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  • #7925
    Yurara FamelikiYurara Fameliki
    Participant

      Chico Ray

       

      Chico Ray

      Directly Stated Visual and Behavioral Details:

      • Introduces himself casually: “Name’s Chico,” with no clear past, suggesting a self-aware or recently-written character.

      • Chews betel leaves, staining his teeth red, which gives him a slightly unsettling or feral appearance.

      • Spits on the floor, even in a freshly cleaned café—suggesting poor manners, or possibly defiance.

      • Appears from behind a trumpet tree, implying he lurks or emerges unpredictably.

      • Fabricates plausible-sounding geo-political nonsense (e.g., the coffee restrictions in Rwanda), then second-guesses whether it was fiction or memory.

      Inferred Traits:

      • A sharp smile made more vivid by betel staining.

      • Likely wears earth-toned clothes, possibly tropical—evoking Southeast Asian or Central American flavors.

      • Comes off as a blend of rogue mystic and unreliable narrator, leaning toward surreal trickster.

      • Psychological ambiguity—he doubts his own origins, possibly a hallucination, dream being, or quantum hitchhiker.

      What Remains Unclear:

      • Precise age or background.

      • His affiliations or loyalties—he doesn’t seem clearly aligned with the Bandits or Lucid Dreamers, but hovers provocatively at the edges.

      #7700
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Elara — December 2021

        Taking a few steps back in order to see if the makeshift decorations were evenly spaced, Elara squinted as if to better see the overall effect, which was that of a lopsided bare branch with too few clove studded lemons. Nothing about it conjured up the spirit of Christmas, and she was surprised to find herself wishing she had tinsel, fat garlands of red and gold and green and silver tinsel, coloured fairy lights and those shiny baubles that would sever your toe clean off if you stepped on a broken one.

        It’s because I can’t go out and buy any, she told herself, I hate tinsel.

        It was Elara’s first Christmas in Tuscany, and the urge to have a Christmas tree had been unexpected. She hadn’t had a tree or decorated for Christmas for as long as she could remember, and although she enjoyed the social gathering with friends, she resented the forced gift exchange and disliked the very word festive.

        The purchase of the farmhouse and the move from Warwick had been difficult, with the pandemic in full swing but a summer gap in restrictions had provided a window for the maneuvre. Work on the house had been slow and sporadic, but the weather was such a pleasant change from Warwick, and the land extensive, so that Elara spent the first months outside.

        The solitude was welcome after the constant demands of her increasingly senile older sister and her motley brood of diverse offspring, and the constant dramas of the seemingly endless fruits of their loins. The fresh air, the warm sun on her skin, satisfying physical work in the garden and long walks was making her feel strong and able again, optimistic.

        England had become so depressing, eating away at itself in gloom and loathing, racist and americanised, the corner pubs all long since closed and still boarded up or flattened to make ring roads around unspeakably grim housing estates and empty shops,  populated with grey Lowry lives beetling around like stick figures, their days punctuated with domestic upsets both on their telly screens and in their kitchens.  Vanessa’s overabundant family and the lack of any redeeming features in any of them, and the uninspiring and uninspired students at the university had taken its toll, and Elara became despondent and discouraged, and thus, failed to see any hopeful signs.

        When the lockdown happened,  instead of staying in contact with video calls, she did the opposite, and broke off all contact, ignoring phone calls, messages and emails from Vanessa’s family. The almost instant tranquility of mind was like a miracle, and Elara wondered why it had never occurred to her to do it before. Feeling so much better, Elara extended the idea to include ignoring all phone calls and messages, regardless of who they were. She attended to those regarding the Tuscan property and the sale of her house in Warwick.

        The only personal messages she responded to during those first strange months of quarantine were from Florian. She had never met him in person, and the majority of their conversations were about shared genealogy research. The great thing about family ancestors, she’d once said to him, Is that they’re all dead and can’t argue about anything.

        Christmas of December, 2021, and what a year it had been, not just for Elara, but for everyone.  The isolation and solitude had worked well for her. She was where she wanted to be, and happy. She was alone, which is what she wanted.

        If only I had some tinsel though.

        #7638

        The Bell’s Moment: Paris, Summer 2024 – Olympic Games

        The bell was dangling unassumingly from the side pocket of a sports bag, its small brass frame swinging lightly with the jostle of the crowd. The bag belonged to an American tourist, a middle-aged man in a rumpled USA Basketball T-shirt, hustling through the Olympic complex with his family in tow. They were here to cheer for his niece, a rising star on the team, and the bell—a strange little heirloom from his grandmother—had been an afterthought, clipped to the bag for luck. It seemed to fit right in with the bright chaos of the Games, blending into the swirl of flags, chants, and the hum of summer excitement.

        1st Ring of the Bell: Matteo

        The vineyard was quiet except for the hum of cicadas and the soft rustle of leaves. Matteo leaned against the tractor, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

        “You’ve done good work,” the supervisor said, clapping Matteo on the shoulder. “We’ll be finishing this batch by Friday.”

        Matteo nodded. “And after that?”

        The older man shrugged. “Some go north, some go south. You? You’ve got that look—like you already know where you’re headed.”

        Matteo offered a half-smile, but he couldn’t deny it. He’d felt the tug for days, like a thread pulling him toward something undefined. The idea of returning to Paris had slipped into his thoughts quietly, as if it had been waiting for the right moment.

        When his phone buzzed later that evening with a job offer to do renovation work in Paris, it wasn’t a surprise. He poured himself a small glass of wine, toasting the stars overhead.

        Somewhere, miles away, the bell rang its first note.

        2nd Ring of the Bell: Darius

        In a shaded square in Barcelona, the air was thick with the scent of jasmine and the echo of a street performer’s flamenco guitar. Darius sprawled on a wrought-iron bench, his leather-bound journal open on his lap. He sketched absentmindedly, the lines of a temple taking shape on the page.

        A man wearing a scarf of brilliant orange sat down beside him, his energy magnetic. “You’re an artist,” the man said without preamble, his voice carrying the cadence of Kolkata.

        “Sometimes,” Darius replied, his pen still moving.

        “Then you should come to India,” the man said, grinning. “There’s art everywhere. In the streets, in the temples, even in the food.”

        Darius chuckled. “You recruiting me?”

        “India doesn’t need recruiters,” the man replied. “It calls people when it’s time.”

        The bell rang again in Paris, its chime faint and melodic, as Darius scribbled the words “India, autumn” in the corner of his page.

        3rd Ring of the Bell: Elara

        The crowd at CERN’s conference hall buzzed as physicists exchanged ideas, voices overlapping like equations scribbled on whiteboards. Elara sat at a corner table, sipping lukewarm coffee and scrolling through her messages.

        The voicemail notification glared at her, and she tapped it reluctantly.

        Elara, it’s Florian. I… I’m sorry to tell you this over a message, but your mother passed away last night.”

        Her coffee cup trembled slightly as she set it down.

        Her relationship with her mother had been fraught, full of alternating period of silences and angry reunions, and had settled lately into careful politeness that masked deeper fractures. Years of therapy had softened the edges of her resentment but hadn’t erased it. She had come to accept that they would never truly understand each other, but the finality of death still struck her with a peculiar weight.

        Her mother had been living alone in Montrouge, France, refusing to leave the little house Elara had begged her to sell for years. They had drifted apart, their conversations perfunctory and strained, like the ritual of winding a clock that no longer worked.

        She would have to travel to Montrouge for the funeral arrangements.

        In that moment, the bell in Les Reliques rang a third time.

        4th Ring of the Bell: Lucien

        The train to Lausanne glided through fields of dried up sunflowers, too early for the season, but the heat had been relentless. He could imagine the golden blooms swaying with a cracking sound in the summer breeze. Lucien stared out the window, the strap of his duffel bag wrapped tightly around his wrist.

        Paris had been suffocating. The tourists swarmed the city like ants, turning every café into a photo opportunity and every quiet street into a backdrop. He hadn’t needed much convincing to take his friend up on the offer of a temporary studio in Lausanne.

        He reached into his bag and pulled out a sketchbook. The pages were filled with half-finished drawings, but one in particular caught his eye: a simple doorway with an ornate bell hanging above it.

        He didn’t remember drawing it, but the image felt familiar, like a memory from a dream.

        The bell rang again in Paris, its resonance threading through the quiet hum of the train.

        5th Ring of the Bell: …. Tabitha

        In the courtyard of her university residence, Tabitha swung lazily in a hammock, her phone propped precariously on her chest.

        “Goa, huh?” one of her friends asked, leaning against the tree holding up the hammock. “Think your mum will freak out?”

        “She’ll probably worry herself into knots,” Tabitha replied, laughing. “But she won’t say no. She’s good at the whole supportive parent thing. Or at least pretending to be.”

        Her friend raised an eyebrow. “Pretending?”

        “Don’t get me wrong, I love her,” Tabitha said. “But she’s got her own stuff. You know, things she never really talks about. I think it’s why she works so much. Keeps her distracted.”

        The bell rang faintly in Paris, though neither of them could hear it.

        “Maybe you should tell her to come with you,” the friend suggested.

        Tabitha grinned. “Now that would be a trip.”

        Last Ring: The Pawn

        It was now sitting on the counter at Les Reliques. Its brass surface gleamed faintly in the dim shop light, polished by the waves of time. Small and unassuming, its ring held something inexplicably magnetic.

        Time seemed to settle heavily around it. In the heat of the Olympic summer, it rang six times. Each chime marked a moment that mattered, though none of the characters whose lives it touched understood why. Not yet.

        “Where’d you get this?” the shopkeeper asked as the American tourist placed it down.

        “It was my grandma’s,” he said, shrugging. “She said it was lucky. I just think it’s old.”

        The shopkeeper ran her fingers over the brass surface, her expression unreadable. “And you’re selling it?”

        “Need cash to get tickets for the USA basketball game tomorrow,” the man replied. “Quarterfinals. You follow basketball?”

        “Not anymore,” the shopkeeper murmured, handing him a stack of bills.

        The bell rang softly as she placed it on the velvet cloth, its sound settling into the space like a secret waiting to be uncovered.

        And so it sat, quiet but full of presence, waiting for someone to claim it maybe months later, drawn by invisible threads woven through the magnetic field of lives, indifferent to the heat and chaos of the Parisian streets.

        #7548
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Elton Marshall’s

          Early Quaker Emigrants to USA.

           

          The earliest Marshall in my tree is Charles Marshall (my 5x great grandfather), Overseer of the Poor and Churchwarden of Elton. His 1819 gravestone in Elton says he was 77 years old when he died, indicating a birth in 1742, however no baptism can be found.

          According to the Derbyshire records office, Elton was a chapelry of Youlgreave until 1866. The Youlgreave registers date back to the mid 1500s, and there are many Marshalls in the registers from 1559 onwards. The Elton registers however are incomplete due to fire damage.

          While doing a google books search for Marshall’s of Elton, I found many American family history books mentioning Abraham Marshall of Gratton born in 1667, who became a Quaker aged 16, and emigrated to Pennsylvania USA in 1700. Some of these books say that Abraham’s parents were Humphrey Marshall and his wife Hannah Turner. (Gratton is a tiny village next to Elton, also in Youlgreave parish.)

          Abraham’s son born in USA was also named Humphrey. He was a well known botanist.

          Abraham’s cousin John Marshall, also a Quaker, emigrated from Elton to USA in 1687, according to these books.

          (There are a number of books on Colonial Families in Pennsylvania that repeat each other so impossible to cite the original source)

          colonial books

           

          In the Youlgreave parish registers I found a baptism in 1667 for Humphrey Marshall son of Humphrey and Hannah. I didn’t find a baptism for Abraham, but it looks as though it could be correct. Abraham had a son he named Humphrey. But did it just look logical to whoever wrote the books, or do they know for sure? Did the famous botanist Humphrey Marshall have his own family records? The books don’t say where they got this information.

          An earlier Humphrey Marshall was baptised in Youlgreave in 1559, his father Edmund. And in 1591 another Humphrey Marshall was baptised, his father George.

          But can we connect these Marshall’s to ours? We do have an Abraham Marshall, grandson of Charles, born in 1792. The name isn’t all that common, so may indicate a family connection. The villages of Elton, Gratton and Youlgreave are all very small and it would seem very likely that the Marshall’s who went the USA are related to ours, if not brothers, then probably cousins.

           

          Derbyshire Quakers

          In “Derbyshire Quakers 1650-1761” by Helen Forde:

          “… Friends lived predominantly in the northern half of the country during this first century of existence. Numbers may have been reduced by emigration to America and migration to other parts of the country but were never high and declined in the early eighteenth century. Predominantly a middle to lower class group economically, Derbyshire Friends numbered very few wealthy members. Many were yeoman farmers or wholesalers and it was these groups who dominated the business meetings having time to devote themselves to the Society. Only John Gratton of Monyash combined an outstanding ministry together with an organising ability which brought him recognition amongst London Friends as well as locally. Derbyshire Friends enjoyed comparatively harmonious relations with civil and Anglican authorities, though prior to the Toleration Act of 1639 the priests were their worst persecutors…..”

          Also mentioned in this book: There were monthly meetings in Elton, as well as a number of other nearby places.
          John Marshall of Elton 1682/3 appears in a list of Quaker emigrants from Derbyshire.

          Quaker Emigrants

           

          The following image is a page from the 1753 book on the sufferings of Quakers by Joseph Besse as an example of some of the persecutions of Quakers in Derbyshire in the 1600s:

          A collection of the sufferings of the people called Quakers, for the testimony of a good conscience from the time of their being first distinguished by that name in the year 1650 to the time of the act commonly called the Act of toleration granted to Protestant dissenters in the first year of the reign of King William the Third and Queen Mary in the year 1689 (Volume 1)
          Besse, Joseph. 1753

          Note the names Margaret Marshall and Anne Staley.  This book would appear to contradict Helen Forde’s statement above about the harmonious relations with Anglican authority.

          Quaker Sufferings

           

           

          The Botanist

          Humphry Marshall 1722-1801 was born in Marshallton, Pennsylvania, the son of the immigrant from Elton, Abraham Marshall.  He was the cousin of botanists John Bartram and William Bartram. Like many early American botanists, he was a Quaker. He wrote his first book, A Few Observations Concerning Christ, in 1755.

          Humphry marshall book

           

          In 1785, Marshall published Arbustrum Americanum: The American Grove, an Alphabetical Catalogue of Forest Trees and Shrubs, Natives of the American United States (Philadelphia).

          Marshall has been called the “Father of American Dendrology”.

          A genus of plants, Marshallia, was named in honor of Humphry Marshall and his nephew Moses Marshall, also a botanist.

          In 1848 the Borough of West Chester established the Marshall Square Park in his honor. Marshall Square Park is four miles east of Marshallton.

          via Wikipedia.

           

          From The History of Chester County Pennsylvania, 1881, by J Smith Futhey and Gilbert Cope:

          Marshallton

           

          From The Chester Country History Center:

          “Immediately on the Receipt of your Letter, I ordered a Reflecting Telescope for you which was made accordingly. Dr. Fothergill had since desired me to add a Microscope and Thermometer, and will
          pay for the whole.’

          – Benjamin Franklin to Humphry, March 18, 1770

          “In his lifetime, Humphry Marshall made his living as a stonemason, farmer, and miller, but eventually became known for his contributions to astronomy, meteorology, agriculture, and the natural sciences.

          In 1773, Marshall built a stone house with a hothouse, a botanical laboratory, and an observatory for astronomical studies. He established an arboretum of native trees on the property and the second botanical garden in the nation (John Bartram, his cousin, had the first). From his home base, Humphry expanded his botanical plant exchange business and increased his overseas contacts. With the help of men like Benjamin Franklin and the English botanist Dr. John Fothergill, they eventually included German, Dutch, Swedish, and Irish plant collectors and scientists. Franklin, then living in London, introduced Marshall’s writings to the Royal Society in London and both men encouraged Marshall’s astronomical and botanical studies by supplying him with books and instruments including the latest telescope and microscope.

          Marshall’s scientific work earned him honorary memberships to the American Philosophical Society and the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture, where he shared his ground-breaking ideas on scientific farming methods. In the years before the American Revolution, Marshall’s correspondence was based on his extensive plant and seed exchanges, which led to further studies and publications. In 1785, he authored his magnum opus, Arbustum Americanum: The American Grove. It is a catalog of American trees and shrubs that followed the Linnaean system of plant classification and was the first publication of its kind.”

          Humphry signature

          #7380

          The second coming had been anticipated for many years, although few but the most fanatic of the American sects expected it to actually happen, and they, of course, expected it to happen in their own country.  Certainly, nobody expected him to be 30 meters high weighing over 600 tons.  Naturally people were sceptical but when he turned the Rodrigo de Freitas lake into wine,  even the most scientific minds were unable to find an explanation.

          “We had better get the hell out of town,” Frigella said, “Before anyone realizes it was our spell to reverse the effects of the termitation honey on Truella.”

          “Have I got time to go for a swim in the wine lake first,” asked Jezeel, “I mean, it would be such a shame to miss that once in a lifetime experience, and I’m sure it will do wonders for my complexion.”

          “You’re right, it would be a shame to miss it,” agreed Truella, “But are you sure the spell is stable, I don’t want to turn to stone again while I’m swimming.”

          “Well, I think we should leave town as soon as possible” Frigella said, her pale forehead wrinking into a little frown.

          “Look, Malove isn’t even up yet after stuffing herself with that smoked hippo last night,  if she wakes up before we get back she’ll just think we’ve gone out for coffee.  We’re supposed to be having a little holiday.  Anyway I put some sleeping pills in her portion, she won’t wake up until well after lunch.  We have plenty of time and it’s only two blocks from here. Oh come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

          “Well come on then” Eris said, “But let’s get going. Don’t start doing your makeup Jez, it will all come off in the wine anyway.”

          #6517

          In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

          After Youssef retrieved his luggage in Alice Springs, he was swarmed with freelance tour guides trying to sell him trips. You would buy a ticket out of any one of them just to get rid of the others, he thought. With a few hungry growls, he managed to frighten most of them, with a touch of indifference he lost the rest. Except one. A short Indian looking man wearing a red cap and a moustache. He seemed to have an infinite talkative energy at his disposal, able to erode the strongest wills. The temperature was hotter than Youssef had expected, here it was the end of summer, and he was hungry. The man started to get on his nerves.

          The list of tours was endless. Uluru, scenic bushwalking trails, beautiful gardens, a historical tour, a costumed historical tour, a few national parks, and even his cousins’ restaurant. He reminded Youssef of his own father, always offering guests (and especially his visiting kids) another fruit, a pastry, some coffee, chocolate ? You sure you don’t want any chocolate? If the man was tenacious, Youssef had had training with his father. But this man seemed to mistake silence and indifference for agreement. Did he really think Youssef was going to buy one of his tours ?

          “The ghost town! You have to see Arltunga, said the man. An old mining ghost town, certainly an American like you like ghost towns. And buried treasure. Arltunga has buried treasure somewhere. You can find it. I know where to find a map.”

          Youssef wondered if it was another one of the game’s fluke that his quest was apparently bleeding into his real life again. And if there was a map, why hasn’t the treasure been found already? He checked at the back of his mind for the presence of that crazy old lady. Nope, not there. He decided to refuse the call this time. He just wanted to get to that F…ing Fish Inn in Crowshollow and meet with his friends.

          “NO, he growled, frightening a group of tourists passing by, but not the tour operator. No ghost town! We have plenty in America.” Thinking of the game and his last challenge for the previous quest, he said in desperation : “I just want to find a red scarf!” and he knew inside himself and many years attempting to resist his old man, that the short Indian man had won.

          “If you want to find a red scarf, you go to Silk Road, said the man bobbing his head. My cousin’s shop, you find everything there only.”

          Youssef sighed. He thought there were only two ways to take it. The first one was that he had fallen into a trap and try to find a way to get out of it. But it might be sticky and uncomfortable for everyone. So he decided it was the other way around and that it was part of the game. Why wouldn’t he use this as an opportunity for adventure. Wasn’t that what Xavier always said about roads less traveled ?

          “Where is your cousin’s shop? he asked. And where’s that restaurant of your cousin’s? I’m starving.”

          The little man smiled broadly.

          “Same place. Two brothers. Shop next to restaurant in Todd Mall. You’re lucky! Follow me.”

          #6352
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            The Birmingham Bootmaker

            Samuel Jones 1816-1875

             

            Samuel Jones the elder was born in Belfast circa 1779.  He is one of just two direct ancestors found thus far born in Ireland.  Samuel married Jane Elizabeth Brooker (born in St Giles, London) on the 25th January 1807 at St George, Hanover Square in London.  Their first child Mary was born in 1808 in London, and then the family moved to Birmingham. Mary was my 3x great grandmother.

            But this chapter is about her brother Samuel Jones.  I noticed that on a number of other trees on the Ancestry site, Samuel Jones was a convict transported to Australia, but this didn’t tally with the records I’d found for Samuel in Birmingham.  In fact another Samuel Jones born at the same time in the same place was transported, but his occupation was a baker.  Our Samuel Jones was a bootmaker like his father.

            Samuel was born on 28th January 1816 in Birmingham and baptised at St Phillips on the 19th August of that year, the fourth child and first son of Samuel the elder and Jane’s eleven children.

            On the 1839 electoral register a Samuel Jones owned a property on Colmore Row, Birmingham.

            Samuel Jones, bootmaker of 15, Colmore Row is listed in the 1849 Birmingham post office directory, and in the 1855 White’s Directory.

            On the 1851 census, Samuel was an unmarried bootmaker employing sixteen men at 15, Colmore Row.  A 9 year old nephew Henry Harris was living with him, and his mother Ruth Harris, as well as a female servant.  Samuel’s sister Ruth was born in 1818 and married Henry Harris in 1840. Henry died in 1848.

            Samuel was a 45 year old bootmaker at 15 Colmore Row on the 1861 census, living with Maria Walcot, a 26 year old domestic servant.

            In October 1863 Samuel married Maria Walcot at St Philips in Birmingham.  They don’t appear to have had any children as none appear on the 1871 census, where Samuel and Maria are living at the same address, with another female servant and two male lodgers by the name of Messant from Ipswich.

            Marriage of Samuel Jones and Maria Walcot:

            1863 Samuel Jones

             

            In 1864 Samuel’s father died.  Samuel the son is mentioned in the probate records as one of the executors: “Samuel Jones of Colmore Row Birmingham in the county of Warwick boot and shoe manufacturer the son”.

            1864 Samuel Jones

             

            Indeed it could hardly be clearer that this Samuel Jones was not the convict transported to Australia in 1834!

             

            In 1867 Samuel Jones, bootmaker, was mentioned in the Birmingham Daily Gazette with regard to an unfortunate incident involving his American lodger, Cory McFarland.  The verdict was accidental death.

            Birmingham Daily Gazette – Friday 05 April 1867:

            Cory McFarland 1

             

            I asked a Birmingham history group for an old photo of Colmore Row. This photo is circa 1870 and number 15 is furthest from the camera.  The businesses on the street at the time were as follows:

            7 homeopathic chemist George John Morris. 8 surgeon dentist Frederick Sims. 9 Saul & Walter Samuel, Australian merchants. Surgeons occupied 10, pawnbroker John Aaron at 11 & 12. 15 boot & shoemaker. 17 auctioneer…

            Colmore Row 1870

             

            from Bird’s Eye View of Birmingham, 1886:

            Birmingham 1886

            #6350
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Transportation

              Isaac Stokes 1804-1877

               

              Isaac was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1804, and was the youngest brother of my 4X great grandfather Thomas Stokes. The Stokes family were stone masons for generations in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and Isaac’s occupation was a mason’s labourer in 1834 when he was sentenced at the Lent Assizes in Oxford to fourteen years transportation for stealing tools.

              Churchill where the Stokes stonemasons came from: on 31 July 1684 a fire destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. The village was rebuilt higher up the hill, with stone houses instead of the old timber-framed and thatched cottages. The fire was apparently caused by a baker who, to avoid chimney tax, had knocked through the wall from her oven to her neighbour’s chimney.

              Isaac stole a pick axe, the value of 2 shillings and the property of Thomas Joyner of Churchill; a kibbeaux and a trowel value 3 shillings the property of Thomas Symms; a hammer and axe value 5 shillings, property of John Keen of Sarsden.

              (The word kibbeaux seems to only exists in relation to Isaac Stokes sentence and whoever was the first to write it was perhaps being creative with the spelling of a kibbo, a miners or a metal bucket. This spelling is repeated in the criminal reports and the newspaper articles about Isaac, but nowhere else).

              In March 1834 the Removal of Convicts was announced in the Oxford University and City Herald: Isaac Stokes and several other prisoners were removed from the Oxford county gaol to the Justitia hulk at Woolwich “persuant to their sentences of transportation at our Lent Assizes”.

              via digitalpanopticon:

              Hulks were decommissioned (and often unseaworthy) ships that were moored in rivers and estuaries and refitted to become floating prisons. The outbreak of war in America in 1775 meant that it was no longer possible to transport British convicts there. Transportation as a form of punishment had started in the late seventeenth century, and following the Transportation Act of 1718, some 44,000 British convicts were sent to the American colonies. The end of this punishment presented a major problem for the authorities in London, since in the decade before 1775, two-thirds of convicts at the Old Bailey received a sentence of transportation – on average 283 convicts a year. As a result, London’s prisons quickly filled to overflowing with convicted prisoners who were sentenced to transportation but had no place to go.

              To increase London’s prison capacity, in 1776 Parliament passed the “Hulks Act” (16 Geo III, c.43). Although overseen by local justices of the peace, the hulks were to be directly managed and maintained by private contractors. The first contract to run a hulk was awarded to Duncan Campbell, a former transportation contractor. In August 1776, the Justicia, a former transportation ship moored in the River Thames, became the first prison hulk. This ship soon became full and Campbell quickly introduced a number of other hulks in London; by 1778 the fleet of hulks on the Thames held 510 prisoners.
              Demand was so great that new hulks were introduced across the country. There were hulks located at Deptford, Chatham, Woolwich, Gosport, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheerness and Cork.

              The Justitia via rmg collections:

              Justitia

              Convicts perform hard labour at the Woolwich Warren. The hulk on the river is the ‘Justitia’. Prisoners were kept on board such ships for months awaiting deportation to Australia. The ‘Justitia’ was a 260 ton prison hulk that had been originally moored in the Thames when the American War of Independence put a stop to the transportation of criminals to the former colonies. The ‘Justitia’ belonged to the shipowner Duncan Campbell, who was the Government contractor who organized the prison-hulk system at that time. Campbell was subsequently involved in the shipping of convicts to the penal colony at Botany Bay (in fact Port Jackson, later Sydney, just to the north) in New South Wales, the ‘first fleet’ going out in 1788.

               

              While searching for records for Isaac Stokes I discovered that another Isaac Stokes was transported to New South Wales in 1835 as well. The other one was a butcher born in 1809, sentenced in London for seven years, and he sailed on the Mary Ann. Our Isaac Stokes sailed on the Lady Nugent, arriving in NSW in April 1835, having set sail from England in December 1834.

              Lady Nugent was built at Bombay in 1813. She made four voyages under contract to the British East India Company (EIC). She then made two voyages transporting convicts to Australia, one to New South Wales and one to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). (via Wikipedia)

              via freesettlerorfelon website:

              On 20 November 1834, 100 male convicts were transferred to the Lady Nugent from the Justitia Hulk and 60 from the Ganymede Hulk at Woolwich, all in apparent good health. The Lady Nugent departed Sheerness on 4 December 1834.

              SURGEON OLIVER SPROULE

              Oliver Sproule kept a Medical Journal from 7 November 1834 to 27 April 1835. He recorded in his journal the weather conditions they experienced in the first two weeks:

              ‘In the course of the first week or ten days at sea, there were eight or nine on the sick list with catarrhal affections and one with dropsy which I attribute to the cold and wet we experienced during that period beating down channel. Indeed the foremost berths in the prison at this time were so wet from leaking in that part of the ship, that I was obliged to issue dry beds and bedding to a great many of the prisoners to preserve their health, but after crossing the Bay of Biscay the weather became fine and we got the damp beds and blankets dried, the leaks partially stopped and the prison well aired and ventilated which, I am happy to say soon manifested a favourable change in the health and appearance of the men.

              Besides the cases given in the journal I had a great many others to treat, some of them similar to those mentioned but the greater part consisted of boils, scalds, and contusions which would not only be too tedious to enter but I fear would be irksome to the reader. There were four births on board during the passage which did well, therefore I did not consider it necessary to give a detailed account of them in my journal the more especially as they were all favourable cases.

              Regularity and cleanliness in the prison, free ventilation and as far as possible dry decks turning all the prisoners up in fine weather as we were lucky enough to have two musicians amongst the convicts, dancing was tolerated every afternoon, strict attention to personal cleanliness and also to the cooking of their victuals with regular hours for their meals, were the only prophylactic means used on this occasion, which I found to answer my expectations to the utmost extent in as much as there was not a single case of contagious or infectious nature during the whole passage with the exception of a few cases of psora which soon yielded to the usual treatment. A few cases of scurvy however appeared on board at rather an early period which I can attribute to nothing else but the wet and hardships the prisoners endured during the first three or four weeks of the passage. I was prompt in my treatment of these cases and they got well, but before we arrived at Sydney I had about thirty others to treat.’

              The Lady Nugent arrived in Port Jackson on 9 April 1835 with 284 male prisoners. Two men had died at sea. The prisoners were landed on 27th April 1835 and marched to Hyde Park Barracks prior to being assigned. Ten were under the age of 14 years.

              The Lady Nugent:

              Lady Nugent

               

              Isaac’s distinguishing marks are noted on various criminal registers and record books:

              “Height in feet & inches: 5 4; Complexion: Ruddy; Hair: Light brown; Eyes: Hazel; Marks or Scars: Yes [including] DEVIL on lower left arm, TSIS back of left hand, WS lower right arm, MHDW back of right hand.”

              Another includes more detail about Isaac’s tattoos:

              “Two slight scars right side of mouth, 2 moles above right breast, figure of the devil and DEVIL and raised mole, lower left arm; anchor, seven dots half moon, TSIS and cross, back of left hand; a mallet, door post, A, mans bust, sun, WS, lower right arm; woman, MHDW and shut knife, back of right hand.”

               

              Lady Nugent record book

               

              From How tattoos became fashionable in Victorian England (2019 article in TheConversation by Robert Shoemaker and Zoe Alkar):

              “Historical tattooing was not restricted to sailors, soldiers and convicts, but was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England. Tattoos provide an important window into the lives of those who typically left no written records of their own. As a form of “history from below”, they give us a fleeting but intriguing understanding of the identities and emotions of ordinary people in the past.
              As a practice for which typically the only record is the body itself, few systematic records survive before the advent of photography. One exception to this is the written descriptions of tattoos (and even the occasional sketch) that were kept of institutionalised people forced to submit to the recording of information about their bodies as a means of identifying them. This particularly applies to three groups – criminal convicts, soldiers and sailors. Of these, the convict records are the most voluminous and systematic.
              Such records were first kept in large numbers for those who were transported to Australia from 1788 (since Australia was then an open prison) as the authorities needed some means of keeping track of them.”

              On the 1837 census Isaac was working for the government at Illiwarra, New South Wales. This record states that he arrived on the Lady Nugent in 1835. There are three other indent records for an Isaac Stokes in the following years, but the transcriptions don’t provide enough information to determine which Isaac Stokes it was. In April 1837 there was an abscondment, and an arrest/apprehension in May of that year, and in 1843 there was a record of convict indulgences.

              From the Australian government website regarding “convict indulgences”:

              “By the mid-1830s only six per cent of convicts were locked up. The vast majority worked for the government or free settlers and, with good behaviour, could earn a ticket of leave, conditional pardon or and even an absolute pardon. While under such orders convicts could earn their own living.”

               

              In 1856 in Camden, NSW, Isaac Stokes married Catherine Daly. With no further information on this record it would be impossible to know for sure if this was the right Isaac Stokes. This couple had six children, all in the Camden area, but none of the records provided enough information. No occupation or place or date of birth recorded for Isaac Stokes.

              I wrote to the National Library of Australia about the marriage record, and their reply was a surprise! Issac and Catherine were married on 30 September 1856, at the house of the Rev. Charles William Rigg, a Methodist minister, and it was recorded that Isaac was born in Edinburgh in 1821, to parents James Stokes and Sarah Ellis!  The age at the time of the marriage doesn’t match Isaac’s age at death in 1877, and clearly the place of birth and parents didn’t match either. Only his fathers occupation of stone mason was correct.  I wrote back to the helpful people at the library and they replied that the register was in a very poor condition and that only two and a half entries had survived at all, and that Isaac and Catherines marriage was recorded over two pages.

              I searched for an Isaac Stokes born in 1821 in Edinburgh on the Scotland government website (and on all the other genealogy records sites) and didn’t find it. In fact Stokes was a very uncommon name in Scotland at the time. I also searched Australian immigration and other records for another Isaac Stokes born in Scotland or born in 1821, and found nothing.  I was unable to find a single record to corroborate this mysterious other Isaac Stokes.

              As the age at death in 1877 was correct, I assume that either Isaac was lying, or that some mistake was made either on the register at the home of the Methodist minster, or a subsequent mistranscription or muddle on the remnants of the surviving register.  Therefore I remain convinced that the Camden stonemason Isaac Stokes was indeed our Isaac from Oxfordshire.

               

              I found a history society newsletter article that mentioned Isaac Stokes, stone mason, had built the Glenmore church, near Camden, in 1859.

              Glenmore Church

               

              From the Wollondilly museum April 2020 newsletter:

              Glenmore Church Stokes

               

              From the Camden History website:

              “The stone set over the porch of Glenmore Church gives the date of 1860. The church was begun in 1859 on land given by Joseph Moore. James Rogers of Picton was given the contract to build and local builder, Mr. Stokes, carried out the work. Elizabeth Moore, wife of Edward, laid the foundation stone. The first service was held on 19th March 1860. The cemetery alongside the church contains the headstones and memorials of the areas early pioneers.”

               

              Isaac died on the 3rd September 1877. The inquest report puts his place of death as Bagdelly, near to Camden, and another death register has put Cambelltown, also very close to Camden.  His age was recorded as 71 and the inquest report states his cause of death was “rupture of one of the large pulmonary vessels of the lung”.  His wife Catherine died in childbirth in 1870 at the age of 43.

               

              Isaac and Catherine’s children:

              William Stokes 1857-1928

              Catherine Stokes 1859-1846

              Sarah Josephine Stokes 1861-1931

              Ellen Stokes 1863-1932

              Rosanna Stokes 1865-1919

              Louisa Stokes 1868-1844.

               

              It’s possible that Catherine Daly was a transported convict from Ireland.

               

              Some time later I unexpectedly received a follow up email from The Oaks Heritage Centre in Australia.

              “The Gaudry papers which we have in our archive record him (Isaac Stokes) as having built: the church, the school and the teachers residence.  Isaac is recorded in the General return of convicts: 1837 and in Grevilles Post Office directory 1872 as a mason in Glenmore.”

              Isaac Stokes directory

              #6337
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Annie Elizabeth Stokes

                1871-1961

                “Grandma E”

                Annie Stokes

                 

                Annie, my great grandmother, was born 2 Jan 1871 in Merstow Green, Evesham, Worcestershire.  Her father Fred Stokes was a wheelwright.  On  the 1771 census in Merston Green Annie was 3 months old and there was quite a houseful: Annies parents Fred and Rebecca, Fred’s parents Thomas and Eliza and two of their daughters, three apprentices, a lodger and one of Thomas’s grandsons.

                1771 census Merstow Green, Evesham:

                1771 census

                 

                Annie at school in the early 1870s in Broadway. Annie is in the front on the left and her brother Fred is in the centre of the first seated row:

                Annie 1870s Broadway

                 

                In 1881 Annie was a 10 year old visitor at the Angel Inn, Chipping Camden. A boarder there was 19 year old William Halford, a wheelwright apprentice.  John Such, a 62 year old widower, was the innkeeper. Her parents and two siblings were living at La Quinta, on Main Street in Broadway.

                According to her obituary in 1962, “When the Maxton family visited Broadway to stay with Mr and Madame de Navarro at Court Farm, they offered Annie a family post with them which took her for several years to Paris and other parts of the continent.”

                Mary Anderson was an American theatre actress. In 1890 she married Antonio Fernando de Navarro. She became known as Mary Anderson de Navarro. They settled at Court Farm in the Cotswolds, Broadway, Worcestershire, where she cultivated an interest in music and became a noted hostess with a distinguished circle of musical, literary and ecclesiastical guests. As in the years when Mary lived there, it was often filled with visiting artists and musicians, including Myra Hess and a young Jacqueline du Pré. (via Wikipedia)

                Court Farm, Broadway:

                Court Farm Broadway

                 

                 

                Annie was an assistant to a tobacconist in West Bromwich in 1991, living as a boarder with William Calcutt and family.  He future husband Albert was living in neighbouring Tipton in 1891, working at a pawnbroker apprenticeship.

                Annie married Albert Parker Edwards in 1898 in Evesham. On the 1901 census, she was in hospital in Redditch.

                By 1911, Anne and Albert had five children and were living at the Cricketers Arms in Redditch.

                cricketers arms

                 

                Behind the bar in 1904 shortly after taking over at the Cricketers Arms. From a book on Redditch pubs:

                cricketers

                 

                Annie was referred to in later years as Grandma E, probably to differentiate between her and my fathers Grandma T, as both lived to a great age.

                Annie with her grandson Reg on the left and her daughter in law Peggy on the right, in the early 1950s:

                1950 Annie

                 

                Annie at my christening in 1959:

                1959 christening

                 

                Annie died 30 Dec 1961, aged 90, at Ravenscourt nursing home, Redditch. Her obituary in the Droitwich Guardian in January 1962:

                Annie obit

                Note that this obituary contains an obvious error: Annie’s father was Frederick Stokes, and Thomas was his father.

                #6269
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The Housley Letters 

                  From Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters.

                   

                  William Housley (1781-1848) and Ellen Carrington were married on May 30, 1814 at St. Oswald’s church in Ashbourne. William died in 1848 at the age of 67 of “disease of lungs and general debility”. Ellen died in 1872.

                  Marriage of William Housley and Ellen Carrington in Ashbourne in 1814:

                  William and Ellen Marriage

                   

                  Parish records show three children for William and his first wife, Mary, Ellens’ sister, who were married December 29, 1806: Mary Ann, christened in 1808 and mentioned frequently in the letters; Elizabeth, christened in 1810, but never mentioned in any letters; and William, born in 1812, probably referred to as Will in the letters. Mary died in 1813.

                  William and Ellen had ten children: John, Samuel, Edward, Anne, Charles, George, Joseph, Robert, Emma, and Joseph. The first Joseph died at the age of four, and the last son was also named Joseph. Anne never married, Charles emigrated to Australia in 1851, and George to USA, also in 1851. The letters are to George, from his sisters and brothers in England.

                  The following are excerpts of those letters, including excerpts of Barbara Housley’s “Narrative on Historic Letters”. They are grouped according to who they refer to, rather than chronological order.

                   

                  ELLEN HOUSLEY 1795-1872

                  Joseph wrote that when Emma was married, Ellen “broke up the comfortable home and the things went to Derby and she went to live with them but Derby didn’t agree with her so she left again leaving her things behind and came to live with John in the new house where she died.” Ellen was listed with John’s household in the 1871 census.
                  In May 1872, the Ilkeston Pioneer carried this notice: “Mr. Hopkins will sell by auction on Saturday next the eleventh of May 1872 the whole of the useful furniture, sewing machine, etc. nearly new on the premises of the late Mrs. Housley at Smalley near Heanor in the county of Derby. Sale at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

                  Ellen’s family was evidently rather prominant in Smalley. Two Carringtons (John and William) served on the Parish Council in 1794. Parish records are full of Carrington marriages and christenings; census records confirm many of the family groupings.

                  In June of 1856, Emma wrote: “Mother looks as well as ever and was told by a lady the other day that she looked handsome.” Later she wrote: “Mother is as stout as ever although she sometimes complains of not being able to do as she used to.”

                   

                  Mary’s children:

                  MARY ANN HOUSLEY  1808-1878

                  There were hard feelings between Mary Ann and Ellen and her children. Anne wrote: “If you remember we were not very friendly when you left. They never came and nothing was too bad for Mary Ann to say of Mother and me, but when Robert died Mother sent for her to the funeral but she did not think well to come so we took no more notice. She would not allow her children to come either.”

                  Mary Ann was unlucky in love! In Anne’s second letter she wrote: “William Carrington is paying Mary Ann great attention. He is living in London but they write to each other….We expect it will be a match.” Apparantly the courtship was stormy for in 1855, Emma wrote: “Mary Ann’s wedding with William Carrington has dropped through after she had prepared everything, dresses and all for the occassion.” Then in 1856, Emma wrote: “William Carrington and Mary Ann are separated. They wore him out with their nonsense.” Whether they ever married is unclear. Joseph wrote in 1872: “Mary Ann was married but her husband has left her. She is in very poor health. She has one daughter and they are living with their mother at Smalley.”

                  Regarding William Carrington, Emma supplied this bit of news: “His sister, Mrs. Lily, has eloped with a married man. Is she not a nice person!”

                   

                  WILLIAM HOUSLEY JR. 1812-1890

                  According to a letter from Anne, Will’s two sons and daughter were sent to learn dancing so they would be “fit for any society.” Will’s wife was Dorothy Palfry. They were married in Denby on October 20, 1836 when Will was 24. According to the 1851 census, Will and Dorothy had three sons: Alfred 14, Edwin 12, and William 10. All three boys were born in Denby.

                  In his letter of May 30, 1872, after just bemoaning that all of his brothers and sisters are gone except Sam and John, Joseph added: “Will is living still.” In another 1872 letter Joseph wrote, “Will is living at Heanor yet and carrying on his cattle dealing.” The 1871 census listed Will, 59, and his son William, 30, of Lascoe Road, Heanor, as cattle dealers.

                   

                  Ellen’s children:

                  JOHN HOUSLEY  1815-1893

                  John married Sarah Baggally in Morely in 1838. They had at least six children. Elizabeth (born 2 May 1838) was “out service” in 1854. In her “third year out,” Elizabeth was described by Anne as “a very nice steady girl but quite a woman in appearance.” One of her positions was with a Mrs. Frearson in Heanor. Emma wrote in 1856: “Elizabeth is still at Mrs. Frearson. She is such a fine stout girl you would not know her.” Joseph wrote in 1872 that Elizabeth was in service with Mrs. Eliza Sitwell at Derby. (About 1850, Miss Eliza Wilmot-Sitwell provided for a small porch with a handsome Norman doorway at the west end of the St. John the Baptist parish church in Smalley.)

                  According to Elizabeth’s birth certificate and the 1841 census, John was a butcher. By 1851, the household included a nurse and a servant, and John was listed as a “victular.” Anne wrote in February 1854, “John has left the Public House a year and a half ago. He is living where Plumbs (Ann Plumb witnessed William’s death certificate with her mark) did and Thomas Allen has the land. He has been working at James Eley’s all winter.” In 1861, Ellen lived with John and Sarah and the three boys.

                  John sold his share in the inheritance from their mother and disappeared after her death. (He died in Doncaster, Yorkshire, in 1893.) At that time Charles, the youngest would have been 21. Indeed, Joseph wrote in July 1872: “John’s children are all grown up”.

                  In May 1872, Joseph wrote: “For what do you think, John has sold his share and he has acted very bad since his wife died and at the same time he sold all his furniture. You may guess I have never seen him but once since poor mother’s funeral and he is gone now no one knows where.”

                  In February 1874 Joseph wrote: “You want to know what made John go away. Well, I will give you one reason. I think I told you that when his wife died he persuaded me to leave Derby and come to live with him. Well so we did and dear Harriet to keep his house. Well he insulted my wife and offered things to her that was not proper and my dear wife had the power to resist his unmanly conduct. I did not think he could of served me such a dirty trick so that is one thing dear brother. He could not look me in the face when we met. Then after we left him he got a woman in the house and I suppose they lived as man and wife. She caught the small pox and died and there he was by himself like some wild man. Well dear brother I could not go to him again after he had served me and mine as he had and I believe he was greatly in debt too so that he sold his share out of the property and when he received the money at Belper he went away and has never been seen by any of us since but I have heard of him being at Sheffield enquiring for Sam Caldwell. You will remember him. He worked in the Nag’s Head yard but I have heard nothing no more of him.”

                  A mention of a John Housley of Heanor in the Nottinghma Journal 1875.  I don’t know for sure if the John mentioned here is the brother John who Joseph describes above as behaving improperly to his wife. John Housley had a son Joseph, born in 1840, and John’s wife Sarah died in 1870.

                  John Housley

                   

                  In 1876, the solicitor wrote to George: “Have you heard of John Housley? He is entitled to Robert’s share and I want him to claim it.”

                   

                  SAMUEL HOUSLEY 1816-

                  Sam married Elizabeth Brookes of Sutton Coldfield, and they had three daughters: Elizabeth, Mary Anne and Catherine.  Elizabeth his wife died in 1849, a few months after Samuel’s father William died in 1848. The particular circumstances relating to these individuals have been discussed in previous chapters; the following are letter excerpts relating to them.

                  Death of William Housley 15 Dec 1848, and Elizabeth Housley 5 April 1849, Smalley:

                  Housley Deaths

                   

                  Joseph wrote in December 1872: “I saw one of Sam’s daughters, the youngest Kate, you would remember her a baby I dare say. She is very comfortably married.”

                  In the same letter (December 15, 1872), Joseph wrote:  “I think we have now found all out now that is concerned in the matter for there was only Sam that we did not know his whereabouts but I was informed a week ago that he is dead–died about three years ago in Birmingham Union. Poor Sam. He ought to have come to a better end than that….His daughter and her husband went to Brimingham and also to Sutton Coldfield that is where he married his wife from and found out his wife’s brother. It appears he has been there and at Birmingham ever since he went away but ever fond of drink.”

                  (Sam, however, was still alive in 1871, living as a lodger at the George and Dragon Inn, Henley in Arden. And no trace of Sam has been found since. It would appear that Sam did not want to be found.)

                   

                  EDWARD HOUSLEY 1819-1843

                  Edward died before George left for USA in 1851, and as such there is no mention of him in the letters.

                   

                  ANNE HOUSLEY 1821-1856

                  Anne wrote two letters to her brother George between February 1854 and her death in 1856. Apparently she suffered from a lung disease for she wrote: “I can say you will be surprised I am still living and better but still cough and spit a deal. Can do nothing but sit and sew.” According to the 1851 census, Anne, then 29, was a seamstress. Their friend, Mrs. Davy, wrote in March 1856: “This I send in a box to my Brother….The pincushion cover and pen wiper are Anne’s work–are for thy wife. She would have made it up had she been able.” Anne was not living at home at the time of the 1841 census. She would have been 19 or 20 and perhaps was “out service.”

                  In her second letter Anne wrote: “It is a great trouble now for me to write…as the body weakens so does the mind often. I have been very weak all summer. That I continue is a wonder to all and to spit so much although much better than when you left home.” She also wrote: “You know I had a desire for America years ago. Were I in health and strength, it would be the land of my adoption.”

                  In November 1855, Emma wrote, “Anne has been very ill all summer and has not been able to write or do anything.” Their neighbor Mrs. Davy wrote on March 21, 1856: “I fear Anne will not be long without a change.” In a black-edged letter the following June, Emma wrote: “I need not tell you how happy she was and how calmly and peacefully she died. She only kept in bed two days.”

                  Certainly Anne was a woman of deep faith and strong religious convictions. When she wrote that they were hoping to hear of Charles’ success on the gold fields she added: “But I would rather hear of him having sought and found the Pearl of great price than all the gold Australia can produce, (For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?).” Then she asked George: “I should like to learn how it was you were first led to seek pardon and a savior. I do feel truly rejoiced to hear you have been led to seek and find this Pearl through the workings of the Holy Spirit and I do pray that He who has begun this good work in each of us may fulfill it and carry it on even unto the end and I can never doubt the willingness of Jesus who laid down his life for us. He who said whoever that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”

                  Anne’s will was probated October 14, 1856. Mr. William Davy of Kidsley Park appeared for the family. Her estate was valued at under £20. Emma was to receive fancy needlework, a four post bedstead, feather bed and bedding, a mahogany chest of drawers, plates, linen and china. Emma was also to receive Anne’s writing desk. There was a condition that Ellen would have use of these items until her death.

                  The money that Anne was to receive from her grandfather, William Carrington, and her father, William Housley was to be distributed one third to Joseph, one third to Emma, and one third to be divided between her four neices: John’s daughter Elizabeth, 18, and Sam’s daughters Elizabeth, 10, Mary Ann, 9 and Catharine, age 7 to be paid by the trustees as they think “most useful and proper.” Emma Lyon and Elizabeth Davy were the witnesses.

                  The Carrington Farm:

                  Carringtons Farm

                   

                  CHARLES HOUSLEY 1823-1855

                  Charles went to Australia in 1851, and was last heard from in January 1853. According to the solicitor, who wrote to George on June 3, 1874, Charles had received advances on the settlement of their parent’s estate. “Your promissory note with the two signed by your brother Charles for 20 pounds he received from his father and 20 pounds he received from his mother are now in the possession of the court.”

                  Charles and George were probably quite close friends. Anne wrote in 1854: “Charles inquired very particularly in both his letters after you.”

                  According to Anne, Charles and a friend married two sisters. He and his father-in-law had a farm where they had 130 cows and 60 pigs. Whatever the trade he learned in England, he never worked at it once he reached Australia. While it does not seem that Charles went to Australia because gold had been discovered there, he was soon caught up in “gold fever”. Anne wrote: “I dare say you have heard of the immense gold fields of Australia discovered about the time he went. Thousands have since then emigrated to Australia, both high and low. Such accounts we heard in the papers of people amassing fortunes we could not believe. I asked him when I wrote if it was true. He said this was no exaggeration for people were making their fortune daily and he intended going to the diggings in six weeks for he could stay away no longer so that we are hoping to hear of his success if he is alive.”

                  In March 1856, Mrs. Davy wrote: “I am sorry to tell thee they have had a letter from Charles’s wife giving account of Charles’s death of 6 months consumption at the Victoria diggings. He has left 2 children a boy and a girl William and Ellen.” In June of the same year in a black edged letter, Emma wrote: “I think Mrs. Davy mentioned Charles’s death in her note. His wife wrote to us. They have two children Helen and William. Poor dear little things. How much I should like to see them all. She writes very affectionately.”

                  In December 1872, Joseph wrote: “I’m told that Charles two daughters has wrote to Smalley post office making inquiries about his share….” In January 1876, the solicitor wrote: “Charles Housley’s children have claimed their father’s share.”

                   

                  GEORGE HOUSLEY 1824-1877

                  George emigrated to the United states in 1851, arriving in July. The solicitor Abraham John Flint referred in a letter to a 15-pound advance which was made to George on June 9, 1851. This certainly was connected to his journey. George settled along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The letters from the solicitor were addressed to: Lahaska Post Office, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

                  George married Sarah Ann Hill on May 6, 1854 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In her first letter (February 1854), Anne wrote: “We want to know who and what is this Miss Hill you name in your letter. What age is she? Send us all the particulars but I would advise you not to get married until you have sufficient to make a comfortable home.”

                  Upon learning of George’s marriage, Anne wrote: “I hope dear brother you may be happy with your wife….I hope you will be as a son to her parents. Mother unites with me in kind love to you both and to your father and mother with best wishes for your health and happiness.” In 1872 (December) Joseph wrote: “I am sorry to hear that sister’s father is so ill. It is what we must all come to some time and hope we shall meet where there is no more trouble.”

                  Emma wrote in 1855, “We write in love to your wife and yourself and you must write soon and tell us whether there is a little nephew or niece and what you call them.” In June of 1856, Emma wrote: “We want to see dear Sarah Ann and the dear little boy. We were much pleased with the “bit of news” you sent.” The bit of news was the birth of John Eley Housley, January 11, 1855. Emma concluded her letter “Give our very kindest love to dear sister and dearest Johnnie.”

                  In September 1872, Joseph wrote, “I was very sorry to hear that John your oldest had met with such a sad accident but I hope he is got alright again by this time.” In the same letter, Joseph asked: “Now I want to know what sort of a town you are living in or village. How far is it from New York? Now send me all particulars if you please.”

                  In March 1873 Harriet asked Sarah Ann: “And will you please send me all the news at the place and what it is like for it seems to me that it is a wild place but you must tell me what it is like….”.  The question of whether she was referring to Bucks County, Pennsylvania or some other place is raised in Joseph’s letter of the same week.
                  On March 17, 1873, Joseph wrote: “I was surprised to hear that you had gone so far away west. Now dear brother what ever are you doing there so far away from home and family–looking out for something better I suppose.”

                  The solicitor wrote on May 23, 1874: “Lately I have not written because I was not certain of your address and because I doubted I had much interesting news to tell you.” Later, Joseph wrote concerning the problems settling the estate, “You see dear brother there is only me here on our side and I cannot do much. I wish you were here to help me a bit and if you think of going for another summer trip this turn you might as well run over here.”

                  Apparently, George had indicated he might return to England for a visit in 1856. Emma wrote concerning the portrait of their mother which had been sent to George: “I hope you like mother’s portrait. I did not see it but I suppose it was not quite perfect about the eyes….Joseph and I intend having ours taken for you when you come over….Do come over before very long.”

                  In March 1873, Joseph wrote: “You ask me what I think of you coming to England. I think as you have given the trustee power to sign for you I think you could do no good but I should like to see you once again for all that. I can’t say whether there would be anything amiss if you did come as you say it would be throwing good money after bad.”

                  On June 10, 1875, the solicitor wrote: “I have been expecting to hear from you for some time past. Please let me hear what you are doing and where you are living and how I must send you your money.” George’s big news at that time was that on May 3, 1875, he had become a naturalized citizen “renouncing and abjuring all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state and sovereignity whatsoever, and particularly to Victoria Queen of Great Britain of whom he was before a subject.”

                   

                  ROBERT HOUSLEY 1832-1851

                  In 1854, Anne wrote: “Poor Robert. He died in August after you left he broke a blood vessel in the lung.”
                  From Joseph’s first letter we learn that Robert was 19 when he died: “Dear brother there have been a great many changes in the family since you left us. All is gone except myself and John and Sam–we have heard nothing of him since he left. Robert died first when he was 19 years of age. Then Anne and Charles too died in Australia and then a number of years elapsed before anyone else. Then John lost his wife, then Emma, and last poor dear mother died last January on the 11th.”

                  Anne described Robert’s death in this way: “He had thrown up blood many times before in the spring but the last attack weakened him that he only lived a fortnight after. He died at Derby. Mother was with him. Although he suffered much he never uttered a murmur or regret and always a smile on his face for everyone that saw him. He will be regretted by all that knew him”.

                  Robert died a resident of St. Peter’s Parish, Derby, but was buried in Smalley on August 16, 1851.
                  Apparently Robert was apprenticed to be a joiner for, according to Anne, Joseph took his place: “Joseph wanted to be a joiner. We thought we could do no better than let him take Robert’s place which he did the October after and is there still.”

                  In 1876, the solicitor wrote to George: “Have you heard of John Housley? He is entitled to Robert’s share and I want him to claim it.”

                   

                  EMMA HOUSLEY 1836-1871

                  Emma was not mentioned in Anne’s first letter. In the second, Anne wrote that Emma was living at Spondon with two ladies in her “third situation,” and added, “She is grown a bouncing woman.” Anne described her sister well. Emma wrote in her first letter (November 12, 1855): “I must tell you that I am just 21 and we had my pudding last Sunday. I wish I could send you a piece.”

                  From Emma’s letters we learn that she was living in Derby from May until November 1855 with Mr. Haywood, an iron merchant. She explained, “He has failed and I have been obliged to leave,” adding, “I expect going to a new situation very soon. It is at Belper.” In 1851 records, William Haywood, age 22, was listed as an iron foundry worker. In the 1857 Derby Directory, James and George were listed as iron and brass founders and ironmongers with an address at 9 Market Place, Derby.

                  In June 1856, Emma wrote from “The Cedars, Ashbourne Road” where she was working for Mr. Handysides.
                  While she was working for Mr. Handysides, Emma wrote: “Mother is thinking of coming to live at Derby. That will be nice for Joseph and I.”

                  Friargate and Ashbourne Road were located in St. Werburgh’s Parish. (In fact, St. Werburgh’s vicarage was at 185 Surrey Street. This clue led to the discovery of the record of Emma’s marriage on May 6, 1858, to Edwin Welch Harvey, son of Samuel Harvey in St. Werburgh’s.)

                  In 1872, Joseph wrote: “Our sister Emma, she died at Derby at her own home for she was married. She has left two young children behind. The husband was the son of the man that I went apprentice to and has caused a great deal of trouble to our family and I believe hastened poor Mother’s death….”.   Joseph added that he believed Emma’s “complaint” was consumption and that she was sick a good bit. Joseph wrote: “Mother was living with John when I came home (from Ascension Island around 1867? or to Smalley from Derby around 1870?) for when Emma was married she broke up the comfortable home and the things went to Derby and she went to live with them but Derby did not agree with her so she had to leave it again but left all her things there.”

                  Emma Housley and Edwin Welch Harvey wedding, 1858:

                  Emma Housley wedding

                   

                  JOSEPH HOUSLEY 1838-1893

                  We first hear of Joseph in a letter from Anne to George in 1854. “Joseph wanted to be a joiner. We thought we could do no better than let him take Robert’s place which he did the October after (probably 1851) and is there still. He is grown as tall as you I think quite a man.” Emma concurred in her first letter: “He is quite a man in his appearance and quite as tall as you.”

                  From Emma we learn in 1855: “Joseph has left Mr. Harvey. He had not work to employ him. So mother thought he had better leave his indenture and be at liberty at once than wait for Harvey to be a bankrupt. He has got a very good place of work now and is very steady.” In June of 1856, Emma wrote “Joseph and I intend to have our portraits taken for you when you come over….Mother is thinking of coming to Derby. That will be nice for Joseph and I. Joseph is very hearty I am happy to say.”

                  According to Joseph’s letters, he was married to Harriet Ballard. Joseph described their miraculous reunion in this way: “I must tell you that I have been abroad myself to the Island of Ascension. (Elsewhere he wrote that he was on the island when the American civil war broke out). I went as a Royal Marine and worked at my trade and saved a bit of money–enough to buy my discharge and enough to get married with but while I was out on the island who should I meet with there but my dear wife’s sister. (On two occasions Joseph and Harriet sent George the name and address of Harriet’s sister, Mrs. Brooks, in Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania, but it is not clear whether this was the same sister.) She was lady’s maid to the captain’s wife. Though I had never seen her before we got to know each other somehow so from that me and my wife recommenced our correspondence and you may be sure I wanted to get home to her. But as soon as I did get home that is to England I was not long before I was married and I have not regretted yet for we are very comfortable as well as circumstances will allow for I am only a journeyman joiner.”

                  Proudly, Joseph wrote: “My little family consists of three nice children–John, Joseph and Susy Annie.” On her birth certificate, Susy Ann’s birthdate is listed as 1871. Parish records list a Lucy Annie christened in 1873. The boys were born in Derby, John in 1868 and Joseph in 1869. In his second letter, Joseph repeated: “I have got three nice children, a good wife and I often think is more than I have deserved.” On August 6, 1873, Joseph and Harriet wrote: “We both thank you dear sister for the pieces of money you sent for the children. I don’t know as I have ever see any before.” Joseph ended another letter: “Now I must close with our kindest love to you all and kisses from the children.”

                  In Harriet’s letter to Sarah Ann (March 19, 1873), she promised: “I will send you myself and as soon as the weather gets warm as I can take the children to Derby, I will have them taken and send them, but it is too cold yet for we have had a very cold winter and a great deal of rain.” At this time, the children were all under 6 and the baby was not yet two.

                  In March 1873 Joseph wrote: “I have been working down at Heanor gate there is a joiner shop there where Kings used to live I have been working there this winter and part of last summer but the wages is very low but it is near home that is one comfort.” (Heanor Gate is about 1/4 mile from Kidsley Grange. There was a school and industrial park there in 1988.) At this time Joseph and his family were living in “the big house–in Old Betty Hanson’s house.” The address in the 1871 census was Smalley Lane.

                  A glimpse into Joseph’s personality is revealed by this remark to George in an 1872 letter: “Many thanks for your portrait and will send ours when we can get them taken for I never had but one taken and that was in my old clothes and dear Harriet is not willing to part with that. I tell her she ought to be satisfied with the original.”

                  On one occasion Joseph and Harriet both sent seeds. (Marks are still visible on the paper.) Joseph sent “the best cow cabbage seed in the country–Robinson Champion,” and Harriet sent red cabbage–Shaw’s Improved Red. Possibly cow cabbage was also known as ox cabbage: “I hope you will have some good cabbages for the Ox cabbage takes all the prizes here. I suppose you will be taking the prizes out there with them.” Joseph wrote that he would put the name of the seeds by each “but I should think that will not matter. You will tell the difference when they come up.”

                  George apparently would have liked Joseph to come to him as early as 1854. Anne wrote: “As to his coming to you that must be left for the present.” In 1872, Joseph wrote: “I have been thinking of making a move from here for some time before I heard from you for it is living from hand to mouth and never certain of a job long either.” Joseph then made plans to come to the United States in the spring of 1873. “For I intend all being well leaving England in the spring. Many thanks for your kind offer but I hope we shall be able to get a comfortable place before we have been out long.” Joseph promised to bring some things George wanted and asked: “What sort of things would be the best to bring out there for I don’t want to bring a lot that is useless.” Joseph’s plans are confirmed in a letter from the solicitor May 23, 1874: “I trust you are prospering and in good health. Joseph seems desirous of coming out to you when this is settled.”

                  George must have been reminiscing about gooseberries (Heanor has an annual gooseberry show–one was held July 28, 1872) and Joseph promised to bring cuttings when they came: “Dear Brother, I could not get the gooseberries for they was all gathered when I received your letter but we shall be able to get some seed out the first chance and I shall try to bring some cuttings out along.” In the same letter that he sent the cabbage seeds Joseph wrote: “I have got some gooseberries drying this year for you. They are very fine ones but I have only four as yet but I was promised some more when they were ripe.” In another letter Joseph sent gooseberry seeds and wrote their names: Victoria, Gharibaldi and Globe.

                  In September 1872 Joseph wrote; “My wife is anxious to come. I hope it will suit her health for she is not over strong.” Elsewhere Joseph wrote that Harriet was “middling sometimes. She is subject to sick headaches. It knocks her up completely when they come on.” In December 1872 Joseph wrote, “Now dear brother about us coming to America you know we shall have to wait until this affair is settled and if it is not settled and thrown into Chancery I’m afraid we shall have to stay in England for I shall never be able to save money enough to bring me out and my family but I hope of better things.”

                  On July 19, 1875 Abraham Flint (the solicitor) wrote: “Joseph Housley has removed from Smalley and is working on some new foundry buildings at Little Chester near Derby. He lives at a village called Little Eaton near Derby. If you address your letter to him as Joseph Housley, carpenter, Little Eaton near Derby that will no doubt find him.”

                  George did not save any letters from Joseph after 1874, hopefully he did reach him at Little Eaton. Joseph and his family are not listed in either Little Eaton or Derby on the 1881 census.

                  In his last letter (February 11, 1874), Joseph sounded very discouraged and wrote that Harriet’s parents were very poorly and both had been “in bed for a long time.” In addition, Harriet and the children had been ill.
                  The move to Little Eaton may indicate that Joseph received his settlement because in August, 1873, he wrote: “I think this is bad news enough and bad luck too, but I have had little else since I came to live at Kiddsley cottages but perhaps it is all for the best if one could only think so. I have begun to think there will be no chance for us coming over to you for I am afraid there will not be so much left as will bring us out without it is settled very shortly but I don’t intend leaving this house until it is settled either one way or the other. “

                  Joseph Housley and the Kiddsley cottages:

                  Joseph Housley

                  #6268
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    From Tanganyika with Love

                    continued part 9

                    With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                    Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

                    Dearest Family.

                    We had a novel Christmas this year. We decided to avoid the expense of
                    entertaining and being entertained at Lyamungu, and went off to spend Christmas
                    camping in a forest on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. George decided to combine
                    business with pleasure and in this way we were able to use Government transport.
                    We set out the day before Christmas day and drove along the road which skirts
                    the slopes of Kilimanjaro and first visited a beautiful farm where Philip Teare, the ex
                    Game Warden, and his wife Mary are staying. We had afternoon tea with them and then
                    drove on in to the natural forest above the estate and pitched our tent beside a small
                    clear mountain stream. We decorated the tent with paper streamers and a few small
                    balloons and John found a small tree of the traditional shape which we decorated where
                    it stood with tinsel and small ornaments.

                    We put our beer, cool drinks for the children and bottles of fresh milk from Simba
                    Estate, in the stream and on Christmas morning they were as cold as if they had been in
                    the refrigerator all night. There were not many presents for the children, there never are,
                    but they do not seem to mind and are well satisfied with a couple of balloons apiece,
                    sweets, tin whistles and a book each.

                    George entertain the children before breakfast. He can make a magical thing out
                    of the most ordinary balloon. The children watched entranced as he drew on his pipe
                    and then blew the smoke into the balloon. He then pinched the neck of the balloon
                    between thumb and forefinger and released the smoke in little puffs. Occasionally the
                    balloon ejected a perfect smoke ring and the forest rang with shouts of “Do it again
                    Daddy.” Another trick was to blow up the balloon to maximum size and then twist the
                    neck tightly before releasing. Before subsiding the balloon darted about in a crazy
                    fashion causing great hilarity. Such fun, at the cost of a few pence.

                    After breakfast George went off to fish for trout. John and Jim decided that they
                    also wished to fish so we made rods out of sticks and string and bent pins and they
                    fished happily, but of course quite unsuccessfully, for hours. Both of course fell into the
                    stream and got soaked, but I was prepared for this, and the little stream was so shallow
                    that they could not come to any harm. Henry played happily in the sand and I had a
                    most peaceful morning.

                    Hamisi roasted a chicken in a pot over the camp fire and the jelly set beautifully in the
                    stream. So we had grilled trout and chicken for our Christmas dinner. I had of course
                    taken an iced cake for the occasion and, all in all, it was a very successful Christmas day.
                    On Boxing day we drove down to the plains where George was to investigate a
                    report of game poaching near the Ngassari Furrow. This is a very long ditch which has
                    been dug by the Government for watering the Masai stock in the area. It is also used by
                    game and we saw herds of zebra and wildebeest, and some Grant’s Gazelle and
                    giraffe, all comparatively tame. At one point a small herd of zebra raced beside the lorry
                    apparently enjoying the fun of a gallop. They were all sleek and fat and looked wild and
                    beautiful in action.

                    We camped a considerable distance from the water but this precaution did not
                    save us from the mosquitoes which launched a vicious attack on us after sunset, so that
                    we took to our beds unusually early. They were on the job again when we got up at
                    sunrise so I was very glad when we were once more on our way home.

                    “I like Christmas safari. Much nicer that silly old party,” said John. I agree but I think
                    it is time that our children learned to play happily with others. There are no other young
                    children at Lyamungu though there are two older boys and a girl who go to boarding
                    school in Nairobi.

                    On New Years Day two Army Officers from the military camp at Moshi, came for
                    tea and to talk game hunting with George. I think they rather enjoy visiting a home and
                    seeing children and pets around.

                    Eleanor.

                    Lyamungu 14 May 1945

                    Dearest Family.

                    So the war in Europe is over at last. It is such marvellous news that I can hardly
                    believe it. To think that as soon as George can get leave we will go to England and
                    bring Ann and George home with us to Tanganyika. When we know when this leave can
                    be arranged we will want Kate to join us here as of course she must go with us to
                    England to meet George’s family. She has become so much a part of your lives that I
                    know it will be a wrench for you to give her up but I know that you will all be happy to
                    think that soon our family will be reunited.

                    The V.E. celebrations passed off quietly here. We all went to Moshi to see the
                    Victory Parade of the King’s African Rifles and in the evening we went to a celebration
                    dinner at the Game Warden’s house. Besides ourselves the Moores had invited the
                    Commanding Officer from Moshi and a junior officer. We had a very good dinner and
                    many toasts including one to Mrs Moore’s brother, Oliver Milton who is fighting in Burma
                    and has recently been awarded the Military Cross.

                    There was also a celebration party for the children in the grounds of the Moshi
                    Club. Such a spread! I think John and Jim sampled everything. We mothers were
                    having our tea separately and a friend laughingly told me to turn around and have a look.
                    I did, and saw the long tea tables now deserted by all the children but my two sons who
                    were still eating steadily, and finding the party more exciting than the game of Musical
                    Bumps into which all the other children had entered with enthusiasm.

                    There was also an extremely good puppet show put on by the Italian prisoners
                    of war from the camp at Moshi. They had made all the puppets which included well
                    loved characters like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Babes in the Wood as
                    well as more sophisticated ones like an irritable pianist and a would be prima donna. The
                    most popular puppets with the children were a native askari and his family – a very
                    happy little scene. I have never before seen a puppet show and was as entranced as
                    the children. It is amazing what clever manipulation and lighting can do. I believe that the
                    Italians mean to take their puppets to Nairobi and am glad to think that there, they will
                    have larger audiences to appreciate their art.

                    George has just come in, and I paused in my writing to ask him for the hundredth
                    time when he thinks we will get leave. He says I must be patient because it may be a
                    year before our turn comes. Shipping will be disorganised for months to come and we
                    cannot expect priority simply because we have been separated so long from our
                    children. The same situation applies to scores of other Government Officials.
                    I have decided to write the story of my childhood in South Africa and about our
                    life together in Tanganyika up to the time Ann and George left the country. I know you
                    will have told Kate these stories, but Ann and George were so very little when they left
                    home that I fear that they cannot remember much.

                    My Mother-in-law will have told them about their father but she can tell them little
                    about me. I shall send them one chapter of my story each month in the hope that they
                    may be interested and not feel that I am a stranger when at last we meet again.

                    Eleanor.

                    Lyamungu 19th September 1945

                    Dearest Family.

                    In a months time we will be saying good-bye to Lyamungu. George is to be
                    transferred to Mbeya and I am delighted, not only as I look upon Mbeya as home, but
                    because there is now a primary school there which John can attend. I feel he will make
                    much better progress in his lessons when he realises that all children of his age attend
                    school. At present he is putting up a strong resistance to learning to read and spell, but
                    he writes very neatly, does his sums accurately and shows a real talent for drawing. If
                    only he had the will to learn I feel he would do very well.

                    Jim now just four, is too young for lessons but too intelligent to be interested in
                    the ayah’s attempts at entertainment. Yes I’ve had to engage a native girl to look after
                    Henry from 9 am to 12.30 when I supervise John’s Correspondence Course. She is
                    clean and amiable, but like most African women she has no initiative at all when it comes
                    to entertaining children. Most African men and youths are good at this.

                    I don’t regret our stay at Lyamungu. It is a beautiful spot and the change to the
                    cooler climate after the heat of Morogoro has been good for all the children. John is still
                    tall for his age but not so thin as he was and much less pale. He is a handsome little lad
                    with his large brown eyes in striking contrast to his fair hair. He is wary of strangers but
                    very observant and quite uncanny in the way he sums up people. He seldom gets up
                    to mischief but I have a feeling he eggs Jim on. Not that Jim needs egging.

                    Jim has an absolute flair for mischief but it is all done in such an artless manner that
                    it is not easy to punish him. He is a very sturdy child with a cap of almost black silky hair,
                    eyes brown, like mine, and a large mouth which is quick to smile and show most beautiful
                    white and even teeth. He is most popular with all the native servants and the Game
                    Scouts. The servants call Jim, ‘Bwana Tembo’ (Mr Elephant) because of his sturdy
                    build.

                    Henry, now nearly two years old, is quite different from the other two in
                    appearance. He is fair complexioned and fair haired like Ann and Kate, with large, black
                    lashed, light grey eyes. He is a good child, not so merry as Jim was at his age, nor as
                    shy as John was. He seldom cries, does not care to be cuddled and is independent and
                    strong willed. The servants call Henry, ‘Bwana Ndizi’ (Mr Banana) because he has an
                    inexhaustible appetite for this fruit. Fortunately they are very inexpensive here. We buy
                    an entire bunch which hangs from a beam on the back verandah, and pluck off the
                    bananas as they ripen. This way there is no waste and the fruit never gets bruised as it
                    does in greengrocers shops in South Africa. Our three boys make a delightful and
                    interesting trio and I do wish you could see them for yourselves.

                    We are delighted with the really beautiful photograph of Kate. She is an
                    extraordinarily pretty child and looks so happy and healthy and a great credit to you.
                    Now that we will be living in Mbeya with a school on the doorstep I hope that we will
                    soon be able to arrange for her return home.

                    Eleanor.

                    c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 30th October 1945

                    Dearest Family.

                    How nice to be able to write c/o Game Dept. Mbeya at the head of my letters.
                    We arrived here safely after a rather tiresome journey and are installed in a tiny house on
                    the edge of the township.

                    We left Lyamungu early on the morning of the 22nd. Most of our goods had
                    been packed on the big Ford lorry the previous evening, but there were the usual
                    delays and farewells. Of our servants, only the cook, Hamisi, accompanied us to
                    Mbeya. Japhet, Tovelo and the ayah had to be paid off and largesse handed out.
                    Tovelo’s granny had come, bringing a gift of bananas, and she also brought her little
                    granddaughter to present a bunch of flowers. The child’s little scolded behind is now
                    completely healed. Gifts had to be found for them too.

                    At last we were all aboard and what a squash it was! Our few pieces of furniture
                    and packing cases and trunks, the cook, his wife, the driver and the turney boy, who
                    were to take the truck back to Lyamungu, and all their bits and pieces, bunches of
                    bananas and Fanny the dog were all crammed into the body of the lorry. George, the
                    children and I were jammed together in the cab. Before we left George looked
                    dubiously at the tyres which were very worn and said gloomily that he thought it most
                    unlikely that we would make our destination, Dodoma.

                    Too true! Shortly after midday, near Kwakachinja, we blew a back tyre and there
                    was a tedious delay in the heat whilst the wheel was changed. We were now without a
                    spare tyre and George said that he would not risk taking the Ford further than Babati,
                    which is less than half way to Dodoma. He drove very slowly and cautiously to Babati
                    where he arranged with Sher Mohammed, an Indian trader, for a lorry to take us to
                    Dodoma the next morning.

                    It had been our intention to spend the night at the furnished Government
                    Resthouse at Babati but when we got there we found that it was already occupied by
                    several District Officers who had assembled for a conference. So, feeling rather
                    disgruntled, we all piled back into the lorry and drove on to a place called Bereku where
                    we spent an uncomfortable night in a tumbledown hut.

                    Before dawn next morning Sher Mohammed’s lorry drove up, and there was a
                    scramble to dress by the light of a storm lamp. The lorry was a very dilapidated one and
                    there was already a native woman passenger in the cab. I felt so tired after an almost
                    sleepless night that I decided to sit between the driver and this woman with the sleeping
                    Henry on my knee. It was as well I did, because I soon found myself dosing off and
                    drooping over towards the woman. Had she not been there I might easily have fallen
                    out as the battered cab had no door. However I was alert enough when daylight came
                    and changed places with the woman to our mutual relief. She was now able to converse
                    with the African driver and I was able to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air!
                    George, John and Jim were less comfortable. They sat in the lorry behind the
                    cab hemmed in by packing cases. As the lorry was an open one the sun beat down
                    unmercifully upon them until George, ever resourceful, moved a table to the front of the
                    truck. The two boys crouched under this and so got shelter from the sun but they still had
                    to endure the dust. Fanny complicated things by getting car sick and with one thing and
                    another we were all jolly glad to get to Dodoma.

                    We spent the night at the Dodoma Hotel and after hot baths, a good meal and a
                    good nights rest we cheerfully boarded a bus of the Tanganyika Bus Service next
                    morning to continue our journey to Mbeya. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We slept two nights on the road, the first at Iringa Hotel and the second at Chimala. We
                    reached Mbeya on the 27th.

                    I was rather taken aback when I first saw the little house which has been allocated
                    to us. I had become accustomed to the spacious houses we had in Morogoro and
                    Lyamungu. However though the house is tiny it is secluded and has a long garden
                    sloping down to the road in front and another long strip sloping up behind. The front
                    garden is shaded by several large cypress and eucalyptus trees but the garden behind
                    the house has no shade and consists mainly of humpy beds planted with hundreds of
                    carnations sadly in need of debudding. I believe that the previous Game Ranger’s wife
                    cultivated the carnations and, by selling them, raised money for War Funds.
                    Like our own first home, this little house is built of sun dried brick. Its original
                    owners were Germans. It is now rented to the Government by the Custodian of Enemy
                    Property, and George has his office in another ex German house.

                    This afternoon we drove to the school to arrange about enrolling John there. The
                    school is about four miles out of town. It was built by the German settlers in the late
                    1930’s and they were justifiably proud of it. It consists of a great assembly hall and
                    classrooms in one block and there are several attractive single storied dormitories. This
                    school was taken over by the Government when the Germans were interned on the
                    outbreak of war and many improvements have been made to the original buildings. The
                    school certainly looks very attractive now with its grassed playing fields and its lawns and
                    bright flower beds.

                    The Union Jack flies from a tall flagpole in front of the Hall and all traces of the
                    schools German origin have been firmly erased. We met the Headmaster, Mr
                    Wallington, and his wife and some members of the staff. The school is co-educational
                    and caters for children from the age of seven to standard six. The leaving age is elastic
                    owing to the fact that many Tanganyika children started school very late because of lack
                    of educational facilities in this country.

                    The married members of the staff have their own cottages in the grounds. The
                    Matrons have quarters attached to the dormitories for which they are responsible. I felt
                    most enthusiastic about the school until I discovered that the Headmaster is adamant
                    upon one subject. He utterly refuses to take any day pupils at the school. So now our
                    poor reserved Johnny will have to adjust himself to boarding school life.
                    We have arranged that he will start school on November 5th and I shall be very
                    busy trying to assemble his school uniform at short notice. The clothing list is sensible.
                    Boys wear khaki shirts and shorts on weekdays with knitted scarlet jerseys when the
                    weather is cold. On Sundays they wear grey flannel shorts and blazers with the silver
                    and scarlet school tie.

                    Mbeya looks dusty, brown and dry after the lush evergreen vegetation of
                    Lyamungu, but I prefer this drier climate and there are still mountains to please the eye.
                    In fact the lower slopes of Lolesa Mountain rise at the upper end of our garden.

                    Eleanor.

                    c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 21st November 1945

                    Dearest Family.

                    We’re quite settled in now and I have got the little house fixed up to my
                    satisfaction. I have engaged a rather uncouth looking houseboy but he is strong and
                    capable and now that I am not tied down in the mornings by John’s lessons I am able to
                    go out occasionally in the mornings and take Jim and Henry to play with other children.
                    They do not show any great enthusiasm but are not shy by nature as John is.
                    I have had a good deal of heartache over putting John to boarding school. It
                    would have been different had he been used to the company of children outside his
                    own family, or if he had even known one child there. However he seems to be adjusting
                    himself to the life, though slowly. At least he looks well and tidy and I am quite sure that
                    he is well looked after.

                    I must confess that when the time came for John to go to school I simply did not
                    have the courage to take him and he went alone with George, looking so smart in his
                    new uniform – but his little face so bleak. The next day, Sunday, was visiting day but the
                    Headmaster suggested that we should give John time to settle down and not visit him
                    until Wednesday.

                    When we drove up to the school I spied John on the far side of the field walking
                    all alone. Instead of running up with glad greetings, as I had expected, he came almost
                    reluctently and had little to say. I asked him to show me his dormitory and classroom and
                    he did so politely as though I were a stranger. At last he volunteered some information.
                    “Mummy,” he said in an awed voice, Do you know on the night I came here they burnt a
                    man! They had a big fire and they burnt him.” After a blank moment the penny dropped.
                    Of course John had started school and November the fifth but it had never entered my
                    head to tell him about that infamous character, Guy Fawkes!

                    I asked John’s Matron how he had settled down. “Well”, she said thoughtfully,
                    “John is very good and has not cried as many of the juniors do when they first come
                    here, but he seems to keep to himself all the time.” I went home very discouraged but
                    on the Sunday John came running up with another lad of about his own age.” This is my
                    friend Marks,” he announced proudly. I could have hugged Marks.

                    Mbeya is very different from the small settlement we knew in the early 1930’s.
                    Gone are all the colourful characters from the Lupa diggings for the alluvial claims are all
                    worked out now, gone also are our old friends the Menzies from the Pub and also most
                    of the Government Officials we used to know. Mbeya has lost its character of a frontier
                    township and has become almost suburban.

                    The social life revolves around two places, the Club and the school. The Club
                    which started out as a little two roomed building, has been expanded and the golf
                    course improved. There are also tennis courts and a good library considering the size of
                    the community. There are frequent parties and dances, though most of the club revenue
                    comes from Bar profits. The parties are relatively sober affairs compared with the parties
                    of the 1930’s.

                    The school provides entertainment of another kind. Both Mr and Mrs Wallington
                    are good amateur actors and I am told that they run an Amateur Dramatic Society. Every
                    Wednesday afternoon there is a hockey match at the school. Mbeya town versus a
                    mixed team of staff and scholars. The match attracts almost the whole European
                    population of Mbeya. Some go to play hockey, others to watch, and others to snatch
                    the opportunity to visit their children. I shall have to try to arrange a lift to school when
                    George is away on safari.

                    I have now met most of the local women and gladly renewed an old friendship
                    with Sheilagh Waring whom I knew two years ago at Morogoro. Sheilagh and I have
                    much in common, the same disregard for the trappings of civilisation, the same sense of
                    the ludicrous, and children. She has eight to our six and she has also been cut off by the
                    war from two of her children. Sheilagh looks too young and pretty to be the mother of so
                    large a family and is, in fact, several years younger than I am. her husband, Donald, is a
                    large quiet man who, as far as I can judge takes life seriously.

                    Our next door neighbours are the Bank Manager and his wife, a very pleasant
                    couple though we seldom meet. I have however had correspondence with the Bank
                    Manager. Early on Saturday afternoon their houseboy brought a note. It informed me
                    that my son was disturbing his rest by precipitating a heart attack. Was I aware that my
                    son was about 30 feet up in a tree and balanced on a twig? I ran out and,sure enough,
                    there was Jim, right at the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree. It would be the one with the
                    mound of stones at the bottom! You should have heard me fluting in my most
                    wheedling voice. “Sweets, Jimmy, come down slowly dear, I’ve some nice sweets for
                    you.”

                    I’ll bet that little story makes you smile. I remember how often you have told me
                    how, as a child, I used to make your hearts turn over because I had no fear of heights
                    and how I used to say, “But that is silly, I won’t fall.” I know now only too well, how you
                    must have felt.

                    Eleanor.

                    c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 14th January 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    I hope that by now you have my telegram to say that Kate got home safely
                    yesterday. It was wonderful to have her back and what a beautiful child she is! Kate
                    seems to have enjoyed the train journey with Miss Craig, in spite of the tears she tells
                    me she shed when she said good-bye to you. She also seems to have felt quite at
                    home with the Hopleys at Salisbury. She flew from Salisbury in a small Dove aircraft
                    and they had a smooth passage though Kate was a little airsick.

                    I was so excited about her home coming! This house is so tiny that I had to turn
                    out the little store room to make a bedroom for her. With a fresh coat of whitewash and
                    pretty sprigged curtains and matching bedspread, borrowed from Sheilagh Waring, the
                    tiny room looks most attractive. I had also iced a cake, made ice-cream and jelly and
                    bought crackers for the table so that Kate’s home coming tea could be a proper little
                    celebration.

                    I was pleased with my preparations and then, a few hours before the plane was
                    due, my crowned front tooth dropped out, peg and all! When my houseboy wants to
                    describe something very tatty, he calls it “Second-hand Kabisa.” Kabisa meaning
                    absolutely. That is an apt description of how I looked and felt. I decided to try some
                    emergency dentistry. I think you know our nearest dentist is at Dar es Salaam five
                    hundred miles away.

                    First I carefully dried the tooth and with a match stick covered the peg and base
                    with Durofix. I then took the infants rubber bulb enema, sucked up some heat from a
                    candle flame and pumped it into the cavity before filling that with Durofix. Then hopefully
                    I stuck the tooth in its former position and held it in place for several minutes. No good. I
                    sent the houseboy to a shop for Scotine and tried the whole process again. No good
                    either.

                    When George came home for lunch I appealed to him for advice. He jokingly
                    suggested that a maize seed jammed into the space would probably work, but when
                    he saw that I really was upset he produced some chewing gum and suggested that I
                    should try that . I did and that worked long enough for my first smile anyway.
                    George and the three boys went to meet Kate but I remained at home to
                    welcome her there. I was afraid that after all this time away Kate might be reluctant to
                    rejoin the family but she threw her arms around me and said “Oh Mummy,” We both
                    shed a few tears and then we both felt fine.

                    How gay Kate is, and what an infectious laugh she has! The boys follow her
                    around in admiration. John in fact asked me, “Is Kate a Princess?” When I said
                    “Goodness no, Johnny, she’s your sister,” he explained himself by saying, “Well, she
                    has such golden hair.” Kate was less complementary. When I tucked her in bed last night
                    she said, “Mummy, I didn’t expect my little brothers to be so yellow!” All three boys
                    have been taking a course of Atebrin, an anti-malarial drug which tinges skin and eyeballs
                    yellow.

                    So now our tiny house is bursting at its seams and how good it feels to have one
                    more child under our roof. We are booked to sail for England in May and when we return
                    we will have Ann and George home too. Then I shall feel really content.

                    Eleanor.

                    c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 2nd March 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    My life just now is uneventful but very busy. I am sewing hard and knitting fast to
                    try to get together some warm clothes for our leave in England. This is not a simple
                    matter because woollen materials are in short supply and very expensive, and now that
                    we have boarding school fees to pay for both Kate and John we have to budget very
                    carefully indeed.

                    Kate seems happy at school. She makes friends easily and seems to enjoy
                    communal life. John also seems reconciled to school now that Kate is there. He no
                    longer feels that he is the only exile in the family. He seems to rub along with the other
                    boys of his age and has a couple of close friends. Although Mbeya School is coeducational
                    the smaller boys and girls keep strictly apart. It is considered extremely
                    cissy to play with girls.

                    The local children are allowed to go home on Sundays after church and may bring
                    friends home with them for the day. Both John and Kate do this and Sunday is a very
                    busy day for me. The children come home in their Sunday best but bring play clothes to
                    change into. There is always a scramble to get them to bath and change again in time to
                    deliver them to the school by 6 o’clock.

                    When George is home we go out to the school for the morning service. This is
                    taken by the Headmaster Mr Wallington, and is very enjoyable. There is an excellent
                    school choir to lead the singing. The service is the Church of England one, but is
                    attended by children of all denominations, except the Roman Catholics. I don’t think that
                    more than half the children are British. A large proportion are Greeks, some as old as
                    sixteen, and about the same number are Afrikaners. There are Poles and non-Nazi
                    Germans, Swiss and a few American children.

                    All instruction is through the medium of English and it is amazing how soon all the
                    foreign children learn to chatter in English. George has been told that we will return to
                    Mbeya after our leave and for that I am very thankful as it means that we will still be living
                    near at hand when Jim and Henry start school. Because many of these children have to
                    travel many hundreds of miles to come to school, – Mbeya is a two day journey from the
                    railhead, – the school year is divided into two instead of the usual three terms. This
                    means that many of these children do not see their parents for months at a time. I think
                    this is a very sad state of affairs especially for the seven and eight year olds but the
                    Matrons assure me , that many children who live on isolated farms and stations are quite
                    reluctant to go home because they miss the companionship and the games and
                    entertainment that the school offers.

                    My only complaint about the life here is that I see far too little of George. He is
                    kept extremely busy on this range and is hardly at home except for a few days at the
                    months end when he has to be at his office to check up on the pay vouchers and the
                    issue of ammunition to the Scouts. George’s Range takes in the whole of the Southern
                    Province and the Southern half of the Western Province and extends to the border with
                    Northern Rhodesia and right across to Lake Tanganyika. This vast area is patrolled by
                    only 40 Game Scouts because the Department is at present badly under staffed, due
                    partly to the still acute shortage of rifles, but even more so to the extraordinary reluctance
                    which the Government shows to allocate adequate funds for the efficient running of the
                    Department.

                    The Game Scouts must see that the Game Laws are enforced, protect native
                    crops from raiding elephant, hippo and other game animals. Report disease amongst game and deal with stock raiding lions. By constantly going on safari and checking on
                    their work, George makes sure the range is run to his satisfaction. Most of the Game
                    Scouts are fine fellows but, considering they receive only meagre pay for dangerous
                    and exacting work, it is not surprising that occasionally a Scout is tempted into accepting
                    a bribe not to report a serious infringement of the Game Laws and there is, of course,
                    always the temptation to sell ivory illicitly to unscrupulous Indian and Arab traders.
                    Apart from supervising the running of the Range, George has two major jobs.
                    One is to supervise the running of the Game Free Area along the Rhodesia –
                    Tanganyika border, and the other to hunt down the man-eating lions which for years have
                    terrorised the Njombe District killing hundreds of Africans. Yes I know ‘hundreds’ sounds
                    fantastic, but this is perfectly true and one day, when the job is done and the official
                    report published I shall send it to you to prove it!

                    I hate to think of the Game Free Area and so does George. All the game from
                    buffalo to tiny duiker has been shot out in a wide belt extending nearly two hundred
                    miles along the Northern Rhodesia -Tanganyika border. There are three Europeans in
                    widely spaced camps who supervise this slaughter by African Game Guards. This
                    horrible measure is considered necessary by the Veterinary Departments of
                    Tanganyika, Rhodesia and South Africa, to prevent the cattle disease of Rinderpest
                    from spreading South.

                    When George is home however, we do relax and have fun. On the Saturday
                    before the school term started we took Kate and the boys up to the top fishing camp in
                    the Mporoto Mountains for her first attempt at trout fishing. There are three of these
                    camps built by the Mbeya Trout Association on the rivers which were first stocked with
                    the trout hatched on our farm at Mchewe. Of the three, the top camp is our favourite. The
                    scenery there is most glorious and reminds me strongly of the rivers of the Western
                    Cape which I so loved in my childhood.

                    The river, the Kawira, flows from the Rungwe Mountain through a narrow valley
                    with hills rising steeply on either side. The water runs swiftly over smooth stones and
                    sometimes only a foot or two below the level of the banks. It is sparkling and shallow,
                    but in places the water is deep and dark and the banks high. I had a busy day keeping
                    an eye on the boys, especially Jim, who twice climbed out on branches which overhung
                    deep water. “Mummy, I was only looking for trout!”

                    How those kids enjoyed the freedom of the camp after the comparative
                    restrictions of town. So did Fanny, she raced about on the hills like a mad dog chasing
                    imaginary rabbits and having the time of her life. To escape the noise and commotion
                    George had gone far upstream to fish and returned in the late afternoon with three good
                    sized trout and four smaller ones. Kate proudly showed George the two she had caught
                    with the assistance or our cook Hamisi. I fear they were caught in a rather unorthodox
                    manner but this I kept a secret from George who is a stickler for the orthodox in trout
                    fishing.

                    Eleanor.

                    Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    Here we are all together at last in England. You cannot imagine how wonderful it
                    feels to have the whole Rushby family reunited. I find myself counting heads. Ann,
                    George, Kate, John, Jim, and Henry. All present and well. We had a very pleasant trip
                    on the old British India Ship Mantola. She was crowded with East Africans going home
                    for the first time since the war, many like us, eagerly looking forward to a reunion with their
                    children whom they had not seen for years. There was a great air of anticipation and
                    good humour but a little anxiety too.

                    “I do hope our children will be glad to see us,” said one, and went on to tell me
                    about a Doctor from Dar es Salaam who, after years of separation from his son had
                    recently gone to visit him at his school. The Doctor had alighted at the railway station
                    where he had arranged to meet his son. A tall youth approached him and said, very
                    politely, “Excuse me sir. Are you my Father?” Others told me of children who had
                    become so attached to their relatives in England that they gave their parents a very cool
                    reception. I began to feel apprehensive about Ann and George but fortunately had no
                    time to mope.

                    Oh, that washing and ironing for six! I shall remember for ever that steamy little
                    laundry in the heat of the Red Sea and queuing up for the ironing and the feeling of guilt
                    at the size of my bundle. We met many old friends amongst the passengers, and made
                    some new ones, so the voyage was a pleasant one, We did however have our
                    anxious moments.

                    John was the first to disappear and we had an anxious search for him. He was
                    quite surprised that we had been concerned. “I was just talking to my friend Chinky
                    Chinaman in his workshop.” Could John have called him that? Then, when I returned to
                    the cabin from dinner one night I found Henry swigging Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. He had
                    drunk half the bottle neat and the label said ‘five drops in water’. Luckily it did not harm
                    him.

                    Jim of course was forever risking his neck. George had forbidden him to climb on
                    the railings but he was forever doing things which no one had thought of forbidding him
                    to do, like hanging from the overhead pipes on the deck or standing on the sill of a
                    window and looking down at the well deck far below. An Officer found him doing this and
                    gave me the scolding.

                    Another day he climbed up on a derrick used for hoisting cargo. George,
                    oblivious to this was sitting on the hatch cover with other passengers reading a book. I
                    was in the wash house aft on the same deck when Kate rushed in and said, “Mummy
                    come and see Jim.” Before I had time to more than gape, the butcher noticed Jim and
                    rushed out knife in hand. “Get down from there”, he bellowed. Jim got, and with such
                    speed that he caught the leg or his shorts on a projecting piece of metal. The cotton
                    ripped across the seam from leg to leg and Jim stood there for a humiliating moment in a
                    sort of revealing little kilt enduring the smiles of the passengers who had looked up from
                    their books at the butcher’s shout.

                    That incident cured Jim of his urge to climb on the ship but he managed to give
                    us one more fright. He was lost off Dover. People from whom we enquired said, “Yes
                    we saw your little boy. He was by the railings watching that big aircraft carrier.” Now Jim,
                    though mischievous , is very obedient. It was not until George and I had conducted an
                    exhaustive search above and below decks that I really became anxious. Could he have
                    fallen overboard? Jim was returned to us by an unamused Officer. He had been found
                    in one of the lifeboats on the deck forbidden to children.

                    Our ship passed Dover after dark and it was an unforgettable sight. Dover Castle
                    and the cliffs were floodlit for the Victory Celebrations. One of the men passengers sat
                    down at the piano and played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, and people sang and a few
                    wept. The Mantola docked at Tilbury early next morning in a steady drizzle.
                    There was a dockers strike on and it took literally hours for all the luggage to be
                    put ashore. The ships stewards simply locked the public rooms and went off leaving the
                    passengers shivering on the docks. Eventually damp and bedraggled, we arrived at St
                    Pancras Station and were given a warm welcome by George’s sister Cath and her
                    husband Reg Pears, who had come all the way from Nottingham to meet us.
                    As we had to spend an hour in London before our train left for Nottingham,
                    George suggested that Cath and I should take the children somewhere for a meal. So
                    off we set in the cold drizzle, the boys and I without coats and laden with sundry
                    packages, including a hand woven native basket full of shoes. We must have looked like
                    a bunch of refugees as we stood in the hall of The Kings Cross Station Hotel because a
                    supercilious waiter in tails looked us up and down and said, “I’m afraid not Madam”, in
                    answer to my enquiry whether the hotel could provide lunch for six.
                    Anyway who cares! We had lunch instead at an ABC tea room — horrible
                    sausage and a mound or rather sloppy mashed potatoes, but very good ice-cream.
                    After the train journey in a very grimy third class coach, through an incredibly green and
                    beautiful countryside, we eventually reached Nottingham and took a bus to Jacksdale,
                    where George’s mother and sisters live in large detached houses side by side.
                    Ann and George were at the bus stop waiting for us, and thank God, submitted
                    to my kiss as though we had been parted for weeks instead of eight years. Even now
                    that we are together again my heart aches to think of all those missed years. They have
                    not changed much and I would have picked them out of a crowd, but Ann, once thin and
                    pale, is now very rosy and blooming. She still has her pretty soft plaits and her eyes are
                    still a clear calm blue. Young George is very striking looking with sparkling brown eyes, a
                    ready, slightly lopsided smile, and charming manners.

                    Mother, and George’s elder sister, Lottie Giles, welcomed us at the door with the
                    cheering news that our tea was ready. Ann showed us the way to mother’s lovely lilac
                    tiled bathroom for a wash before tea. Before I had even turned the tap, Jim had hung
                    form the glass towel rail and it lay in three pieces on the floor. There have since been
                    similar tragedies. I can see that life in civilisation is not without snags.

                    I am most grateful that Ann and George have accepted us so naturally and
                    affectionately. Ann said candidly, “Mummy, it’s a good thing that you had Aunt Cath with
                    you when you arrived because, honestly, I wouldn’t have known you.”

                    Eleanor.

                    Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    I am sorry that I have not written for some time but honestly, I don’t know whether
                    I’m coming or going. Mother handed the top floor of her house to us and the
                    arrangement was that I should tidy our rooms and do our laundry and Mother would
                    prepare the meals except for breakfast. It looked easy at first. All the rooms have wall to
                    wall carpeting and there was a large vacuum cleaner in the box room. I was told a
                    window cleaner would do the windows.

                    Well the first time I used the Hoover I nearly died of fright. I pressed the switch
                    and immediately there was a roar and the bag filled with air to bursting point, or so I
                    thought. I screamed for Ann and she came at the run. I pointed to the bag and shouted
                    above the din, “What must I do? It’s going to burst!” Ann looked at me in astonishment
                    and said, “But Mummy that’s the way it works.” I couldn’t have her thinking me a
                    complete fool so I switched the current off and explained to Ann how it was that I had
                    never seen this type of equipment in action. How, in Tanganyika , I had never had a
                    house with electricity and that, anyway, electric equipment would be superfluous
                    because floors are of cement which the houseboy polishes by hand, one only has a
                    few rugs or grass mats on the floor. “But what about Granny’s house in South Africa?’”
                    she asked, so I explained about your Josephine who threatened to leave if you
                    bought a Hoover because that would mean that you did not think she kept the house
                    clean. The sad fact remains that, at fourteen, Ann knows far more about housework than I
                    do, or rather did! I’m learning fast.

                    The older children all go to school at different times in the morning. Ann leaves first
                    by bus to go to her Grammar School at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Shortly afterwards George
                    catches a bus for Nottingham where he attends the High School. So they have
                    breakfast in relays, usually scrambled egg made from a revolting dried egg mixture.
                    Then there are beds to make and washing and ironing to do, so I have little time for
                    sightseeing, though on a few afternoons George has looked after the younger children
                    and I have gone on bus tours in Derbyshire. Life is difficult here with all the restrictions on
                    foodstuffs. We all have ration books so get our fair share but meat, fats and eggs are
                    scarce and expensive. The weather is very wet. At first I used to hang out the washing
                    and then rush to bring it in when a shower came. Now I just let it hang.

                    We have left our imprint upon my Mother-in-law’s house for ever. Henry upset a
                    bottle of Milk of Magnesia in the middle of the pale fawn bedroom carpet. John, trying to
                    be helpful and doing some dusting, broke one of the delicate Dresden china candlesticks
                    which adorn our bedroom mantelpiece.Jim and Henry have wrecked the once
                    professionally landscaped garden and all the boys together bored a large hole through
                    Mother’s prized cherry tree. So now Mother has given up and gone off to Bournemouth
                    for a much needed holiday. Once a week I have the capable help of a cleaning woman,
                    called for some reason, ‘Mrs Two’, but I have now got all the cooking to do for eight. Mrs
                    Two is a godsend. She wears, of all things, a print mob cap with a hole in it. Says it
                    belonged to her Grandmother. Her price is far beyond Rubies to me, not so much
                    because she does, in a couple of hours, what it takes me all day to do, but because she
                    sells me boxes of fifty cigarettes. Some non-smoking relative, who works in Players
                    tobacco factory, passes on his ration to her. Until Mrs Two came to my rescue I had
                    been starved of cigarettes. Each time I asked for them at the shop the grocer would say,
                    “Are you registered with us?” Only very rarely would some kindly soul sell me a little
                    packet of five Woodbines.

                    England is very beautiful but the sooner we go home to Tanganyika, the better.
                    On this, George and I and the children agree.

                    Eleanor.

                    Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    Our return passages have now been booked on the Winchester Castle and we
                    sail from Southampton on October the sixth. I look forward to returning to Tanganyika but
                    hope to visit England again in a few years time when our children are older and when
                    rationing is a thing of the past.

                    I have grown fond of my Sisters-in-law and admire my Mother-in-law very much.
                    She has a great sense of humour and has entertained me with stories of her very
                    eventful life, and told me lots of little stories of the children which did not figure in her
                    letters. One which amused me was about young George. During one of the air raids
                    early in the war when the sirens were screaming and bombers roaring overhead Mother
                    made the two children get into the cloak cupboard under the stairs. Young George
                    seemed quite unconcerned about the planes and the bombs but soon an anxious voice
                    asked in the dark, “Gran, what will I do if a spider falls on me?” I am afraid that Mother is
                    going to miss Ann and George very much.

                    I had a holiday last weekend when Lottie and I went up to London on a spree. It
                    was a most enjoyable weekend, though very rushed. We placed ourselves in the
                    hands of Thos. Cook and Sons and saw most of the sights of London and were run off
                    our feet in the process. As you all know London I shall not describe what I saw but just
                    to say that, best of all, I enjoyed walking along the Thames embankment in the evening
                    and the changing of the Guard at Whitehall. On Sunday morning Lottie and I went to
                    Kew Gardens and in the afternoon walked in Kensington Gardens.

                    We went to only one show, ‘The Skin of our Teeth’ starring Vivienne Leigh.
                    Neither of us enjoyed the performance at all and regretted having spent so much on
                    circle seats. The show was far too highbrow for my taste, a sort of satire on the survival
                    of the human race. Miss Leigh was unrecognisable in a blond wig and her voice strident.
                    However the night was not a dead loss as far as entertainment was concerned as we
                    were later caught up in a tragicomedy at our hotel.

                    We had booked communicating rooms at the enormous Imperial Hotel in Russell
                    Square. These rooms were comfortably furnished but very high up, and we had a rather
                    terrifying and dreary view from the windows of the enclosed courtyard far below. We
                    had some snacks and a chat in Lottie’s room and then I moved to mine and went to bed.
                    I had noted earlier that there was a special lock on the outer door of my room so that
                    when the door was closed from the inside it automatically locked itself.
                    I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a hammering which seemed to
                    come from my wardrobe. I got up, rather fearfully, and opened the wardrobe door and
                    noted for the first time that the wardrobe was set in an opening in the wall and that the
                    back of the wardrobe also served as the back of the wardrobe in the room next door. I
                    quickly shut it again and went to confer with Lottie.

                    Suddenly a male voice was raised next door in supplication, “Mary Mother of
                    God, Help me! They’ve locked me in!” and the hammering resumed again, sometimes
                    on the door, and then again on the back of the wardrobe of the room next door. Lottie
                    had by this time joined me and together we listened to the prayers and to the
                    hammering. Then the voice began to threaten, “If you don’t let me out I’ll jump out of the
                    window.” Great consternation on our side of the wall. I went out into the passage and
                    called through the door, “You’re not locked in. Come to your door and I’ll tell you how to
                    open it.” Silence for a moment and then again the prayers followed by a threat. All the
                    other doors in the corridor remained shut.

                    Luckily just then a young man and a woman came walking down the corridor and I
                    explained the situation. The young man hurried off for the night porter who went into the
                    next door room. In a matter of minutes there was peace next door. When the night
                    porter came out into the corridor again I asked for an explanation. He said quite casually,
                    “It’s all right Madam. He’s an Irish Gentleman in Show Business. He gets like this on a
                    Saturday night when he has had a drop too much. He won’t give any more trouble
                    now.” And he didn’t. Next morning at breakfast Lottie and I tried to spot the gentleman in
                    the Show Business, but saw no one who looked like the owner of that charming Irish
                    voice.

                    George had to go to London on business last Monday and took the older
                    children with him for a few hours of sight seeing. They returned quite unimpressed.
                    Everything was too old and dirty and there were far too many people about, but they
                    had enjoyed riding on the escalators at the tube stations, and all agreed that the highlight
                    of the trip was, “Dad took us to lunch at the Chicken Inn.”

                    Now that it is almost time to leave England I am finding the housework less of a
                    drudgery, Also, as it is school holiday time, Jim and Henry are able to go on walks with
                    the older children and so use up some of their surplus energy. Cath and I took the
                    children (except young George who went rabbit shooting with his uncle Reg, and
                    Henry, who stayed at home with his dad) to the Wakes at Selston, the neighbouring
                    village. There were the roundabouts and similar contraptions but the side shows had
                    more appeal for the children. Ann and Kate found a stall where assorted prizes were
                    spread out on a sloping table. Anyone who could land a penny squarely on one of
                    these objects was given a similar one as a prize.

                    I was touched to see that both girls ignored all the targets except a box of fifty
                    cigarettes which they were determined to win for me. After numerous attempts, Kate
                    landed her penny successfully and you would have loved to have seen her radiant little
                    face.

                    Eleanor.

                    Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    Back in Tanganyika at last, but not together. We have to stay in Dar es Salaam
                    until tomorrow when the train leaves for Dodoma. We arrived yesterday morning to find
                    all the hotels filled with people waiting to board ships for England. Fortunately some
                    friends came to the rescue and Ann, Kate and John have gone to stay with them. Jim,
                    Henry and I are sleeping in a screened corner of the lounge of the New Africa Hotel, and
                    George and young George have beds in the Palm Court of the same hotel.

                    We travelled out from England in the Winchester Castle under troopship
                    conditions. We joined her at Southampton after a rather slow train journey from
                    Nottingham. We arrived after dark and from the station we could see a large ship in the
                    docks with a floodlit red funnel. “Our ship,” yelled the children in delight, but it was not the
                    Winchester Castle but the Queen Elizabeth, newly reconditioned.

                    We had hoped to board our ship that evening but George made enquiries and
                    found that we would not be allowed on board until noon next day. Without much hope,
                    we went off to try to get accommodation for eight at a small hotel recommended by the
                    taxi driver. Luckily for us there was a very motherly woman at the reception desk. She
                    looked in amusement at the six children and said to me, “Goodness are all these yours,
                    ducks? Then she called over her shoulder, “Wilf, come and see this lady with lots of
                    children. We must try to help.” They settled the problem most satisfactorily by turning
                    two rooms into a dormitory.

                    In the morning we had time to inspect bomb damage in the dock area of
                    Southampton. Most of the rubble had been cleared away but there are still numbers of
                    damaged buildings awaiting demolition. A depressing sight. We saw the Queen Mary
                    at anchor, still in her drab war time paint, but magnificent nevertheless.
                    The Winchester Castle was crammed with passengers and many travelled in
                    acute discomfort. We were luckier than most because the two girls, the three small boys
                    and I had a stateroom to ourselves and though it was stripped of peacetime comforts,
                    we had a private bathroom and toilet. The two Georges had bunks in a huge men-only
                    dormitory somewhere in the bowls of the ship where they had to share communal troop
                    ship facilities. The food was plentiful but unexciting and one had to queue for afternoon
                    tea. During the day the decks were crowded and there was squatting room only. The
                    many children on board got bored.

                    Port Said provided a break and we were all entertained by the ‘Gully Gully’ man
                    and his conjuring tricks, and though we had no money to spend at Simon Artz, we did at
                    least have a chance to stretch our legs. Next day scores of passengers took ill with
                    sever stomach upsets, whether from food poisoning, or as was rumoured, from bad
                    water taken on at the Egyptian port, I don’t know. Only the two Georges in our family
                    were affected and their attacks were comparatively mild.

                    As we neared the Kenya port of Mombassa, the passengers for Dar es Salaam
                    were told that they would have to disembark at Mombassa and continue their journey in
                    a small coaster, the Al Said. The Winchester Castle is too big for the narrow channel
                    which leads to Dar es Salaam harbour.

                    From the wharf the Al Said looked beautiful. She was once the private yacht of
                    the Sultan of Zanzibar and has lovely lines. Our admiration lasted only until we were
                    shown our cabins. With one voice our children exclaimed, “Gosh they stink!” They did, of
                    a mixture of rancid oil and sweat and stale urine. The beds were not yet made and the
                    thin mattresses had ominous stains on them. John, ever fastidious, lifted his mattress and two enormous cockroaches scuttled for cover.

                    We had a good homely lunch served by two smiling African stewards and
                    afterwards we sat on deck and that was fine too, though behind ones enjoyment there
                    was the thought of those stuffy and dirty cabins. That first night nearly everyone,
                    including George and our older children, slept on deck. Women occupied deck chairs
                    and men and children slept on the bare decks. Horrifying though the idea was, I decided
                    that, as Jim had a bad cough, he, Henry and I would sleep in our cabin.

                    When I announced my intention of sleeping in the cabin one of the passengers
                    gave me some insecticide spray which I used lavishly, but without avail. The children
                    slept but I sat up all night with the light on, determined to keep at least their pillows clear
                    of the cockroaches which scurried about boldly regardless of the light. All the next day
                    and night we avoided the cabins. The Al Said stopped for some hours at Zanzibar to
                    offload her deck cargo of live cattle and packing cases from the hold. George and the
                    elder children went ashore for a walk but I felt too lazy and there was plenty to watch
                    from deck.

                    That night I too occupied a deck chair and slept quite comfortably, and next
                    morning we entered the palm fringed harbour of Dar es Salaam and were home.

                    Eleanor.

                    Mbeya 1st November 1946

                    Dearest Family.

                    Home at last! We are all most happily installed in a real family house about three
                    miles out of Mbeya and near the school. This house belongs to an elderly German and
                    has been taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property and leased to the
                    Government.

                    The owner, whose name is Shenkel, was not interned but is allowed to occupy a
                    smaller house on the Estate. I found him in the garden this morning lecturing the children
                    on what they may do and may not do. I tried to make it quite clear to him that he was not
                    our landlord, though he clearly thinks otherwise. After he had gone I had to take two
                    aspirin and lie down to recover my composure! I had been warned that he has this effect
                    on people.

                    Mr Shenkel is a short and ugly man, his clothes are stained with food and he
                    wears steel rimmed glasses tied round his head with a piece of dirty elastic because
                    one earpiece is missing. He speaks with a thick German accent but his English is fluent
                    and I believe he is a cultured and clever man. But he is maddening. The children were
                    more amused than impressed by his exhortations and have happily Christened our
                    home, ‘Old Shenks’.

                    The house has very large grounds as the place is really a derelict farm. It suits us
                    down to the ground. We had no sooner unpacked than George went off on safari after
                    those maneating lions in the Njombe District. he accounted for one, and a further two
                    jointly with a Game Scout, before we left for England. But none was shot during the five
                    months we were away as George’s relief is quite inexperienced in such work. George
                    thinks that there are still about a dozen maneaters at large. His theory is that a female
                    maneater moved into the area in 1938 when maneating first started, and brought up her
                    cubs to be maneaters, and those cubs in turn did the same. The three maneating lions
                    that have been shot were all in very good condition and not old and maimed as
                    maneaters usually are.

                    George anticipates that it will be months before all these lions are accounted for
                    because they are constantly on the move and cover a very large area. The lions have to
                    be hunted on foot because they range over broken country covered by bush and fairly
                    dense thicket.

                    I did a bit of shooting myself yesterday and impressed our African servants and
                    the children and myself. What a fluke! Our houseboy came to say that there was a snake
                    in the garden, the biggest he had ever seen. He said it was too big to kill with a stick and
                    would I shoot it. I had no gun but a heavy .450 Webley revolver and I took this and
                    hurried out with the children at my heels.

                    The snake turned out to be an unusually large puff adder which had just shed its
                    skin. It looked beautiful in a repulsive way. So flanked by servants and children I took
                    aim and shot, not hitting the head as I had planned, but breaking the snake’s back with
                    the heavy bullet. The two native boys then rushed up with sticks and flattened the head.
                    “Ma you’re a crack shot,” cried the kids in delighted surprise. I hope to rest on my laurels
                    for a long, long while.

                    Although there are only a few weeks of school term left the four older children will
                    start school on Monday. Not only am I pleased with our new home here but also with
                    the staff I have engaged. Our new houseboy, Reuben, (but renamed Robin by our
                    children) is not only cheerful and willing but intelligent too, and Jumbe, the wood and
                    garden boy, is a born clown and a source of great entertainment to the children.

                    I feel sure that we are all going to be very happy here at ‘Old Shenks!.

                    Eleanor.

                    #6265
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      From Tanganyika with Love

                      continued  ~ part 6

                      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                      Mchewe 6th June 1937

                      Dearest Family,

                      Home again! We had an uneventful journey. Kate was as good as gold all the
                      way. We stopped for an hour at Bulawayo where we had to change trains but
                      everything was simplified for me by a very pleasant man whose wife shared my
                      compartment. Not only did he see me through customs but he installed us in our new
                      train and his wife turned up to see us off with magazines for me and fruit and sweets for
                      Kate. Very, very kind, don’t you think?

                      Kate and I shared the compartment with a very pretty and gentle girl called
                      Clarice Simpson. She was very worried and upset because she was going home to
                      Broken Hill in response to a telegram informing her that her young husband was
                      dangerously ill from Blackwater Fever. She was very helpful with Kate whose
                      cheerfulness helped Clarice, I think, though I, quite unintentionally was the biggest help
                      at the end of our journey. Remember the partial dentures I had had made just before
                      leaving Cape Town? I know I shall never get used to the ghastly things, I’ve had them
                      two weeks now and they still wobble. Well this day I took them out and wrapped them
                      in a handkerchief, but when we were packing up to leave the train I could find the
                      handkerchief but no teeth! We searched high and low until the train had slowed down to
                      enter Broken Hill station. Then Clarice, lying flat on the floor, spied the teeth in the dark
                      corner under the bottom bunk. With much stretching she managed to retrieve the
                      dentures covered in grime and fluff. My look of horror, when I saw them, made young
                      Clarice laugh. She was met at the station by a very grave elderly couple. I do wonder
                      how things turned out for her.

                      I stayed overnight with Kate at the Great Northern Hotel, and we set off for
                      Mbeya by plane early in the morning. One of our fellow passengers was a young
                      mother with a three week old baby. How ideas have changed since Ann was born. This
                      time we had a smooth passage and I was the only passenger to get airsick. Although
                      there were other women passengers it was a man once again, who came up and
                      offered to help. Kate went off with him amiably and he entertained her until we touched
                      down at Mbeya.

                      George was there to meet us with a wonderful surprise, a little red two seater
                      Ford car. She is a bit battered and looks a bit odd because the boot has been
                      converted into a large wooden box for carrying raw salt, but she goes like the wind.
                      Where did George raise the cash to buy a car? Whilst we were away he found a small
                      cave full of bat guano near a large cave which is worked by a man called Bob Sargent.
                      As Sargent did not want any competition he bought the contents of the cave from
                      George giving him the small car as part payment.

                      It was lovely to return to our little home and find everything fresh and tidy and the
                      garden full of colour. But it was heartbreaking to go into the bedroom and see George’s
                      precious forgotten boots still standing by his empty bed.

                      With much love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe 25th June 1937

                      Dearest Family,

                      Last Friday George took Kate and me in the little red Ford to visit Mr Sargent’s
                      camp on the Songwe River which cuts the Mbeya-Mbosi road. Mr Sargent bought
                      Hicky-Wood’s guano deposit and also our small cave and is making a good living out of
                      selling the bat guano to the coffee farmers in this province. George went to try to interest
                      him in a guano deposit near Kilwa in the Southern Province. Mr Sargent agreed to pay
                      25 pounds to cover the cost of the car trip and pegging costs. George will make the trip
                      to peg the claim and take samples for analysis. If the quality is sufficiently high, George
                      and Mr Sargent will go into partnership. George will work the claim and ship out the
                      guano from Kilwa which is on the coast of the Southern Province of Tanganyika. So now
                      we are busy building castles in the air once more.

                      On Saturday we went to Mbeya where George had to attend a meeting of the
                      Trout Association. In the afternoon he played in a cricket match so Kate and I spent the
                      whole day with the wife of the new Superintendent of Police. They have a very nice
                      new house with lawns and a sunken rose garden. Kate had a lovely romp with Kit, her
                      three year old son.

                      Mrs Wolten also has two daughters by a previous marriage. The elder girl said to
                      me, “Oh Mrs Rushby your husband is exactly like the strong silent type of man I
                      expected to see in Africa but he is the only one I have seen. I think he looks exactly like
                      those men in the ‘Barney’s Tobacco’ advertisements.”

                      I went home with a huge pile of magazines to keep me entertained whilst
                      George is away on the Kilwa trip.

                      Lots of love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe 9th July 1937

                      Dearest Family,

                      George returned on Monday from his Kilwa safari. He had an entertaining
                      tale to tell.

                      Before he approached Mr Sargent about going shares in the Kilwa guano
                      deposit he first approached a man on the Lupa who had done very well out of a small
                      gold reef. This man, however said he was not interested so you can imagine how
                      indignant George was when he started on his long trip, to find himself being trailed by
                      this very man and a co-driver in a powerful Ford V8 truck. George stopped his car and
                      had some heated things to say – awful threats I imagine as to what would happen to
                      anyone who staked his claim. Then he climbed back into our ancient little two seater and
                      went off like a bullet driving all day and most of the night. As the others took turns in
                      driving you can imagine what a feat it was for George to arrive in Kilwa ahead of them.
                      When they drove into Kilwa he met them with a bright smile and a bit of bluff –
                      quite justifiable under the circumstances I think. He said, you chaps can have a rest now,
                      you’re too late.” He then whipped off and pegged the claim. he brought some samples
                      of guano back but until it has been analysed he will not know whether the guano will be
                      an economic proposition or not. George is not very hopeful. He says there is a good
                      deal of sand mixed with the guano and that much of it was damp.

                      The trip was pretty eventful for Kianda, our houseboy. The little two seater car
                      had been used by its previous owner for carting bags of course salt from his salt pans.
                      For this purpose the dicky seat behind the cab had been removed, and a kind of box
                      built into the boot of the car. George’s camp kit and provisions were packed into this
                      open box and Kianda perched on top to keep an eye on the belongings. George
                      travelled so fast on the rough road that at some point during the night Kianda was
                      bumped off in the middle of the Game Reserve. George did not notice that he was
                      missing until the next morning. He concluded, quite rightly as it happened, that Kianda
                      would be picked up by the rival truck so he continued his journey and Kianda rejoined
                      him at Kilwa.

                      Believe it or not, the same thing happened on the way back but fortunately this
                      time George noticed his absence. He stopped the car and had just started back on his
                      tracks when Kianda came running down the road still clutching the unlighted storm lamp
                      which he was holding in his hand when he fell. The glass was not even cracked.
                      We are finding it difficult just now to buy native chickens and eggs. There has
                      been an epidemic amongst the poultry and one hesitates to eat the survivors. I have a
                      brine tub in which I preserve our surplus meat but I need the chickens for soup.
                      I hope George will be home for some months. He has arranged to take a Mr
                      Blackburn, a wealthy fruit farmer from Elgin, Cape, on a hunting safari during September
                      and October and that should bring in some much needed cash. Lillian Eustace has
                      invited Kate and me to spend the whole of October with her in Tukuyu.
                      I am so glad that you so much enjoy having Ann and George with you. We miss
                      them dreadfully. Kate is a pretty little girl and such a little madam. You should hear the
                      imperious way in which she calls the kitchenboy for her meals. “Boy Brekkis, Boy Lunch,
                      and Boy Eggy!” are her three calls for the day. She knows no Ki-Swahili.

                      Eleanor

                      Mchewe 8th October 1937

                      Dearest Family,

                      I am rapidly becoming as superstitious as our African boys. They say the wild
                      animals always know when George is away from home and come down to have their
                      revenge on me because he has killed so many.

                      I am being besieged at night by a most beastly leopard with a half grown cub. I
                      have grown used to hearing leopards grunt as they hunt in the hills at night but never
                      before have I had one roaming around literally under the windows. It has been so hot at
                      night lately that I have been sleeping with my bedroom door open onto the verandah. I
                      felt quite safe because the natives hereabouts are law-abiding and in any case I always
                      have a boy armed with a club sleeping in the kitchen just ten yards away. As an added
                      precaution I also have a loaded .45 calibre revolver on my bedside table, and Fanny
                      our bullterrier, sleeps on the mat by my bed. I am also looking after Barney, a fine
                      Airedale dog belonging to the Costers. He slept on a mat by the open bedroom door
                      near a dimly burning storm lamp.

                      As usual I went to sleep with an easy mind on Monday night, but was awakened
                      in the early hours of Tuesday by the sound of a scuffle on the front verandah. The noise
                      was followed by a scream of pain from Barney. I jumped out of bed and, grabbing the
                      lamp with my left hand and the revolver in my right, I rushed outside just in time to see
                      two animal figures roll over the edge of the verandah into the garden below. There they
                      engaged in a terrific tug of war. Fortunately I was too concerned for Barney to be
                      nervous. I quickly fired two shots from the revolver, which incidentally makes a noise like
                      a cannon, and I must have startled the leopard for both animals, still locked together,
                      disappeared over the edge of the terrace. I fired two more shots and in a few moments
                      heard the leopard making a hurried exit through the dry leaves which lie thick under the
                      wild fig tree just beyond the terrace. A few seconds later Barney appeared on the low
                      terrace wall. I called his name but he made no move to come but stood with hanging
                      head. In desperation I rushed out, felt blood on my hands when I touched him, so I
                      picked him up bodily and carried him into the house. As I regained the verandah the boy
                      appeared, club in hand, having been roused by the shots. He quickly grasped what had
                      happened when he saw my blood saturated nightie. He fetched a bowl of water and a
                      clean towel whilst I examined Barney’s wounds. These were severe, the worst being a
                      gaping wound in his throat. I washed the gashes with a strong solution of pot permang
                      and I am glad to say they are healing remarkably well though they are bound to leave
                      scars. Fanny, very prudently, had taken no part in the fighting except for frenzied barking
                      which she kept up all night. The shots had of course wakened Kate but she seemed
                      more interested than alarmed and kept saying “Fanny bark bark, Mummy bang bang.
                      Poor Barney lots of blood.”

                      In the morning we inspected the tracks in the garden. There was a shallow furrow
                      on the terrace where Barney and the leopard had dragged each other to and fro and
                      claw marks on the trunk of the wild fig tree into which the leopard climbed after I fired the
                      shots. The affair was of course a drama after the Africans’ hearts and several of our
                      shamba boys called to see me next day to make sympathetic noises and discuss the
                      affair.

                      I went to bed early that night hoping that the leopard had been scared off for
                      good but I must confess I shut all windows and doors. Alas for my hopes of a restful
                      night. I had hardly turned down the lamp when the leopard started its terrifying grunting
                      just under the bedroom windows. If only she would sniff around quietly I should not
                      mind, but the noise is ghastly, something like the first sickening notes of a braying
                      donkey, amplified here by the hills and the gorge which is only a stones throw from the
                      bedroom. Barney was too sick to bark but Fanny barked loud enough for two and the more
                      frantic she became the hungrier the leopard sounded. Kate of course woke up and this
                      time she was frightened though I assured her that the noise was just a donkey having
                      fun. Neither of us slept until dawn when the leopard returned to the hills. When we
                      examined the tracks next morning we found that the leopard had been accompanied by
                      a fair sized cub and that together they had prowled around the house, kitchen, and out
                      houses, visiting especially the places to which the dogs had been during the day.
                      As I feel I cannot bear many more of these nights, I am sending a note to the
                      District Commissioner, Mbeya by the messenger who takes this letter to the post,
                      asking him to send a game scout or an armed policeman to deal with the leopard.
                      So don’t worry, for by the time this reaches you I feel sure this particular trouble
                      will be over.

                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe 17th October 1937

                      Dearest Family,

                      More about the leopard I fear! My messenger returned from Mbeya to say that
                      the District Officer was on safari so he had given the message to the Assistant District
                      Officer who also apparently left on safari later without bothering to reply to my note, so
                      there was nothing for me to do but to send for the village Nimrod and his muzzle loader
                      and offer him a reward if he could frighten away or kill the leopard.

                      The hunter, Laza, suggested that he should sleep at the house so I went to bed
                      early leaving Laza and his two pals to make themselves comfortable on the living room
                      floor by the fire. Laza was armed with a formidable looking muzzle loader, crammed I
                      imagine with nuts and bolts and old rusty nails. One of his pals had a spear and the other
                      a panga. This fellow was also in charge of the Petromax pressure lamp whose light was
                      hidden under a packing case. I left the campaign entirely to Laza’s direction.
                      As usual the leopard came at midnight stealing down from the direction of the
                      kitchen and announcing its presence and position with its usual ghastly grunts. Suddenly
                      pandemonium broke loose on the back verandah. I heard the roar of the muzzle loader
                      followed by a vigourous tattoo beaten on an empty paraffin tin and I rushed out hoping
                      to find the dead leopard. however nothing of the kind had happened except that the
                      noise must have scared the beast because she did not return again that night. Next
                      morning Laza solemnly informed me that, though he had shot many leopards in his day,
                      this was no ordinary leopard but a “sheitani” (devil) and that as his gun was no good
                      against witchcraft he thought he might as well retire from the hunt. Scared I bet, and I
                      don’t blame him either.

                      You can imagine my relief when a car rolled up that afternoon bringing Messers
                      Stewart and Griffiths, two farmers who live about 15 miles away, between here and
                      Mbeya. They had a note from the Assistant District Officer asking them to help me and
                      they had come to set up a trap gun in the garden. That night the leopard sniffed all
                      around the gun and I had the added strain of waiting for the bang and wondering what I
                      should do if the beast were only wounded. I conjured up horrible visions of the two little
                      totos trotting up the garden path with the early morning milk and being horribly mauled,
                      but I needn’t have worried because the leopard was far too wily to be caught that way.
                      Two more ghastly nights passed and then I had another visitor, a Dr Jackson of
                      the Tsetse Department on safari in the District. He listened sympathetically to my story
                      and left his shotgun and some SSG cartridges with me and instructed me to wait until the
                      leopard was pretty close and blow its b—– head off. It was good of him to leave his
                      gun. George always says there are three things a man should never lend, ‘His wife, his
                      gun and his dog.’ (I think in that order!)I felt quite cheered by Dr Jackson’s visit and sent
                      once again for Laza last night and arranged a real show down. In the afternoon I draped
                      heavy blankets over the living room windows to shut out the light of the pressure lamp
                      and the four of us, Laza and his two stooges and I waited up for the leopard. When we
                      guessed by her grunts that she was somewhere between the kitchen and the back door
                      we all rushed out, first the boy with the panga and the lamp, next Laza with his muzzle
                      loader, then me with the shotgun followed closely by the boy with the spear. What a
                      farce! The lamp was our undoing. We were blinded by the light and did not even
                      glimpse the leopard which made off with a derisive grunt. Laza said smugly that he knew
                      it was hopeless to try and now I feel tired and discouraged too.

                      This morning I sent a runner to Mbeya to order the hotel taxi for tomorrow and I
                      shall go to friends in Mbeya for a day or two and then on to Tukuyu where I shall stay
                      with the Eustaces until George returns from Safari.

                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe 18th November 1937

                      My darling Ann,

                      Here we are back in our own home and how lovely it is to have Daddy back from
                      safari. Thank you very much for your letter. I hope by now you have got mine telling you
                      how very much I liked the beautiful tray cloth you made for my birthday. I bet there are
                      not many little girls of five who can embroider as well as you do, darling. The boy,
                      Matafari, washes and irons it so carefully and it looks lovely on the tea tray.

                      Daddy and I had some fun last night. I was in bed and Daddy was undressing
                      when we heard a funny scratching noise on the roof. I thought it was the leopard. Daddy
                      quickly loaded his shotgun and ran outside. He had only his shirt on and he looked so
                      funny. I grabbed the loaded revolver from the cupboard and ran after Dad in my nightie
                      but after all the rush it was only your cat, Winnie, though I don’t know how she managed
                      to make such a noise. We felt so silly, we laughed and laughed.

                      Kate talks a lot now but in such a funny way you would laugh to her her. She
                      hears the houseboys call me Memsahib so sometimes instead of calling me Mummy
                      she calls me “Oompaab”. She calls the bedroom a ‘bippon’ and her little behind she
                      calls her ‘sittendump’. She loves to watch Mandawi’s cattle go home along the path
                      behind the kitchen. Joseph your donkey, always leads the cows. He has a lazy life now.
                      I am glad you had such fun on Guy Fawkes Day. You will be sad to leave
                      Plumstead but I am sure you will like going to England on the big ship with granny Kate.
                      I expect you will start school when you get to England and I am sure you will find that
                      fun.

                      God bless my dear little girl. Lots of love from Daddy and Kate,
                      and Mummy

                      Mchewe 18th November 1937

                      Hello George Darling,

                      Thank you for your lovely drawing of Daddy shooting an elephant. Daddy says
                      that the only thing is that you have drawn him a bit too handsome.

                      I went onto the verandah a few minutes ago to pick a banana for Kate from the
                      bunch hanging there and a big hornet flew out and stung my elbow! There are lots of
                      them around now and those stinging flies too. Kate wears thick corduroy dungarees so
                      that she will not get her fat little legs bitten. She is two years old now and is a real little
                      pickle. She loves running out in the rain so I have ordered a pair of red Wellingtons and a
                      tiny umbrella from a Nairobi shop for her Christmas present.

                      Fanny’s puppies have their eyes open now and have very sharp little teeth.
                      They love to nip each other. We are keeping the fiercest little one whom we call Paddy
                      but are giving the others to friends. The coffee bushes are full of lovely white flowers
                      and the bees and ants are very busy stealing their honey.

                      Yesterday a troop of baboons came down the hill and Dad shot a big one to
                      scare the others off. They are a nuisance because they steal the maize and potatoes
                      from the native shambas and then there is not enough food for the totos.
                      Dad and I are very proud of you for not making a fuss when you went to the
                      dentist to have that tooth out.

                      Bye bye, my fine little son.
                      Three bags full of love from Kate, Dad and Mummy.

                      Mchewe 12th February, 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      here is some news that will please you. George has been offered and has
                      accepted a job as Forester at Mbulu in the Northern Province of Tanganyika. George
                      would have preferred a job as Game Ranger, but though the Game Warden, Philip
                      Teare, is most anxious to have him in the Game Department, there is no vacancy at
                      present. Anyway if one crops up later, George can always transfer from one
                      Government Department to another. Poor George, he hates the idea of taking a job. He
                      says that hitherto he has always been his own master and he detests the thought of
                      being pushed around by anyone.

                      Now however he has no choice. Our capitol is almost exhausted and the coffee
                      market shows no signs of improving. With three children and another on the way, he
                      feels he simply must have a fixed income. I shall be sad to leave this little farm. I love
                      our little home and we have been so very happy here, but my heart rejoices at the
                      thought of overseas leave every thirty months. Now we shall be able to fetch Ann and
                      George from England and in three years time we will all be together in Tanganyika once
                      more.

                      There is no sale for farms so we will just shut the house and keep on a very small
                      labour force just to keep the farm from going derelict. We are eating our hens but will
                      take our two dogs, Fanny and Paddy with us.

                      One thing I shall be glad to leave is that leopard. She still comes grunting around
                      at night but not as badly as she did before. I do not mind at all when George is here but
                      until George was accepted for this forestry job I was afraid he might go back to the
                      Diggings and I should once more be left alone to be cursed by the leopard’s attentions.
                      Knowing how much I dreaded this George was most anxious to shoot the leopard and
                      for weeks he kept his shotgun and a powerful torch handy at night.

                      One night last week we woke to hear it grunting near the kitchen. We got up very
                      quietly and whilst George loaded the shotgun with SSG, I took the torch and got the
                      heavy revolver from the cupboard. We crept out onto the dark verandah where George
                      whispered to me to not switch on the torch until he had located the leopard. It was pitch
                      black outside so all he could do was listen intently. And then of course I spoilt all his
                      plans. I trod on the dog’s tin bowl and made a terrific clatter! George ordered me to
                      switch on the light but it was too late and the leopard vanished into the long grass of the
                      Kalonga, grunting derisively, or so it sounded.

                      She never comes into the clearing now but grunts from the hillside just above it.

                      Eleanor.

                      Mbulu 18th March, 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Journeys end at last. here we are at Mbulu, installed in our new quarters which are
                      as different as they possibly could be from our own cosy little home at Mchewe. We
                      live now, my dears, in one wing of a sort of ‘Beau Geste’ fort but I’ll tell you more about
                      it in my next letter. We only arrived yesterday and have not had time to look around.
                      This letter will tell you just about our trip from Mbeya.

                      We left the farm in our little red Ford two seater with all our portable goods and
                      chattels plus two native servants and the two dogs. Before driving off, George took one
                      look at the flattened springs and declared that he would be surprised if we reached
                      Mbeya without a breakdown and that we would never make Mbulu with the car so
                      overloaded.

                      However luck was with us. We reached Mbeya without mishap and at one of the
                      local garages saw a sturdy used Ford V8 boxbody car for sale. The garage agreed to
                      take our small car as part payment and George drew on our little remaining capitol for the
                      rest. We spent that night in the house of the Forest Officer and next morning set out in
                      comfort for the Northern Province of Tanganyika.

                      I had done the journey from Dodoma to Mbeya seven years before so was
                      familiar with the scenery but the road was much improved and the old pole bridges had
                      been replaced by modern steel ones. Kate was as good as gold all the way. We
                      avoided hotels and camped by the road and she found this great fun.
                      The road beyond Dodoma was new to me and very interesting country, flat and
                      dry and dusty, as little rain falls there. The trees are mostly thorn trees but here and there
                      one sees a giant baobab, weird trees with fantastically thick trunks and fat squat branches
                      with meagre foliage. The inhabitants of this area I found interesting though. They are
                      called Wagogo and are a primitive people who ape the Masai in dress and customs
                      though they are much inferior to the Masai in physique. They are also great herders of
                      cattle which, rather surprisingly, appear to thrive in that dry area.

                      The scenery alters greatly as one nears Babati, which one approaches by a high
                      escarpment from which one has a wonderful view of the Rift Valley. Babati township
                      appears to be just a small group of Indian shops and shabby native houses, but I
                      believe there are some good farms in the area. Though the little township is squalid,
                      there is a beautiful lake and grand mountains to please the eye. We stopped only long
                      enough to fill up with petrol and buy some foodstuffs. Beyond Babati there is a tsetse
                      fly belt and George warned our two native servants to see that no tsetse flies settled on
                      the dogs.

                      We stopped for the night in a little rest house on the road about 80 miles from
                      Arusha where we were to spend a few days with the Forest Officer before going on to
                      Mbulu. I enjoyed this section of the road very much because it runs across wide plains
                      which are bounded on the West by the blue mountains of the Rift Valley wall. Here for
                      the first time I saw the Masai on their home ground guarding their vast herds of cattle. I
                      also saw their strange primitive hovels called Manyattas, with their thorn walled cattle
                      bomas and lots of plains game – giraffe, wildebeest, ostriches and antelope. Kate was
                      wildly excited and entranced with the game especially the giraffe which stood gazing
                      curiously and unafraid of us, often within a few yards of the road.

                      Finally we came across the greatest thrill of all, my first view of Mt Meru the extinct
                      volcano about 16,000 feet high which towers over Arusha township. The approach to
                      Arusha is through flourishing coffee plantations very different alas from our farm at Mchewe. George says that at Arusha coffee growing is still a paying proposition
                      because here the yield of berry per acre is much higher than in the Southern highlands
                      and here in the North the farmers have not such heavy transport costs as the railway runs
                      from Arusha to the port at Tanga.

                      We stayed overnight at a rather second rate hotel but the food was good and we
                      had hot baths and a good nights rest. Next day Tom Lewis the Forest Officer, fetched
                      us and we spent a few days camping in a tent in the Lewis’ garden having meals at their
                      home. Both Tom and Lillian Lewis were most friendly. Tom lewis explained to George
                      what his work in the Mbulu District was to be, and they took us camping in a Forest
                      Reserve where Lillian and her small son David and Kate and I had a lovely lazy time
                      amidst beautiful surroundings. Before we left for Mbulu, Lillian took me shopping to buy
                      material for curtains for our new home. She described the Forest House at Mbulu to me
                      and it sounded delightful but alas, when we reached Mbulu we discovered that the
                      Assistant District Officer had moved into the Forest House and we were directed to the
                      Fort or Boma. The night before we left Arusha for Mbulu it rained very heavily and the
                      road was very treacherous and slippery due to the surface being of ‘black cotton’ soil
                      which has the appearance and consistency of chocolate blancmange, after rain. To get to
                      Mbulu we had to drive back in the direction of Dodoma for some 70 miles and then turn
                      to the right and drive across plains to the Great Rift Valley Wall. The views from this
                      escarpment road which climbs this wall are magnificent. At one point one looks down
                      upon Lake Manyara with its brilliant white beaches of soda.

                      The drive was a most trying one for George. We had no chains for the wheels
                      and several times we stuck in the mud and our two houseboys had to put grass and
                      branches under the wheels to stop them from spinning. Quite early on in the afternoon
                      George gave up all hope of reaching Mbulu that day and planned to spend the night in
                      a little bush rest camp at Karatu. However at one point it looked as though we would not
                      even reach this resthouse for late afternoon found us properly bogged down in a mess
                      of mud at the bottom of a long and very steep hill. In spite of frantic efforts on the part of
                      George and the two boys, all now very wet and muddy, the heavy car remained stuck.
                      Suddenly five Masai men appeared through the bushes beside the road. They
                      were all tall and angular and rather terrifying looking to me. Each wore only a blanket
                      knotted over one shoulder and all were armed with spears. They lined up by the side of
                      the road and just looked – not hostile but simply aloof and supercilious. George greeted
                      them and said in Ki-Swahili, “Help to push and I will reward you.” But they said nothing,
                      just drawing back imperceptibly to register disgust at the mere idea of manual labour.
                      Their expressions said quite clearly “A Masai is a warrior and does not soil his hands.”
                      George then did something which startled them I think, as much as me. He
                      plucked their spears from their hands one by one and flung them into the back of the
                      boxbody. “Now push!” he said, “And when we are safely out of the mud you shall have
                      your spears back.” To my utter astonishment the Masai seemed to applaud George’s
                      action. I think they admire courage in a man more than anything else. They pushed with a
                      will and soon we were roaring up the long steep slope. “I can’t stop here” quoth George
                      as up and up we went. The Masai were in mad pursuit with their blankets streaming
                      behind. They took a very steep path which was a shortcut to the top. They are certainly
                      amazing athletes and reached the top at the same time as the car. Their route of course
                      was shorter but much more steep, yet they came up without any sign of fatigue to claim
                      their spears and the money which George handed out with a friendly grin. The Masai
                      took the whole episode in good heart and we parted on the most friendly terms.

                      After a rather chilly night in the three walled shack, we started on the last lap of our
                      journey yesterday morning in bright weather and made the trip to Mbulu without incident.

                      Eleanor.

                      Mbulu 24th March, 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Mbulu is an attractive station but living in this rather romantic looking fort has many
                      disadvantages. Our quarters make up one side of the fort which is built up around a
                      hollow square. The buildings are single storied but very tall in the German manner and
                      there is a tower on one corner from which the Union Jack flies. The tower room is our
                      sitting room, and one has very fine views from the windows of the rolling country side.
                      However to reach this room one has to climb a steep flight of cement steps from the
                      court yard. Another disadvantage of this tower room is that there is a swarm of bees in
                      the roof and the stray ones drift down through holes in the ceiling and buzz angrily
                      against the window panes or fly around in a most menacing manner.

                      Ours are the only private quarters in the Fort. Two other sides of the Fort are
                      used as offices, storerooms and court room and the fourth side is simply a thick wall with
                      battlements and loopholes and a huge iron shod double door of enormous thickness
                      which is always barred at sunset when the flag is hauled down. Two Police Askari always
                      remain in the Fort on guard at night. The effect from outside the whitewashed fort is very
                      romantic but inside it is hardly homely and how I miss my garden at Mchewe and the
                      grass and trees.

                      We have no privacy downstairs because our windows overlook the bare
                      courtyard which is filled with Africans patiently waiting to be admitted to the courtroom as
                      witnesses or spectators. The outside windows which overlook the valley are heavily
                      barred. I can only think that the Germans who built this fort must have been very scared
                      of the local natives.

                      Our rooms are hardly cosy and are furnished with typical heavy German pieces.
                      We have a vast bleak bedroom, a dining room and an enormous gloomy kitchen in
                      which meals for the German garrison were cooked. At night this kitchen is alive with
                      gigantic rats but fortunately they do not seem to care for the other rooms. To crown
                      everything owls hoot and screech at night on the roof.

                      On our first day here I wandered outside the fort walls with Kate and came upon a
                      neatly fenced plot enclosing the graves of about fifteen South African soldiers killed by
                      the Germans in the 1914-18 war. I understand that at least one of theses soldiers died in
                      the courtyard here. The story goes, that during the period in the Great War when this fort
                      was occupied by a troop of South African Horse, a German named Siedtendorf
                      appeared at the great barred door at night and asked to speak to the officer in command
                      of the Troop. The officer complied with this request and the small shutter in the door was
                      opened so that he could speak with the German. The German, however, had not come
                      to speak. When he saw the exposed face of the officer, he fired, killing him, and
                      escaped into the dark night. I had this tale on good authority but cannot vouch for it. I do
                      know though, that there are two bullet holes in the door beside the shutter. An unhappy
                      story to think about when George is away, as he is now, and the moonlight throws queer
                      shadows in the court yard and the owls hoot.

                      However though I find our quarters depressing, I like Mbulu itself very much. It is
                      rolling country, treeless except for the plantations of the Forestry Dept. The land is very
                      fertile in the watered valleys but the grass on hills and plains is cropped to the roots by
                      the far too numerous cattle and goats. There are very few Europeans on the station, only
                      Mr Duncan, the District Officer, whose wife and children recently left for England, the
                      Assistant District Officer and his wife, a bachelor Veterinary Officer, a Road Foreman and
                      ourselves, and down in the village a German with an American wife and an elderly
                      Irishman whom I have not met. The Government officials have a communal vegetable
                      garden in the valley below the fort which keeps us well supplied with green stuff. 

                      Most afternoons George, Kate and I go for walks after tea. On Fridays there is a
                      little ceremony here outside the fort. In the late afternoon a little procession of small
                      native schoolboys, headed by a drum and penny whistle band come marching up the
                      road to a tune which sounds like ‘Two lovely black eyes”. They form up below our tower
                      and as the flag is lowered for the day they play ‘God save the King’, and then march off
                      again. It is quite a cheerful little ceremony.

                      The local Africans are a skinny lot and, I should say, a poor tribe. They protect
                      themselves against the cold by wrapping themselves in cotton blankets or a strip of
                      unbleached sheeting. This they drape over their heads, almost covering their faces and
                      the rest is wrapped closely round their bodies in the manner of a shroud. A most
                      depressing fashion. They live in very primitive comfortless houses. They simply make a
                      hollow in the hillside and build a front wall of wattle and daub. Into this rude shelter at night
                      go cattle and goats, men, women, and children.

                      Mbulu village has the usual mud brick and wattle dukas and wattle and daub
                      houses. The chief trader is a Goan who keeps a surprisingly good variety of tinned
                      foodstuffs and also sells hardware and soft goods.

                      The Europeans here have been friendly but as you will have noted there are
                      only two other women on station and no children at all to be companions for Kate.

                      Eleanor.

                      Mbulu 20th June 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Here we are on Safari with George at Babati where we are occupying a rest
                      house on the slopes of Ufiome Mountain. The slopes are a Forest Reserve and
                      George is supervising the clearing of firebreaks in preparation for the dry weather. He
                      goes off after a very early breakfast and returns home in the late afternoon so Kate and I
                      have long lazy days.

                      Babati is a pleasant spot and the resthouse is quite comfortable. It is about a mile
                      from the village which is just the usual collection of small mud brick and corrugated iron
                      Indian Dukas. There are a few settlers in the area growing coffee, or going in for mixed
                      farming but I don’t think they are doing very well. The farm adjoining the rest house is
                      owned by Lord Lovelace but is run by a manager.

                      George says he gets enough exercise clambering about all day on the mountain,
                      so Kate and I do our walking in the mornings when George is busy, and we all relax in
                      the evenings when George returns from his field work. Kate’s favourite walk is to the big
                      block of mtama (sorghum) shambas lower down the hill. There are huge swarms of tiny
                      grain eating birds around waiting the chance to plunder the mtama, so the crops are
                      watched from sunrise to sunset.

                      Crude observation platforms have been erected for this purpose in the centre of
                      each field and the women and the young boys of the family concerned, take it in turn to
                      occupy the platform and scare the birds. Each watcher has a sling and uses clods of
                      earth for ammunition. The clod is placed in the centre of the sling which is then whirled
                      around at arms length. Suddenly one end of the sling is released and the clod of earth
                      flies out and shatters against the mtama stalks. The sling makes a loud whip like crack and
                      the noise is quite startling and very effective in keeping the birds at a safe distance.

                      Eleanor.

                      Karatu 3rd July 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Still on safari you see! We left Babati ten days ago and passed through Mbulu
                      on our way to this spot. We slept out of doors one night beside Lake Tiawa about eight
                      miles from Mbulu. It was a peaceful spot and we enjoyed watching the reflection of the
                      sunset on the lake and the waterhens and duck and pelicans settling down for the night.
                      However it turned piercingly cold after sunset so we had an early supper and then all
                      three of us lay down to sleep in the back of the boxbody (station wagon). It was a tight
                      fit and a real case of ‘When Dad turns, we all turn.’

                      Here at Karatu we are living in a grass hut with only three walls. It is rather sweet
                      and looks like the setting for a Nativity Play. Kate and I share the only camp bed and
                      George and the dogs sleep on the floor. The air here is very fresh and exhilarating and
                      we all feel very fit. George is occupied all day supervising the cutting of firebreaks
                      around existing plantations and the forest reserve of indigenous trees. Our camp is on
                      the hillside and below us lie the fertile wheat lands of European farmers.

                      They are mostly Afrikaners, the descendants of the Boer families who were
                      invited by the Germans to settle here after the Boer War. Most of them are pro-British
                      now and a few have called in here to chat to George about big game hunting. George
                      gets on extremely well with them and recently attended a wedding where he had a
                      lively time dancing at the reception. He likes the older people best as most are great
                      individualists. One fine old man, surnamed von Rooyen, visited our camp. He is a Boer
                      of the General Smuts type with spare figure and bearded face. George tells me he is a
                      real patriarch with an enormous family – mainly sons. This old farmer fought against the
                      British throughout the Boer War under General Smuts and again against the British in the
                      German East Africa campaign when he was a scout and right hand man to Von Lettow. It
                      is said that Von Lettow was able to stay in the field until the end of the Great War
                      because he listened to the advise given to him by von Rooyen. However his dislike for
                      the British does not extend to George as they have a mutual interest in big game
                      hunting.

                      Kate loves being on safari. She is now so accustomed to having me as her nurse
                      and constant companion that I do not know how she will react to paid help. I shall have to
                      get someone to look after her during my confinement in the little German Red Cross
                      hospital at Oldeani.

                      George has obtained permission from the District Commissioner, for Kate and
                      me to occupy the Government Rest House at Oldeani from the end of July until the end
                      of August when my baby is due. He will have to carry on with his field work but will join
                      us at weekends whenever possible.

                      Eleanor.

                      Karatu 12th July 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Not long now before we leave this camp. We have greatly enjoyed our stay
                      here in spite of the very chilly earl mornings and the nights when we sit around in heavy
                      overcoats until our early bed time.

                      Last Sunday I persuaded George to take Kate and me to the famous Ngoro-
                      Ngoro Crater. He was not very keen to do so because the road is very bumpy for
                      anyone in my interesting condition but I feel so fit that I was most anxious to take this
                      opportunity of seeing the enormous crater. We may never be in this vicinity again and in
                      any case safari will not be so simple with a small baby.

                      What a wonderful trip it was! The road winds up a steep escarpment from which
                      one gets a glorious birds eye view of the plains of the Great Rift Valley far, far below.
                      The crater is immense. There is a road which skirts the rim in places and one has quite
                      startling views of the floor of the crater about two thousand feet below.

                      A camp for tourists has just been built in a clearing in the virgin forest. It is most
                      picturesque as the camp buildings are very neatly constructed log cabins with very high
                      pitched thatched roofs. We spent about an hour sitting on the grass near the edge of the
                      crater enjoying the sunshine and the sharp air and really awe inspiring view. Far below us
                      in the middle of the crater was a small lake and we could see large herds of game
                      animals grazing there but they were too far away to be impressive, even seen through
                      George’s field glasses. Most appeared to be wildebeest and zebra but I also picked
                      out buffalo. Much more exciting was my first close view of a wild elephant. George
                      pointed him out to me as we approached the rest camp on the inward journey. He
                      stood quietly under a tree near the road and did not seem to be disturbed by the car
                      though he rolled a wary eye in our direction. On our return journey we saw him again at
                      almost uncomfortably close quarters. We rounded a sharp corner and there stood the
                      elephant, facing us and slap in the middle of the road. He was busily engaged giving
                      himself a dust bath but spared time to give us an irritable look. Fortunately we were on a
                      slight slope so George quickly switched off the engine and backed the car quietly round
                      the corner. He got out of the car and loaded his rifle, just in case! But after he had finished
                      his toilet the elephant moved off the road and we took our chance and passed without
                      incident.

                      One notices the steepness of the Ngoro-Ngoro road more on the downward
                      journey than on the way up. The road is cut into the side of the mountain so that one has
                      a steep slope on one hand and a sheer drop on the other. George told me that a lorry
                      coming down the mountain was once charged from behind by a rhino. On feeling and
                      hearing the bash from behind the panic stricken driver drove off down the mountain as
                      fast as he dared and never paused until he reached level ground at the bottom of the
                      mountain. There was no sign of the rhino so the driver got out to examine his lorry and
                      found the rhino horn embedded in the wooden tail end of the lorry. The horn had been
                      wrenched right off!

                      Happily no excitement of that kind happened to us. I have yet to see a rhino.

                      Eleanor.

                      Oldeani. 19th July 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Greetings from a lady in waiting! Kate and I have settled down comfortably in the
                      new, solidly built Government Rest House which comprises one large living room and
                      one large office with a connecting door. Outside there is a kitchen and a boys quarter.
                      There are no resident Government officials here at Oldeani so the office is in use only
                      when the District Officer from Mbulu makes his monthly visit. However a large Union
                      Jack flies from a flagpole in the front of the building as a gentle reminder to the entirely
                      German population of Oldeani that Tanganyika is now under British rule.

                      There is quite a large community of German settlers here, most of whom are
                      engaged in coffee farming. George has visited several of the farms in connection with his
                      forestry work and says the coffee plantations look very promising indeed. There are also
                      a few German traders in the village and there is a large boarding school for German
                      children and also a very pleasant little hospital where I have arranged to have the baby.
                      Right next door to the Rest House is a General Dealers Store run by a couple named
                      Schnabbe. The shop is stocked with drapery, hardware, china and foodstuffs all
                      imported from Germany and of very good quality. The Schnabbes also sell local farm
                      produce, beautiful fresh vegetables, eggs and pure rich milk and farm butter. Our meat
                      comes from a German butchery and it is a great treat to get clean, well cut meat. The
                      sausages also are marvellous and in great variety.

                      The butcher is an entertaining character. When he called round looking for custom I
                      expected him to break out in a yodel any minute, as it was obvious from a glance that
                      the Alps are his natural background. From under a green Tyrollean hat with feather,
                      blooms a round beefy face with sparkling small eyes and such widely spaced teeth that
                      one inevitably thinks of a garden rake. Enormous beefy thighs bulge from greasy
                      lederhosen which are supported by the traditional embroidered braces. So far the
                      butcher is the only cheery German, male or female, whom I have seen, and I have met
                      most of the locals at the Schnabbe’s shop. Most of the men seem to have cultivated
                      the grim Hitler look. They are all fanatical Nazis and one is usually greeted by a raised
                      hand and Heil Hitler! All very theatrical. I always feel like crying in ringing tones ‘God
                      Save the King’ or even ‘St George for England’. However the men are all very correct
                      and courteous and the women friendly. The women all admire Kate and cry, “Ag, das
                      kleine Englander.” She really is a picture with her rosy cheeks and huge grey eyes and
                      golden curls. Kate is having a wonderful time playing with Manfried, the Scnabbe’s small
                      son. Neither understands a word said by the other but that doesn’t seem to worry them.

                      Before he left on safari, George took me to hospital for an examination by the
                      nurse, Sister Marianne. She has not been long in the country and knows very little
                      English but is determined to learn and carried on an animated, if rather quaint,
                      conversation with frequent references to a pocket dictionary. She says I am not to worry
                      because there is not doctor here. She is a very experienced midwife and anyway in an
                      emergency could call on the old retired Veterinary Surgeon for assistance.
                      I asked sister Marianne whether she knew of any German woman or girl who
                      would look after Kate whilst I am in hospital and today a very top drawer German,
                      bearing a strong likeness to ‘Little Willie’, called and offered the services of his niece who
                      is here on a visit from Germany. I was rather taken aback and said, “Oh no Baron, your
                      niece would not be the type I had in mind. I’m afraid I cannot pay much for a companion.”
                      However the Baron was not to be discouraged. He told me that his niece is seventeen
                      but looks twenty, that she is well educated and will make a cheerful companion. Her
                      father wishes her to learn to speak English fluently and that is why the Baron wished her
                      to come to me as a house daughter. As to pay, a couple of pounds a month for pocket
                      money and her keep was all he had in mind. So with some misgivings I agreed to take
                      the niece on as a companion as from 1st August.

                      Eleanor.

                      Oldeani. 10th August 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Never a dull moment since my young companion arrived. She is a striking looking
                      girl with a tall boyish figure and very short and very fine dark hair which she wears
                      severely slicked back. She wears tweeds, no make up but has shiny rosy cheeks and
                      perfect teeth – she also,inevitably, has a man friend and I have an uncomfortable
                      suspicion that it is because of him that she was planted upon me. Upon second
                      thoughts though, maybe it was because of her excessive vitality, or even because of
                      her healthy appetite! The Baroness, I hear is in poor health and I can imagine that such
                      abundant health and spirit must have been quite overpowering. The name is Ingeborg,
                      but she is called Mouche, which I believe means Mouse. Someone in her family must
                      have a sense of humour.

                      Her English only needed practice and she now chatters fluently so that I know her
                      background and views on life. Mouche’s father is a personal friend of Goering. He was
                      once a big noise in the German Airforce but is now connected with the car industry and
                      travels frequently and intensively in Europe and America on business. Mouche showed
                      me some snap shots of her family and I must say they look prosperous and charming.
                      Mouche tells me that her father wants her to learn to speak English fluently so that
                      she can get a job with some British diplomat in Cairo. I had immediate thought that I
                      might be nursing a future Mata Hari in my bosom, but this was immediately extinguished
                      when Mouche remarked that her father would like her to marry an Englishman. However
                      it seems that the mere idea revolts her. “Englishmen are degenerates who swill whisky
                      all day.” I pointed out that she had met George, who was a true blue Englishman, but
                      was nevertheless a fine physical specimen and certainly didn’t drink all day. Mouche
                      replied that George is not an Englishman but a hunter, as though that set him apart.
                      Mouche is an ardent Hitler fan and an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth
                      Movement. The house resounds with Hitler youth songs and when she is not singing,
                      her gramophone is playing very stirring marching songs. I cannot understand a word,
                      which is perhaps as well. Every day she does the most strenuous exercises watched
                      with envy by me as my proportions are now those of a circus Big Top. Mouche eats a
                      fantastic amount of meat and I feel it is a blessing that she is much admired by our
                      Tyrollean butcher who now delivers our meat in person and adds as a token of his
                      admiration some extra sausages for Mouche.

                      I must confess I find her stimulating company as George is on safari most of the
                      time and my evenings otherwise would be lonely. I am a little worried though about
                      leaving Kate here with Mouche when I go to hospital. The dogs and Kate have not taken
                      to her. I am trying to prepare Kate for the separation but she says, “She’s not my
                      mummy. You are my dear mummy, and I want you, I want you.” George has got
                      permission from the Provincial Forestry Officer to spend the last week of August here at
                      the Rest House with me and I only hope that the baby will be born during that time.
                      Kate adores her dad and will be perfectly happy to remain here with him.

                      One final paragraph about Mouche. I thought all German girls were domesticated
                      but not Mouche. I have Kesho-Kutwa here with me as cook and I have engaged a local
                      boy to do the laundry. I however expected Mouche would take over making the
                      puddings and pastry but she informed me that she can only bake a chocolate cake and
                      absolutely nothing else. She said brightly however that she would do the mending. As
                      there is none for her to do, she has rescued a large worn handkerchief of George’s and
                      sits with her feet up listening to stirring gramophone records whilst she mends the
                      handkerchief with exquisite darning.

                      Eleanor.

                      Oldeani. 20th August 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      Just after I had posted my last letter I received what George calls a demi official
                      letter from the District Officer informing me that I would have to move out of the Rest
                      House for a few days as the Governor and his hangers on would be visiting Oldeani
                      and would require the Rest House. Fortunately George happened to be here for a few
                      hours and he arranged for Kate and Mouche and me to spend a few days at the
                      German School as borders. So here I am at the school having a pleasant and restful
                      time and much entertained by all the goings on.

                      The school buildings were built with funds from Germany and the school is run on
                      the lines of a contemporary German school. I think the school gets a grant from the
                      Tanganyika Government towards running expenses, but I am not sure. The school hall is
                      dominated by a more than life sized oil painting of Adolf Hitler which, at present, is
                      flanked on one side by the German Flag and on the other by the Union Jack. I cannot
                      help feeling that the latter was put up today for the Governor’s visit today.
                      The teachers are very amiable. We all meet at mealtimes, and though few of the
                      teachers speak English, the ones who do are anxious to chatter. The headmaster is a
                      scholarly man but obviously anti-British. He says he cannot understand why so many
                      South Africans are loyal to Britain – or rather to England. “They conquered your country
                      didn’t they?” I said that that had never occurred to me and that anyway I was mainly of
                      Scots descent and that loyalty to the crown was natural to me. “But the English
                      conquered the Scots and yet you are loyal to England. That I cannot understand.” “Well I
                      love England,” said I firmly, ”and so do all British South Africans.” Since then we have
                      stuck to English literature. Shakespeare, Lord Byron and Galsworthy seem to be the
                      favourites and all, thank goodness, make safe topics for conversation.
                      Mouche is in her element but Kate and I do not enjoy the food which is typically
                      German and consists largely of masses of fat pork and sauerkraut and unfamiliar soups. I
                      feel sure that the soup at lunch today had blobs of lemon curd in it! I also find most
                      disconcerting the way that everyone looks at me and says, “Bon appetite”, with much
                      smiling and nodding so I have to fight down my nausea and make a show of enjoying
                      the meals.

                      The teacher whose room adjoins mine is a pleasant woman and I take my
                      afternoon tea with her. She, like all the teachers, has a large framed photo of Hitler on her
                      wall flanked by bracket vases of fresh flowers. One simply can’t get away from the man!
                      Even in the dormitories each child has a picture of Hitler above the bed. Hitler accepting
                      flowers from a small girl, or patting a small boy on the head. Even the children use the
                      greeting ‘Heil Hitler’. These German children seem unnaturally prim when compared with
                      my cheerful ex-pupils in South Africa but some of them are certainly very lovely to look
                      at.

                      Tomorrow Mouche, Kate and I return to our quarters in the Rest House and in a
                      few days George will join us for a week.

                      Eleanor.

                      Oldeani Hospital. 9th September 1938

                      Dearest Family,

                      You will all be delighted to hear that we have a second son, whom we have
                      named John. He is a darling, so quaint and good. He looks just like a little old man with a
                      high bald forehead fringed around the edges with a light brown fluff. George and I call
                      him Johnny Jo because he has a tiny round mouth and a rather big nose and reminds us
                      of A.A.Milne’s ‘Jonathan Jo has a mouth like an O’ , but Kate calls him, ‘My brother John’.
                      George was not here when he was born on September 5th, just two minutes
                      before midnight. He left on safari on the morning of the 4th and, of course, that very night
                      the labour pains started. Fortunately Kate was in bed asleep so Mouche walked with
                      me up the hill to the hospital where I was cheerfully received by Sister Marianne who
                      had everything ready for the confinement. I was lucky to have such an experienced
                      midwife because this was a breech birth and sister had to manage single handed. As
                      there was no doctor present I was not allowed even a sniff of anaesthetic. Sister slaved
                      away by the light of a pressure lamp endeavouring to turn the baby having first shoved
                      an inverted baby bath under my hips to raise them.

                      What a performance! Sister Marianne was very much afraid that she might not be
                      able to save the baby and great was our relief when at last she managed to haul him out
                      by the feet. One slap and the baby began to cry without any further attention so Sister
                      wrapped him up in a blanket and took Johnny to her room for the night. I got very little
                      sleep but was so thankful to have the ordeal over that I did not mind even though I
                      heard a hyaena cackling and calling under my window in a most evil way.
                      When Sister brought Johnny to me in the early morning I stared in astonishment.
                      Instead of dressing him in one of his soft Viyella nighties, she had dressed him in a short
                      sleeved vest of knitted cotton with a cotton cloth swayed around his waist sarong
                      fashion. When I protested, “But Sister why is the baby not dressed in his own clothes?”
                      She answered firmly, “I find it is not allowed. A baby’s clotheses must be boiled and I
                      cannot boil clotheses of wool therefore your baby must wear the clotheses of the Red
                      Cross.”

                      It was the same with the bedding. Poor Johnny lies all day in a deep wicker
                      basket with a detachable calico lining. There is no pillow under his head but a vast kind of
                      calico covered pillow is his only covering. There is nothing at all cosy and soft round my
                      poor baby. I said crossly to the Sister, “As every thing must be so sterile, I wonder you
                      don’t boil me too.” This she ignored.

                      When my message reached George he dashed back to visit us. Sister took him
                      first to see the baby and George was astonished to see the baby basket covered by a
                      sheet. “She has the poor little kid covered up like a bloody parrot,” he told me. So I
                      asked him to go at once to buy a square of mosquito netting to replace the sheet.
                      Kate is quite a problem. She behaves like an Angel when she is here in my
                      room but is rebellious when Sister shoos her out. She says she “Hates the Nanny”
                      which is what she calls Mouche. Unfortunately it seems that she woke before midnight
                      on the night Johnny Jo was born to find me gone and Mouche in my bed. According to
                      Mouche, Kate wept all night and certainly when she visited me in the early morning
                      Kate’s face was puffy with crying and she clung to me crying “Oh my dear mummy, why
                      did you go away?” over and over again. Sister Marianne was touched and suggested
                      that Mouche and Kate should come to the hospital as boarders as I am the only patient
                      at present and there is plenty of room. Luckily Kate does not seem at all jealous of the
                      baby and it is a great relief to have here here under my eye.

                      Eleanor.

                      #6261
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        From Tanganyika with Love

                        continued

                        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                        Mchewe Estate. 11th July 1931.

                        Dearest Family,

                        You say that you would like to know more about our neighbours. Well there is
                        not much to tell. Kath Wood is very good about coming over to see me. I admire her
                        very much because she is so capable as well as being attractive. She speaks very
                        fluent Ki-Swahili and I envy her the way she can carry on a long conversation with the
                        natives. I am very slow in learning the language possibly because Lamek and the
                        houseboy both speak basic English.

                        I have very little to do with the Africans apart from the house servants, but I do
                        run a sort of clinic for the wives and children of our employees. The children suffer chiefly
                        from sore eyes and worms, and the older ones often have bad ulcers on their legs. All
                        farmers keep a stock of drugs and bandages.

                        George also does a bit of surgery and last month sewed up the sole of the foot
                        of a boy who had trodden on the blade of a panga, a sort of sword the Africans use for
                        hacking down bush. He made an excellent job of it. George tells me that the Africans
                        have wonderful powers of recuperation. Once in his bachelor days, one of his men was
                        disembowelled by an elephant. George washed his “guts” in a weak solution of
                        pot.permang, put them back in the cavity and sewed up the torn flesh and he
                        recovered.

                        But to get back to the neighbours. We see less of Hicky Wood than of Kath.
                        Hicky can be charming but is often moody as I believe Irishmen often are.
                        Major Jones is now at home on his shamba, which he leaves from time to time
                        for temporary jobs on the district roads. He walks across fairly regularly and we are
                        always glad to see him for he is a great bearer of news. In this part of Africa there is no
                        knocking or ringing of doorbells. Front doors are always left open and visitors always
                        welcome. When a visitor approaches a house he shouts “Hodi”, and the owner of the
                        house yells “Karibu”, which I believe means “Come near” or approach, and tea is
                        produced in a matter of minutes no matter what hour of the day it is.
                        The road that passes all our farms is the only road to the Gold Diggings and
                        diggers often drop in on the Woods and Major Jones and bring news of the Goldfields.
                        This news is sometimes about gold but quite often about whose wife is living with
                        whom. This is a great country for gossip.

                        Major Jones now has his brother Llewyllen living with him. I drove across with
                        George to be introduced to him. Llewyllen’s health is poor and he looks much older than
                        his years and very like the portrait of Trader Horn. He has the same emaciated features,
                        burning eyes and long beard. He is proud of his Welsh tenor voice and often bursts into
                        song.

                        Both brothers are excellent conversationalists and George enjoys walking over
                        sometimes on a Sunday for a bit of masculine company. The other day when George
                        walked across to visit the Joneses, he found both brothers in the shamba and Llew in a
                        great rage. They had been stooping to inspect a water furrow when Llew backed into a
                        hornets nest. One furious hornet stung him on the seat and another on the back of his
                        neck. Llew leapt forward and somehow his false teeth shot out into the furrow and were
                        carried along by the water. When George arrived Llew had retrieved his teeth but
                        George swears that, in the commotion, the heavy leather leggings, which Llew always
                        wears, had swivelled around on his thin legs and were calves to the front.
                        George has heard that Major Jones is to sell pert of his land to his Swedish brother-in-law, Max Coster, so we will soon have another couple in the neighbourhood.

                        I’ve had a bit of a pantomime here on the farm. On the day we went to Tukuyu,
                        all our washing was stolen from the clothes line and also our new charcoal iron. George
                        reported the matter to the police and they sent out a plain clothes policeman. He wears
                        the long white Arab gown called a Kanzu much in vogue here amongst the African elite
                        but, alas for secrecy, huge black police boots protrude from beneath the Kanzu and, to
                        add to this revealing clue, the askari springs to attention and salutes each time I pass by.
                        Not much hope of finding out the identity of the thief I fear.

                        George’s furrow was entirely successful and we now have water running behind
                        the kitchen. Our drinking water we get from a lovely little spring on the farm. We boil and
                        filter it for safety’s sake. I don’t think that is necessary. The furrow water is used for
                        washing pots and pans and for bath water.

                        Lots of love,
                        Eleanor

                        Mchewe Estate. 8th. August 1931

                        Dearest Family,

                        I think it is about time I told you that we are going to have a baby. We are both
                        thrilled about it. I have not seen a Doctor but feel very well and you are not to worry. I
                        looked it up in my handbook for wives and reckon that the baby is due about February
                        8th. next year.

                        The announcement came from George, not me! I had been feeling queasy for
                        days and was waiting for the right moment to tell George. You know. Soft lights and
                        music etc. However when I was listlessly poking my food around one lunch time
                        George enquired calmly, “When are you going to tell me about the baby?” Not at all
                        according to the book! The problem is where to have the baby. February is a very wet
                        month and the nearest Doctor is over 50 miles away at Tukuyu. I cannot go to stay at
                        Tukuyu because there is no European accommodation at the hospital, no hotel and no
                        friend with whom I could stay.

                        George thinks I should go South to you but Capetown is so very far away and I
                        love my little home here. Also George says he could not come all the way down with
                        me as he simply must stay here and get the farm on its feet. He would drive me as far
                        as the railway in Northern Rhodesia. It is a difficult decision to take. Write and tell me what
                        you think.

                        The days tick by quietly here. The servants are very willing but have to be
                        supervised and even then a crisis can occur. Last Saturday I was feeling squeamish and
                        decided not to have lunch. I lay reading on the couch whilst George sat down to a
                        solitary curry lunch. Suddenly he gave an exclamation and pushed back his chair. I
                        jumped up to see what was wrong and there, on his plate, gleaming in the curry gravy
                        were small bits of broken glass. I hurried to the kitchen to confront Lamek with the plate.
                        He explained that he had dropped the new and expensive bottle of curry powder on
                        the brick floor of the kitchen. He did not tell me as he thought I would make a “shauri” so
                        he simply scooped up the curry powder, removed the larger pieces of glass and used
                        part of the powder for seasoning the lunch.

                        The weather is getting warmer now. It was very cold in June and July and we had
                        fires in the daytime as well as at night. Now that much of the land has been cleared we
                        are able to go for pleasant walks in the weekends. My favourite spot is a waterfall on the
                        Mchewe River just on the boundary of our land. There is a delightful little pool below the
                        waterfall and one day George intends to stock it with trout.

                        Now that there are more Europeans around to buy meat the natives find it worth
                        their while to kill an occasional beast. Every now and again a native arrives with a large
                        bowl of freshly killed beef for sale. One has no way of knowing whether the animal was
                        healthy and the meat is often still warm and very bloody. I hated handling it at first but am
                        becoming accustomed to it now and have even started a brine tub. There is no other
                        way of keeping meat here and it can only be kept in its raw state for a few hours before
                        going bad. One of the delicacies is the hump which all African cattle have. When corned
                        it is like the best brisket.

                        See what a housewife I am becoming.
                        With much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. Sept.6th. 1931

                        Dearest Family,

                        I have grown to love the life here and am sad to think I shall be leaving
                        Tanganyika soon for several months. Yes I am coming down to have the baby in the
                        bosom of the family. George thinks it best and so does the doctor. I didn’t mention it
                        before but I have never recovered fully from the effects of that bad bout of malaria and
                        so I have been persuaded to leave George and our home and go to the Cape, in the
                        hope that I shall come back here as fit as when I first arrived in the country plus a really
                        healthy and bouncing baby. I am torn two ways, I long to see you all – but how I would
                        love to stay on here.

                        George will drive me down to Northern Rhodesia in early October to catch a
                        South bound train. I’ll telegraph the date of departure when I know it myself. The road is
                        very, very bad and the car has been giving a good deal of trouble so, though the baby
                        is not due until early February, George thinks it best to get the journey over soon as
                        possible, for the rains break in November and the the roads will then be impassable. It
                        may take us five or six days to reach Broken Hill as we will take it slowly. I am looking
                        forward to the drive through new country and to camping out at night.
                        Our days pass quietly by. George is out on the shamba most of the day. He
                        goes out before breakfast on weekdays and spends most of the day working with the
                        men – not only supervising but actually working with his hands and beating the labourers
                        at their own jobs. He comes to the house for meals and tea breaks. I potter around the
                        house and garden, sew, mend and read. Lamek continues to be a treasure. he turns out
                        some surprising dishes. One of his specialities is stuffed chicken. He carefully skins the
                        chicken removing all bones. He then minces all the chicken meat and adds minced onion
                        and potatoes. He then stuffs the chicken skin with the minced meat and carefully sews it
                        together again. The resulting dish is very filling because the boned chicken is twice the
                        size of a normal one. It lies on its back as round as a football with bloated legs in the air.
                        Rather repulsive to look at but Lamek is most proud of his accomplishment.
                        The other day he produced another of his masterpieces – a cooked tortoise. It
                        was served on a dish covered with parsley and crouched there sans shell but, only too
                        obviously, a tortoise. I took one look and fled with heaving diaphragm, but George said
                        it tasted quite good. He tells me that he has had queerer dishes produced by former
                        cooks. He says that once in his hunting days his cook served up a skinned baby
                        monkey with its hands folded on its breast. He says it would take a cannibal to eat that
                        dish.

                        And now for something sad. Poor old Llew died quite suddenly and it was a sad
                        shock to this tiny community. We went across to the funeral and it was a very simple and
                        dignified affair. Llew was buried on Joni’s farm in a grave dug by the farm boys. The
                        body was wrapped in a blanket and bound to some boards and lowered into the
                        ground. There was no service. The men just said “Good-bye Llew.” and “Sleep well
                        Llew”, and things like that. Then Joni and his brother-in-law Max, and George shovelled
                        soil over the body after which the grave was filled in by Joni’s shamba boys. It was a
                        lovely bright afternoon and I thought how simple and sensible a funeral it was.
                        I hope you will be glad to have me home. I bet Dad will be holding thumbs that
                        the baby will be a girl.

                        Very much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Note
                        “There are no letters to my family during the period of Sept. 1931 to June 1932
                        because during these months I was living with my parents and sister in a suburb of
                        Cape Town. I had hoped to return to Tanganyika by air with my baby soon after her
                        birth in Feb.1932 but the doctor would not permit this.

                        A month before my baby was born, a company called Imperial Airways, had
                        started the first passenger service between South Africa and England. One of the night
                        stops was at Mbeya near my husband’s coffee farm, and it was my intention to take the
                        train to Broken Hill in Northern Rhodesia and to fly from there to Mbeya with my month
                        old baby. In those days however, commercial flying was still a novelty and the doctor
                        was not sure that flying at a high altitude might not have an adverse effect upon a young
                        baby.

                        He strongly advised me to wait until the baby was four months old and I did this
                        though the long wait was very trying to my husband alone on our farm in Tanganyika,
                        and to me, cherished though I was in my old home.

                        My story, covering those nine long months is soon told. My husband drove me
                        down from Mbeya to Broken Hill in NorthernRhodesia. The journey was tedious as the
                        weather was very hot and dry and the road sandy and rutted, very different from the
                        Great North road as it is today. The wooden wheel spokes of the car became so dry
                        that they rattled and George had to bind wet rags around them. We had several
                        punctures and with one thing and another I was lucky to catch the train.
                        My parents were at Cape Town station to welcome me and I stayed
                        comfortably with them, living very quietly, until my baby was born. She arrived exactly
                        on the appointed day, Feb.8th.

                        I wrote to my husband “Our Charmian Ann is a darling baby. She is very fair and
                        rather pale and has the most exquisite hands, with long tapering fingers. Daddy
                        absolutely dotes on her and so would you, if you were here. I can’t bear to think that you
                        are so terribly far away. Although Ann was born exactly on the day, I was taken quite by
                        surprise. It was awfully hot on the night before, and before going to bed I had a fancy for
                        some water melon. The result was that when I woke in the early morning with labour
                        pains and vomiting I thought it was just an attack of indigestion due to eating too much
                        melon. The result was that I did not wake Marjorie until the pains were pretty frequent.
                        She called our next door neighbour who, in his pyjamas, drove me to the nursing home
                        at breakneck speed. The Matron was very peeved that I had left things so late but all
                        went well and by nine o’clock, Mother, positively twittering with delight, was allowed to
                        see me and her first granddaughter . She told me that poor Dad was in such a state of
                        nerves that he was sick amongst the grapevines. He says that he could not bear to go
                        through such an anxious time again, — so we will have to have our next eleven in
                        Tanganyika!”

                        The next four months passed rapidly as my time was taken up by the demands
                        of my new baby. Dr. Trudy King’s method of rearing babies was then the vogue and I
                        stuck fanatically to all the rules he laid down, to the intense exasperation of my parents
                        who longed to cuddle the child.

                        As the time of departure drew near my parents became more and more reluctant
                        to allow me to face the journey alone with their adored grandchild, so my brother,
                        Graham, very generously offered to escort us on the train to Broken Hill where he could
                        put us on the plane for Mbeya.

                        Eleanor Rushby

                         

                        Mchewe Estate. June 15th 1932

                        Dearest Family,

                        You’ll be glad to know that we arrived quite safe and sound and very, very
                        happy to be home.The train Journey was uneventful. Ann slept nearly all the way.
                        Graham was very kind and saw to everything. He even sat with the baby whilst I went
                        to meals in the dining car.

                        We were met at Broken Hill by the Thoms who had arranged accommodation for
                        us at the hotel for the night. They also drove us to the aerodrome in the morning where
                        the Airways agent told us that Ann is the first baby to travel by air on this section of the
                        Cape to England route. The plane trip was very bumpy indeed especially between
                        Broken Hill and Mpika. Everyone was ill including poor little Ann who sicked up her milk
                        all over the front of my new coat. I arrived at Mbeya looking a sorry caricature of Radiant
                        Motherhood. I must have been pale green and the baby was snow white. Under the
                        circumstances it was a good thing that George did not meet us. We were met instead
                        by Ken Menzies, the owner of the Mbeya Hotel where we spent the night. Ken was
                        most fatherly and kind and a good nights rest restored Ann and me to our usual robust
                        health.

                        Mbeya has greatly changed. The hotel is now finished and can accommodate
                        fifty guests. It consists of a large main building housing a large bar and dining room and
                        offices and a number of small cottage bedrooms. It even has electric light. There are
                        several buildings out at the aerodrome and private houses going up in Mbeya.
                        After breakfast Ken Menzies drove us out to the farm where we had a warm
                        welcome from George, who looks well but rather thin. The house was spotless and the
                        new cook, Abel, had made light scones for tea. George had prepared all sorts of lovely
                        surprises. There is a new reed ceiling in the living room and a new dresser gay with
                        willow pattern plates which he had ordered from England. There is also a writing table
                        and a square table by the door for visitors hats. More personal is a lovely model ship
                        which George assembled from one of those Hobbie’s kits. It puts the finishing touch to
                        the rather old world air of our living room.

                        In the bedroom there is a large double bed which George made himself. It has
                        strips of old car tyres nailed to a frame which makes a fine springy mattress and on top
                        of this is a thick mattress of kapok.In the kitchen there is a good wood stove which
                        George salvaged from a Mission dump. It looks a bit battered but works very well. The
                        new cook is excellent. The only blight is that he will wear rubber soled tennis shoes and
                        they smell awful. I daren’t hurt his feelings by pointing this out though. Opposite the
                        kitchen is a new laundry building containing a forty gallon hot water drum and a sink for
                        washing up. Lovely!

                        George has been working very hard. He now has forty acres of coffee seedlings
                        planted out and has also found time to plant a rose garden and fruit trees. There are
                        orange and peach trees, tree tomatoes, paw paws, guavas and berries. He absolutely
                        adores Ann who has been very good and does not seem at all unsettled by the long
                        journey.

                        It is absolutely heavenly to be back and I shall be happier than ever now that I
                        have a baby to play with during the long hours when George is busy on the farm,
                        Thank you for all your love and care during the many months I was with you. Ann
                        sends a special bubble for granddad.

                        Your very loving,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate Mbeya July 18th 1932

                        Dearest Family,

                        Ann at five months is enchanting. She is a very good baby, smiles readily and is
                        gaining weight steadily. She doesn’t sleep much during the day but that does not
                        matter, because, apart from washing her little things, I have nothing to do but attend to
                        her. She sleeps very well at night which is a blessing as George has to get up very
                        early to start work on the shamba and needs a good nights rest.
                        My nights are not so good, because we are having a plague of rats which frisk
                        around in the bedroom at night. Great big ones that come up out of the long grass in the
                        gorge beside the house and make cosy homes on our reed ceiling and in the thatch of
                        the roof.

                        We always have a night light burning so that, if necessary, I can attend to Ann
                        with a minimum of fuss, and the things I see in that dim light! There are gaps between
                        the reeds and one night I heard, plop! and there, before my horrified gaze, lay a newly
                        born hairless baby rat on the floor by the bed, plop, plop! and there lay two more.
                        Quite dead, poor things – but what a careless mother.

                        I have also seen rats scampering around on the tops of the mosquito nets and
                        sometimes we have them on our bed. They have a lovely game. They swarm down
                        the cord from which the mosquito net is suspended, leap onto the bed and onto the
                        floor. We do not have our net down now the cold season is here and there are few
                        mosquitoes.

                        Last week a rat crept under Ann’s net which hung to the floor and bit her little
                        finger, so now I tuck the net in under the mattress though it makes it difficult for me to
                        attend to her at night. We shall have to get a cat somewhere. Ann’s pram has not yet
                        arrived so George carries her when we go walking – to her great content.
                        The native women around here are most interested in Ann. They come to see
                        her, bearing small gifts, and usually bring a child or two with them. They admire my child
                        and I admire theirs and there is an exchange of gifts. They produce a couple of eggs or
                        a few bananas or perhaps a skinny fowl and I hand over sugar, salt or soap as they
                        value these commodities. The most lavish gift went to the wife of Thomas our headman,
                        who produced twin daughters in the same week as I had Ann.

                        Our neighbours have all been across to welcome me back and to admire the
                        baby. These include Marion Coster who came out to join her husband whilst I was in
                        South Africa. The two Hickson-Wood children came over on a fat old white donkey.
                        They made a pretty picture sitting astride, one behind the other – Maureen with her arms
                        around small Michael’s waist. A native toto led the donkey and the children’ s ayah
                        walked beside it.

                        It is quite cold here now but the sun is bright and the air dry. The whole
                        countryside is beautifully green and we are a very happy little family.

                        Lots and lots of love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate August 11th 1932

                        Dearest Family,

                        George has been very unwell for the past week. He had a nasty gash on his
                        knee which went septic. He had a swelling in the groin and a high temperature and could
                        not sleep at night for the pain in his leg. Ann was very wakeful too during the same
                        period, I think she is teething. I luckily have kept fit though rather harassed. Yesterday the
                        leg looked so inflamed that George decided to open up the wound himself. he made
                        quite a big cut in exactly the right place. You should have seen the blackish puss
                        pouring out.

                        After he had thoroughly cleaned the wound George sewed it up himself. he has
                        the proper surgical needles and gut. He held the cut together with his left hand and
                        pushed the needle through the flesh with his right. I pulled the needle out and passed it
                        to George for the next stitch. I doubt whether a surgeon could have made a neater job
                        of it. He is still confined to the couch but today his temperature is normal. Some
                        husband!

                        The previous week was hectic in another way. We had a visit from lions! George
                        and I were having supper about 8.30 on Tuesday night when the back verandah was
                        suddenly invaded by women and children from the servants quarters behind the kitchen.
                        They were all yelling “Simba, Simba.” – simba means lions. The door opened suddenly
                        and the houseboy rushed in to say that there were lions at the huts. George got up
                        swiftly, fetched gun and ammunition from the bedroom and with the houseboy carrying
                        the lamp, went off to investigate. I remained at the table, carrying on with my supper as I
                        felt a pioneer’s wife should! Suddenly something big leapt through the open window
                        behind me. You can imagine what I thought! I know now that it is quite true to say one’s
                        hair rises when one is scared. However it was only Kelly, our huge Irish wolfhound,
                        taking cover.

                        George returned quite soon to say that apparently the commotion made by the
                        women and children had frightened the lions off. He found their tracks in the soft earth
                        round the huts and a bag of maize that had been playfully torn open but the lions had
                        moved on.

                        Next day we heard that they had moved to Hickson-Wood’s shamba. Hicky
                        came across to say that the lions had jumped over the wall of his cattle boma and killed
                        both his white Muskat riding donkeys.
                        He and a friend sat up all next night over the remains but the lions did not return to
                        the kill.

                        Apart from the little set back last week, Ann is blooming. She has a cap of very
                        fine fair hair and clear blue eyes under straight brow. She also has lovely dimples in both
                        cheeks. We are very proud of her.

                        Our neighbours are picking coffee but the crops are small and the price is low. I
                        am amazed that they are so optimistic about the future. No one in these parts ever
                        seems to grouse though all are living on capital. They all say “Well if the worst happens
                        we can always go up to the Lupa Diggings.”

                        Don’t worry about us, we have enough to tide us over for some time yet.

                        Much love to all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 28th Sept. 1932

                        Dearest Family,

                        News! News! I’m going to have another baby. George and I are delighted and I
                        hope it will be a boy this time. I shall be able to have him at Mbeya because things are
                        rapidly changing here. Several German families have moved to Mbeya including a
                        German doctor who means to build a hospital there. I expect he will make a very good
                        living because there must now be some hundreds of Europeans within a hundred miles
                        radius of Mbeya. The Europeans are mostly British or German but there are also
                        Greeks and, I believe, several other nationalities are represented on the Lupa Diggings.
                        Ann is blooming and developing according to the Book except that she has no
                        teeth yet! Kath Hickson-Wood has given her a very nice high chair and now she has
                        breakfast and lunch at the table with us. Everything within reach goes on the floor to her
                        amusement and my exasperation!

                        You ask whether we have any Church of England missionaries in our part. No we
                        haven’t though there are Lutheran and Roman Catholic Missions. I have never even
                        heard of a visiting Church of England Clergyman to these parts though there are babies
                        in plenty who have not been baptised. Jolly good thing I had Ann Christened down
                        there.

                        The R.C. priests in this area are called White Fathers. They all have beards and
                        wear white cassocks and sun helmets. One, called Father Keiling, calls around frequently.
                        Though none of us in this area is Catholic we take it in turn to put him up for the night. The
                        Catholic Fathers in their turn are most hospitable to travellers regardless of their beliefs.
                        Rather a sad thing has happened. Lucas our old chicken-boy is dead. I shall miss
                        his toothy smile. George went to the funeral and fired two farewell shots from his rifle
                        over the grave – a gesture much appreciated by the locals. Lucas in his day was a good
                        hunter.

                        Several of the locals own muzzle loading guns but the majority hunt with dogs
                        and spears. The dogs wear bells which make an attractive jingle but I cannot bear the
                        idea of small antelope being run down until they are exhausted before being clubbed of
                        stabbed to death. We seldom eat venison as George does not care to shoot buck.
                        Recently though, he shot an eland and Abel rendered down the fat which is excellent for
                        cooking and very like beef fat.

                        Much love to all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. P.O.Mbeya 21st November 1932

                        Dearest Family,

                        George has gone off to the Lupa for a week with John Molteno. John came up
                        here with the idea of buying a coffee farm but he has changed his mind and now thinks of
                        staking some claims on the diggings and also setting up as a gold buyer.

                        Did I tell you about his arrival here? John and George did some elephant hunting
                        together in French Equatorial Africa and when John heard that George had married and
                        settled in Tanganyika, he also decided to come up here. He drove up from Cape Town
                        in a Baby Austin and arrived just as our labourers were going home for the day. The little
                        car stopped half way up our hill and John got out to investigate. You should have heard
                        the astonished exclamations when John got out – all 6 ft 5 ins. of him! He towered over
                        the little car and even to me it seemed impossible for him to have made the long
                        journey in so tiny a car.

                        Kath Wood has been over several times lately. She is slim and looks so right in
                        the shirt and corduroy slacks she almost always wears. She was here yesterday when
                        the shamba boy, digging in the front garden, unearthed a large earthenware cooking pot,
                        sealed at the top. I was greatly excited and had an instant mental image of fabulous
                        wealth. We made the boy bring the pot carefully on to the verandah and opened it in
                        happy anticipation. What do you think was inside? Nothing but a grinning skull! Such a
                        treat for a pregnant female.

                        We have a tree growing here that had lovely straight branches covered by a
                        smooth bark. I got the garden boy to cut several of these branches of a uniform size,
                        peeled off the bark and have made Ann a playpen with the poles which are much like
                        broom sticks. Now I can leave her unattended when I do my chores. The other morning
                        after breakfast I put Ann in her playpen on the verandah and gave her a piece of toast
                        and honey to keep her quiet whilst I laundered a few of her things. When I looked out a
                        little later I was horrified to see a number of bees buzzing around her head whilst she
                        placidly concentrated on her toast. I made a rapid foray and rescued her but I still don’t
                        know whether that was the thing to do.

                        We all send our love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mbeya Hospital. April 25th. 1933

                        Dearest Family,

                        Here I am, installed at the very new hospital, built by Dr Eckhardt, awaiting the
                        arrival of the new baby. George has gone back to the farm on foot but will walk in again
                        to spend the weekend with us. Ann is with me and enjoys the novelty of playing with
                        other children. The Eckhardts have two, a pretty little girl of two and a half and a very fair
                        roly poly boy of Ann’s age. Ann at fourteen months is very active. She is quite a little girl
                        now with lovely dimples. She walks well but is backward in teething.

                        George, Ann and I had a couple of days together at the hotel before I moved in
                        here and several of the local women visited me and have promised to visit me in
                        hospital. The trip from farm to town was very entertaining if not very comfortable. There
                        is ten miles of very rough road between our farm and Utengule Mission and beyond the
                        Mission there is a fair thirteen or fourteen mile road to Mbeya.

                        As we have no car now the doctor’s wife offered to drive us from the Mission to
                        Mbeya but she would not risk her car on the road between the Mission and our farm.
                        The upshot was that I rode in the Hickson-Woods machila for that ten mile stretch. The
                        machila is a canopied hammock, slung from a bamboo pole, in which I reclined, not too
                        comfortably in my unwieldy state, with Ann beside me or sometime straddling me. Four
                        of our farm boys carried the machila on their shoulders, two fore and two aft. The relief
                        bearers walked on either side. There must have been a dozen in all and they sang a sort
                        of sea shanty song as they walked. One man would sing a verse and the others took up
                        the chorus. They often improvise as they go. They moaned about my weight (at least
                        George said so! I don’t follow Ki-Swahili well yet) and expressed the hope that I would
                        have a son and that George would reward them handsomely.

                        George and Kelly, the dog, followed close behind the machila and behind
                        George came Abel our cook and his wife and small daughter Annalie, all in their best
                        attire. The cook wore a palm beach suit, large Terai hat and sunglasses and two colour
                        shoes and quite lent a tone to the proceedings! Right at the back came the rag tag and
                        bobtail who joined the procession just for fun.

                        Mrs Eckhardt was already awaiting us at the Mission when we arrived and we had
                        an uneventful trip to the Mbeya Hotel.

                        During my last week at the farm I felt very tired and engaged the cook’s small
                        daughter, Annalie, to amuse Ann for an hour after lunch so that I could have a rest. They
                        played in the small verandah room which adjoins our bedroom and where I keep all my
                        sewing materials. One afternoon I was startled by a scream from Ann. I rushed to the
                        room and found Ann with blood steaming from her cheek. Annalie knelt beside her,
                        looking startled and frightened, with my embroidery scissors in her hand. She had cut off
                        half of the long curling golden lashes on one of Ann’s eyelids and, in trying to finish the
                        job, had cut off a triangular flap of skin off Ann’s cheek bone.

                        I called Abel, the cook, and demanded that he should chastise his daughter there and
                        then and I soon heard loud shrieks from behind the kitchen. He spanked her with a
                        bamboo switch but I am sure not as well as she deserved. Africans are very tolerant
                        towards their children though I have seen husbands and wives fighting furiously.
                        I feel very well but long to have the confinement over.

                        Very much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mbeya Hospital. 2nd May 1933.

                        Dearest Family,

                        Little George arrived at 7.30 pm on Saturday evening 29 th. April. George was
                        with me at the time as he had walked in from the farm for news, and what a wonderful bit
                        of luck that was. The doctor was away on a case on the Diggings and I was bathing Ann
                        with George looking on, when the pains started. George dried Ann and gave her
                        supper and put her to bed. Afterwards he sat on the steps outside my room and a
                        great comfort it was to know that he was there.

                        The confinement was short but pretty hectic. The Doctor returned to the Hospital
                        just in time to deliver the baby. He is a grand little boy, beautifully proportioned. The
                        doctor says he has never seen a better formed baby. He is however rather funny
                        looking just now as his head is, very temporarily, egg shaped. He has a shock of black
                        silky hair like a gollywog and believe it or not, he has a slight black moustache.
                        George came in, looked at the baby, looked at me, and we both burst out
                        laughing. The doctor was shocked and said so. He has no sense of humour and couldn’t
                        understand that we, though bursting with pride in our son, could never the less laugh at
                        him.

                        Friends in Mbeya have sent me the most gorgeous flowers and my room is
                        transformed with delphiniums, roses and carnations. The room would be very austere
                        without the flowers. Curtains, bedspread and enamelware, walls and ceiling are all
                        snowy white.

                        George hired a car and took Ann home next day. I have little George for
                        company during the day but he is removed at night. I am longing to get him home and
                        away from the German nurse who feeds him on black tea when he cries. She insists that
                        tea is a medicine and good for him.

                        Much love from a proud mother of two.
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate 12May 1933

                        Dearest Family,

                        We are all together at home again and how lovely it feels. Even the house
                        servants seem pleased. The boy had decorated the lounge with sprays of
                        bougainvillaea and Abel had backed one of his good sponge cakes.

                        Ann looked fat and rosy but at first was only moderately interested in me and the
                        new baby but she soon thawed. George is good with her and will continue to dress Ann
                        in the mornings and put her to bed until I am satisfied with Georgie.

                        He, poor mite, has a nasty rash on face and neck. I am sure it is just due to that
                        tea the nurse used to give him at night. He has lost his moustache and is fast loosing his
                        wild black hair and emerging as quite a handsome babe. He is a very masculine looking
                        infant with much more strongly marked eyebrows and a larger nose that Ann had. He is
                        very good and lies quietly in his basket even when awake.

                        George has been making a hatching box for brown trout ova and has set it up in
                        a small clear stream fed by a spring in readiness for the ova which is expected from
                        South Africa by next weeks plane. Some keen fishermen from Mbeya and the District
                        have clubbed together to buy the ova. The fingerlings are later to be transferred to
                        streams in Mbeya and Tukuyu Districts.

                        I shall now have my hands full with the two babies and will not have much time for the
                        garden, or I fear, for writing very long letters. Remember though, that no matter how
                        large my family becomes, I shall always love you as much as ever.

                        Your affectionate,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1933

                        Dearest Family,

                        The four of us are all well but alas we have lost our dear Kelly. He was rather a
                        silly dog really, although he grew so big he retained all his puppy ways but we were all
                        very fond of him, especially George because Kelly attached himself to George whilst I
                        was away having Ann and from that time on he was George’s shadow. I think he had
                        some form of biliary fever. He died stretched out on the living room couch late last night,
                        with George sitting beside him so that he would not feel alone.

                        The children are growing fast. Georgie is a darling. He now has a fluff of pale
                        brown hair and his eyes are large and dark brown. Ann is very plump and fair.
                        We have had several visitors lately. Apart from neighbours, a car load of diggers
                        arrived one night and John Molteno and his bride were here. She is a very attractive girl
                        but, I should say, more suited to life in civilisation than in this back of beyond. She has
                        gone out to the diggings with her husband and will have to walk a good stretch of the fifty
                        or so miles.

                        The diggers had to sleep in the living room on the couch and on hastily erected
                        camp beds. They arrived late at night and left after breakfast next day. One had half a
                        beard, the other side of his face had been forcibly shaved in the bar the night before.

                        your affectionate,
                        Eleanor

                        Mchewe Estate. August 10 th. 1933

                        Dearest Family,

                        George is away on safari with two Indian Army officers. The money he will get for
                        his services will be very welcome because this coffee growing is a slow business, and
                        our capitol is rapidly melting away. The job of acting as White Hunter was unexpected
                        or George would not have taken on the job of hatching the ova which duly arrived from
                        South Africa.

                        George and the District Commissioner, David Pollock, went to meet the plane
                        by which the ova had been consigned but the pilot knew nothing about the package. It
                        came to light in the mail bag with the parcels! However the ova came to no harm. David
                        Pollock and George brought the parcel to the farm and carefully transferred the ova to
                        the hatching box. It was interesting to watch the tiny fry hatch out – a process which took
                        several days. Many died in the process and George removed the dead by sucking
                        them up in a glass tube.

                        When hatched, the tiny fry were fed on ant eggs collected by the boys. I had to
                        take over the job of feeding and removing the dead when George left on safari. The fry
                        have to be fed every four hours, like the baby, so each time I have fed Georgie. I hurry
                        down to feed the trout.

                        The children are very good but keep me busy. Ann can now say several words
                        and understands more. She adores Georgie. I long to show them off to you.

                        Very much love
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. October 27th 1933

                        Dear Family,

                        All just over flu. George and Ann were very poorly. I did not fare so badly and
                        Georgie came off best. He is on a bottle now.

                        There was some excitement here last Wednesday morning. At 6.30 am. I called
                        for boiling water to make Georgie’s food. No water arrived but muffled shouting and the
                        sound of blows came from the kitchen. I went to investigate and found a fierce fight in
                        progress between the house boy and the kitchen boy. In my efforts to make them stop
                        fighting I went too close and got a sharp bang on the mouth with the edge of an
                        enamelled plate the kitchen boy was using as a weapon. My teeth cut my lip inside and
                        the plate cut it outside and blood flowed from mouth to chin. The boys were petrified.
                        By the time I had fed Georgie the lip was stiff and swollen. George went in wrath
                        to the kitchen and by breakfast time both house boy and kitchen boy had swollen faces
                        too. Since then I have a kettle of boiling water to hand almost before the words are out
                        of my mouth. I must say that the fight was because the house boy had clouted the
                        kitchen boy for keeping me waiting! In this land of piece work it is the job of the kitchen
                        boy to light the fire and boil the kettle but the houseboy’s job to carry the kettle to me.
                        I have seen little of Kath Wood or Marion Coster for the past two months. Major
                        Jones is the neighbour who calls most regularly. He has a wireless set and calls on all of
                        us to keep us up to date with world as well as local news. He often brings oranges for
                        Ann who adores him. He is a very nice person but no oil painting and makes no effort to
                        entertain Ann but she thinks he is fine. Perhaps his monocle appeals to her.

                        George has bought a six foot long galvanised bath which is a great improvement
                        on the smaller oval one we have used until now. The smaller one had grown battered
                        from much use and leaks like a sieve. Fortunately our bathroom has a cement floor,
                        because one had to fill the bath to the brim and then bath extremely quickly to avoid
                        being left high and dry.

                        Lots and lots of love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 1st December 1933

                        Dearest Family,

                        Ann has not been well. We think she has had malaria. She has grown a good
                        deal lately and looks much thinner and rather pale. Georgie is thriving and has such
                        sparkling brown eyes and a ready smile. He and Ann make a charming pair, one so fair
                        and the other dark.

                        The Moltenos’ spent a few days here and took Georgie and me to Mbeya so
                        that Georgie could be vaccinated. However it was an unsatisfactory trip because the
                        doctor had no vaccine.

                        George went to the Lupa with the Moltenos and returned to the farm in their Baby
                        Austin which they have lent to us for a week. This was to enable me to go to Mbeya to
                        have a couple of teeth filled by a visiting dentist.

                        We went to Mbeya in the car on Saturday. It was quite a squash with the four of
                        us on the front seat of the tiny car. Once George grabbed the babies foot instead of the
                        gear knob! We had Georgie vaccinated at the hospital and then went to the hotel where
                        the dentist was installed. Mr Dare, the dentist, had few instruments and they were very
                        tarnished. I sat uncomfortably on a kitchen chair whilst he tinkered with my teeth. He filled
                        three but two of the fillings came out that night. This meant another trip to Mbeya in the
                        Baby Austin but this time they seem all right.

                        The weather is very hot and dry and the garden a mess. We are having trouble
                        with the young coffee trees too. Cut worms are killing off seedlings in the nursery and
                        there is a borer beetle in the planted out coffee.

                        George bought a large grey donkey from some wandering Masai and we hope
                        the children will enjoy riding it later on.

                        Very much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 14th February 1934.

                        Dearest Family,

                        You will be sorry to hear that little Ann has been very ill, indeed we were terribly
                        afraid that we were going to lose her. She enjoyed her birthday on the 8th. All the toys
                        you, and her English granny, sent were unwrapped with such delight. However next
                        day she seemed listless and a bit feverish so I tucked her up in bed after lunch. I dosed
                        her with quinine and aspirin and she slept fitfully. At about eleven o’clock I was
                        awakened by a strange little cry. I turned up the night light and was horrified to see that
                        Ann was in a convulsion. I awakened George who, as always in an emergency, was
                        perfectly calm and practical. He filled the small bath with very warm water and emersed
                        Ann in it, placing a cold wet cloth on her head. We then wrapped her in blankets and
                        gave her an enema and she settled down to sleep. A few hours later we had the same
                        thing over again.

                        At first light we sent a runner to Mbeya to fetch the doctor but waited all day in
                        vain and in the evening the runner returned to say that the doctor had gone to a case on
                        the diggings. Ann had been feverish all day with two or three convulsions. Neither
                        George or I wished to leave the bedroom, but there was Georgie to consider, and in
                        the afternoon I took him out in the garden for a while whilst George sat with Ann.
                        That night we both sat up all night and again Ann had those wretched attacks of
                        convulsions. George and I were worn out with anxiety by the time the doctor arrived the
                        next afternoon. Ann had not been able to keep down any quinine and had had only
                        small sips of water since the onset of the attack.

                        The doctor at once diagnosed the trouble as malaria aggravated by teething.
                        George held Ann whilst the Doctor gave her an injection. At the first attempt the needle
                        bent into a bow, George was furious! The second attempt worked and after a few hours
                        Ann’s temperature dropped and though she was ill for two days afterwards she is now
                        up and about. She has also cut the last of her baby teeth, thank God. She looks thin and
                        white, but should soon pick up. It has all been a great strain to both of us. Georgie
                        behaved like an angel throughout. He played happily in his cot and did not seem to
                        sense any tension as people say, babies do. Our baby was cheerful and not at all
                        subdued.

                        This is the rainy season and it is a good thing that some work has been done on
                        our road or the doctor might not have got through.

                        Much love to all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 1st October 1934

                        Dearest Family,

                        We are all well now, thank goodness, but last week Georgie gave us such a
                        fright. I was sitting on the verandah, busy with some sewing and not watching Ann and
                        Georgie, who were trying to reach a bunch of bananas which hung on a rope from a
                        beam of the verandah. Suddenly I heard a crash, Georgie had fallen backward over the
                        edge of the verandah and hit the back of his head on the edge of the brick furrow which
                        carries away the rainwater. He lay flat on his back with his arms spread out and did not
                        move or cry. When I picked him up he gave a little whimper, I carried him to his cot and
                        bathed his face and soon he began sitting up and appeared quite normal. The trouble
                        began after he had vomited up his lunch. He began to whimper and bang his head
                        against the cot.

                        George and I were very worried because we have no transport so we could not
                        take Georgie to the doctor and we could not bear to go through again what we had gone
                        through with Ann earlier in the year. Then, in the late afternoon, a miracle happened. Two
                        men George hardly knew, and complete strangers to me, called in on their way from the
                        diggings to Mbeya and they kindly drove Georgie and me to the hospital. The Doctor
                        allowed me to stay with Georgie and we spent five days there. Luckily he responded to
                        treatment and is now as alive as ever. Children do put years on one!

                        There is nothing much else to report. We have a new vegetable garden which is
                        doing well but the earth here is strange. Gardens seem to do well for two years but by
                        that time the soil is exhausted and one must move the garden somewhere else. The
                        coffee looks well but it will be another year before we can expect even a few bags of
                        coffee and prices are still low. Anyway by next year George should have some good
                        return for all his hard work.

                        Lots of love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. November 4th 1934

                        Dearest Family,

                        George is home from his White Hunting safari looking very sunburnt and well.
                        The elderly American, who was his client this time, called in here at the farm to meet me
                        and the children. It is amazing what spirit these old lads have! This one looked as though
                        he should be thinking in terms of slippers and an armchair but no, he thinks in terms of
                        high powered rifles with telescopic sights.

                        It is lovely being together again and the children are delighted to have their Dad
                        home. Things are always exciting when George is around. The day after his return
                        George said at breakfast, “We can’t go on like this. You and the kids never get off the
                        shamba. We’ll simply have to get a car.” You should have heard the excitement. “Get a
                        car Daddy?’” cried Ann jumping in her chair so that her plaits bounced. “Get a car
                        Daddy?” echoed Georgie his brown eyes sparkling. “A car,” said I startled, “However
                        can we afford one?”

                        “Well,” said George, “on my way back from Safari I heard that a car is to be sold
                        this week at the Tukuyu Court, diseased estate or bankruptcy or something, I might get it
                        cheap and it is an A.C.” The name meant nothing to me, but George explained that an
                        A.C. is first cousin to a Rolls Royce.

                        So off he went to the sale and next day the children and I listened all afternoon for
                        the sound of an approaching car. We had many false alarms but, towards evening we
                        heard what appeared to be the roar of an aeroplane engine. It was the A.C. roaring her
                        way up our steep hill with a long plume of steam waving gaily above her radiator.
                        Out jumped my beaming husband and in no time at all, he was showing off her
                        points to an admiring family. Her lines are faultless and seats though worn are most
                        comfortable. She has a most elegant air so what does it matter that the radiator leaks like
                        a sieve, her exhaust pipe has broken off, her tyres are worn almost to the canvas and
                        she has no windscreen. She goes, and she cost only five pounds.

                        Next afternoon George, the kids and I piled into the car and drove along the road
                        on lookout for guinea fowl. All went well on the outward journey but on the homeward
                        one the poor A.C. simply gasped and died. So I carried the shot gun and George
                        carried both children and we trailed sadly home. This morning George went with a bunch
                        of farmhands and brought her home. Truly temperamental, she came home literally
                        under her own steam.

                        George now plans to get a second hand engine and radiator for her but it won’t
                        be an A.C. engine. I think she is the only one of her kind in the country.
                        I am delighted to hear, dad, that you are sending a bridle for Joseph for
                        Christmas. I am busy making a saddle out of an old piece of tent canvas stuffed with
                        kapok, some webbing and some old rug straps. A car and a riding donkey! We’re
                        definitely carriage folk now.

                        Lots of love to all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 28th December 1934

                        Dearest Family,

                        Thank you for the wonderful Christmas parcel. My frock is a splendid fit. George
                        declares that no one can knit socks like Mummy and the children love their toys and new
                        clothes.

                        Joseph, the donkey, took his bit with an air of bored resignation and Ann now
                        rides proudly on his back. Joseph is a big strong animal with the looks and disposition of
                        a mule. he will not go at all unless a native ‘toto’ walks before him and when he does go
                        he wears a pained expression as though he were carrying fourteen stone instead of
                        Ann’s fly weight. I walk beside the donkey carrying Georgie and our cat, ‘Skinny Winnie’,
                        follows behind. Quite a cavalcade. The other day I got so exasperated with Joseph that
                        I took Ann off and I got on. Joseph tottered a few paces and sat down! to the huge
                        delight of our farm labourers who were going home from work. Anyway, one good thing,
                        the donkey is so lazy that there is little chance of him bolting with Ann.

                        The Moltenos spent Christmas with us and left for the Lupa Diggings yesterday.
                        They arrived on the 22nd. with gifts for the children and chocolates and beer. That very
                        afternoon George and John Molteno left for Ivuna, near Lake Ruckwa, to shoot some
                        guinea fowl and perhaps a goose for our Christmas dinner. We expected the menfolk
                        back on Christmas Eve and Anne and I spent a busy day making mince pies and
                        sausage rolls. Why I don’t know, because I am sure Abel could have made them better.
                        We decorated the Christmas tree and sat up very late but no husbands turned up.
                        Christmas day passed but still no husbands came. Anne, like me, is expecting a baby
                        and we both felt pretty forlorn and cross. Anne was certain that they had been caught up
                        in a party somewhere and had forgotten all about us and I must say when Boxing Day
                        went by and still George and John did not show up I felt ready to agree with her.
                        They turned up towards evening and explained that on the homeward trip the car
                        had bogged down in the mud and that they had spent a miserable Christmas. Anne
                        refused to believe their story so George, to prove their case, got the game bag and
                        tipped the contents on to the dining room table. Out fell several guinea fowl, long past
                        being edible, followed by a large goose so high that it was green and blue where all the
                        feathers had rotted off.

                        The stench was too much for two pregnant girls. I shot out of the front door
                        closely followed by Anne and we were both sick in the garden.

                        I could not face food that evening but Anne is made of stronger stuff and ate her
                        belated Christmas dinner with relish.

                        I am looking forward enormously to having Marjorie here with us. She will be able
                        to carry back to you an eyewitness account of our home and way of life.

                        Much love to you all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 5th January 1935

                        Dearest Family,

                        You cannot imagine how lovely it is to have Marjorie here. She came just in time
                        because I have had pernicious vomiting and have lost a great deal of weight and she
                        took charge of the children and made me spend three days in hospital having treatment.
                        George took me to the hospital on the afternoon of New Years Eve and decided
                        to spend the night at the hotel and join in the New Years Eve celebrations. I had several
                        visitors at the hospital that evening and George actually managed to get some imported
                        grapes for me. He returned to the farm next morning and fetched me from the hospital
                        four days later. Of course the old A.C. just had to play up. About half way home the
                        back axle gave in and we had to send a passing native some miles back to a place
                        called Mbalizi to hire a lorry from a Greek trader to tow us home to the farm.
                        The children looked well and were full of beans. I think Marjorie was thankful to
                        hand them over to me. She is delighted with Ann’s motherly little ways but Georgie she
                        calls “a really wild child”. He isn’t, just has such an astonishing amount of energy and is
                        always up to mischief. Marjorie brought us all lovely presents. I am so thrilled with my
                        sewing machine. It may be an old model but it sews marvellously. We now have an
                        Alsatian pup as well as Joseph the donkey and the two cats.

                        Marjorie had a midnight encounter with Joseph which gave her quite a shock but
                        we had a good laugh about it next day. Some months ago George replaced our wattle
                        and daub outside pit lavatory by a substantial brick one, so large that Joseph is being
                        temporarily stabled in it at night. We neglected to warn Marj about this and one night,
                        storm lamp in hand, she opened the door and Joseph walked out braying his thanks.
                        I am afraid Marjorie is having a quiet time, a shame when the journey from Cape
                        Town is so expensive. The doctor has told me to rest as much as I can, so it is
                        impossible for us to take Marj on sight seeing trips.

                        I hate to think that she will be leaving in ten days time.

                        Much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 18th February 1935

                        Dearest Family,

                        You must be able to visualise our life here quite well now that Marj is back and
                        has no doubt filled in all the details I forget to mention in my letters. What a journey we
                        had in the A.C. when we took her to the plane. George, the children and I sat in front and
                        Marj sat behind with numerous four gallon tins of water for the insatiable radiator. It was
                        raining and the canvas hood was up but part of the side flaps are missing and as there is
                        no glass in the windscreen the rain blew in on us. George got fed up with constantly
                        removing the hot radiator cap so simply stuffed a bit of rag in instead. When enough
                        steam had built up in the radiator behind the rag it blew out and we started all over again.
                        The car still roars like an aeroplane engine and yet has little power so that George sent
                        gangs of boys to the steep hills between the farm and the Mission to give us a push if
                        necessary. Fortunately this time it was not, and the boys cheered us on our way. We
                        needed their help on the homeward journey however.

                        George has now bought an old Chev engine which he means to install before I
                        have to go to hospital to have my new baby. It will be quite an engineering feet as
                        George has few tools.

                        I am sorry to say that I am still not well, something to do with kidneys or bladder.
                        George bought me some pills from one of the several small shops which have opened
                        in Mbeya and Ann is most interested in the result. She said seriously to Kath Wood,
                        “Oh my Mummy is a very clever Mummy. She can do blue wee and green wee as well
                        as yellow wee.” I simply can no longer manage the children without help and have
                        engaged the cook’s wife, Janey, to help. The children are by no means thrilled. I plead in
                        vain that I am not well enough to go for walks. Ann says firmly, “Ann doesn’t want to go
                        for a walk. Ann will look after you.” Funny, though she speaks well for a three year old,
                        she never uses the first person. Georgie say he would much rather walk with
                        Keshokutwa, the kitchen boy. His name by the way, means day-after-tomorrow and it
                        suits him down to the ground, Kath Wood walks over sometimes with offers of help and Ann will gladly go walking with her but Georgie won’t. He on the other hand will walk with Anne Molteno
                        and Ann won’t. They are obstinate kids. Ann has developed a very fertile imagination.
                        She has probably been looking at too many of those nice women’s magazines you
                        sent. A few days ago she said, “You are sick Mummy, but Ann’s got another Mummy.
                        She’s not sick, and my other mummy (very smugly) has lovely golden hair”. This
                        morning’ not ten minutes after I had dressed her, she came in with her frock wet and
                        muddy. I said in exasperation, “Oh Ann, you are naughty.” To which she instantly
                        returned, “My other Mummy doesn’t think I am naughty. She thinks I am very nice.” It
                        strikes me I shall have to get better soon so that I can be gay once more and compete
                        with that phantom golden haired paragon.

                        We had a very heavy storm over the farm last week. There was heavy rain with
                        hail which stripped some of the coffee trees and the Mchewe River flooded and the
                        water swept through the lower part of the shamba. After the water had receded George
                        picked up a fine young trout which had been stranded. This was one of some he had
                        put into the river when Georgie was a few months old.

                        The trials of a coffee farmer are legion. We now have a plague of snails. They
                        ring bark the young trees and leave trails of slime on the glossy leaves. All the ring
                        barked trees will have to be cut right back and this is heartbreaking as they are bearing
                        berries for the first time. The snails are collected by native children, piled upon the
                        ground and bashed to a pulp which gives off a sickening stench. I am sorry for the local
                        Africans. Locusts ate up their maize and now they are losing their bean crop to the snails.

                        Lots of love, Eleanor

                        #6260
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          From Tanganyika with Love

                          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                          • “The letters of Eleanor Dunbar Leslie to her parents and her sister in South Africa
                            concerning her life with George Gilman Rushby of Tanganyika, and the trials and
                            joys of bringing up a family in pioneering conditions.

                          These letters were transcribed from copies of letters typed by Eleanor Rushby from
                          the originals which were in the estate of Marjorie Leslie, Eleanor’s sister. Eleanor
                          kept no diary of her life in Tanganyika, so these letters were the living record of an
                          important part of her life.

                          Prelude
                          Having walked across Africa from the East coast to Ubangi Shauri Chad
                          in French Equatorial Africa, hunting elephant all the way, George Rushby
                          made his way down the Congo to Leopoldville. He then caught a ship to
                          Europe and had a holiday in Brussels and Paris before visiting his family
                          in England. He developed blackwater fever and was extremely ill for a
                          while. When he recovered he went to London to arrange his return to
                          Africa.

                          Whilst staying at the Overseas Club he met Eileen Graham who had come
                          to England from Cape Town to study music. On hearing that George was
                          sailing for Cape Town she arranged to introduce him to her friend
                          Eleanor Dunbar Leslie. “You’ll need someone lively to show you around,”
                          she said. “She’s as smart as paint, a keen mountaineer, a very good school
                          teacher, and she’s attractive. You can’t miss her, because her father is a
                          well known Cape Town Magistrate. And,” she added “I’ve already written
                          and told her what ship you are arriving on.”

                          Eleanor duly met the ship. She and George immediately fell in love.
                          Within thirty six hours he had proposed marriage and was accepted
                          despite the misgivings of her parents. As she was under contract to her
                          High School, she remained in South Africa for several months whilst
                          George headed for Tanganyika looking for a farm where he could build
                          their home.

                          These details are a summary of chapter thirteen of the Biography of
                          George Gilman Rushby ‘The Hunter is Death “ by T.V.Bulpin.

                           

                          Dearest Marj,
                          Terrifically exciting news! I’ve just become engaged to an Englishman whom I
                          met last Monday. The result is a family upheaval which you will have no difficulty in
                          imagining!!

                          The Aunts think it all highly romantic and cry in delight “Now isn’t that just like our
                          El!” Mummy says she doesn’t know what to think, that anyway I was always a harum
                          scarum and she rather expected something like this to happen. However I know that
                          she thinks George highly attractive. “Such a nice smile and gentle manner, and such
                          good hands“ she murmurs appreciatively. “But WHY AN ELEPHANT HUNTER?” she
                          ends in a wail, as though elephant hunting was an unmentionable profession.
                          Anyway I don’t think so. Anyone can marry a bank clerk or a lawyer or even a
                          millionaire – but whoever heard of anyone marrying anyone as exciting as an elephant
                          hunter? I’m thrilled to bits.

                          Daddy also takes a dim view of George’s profession, and of George himself as
                          a husband for me. He says that I am so impulsive and have such wild enthusiasms that I
                          need someone conservative and steady to give me some serenity and some ballast.
                          Dad says George is a handsome fellow and a good enough chap he is sure, but
                          he is obviously a man of the world and hints darkly at a possible PAST. George says
                          he has nothing of the kind and anyway I’m the first girl he has asked to marry him. I don’t
                          care anyway, I’d gladly marry him tomorrow, but Dad has other ideas.

                          He sat in his armchair to deliver his verdict, wearing the same look he must wear
                          on the bench. If we marry, and he doesn’t think it would be a good thing, George must
                          buy a comfortable house for me in Central Africa where I can stay safely when he goes
                          hunting. I interrupted to say “But I’m going too”, but dad snubbed me saying that in no
                          time at all I’ll have a family and one can’t go dragging babies around in the African Bush.”
                          George takes his lectures with surprising calm. He says he can see Dad’s point of
                          view much better than I can. He told the parents today that he plans to buy a small
                          coffee farm in the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and will build a cosy cottage which
                          will be a proper home for both of us, and that he will only hunt occasionally to keep the
                          pot boiling.

                          Mummy, of course, just had to spill the beans. She said to George, “I suppose
                          you know that Eleanor knows very little about house keeping and can’t cook at all.” a fact
                          that I was keeping a dark secret. But George just said, “Oh she won’t have to work. The
                          boys do all that sort of thing. She can lie on a couch all day and read if she likes.” Well
                          you always did say that I was a “Lily of the field,” and what a good thing! If I were one of
                          those terribly capable women I’d probably die of frustration because it seems that
                          African house boys feel that they have lost face if their Memsahibs do anything but the
                          most gracious chores.

                          George is absolutely marvellous. He is strong and gentle and awfully good
                          looking too. He is about 5 ft 10 ins tall and very broad. He wears his curly brown hair cut
                          very short and has a close clipped moustache. He has strongly marked eyebrows and
                          very striking blue eyes which sometimes turn grey or green. His teeth are strong and
                          even and he has a quiet voice.

                          I expect all this sounds too good to be true, but come home quickly and see for
                          yourself. George is off to East Africa in three weeks time to buy our farm. I shall follow as
                          soon as he has bought it and we will be married in Dar es Salaam.

                          Dad has taken George for a walk “to get to know him” and that’s why I have time
                          to write such a long screed. They should be back any minute now and I must fly and
                          apply a bit of glamour.

                          Much love my dear,
                          your jubilant
                          Eleanor

                          S.S.Timavo. Durban. 28th.October. 1930.

                          Dearest Family,
                          Thank you for the lovely send off. I do wish you were all on board with me and
                          could come and dance with me at my wedding. We are having a very comfortable
                          voyage. There were only four of the passengers as far as Durban, all of them women,
                          but I believe we are taking on more here. I have a most comfortable deck cabin to
                          myself and the use of a sumptuous bathroom. No one is interested in deck games and I
                          am having a lazy time, just sunbathing and reading.

                          I sit at the Captain’s table and the meals are delicious – beautifully served. The
                          butter for instance, is moulded into sprays of roses, most exquisitely done, and as for
                          the ice-cream, I’ve never tasted anything like them.

                          The meals are continental type and we have hors d’oeuvre in a great variety
                          served on large round trays. The Italians souse theirs with oil, Ugh! We also of course
                          get lots of spaghetti which I have some difficulty in eating. However this presents no
                          problem to the Chief Engineer who sits opposite to me. He simply rolls it around his
                          fork and somehow the spaghetti flows effortlessly from fork to mouth exactly like an
                          ascending escalator. Wine is served at lunch and dinner – very mild and pleasant stuff.
                          Of the women passengers the one i liked best was a young German widow
                          from South west Africa who left the ship at East London to marry a man she had never
                          met. She told me he owned a drapers shop and she was very happy at the prospect
                          of starting a new life, as her previous marriage had ended tragically with the death of her
                          husband and only child in an accident.

                          I was most interested to see the bridegroom and stood at the rail beside the gay
                          young widow when we docked at East London. I picked him out, without any difficulty,
                          from the small group on the quay. He was a tall thin man in a smart grey suit and with a
                          grey hat perched primly on his head. You can always tell from hats can’t you? I wasn’t
                          surprised to see, when this German raised his head, that he looked just like the Kaiser’s
                          “Little Willie”. Long thin nose and cold grey eyes and no smile of welcome on his tight
                          mouth for the cheery little body beside me. I quite expected him to jerk his thumb and
                          stalk off, expecting her to trot at his heel.

                          However she went off blithely enough. Next day before the ship sailed, she
                          was back and I saw her talking to the Captain. She began to cry and soon after the
                          Captain patted her on the shoulder and escorted her to the gangway. Later the Captain
                          told me that the girl had come to ask him to allow her to work her passage back to
                          Germany where she had some relations. She had married the man the day before but
                          she disliked him because he had deceived her by pretending that he owned a shop
                          whereas he was only a window dresser. Bad show for both.

                          The Captain and the Chief Engineer are the only officers who mix socially with
                          the passengers. The captain seems rather a melancholy type with, I should say, no
                          sense of humour. He speaks fair English with an American accent. He tells me that he
                          was on the San Francisco run during Prohibition years in America and saw many Film
                          Stars chiefly “under the influence” as they used to flock on board to drink. The Chief
                          Engineer is big and fat and cheerful. His English is anything but fluent but he makes up
                          for it in mime.

                          I visited the relations and friends at Port Elizabeth and East London, and here at
                          Durban. I stayed with the Trotters and Swans and enjoyed myself very much at both
                          places. I have collected numerous wedding presents, china and cutlery, coffee
                          percolator and ornaments, and where I shall pack all these things I don’t know. Everyone has been terribly kind and I feel extremely well and happy.

                          At the start of the voyage I had a bit of bad luck. You will remember that a
                          perfectly foul South Easter was blowing. Some men were busy working on a deck
                          engine and I stopped to watch and a tiny fragment of steel blew into my eye. There is
                          no doctor on board so the stewardess put some oil into the eye and bandaged it up.
                          The eye grew more and more painful and inflamed and when when we reached Port
                          Elizabeth the Captain asked the Port Doctor to look at it. The Doctor said it was a job for
                          an eye specialist and telephoned from the ship to make an appointment. Luckily for me,
                          Vincent Tofts turned up at the ship just then and took me off to the specialist and waited
                          whilst he extracted the fragment with a giant magnet. The specialist said that I was very
                          lucky as the thing just missed the pupil of my eye so my sight will not be affected. I was
                          temporarily blinded by the Belladona the eye-man put in my eye so he fitted me with a
                          pair of black goggles and Vincent escorted me back to the ship. Don’t worry the eye is
                          now as good as ever and George will not have to take a one-eyed bride for better or
                          worse.

                          I have one worry and that is that the ship is going to be very much overdue by
                          the time we reach Dar es Salaam. She is taking on a big wool cargo and we were held
                          up for three days in East london and have been here in Durban for five days.
                          Today is the ninth Anniversary of the Fascist Movement and the ship was
                          dressed with bunting and flags. I must now go and dress for the gala dinner.

                          Bless you all,
                          Eleanor.

                          S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          Nearly there now. We called in at Lourenco Marques, Beira, Mozambique and
                          Port Amelia. I was the only one of the original passengers left after Durban but there we
                          took on a Mrs Croxford and her mother and two men passengers. Mrs C must have
                          something, certainly not looks. She has a flat figure, heavily mascared eyes and crooked
                          mouth thickly coated with lipstick. But her rather sweet old mother-black-pearls-type tells
                          me they are worn out travelling around the world trying to shake off an admirer who
                          pursues Mrs C everywhere.

                          The one male passenger is very quiet and pleasant. The old lady tells me that he
                          has recently lost his wife. The other passenger is a horribly bumptious type.
                          I had my hair beautifully shingled at Lourenco Marques, but what an experience it
                          was. Before we docked I asked the Captain whether he knew of a hairdresser, but he
                          said he did not and would have to ask the agent when he came aboard. The agent was
                          a very suave Asian. He said “Sure he did” and offered to take me in his car. I rather
                          doubtfully agreed — such a swarthy gentleman — and was driven, not to a hairdressing
                          establishment, but to his office. Then he spoke to someone on the telephone and in no
                          time at all a most dago-y type arrived carrying a little black bag. He was all patent
                          leather, hair, and flashing smile, and greeted me like an old and valued friend.
                          Before I had collected my scattered wits tthe Agent had flung open a door and
                          ushered me through, and I found myself seated before an ornate mirror in what was only
                          too obviously a bedroom. It was a bedroom with a difference though. The unmade bed
                          had no legs but hung from the ceiling on brass chains.

                          The agent beamingly shut the door behind him and I was left with my imagination
                          and the afore mentioned oily hairdresser. He however was very business like. Before I
                          could say knife he had shingled my hair with a cut throat razor and then, before I could
                          protest, had smothered my neck in stinking pink powder applied with an enormous and
                          filthy swansdown powder puff. He held up a mirror for me to admire his handiwork but I
                          was aware only of the enormous bed reflected in it, and hurriedly murmuring “very nice,
                          very nice” I made my escape to the outer office where, to my relief, I found the Chief
                          Engineer who escorted me back to the ship.

                          In the afternoon Mrs Coxford and the old lady and I hired a taxi and went to the
                          Polana Hotel for tea. Very swish but I like our Cape Peninsula beaches better.
                          At Lorenco Marques we took on more passengers. The Governor of
                          Portuguese Nyasaland and his wife and baby son. He was a large middle aged man,
                          very friendly and unassuming and spoke perfect English. His wife was German and
                          exquisite, as fragile looking and with the delicate colouring of a Dresden figurine. She
                          looked about 18 but she told me she was 28 and showed me photographs of two
                          other sons – hefty youngsters, whom she had left behind in Portugal and was missing
                          very much.

                          It was frightfully hot at Beira and as I had no money left I did not go up to the
                          town, but Mrs Croxford and I spent a pleasant hour on the beach under the Casurina
                          trees.

                          The Governor and his wife left the ship at Mozambique. He looked very
                          imposing in his starched uniform and she more Dresden Sheperdish than ever in a
                          flowered frock. There was a guard of honour and all the trimmings. They bade me a warm farewell and invited George and me to stay at any time.

                          The German ship “Watussi” was anchored in the Bay and I decided to visit her
                          and try and have my hair washed and set. I had no sooner stepped on board when a
                          lady came up to me and said “Surely you are Beeba Leslie.” It was Mrs Egan and she
                          had Molly with her. Considering Mrs Egan had not seen me since I was five I think it was
                          jolly clever of her to recognise me. Molly is charming and was most friendly. She fixed
                          things with the hairdresser and sat with me until the job was done. Afterwards I had tea
                          with them.

                          Port Amelia was our last stop. In fact the only person to go ashore was Mr
                          Taylor, the unpleasant man, and he returned at sunset very drunk indeed.
                          We reached Port Amelia on the 3rd – my birthday. The boat had anchored by
                          the time I was dressed and when I went on deck I saw several row boats cluttered
                          around the gangway and in them were natives with cages of wild birds for sale. Such tiny
                          crowded cages. I was furious, you know me. I bought three cages, carried them out on
                          to the open deck and released the birds. I expected them to fly to the land but they flew
                          straight up into the rigging.

                          The quiet male passenger wandered up and asked me what I was doing. I said
                          “I’m giving myself a birthday treat, I hate to see caged birds.” So next thing there he
                          was buying birds which he presented to me with “Happy Birthday.” I gladly set those
                          birds free too and they joined the others in the rigging.

                          Then a grinning steward came up with three more cages. “For the lady with
                          compliments of the Captain.” They lost no time in joining their friends.
                          It had given me so much pleasure to free the birds that I was only a little
                          discouraged when the quiet man said thoughtfully “This should encourage those bird
                          catchers you know, they are sold out. When evening came and we were due to sail I
                          was sure those birds would fly home, but no, they are still there and they will probably
                          remain until we dock at Dar es Salaam.

                          During the morning the Captain came up and asked me what my Christian name
                          is. He looked as grave as ever and I couldn’t think why it should interest him but said “the
                          name is Eleanor.” That night at dinner there was a large iced cake in the centre of the
                          table with “HELENA” in a delicate wreath of pink icing roses on the top. We had
                          champagne and everyone congratulated me and wished me good luck in my marriage.
                          A very nice gesture don’t you think. The unpleasant character had not put in an
                          appearance at dinner which made the party all the nicer

                          I sat up rather late in the lounge reading a book and by the time I went to bed
                          there was not a soul around. I bathed and changed into my nighty,walked into my cabin,
                          shed my dressing gown, and pottered around. When I was ready for bed I put out my
                          hand to draw the curtains back and a hand grasped my wrist. It was that wretched
                          creature outside my window on the deck, still very drunk. Luckily I was wearing that
                          heavy lilac silk nighty. I was livid. “Let go at once”, I said, but he only grinned stupidly.
                          “I’m not hurting you” he said, “only looking”. “I’ll ring for the steward” said I, and by
                          stretching I managed to press the bell with my free hand. I rang and rang but no one
                          came and he just giggled. Then I said furiously, “Remember this name, George
                          Rushby, he is a fine boxer and he hates specimens like you. When he meets me at Dar
                          es Salaam I shall tell him about this and I bet you will be sorry.” However he still held on
                          so I turned and knocked hard on the adjoining wall which divided my cabin from Mrs
                          Croxfords. Soon Mrs Croxford and the old lady appeared in dressing gowns . This
                          seemed to amuse the drunk even more though he let go my wrist. So whilst the old
                          lady stayed with me, Mrs C fetched the quiet passenger who soon hustled him off. He has kept out of my way ever since. However I still mean to tell George because I feel
                          the fellow got off far too lightly. I reported the matter to the Captain but he just remarked
                          that he always knew the man was low class because he never wears a jacket to meals.
                          This is my last night on board and we again had free champagne and I was given
                          some tooled leather work by the Captain and a pair of good paste earrings by the old
                          lady. I have invited them and Mrs Croxford, the Chief Engineer, and the quiet
                          passenger to the wedding.

                          This may be my last night as Eleanor Leslie and I have spent this long while
                          writing to you just as a little token of my affection and gratitude for all the years of your
                          love and care. I shall post this letter on the ship and must turn now and get some beauty
                          sleep. We have been told that we shall be in Dar es Salaam by 9 am. I am so excited
                          that I shall not sleep.

                          Very much love, and just for fun I’ll sign my full name for the last time.
                          with my “bes respeks”,

                          Eleanor Leslie.

                          Eleanor and George Rushby:

                          Eleanor and George Rushby

                          Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          I’m writing this in the bedroom whilst George is out buying a tin trunk in which to
                          pack all our wedding presents. I expect he will be gone a long time because he has
                          gone out with Hicky Wood and, though our wedding was four days ago, it’s still an
                          excuse for a party. People are all very cheery and friendly here.
                          I am wearing only pants and slip but am still hot. One swelters here in the
                          mornings, but a fresh sea breeze blows in the late afternoons and then Dar es Salaam is
                          heavenly.

                          We arrived in Dar es Salaam harbour very early on Friday morning (7 th Nov).
                          The previous night the Captain had said we might not reach Dar. until 9 am, and certainly
                          no one would be allowed on board before 8 am. So I dawdled on the deck in my
                          dressing gown and watched the green coastline and the islands slipping by. I stood on
                          the deck outside my cabin and was not aware that I was looking out at the wrong side of
                          the landlocked harbour. Quite unknown to me George and some friends, the Hickson
                          Woods, were standing on the Gymkhana Beach on the opposite side of the channel
                          anxiously scanning the ship for a sign of me. George says he had a horrible idea I had
                          missed the ship. Blissfully unconscious of his anxiety I wandered into the bathroom
                          prepared for a good soak. The anchor went down when I was in the bath and suddenly
                          there was a sharp wrap on the door and I heard Mrs Croxford say “There’s a man in a
                          boat outside. He is looking out for someone and I’m sure it’s your George. I flung on
                          some clothes and rushed on deck with tousled hair and bare feet and it was George.
                          We had a marvellous reunion. George was wearing shorts and bush shirt and
                          looked just like the strong silent types one reads about in novels. I finished dressing then
                          George helped me bundle all the wedding presents I had collected en route into my
                          travelling rug and we went into the bar lounge to join the Hickson Woods. They are the
                          couple from whom George bought the land which is to be our coffee farm Hicky-Wood
                          was laughing when we joined them. he said he had called a chap to bring a couple of
                          beers thinking he was the steward but it turned out to be the Captain. He does wear
                          such a very plain uniform that I suppose it was easy to make the mistake, but Hicky
                          says he was not amused.

                          Anyway as the H-W’s are to be our neighbours I’d better describe them. Kath
                          Wood is very attractive, dark Irish, with curly black hair and big brown eyes. She was
                          married before to Viv Lumb a great friend of George’s who died some years ago of
                          blackwater fever. They had one little girl, Maureen, and Kath and Hicky have a small son
                          of three called Michael. Hicky is slightly below average height and very neat and dapper
                          though well built. He is a great one for a party and good fun but George says he can be
                          bad tempered.

                          Anyway we all filed off the ship and Hicky and Cath went on to the hotel whilst
                          George and I went through customs. Passing the customs was easy. Everyone
                          seemed to know George and that it was his wedding day and I just sailed through,
                          except for the little matter of the rug coming undone when George and I had to scramble
                          on the floor for candlesticks and fruit knives and a wooden nut bowl.
                          Outside the customs shed we were mobbed by a crowd of jabbering Africans
                          offering their services as porters, and soon my luggage was piled in one rickshaw whilst
                          George and I climbed into another and we were born smoothly away on rubber shod
                          wheels to the Splendid Hotel. The motion was pleasing enough but it seemed weird to
                          be pulled along by one human being whilst another pushed behind.  We turned up a street called Acacia Avenue which, as its name implies, is lined
                          with flamboyant acacia trees now in the full glory of scarlet and gold. The rickshaw
                          stopped before the Splendid Hotel and I was taken upstairs into a pleasant room which
                          had its own private balcony overlooking the busy street.

                          Here George broke the news that we were to be married in less than an hours
                          time. He would have to dash off and change and then go straight to the church. I would
                          be quite all right, Kath would be looking in and friends would fetch me.
                          I started to dress and soon there was a tap at the door and Mrs Hickson-Wood
                          came in with my bouquet. It was a lovely bunch of carnations and frangipani with lots of
                          asparagus fern and it went well with my primrose yellow frock. She admired my frock
                          and Leghorn hat and told me that her little girl Maureen was to be my flower girl. Then
                          she too left for the church.

                          I was fully dressed when there was another knock on the door and I opened it to
                          be confronted by a Police Officer in a starched white uniform. I’m McCallum”, he said,
                          “I’ve come to drive you to the church.” Downstairs he introduced me to a big man in a
                          tussore silk suit. “This is Dr Shicore”, said McCallum, “He is going to give you away.”
                          Honestly, I felt exactly like Alice in Wonderland. Wouldn’t have been at all surprised if
                          the White Rabbit had popped up and said he was going to be my page.

                          I walked out of the hotel and across the pavement in a dream and there, by the
                          curb, was a big dark blue police car decorated with white ribbons and with a tall African
                          Police Ascari holding the door open for me. I had hardly time to wonder what next when
                          the car drew up before a tall German looking church. It was in fact the Lutheran Church in
                          the days when Tanganyika was German East Africa.

                          Mrs Hickson-Wood, very smart in mushroom coloured georgette and lace, and
                          her small daughter were waiting in the porch, so in we went. I was glad to notice my
                          friends from the boat sitting behind George’s friends who were all complete strangers to
                          me. The aisle seemed very long but at last I reached George waiting in the chancel with
                          Hicky-Wood, looking unfamiliar in a smart tussore suit. However this feeling of unreality
                          passed when he turned his head and smiled at me.

                          In the vestry after the ceremony I was kissed affectionately by several complete
                          strangers and I felt happy and accepted by George’s friends. Outside the church,
                          standing apart from the rest of the guests, the Italian Captain and Chief Engineer were
                          waiting. They came up and kissed my hand, and murmured felicitations, but regretted
                          they could not spare the time to come to the reception. Really it was just as well
                          because they would not have fitted in at all well.

                          Dr Shircore is the Director of Medical Services and he had very kindly lent his
                          large house for the reception. It was quite a party. The guests were mainly men with a
                          small sprinkling of wives. Champagne corks popped and there was an enormous cake
                          and soon voices were raised in song. The chief one was ‘Happy Days Are Here Again’
                          and I shall remember it for ever.

                          The party was still in full swing when George and I left. The old lady from the ship
                          enjoyed it hugely. She came in an all black outfit with a corsage of artificial Lily-of-the-
                          Valley. Later I saw one of the men wearing the corsage in his buttonhole and the old
                          lady was wearing a carnation.

                          When George and I got back to the hotel,I found that my luggage had been
                          moved to George’s room by his cook Lamek, who was squatting on his haunches and
                          clapped his hands in greeting. My dears, you should see Lamek – exactly like a
                          chimpanzee – receding forehead, wide flat nose, and long lip, and such splayed feet. It was quite a strain not to laugh, especially when he produced a gift for me. I have not yet
                          discovered where he acquired it. It was a faded mauve straw toque of the kind worn by
                          Queen Mary. I asked George to tell Lamek that I was touched by his generosity but felt
                          that I could not accept his gift. He did not mind at all especially as George gave him a
                          generous tip there and then.

                          I changed into a cotton frock and shady straw hat and George changed into shorts
                          and bush shirt once more. We then sneaked into the dining room for lunch avoiding our
                          wedding guests who were carrying on the party in the lounge.

                          After lunch we rejoined them and they all came down to the jetty to wave goodbye
                          as we set out by motor launch for Honeymoon Island. I enjoyed the launch trip very
                          much. The sea was calm and very blue and the palm fringed beaches of Dar es Salaam
                          are as romantic as any bride could wish. There are small coral islands dotted around the
                          Bay of which Honeymoon Island is the loveliest. I believe at one time it bore the less
                          romantic name of Quarantine Island. Near the Island, in the shallows, the sea is brilliant
                          green and I saw two pink jellyfish drifting by.

                          There is no jetty on the island so the boat was stopped in shallow water and
                          George carried me ashore. I was enchanted with the Island and in no hurry to go to the
                          bungalow, so George and I took our bathing costumes from our suitcases and sent the
                          luggage up to the house together with a box of provisions.

                          We bathed and lazed on the beach and suddenly it was sunset and it began to
                          get dark. We walked up the beach to the bungalow and began to unpack the stores,
                          tea, sugar, condensed milk, bread and butter, sardines and a large tin of ham. There
                          were also cups and saucers and plates and cutlery.

                          We decided to have an early meal and George called out to the caretaker, “Boy
                          letta chai”. Thereupon the ‘boy’ materialised and jabbered to George in Ki-Swaheli. It
                          appeared he had no utensil in which to boil water. George, ever resourceful, removed
                          the ham from the tin and gave him that. We had our tea all right but next day the ham
                          was bad.

                          Then came bed time. I took a hurricane lamp in one hand and my suitcase in the
                          other and wandered into the bedroom whilst George vanished into the bathroom. To
                          my astonishment I saw two perfectly bare iron bedsteads – no mattress or pillows. We
                          had brought sheets and mosquito nets but, believe me, they are a poor substitute for a
                          mattress.

                          Anyway I arrayed myself in my pale yellow satin nightie and sat gingerly down
                          on the iron edge of the bed to await my groom who eventually appeared in a
                          handsome suit of silk pyjamas. His expression, as he took in the situation, was too much
                          for me and I burst out laughing and so did he.

                          Somewhere in the small hours I woke up. The breeze had dropped and the
                          room was unbearably stuffy. I felt as dry as a bone. The lamp had been turned very
                          low and had gone out, but I remembered seeing a water tank in the yard and I decided
                          to go out in the dark and drink from the tap. In the dark I could not find my slippers so I
                          slipped my feet into George’s shoes, picked up his matches and groped my way out
                          of the room. I found the tank all right and with one hand on the tap and one cupped for
                          water I stooped to drink. Just then I heard a scratchy noise and sensed movements
                          around my feet. I struck a match and oh horrors! found that the damp spot on which I was
                          standing was alive with white crabs. In my hurry to escape I took a clumsy step, put
                          George’s big toe on the hem of my nightie and down I went on top of the crabs. I need
                          hardly say that George was awakened by an appalling shriek and came rushing to my
                          aid like a knight of old.  Anyway, alarms and excursions not withstanding, we had a wonderful weekend on the island and I was sorry to return to the heat of Dar es Salaam, though the evenings
                          here are lovely and it is heavenly driving along the coast road by car or in a rickshaw.
                          I was surprised to find so many Indians here. Most of the shops, large and small,
                          seem to be owned by Indians and the place teems with them. The women wear
                          colourful saris and their hair in long black plaits reaching to their waists. Many wear baggy
                          trousers of silk or satin. They give a carnival air to the sea front towards sunset.
                          This long letter has been written in instalments throughout the day. My first break
                          was when I heard the sound of a band and rushed to the balcony in time to see The
                          Kings African Rifles band and Askaris march down the Avenue on their way to an
                          Armistice Memorial Service. They looked magnificent.

                          I must end on a note of most primitive pride. George returned from his shopping
                          expedition and beamingly informed me that he had thrashed the man who annoyed me
                          on the ship. I felt extremely delighted and pressed for details. George told me that
                          when he went out shopping he noticed to his surprise that the ‘Timavo” was still in the
                          harbour. He went across to the Agents office and there saw a man who answered to the
                          description I had given. George said to him “Is your name Taylor?”, and when he said
                          “yes”, George said “Well my name is George Rushby”, whereupon he hit Taylor on the
                          jaw so that he sailed over the counter and down the other side. Very satisfactory, I feel.
                          With much love to all.

                          Your cave woman
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          Well here we are at our Country Seat, Mchewe Estate. (pronounced
                          Mn,-che’-we) but I will start at the beginning of our journey and describe the farm later.
                          We left the hotel at Dar es Salaam for the station in a taxi crowded with baggage
                          and at the last moment Keith Wood ran out with the unwrapped bottom layer of our
                          wedding cake. It remained in its naked state from there to here travelling for two days in
                          the train on the luggage rack, four days in the car on my knee, reposing at night on the
                          roof of the car exposed to the winds of Heaven, and now rests beside me in the tent
                          looking like an old old tombstone. We have no tin large enough to hold it and one
                          simply can’t throw away ones wedding cake so, as George does not eat cake, I can see
                          myself eating wedding cake for tea for months to come, ants permitting.

                          We travelled up by train from Dar to Dodoma, first through the lush vegetation of
                          the coastal belt to Morogoro, then through sisal plantations now very overgrown with
                          weeds owing to the slump in prices, and then on to the arid area around Dodoma. This
                          part of the country is very dry at this time of the year and not unlike parts of our Karoo.
                          The train journey was comfortable enough but slow as the engines here are fed with
                          wood and not coal as in South Africa.

                          Dodoma is the nearest point on the railway to Mbeya so we left the train there to
                          continue our journey by road. We arrived at the one and only hotel in the early hours and
                          whilst someone went to rout out the night watchman the rest of us sat on the dismal
                          verandah amongst a litter of broken glass. Some bright spark remarked on the obvious –
                          that there had been a party the night before.

                          When we were shown to a room I thought I rather preferred the verandah,
                          because the beds had not yet been made up and there was a bucket of vomit beside
                          the old fashioned washstand. However George soon got the boys to clean up the
                          room and I fell asleep to be awakened by George with an invitation to come and see
                          our car before breakfast.

                          Yes, we have our own car. It is a Chev, with what is called a box body. That
                          means that sides, roof and doors are made by a local Indian carpenter. There is just the
                          one front seat with a kapok mattress on it. The tools are kept in a sort of cupboard fixed
                          to the side so there is a big space for carrying “safari kit” behind the cab seat.
                          Lamek, who had travelled up on the same train, appeared after breakfast, and
                          helped George to pack all our luggage into the back of the car. Besides our suitcases
                          there was a huge bedroll, kitchen utensils and a box of provisions, tins of petrol and
                          water and all Lamek’s bits and pieces which included three chickens in a wicker cage and
                          an enormous bunch of bananas about 3 ft long.

                          When all theses things were packed there remained only a small space between
                          goods and ceiling and into this Lamek squeezed. He lay on his back with his horny feet a
                          mere inch or so from the back of my head. In this way we travelled 400 miles over
                          bumpy earth roads and crude pole bridges, but whenever we stopped for a meal
                          Lamek wriggled out and, like Aladdin’s genie, produced good meals in no time at all.
                          In the afternoon we reached a large river called the Ruaha. Workmen were busy
                          building a large bridge across it but it is not yet ready so we crossed by a ford below
                          the bridge. George told me that the river was full of crocodiles but though I looked hard, I
                          did not see any. This is also elephant country but I did not see any of those either, only
                          piles of droppings on the road. I must tell you that the natives around these parts are called Wahehe and the river is Ruaha – enough to make a cat laugh. We saw some Wahehe out hunting with spears
                          and bows and arrows. They live in long low houses with the tiniest shuttered windows
                          and rounded roofs covered with earth.

                          Near the river we also saw a few Masai herding cattle. They are rather terrifying to
                          look at – tall, angular, and very aloof. They wear nothing but a blanket knotted on one
                          shoulder, concealing nothing, and all carried one or two spears.
                          The road climbs steeply on the far side of the Ruaha and one has the most
                          tremendous views over the plains. We spent our first night up there in the high country.
                          Everything was taken out of the car, the bed roll opened up and George and I slept
                          comfortably in the back of the car whilst Lamek, rolled in a blanket, slept soundly by a
                          small fire nearby. Next morning we reached our first township, Iringa, and put up at the
                          Colonist Hotel. We had a comfortable room in the annex overlooking the golf course.
                          our room had its own little dressing room which was also the bathroom because, when
                          ordered to do so, the room boy carried in an oval galvanised bath and filled it with hot
                          water which he carried in a four gallon petrol tin.

                          When we crossed to the main building for lunch, George was immediately hailed
                          by several men who wanted to meet the bride. I was paid some handsome
                          compliments but was not sure whether they were sincere or the result of a nice alcoholic
                          glow. Anyhow every one was very friendly.

                          After lunch I went back to the bedroom leaving George chatting away. I waited and
                          waited – no George. I got awfully tired of waiting and thought I’d give him a fright so I
                          walked out onto the deserted golf course and hid behind some large boulders. Soon I
                          saw George returning to the room and the boy followed with a tea tray. Ah, now the hue
                          and cry will start, thought I, but no, no George appeared nor could I hear any despairing
                          cry. When sunset came I trailed crossly back to our hotel room where George lay
                          innocently asleep on his bed, hands folded on his chest like a crusader on his tomb. In a
                          moment he opened his eyes, smiled sleepily and said kindly, “Did you have a nice walk
                          my love?” So of course I couldn’t play the neglected wife as he obviously didn’t think
                          me one and we had a very pleasant dinner and party in the hotel that evening.
                          Next day we continued our journey but turned aside to visit the farm of a sprightly
                          old man named St.Leger Seaton whom George had known for many years, so it was
                          after dark before George decided that we had covered our quota of miles for the day.
                          Whilst he and Lamek unpacked I wandered off to a stream to cool my hot feet which had
                          baked all day on the floor boards of the car. In the rather dim moonlight I sat down on the
                          grassy bank and gratefully dabbled my feet in the cold water. A few minutes later I
                          started up with a shriek – I had the sensation of red hot pins being dug into all my most
                          sensitive parts. I started clawing my clothes off and, by the time George came to the
                          rescue with the lamp, I was practically in the nude. “Only Siafu ants,” said George calmly.
                          Take off all your clothes and get right in the water.” So I had a bathe whilst George
                          picked the ants off my clothes by the light of the lamp turned very low for modesty’s
                          sake. Siafu ants are beastly things. They are black ants with outsized heads and
                          pinchers. I shall be very, very careful where I sit in future.

                          The next day was even hotter. There was no great variety in the scenery. Most
                          of the country was covered by a tree called Miombo, which is very ordinary when the
                          foliage is a mature deep green, but when in new leaf the trees look absolutely beautiful
                          as the leaves,surprisingly, are soft pastel shades of red and yellow.

                          Once again we turned aside from the main road to visit one of George’s friends.
                          This man Major Hugh Jones MC, has a farm only a few miles from ours but just now he is supervising the making of an airstrip. Major Jones is quite a character. He is below
                          average height and skinny with an almost bald head and one nearly blind eye into which
                          he screws a monocle. He is a cultured person and will, I am sure, make an interesting
                          neighbour. George and Major Jones’ friends call him ‘Joni’ but he is generally known in
                          this country as ‘Ropesoles’ – as he is partial to that type of footwear.
                          We passed through Mbeya township after dark so I have no idea what the place
                          is like. The last 100 miles of our journey was very dusty and the last 15 miles extremely
                          bumpy. The road is used so little that in some places we had to plow our way through
                          long grass and I was delighted when at last George turned into a side road and said
                          “This is our place.” We drove along the bank of the Mchewe River, then up a hill and
                          stopped at a tent which was pitched beside the half built walls of our new home. We
                          were expected so there was hot water for baths and after a supper of tinned food and
                          good hot tea, I climbed thankfully into bed.

                          Next morning I was awakened by the chattering of the African workmen and was
                          soon out to inspect the new surroundings. Our farm was once part of Hickson Wood’s
                          land and is separated from theirs by a river. Our houses cannot be more than a few
                          hundred yards apart as the crow flies but as both are built on the slopes of a long range
                          of high hills, and one can only cross the river at the foot of the slopes, it will be quite a
                          safari to go visiting on foot . Most of our land is covered with shoulder high grass but it
                          has been partly cleared of trees and scrub. Down by the river George has made a long
                          coffee nursery and a large vegetable garden but both coffee and vegetable seedlings
                          are too small to be of use.

                          George has spared all the trees that will make good shade for the coffee later on.
                          There are several huge wild fig trees as big as oaks but with smooth silvery-green trunks
                          and branches and there are lots of acacia thorn trees with flat tops like Japanese sun
                          shades. I’ve seen lovely birds in the fig trees, Louries with bright plumage and crested
                          heads, and Blue Rollers, and in the grasslands there are widow birds with incredibly long
                          black tail feathers.

                          There are monkeys too and horrible but fascinating tree lizards with blue bodies
                          and orange heads. There are so many, many things to tell you but they must wait for
                          another time as James, the house boy, has been to say “Bafu tiari” and if I don’t go at
                          once, the bath will be cold.

                          I am very very happy and terribly interested in this new life so please don’t
                          worry about me.

                          Much love to you all,
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          I’ve lots of time to write letters just now because George is busy supervising the
                          building of the house from early morning to late afternoon – with a break for lunch of
                          course.

                          On our second day here our tent was moved from the house site to a small
                          clearing further down the slope of our hill. Next to it the labourers built a ‘banda’ , which is
                          a three sided grass hut with thatched roof – much cooler than the tent in this weather.
                          There is also a little grass lav. so you see we have every convenience. I spend most of
                          my day in the banda reading or writing letters. Occasionally I wander up to the house site
                          and watch the building, but mostly I just sit.

                          I did try exploring once. I wandered down a narrow path towards the river. I
                          thought I might paddle and explore the river a little but I came round a bend and there,
                          facing me, was a crocodile. At least for a moment I thought it was and my adrenaline
                          glands got very busy indeed. But it was only an enormous monitor lizard, four or five
                          feet long. It must have been as scared as I was because it turned and rushed off through
                          the grass. I turned and walked hastily back to the camp and as I passed the house site I
                          saw some boys killing a large puff adder. Now I do my walking in the evenings with
                          George. Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when he is around.

                          It is interesting to watch the boys making bricks for the house. They make a pile
                          of mud which they trample with their feet until it is the right consistency. Then they fill
                          wooden moulds with the clayey mud, and press it down well and turn out beautiful shiny,
                          dark brown bricks which are laid out in rows and covered with grass to bake slowly in the
                          sun.

                          Most of the materials for the building are right here at hand. The walls will be sun
                          dried bricks and there is a white clay which will make a good whitewash for the inside
                          walls. The chimney and walls will be of burnt brick and tiles and George is now busy
                          building a kiln for this purpose. Poles for the roof are being cut in the hills behind the
                          house and every day women come along with large bundles of thatching grass on their
                          heads. Our windows are modern steel casement ones and the doors have been made
                          at a mission in the district. George does some of the bricklaying himself. The other
                          bricklayer is an African from Northern Rhodesia called Pedro. It makes me perspire just
                          to look at Pedro who wears an overcoat all day in the very hot sun.
                          Lamek continues to please. He turns out excellent meals, chicken soup followed
                          by roast chicken, vegetables from the Hickson-Woods garden and a steamed pudding
                          or fruit to wind up the meal. I enjoy the chicken but George is fed up with it and longs for
                          good red meat. The chickens are only about as large as a partridge but then they cost
                          only sixpence each.

                          I had my first visit to Mbeya two days ago. I put on my very best trousseau frock
                          for the occasion- that yellow striped silk one – and wore my wedding hat. George didn’t
                          comment, but I saw later that I was dreadfully overdressed.
                          Mbeya at the moment is a very small settlement consisting of a bundle of small
                          Indian shops – Dukas they call them, which stock European tinned foods and native soft
                          goods which seem to be mainly of Japanese origin. There is a one storied Government
                          office called the Boma and two attractive gabled houses of burnt brick which house the
                          District Officer and his Assistant. Both these houses have lovely gardens but i saw them
                          only from the outside as we did not call. After buying our stores George said “Lets go to the pub, I want you to meet Mrs Menzies.” Well the pub turned out to be just three or four grass rondavels on a bare
                          plot. The proprietor, Ken Menzies, came out to welcome us. I took to him at once
                          because he has the same bush sandy eyebrows as you have Dad. He told me that
                          unfortunately his wife is away at the coast, and then he ushered me through the door
                          saying “Here’s George with his bride.” then followed the Iringa welcome all over again,
                          only more so, because the room was full of diggers from the Lupa Goldfields about fifty
                          miles away.

                          Champagne corks popped as I shook hands all around and George was
                          clapped on the back. I could see he was a favourite with everyone and I tried not to be
                          gauche and let him down. These men were all most kind and most appeared to be men
                          of more than average education. However several were unshaven and looked as
                          though they had slept in their clothes as I suppose they had. When they have a little luck
                          on the diggings they come in here to Menzies pub and spend the lot. George says
                          they bring their gold dust and small nuggets in tobacco tins or Kruschen salts jars and
                          hand them over to Ken Menzies saying “Tell me when I’ve spent the lot.” Ken then
                          weighs the gold and estimates its value and does exactly what the digger wants.
                          However the Diggers get good value for their money because besides the drink
                          they get companionship and good food and nursing if they need it. Mrs Menzies is a
                          trained nurse and most kind and capable from what I was told. There is no doctor or
                          hospital here so her experience as a nursing sister is invaluable.
                          We had lunch at the Hotel and afterwards I poured tea as I was the only female
                          present. Once the shyness had worn off I rather enjoyed myself.

                          Now to end off I must tell you a funny story of how I found out that George likes
                          his women to be feminine. You will remember those dashing black silk pyjamas Aunt
                          Mary gave me, with flowered “happy coat” to match. Well last night I thought I’d give
                          George a treat and when the boy called me for my bath I left George in the ‘banda’
                          reading the London Times. After my bath I put on my Japanese pyjamas and coat,
                          peered into the shaving mirror which hangs from the tent pole and brushed my hair until it
                          shone. I must confess that with my fringe and shingled hair I thought I made quite a
                          glamourous Japanese girl. I walked coyly across to the ‘banda’. Alas no compliment.
                          George just glanced up from the Times and went on reading.
                          He was away rather a long time when it came to his turn to bath. I glanced up
                          when he came back and had a slight concussion. George, if you please, was arrayed in
                          my very best pale yellow satin nightie. The one with the lace and ribbon sash and little
                          bows on the shoulder. I knew exactly what he meant to convey. I was not to wear the
                          trousers in the family. I seethed inwardly, but pretending not to notice, I said calmly “shall
                          I call for food?” In this garb George sat down to dinner and it says a great deal for African
                          phlegm that the boy did not drop the dishes.

                          We conversed politely about this and that, and then, as usual, George went off
                          to bed. I appeared to be engrossed in my book and did not stir. When I went to the
                          tent some time later George lay fast asleep still in my nightie, though all I could see of it
                          was the little ribbon bows looking farcically out of place on his broad shoulders.
                          This morning neither of us mentioned the incident, George was up and dressed
                          by the time I woke up but I have been smiling all day to think what a ridiculous picture
                          we made at dinner. So farewell to pyjamas and hey for ribbons and bows.

                          Your loving
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          A mere shadow of her former buxom self lifts a languid pen to write to you. I’m
                          convalescing after my first and I hope my last attack of malaria. It was a beastly
                          experience but all is now well and I am eating like a horse and will soon regain my
                          bounce.

                          I took ill on the evening of the day I wrote my last letter to you. It started with a
                          splitting headache and fits of shivering. The symptoms were all too familiar to George
                          who got me into bed and filled me up with quinine. He then piled on all the available
                          blankets and packed me in hot water bottles. I thought I’d explode and said so and
                          George said just to lie still and I’d soon break into a good sweat. However nothing of the
                          kind happened and next day my temperature was 105 degrees. Instead of feeling
                          miserable as I had done at the onset, I now felt very merry and most chatty. George
                          now tells me I sang the most bawdy songs but I hardly think it likely. Do you?
                          You cannot imagine how tenderly George nursed me, not only that day but
                          throughout the whole eight days I was ill. As we do not employ any African house
                          women, and there are no white women in the neighbourhood at present to whom we
                          could appeal for help, George had to do everything for me. It was unbearably hot in the
                          tent so George decided to move me across to the Hickson-Woods vacant house. They
                          have not yet returned from the coast.

                          George decided I was too weak to make the trip in the car so he sent a
                          messenger over to the Woods’ house for their Machila. A Machila is a canopied canvas
                          hammock slung from a bamboo pole and carried by four bearers. The Machila duly
                          arrived and I attempted to walk to it, clinging to George’s arm, but collapsed in a faint so
                          the trip was postponed to the next morning when I felt rather better. Being carried by
                          Machila is quite pleasant but I was in no shape to enjoy anything and got thankfully into
                          bed in the Hickson-Woods large, cool and rather dark bedroom. My condition did not
                          improve and George decided to send a runner for the Government Doctor at Tukuyu
                          about 60 miles away. Two days later Dr Theis arrived by car and gave me two
                          injections of quinine which reduced the fever. However I still felt very weak and had to
                          spend a further four days in bed.

                          We have now decided to stay on here until the Hickson-Woods return by which
                          time our own house should be ready. George goes off each morning and does not
                          return until late afternoon. However don’t think “poor Eleanor” because I am very
                          comfortable here and there are lots of books to read and the days seem to pass very
                          quickly.

                          The Hickson-Wood’s house was built by Major Jones and I believe the one on
                          his shamba is just like it. It is a square red brick building with a wide verandah all around
                          and, rather astonishingly, a conical thatched roof. There is a beautiful view from the front
                          of the house and a nice flower garden. The coffee shamba is lower down on the hill.
                          Mrs Wood’s first husband, George’s friend Vi Lumb, is buried in the flower
                          garden. He died of blackwater fever about five years ago. I’m told that before her
                          second marriage Kath lived here alone with her little daughter, Maureen, and ran the farm
                          entirely on her own. She must be quite a person. I bet she didn’t go and get malaria
                          within a few weeks of her marriage.

                          The native tribe around here are called Wasafwa. They are pretty primitive but
                          seem amiable people. Most of the men, when they start work, wear nothing but some
                          kind of sheet of unbleached calico wrapped round their waists and hanging to mid calf. As soon as they have drawn their wages they go off to a duka and buy a pair of khaki
                          shorts for five or six shillings. Their women folk wear very short beaded skirts. I think the
                          base is goat skin but have never got close enough for a good look. They are very shy.
                          I hear from George that they have started on the roof of our house but I have not
                          seen it myself since the day I was carried here by Machila. My letters by the way go to
                          the Post Office by runner. George’s farm labourers take it in turn to act in this capacity.
                          The mail bag is given to them on Friday afternoon and by Saturday evening they are
                          back with our very welcome mail.

                          Very much love,
                          Eleanor.

                          Mbeya 23rd December 1930

                          Dearest Family,

                          George drove to Mbeya for stores last week and met Col. Sherwood-Kelly VC.
                          who has been sent by the Government to Mbeya as Game Ranger. His job will be to
                          protect native crops from raiding elephants and hippo etc., and to protect game from
                          poachers. He has had no training for this so he has asked George to go with him on his
                          first elephant safari to show him the ropes.

                          George likes Col. Kelly and was quite willing to go on safari but not willing to
                          leave me alone on the farm as I am still rather shaky after malaria. So it was arranged that
                          I should go to Mbeya and stay with Mrs Harmer, the wife of the newly appointed Lands
                          and Mines Officer, whose husband was away on safari.

                          So here I am in Mbeya staying in the Harmers temporary wattle and daub
                          house. Unfortunately I had a relapse of the malaria and stayed in bed for three days with
                          a temperature. Poor Mrs Harmer had her hands full because in the room next to mine
                          she was nursing a digger with blackwater fever. I could hear his delirious babble through
                          the thin wall – very distressing. He died poor fellow , and leaves a wife and seven
                          children.

                          I feel better than I have done for weeks and this afternoon I walked down to the
                          store. There are great signs of activity and people say that Mbeya will grow rapidly now
                          owing to the boom on the gold fields and also to the fact that a large aerodrome is to be
                          built here. Mbeya is to be a night stop on the proposed air service between England
                          and South Africa. I seem to be the last of the pioneers. If all these schemes come about
                          Mbeya will become quite suburban.

                          26th December 1930

                          George, Col. Kelly and Mr Harmer all returned to Mbeya on Christmas Eve and
                          it was decided that we should stay and have midday Christmas dinner with the
                          Harmers. Col. Kelly and the Assistant District Commissioner came too and it was quite a
                          festive occasion, We left Mbeya in the early afternoon and had our evening meal here at
                          Hickson-Wood’s farm. I wore my wedding dress.

                          I went across to our house in the car this morning. George usually walks across to
                          save petrol which is very expensive here. He takes a short cut and wades through the
                          river. The distance by road is very much longer than the short cut. The men are now
                          thatching the roof of our cottage and it looks charming. It consists of a very large living
                          room-dinning room with a large inglenook fireplace at one end. The bedroom is a large
                          square room with a smaller verandah room adjoining it. There is a wide verandah in the
                          front, from which one has a glorious view over a wide valley to the Livingstone
                          Mountains on the horizon. Bathroom and storeroom are on the back verandah and the
                          kitchen is some distance behind the house to minimise the risk of fire.

                          You can imagine how much I am looking forward to moving in. We have some
                          furniture which was made by an Indian carpenter at Iringa, refrectory dining table and
                          chairs, some small tables and two armchairs and two cupboards and a meatsafe. Other
                          things like bookshelves and extra cupboards we will have to make ourselves. George
                          has also bought a portable gramophone and records which will be a boon.
                          We also have an Irish wolfhound puppy, a skinny little chap with enormous feet
                          who keeps me company all day whilst George is across at our farm working on the
                          house.

                          Lots and lots of love,
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

                          Dearest Family,

                          Alas, I have lost my little companion. The Doctor called in here on Boxing night
                          and ran over and killed Paddy, our pup. It was not his fault but I was very distressed
                          about it and George has promised to try and get another pup from the same litter.
                          The Hickson-Woods returned home on the 29th December so we decided to
                          move across to our nearly finished house on the 1st January. Hicky Wood decided that
                          we needed something special to mark the occasion so he went off and killed a sucking
                          pig behind the kitchen. The piglet’s screams were terrible and I felt that I would not be
                          able to touch any dinner. Lamek cooked and served sucking pig up in the traditional way
                          but it was high and quite literally, it stank. Our first meal in our own home was not a
                          success.

                          However next day all was forgotten and I had something useful to do. George
                          hung doors and I held the tools and I also planted rose cuttings I had brought from
                          Mbeya and sowed several boxes with seeds.

                          Dad asked me about the other farms in the area. I haven’t visited any but there
                          are five besides ours. One belongs to the Lutheran Mission at Utengule, a few miles
                          from here. The others all belong to British owners. Nearest to Mbeya, at the foot of a
                          very high peak which gives Mbeya its name, are two farms, one belonging to a South
                          African mining engineer named Griffiths, the other to I.G.Stewart who was an officer in the
                          Kings African Rifles. Stewart has a young woman called Queenie living with him. We are
                          some miles further along the range of hills and are some 23 miles from Mbeya by road.
                          The Mchewe River divides our land from the Hickson-Woods and beyond their farm is
                          Major Jones.

                          All these people have been away from their farms for some time but have now
                          returned so we will have some neighbours in future. However although the houses are
                          not far apart as the crow flies, they are all built high in the foothills and it is impossible to
                          connect the houses because of the rivers and gorges in between. One has to drive right
                          down to the main road and then up again so I do not suppose we will go visiting very
                          often as the roads are very bumpy and eroded and petrol is so expensive that we all
                          save it for occasional trips to Mbeya.

                          The rains are on and George has started to plant out some coffee seedlings. The
                          rains here are strange. One can hear the rain coming as it moves like a curtain along the
                          range of hills. It comes suddenly, pours for a little while and passes on and the sun
                          shines again.

                          I do like it here and I wish you could see or dear little home.

                          Your loving,
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

                          Dearest Family,

                          Everything is now running very smoothly in our home. Lamek continues to
                          produce palatable meals and makes wonderful bread which he bakes in a four gallon
                          petrol tin as we have no stove yet. He puts wood coals on the brick floor of the kitchen,
                          lays the tin lengh-wise on the coals and heaps more on top. The bread tins are then put
                          in the petrol tin, which has one end cut away, and the open end is covered by a flat
                          piece of tin held in place by a brick. Cakes are also backed in this make-shift oven and I
                          have never known Lamek to have a failure yet.

                          Lamek has a helper, known as the ‘mpishi boy’ , who does most of the hard
                          work, cleans pots and pans and chops the firewood etc. Another of the mpishi boy’s
                          chores is to kill the two chickens we eat each day. The chickens run wild during the day
                          but are herded into a small chicken house at night. One of the kitchen boy’s first duties is
                          to let the chickens out first thing in the early morning. Some time after breakfast it dawns
                          on Lamek that he will need a chicken for lunch. he informs the kitchen boy who selects a
                          chicken and starts to chase it in which he is enthusiastically joined by our new Irish
                          wolfhound pup, Kelly. Together they race after the frantic fowl, over the flower beds and
                          around the house until finally the chicken collapses from sheer exhaustion. The kitchen
                          boy then hands it over to Lamek who murders it with the kitchen knife and then pops the
                          corpse into boiling water so the feathers can be stripped off with ease.

                          I pointed out in vain, that it would be far simpler if the doomed chickens were kept
                          in the chicken house in the mornings when the others were let out and also that the correct
                          way to pluck chickens is when they are dry. Lamek just smiled kindly and said that that
                          may be so in Europe but that his way is the African way and none of his previous
                          Memsahibs has complained.

                          My houseboy, named James, is clean and capable in the house and also a
                          good ‘dhobi’ or washboy. He takes the washing down to the river and probably
                          pounds it with stones, but I prefer not to look. The ironing is done with a charcoal iron
                          only we have no charcoal and he uses bits of wood from the kitchen fire but so far there
                          has not been a mishap.

                          It gets dark here soon after sunset and then George lights the oil lamps and we
                          have tea and toast in front of the log fire which burns brightly in our inglenook. This is my
                          favourite hour of the day. Later George goes for his bath. I have mine in the mornings
                          and we have dinner at half past eight. Then we talk a bit and read a bit and sometimes
                          play the gramophone. I expect it all sounds pretty unexciting but it doesn’t seem so to
                          me.

                          Very much love,
                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

                          Dearest Family,

                          It is still raining here and the countryside looks very lush and green, very different
                          from the Mbeya district I first knew, when plains and hills were covered in long brown
                          grass – very course stuff that grows shoulder high.

                          Most of the labourers are hill men and one can see little patches of cultivation in
                          the hills. Others live in small villages near by, each consisting of a cluster of thatched huts
                          and a few maize fields and perhaps a patch of bananas. We do not have labour lines on
                          the farm because our men all live within easy walking distance. Each worker has a labour
                          card with thirty little squares on it. One of these squares is crossed off for each days work
                          and when all thirty are marked in this way the labourer draws his pay and hies himself off
                          to the nearest small store and blows the lot. The card system is necessary because
                          these Africans are by no means slaves to work. They work only when they feel like it or
                          when someone in the family requires a new garment, or when they need a few shillings
                          to pay their annual tax. Their fields, chickens and goats provide them with the food they
                          need but they draw rations of maize meal beans and salt. Only our headman is on a
                          salary. His name is Thomas and he looks exactly like the statues of Julius Caesar, the
                          same bald head and muscular neck and sardonic expression. He comes from Northern
                          Rhodesia and is more intelligent than the locals.

                          We still live mainly on chickens. We have a boy whose job it is to scour the
                          countryside for reasonable fat ones. His name is Lucas and he is quite a character. He
                          has such long horse teeth that he does not seem able to close his mouth and wears a
                          perpetual amiable smile. He brings his chickens in beehive shaped wicker baskets
                          which are suspended on a pole which Lucas carries on his shoulder.

                          We buy our groceries in bulk from Mbeya, our vegetables come from our
                          garden by the river and our butter from Kath Wood. Our fresh milk we buy from the
                          natives. It is brought each morning by three little totos each carrying one bottle on his
                          shaven head. Did I tell you that the local Wasafwa file their teeth to points. These kids
                          grin at one with their little sharks teeth – quite an “all-ready-to-eat-you-with-my-dear” look.
                          A few nights ago a message arrived from Kath Wood to say that Queenie
                          Stewart was very ill and would George drive her across to the Doctor at Tukuyu. I
                          wanted George to wait until morning because it was pouring with rain, and the mountain
                          road to Tukuyu is tricky even in dry weather, but he said it is dangerous to delay with any
                          kind of fever in Africa and he would have to start at once. So off he drove in the rain and I
                          did not see him again until the following night.

                          George said that it had been a nightmare trip. Queenie had a high temperature
                          and it was lucky that Kath was able to go to attend to her. George needed all his
                          attention on the road which was officially closed to traffic, and very slippery, and in some
                          places badly eroded. In some places the decking of bridges had been removed and
                          George had to get out in the rain and replace it. As he had nothing with which to fasten
                          the decking to the runners it was a dangerous undertaking to cross the bridges especially
                          as the rivers are now in flood and flowing strongly. However they reached Tukuyu safely
                          and it was just as well they went because the Doctor diagnosed Queenies illness as
                          Spirillium Tick Fever which is a very nasty illness indeed.

                          Eleanor.

                          Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

                          Dear Family,

                          I’m feeling fit and very happy though a bit lonely sometimes because George
                          spends much of his time away in the hills cutting a furrow miles long to bring water to the
                          house and to the upper part of the shamba so that he will be able to irrigate the coffee
                          during the dry season.

                          It will be quite an engineering feat when it is done as George only has makeshift
                          surveying instruments. He has mounted an ordinary cheap spirit level on an old camera
                          tripod and has tacked two gramophone needles into the spirit level to give him a line.
                          The other day part of a bank gave way and practically buried two of George’s labourers
                          but they were quickly rescued and no harm was done. However he will not let them
                          work unless he is there to supervise.

                          I keep busy so that the days pass quickly enough. I am delighted with the
                          material you sent me for curtains and loose covers and have hired a hand sewing
                          machine from Pedro-of-the-overcoat and am rattling away all day. The machine is an
                          ancient German one and when I say rattle, I mean rattle. It is a most cumbersome, heavy
                          affair of I should say, the same vintage as George Stevenson’s Rocket locomotive.
                          Anyway it sews and I am pleased with my efforts. We made a couch ourselves out of a
                          native bed, a mattress and some planks but all this is hidden under the chintz cover and
                          it looks quite the genuine bought article. I have some diversions too. Small black faced
                          monkeys sit in the trees outside our bedroom window and they are most entertaining to
                          watch. They are very mischievous though. When I went out into the garden this morning
                          before breakfast I found that the monkeys had pulled up all my carnations. There they
                          lay, roots in the air and whether they will take again I don’t know.

                          I like the monkeys but hate the big mountain baboons that come and hang
                          around our chicken house. I am terrified that they will tear our pup into bits because he is
                          a plucky young thing and will rush out to bark at the baboons.

                          George usually returns for the weekends but last time he did not because he had
                          a touch of malaria. He sent a boy down for the mail and some fresh bread. Old Lucas
                          arrived with chickens just as the messenger was setting off with mail and bread in a
                          haversack on his back. I thought it might be a good idea to send a chicken to George so
                          I selected a spry young rooster which I handed to the messenger. He, however,
                          complained that he needed both hands for climbing. I then had one of my bright ideas
                          and, putting a layer of newspaper over the bread, I tucked the rooster into the haversack
                          and buckled down the flap so only his head protruded.

                          I thought no more about it until two days later when the messenger again
                          appeared for fresh bread. He brought a rather terse note from George saying that the
                          previous bread was uneatable as the rooster had eaten some of it and messed on the
                          rest. Ah me!

                          The previous weekend the Hickson-Woods, Stewarts and ourselves, went
                          across to Tukuyu to attend a dance at the club there. the dance was very pleasant. All
                          the men wore dinner jackets and the ladies wore long frocks. As there were about
                          twenty men and only seven ladies we women danced every dance whilst the surplus
                          men got into a huddle around the bar. George and I spent the night with the Agricultural
                          Officer, Mr Eustace, and I met his fiancee, Lillian Austin from South Africa, to whom I took
                          a great liking. She is Governess to the children of Major Masters who has a farm in the
                          Tukuyu district.

                          On the Sunday morning we had a look at the township. The Boma was an old German one and was once fortified as the Africans in this district are a very warlike tribe.
                          They are fine looking people. The men wear sort of togas and bands of cloth around
                          their heads and look like Roman Senators, but the women go naked except for a belt
                          from which two broad straps hang down, one in front and another behind. Not a graceful
                          garb I assure you.

                          We also spent a pleasant hour in the Botanical Gardens, laid out during the last
                          war by the District Commissioner, Major Wells, with German prisoner of war labour.
                          There are beautiful lawns and beds of roses and other flowers and shady palm lined
                          walks and banana groves. The gardens are terraced with flights of brick steps connecting
                          the different levels and there is a large artificial pond with little islands in it. I believe Major
                          Wells designed the lake to resemble in miniature, the Lakes of Killarney.
                          I enjoyed the trip very much. We got home at 8 pm to find the front door locked
                          and the kitchen boy fast asleep on my newly covered couch! I hastily retreated to the
                          bedroom whilst George handled the situation.

                          Eleanor.

                          #6259
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            George “Mike” Rushby

                            A short autobiography of George Gilman Rushby’s son, published in the Blackwall Bugle, Australia.

                            Early in 2009, Ballina Shire Council Strategic and
                            Community Services Group Manager, Steve Barnier,
                            suggested that it would be a good idea for the Wardell
                            and District community to put out a bi-monthly
                            newsletter. I put my hand up to edit the publication and
                            since then, over 50 issues of “The Blackwall Bugle”
                            have been produced, encouraged by Ballina Shire
                            Council who host the newsletter on their website.
                            Because I usually write the stories that other people
                            generously share with me, I have been asked by several
                            community members to let them know who I am. Here is
                            my attempt to let you know!

                            My father, George Gilman Rushby was born in England
                            in 1900. An Electrician, he migrated to Africa as a young
                            man to hunt and to prospect for gold. He met Eleanor
                            Dunbar Leslie who was a high school teacher in Cape
                            Town. They later married in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika.
                            I was the second child and first son and was born in a
                            mud hut in Tanganyika in 1933. I spent my first years on
                            a coffee plantation. When four years old, and with
                            parents and elder sister on a remote goldfield, I caught
                            typhoid fever. I was seriously ill and had no access to
                            proper medical facilities. My paternal grandmother
                            sailed out to Africa from England on a steam ship and
                            took me back to England for medical treatment. My
                            sister Ann came too. Then Adolf Hitler started WWII and
                            Ann and I were separated from our parents for 9 years.

                            Sister Ann and I were not to see him or our mother for
                            nine years because of the war. Dad served as a Captain in
                            the King’s African Rifles operating in the North African
                            desert, while our Mum managed the coffee plantation at
                            home in Tanganyika.

                            Ann and I lived with our Grandmother and went to
                            school in Nottingham England. In 1946 the family was
                            reunited. We lived in Mbeya in Southern Tanganyika
                            where my father was then the District Manager of the
                            National Parks and Wildlife Authority. There was no
                            high school in Tanganyika so I had to go to school in
                            Nairobi, Kenya. It took five days travelling each way by
                            train and bus including two days on a steamer crossing
                            Lake Victoria.

                            However, the school year was only two terms with long
                            holidays in between.

                            When I was seventeen, I left high school. There was
                            then no university in East Africa. There was no work
                            around as Tanganyika was about to become
                            independent of the British Empire and become
                            Tanzania. Consequently jobs were reserved for
                            Africans.

                            A war had broken out in Korea. I took a day off from
                            high school and visited the British Army headquarters
                            in Nairobi. I signed up for military service intending to
                            go to Korea. The army flew me to England. During
                            Army basic training I was nicknamed ‘Mike’ and have
                            been called Mike ever since. I never got to Korea!
                            After my basic training I volunteered for the Parachute
                            Regiment and the army sent me to Egypt where the
                            Suez Canal was under threat. I carried out parachute
                            operations in the Sinai Desert and in Cyprus and
                            Jordan. I was then selected for officer training and was
                            sent to England to the Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School
                            in Cheshire. Whilst in Cheshire, I met my future wife
                            Jeanette. I graduated as a Second Lieutenant in the
                            Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and was posted to West
                            Berlin, which was then one hundred miles behind the
                            Iron Curtain. My duties included patrolling the
                            demarcation line that separated the allies from the
                            Russian forces. The Berlin Wall was yet to be built. I
                            also did occasional duty as guard commander of the
                            guard at Spandau Prison where Adolf Hitler’s deputy
                            Rudolf Hess was the only prisoner.

                            From Berlin, my Regiment was sent to Malaya to
                            undertake deep jungle operations against communist
                            terrorists that were attempting to overthrow the
                            Malayan Government. I was then a Lieutenant in
                            command of a platoon of about 40 men which would go
                            into the jungle for three weeks to a month with only air
                            re-supply to keep us going. On completion of my jungle
                            service, I returned to England and married Jeanette. I
                            had to stand up throughout the church wedding
                            ceremony because I had damaged my right knee in a
                            competitive cross-country motorcycle race and wore a
                            splint and restrictive bandage for the occasion!
                            At this point I took a career change and transferred
                            from the infantry to the Royal Military Police. I was in
                            charge of the security of British, French and American
                            troops using the autobahn link from West Germany to
                            the isolated Berlin. Whilst in Germany and Austria I
                            took up snow skiing as a sport.

                            Jeanette and I seemed to attract unusual little
                            adventures along the way — each adventure trivial in
                            itself but adding up to give us a ‘different’ path through
                            life. Having climbed Mount Snowdon up the ‘easy way’
                            we were witness to a serious climbing accident where a
                            member of the staff of a Cunard Shipping Line
                            expedition fell and suffered serious injury. It was
                            Sunday a long time ago. The funicular railway was
                            closed. There was no telephone. So I ran all the way
                            down Mount Snowdon to raise the alarm.

                            On a road trip from Verden in Germany to Berlin with
                            our old Opel Kapitan motor car stacked to the roof with
                            all our worldly possessions, we broke down on the ice and snow covered autobahn. We still had a hundred kilometres to go.

                            A motorcycle patrolman flagged down a B-Double
                            tanker. He hooked us to the tanker with a very short tow
                            cable and off we went. The truck driver couldn’t see us
                            because we were too close and his truck threw up a
                            constant deluge of ice and snow so we couldn’t see
                            anyway. We survived the hundred kilometre ‘sleigh
                            ride!’

                            I then went back to the other side of the world where I
                            carried out military police duties in Singapore and
                            Malaya for three years. I took up scuba diving and
                            loved the ocean. Jeanette and I, with our two little
                            daughters, took a holiday to South Africa to see my
                            parents. We sailed on a ship of the Holland-Afrika Line.
                            It broke down for four days and drifted uncontrollably
                            in dangerous waters off the Skeleton Coast of Namibia
                            until the crew could get the ship’s motor running again.
                            Then, in Cape Town, we were walking the beach near
                            Hermanus with my youngest brother and my parents,
                            when we found the dead body of a man who had thrown
                            himself off a cliff. The police came and secured the site.
                            Back with the army, I was promoted to Major and
                            appointed Provost Marshal of the ACE Mobile Force
                            (Allied Command Europe) with dual headquarters in
                            Salisbury, England and Heidelberg, Germany. The cold
                            war was at its height and I was on operations in Greece,
                            Denmark and Norway including the Arctic. I had
                            Norwegian, Danish, Italian and American troops in my
                            unit and I was then also the Winter Warfare Instructor
                            for the British contingent to the Allied Command
                            Europe Mobile Force that operated north of the Arctic
                            Circle.

                            The reason for being in the Arctic Circle? From there
                            our special forces could look down into northern
                            Russia.

                            I was not seeing much of my two young daughters. A
                            desk job was looming my way and I decided to leave
                            the army and migrate to Australia. Why Australia?
                            Well, I didn’t want to go back to Africa, which
                            seemed politically unstable and the people I most
                            liked working with in the army, were the Australian
                            troops I had met in Malaya.

                            I migrated to Brisbane, Australia in 1970 and started
                            working for Woolworths. After management training,
                            I worked at Garden City and Brookside then became
                            the manager in turn of Woolworths stores at
                            Paddington, George Street and Redcliff. I was also the
                            first Director of FAUI Queensland (The Federation of
                            Underwater Diving Instructors) and spent my spare
                            time on the Great Barrier Reef. After 8 years with
                            Woollies, I opted for a sea change.

                            I moved with my family to Evans Head where I
                            converted a convenience store into a mini
                            supermarket. When IGA moved into town, I decided
                            to take up beef cattle farming and bought a cattle
                            property at Collins Creek Kyogle in 1990. I loved
                            everything about the farm — the Charolais cattle, my
                            horses, my kelpie dogs, the open air, fresh water
                            creek, the freedom, the lifestyle. I also became a
                            volunteer fire fighter with the Green Pigeon Brigade.
                            In 2004 I sold our farm and moved to Wardell.
                            My wife Jeanette and I have been married for 60 years
                            and are now retired. We have two lovely married
                            daughters and three fine grandchildren. We live in the
                            greatest part of the world where we have been warmly
                            welcomed by the Wardell community and by the
                            Wardell Brigade of the Rural Fire Service. We are
                            very happy here.

                            Mike Rushby

                            A short article sent to Jacksdale in England from Mike Rushby in Australia:

                            Rushby Family

                            #6231
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Gladstone Road

                              My mother remembers her grandfather Samuel Warren’s house at 3 Gladstone Road, Stourbridge. She was born in 1933, so this would be late 1930s early 1940s.

                              “Opening a big wooden gate in a high brick wall off the sidewalk I went down a passage with a very high hedge to the main house which was entered on this side through a sort of glassed-in lean-to then into the dark and damp scullery and then into a large room with a fireplace which was dining room and living room for most of the time. The house was Georgian and had wooden interior shutters at the windows. My Grandad sat by the fire probably most of the day. The fireplace may have had an oven built over or to the side of the fire which was common in those days and was used for cooking.
                              That room led into a hall going three ways and the main front door was here. One hall went to the pantry which had stone slabs for keeping food cool, such a long way from the kitchen! Opposite the pantry was the door to the cellar. One hall led to two large rooms with big windows overlooking the garden. There was also a door at the end of this hallway which opened into the garden. The stairs went up opposite the front door with a box room at the top then along a landing to another hall going right and left with two bedrooms down each hall.
                              The toilet got to from the scullery and lean-to was outside down another passage all overgrown near the pigsty. No outside lights!
                              On Christmas day the families would all have the day here. I think the menfolk went over to the pub {Gate Hangs Well?} for a drink while the women cooked dinner. Chris would take all the children down the dark, damp cellar steps and tell us ghost stories scaring us all. A fire would be lit in one of the big main rooms {probably only used once a year} and we’d sit in there and dinner was served in the other big main room. When the house was originally built the servants would have used the other room and scullery.
                              I have a recollection of going upstairs and into a bedroom off the right hand hall and someone was in bed, I thought an old lady but I was uncomfortable in there and never went in again. Seemed that person was there a long time. I did go upstairs with Betty to her room which was the opposite way down the hall and loved it. She was dating lots of soldiers during the war years. One in particular I remember was an American Army Officer that she was fond of but he was killed when he left England to fight in Germany.
                              I wonder if the person in bed that nobody spoke about was an old housekeeper?
                              My mother used to say there was a white lady who floated around in the garden. I think Kay died at Gladstone Road!”

                              Samuel Warren, born in 1874 in Newhall, Derbyshire, was my grandmothers father.  This is the only photograph we’ve seen of him (seated on right with cap).  Kay, who died of TB in 1938, is holding the teddy bear. Samuel died in 1950, in Stourbridge, at the age of 76.

                              Samuel Warren Kay Warren

                              Left to right: back row: Leslie Warren. Hildred Williams / Griffiths (Nee Warren). Billy Warren. 2nd row: Gladys (Gary) Warren. Kay Warren (holding teddy bear). Samuel Warren (father). Hildred’s son Chris Williams (on knee). Lorna Warren. Joan Williams. Peggy Williams (Hildreds daughters). Jack Warren. Betty Warren.

                              #6143

                              The Beige House was eerily calm. Most of the staff had left after the super spread of the epidemic.

                              Fanella and Finnley had managed to agree to a temporary truce and a fair share of tasks (and masks). After all, they didn’t have the luxury of unpaid leaves, and had to continue to work.

                              “Ready for a change of crowd in the building, Fanny?” said Finnley in her unmistakable Kiwi accent, as a matter of breaking the silence in the grand hall. She was dusting the chandeliers, while Fanella was shampooing the carpets.

                              “I don’t know Miss Fin’, it iz such a mess now. And I have to take care of ze baby, no time to be political.”

                              “Oh, by the way, I received a message from the gang…”

                              “Aprrril’ and Joone?”

                              “Yep. Those two. The money has dried up, and they learnt the hard way that American are not loved much these days, big spreaders and all. So they decided to sail back to the good ol’ States. Looking for a job now, and hoping that autumn doesn’t mean everything will turn to orange disaster!”

                              #6067
                              Jib
                              Participant

                                Since the sudden disappearance of the two au pair maids, a lot had happened. But for August Finest it has been a lot of the same routine going on.

                                He wakes up in the early, early morning, his eyelids rubs on his eyeballs as if they are made of sandpaper. He seizes his belly with his hands, feels a little guilty about the nice meals prepared by Noor Mary especially for him since the start of the confinement. His six packs have started to fade away under a layer of fatty insulation and he tries to compensate by a daily routine in white T-shirt and underwear.

                                The coffee machine has detected his movements and starts to make what it does. It’s always cleaned and replenished by the discrete Mary. The noise and the smell creates an ambiance and when it rings he eats breakfast before taking his shower.

                                When he’s dressed up, his real work starts. It had not been easy for a man of his origins to appear as the best choice for the job under the Lump administration. President Lump was known to make bad jokes about his tan and him having spent too much time at the beach, and other worse things. But his worth was in the network he could connect the president with, his high discretion, which Lump was in dire need to compensate his innate tendency to boasting, and a strong adaptability to fix the president’s frequent messing around.

                                If August Finest had once admired the man and accepted the job for him, it soon changed when he realised there was nothing more underneath the boasting than more boasting and unpredictability. At the moment the only thing that make him continue was his ability to go stealth when the president had a fit of nerves, and the imposed confinement that made it impossible to leave the Beige House.

                                After the morning meeting during which the president asked him to fire a few members of the staff, August had to prepare a press conference. President Lump said he had thought about a few remarks about China and making a connection with the Mexican immigrants threatening the country by stealing the masks of the American People. After which, he had to plan a charity with first Lady Mellie Noma and redefine what a Masquerade meant. He had been asked to invite nurses and medical personnel, meaning republican and good looking in a blouse with a medical mask to make the promotion of the new mask industry Made in America. One of Mr Lump’s friend had just started a brand and was in need of some media promotion.

                                August reread the memo to be addressed to the director of the FBI, a good friend of his. A special cell at the FBI had been created especially since Lump came to power. For this particular occasion, agents posing as patients victims of the virus would be sent in the best ranked hospitals in the country with the task to look for the best nurse and doctor candidates and send them an invitation printed by Lump’s nephew’s printing company.

                                As Lump always said: “America Fist! And don’t forget people, I am America.”

                                August hit the enter button and closed the window of his professional mail account, leaving the draft of a personal mail on screen. He wasn’t sure if he could send this one. It was addressed to Noor Mary and he feared she would misunderstand the meaning of it.

                                #5808

                                Truth be told, April was missing the US. She missed all their little coterie of maids living in the shadows of the powerful. Missed the drama most of all.

                                She’d been secretly texting Norma and May, while June was lazily sipping mojitos with Jacqui.
                                Norma was fine, but May and the other alien staff had suddenly disappeared when the Secret Services had started to investigate more deeply into the staff’s backgrounds after all the kidnapping fiasco. At least, August had been covering for Norma, such kind soul he was. Besides, the President’s wife could no longer live without her butter chicken. But May and the others couldn’t face the music apparently. Funnily, they couldn’t find “real” American maids nowadays suited to replace them. Good luck with that!

                                April couldn’t tell June, obviously, since her friend harboured such hatred for the system that had them put in jail. As for herself, she couldn’t argue with the fact they’d deserved it. Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t fix though. That’s why she loved the idea of America. Guilty as charged, indeed. Those charges now vanished.

                                She’d thought first that it would fuel her inspiration nicely, but it was the opposite. The sudden extra time had distracted her entirely, and her inspiration seemed inaccessible.

                                She was starting to make up her mind. She would go back, to her family in Arkansas. That could only be temporary of course, as her mother, bless her soul, would start to have her meet all the gents in the neighbourhood in the hopes to finally get her only daughter married. Talk about drama. If that doesn’t kick-start her inspiration engine, nothing would.

                                Problem was, with the virus around spreading mass panic, there seemed to be no sure way to fly back. She would have to devise some circuitous plan.

                                #4955
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  Aunt Idle:

                                  I had a long conversation (in my head, where all the best conversations are these days) with Corrie while I sat on the porch.  I think it’s easier to communicate with her because she’s trying to communicate with me too.  The others don’t come through so clear, I get images but not much in the way of conversation.  Anyway, she said Clove is with her on the raftboat, and that Clove has a little boy now, seven years old or so, named Pan. I don’t know if that’s short for a longer name or if that’s his name. Anyway, he’s a great little diver, she said, can hold his breath for longer than anyone, although lots of the kiddies are good divers now, so she tells me.  They send them out scouting in the underwater ruins. Pan finds all sorts of useful things, especially in the air pockets. They call those kiddies the waterlarks, if I heard that right.  Pan the Waterlark.

                                  Corrie said they’re in England, or what used to be called England, before it became a state of the American United States.  Scotland didn’t though, they rebuilt Hadrian’s wall to keep the Ameringlanders out (which is what they called them after America took over), and Wales rebuilt Offa’s Dyke to keep them out too.  When America fell into chaos (not sure what happened there, she didn’t say) it was dire there for years, Corrie said. Food shortages and floods mainly, and hardly any hospitals still functioning.   Corrie delivered Cloves baby herself she said, but I didn’t want all the details, just pleased to hear there were no complications.  Clove was back on her feet in no time in the rice paddies.

                                  A great many people left on boats, Corrie said. She didn’t know where they’d gone to.  Most of the Midlands had been flooded for a good few years now. At first the water went up and down and people stayed and kept drying out their homes, but in the end people either left, or built floating homes.  Corrie said it was great living on the water ~ it wasn’t all that deep and they could maneouver around in various ways. It was great sitting on the deck watching all the little waterlarks popping up, proudly showing their finds.

                                  I was thoroughly enjoying this chat with Corrie, sitting in the morning sun with my eyes closed, when the sky darkened and the red behind my eyelids turned black.  There was a hot air balloon contraption coming down,  and looked like it was heading for the old Bundy place.   Maybe Finly was back with supplies.  Maybe it was a stranger with news.  Maybe it was Devan.

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