1943 September
Air Graph No 17 from LJT to Aunt (GCT)
Townend.c/oStandard Bank.Cape Town Sept 1st 1943
Dearest Grace, Do you & Anne exchange my air-graphs? I hope so, for I try not to repeat the news in them. Letters have just come from India telling that the poor Charlotte has typhoid. How fortunate that Winsome had not left Simla! It was good to hear that she was getting over it well. To think that we are almost at the 4th anniversary of the outbreak of war. Lets hope there wont be another anniversary! The first few days of our stay here the weather was glorious, but on Sunday we woke to find everything wrapped in a thick wet mist. This has gone on for three days, but seems to be lifting now. There are big lounges in the hotel & they light fires when the weather is bad, but we have spent a good deal of time in our room, which is comfortable & not too cold. I have done a lot of domestic mending, & written a heap of letters to people with whom I don’t correspond regularly. We went for a long walk in the mist on Sunday, but Monday was blowing & raining, so we funked it & stayed in the whole day. Yesterday morning some kind people took us down to Trichardt to do a little shopping. I wanted four things & got them all. Its almost a record for these days. The streets in these small African “dorps” are so wide, & the effect is increased by the fact that most of the buildings are single storied. We have been taken for two short motor drives, one through the mountain gorge, with high rock cliffs, which pierces the mountains. We have seen baboons, baobab trees, native girls with rings half way up their legs, & huge loads on their heads, flowering trees & spring green on the ubiquitus thorn trees. Herbert is still very depressed & there seems nothing one can do to help him. He fears taking on any work because he gets so tired, & yet he is getting obviously bored by sitting about in various hotels. My hope that he would interest himself by writing some of the things he always complained he had no time to do in India, has not been fulfilled. He looks at your house-plan every now & again, & had made a few comments, but says the difficulty about drawing it out is that you have given no hint of dimensions. If you could give an idea of the size you would like the main rooms to be, the rest could be done to scale. I think his indigestion has been better the last two or 3 days, but he says he has that heavy feeling he had before he went to the chiropractor. He helped Mrs Pike unpack some new furniture, using a big crow bar to open the crates, & I wonder whether he gave his back a wrench which undid the good done by the cp’s treatment. He will have to go back to him when we get back to Cape town. These few days of bad weather have been a bit trying, especially as he has not found anyone particularly interesting in the hotel, & there is nothing much in the way of a library. Did I ask you to distribute birthday cheques as usual, including your own? I’ve neglected your family this year. Gav’s birthday is just about now, but there is plenty of time for Joey. We have had letters from George Pilcher, who is working for “Security”; watching the B.B.C. Foreign programmes, & from “Nannie Roper” lately. Best love (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
From LJT to Romey (in Joan Webb’s set of letters)
‘The Mountain Inn’, Louis Trichardt, N. Transvaal
Sept 1st, 1943
My darling Romey,
It is along while since I wrote you a really proper personal letter. On the day I do the family letter, I always mean to, and then something crops up to prevent me, and I put it aside till the next week, when the same thing happens. I have been writing a great many letters to various people, including a long one to ‘Nannie Roper’ recently. I will enclose her letter as you might like to have some news of her.
I have made a lot of notes from your letters No 107 and an un-numbered one of 24/6. John Averill crops up in them and I am glad to hear of him again. I have never been quite clear about whether he is training for the army or working in some engineering firm. Have you ever heard what sort of success his father’s book had?
How nice of you to tell about the dassies, or hyraxes. We have seen some amongst the rocks here. I wonder how they get on with the baboons who abound in these parts. I have got a lot of the flower cigarette cards, but bought them separately in a packet, because the book was rather bulky. There have been several flower series and Mrs. Harvey has given me quite a lot more. I have seen the animals, birds and historic places too. I think it is a good idea to make the cards supply useful knowledge. Is the Aardvark the ant-eater and is the ant-eater the same thing as the ant-bear? Dad thinks it is. I think they are different beasts. We saw fresh earths when riding at White River, which Major Graham said they were made by Ant-bears, but he says one never sees them for they come out at night and are very shy.
It is hard to know what plans to make for Dad. He has been so depressed for some weeks now. At first I thought the visit to the doctor had cheered him up, but it seems to have made him more depressed in the long run. This morning we went for a short walk after breakfast and I brought up the subject of trying to get home in the Spring whether the war is over or not. I feel that now that Dad’s blood pressure is so much better, he is probably as well able to stand the cold as he ever will be. The cold climate won’t effect his digestion. He still fears the cold, and advanced the fact that he was feeling rather miserable this morning because there is a cold wind and no sun. I pointed out that in his own house or at Highways there would be some reasonably warm room for him to go to after breakfast. Here he is faced by the choice of the lounge, where lots of people are gathered round the fires, or the cold bed-room, which is not generally “done’ till about ten or half-past. I also pointed out that he is obviously getting more and more bored with hanging round in hotels with nothing to do. Furthermore if we don’t go home this spring, it will mean waiting another whole year, for it would be stupid to come in the Autumn. Also I have a feeling that we may get away more easily if we go before the war is over, or have even registered our names to do so.
I imagine if you go to the States, you would still be likely to be home before the end of next year. Louise Rankin is quite convinced that we shall be coming over to fetch you, and writes that they want us to go on to stay with them as soon as we can. They are now living on their farm, and here is the address, in case you ever find yourself anywhere near and could go to see them; Mrs. E.H. Rankin. “Mahananda” Ludlowville. R.D. no 1, Tomkins county, New York State. I know they would welcome you.
If only Dad could be a little optimistic instead of always being so pessimistic, I feel sure he would get his health back quicker, but that is a thing that one can’t do for anyone else. The change has to come from the depths of one’s own being. Mere intellectual recognition that we are so fortunate, compared with millions who never have enough to eat or a comfortable place to sleep and so on, is no use. That line of reasoning simply makes him feel more miserable still, to think that there is so much misery in the world! I am glad none of you children have inherited his pessimism. It is a terrible cross to bear through life.
I can well believe that you find all our friends and acquaintances confusing, but it is easier to write about people by their names, rather than saying “I talked to a man”. “A couple took us out for a drive”, and so on. Also, as I keep one copy of my letter for reference, it is handy to have people’s names in it. Of course I should have started a little book with your friends in it.
You will have heard long before this reaches you about poor Charlotte having typhoid. What a lucky thing that Aunt Winsome had not left Simla! It must have been an anxious time for them. Charlotte is a nice child and has never been spoilt like John, but I sometimes wonder whether she will not suffer a little from being over-brought-up. It is difficult in India to let children run wild in any way, but it seems to me that Charlotte has always to be so very decorous and so nicely dressed. Though the Alipore house has a big garden, there is nothing wild in it and no country outside it to roam in. I think really you have been the lucky ones.
I have been thinking a lot about presents, but cannot find anything that it seems sensible to send. Africa seems short of almost everything except fresh foods, and the quality of what one can get is so poor. The only things that are typical African are the ash trays, and other little oddities made out of African woods, but I have a feeling that one should not take up even a little shipping space for useless trifles, so I will ask you to buy presents for Susie and Helen from us for Christmas, and for your own birthday and Christmas.
Unwillingly I have to believe at last that your last year’s Christmas presents must have been lost, since we heard nothing of them. Was anything sent to the HD’s? And if so, did it arrive? It’s sad to have lost the things, not only because of their intrinsic value, but also because of all the loving thought and trouble you put into purchasing and packing them. We have the value of those thoughts anyway.
It was a pity that Edward and Judy Magill could not manage to come up to White River. We should so much have enjoyed it if we could have had them with us for even a few days. It was rather a pity that we had to change our visit to Jo’burg to September, for had we been there last week, it would have been Varsity vacation and Edward would have had more free time. It is strange to think that the war has been going on for practically four years, and that it is almost five years since we saw you. We shall see you tremendously changed, but I wonder whether you will see much change in us. We must have grown older, but to ourselves the change is so gradual that it is imperceptible. My few grey hairs are still scarcely distinguishable unless you look carefully for them. Dad is quite grey now, and thinner in the face than I like to see him. He still does not find his false teeth very comfortable, so that all the chewing he has to do is made the more difficult and unpleasant. He said at lunch today that he wished he could be fitted up with a cud like a cow.
Dad is just settling down to his afternoon sleep, so I will end this with my dearest love. The hope of seeing you again in a reasonable time grows so insistent sometimes. It seems out of all nature that we should have to go so long without meeting. It is another small straw to add to Hitler’s load of blame.
Mother
5/9/43 We have now got an English mail and with nice letters from Aunt and Annette, and go on hoping for a Canadian one soon.
Looking through your letters again, I notice a bit about an idea you have that you would like to write a book about Highways some day. It is nice to know that you were so happy there. I think only a very odd person could live under Aunt’s care and not be happy. She really has a very wonderful character and temperament. The knowledge that you were all with her --- loving and being loved by her, made all the difference to me-- for it is hard enough to part from one’s children anyway and the hardness must be multiplied a hundredfold if you have no real home and no dear Aunt to send them to.
Love again,
Mother
Family letter from LJT No 34
The Mountain Inn.
Louis Trichardt.
N. Transvaal
Sept 3rd ‘43
My Dears,
Last Saturday, the day on which I wrote, was our last fine day. It is not only we, in the mountains, who have been suffering from rain and cold, but a wave of nasty weather has swept right across the Union. Being in the mountains we have been more in the clouds than under them, and it is certainly disappointing, after the glorious weather of the first few days. However, its sure to clear soon, and we might have been very much worse off, for the Management are liberal with fires in the Lounges, and our bedroom is a nice light room, so that by dint of shutting windows and putting a warm dressing-gown over one’s clothes, one can sit in it fairly comfortably. Herbert has found time hang rather heavy on his hands, but I have done a great deal of sewing and writing and have not so much minded the enforced hours spent in the house.
I see that I told practically nothing of this place last week, or of the country we came through to get here. Road and rail run for about 250 miles north from Pretoria over the High Veldt, which averages about 4,000 ft above sea level. The great plain is undulating to some extent, though it gives an effect of almost infinite flatness, broken by sudden isolated hills, or small ranges. Its Eastern edge breaks up into the northern section of the great Drakensbergs, and the train goes near enough to the edge in places, to get peeps of falling ground and great mountains beyond. There is little cultivation to be seen anywhere. Most of the country is covered with buff coloured grass and plants, spotted with the flat-topped thorn trees, and other thorny bushes, with clumps of aloes and prickly pear, and in the last fifty miles or so, a good many of the strange candalabra euphorbias, like those of which you have probably seen pictures in the neighbourhood of Mt Kenya. Much weathered rock sticks up everywhere, and it is only occasionally near the railway stations or the scattered farms that there are any tall trees, and these are always strangers, gums for the most part, and now and again a few pines or a Lombardy poplar. It’s all cattle country, and one sees a good few beasts now and again, but as in Australia, they run so few to the acre that one can travel a long way through a farm without seeing any. The beauty of the country is undoubtedly its colour. The soil is mostly red. The rocks are all colours, but there is a lot of red and ochre in them. At sunset or sunrise, the mountains often look bright red or pink, and at other times the distant ranges are deep bright blue. The Zoutpansberg, which run east and west across the veldt and on which this hotel is situated, looked that wonderful blue as we approached them at mid-day. This is a pretty time of year, for the trees are getting their new leaves, and there is a tender flush of green over the thorn trees, and others are budding with a pale yellow or dusty pink colour.
The little train puffed along in a leisurely manner, dawdling at the small stations (nice places with gardens) - - for a chat, but managing to arrive at Louis Trichart on time. The small town, set out in a square with half a dozen streets all neatly at right angles, shows its importance by having a church with a small spire, standing right in the middle of it. It lies snugly at the foot of the Zoutpansberg, over which the great north road to Rhodesia climbs in a series of snake-like curves. The railway is not so bold, and turns away to the west, to travel eventually round the end of the range. This is not Rhodes’ famous Rhodesian railway, which is further west, but a much more modern line which only runs up to Messina on the border. We are told that it has always been intended to link it up with Fort Nicholson, some 200 miles further north, but politics and jealousies between the S. A and Rhodesian railways have held it up.
The Inn is five and a half miles up-hill from the station, and we arrived nicely in time for lunch. It stands on a rocky mountain-side, out of which its beautiful gardens are beautifully terraced, and a little way behind it there is an impressive cliff, below the final peak. One can circumnavigate the cliff and walk up a shoulder of the mountain to the beacon on top, but, chiefly owing to the weather, we have not yet done so. The view to the South is across the seemingly limitless veldt, and away to each side are more mountains. Where there are flat ledges, the natives have made fields to grow their mealies, and built their kraals. It is by the “kaffir paths” that one chiefly gets about, for the natural hill-side of tumbled rock, thickly covered with bush of all sorts, is too difficult to get through. The road goes on rising a little beyond the hotel, and then drops slightly, past a carnation farm and an onion farm, into a high valley between two ribs of the range. Here fields of bright green newly springing crops and freshly ploughed red earth, make pretty patterns as one looks down on them. The exit from this valley is dramatic. The road is cleverly engineered through a narrow gorge, with sheer rock cliffs. They are immensely impressive, rising to what height we dont know. I put it at 500 ft. Herbert at 250 ft and our kindly Jew host at a couple of thousand feet. I still think my estimate is the nearest. When I say “host” I dont mean the man who runs the hotel, but the man who had taken us out in the car. We stopped at the far end of the gorge, got out of the car and watched the baboons on the cliffs and amongst the rocks above. Ugly looking brutes they are. I dont feel in any attracted by them. This Jewish couple, Mr and Mr. Bookan, have been very kind to us and taken us out several times.
The beautiful weather only lasted till Saturday, and we woke to find ourselves shrouded in wet mist on Sunday. Herbert and I went for a walk through it after tea, and it was not bad out. The weather was worse on Monday, real rain most of the time and a cold wind, so in a cowardly manner, we stayed in all day. The Bookans tooks me down to the village on Tuesday, where I succeeded in buying 1) A pair of bedroom slippers, 2) A pair of No 8 knitting needles 3) 2 pairs of woven cotton knickers & 4) a bottle of chlorotone inhalant, most of these things being quite unobtainable in Pretoria or Jo’burg. Most of the shops in L.T. are run by Indians, as they are in so many small places in Africa. Presumable they are successful because they do the job so much better than the Afrikaner.
The weather improved a bit in the evening, and we started for a walk up the road, but were picked up by a couple from the hotel, who were taking their children to the gorge, called Wyllie’s Poort (after the man who first found a way through) --- to see the baboons. The baboons were not playing. It was perhaps too cold for them, and our friends took us on a few miles to see some of the famous baobab trees. They are indeed strange things, growing to the most enormous girth, and not in one smooth circle as do most great trees, but in bulges and bastions, all covered with an illfitting grey skin (it does not look like bark) which is arranged in folds and wrinkles like the skin on an elephant. The branches are a huge size where they leave the trunk, but taper rapidly, following somewhat the lines of an elephants’ trunk on a huge scale. The crown of foliage carried by the tree seems inadequate for the immense trunk which supports it. The biggest tree we saw must have measured quite twenty-five to thirty feet in girth, and they are said to be far bigger further north. We saw others here and there on the slopes of the foot-hills, standing up like giants amongst the thorn and fig-tree forest which does not grow to any great height.
On another evening, when again the mist had lifted and rolling clouds showed patches of blue sky, the Bookans took us for a drive along another beautiful valley, running parallel to the main range, between it and its foothills on the south. We passed farm after farm, evidently taking advantage of soil which has come down from the mountains and the water which drains off them. There were patches of planted forest, the much abused Australian gums, areas of natural bush, where the cattle graze, fields being ploughed ready for the spring crops, orange and peach orchards, plantations of young tung nut trees, and, as we got lower, a few fields of tobacco.
In spite of the poor weather, we have seen quite a bit of the country round, as we have managed a few short walks as well. Herbert has not been feeling well. I dont know whether it has been partly the effect of the weather, since it has been cold, or whether the new regime is not suiting him, or whether the boredom of hanging round with nothing to do has temporarily engulfed him, as it very well might.
We have had no home or Canadian mails, but the news from India that poor Charlotte has had typhoid.
This morning we are thrilled to hear that the Eighth Army have landed in Italy, and we are longing for the evening broadcast to hear more. The news is always put through to the lounge at 8 p.m. every evening. We get Jo’burg’s evening paper in the middle of the following afternoon.
I can guess that the paper is about to run out, so will finish hastily.
Best love to all of you
LJT
From LJT to Annette
The Mountain Inn
Louis Trichardt
Sept 4th 1943
My darling Annette
As so often happens – as soon as I had written in the family letter that we had not had any mail for some time, letters from you & Aunt arrived – (Your no 12 of 8/7/43). I think I look forward to letters even more here than I did in India – and I seem to want more and more to get home. Fancy – its almost five years since I saw you!
I’ve tried to get Dad to discuss the advisability of trying to get home in the Spring, but he is, as so often, entirely non-commital. He still fears the cold, I think. My view is that now his blood pressure is so much better, waiting longer in a warm country wont make very much difference. He says it will be possible to get more fuel after the war – but it seems to me that it may easily be a year or two before the fuel situation is normal and the thought of spending much more time hanging round in hotels, with no proper niche, is not attractive to me, and I think a good deal of what is wrong with him now is boredom. He has been going through one of his bad patches lately. Instead of getting stronger, he seems to have slipped back and he has been terribly depressed. If only he could discover how much wiser it would be just to accept what life or fate brings and make the best of it, I am sure he would not get so exhausted. He alternates between giving up all hope and useing a tremendous amount of will power to force himself to do more than he has the strength for – By this method, instead of gaining extra vitality, he exhausts what little he has. I dont think it’s the least good my trying to put this to him, for it would only drive him in the other direction.
I’ve been feeling very worried about him lately, and the doctor’s diagnosis confirms my own opinion that physically he is really much better, but that he needs to change his mental or psychical attitude and how to help him to do that I am at a loss to know. I suppose, if one has patience, things will work themselves out.
There a lot of interesting and amusing things in your letter – I am very glad you feel satisfied that you did right to stick to your job. Anything that one has to go on doing day after day, must have a lot of repetition in it – even seemingly exciting careers like war correspondents – and how well one stands or does not stand it, just depends on ones own mental attitude – Dullness really lies chiefly in oneself – though I must say there can be circumstances which seem calculated to encourage it.
Your friend Esther’s attitude that one is fit for nothing after the age of 25 is really very amusing – Starting with comparatively low ages – Margaret Ogle was certainly over 30 when she went across Persia – Edward Groth declares that life only really begins at 50! Dear old Miss Macleod (who has that lovely house at Stratford on Avon) was just starting off for South America at the age of 77 – when we visited her a few years ago – She is now in America and has recently celebrated her 83rd birthday, and I dont mind betting that she wont find herself too old to travel till she is almost dead. I liked the autobiography of Mrs Marina King (“Eighty years in Africa”) who, when told at the age of about 75 that her heart was not in a good state, and she must leave her home on the High Veldt, as the altitude was too great for her – turned to her adopted daughter and said “If we’ve got to move, let’s drive the car up to Cairo” – and they did, meeting incredible adventures on the way.
Baroness Giskra is another person who told me that she found life after 50, much more interesting and amusing than before – so I feel no fear about going on doing things as long as one is able and by the time one cant face much physical exertion, I think one will lost the taste for it and turn over to adventures in the mind.
Talking of adventures of the mind; one of the books I brought away from Edward Groth’s, on his advice is “Rational Mysticism” by William Kingsland – I had always been shy of anything connected with mysticism, with an idea that it must be rather unhealthy, unbalanced and hysterical – This book has put an entirely different complexion on it for me. The whole thing seems to fall into place with so much else that I have been reading lately. I think you would find the book worth your attention, if you could get hold of it at any time. It seems to me to be well balanced and closely reasoned. Edward was so busy when we were staying with him that there was practically no opportunity to discuss the Gerald Heard books with him or any of the many other things I should have liked to get him to talk about. I hope there will be a chance to do this when he comes to Cape Town on leave in Oct/Nov.
Aunt’s letters this summer give the impression that she is less tired and rushed than she was last year. Do you think that is so? At one time I felt worried about her, for she is always so uncomplaining about herself, that for her to let the slightest hint that she was tired, creep into her letters, much have meant that she really was rather done up!
The idea of the visitors book in the lavatory, is a pleasant one, but would not work in India where each person has a private bathroom. I am sorry the “Fuzzy-wuzzy” rhyme did not come while we were at Pretoria, for I think Mikie Pierneef would have enjoyed it. That family are a good audience for anything that is slightly low – They are dear people and I wish our lives were not set on different continents –
The news that our troops had landed in Italy reached us yesterday – I hope the invasion is going well.
Best love, dear daughter
Mother
On investigation I find that your letter No 11. has not come yet. It will probably turn up later – LJT
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
September 4th 1943. Saturday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
A bad week. Cold winds, mist or low cloud, rain. Within depression and general dimness of spirits. It is as it were an index of loss of hope that I have not done the back-strengthening exercises since I left White River (which now seems a thing of long ago), or for that matter the eye exercises; the cheiropractor’s freak exercises I have renounced without any regrets as being tedious and unpromising. Today the sun is shining; but there is not yet a corresponding improvement in my spirits. I do not blame the diet, though it is a gloomy thing not only to have to eat what I dislike such as liver and fish but to have to chew it thoroughly and thus extract every atom of taste from it. The Fletcherism business had this advantage that although it insisted on chewing it insisted also on eating nothing which did not make the mouth water in anticipation. It occurs to me that whereas people in the South Sea islands enjoyed drinking kava which had been chewed by maidens, it might be possible to introduce a new cure based on accumulating vast supplies of saliva and cooking fish in it. Such thoughts turn me against food altogether.
Joan has described this hotel. The cliff behind it is full of giant faces, Aztec sculptures or maybe off totem poles. The walking is not so pleasant as it should be; diverse drawbacks such as many thorns on plants which grow thickly, small boys begging for coppers, narrow paths to be followed single file, and as always in South Africa the fear of ticks if not of snakes. On the other hand compensations are found in the beauty of the views and the variety of birds and of flowers. The hotel garden gives a fine show of flowers and the rooms are gay with them; splendid specimens. It is a good hotel. The food is good. The rooms are well arranged and well furnished. Everything is kept clean. The servants are big and work excellently. There is a separate entrance for dogs and cats; a swing shutter alongside the door into the lounge; Joan has seen the animals use it, but I have not. There are two dogs; old and lazy; the older lay on the steps and did not move while they were being washed down although water flowed under her; a supreme instance of non-cooperation. The cats number five, of which two are tame and three wild, two are males, and all five bear signs of obvious pregnancy. Probably an illusion in every case as it must be in two of them. Such ugly cats have rarely been seen; however I did give one of them milk on the understanding, not observed by it afterwards, that it would clear out as soon as the milk was finished.
There are three peacocks, or rather one with two hens. A fine sight when they pass six feet in front of our window in the early morning; visible to us in bed because the house is on a shelf cut into the hillside and the back rises steeply behind our bedroom.
As relaxations and antidotes to the depression induced by days of rain I returned to typing exercises (finding as a result that I have lost skill) and discoursed on the beauty of humus to a man. He responded by telling how his firm are trying to boom a process for converting town waste into humus, by pulverizing it, passing it through two digesters (towers 100 foot high) and adding cultures of bacteria to the powder which emerges. The photos of the results as shown by crops with and without this powder are so amazing that they have been suppressed in case they create a belief that there has been faking; so he says. I shall send him a note on humus and he will let me have papers about the process. To what good? - I cannot tell you.
A setback in the shaving line. You are aware maybe that I have the habit of boiling my razor blade before shaving; in some sixteenths of an inch of water, with a spot of meth. This caused the disaster; I lit the meth and put the pot on with the blade in it without adding any water. The blade has turned blue and the aluminium pot is now soft. Also I cannot say that the blade shaves any longer with good effect, though I have not brought myself to scrap it.
Joan has been labouring not only with knitting for the Navy League but with repairs to a coat of mine which shows signs of wearing out all over. Her vigour remains unabated and she talks with pleasure to fellow guests. I with less, for there is no subject (barring the humus and not always that) which I find particularly interesting. One businessman was entertaining and instructive on the subject of the loss of trade to British exporters owing to their sticking to methods evolved during the depression after the Boer war and now resented by importers; but the matter was not so enthralling to me that I wish to hear every day about it, and I have had to do a good deal of (I hope) unobtrusive dodging.
(handwritten addition as end of letter) With what joy we received a letter from you yesterday! Chitchat for which you apologized – the which allows me to guess how miserable you must find mine. There is no help for it, in the absence of happening.
Much love
Dad
(handwritten addition to letter to Romey) We wait expectantly letters from you about your plans. Do not think that because I do not comment, I am not interested. It seems useless to give advice which was bound to arrive too late.
Much love,
Dad
Air Graph No 18 from LJT to Annette
Townend. c/o Standard Bank. Cape Town. Sept 8th 1943
My Darling Annette, This should reach you somewhere near your birthday, so Dad & I send you our love and all good wishes. Aunt has been asked to send you the usual little cheque on our behalf. I wish I could have got one or two good gramophone records sent to you, but it seemed altogether too complicated. I hope you will be able to have a little celebration of some sort on your birthday. We shall be back in Cape Town by then. Your letter No 12 of 8.7 & Aunt’s No 21 of 10/7 reached us on 3/9. It was good to get news after a gap of about three weeks. I hope the other half of your holiday was as successful as the bit you spent in the Lakes. I spent a large part of Sunday morning sitting in the garden re-reading your account of your trip, and Romey’s last three long letters. It was such a nice way of spending a “day of Rest”. The garden is lovely, full of flowers, sweet scents & with a gorgeous view spread out below. The weather cleared on Friday afternoon, & as we walked that evening, the views, the colour in the landscape, & the marvellous lights & blue shadows as the sun went down, begger description. Since then it has been glorious. I jumped from thickest wool into summer cottons. Except when typing, I have been writing sewing or knitting & reading in the garden all day, and we have been for fairly long walks each evening. Its really too hot to walk with pleasure between 10 & 4 we think, though many people do it. Dad seems a trifle better, but his back worries him a bit. We climbed the Beacon behind the hotel the other evening. The last part is rock scrambling, & after that his back felt very tired. I shall send him to the chiro-prct when we get back to C.T. I really think he must have ricked it a bit at white River. There are plenty of kindly, pleasant people in the hotel, but only one couple whom we find really interesting & congenial. They are both Edinburgh B.Scs. Mr Martin is in some business in Jo’burg as a Chemist. They have a young baby which is unfortunate from our point of view, for it means they go off to their room directly after the eight o’clock news, so that the nurse girl can go off duty. That’s just the time one rather likes to talk. The Jew couple who were so kind in taking us for drives, & who were quite interesting in their way, left on Monday. Mrs Buchan has a dress business in Jo’burg & has asked me to drop in there any time & have a cup of tea with her, which I shall do if I can manage it. Do you remember my mentioning a Mrs Burnaby at White River, who came from Ceylon & is a god daughter of Toby Gibson’s? I had a letter from her a couple of days ago, saying that Toby died very suddenly in Kenya. I suppose you have heard this? Dad was short of books here till we discovered a couple also retired I.C.S. who have a big stock, including a lot of the biography type. Dad has got two at the moment, one on Metternich & the other a life of Ponsonby. The Metternich one is written in a would-be clever style, which annoys him excessively, but the sentiments of the writer are in tune with his own, so he swings between annoyance & approval! Its just a month since letters came from Canada. I long for news! Best love
(Mrs H.P.V. Townend)
Air graph No 18 from LJT to Romey
Townend.c/oStandard Bank. Cape Town. Sept 8th 1943
My darling Romey, I have so little idea how long these Air-Graphs take to reach you, that I think I had better begin sending birthday wishes now, & go on for several weeks to come! Dad & I do both send you are love & best wishes, and congratulations that before you were out of your ‘teens, you had provided yourself with a degree. Again I’ll have to ask you to buy yourself a present from us. I seem to be stupid about finding things to send, but really most of the things in this country are not attractive, & all imported clothes & such are poor quality & frightfully expensive. When we get to Jo’burg, we will see if we can arrange to send some money for presents for your birthday and Christmas, and for Xmas presents for Helen & Susie. One can only send limited sums. They told Dad he could not send any in Cape Town, but Ed said he had had no difficulty in sending to his mother. Its just a month now since we got letters from Canada, so we watch for the post each day most eagerly. A few days after my last air-graph, the weather broke & we had 6 days of cold cloudy weather, with rain & mist. It was bad all over the Union, so we could not blame it upon the mountains. It meant we could not sit out at all, but we got out for walks on every day except one, and were taken for a couple of evening drives, when the mist had cleared, and the mountain sides were looking beautiful. It cleared on Friday afternoon & when Dad & I walked along the hill-side after tea the colours, in the landscape, the distant clear views, & the marvellous lights & blue shadows as the sun went down, begger description. With the fine weather, I have jumped from woolens into summer cottons, and spend most of my time, when not typing, sitting in the gardens, writing, sewing or knitting & reading. Its almost too hot to walk with comfort between 10 & 4 o’clock. We usually walk after tea, & there are a great variety of places to go. We climbed the Beacon behind the hotel the other evening. The last part is a scramble up over rocks & through bush. Dad’s back was tired the next day. I think he must have ricked it a bit when he helped unpack the new furniture at White River. He has been depressed almost ever since, & has not been feeling well, though I think he has been a trifle better the last few days. Except the this is such a lovely place, it is a bit boring for him here, because though there are a number of pleasant kindly people staying here, they are not very interesting, except a young Scotch couple, both of the Edinburgh B Scs & very nice. They have a young baby, so spend a lot of time in their own rooms or end of the garden & we don’t see as much of them as we should like. Till another couple from India arrived a few days ago, Dad was short of reading matter, but they have a huge stock of books, with many new, good biographies. Mr Hunter is also I.C.S. retired, from the U.P., but he seems rather a sorrowful sort of person. I spent most of Sunday morning in the garden re-reading your last three letters, & A’s about the Lakes with one received a few days ago. I enjoy going through letter again at leisure,
Best love to you all (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
Family letter from LJT No 35
The Mountain Inn.
Louis Trichardt.
N. Transvaal.
Sept 12th 1943
My Dears,
The weather cleared on the afternoon of the 3rd, when I wrote my last letter & has been glorious ever since. The sun makes it hot walking in the middle of the day, but the air is always lovely. Herbert has been feeling stronger, and we have been lovely walks. Its a good country for walking, because there is such variety. The topography of the country is interesting. This range, The Zoutpansberg, is about 80 miles long and varies in depth from 10 to 20 miles. The mountains are like giant rollers coming in on a flat beach. Each wave has been arrested at the moment when its crest began to curl over, and that white frothy top has taken shape as a high rock cliff, while the lower part of the mountain is as it were the brest of the wave. Here, the simile breaks down badly, for the general configuration is of short steep slopes between flat or gently sloping terraces. Huge rocks and small, presumably fallen from the cliffs above, are scattered everywhere, and when ploughing out fields for the mealie crops, the natives have to plough around the rocks. In favourable spots on these terraces, they have their kraals, some groups of half a dozen huts, and some quite big collections. The walls are of red clay, with the beehive shaped thatch roofs. Red clay walls with loop holes in them and zarebas of thorns surround each group. The back or northern side of each mountain is like the back of a comber, a long smooth slope, the upper part mostly rocks and thick bush. Cows, goats and donkeys graze all over the place, sometimes fetched home in the evening by small boys and with much shouting. The native tribes of these parts are known as the Ba-venda and a branch of the great Bantu race. In a book which I have from the library, it states that owing to the character of the mountains they remained independent of the white man for longer than most other natives in the Transvaal, and have preserved more of their own customs and hereditary pattern of life. They look different from the people in the Eastern Transvaal. For one thing they are taller. The women wear quantities of copper wire anklets. They mostly wear a striped cloth round them as a skirt, and on cold days, a blanket round their shoulders. In warm weather they simply leave the top part nude, or perhaps drape some old bit of rag over them. Their frizzy hair is kept short, not dressed into a sort of elongated egg shape with red clay, as was done by the women at White River. They are great folk for laughter. I was out for a walk alone on the mountain side last evening and passed three young girls picking leaves (probably some form of herb medicine) I smiled at them and they all went off into merry peals of laughter. A little later a woman was coming towards me along the path which ran on the brink of one of the terraces. She carried a big drum on her head and was shouting a conversation with two young women who were dropping down a little zig-zag path to a kraal below. What she said was so excruciatingly funny, that they had to put up a hand to steady the gourds on their heads, while they bent their necks back in order to let out roars of laughter the more fully. Their guffaws were still audible after they had dropped out of sight. Mr Pill, the proprietor of the hotel, says they do not make good domestic servants, and most of the men in this hotel are Zulus, bigger even than the local people, and nice looking fellows. The head waiter is much smaller again, with a remarkable shaped head and striking face. He comes from somewhere north of Beira and is very intelligent & quick to notice things.
This enormous diversion, which has taken up half the letter, was really begun to show what an engaging country this is for walking purposes. The peaks are all climbable (at least the ones near here) and its also possible to circumnavigate them at different levels by the kaffir paths. Views are beautiful everywhere, and there are so many visible points to steer by that there is no danger of losing ones way seriously.
Sometimes we get out immediately after breakfast, and walk for an hour and a half or a bit more. Sometimes we go out in the evening. There are special charms and disadvantages attached to both. In the morning it is hot coming back at 10-30 or thereabouts. In the evening one has to keep an eye on the time because of dusk falling. There is a glorious freshness about the air in the morning, but in the evening one gets such beautiful lights over the landscape. One of our first long walks was to the top of the Beacon, behind the hotel. The last part is quite a scramble. Yesterday, while I was taken down to Louis Trichardt, Herbert did his “longest yet”. He climbed one of the twin tops of a neighbouring mountain, which we have looked at with some longing, but which I feared would be too much for him. He was a bit tired, but not too badly so.
The expedition to Louis Trichardt was to see the Navy League Depot there. Mrs Pill (Snr) mother of the Proprietor, is President of the N.L. here and offered to take me down in her car, and give me tea and show me round. This is partly because I am knitting for them, and partly because we shall be staying with Mrs Carleton Jones in Jo’burg, and she is one of the heads of the N- L- out here, so I can give her an account of doings here.
Most of the days, when not walking, I spend sewing, writing or knitting and reading (which I do simultaneously) in the garden. It seems a lotus-eating existence to lead in such stirring days. I can only plead that I am doing my best, and that I do not read tripe.
Talking of stirring days, such a cheer went up in the Lounge on Wed. evening when the news of the surrender of Italy came in. There were some eight or ten of us in a group, and an elderly man called for drinks for us all, in which to celebrate the downfall of the first of the Axis countries.
Letters came from Grace (No 21 of 10/7/) and Annette (No 12 of 8/7) on the evening of 3/9, and yesterday came others from May and from Peggy, written of the 23rd and 21st July respectively. Thanks to all of you. They were all real summer letters, telling of gardens, fruits and Jam-making, and Mays’ even brought me a breath of her garden in the shape of a few sprigs of lavender. By the way “Combined Operations”, which May sent is proving so popular, and has been read by lots of people, including some R.A.F. sargeants, who have found it most interesting.
The guests in this hotel number on an average about 26 to 30. They are pleasant people, mostly from Jo’burg, or military people up for leave. We have not found them specially interesting. Jo’burg people seem to have rather a tendency not to look beyond their city for subjects of thought and conversation, or so it seems to us. One couple we like very much. They are both Edinburgh University B.Scs, and very good company. Unfortunately from our point of view, they have a ten months old daughter, and Mrs Martin wisely wont allow the native nurse-girl to feed or bath the child, so their times are governed by the baby’s programme, and we do not see as much of them as we should like.
There are other people from India here; a retired High Court Judge from the U.P., who always seems sunk in his own reflections, and does not look very happy about it, with a stout, kindly, but quite stupid wife. Another somewhat colorless couple from the U.P. seem to be traveling round with them, and we exchange superficial chat, but have not discovered any real drawing of the heart towards them, as we did immediately with the Martins
Since I have nothing very much to write of, I think I have babbled on long enough, and will bid you all good-bye until next week.
Best love to you all
LJT
(added at the bottom in Joan Webb’s version) My Darling Romey,
It is a wet morning, cloud right down on the mountain and visibility almost nil. That is the penalty of living on mountains, but it’s a good day on which to finish off letters, and attack the bag of mending which is waiting for me. Stockings and socks are being darned long after the time when normally they would go for polishing rags, but they are almost unobtainable out here. During these last sunny days, I have been browning my legs, and getting ready to go without stockings as the summer comes on. I am afraid they will not have the smooth appearance of yours (Ref the queries of your friends about getting the paint on so well). Not only does age make a difference to the texture of the skin, but I seem to have made a hobby of cutting and scratching my shins so that I have many scars on them.
I feel happier about Dad this week. He is both more cheerful and less tired. I have just been reading a most interesting book by the psychologist, Jung, “Modern Man in Search of His Soul”. It is a collection of essays on different aspects of psychology and there are things in it which might help Dad if he would be willing to absorb them. Mere intellectual attention does not do the trick. Ideas have to have emotional approval as well before they sink in and become effective in ones own mind.
Still no letter, and still we watch for the post each afternoon!
Best love darling,
Mother
(added at bottom in letter to Annette) My darling Annette; - - This will only be a short personal note, as I wrote at some length last week. A wet morning encourages me to do a little more than just fold the family letters into their envelopes. In a letter received yesterday, Peg sent a report that Uncle & Aunt are looking much less tired than they were last summer (1942), which I am truly thankful to hear. I wish they could each get away for a good holiday. One more reason that we should try to get home next year, is that our presence at Highways, (Once I have learnt a little more of the practical side of cooking) might enable them to get away for a good rest and change.
I have been happier about Dad this week. He has been more cheerful and less tired. The two things always go together, of course, but which comes first and how intimately then interlock, I suppose no man at present can tell. I have just finished Jung’s book “Modern Man in Search of His Soul”. It is a series of essays on aspects of Psychology. I want Dad to read it, for there are things in it that might be of use to him, if he could absorb them. There is one essay “The Stages of Life” which deals with the adjustments men must make as they travel through human life, and the trouble caused because many of them fail to do this. Another essay is devoted to setting forth how he, Jung, differs from his teacher Freud. It’s a book well worth reading if you come across it. One of the nice things about Jung is that he is such a happy, well-balanced man. I only just met him at a big party when he was in Calcutta with all those other scientists, but Professor Crew told me a good deal about him, and about what a congenial atmosphere he spreads round him
I wont go on to a fresh sheet – Best love, Mother
Family letter from HPV
c/o Standard Bank of South Africa,
Cape Town.
September 12th 1943. Sunday.
My dear Annette,
The cold weather has passed and with the warmth I have expanded into comparative cheerfulness. This has enabled me to face with equanimity the news published a few days ago that the mail for England posted in the first week of June was lost at sea. That was the week when Joan was unable to write and I was a substitute. However, better that my letter should be lost, although it was one of the best, than that Joan’s series should be interrupted. My letter told of the doings in Edward Groth’s house, of the servants, the dogs and the Pierneefs; also of the Bushman paintings. It might be an excellent thing to repeat these interesting matters instead of giving the week’s gossip; but for the sake of my Calcutta readers who will presumably have received the letter I refrain.
Pause while I removed my underclothing, in case it was on account of it that I felt peevish and apt to make mistakes in typing; it is a really hot day, with a cool breeze. While I was changing I spied my hair in the looking glass and started cutting bits of it off with nail scissors; a feat in which I have attained skill, although success is jeopardized by the difficulty of cutting lumps out of the back without leaving obvious furrows. I invoke the aid of my daughters to explain how the ploughers managed to plough upon the back of the psalmist; those who believe in the literal truth of the bible must find that a difficult snag.
The week has been full of activities in some of which I have joined. For example I have stroked a number of cats; in addition to those mentioned last week there are several who frequent the policies of the hotel without being on its strength. Notable one grey (accredited properly) who when stroked is unable to refrain from stretching to its full length and sharpening its claws with ferocity on a neighbouring post. I incline to think that the shape of the cats is due to their being marsupial or on the way to developing into marsupials. So also I have spent energy in watching the pea-fowl. One hen climbed onto the roof and spent an anxious evening jerking her neck and screeching “Harold! Harold!” Harold is growing new tail feathers (though I am of opinion that they are back feathers really, since the fan affair springs from just behind the shoulders) and is anxious to show off. One of the hens shows off too; and really in a dignified way her display is better than his which suffers by the absence of two feathers in the middle. Alarmed by a back fire the three birds squawked all night; worse, so far as my sleep is concerned, they squawked all afternoon and I became weary in consequence.
The younger among army men in this country appear to be marrying in flocks. There are many young couples. Distinguished by such titles as the Plumps the Littles the Youngs and the Goods. The Plumps though are two young girls who much resemble those in the Esquire pictures though their behavior is otherwise. The Littles must be on their honeymoon; infants; he Africander and much like our American protégé, Reynard Boss; yesterday he dragged her up the cliff side behind the hotel by a route which had looked possible enough to us but which had the demerit of being choked with thorn-bushes. Sad to see that many of these appear unable to be gay without the help of drink; some without a lot of drink.
Other activities include the cutting of deads in the garden, an activity of which Joan disapproves as likely to weary my back, the writing of a letter to Dr. Harler after a delay of months to say that I have not the energy to write a brochure for the Oxford University Press about Bengal, the resumption of typing exercises and studies in the tying of ties. The typing exercises have the merit of deadening thought and of causing me to refrain from howling aloud with depression; curiously they do nothing to improve my typing, the standard of which depends entirely on my feeling energetic or otherwise. As to the ties, it occurred to me that it would lengthen their life if I did not always tie them in the same way; and some diagrams in Esquire led me to learn how to tie a Windsor tie and to evolve a modification of the ordinary knot which exposes a different part of the tie to the gaze.
Monday.
Drizzle and rain; rather chilly. It is a drawback that the people here are so friendly and mostly so dull. It is not possible to sit in the lounge and read on a wet day, for there is too much chatter and too much in the way of talk to one. We are now sitting in the bedroom, typing. I on my bed and Joan at the table. This hotel is well furnished; for instance there is a writing table as well as a bedside table in this room.
I doubt whether my walk of which Joan has told was really my longest; we went further at White River.
(handwritten addition at end of letter) Sad that no letter came from you or Grace by yesterday’s post which brought one from Peggy. I have been re-reading your account of the holiday in the Lakes with pleasure. I cannot, it must be confessed, remember enough of the geography to follow all your wanderings with intelligence. But the general impression is good.
Much love
Dad
From LJT to Annette
The Mountain Inn
Louis Trichardt
N. Transvaal
Sept 15th 1943
My darling Annette
Your AG. Of Aug. 7th reached us yesterday – but as it has to go from Jo’burg to C.T. where the Bank then forwarded it to us c/o Carleton Jones (why I cant imagine) it must have been a week wandering about Africa. It was nice to hear from you, for mails have been scarce lately. We never heard of your change of office address. The information was probably in your No 8, which has never come. It would have been written somewhere between May 11th and 30th. No 11 has not turned up yet though No 12 has – but I have not given up hope of getting it yet. I can quite appreciate the difficulty of getting down to letter-writing when you come in from work and appreciate the fact that you write as much as you do.
I am sorry that you had a patch of bad weather and physical depression to match just before you went off on the second half of your holiday, and I do hope the weather in Scotland was kind and that you were able to use the dark blue shorts and “Joseph bosom” – Funnily enough I have several times wished that I had dug the brown shorts and my “J-b” out of a store trunk in Cape Town and sent them to you. I wonder whether the skirt I sent was too big. There was such a consultation in the shop about it.
Its nice to hear that you found “Figaro” enchanting. I expect I told you that I heard the records of the whole thing in India, and loved it. Its extraordinary how Mozart can take an ordinary – even an unpleasant theme (like Don Juan) and fit music to it that lifts it into realms of fairy-like enchantment and charm. It does not do to look at his plots like the girl on your shift looked at “Love for Love”.
In Peg’s letter, written in July and received last week, I was specially glad to hear that she thought her parents are looking much less tired and harrased since they gave up the management of the Canteen. I have not noticed the note of weariness that occasionally crept into Aunt’s letters this time last year.
We have been some excellent walks lately – Yesterday we were out for 2 ½ hours and scrambled up a most agreable peak, with splendid views of all the country round. Monday had been wet, and yesterday, though gloriously fine, was cool, with a strong breeze blowing – It was perfect for walking and we were able to do almost the whole thing (our climb of the peak) by bush paths or along open grass and rock terraces – I thought often of you and of how much you would have enjoyed it – Dad was not very tired, but to be on the safe side, we did a mild walk this morning.
The biography of Henry Ponsonby –Queen Victoria’s private secretary, has given him and incidentally me – (for he has read large patches aloud) – great pleasure and amusement, mixed with horror and amazement that anyone holding a big position could be so stupid, so selfish, petty and inconsiderate. Its a marvel that her entourage managed to present her to the world as a person to be admired.
My own reading has still been of a, so to speak, impersonal nature – Jung’s “Modern Man in Search of His Soul” – which I think I mentioned in the little note at the end of last weeks family letter. I spent one evening dipping into a solid monograph on the people – the Ba-venda – who inhabit this range of mountains – The habits – initiation ceremonies, marriage customs and so on of different African tribes, seem to have a strong family likeness and I did not feel inclined to do more than pick out a few facts. It must be a strange and difficult experience for people with cultures as definite and as primitive as the African peoples, to have to adjust themselves to the modern world and its remarkable how many of them seem to be doing it with fair success. I should much like to talk to the head waiter of this hotel, who has a most interesting and reflective face – a fine shaped head and great dignity – I imagine that it would take a long time to win the confidence even of a man like this, and that he would not easily tell what he things about things to a white person.
I have just been lent “The Night is Long” – the autobiography of Sarah Gertrude Millin – (the woman who wrote a well known “Life of Rhodes” - ) The scene is mostly in S. Africa, I think, a good part of it being early days on the Rand.
At odd times I think a good bit about methods of arranging conditions for living – a pattern of life, to use a more modern form – How to reduce labour and yet retain some comfort and beauty in ones home, so that the daily round and common task will not eat up all ones time. It would be a good idea to make notes as ideas occur, and file them all for future reference. At most times it would be a great advantage to start clear, as we shall be doing, but after a war of this magnitude, it will be so much a question of what one can get in the way of a house and furnishings – The ideas go over to clothes – garments that are easy to wash and iron and things that do not wear out quickly. I have met one or two people lately who are advocates of pressure cookers and have demonstrated them for us – Not only is food cooked in them more digestable, but it takes only a few minutes, so that there is no necessity to hang about half the morning while the lunch is cooking. One does want to have time over to attend to ones mind, after the bodily needs of the household have been catered for. The trouble seems to me that in most designs for living, leisure does not come till the evening, when often mind and body are too tired to want to adventure into new ideas, or read of what other people have thought, with any vitality and intelligence. It will be fun planning a home, even if its difficult to carry out ideas, and if very little money is left for us to live upon.
Its astonishing what a lot of money is spent on drink, in this country. The giving and receiving of drinks seems to be a far more important part of social life, than the giving and receiving of ideas – “Drinks” are always produced in India, when visitors come, but people dont talk about them – Here they are a constant topic of conversation. It’s a disagreable feature of life in this country as far as my taste is concerned and it seems such a crude foreground to social intercourse.
How tensly all the world is waiting the events of the next few weeks and months in the war!
Best love, dear daughter
Mother
18/9/43 Your AG of 23 August arrived last night – It makes you seem close when I think you wrote that on the day we missed our train from Pretoria! So glad you enjoyed your holiday. Nice Scotch people here, who know Cullen, stopped their ears and cried “Stop! Stop! It makes us too homesick!” when I repeated various of your doings to them. I do hope the snap shots come out, and especially the coloured picture. Dad and I went by car from Inverness, via Aberdeen through the Cairngorms to Perth, by car, when on our honeymoon, and though I have not seen them since, I still remember a thrill at the beauty of the Cairngorms. It will be interesting to hear what you think of Col. Blimp – From the papers it seems that he has somehow turned out to be rather a decent person. Love and thanks Mother
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend (addressed to Mrs. A.B.S. Townend. Highways. Great Leighs. Nr. Chelmsford. Essex. England
No 18 Sept 15th 1943
Dearest Grace: This should reach you about the time you your birthday, & we sent you our very best love and every good wish. In my last A.G. I asked; you to give yourself a cheque for £5 from us. I hope it will help you to get something that you want. You will send Anne the usual cheque on our behalf too, wont you: & buy a present for Barney. I acknowledged your No 21 last week. Yesterday we got an A.G. from A. dated Aug 7th. The only letters last week were from Peg & May both written late in July. So glad to have all these. My report of H. is better this week. He has been less tired & more cheerful. We have been some splendid walks, & climbed one or two of the neighbouring peaks: a feat which I thought would be beyond him when we came. It appears that he is not looking forward much to the visit to Jo’burg. He does not relish the idea of the cousins more or less millionair household. I hope he wont mind it so much when he gets there. Except for one wet day last Monday, we have been having most glorious weather. The days are hot enough to sit in the shade in the garden in a cotton dress. It gets quite cool directly the sun goes down & the mornings are delightfully fresh, so we often hurry to breakfast punctually at 8, & start for a walk soon after 8.30. I always feel a little guilty walking for pleasure in the morning, but it suits H. better, & that is the main consideration. The only drawback to this hotel, which is excellently run, is that the guests, though kindly & pleasant, have not been very interesting. An elderly widow who arrived yesterday, is a refreshing contrast. Her late husband was head of a hospital in Nyaserland for some years, & then chief M.O. for the Union, & she evidently took a keen interest in his work. Mrs Harvey writes from Cape Town that she still has not found permanent accomodation for us, but that she is keeping in close touch with Glen Cloy, which she thinks is the place that would suit us best. The extra cold winter which has affected the whole Unior, has kept the spring flowers back a bit in the Cape which is all to the good for us. We were so glad to hear from H.D. that Charlotte was really better & had left hospital. He has been so good about writing to us. H is reading a biography of Lord Ponsonby, Queen Victoria’s private secretary. Of course there is a lot about the old Q. in it, & I must say she comes out of it badly. Parts of it are screamingly funny, & I can imagine Barney, especially, taking great delight in the. We are getting so impatient for letters from Romey. The mails from Canada seem few & far between these days, & even the air mail takes so long to come. We were quite concerned to hear from Edward Groth that Mrs Pierneef had bought a flower shop, & pictured here getting frightfully tied up over it. Now a letter from her tells that she is only a third share partner, & the business is already a going concern, but wants to expand. She urges us to hurry home, & and then return to take up flower farming & sell the produce to her shop! I am sorry to say that this new venture means that they will not come down to the Cape in Jan. Best love Joan (Mrs H.P.V.Townend)
From LJT to Romey
The Mountain Inn, Louis Trichardt
Sept 18, 1943
My darling Romey,
This letter is being started with a more or less blank mind, and I just have to see what springs up in it when I think about you and what I would like to say to you. First there is the thought that no mail has come yet, and that surely one must arrive soon. Secondly there is the constant question of what news it is going to bring about your doings. When we got the telegram about your graduation, I mistakenly imagined that your future plans would be settled in a few weeks. Now Northern Hemisphere autumn is coming on --- not that it matters in the least, for you deserved a good rest after strenuous work, but I am just letting my feelings go down on paper.
I am glad you were not brought up in this country and so did not grow up to take it as a matter of course that drink is such an important part of life, and worth discussing at length on every opportunity. I have been shocked at the way not only women, but young girls, drink spirits not to mention beer (very strong beer) and cocktails as a matter of course, and every day. It is rather different when it is done as a special occasion. From meeting Johannesburg people outside their city, I get the impression for myself, which is always attributed to the town. Money, gold, is its god. If you have money it is what chiefly matters, provided you are not a Jew or the other side of the Colour Bar. Even these drawbacks can be glossed to some extent, if sufficiently weighted with gold.
When we were with Edward Magill we met people from the University who were not at all typical of the city. We are friendly with a nice youngish Scotch couple here, who have been Johannesburg for five years, and are due to go home again as soon as possible after the war. Both are B. Scs and both intelligent people. I have enjoyed getting them to give impressions of the place, for they have met all kinds of people. They fully grant this money standard, but also say that they have experienced an immense amount of warm-hearted kindness that makes them feel grateful to the place, though they are glad they are not going to spend the rest of their lives there. They are both keenly alive intellectually, and they say there is so little interest in “culture”, --books, plays, international politics, social movements, and in fact anything that does not immediately concern Johannesburg and the Union. In the University circles, Edward probably does not find this, or at any rate, not in such a marked degree. After all, Johannesburg is so young that its leading citizens are still the acute businessmen who followed the pioneers, and made the money. We have to wait to see what their descendants will turn out like.
Actually I am more interested in your affairs at the moment, but there is the feeling that comments on letters may be dull after so long, in spite of the fact that I don’t find them so myself.
I was so very glad to hear in Helen’s last letter that you feel happier about John these days. It will be a grand thing if he can grow out of his weakness of toying with the truth. It is funny how difficult it is to learn lessons about oneself. One can know things for years and yet not be able to apply them. A book I have recently been reading, “Rational Mysticism”, amongst many other things, puts forward the arguments for a belief that our souls, or that bit of eternity we call our souls, are on an immense voyage, passing through many lives both on this plane, and perhaps on many others before they are ready to go back to the glory from which they came. It was while reading that I seemed to realize fundamentally, emotionally, that we should not feel in any way superior to other people or peoples, however backward, for undoubtedly we have passed through all the phases, before we have reached the point where we, perhaps, are further on, nearer the goal. To realize in the right spirit, that one may have developed further than some of the people one meets, is , I suppose not wrong, provided the recognition is, as I said, in the right spirit. In a way I have always known this, but it has not previously got into my heart in the same way, and I find the knowledge now catching me out continually. I hope I shall be able to make the best use of this lesson. I am sorry! The grammar of this has gone to bits. Dad was talking to me, and I am so bad at attending to questions, and yet keeping my mind clear about what I am doing.
With my dearest love and blessings,
LJT
Family letter from HPV
Mountain Inn,
Louis Trichardt.
September 18th 1943. Saturday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
It was sad to hear by airgraph from Parp yesterday that mine to him was illegible almost owing to my typewriter ribbon not having been as new as once it had been. I cannot bear to scrap ribbons while they have any colour left in them because they are becoming now so difficult to get. In deference to his remarks I am hammering like blazes now so that Annette who gets the original most weeks may not be the worse off for being thus honoured.
Life inside a Transvaal hostelry is a matter of walks and talks. The merit of the talks varies with one’s liver and one’s company; and the company changes quickly. The Edinburgh couple, the Martins, of whom Mrs. much resembles Magda Salvesen, head the list of conversationalists. But they are tied down to the baby, much prized as being a sort of unexpected windfall after eleven years of marriage. There is a humble sort of man who belongs to the S.A. railways (in an exalted position too) and who knows about birds; but he is not really an acceptable substitute as Eve was in the Kipling story. Recently there has arrived an old lady whose husband was head of the public health service in the Union after doing medical work in Nyanza (‘Nyasaland’ handwritten in margin); she talks of malaria and other agreeable diseases with some knowledge and with appropriate anecdote --- but I confess to having found this to pall this morning when the rain is driving chill across the verandah and everyone is cooped in the long drinking-porch, the lounge and the annex to the lounge which differs from it in having more light and more draughts.
As to walks, I ought to have withdrawn my dictum of several weeks back that the walks were along kaffir paths and past kraals which were sordid to the eye and nose. The kraals are not so sordid as all that when viewed with an unjaundiced eye and the smell is more imagination than fact, if one abstains from going too near: and the walks are by no means all along such paths or past such kraals. I still prefer not to go kraal-crawling as is necessary if one sticks to the lower shelves of the mountains (remember that kraal is pronounced crawl in these parts) but except on misty days the upper shelves offer most admirable walks though mostly longer.
I omitted to mention that on the walk by myself to which Joan referred as the longest ever ( but it was not) I saw a small buck which leapt up the hill side among the thick bushes, six baboons which left the hill-top just before I reached it, sundry lizards and many grass-hoppers or maybe locusts. Also on the further side many gay flowers of types not seen on this side. When with Joan I repeated the walk some days later we saw none of these good things except the locusts or maybe grasshoppers and a few of the flowers. It must have been because the weather was less hot, but many of the flowers had become scarce; and instead of the hillside being red, white and blue with a little yellow it was yellow with a very little red, blue and white. It is probably even so the best of the walks.
Yesterday we did a variant of it. Starting along the lower shelf by a path which leads to an enjoyable panorama over the little town and the country beyond, we pushed on to a plantation where we expected to find a road round the mountain but did not; then we turned steep up the hillside and climbed the cliff which separates the lower from the upper shelf by a one-zig ÷ one-zag path of some length and difficulty under trees and bushes; and so we rejoined the path back from the twin peak. Notable were the little black grasshoppers which swarmed all over a bush; very different from the grasshoppers to which I made reference above, and which were big, sluggish and brightly coloured. But the colours are less bright than complex. There were also ticks.
The ticks are among the most noticeable of the doings in South Africa. Nothing more common (as the Anatomy says when it refers to some rarity) than tick-fever conveyed by microscopic ticks. Joan has suffered much for weeks past from the irritation of the bites or burrowing of the beasts; compare the annoyance of harvest bugs which are beyond a doubt merely ticks under a polite alias. She has spent a busy morning watching the results of applying grease to a tick-spot on her neck; the theory is that smothered by grease the tick emerges. It might have been possible for me to help by looking at the place through the magnifying glass (double-lensed) used for purposes of botany, but it involves having the object viewed within fractions of an inch of the nose and whenever I got into a suitable position she laughed aloud and breathed down my neck. The ultimate event was happy, in that she produced on a bit of paper a brown dot which through the double glass was indeed a tiny tick. Now I begin to feel itchy all over; but there do not appear to be actual bites on me.
September 19th. Sunday.
Let it be said however that on our way back from the turning point of the walk we passed through many new types of flower; and I attained to merit by seeing first a clump of white tobacco-like flowers on the ground. It is very rare for me to see a flower before Joan spies it.
This day the clocks went forward for summer time: and the weather celebrated the occasion by remaining misty. Yesterday was the cow of a day; rain driving through mist. The guests stand or sit about relapsed into gloom. Perversely I was more cheerful than usual. Even though I think that the walk was more tiring than might have been if there had been less wind. We did not go out at all yesterday.
As you know, Idris Matthews used to become peevish when we used such standards of measurement as “As big as a bit of wood” or “… as an iron ring” or “As long as a bit of string”; and infuriated when I spoke of the moon being as big as a shilling or as a plate (and when someone else said “No, as big as an orange”) and of birds being “bird-size” “small bird size” and “big bird size”. He would have felt badly about a new series of comparisons inaugurated on that same walk; a tiny bird burst into song, and I said “That bird makes a noise twice as big as itself”. Joan said “Three times” but she was wrong and admitted it. Anyone who heard the bird would have admitted that the comparison was apt. A strange thing.
Smut’s stenographer or one of his stenographers is here. With a friend who is stenographer to a goldmine company; skilled. Both I abashed and set in their appropriate place by expounding my patent method of making an = (and it is a misfortune that I then failed to bring it off myself: = but that is not too good), to wit, by holding down the space-bar, hitting the hyphen, bearing ever so lightly on the capitals-shift and hitting the hyphen again. Obviously to make the scheme beyond criticism I should discover some part of the typewriter which I can use as a gauge; just as Idris used various points on the wings of his flying machine to judge height from the ground, making the plane itself into a navigating instrument. Incidentally as an aid to accurate adjustment of the roller, it is a help to mark off with white paint upon it lines one cog’s width apart. This allows intelligent use of the ‘Variable Line Spacer’. An invention of a week ago. Which reminds me that if the typewriter-manufacturers knew their onions they would mark the roller with circles round it at 5 10 15 20 30 40 etc spaces or at the first four or at any rate the first two. Especially in a portable; for the lines would be a guide to getting the paper straight, a useful thing when the small guide rollers are not reliable as they are not in my machine.
I dreamt the other night that when a man with me had driven his golfball onto low land across a stream a column of dassies swept down (like the Assyrians) and went off with it; down a hill of course. And another night I dreamt that being summoned to go to church I hurriedly filled pockets with two kinds of sweets and then at the door was handed a Roman helmet, made of brown cardboard, by a chaprassi and accepted it with gratitude because it went so well with khaki shorts. These two dreams I mention because Joan who is quite unreasonable in such things burst into happy laughter when I told her them.
My book of names and attributes of persons met on our journeys since we left Calcutta is growing too big for the pocket. A useful work; for we forget in a most shameless way the names of persons in previous places visited. Even Joan has benefited from it.
What more? I have been cutting deads in the hotel garden; there are many, but I do not feel at ease doing such things here. Also I have to drink milk twice a day; which seems absurd when the last régime forbade milk altogether. I incline to view that it doesn’t matter what one eats if one can digest none of it.
No more. It is so chilly this morning that I have been compelled to put on my dressing gown. But it is time for 11 o’clock tea; I go.
(handwritten addition at end of letter) Much love. How acceptable your airgraph! about your visit to Scotland.
Dad
(handwritten at end of letter to Romey) Much love, my child. We regret the delay between your letters. It seems ages since the last.
Yours,
Dad
Family letter from LJT No 36
The Mountain Inn
Louis Trichardt.
N. Transvaal.
Sept. 19th 1943
My Dears,
There has been no surface mail in this week, but two air-graphs from Annette, dated Aug 7th and 23rd, which considering that they have to travel down to the Cape and back here, (journeys taking about a week) have come very quickly.
We have waited eagerly for war news each day, and shared the world’s anxiety when the 5th Army were having such a stiff time at Salerno.
As to our own doings, they follow the pattern of the previous weeks. The weather has not been too good. For each fine day, we have had a cold misty one, and yesterday there was a good deal of rain. We are still wrapped in cloud this morning, but there is a lightness in the sky which makes us hope that the cloud will break when the sun gets a bit warmer. African Summer Time started at 2 A.M. this morning, and is welcomed at any rate by me, for I always wake soon after it gets light.
It was a glorious day on Tuesday, after a wet one on Monday, when we did not go out. There was a fresh strong breeze, which made walking a joy, so Herbert took me up the Twin Peak which he had climbed by himself on Saturday. It was a most lovely walk, and the view from the summit was glorious. Spring is definitely here, and lots of small flowers and a few big ones are coming out on the mountain sides, which, of course, delay me greatly as I have to stop to look at them all. Some of the trees and bushes have almost autumn tints in their new foliage, pretty dusty pinks and browns, which turn to bright spring green. A Mrs Murray who has spent many years in Nyasaland, tells us that this is even more noticeable there. She & her daughter made friends with the owner of the Carnation farm, which is the pivot for all directions in the neighbourhood. The man is an ex-gardener from Kew and interesting to talk to, they say. He told them of White Settlers beyond these mountains, who have given up farming because of drought and pests of one sort or another, and who keep themselves in a miserably low state of civilization by shooting baboons and getting the government reward for the tails, and by shooting deer and making biltong, which is immensely popular with S. Africans. To the comment that they could surely get employment in the towns, the answer is in the affirmative, but the reason they dont do so is that they prefer the free, slack life and the sordid conditions under which they live, to getting down to a regular job. Talking of biltong, another visitor here, an elderly man, told how he sent a food parcel to an old friend at home. To make up the weight and fill in a gap in the box, he slipped in a half-pound block of biltong, long and narrow. He forgot to write to the friend about the parcel, and months afterwards, when he had almost forgotten about it, came the reply, thanking him for the good things, and finishing: “But Charlie, I just could not smoke that tobacco you sent.” Mr Melville said it puzzled him for quite a while till he remembered the biltong.
The difference in the attitude of people who have lived and worked in Protectorate like Nyasa-land or in one of the mandated territories, from that of the people of the Union, towards the natives, is most marked. In all Mrs Murray says you can see that her and her husband’s work aimed at improving the natives both physically and mentally, an attitude which it is hard to find inside the Union. This contrast is well brought out in Negley Farson’s book, “Behind God’sBack”. She lent me Sarah Gertrude Millin’s autobiography “The Night is Long”, which I find interesting and like with qualifications. I have not read either her “Life of Rhodes” or her life of Smuts, nor, for that matter, any of her novels. She is a Jewess, born in Kimberley, but living in Jo’burg for many many years, and, I gather, not at all popular there. I can well imagine that she would not be, firstly because she belongs to the hated race, and secondly because many of her novels deal with the tragedies of the native labour and of the wretched half-cast children, subjects which wealthy Jo’burg prefers not to think about.
When we look down on the little town of Louis Trichardt, I often think of the man himself, one of the band of voortrekkers who made the astonishing journey from the Cape. Its 999 miles from Jo’burg to Cape Town by the railway, which runs in a direct line more or less. This place is another 200 miles or more further on. The voortrekers came by a devious route, bringing their ox-wagons through unexplored country, with no roads, and having no knowledge for what sort of country they would eventually reach. Trichardt’s party decided that a certain river, a tributary of the great Limpopo, was the Nile, so the stream is to this day called Nyl and the settlement on its bank is Nylstroom. Having crossed it some of them settled a little way to the south of these mountains, the Zoutpansberg, whose inhabitants, the Bavenda, were bitterly opposed to White people. Louis Trichardt and some of the party decided to go east to find more fertile country, and eventually made their way to Delagoa Bay, where he died. As far as I remember from Col Stevenson Hamilton’s book on the Game Reserve, his descendants were still in that part of the country when he first knew it early in the century. The sad thing in thinking back about these courageous old pioneers, is that its not uncommon for their descendants to have become pig-headed and stupid to such a degree that they are opposed to change of any sort and so un-progressive that they hold the development of the country back. Herbert was questioning the other day why, if in America the frontiersman was said to have developed the quick enterprising type of mind, did the frontiersman in South Africa go in exactly the opposite direction? Its a question I am not able to answer.
Herbert has told some of you about the ticks which menace those who enjoy walking through the bush. There are the reasonable large kind which can easily be seen and removed, but the minute animals which like to burrow under the skin, cause violent irritation, and may convey tick fever are the real nuisance, for they are barely visible to the naked eye. I have several bites from them. Tick fever is an unpleasant thing. From descriptions it seems something like a very violent attack of flu. High temperature, aching bones, headache and swelling of glands all over the body. Report says that once one has had it one is immune. Mrs Martin says when she comes to think of it, most of her S. African friends have had it at some time or another. People cant tell me whether the natives are all immune. If not they surely must gain immunity by all the children contracting it in early youth, for they run and play almost naked amongst the bush all the time. How lucky we are in England not to have noxious insects that make enjoying the out-of-doors difficult. New Zealand shares that joy for the most part, but in certain districts there are the abominable sand-flies.
We still have no permanent quarters in Cape Town. Mr. Harvey writes that she is keeping a sharp look out for us. It begins to worry me a little, but unless one can do something more than one is already doing, worry does not help.
The sun is now shining, and the mist broken into fluffy white clouds which are racing across the sky before a strong East Wind, cold as such winds are in England. I hope we will get a good walk this afternoon, for we have not much longer here now, really, only four days, out of which Thursday wont allow much for walking, as there is packing to be done, and I have an appointment for “set & shampoo” in Louis Trichardt in the afternoon.
Best love to you all
LJT
Air Graph No 19 from LJT to Annette
Townend. c/o Standard Bank. Cape Town. Sept 22nd '43
My darling Annette: With such a shortage of mails, it has been specially nice to get your air-graphs written just before & after you Scotch holiday. I am glad you enjoyed yourself & had some reasonable weather. There is little to write about this week. Life has been going on much to the same pattern here, but the weather has not been too good. Dad reacts to the weather to a most extraordinary degree. When it is warm & sunny, he is comparatively cheerful & seems fairly strong again, but directly it gets cold & dull, especially if there is a cold wind, he becomes gloomy & miserable. It distresses me to see it, for it augers ill for life in England. Its true he might not notice it so much in his own home, with things to do. If we cant get out walking here, & its too damp & cold to cut ‘deads’ in the garden, he does not know what to do. Till the last few days there have not been any v. interesting people here. Recently a British engineer, who has worked in many parts of the world, has come. He was for some years in Japan & Manchuria just before the Sino-Jap war. With him we have had some good talk. I think its about time we moved on, though packing is always the bother. I think I am liverish this morning. I feel a bit headachy, which is so rare for me, & altogether rather disagreable & depressed! We have had such changeable weather. Hot sun for an hour or two, & shelter from the wind on one side of the mountain, & perhaps sun going in & exposure to the cold Wind a few minutes later, so maybe that has affected the liver.
The news of the food shortage causing famine conditions in Bengal is distressing us greatly. Had the Ministers taken Dad’s advice eighteen months ago, conditions would not have been so bad, but many factors have worked together to produce the situation, which would have been difficult to control in any event. I feel anxious about Mogul & his family & would like to send some extra money to them. Old Bhim Das is at his village in south Orissa so is probably alright. One of the difficulties about any sort of price control is the universal dishonesty. I don’t see how that factor can be over come. We are afraid that the parcel containing a pair of sheepskin gloves for you or Aunt & a toy dog for Josephine, must have been lost in the mail posted in Cape Town between 2nd & 8th. It was posted on June 3rd in Pretoria, & I fear even the S.A. posts would have got it to Cape Town between the fateful dates. It’s a pity, for they were nice things. It was grand to hear Churchill say yesterday that no merchant ship had been lost in the N. Atlantic in the past four months. Our view ????????????????????? of the gold millionairs. I am looking forward to it with some interest. The nice Martins from Edinburgh have been giving us some interesting impressions of Jo’burg after spending about six years there. Money is evidently what counts in the opinion of most of its inhabitants. Perhaps another generation or two will get away from that. It’s a pity that in order to make money most people have to be devoted to it. Love & birthday greetings.
Air Graph No 19 from LJT to Romey
Townend.c/oStandard Bank. Cape Town. Sept 22nd 1943
My darling Romey: Time goes on & still no mails from Canada! It was good to hear Winston say last night that there have been no sinkings of merchant ships in the N. Atlantic for four months, but of course yours come by air. We are getting near the end of our stay here. Dad is not looking forward to Jo’burg. He is always aprenhensive about staying with people he does not know well, but I expect he will like it alright when we get there. He has, on the whole, been better lately, and we have done some lovely walks, including a splendid climb to the top of a neighbouring peak. When the weather is fine bright and warm his spirits go up. Directly it gets cold & dull, he falls into gloom. Unfortunately we have had several days with cloud wrapping us in most and cold winds. On such days he does not know what to do with himself. Often when the morning is misty, it clears later in the day, but he much prefers to go for a good walk early in the day, & to mess about in the garden cutting off ‘deads’ in the evenings. On good days we hurry to breakfast at 8 o’clock & often start on our walk soon after 8.30. This brings us back in time for morning tea & before it is too hot. I always feel rather guilty walking in the morning, as I feel I ought to be doing something useful, but at the moment what suits Dad is the most important thing. The people staying here have been kindly & pleasant but not v. interesting. Stocks & shares & personalities in Jo’burg are the favourite topics of conversation. Lately we have been luckier, for a nice elderly widow whose husband was in charge of a hospital in Nyasaland, has interesting things to tell, & likes to hear about public health work in India. Also a few days ago a v. interesting British engineer came who has worked in many different countries, including Japan & Manchuria, where he was when the Sino-Jap war broke out, & we have had some good talk with him. Although we have had a lot of chilly weather this week, spring is definitely here. The trees & scrub thorns are covered with new leaves, and lots of engaging little flowers have come out on the mountain sides. We are terribly sad to hear of the famine conditions in Bengal, with rice at Rs 232 or Rs 33 per maund (80 lbs) instead of Rs 2 or Rs 3. Many circumstances have gone to cause the shortage & rise of prices, but much could have been done to prevent it, & if the Ministers had taken Dad’s advice eighteen months ago, things would not have been half so bad. I am wondering how Mogul & his family are getting on & would like to send some extra money to them. Bhim Das is luckily, in Orissa, not Bengal, so he is probably alright. We still have no permanent quarters in Cape Town, but Mrs Harvey is on the look out for us. I confess I am feeling a little worried about it, but fussing never helps, & nothing more can be done till we get down there. We had a nice air-graph from Annette last week, telling about her weeks holiday in Scotland. I am glad she enjoyed it, for she has had her nose pretty well to the grind-stone. Its nice to think that we shall be seeing Ed & Judy so soon. Best love to you all.
Family letter from LJT No 37
C/o G Carleton Jones Esq
Dunfallandy House.
Dunkeld
Johannesburg.
Sept 27th 1943.
My Dears,
Once more we are on the move, and very happily and comfortably situated for the next ten days as the guests of these kind Canadian cousins.
Our last few days at the Mountain Inn were blessed by fine weather, though misty weather sometimes caused us to take our walks in the evenings. African Summer time began last Sunday, and the dinner hour was changed from 7 o’clock to 7.30, so with an extra hour of daylight, there was no feeling of hurry about getting home.
On Thursday I went down to the village in the station wagon, to dispatch a couple of bits of luggage direct to Cape Town, and to have my hair set (I shampooed it before lunch), while Mrs Pill was doing her shopping. Our train left about 2 o’clock on Friday. We had a coupé to ourselves and traveled comfortably, though it was a little hot during the afternoon. The veldt had changed its appearance considerably in the month that had passed since we made the upward journey. The thorns and other bushes were covered with white blossom or young green or pink leaves, and here and there was a greenness over the earth. It was pretty, especially as the afternoon wore on, and the slanting light showed everything to better advantage, and gave atmosphere to the near and distant mountains. The train is of extreme leisureliness, but in spite of this, natives boarding it seem to find it necessary to run violently from one end of the platform to the other, shouting remarks to their friends as they hurry along. The babble that comes from their big open compartments (like the old-fashioned 3rd Class on some of the English lines) exceeds even that of the 3rd class in India. At Louis Trichardt station I almost thought a riot was going on, but it was only the native passengers seeing their luggage packed into the huge trailer and fitting themselves into the big railway busses which run through some of the even less populated parts of the veldt. When observed with care it becomes clear that the noise is perfectly good tempered, and part of the general excitement of travel.
At Pietersburg the train halts for two hours, and there we had a good simple dinner for the astonishing price of 1/6 each. It is the first thing I have found to praise about the S. African railways. War conditions are difficult for all railways, but many people have told me that things were not so very much better in peace time. Mrs Carleton Jones, -- “Vidie” -- points out that your 1st Class Ticket provides you with a bed, and for 3/ you get your bedding, which is quite good, so that for long journeys the price compares well with the cost of “sleepers” in England or on the Continent. That is a point I had not thought of, and its true.
We arrived at Jo’burg to time, at 7.50 A.M. and the C-J’s European chauffer met us. This house is in the extreme northern suburbs of the city, between four and five miles from its heart. Its the wealthy quarter, away from the mines and the dumps. The house is roomy and comfortable, and stands in a very large garden. It has spacious lawns, exclusive of two hard tennis courts, one of which is flood lit, and a grass lawn suitable for croquet, but used for a miniature golf putting course. There is a sizable swimming pool, also flood lit, and lots of beautiful rockery, on which the spring flowers are just coming out. We each have a bed-room and our own bathroom (the latter all done in a lovely shade of periwinkle blue).
“Vidie” about whom we were a little apprehensive, thinking she might be the sort of super-smart type which definitely exists in Jo’sburg, turns out to be a very nice hostess. She is president of the Navy War Fund and a very busy woman, so she warns us that she is out most of the day, and cant entertain us much, -- a thing which I very well understand, for I was similarly situated in Calcutta. She is amusing to talk to and interested in many things. Mr C-J, known as Peter, though his initial is G, is a most natural, simple mannered man, though he is a big noise in the Mining world. He was President of the Chamber of Mines last year, and is head of one of the very big mining companies. He has any number of hobbies and interests. He was attracted to Africa from his early boyhood through the letters and diaries of Willy Stairs, who was not only a first cousin, but also an intimate friend of Jones père.
The said Willy Stairs was with Stanley on his journey into “darkest Africa” and subsequently, having been unable to interest the British Government in the idea of an expedition into what is now the Belgian Congo, with the idea of taking it over for the British, he tried to form a company in London to finance an expedition. Before he had got far with this King Leopold of Belgium heard of it, sent for him, put up the money and the land in question was annexed in his name, and later made over to the Belgian government. Mr C-J, or Peter as we are to call him, says that when he went back to Canada after his father’s death, the first things he looked for were Willy Stairs diaries, but unfortunately they had disappeared and have never been found. All this enthralls me!
In spite of the fact that Peter has adopted South Africa, collected a library on its history and personalities, and made a study of it, he still loves his Canadian home-land, and has collected all sorts of out-of-the-way books and papers bearing on Canadian history, especially things to do with ship building in Nova Scotia. He was talking most interestingly about this last night. Jumping back to Africa, the house is full of old colour prints of Africa, and oddly enough they do give an impression of the African landscape that photos, or any photos that I have seen, fail to do. Other hobbies are stamp collecting on a grand scale, and fishing. As you may gather from this, he does not fall into the category of some of Jo’sburgs wealthy folk, who are solely interested in gold.
The weather here is delightful, fresh without being cold. We just stayed quietly about the house and garden yesterday. Herbert was feeling dim after the journey, and seems to have got a slight cold, I am sorry to say. I hope it wont get bad. This Sunday morning I am devoting to writing mail. We are going out to drinks with a woman who worked in the same office with me in Cape Town, and whose husband is on the staff of the Jo’burg evening paper, “The Star”.
I talked to Edward and Judy Magill on the phone yesterday, hoping to get them out to tea here, but they were busy. We are lunching in town with them to-morrow. Dot Bromley is in bed, just getting over a bad attack of ‘flu’, so I could not speak toher, but hope I shall see her to-morrow.
27.9.43 Interrupted yesterday, I found no convenient time to finish this, and have been out all day to-day, till tea time. I have a little time now before changing for an early dinner prior to going to the cinema to see “Mission to Moscow”.
I went into town early with Vidie this morning, and spent some time looking at Mr Pierneef’s twenty eight paintings in the great hall of the railway station, and then went to see poor old Dot, who is still in bed and looking very pulled down. She declares that she is going to get up to-morrow, and will be going to Cape Town next week for some conference.
After a talk and drinking tea with her, I began a search for a plain thin woollen frock, since I seem to have nothing between tailor-mades and cottons, except one very old jumper suit, which is terribly faded and shabby. Before lunch I drew a complete blank. Anything that was long enough seemed about a dozen inches too big round. We lunched at the Carleton with Edward and Judy Magill, and were so pleased to see them again. Judy looks well but has been a bit bothered with her heart, it seems. She wants to give up her job but cant find anyone to take her place. She had to go back to office, but Edward was able to stay and talk since the University is having a week’s vacation. He had just had an air-mail letter from Canada and it was nice to get the latest news. Herbert had come in by bus, by the way, as he did not want to spend so long in town, and we parted again after lunch, he to get a hair-cut and I to continue my hunt, for a frock, which I am glad to say was so successful that I went a frightful bust and bought two washing woolen frocks, one a plain “spring” green, very simple, and the other a blue-grey with maroon flecks on it: sounds hideous described like that, but its really very pretty, and goes with a hat and bag I have. I have in view the fact that rationing may go on for some time after the war, and its perhaps as well not to let oneself run very low in clothes.
Herbert has bucked up considerably, and the cold does not seem to be coming to verymuch.
The paper will be running out shortly, so its time to say good-bye.
Best love to you all:
LJT
(handwritten addition at bottom of letter) My darling Annette – No time for a personal letter this week – I have just ordered food parcels – (tea – barley-sugar, raisins and orange-concentrate) to be sent to you, Mrs Roscoe c/o of you and Sheila Legat c/o you – Please give messages to Mrs Roscoe and Sheila to say that I wish I could do more to show my appreciation of their kindness to you. The sq blocks of orange concentrate is being much talked of now – Equivalent of 1 large orange in each block – rich in vitimin C. It can be used to make orange drink, or just nibbled – Fatti’s (the shop) says they will enclose instructions. Best love – Mother
Family letter from HPV
Johannesburg.
September 27th. Monday.
My dear Annette (name handwritten)
Seated in the sun on a verandah looking onto as pleasant a garden as one could wish to see I shall have no excuse if I fail to type with fluency. Joan has written at length about our doings and I have to deal only with the trifles left ungleaned. The cold of which she wrote seems to have cleared up or nearly cleared up since yesterday. The weariness of the journey has been over come. There is a vast supply of detective stories in the house. We are going to have lunch with Edward and Judy. And so everything is most auspicious.
Our last few days at the Mountain Inn were somewhat marred by cloudy and misty weather (they are much the same thing in the mountains) but our last day was as fine as could be. Our last walk took place two days before; a new and agreeable variant on one done previously; presenting the advantage that we saw two herons(?) in a field which we watched for some ten minutes and the drawback that we picked up a final collection of tick bites. I escaped with few of these bites during our stay but Joan as at White River came in for many. They are a real blot on the pleasure of walks in South Africa, especially when one comes to learn of the ever-present danger of tick-fever. It looked as if our friend the Edinburgh man with the wife who is like Magda Salvesen, Martin by name, had gone down with an attack on the day before we left, though as no doctor was available this was guesswork. Joan spent her last day in packing and in visiting the “dorp” for a hair-set. I also packed and after sleeping till four sat myself to cut deads in the garden, cleaning up a large and untidy marigold bed. At once tiring and restful.
The final packing on our last morning took up a lot of time. But twenty minutes before lunch, which was a hurried affair before we went off to the station, I set myself down to the difficult job of making a sketch map of the locality with a view to marking the walks on it; difficult because we had made no bearings and no notes of distances, and the mountains are involved and the roads serpentine. The result is not too good but it would enable one to find out where to go approximately and I toy with the idea of continuing and making notes of the walks.
Our pleasure in the peafowl at the Inn was marred by the discovery that they were murderous beasts; two days before we left the peacock extracted chickens from beneath a hen and killed eight of them. Wantonly by tramping upon them. The hen has fled to parts unknown and the remaining chicks were in a bad state.
Our motor drive to the station was enlivened by Mr. Pill’s forebodings of a bad time coming for the English in South Africa after the war and disquisitions on the subject of the growing hostility between the Africaner and the English. He has been in the country since boyhood and ought to know what he is talking about but probably he is pessimistic. Some of the youths in the army whom we met speak of growing friendship between the two communities; fighting together has been a bond.
Our journey to Johannesburg would have been better so far as I was concerned if I had omitted to get a cinder in my eye which remained tender and made reading unpleasant all that afternoon and night. A bad driver who jolted the train as if trying to break the couplings whenever he put on the brakes and whenever he started up gave me a bad night. But the carriage was the best we have seen on a railway here and the meal in the refreshment room at Petersburg where we had a two-hour wait though we had not to change was extremely good, for the money.
There are thirteen Pekes in this house, of all ages and all sizes. Amusing and noisy. There are also china dogs on the drawing-room floor; one life size and the others dwarfish. In the garden by the swimming pool there is a large china sow with china piglets; hideous.
‘Peter’ Carleton Jones was most interesting yesterday on the subject of finding tungsten-bearing ores which are very difficult to detect by eye through a new method of throwing onto them the light from certain special lamps; the tungsten ores show up bright violet. This has enabled the output of Rhodesian tungsten, much needed for armaments since the Japs got control of all the main tungsten-production areas, to be increased out of all knowledge. He mentioned as a strange fact that when he turned his quartz lamp (used for detecting forgeries on stamps) onto tungsten ores they showed up quite a different colour.
(handwritten addition at end of letter) Then I stopped and went down into the town (3/4 hour owing to waiting 20 minutes for a bus) to cash a cheque and lunch with Edward and Judy. Slackness has supervened and I therefore leave this as it is – perhaps reflections on the lunch will bubble up next week. I too think poorly of the typing
Much love
Dad
Airgraph from LJT to Grace Townend (addressed to Mrs A.B.S. Townend. Highways. Great Leighs. Nr. Chelsmsford. Essex. England)
No 19 Sept 30th 1943
Dearest Grace: we are enjoying ourselves so much at Jo’burg. The cousins are both nice & interesting. Life is most comfortable & they both like early nights, which suits H. so well. The journey from the Mountain Inn was quite comfortable. The veldt looked entirely different from what it did on our upward journey. Trees were covered with white blossom or young leaves, & in places there was a greenness on the ground as well. We had lunch with Ed & Judy Magill on Monday & spend Saturday afternoon with them. Poor Dot Bromley is recovering from a bad attack of flu. She was still in bed when I went to see her on Mon. I am going to have tea with her to-day. She wants news of all the family. I have done some sightseeing on my own & yesterday I spent the day at Pretoria with Edward Groth & the Pierneefs. H. thought it would be too long a day for him. I chose to go by bus, because I had not been by road, which is nine miles shorter & goes over the hills. It took 1 ¼ hours to do the 36 miles. Mrs Pierneef met me at 10.30 at Polly’s Hotel, where we had tea & talk. Then we went to see the flower-shop which she takes over to-night. At “Elangeni” Mr P. greeted us & I spent a happy half hour in his studio looking at the work he is doing from his sketches of his recent three weeks out on the veldt with the flowering trees. He has some lovely things in hand. Edward Groth had Dr & Mrs Colin Steyn, the Minister for Justice & his wife, for lunch, nice people & old friends of the Pierneefs too. It was nice to see Edward again. He is as busy as ever, & had to hurry back to the Legation as soon as the guests had gone. I stayed with the Pierneefs, & was delivered at the Legation by them at 5.15, because Edward had to drive over to Jo’burg to see someone & took me along. I was specially glad of this for it gave us a chance for a talk. There were heavy thunder storms rolling about & the light of the setting sun under the inky clouds, & the lights & shadows over the rolling landscape was beautiful. Cousin C-J has arranged for us to go over a mine-compound to-morrow morning. I am anxious to see how the native labour is housed in this country compared with India. C-J is a most interesting man, with any number of hobbies & a keen interest in Canadian & and in African history. It is a great pleasure to hear him talk. Various friends made at the different hotels we have visited, are having us out, & on Saturday we go for drinks & dinner to the other brother, Harvey & his wife, who live in the country outside Jo’burg. Vidie (Mrs C-J) takes a keen interest in H’s health & diet, and is giving him a wine-glass full of carrot-juice every day. He has been well here, though he arrived with a slight cold. The house is full of books of every sort & description. There is a lovely garden & sun porches to sit on sheltered from the wind, so he can laze about happily when he does not want to accompany me on my outings. An Air-graph from Susie Magill & one from Anne were waiting for us here, but otherwise only a few letters have come from India. Love to you all Joan (Mrs H.P.V. Townend)