but it is all low stuff, many sorts of heaths (only a few still bearing a flower or two) many aromatic plants with small grayish leaves growing a foot or two high. Many plants that are peculiar to the Cape Peninsular. Shrubs of different sorts, especially the strange Proteas, with the big dried blooms of November and Decembers’ flowering still hanging on, and here and there a fresh blossom of wax-like perfection, encouraged by the late rains. In some of the valleys there were a few gnarled and stunded yellow-woods, and a few silver trees. To-wards the south and east, in semi-sheltered spots we saw Baltic pines, the exotics which have taken possession of so many of the Cape Mountains. Even at this season there are still some lovely flowers about. In nooks of the rocks, as we clambered up and down the giant staircases of the valleys, we saw lots of bright pink watsonias (rather like a small gladiolus) In the same sort of situations there were lots of a splendid cherry scarlet crassula. In humble shady sort of nooks there were groups of a most delicate flesh-coloured gladiolus which might almost be mistaken for a small freesia. Pushing up to ge the sun in the exposed places there were a bright magenta mesembrianthemum and an equally bright, but rather more purple aster, with star flowers about the size of a shilling. There were a few yellow ursinas (daisy-like flowers) blooming spasmodically, where there must sheets of them in the Spring. It was the same with the Everlastings, of which a few pink or which ones may be found in flower at most times. The high peaks of flower observation were a wonderful show of red disas, one of the species of Cape ground orchids, known as “The Glory of Table Mountain”. Looking back at a valley wall that we had just descended, we saw a broken rock face covered with moss and dripping with water; in cracks on it and all round about it, these lovely flowers were growing , each blossom carried on a single stalk about 7 or 8 inches high. The flower itself must be at least four inches across, with petals of the purest deep red, and a lovely form. The Mountain Club have taken it for their emblem. Professor Compton said that it was just time for the blue Disas to be coming out too. I felt triumphant when he walked right past one and I spotted it. It’s smaller than its more brilliant relation, but equally beautiful, with delicate form and deep sapphire blue colour. The other thing which delighted me was the Table Mt agapanthus. It’s exactly like the larger sort which has been taken to most countries, but smaller and brighter blue. You cant think what a thrill it was to see it growing so happily out on the mountain. This special one is peculiar to Table Mtn.
When we arrived at the hut the sun was already getting low in the heaven. Two members of the committee of the Club, with the wife of one and a woman friend, were there, just preparing to move off. We had some brief and rather concentrated conversation, while they finished packing up and we undid our simple luggage. Names and addresses and promises to meet, were exchanged, and they bequeathed us their fire and the remains of some butter. While this was going on, the sunset colours began to come in the sky, and by the time they left, it was a lovely show, with flaming lines of pink cloud above a pale blue sea, and higher up more lines of dark red topped with deep purple. It delayed the cooking of the chops and potatoes, but it was a warm night with the full moon soon to rise, so we were in no hurry. The hut is quite roomy. There are mens and ladies rooms, a living room, and a small room specially for members of the committee. This was where we took over the fire and cooked and ate our meal, amidst a good deal of merriment. Professor Compton is a dear person, a very tall grey-haired man, with blue eyes and a ruddy complexion. He is one of those perfectly simple, direct people with whom one feels at home at once. You can guess how much I enjoyed his company, for he is an expert on two of the things I love; mountains and wild flowers.
It was such a lovely night that we decided to carry the canvas stretcher beds on which we were going to sleep on to the flat rock terrace in front of the hut, and to sleep out of doors. The club has a big supply of these beds, as well as blankets and pillows an mattresses, all of which are kept in excellent order. Time had slipped by and it was past 11 o’clock by the time we were settled, and then we lay talking for some time. The moon was still hidden by the mountain behind us. The Southern Cross was bright, and Orion sparkling above our heads. The almost inevitable thought cropped up. How peaceful everything seemed: how far away from the War. Scarcely had the idea been put into words, than a beam from a searchlight shone across the sky, and we heard the beat of an areoplane engine. Other searchlights pencilled the heavens with criss-cross lines and showed up the plane. It darted away and we thought the practice was finished, when back it came. Cross lines of the beams caught it full and turned it to silver, just as for me it was plum in the middle of Orions Belt. Strange that it made such a vivid picture on my mind!
The moon-light was so bright that I had to put a dark handkerchief across my eyes before I could sleep. Even so, I woke a good many times to hear the small frogs chirriping busily, and some baboons barking to one another far away. At 6 a.m., when I woke properly, it was still bright moon-light and Scorpio was almost overhead. I lay for awhile watching the stars and moonlight pale as the daylight began to show, and then got up and washed in the cold water from the tap in the mountain-side, while the others still slept. The dawn was faintly pretty, pale pink mist over a moonstone sea. Professor Compton had woken and lighted the fire, before Eileen stirred. She seemed so peacefully asleep that it was a pity to wake her for the not very distinguished dawn, though she complained about it strongly when she did come to her senses.
As there was no special hurry, we took our time cooking and eating breakfast; sweeping and tidying the hut, and looking at the wild flower reserve beside the hut, before we left at about 10 o’clock. We descended by the steep but easy gully on the west. It took an hour getting down to a rangers’ path, which cuts along the side of the mountain to Kloof Nek. It took another hour to get there, back to buses and civilization. The Professor left us there, as his home is at the Botanical Gardens right round on the east of the Mountain. Eileen and I broke off the high road again and followed the path across the slopes of Lions’ Head, by which we had come up, arriving home about 12:45, just in time to bath and change before lunch. I knew I should have to pay for this outing by considerable pain due to stiff muscles, and I did! It was almost torture to walk downstairs!
I am rather ashamed that I am not working yet. Eileen Forsyth has promised to get in touch with the woman who is head of the Womens’ Service and I am waiting on her.
Shopping has taken up a good deal of time. Circumstances forced me to buy two pairs of shoes, and I had a great hunt to get what I wanted. Stocks are low and one often has to go to many places to find some ordinary thing.
Old friends of Edward Groth’s invited us to lunch with them at the Civil Service Club on Tuesday. Dr Gill was till recently, Director of the Museum. His sister is an artist who goes in for wood-cuts. They are very nice folk and we enjoyed being with them. We were also impressed with the excellence of the Club, and the food. Everyone here talks of difficulties about domestic servants. Shortage of labour seems to have drawn the Coloured People into all sorts of other lines of work, where they are earning more money. It was a domestic crisis that made the Gills invite us to the Club instead of their flat.
Herbert has been to call on the High Commissioner for India, whom we met at lunch at the Tanners in Elgin, and had a long talk with his Secretary, an English I.C.S man. We have been on walks - - a long one yesterday afternoon entailing some scrambling up and down the mountain-sides. Mrs. Harvey, our first friend in Cape Town, met us for morning coffee at the Empire Club, and we went to tea with Eileen Forsyth on Saturday, so that she and I could pack up the food for our outing and divide the weight between us. It is nice sitting in the odd untidy old garden of the queer house she has got. A high brick boundry wall and some stunted trees protect the place from the strong south-east winds which blow so often in the Cape.
Like so many other people, we find it hard to know what we ought to try to plan for the future. I am longing to get home, but I fear the food and the cold for Herbert, and further-more, it is so difficult to get passages. Some people have been waiting here since November. To get any sort of priority one has to produce important reasons for getting to England.
Best love to all
LJT
Airgraph from LJT to Annette (addressed to Miss Annette Townend. P.O. Box 222. SW 70 Howick Place. London SW1 England)
No 4 Feb 26th 1943
My darling Annette: At last a mail is in, but letters are missing & none came from you. Aunt evidently found Xmas rather sad. I am glad you were getting leave soon after, for it will have cheered her up. We seem to have been here more than twelve days, I suppose because we have been doing a lot of things & meeting a lot of people, both old friends & new ones. We lunched at the Parliament House to-day, with an M.P. whom we met last week. There were half a dozen other people there, all interesting. In the Assembly we got our first sight of Gen. Smuts, who looks just like his portraits and Photos. We listened to the debate for a while but most of the speeches were in Afrikans. The high spot of the week for me in more ways than one, was going up Table Mt on Sunday afternoon with Mrs Forsyth. We climbed to the foot of the cable-way & finished the ascent in it, meeting the president of the Mountain Club at the top. With him we did a two hour scramble across the summit to the Mountain Club hut, where we cooked supper & spent the night. It was perfect weather & full moon, so we carried camp stretchers outside and slept in the open. You would have loved it. I thought of you so often. We had a leisurely breakfast in the morning, and made the descent down the went face by a steep but easy route, getting home in time for lunch. I was pretty stiff for a couple of days. Dad was afraid it might be too much for him & wisely did not come. He is stronger but still far from normal. We got our boxes out of store & have unpacked belongings, books, papers, gramophone & French records, electric iron & tiny clip-on electric bed-lamp. All our clothes are get-at-able too, which is a nice feeling. Yours, Dicky’s and romey’s photos decorate our walls, which luckily have picture rails round them. It makes our suite look quite homey. The weather is warm summer, but not as oppressively hot as it was at Xmas. I like this better. I am rather ashamed that I am not at work yet. Eileen Forsyth is getting in touch with the head of the women’s services, & I hope I am to have an interview with her to-morrow. Office work is what I want. I am told the Red Cross need help in that line badly. Buying a pair of necessary shoes, and a few other things has taken ages. Stocks are low & one has to go from place to place. I sent off parcels of chocolate, dried fruit etc to you, Aunt, Bous & Len last week. Hope they arrive. Baroness Giskra writing from Florida, asked for you address, saying she wants to send you orange juice. I wish you could meet her & Mary some day. You would love them. They are interested in all the things that you are. Have you read “The Oaken Heart” by Majorie Allingham, about the first year of the war in Tollshent D’Arcy? I loved it. There are good libraries in C.T. but I am still living on borrowed books. Just reading Negley Farson’s “Behind God’s Back” about travels in Africa. Vivid and most readable. Tanganyika people say it’s a good account of the Territory. It has given me an idea of many parts of Africa about which I had no vision at all. Hope that we shall be able to get home this year, grows dim. Passages are most difficult. How I long to see you again. Best love. Mother. (Mrs H.P.V. Townend.)
Air Graph No 4 from LJT to Romey
Standard Bank of S.Africa. Cape Town. Feb:26th 1943
My Darling Romey: I am late with this A-G, & have to thank you for letter 85 rcd on 11.2 & No 89, rcd on 23.2.43, telling about Xmas, as well as the book. Very many thanks for all these. I am looking forward to reading the book, but must be patient for I have just borrowed two long ones, that have to be read quickly & returned. So glad to hear you had a happy time at Xmas & such nice presents. How generous C.Susie & Helen are! I hope you got a nice gift for them from us. Three of your letters are yet to come & there is probably something about it in one of those. It was sad leaving Elgin, where we had grown fond of people. We seem to have been here longer than twelve days, I suppose because we have done so much. Our quarters in this funny little hotel are comfortable, and I think we shall be happy here. The tiny sitting-room & little verandah make such a difference. We got our boxes from the store & have unpacked our belongings. Yours, A’s & R’s photos adorn our walls, Dad’s books & papers are arranged & our clothes are all get-at-able. The high light of the past days for me has been going up Table Mt on Sunday with Mrs Forsyth, meeting the president of the Mountain Club on top & walking across 2 hours journey to the Club Hut, where we cooked our supper & spent the night pulling the camp beds out of doors to sleep under the moon, and climbing down on Mon: morn. Dad was afraid to attempt it, wisely I think. I though how much you & A. would have loved it. We have been out to lunches & teas, made contacts with people we had already met & with new friends. To-day we lunched with a Member of Parliament at the Assembly & met several interesting people, including Mr & Mrs Cook from Johannesberg, whose son knows Edward Magill. We arrived in Cape Town just in time to see that splendid film “In Which We Serve” & both wept copiously. Next week I hope to be getting down to war work of some sort. I have also been asked to meet the Chief Commissioner for Girl Guides, and to go to the Mountain Club. Dad is certainly stronger than when we left C.T. but he still has to make up a great deal of strength before he can be called anything like normal. We have been having hottish summer weather but not as oppressively hot as it was at Christmas time. I like it much better like this. Have you read a book called “The Oaken Heart” by Majorie Allingham? Do get it if you can. It is just an account of the first year of the war in an Essex village, really Tollshent-D’Arcy, but called Aubern in the book. Also Negley Farson’s “Behind God’s Back”, about Africa. Its vivid & interesting. There seems little chance that we shall be able to get to England this year. People who have been waiting since Nov, are told that it is hoped to get them away by the end of June! Poor Aunt felt the gaps in the family circle badly at Xmas. I am glad she had Gav with her. Baroness Giskra asked for your address. She wanted to put friends of hers in touch with you, but since the letter to us has been to India, the occasion may have passed. She & her daughter are living in Florida. They love heat! Although the weather is warm, the sea is so cold here that we have not bathed. Love to you all (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)