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  • #7376

    When they arrived at the hotel, the witches soon realized they were not the only uninvited guests here. With her keen sense of observation, Eris was the first to spot the traces left by an army of bedbugs. Tiny droppings on the mattresses and linen, blood stains left after the previous guests crushed the bugs while rolling in their bed. And the smell of dead rats was everywhere. Did they even have a cleaning staff here? When they complained, the hotel manager said: “Why do you care? Nobody comes here to sleep during carnival?”

    Jeezel noticed the bug reference. Indeed, something was still bugging her after she had closed the portal. Something that should be obvious, yet was still an eyelash away from her grasp. But something more pressing was at stake. She posted pictures of the rooms and a reel of her disappointed face in front of the disaster.

    “I was so happy to come to Rio for the first time. But the light is yellow and flickering. How can I show you how to do a proper Carnival makeup,” she said fluttering her eyelashes. As soon as the sound of a message well sent faded out,  she started to receive support and love from her fans.

    “Rio is not like that!”

    “Somebody help.”

    “2 bad! I’m on business trip. Wud hav luv to meet ya there!”

    The sounds of likes and comments alerted Malové.

    “What have you done! We were here incognito. Why don’t you go to the top of Jesus’s head and cast the Tempestarii Overture spell.”

    “I could have! That would have gone viral. But we departed in such a hurry, I have left all my sapphires and stilettos in Limerick. You can’t cast that spell without them. Anyway, we don’t have to stay longer in that cesspit. One of my fans is abroad and has offered us to stay in his villa. Look at the pics! It looks as lush and gorgeous as a Jurassic park.”

    Truella widened her eyes and said: “Saying that’s a big property would be an understatement. Roger would have loved to come with his new shovel.”

    “Don’t even think of casting a second bilocation spell,” said Frigella. “You already look like deflated soufflé.”

    “What’s the catch?” asked Eris with frown. “It looks like the kind of golden cage a king pin would own. But they have a pool.”

    “He said we just have to feed the dwarf crocodiles while we are there,” said Jeezel nonplussed, looking at Truella whose eyes were ready to pop off of their sockets. Then she looked at Malové. “What do you say? You’re the eld…head witch of our coven.”

    Malové’s eyebrow twitched. She was thinking fast. Little signs here and there, the orientation of the statues, the fountain, the placement of rocks that would look so random to a profane or a younger witch. Ancient earth magic? It was difficult to be sure with the framing of the pictures. Jeezel was swiping all the pictures her fan had sent her, hoping such glamour and mystery would melt Malové’s last reluctance.

    “Omg! girls, we can’t refuse!” said Jeezel. “He’s got a bloat of pygmy hippos and a flamboyance of flamingos!”

    As the drag witch continued to swipe the pictures, a prickle crept up Malové’s spine when she saw a familiar face amongst them.

    “Look at him!” shouted Jeezel. “He’s a Gatsby with a spellbook.”

    There were no more doubts for Malové about the kind of magic that had been used to build his empire. Augustus St Clair, a powerful witch indeed, and one whose invitation you couldn’t refuse especially since he now knew she was here. As one of the elders of the Rio’s witches community, she had danced the dance of rivals disguised as allies, a pas de deux filled with forced smiles and tight grips. Her words felt like needles scratching her lips when she uttered them: “Tell him we accept his invitation.”

    The shouts of joy and disbelief coming from the witches couldn’t appease the memories that had resurfaced.

    #7263
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Solomon Stubbs

      1781-1857

       

      Solomon was born in Hamstall Ridware, Staffordshire, parents Samuel Stubbs and Rebecca Wood. (see The Hamstall Ridware Connection chapter)

      Solomon married Phillis Lomas at St Modwen’s in Burton on Trent on 30th May 1815. Phillis was the llegitimate daughter of Frances Lomas. No father was named on the baptism on the 17th January 1787 in Sutton on the Hill, Derbyshire, and the entry on the baptism register states that she was illegitimate. Phillis’s mother Frances married Daniel Fox in 1790 in Sutton on the Hill. Unfortunately this means that it’s impossible to find my 5X great grandfather on this side of the family.

      Solomon and Phillis had four daughters, the last died in infancy.
      Sarah 1816-1867, Mary (my 3X great grandmother) 1819-1880, Phillis 1823-1905, and Maria 1825-1826.

       

      Solomon Stubbs of Horninglow St is listed in the 1834 Whites Directory under “China, Glass, Etc Dlrs”. Next to his name is Joanna Warren (earthenware) High St. Joanna Warren is related to me on my maternal side.  No doubt Solomon and Joanna knew each other, unaware that several generations later a marriage would take place, not locally but miles away, joining their families.

      Solomon Stubbs is also listed in Whites Directory in 1831 and 1834 Burton on Trent as a land carrier:

      “Land Carriers, from the Inns, Etc: Uttoxeter, Solomon Stubbs, Horninglow St, Mon. Wed. and Sat. 6 mng.”

      1831 Solomon Stubbs

       

      Solomon is listed in the electoral registers in 1837. The 1837 United Kingdom general election was triggered by the death of King William IV and produced the first Parliament of the reign of his successor, Queen Victoria.

      National Archives:

      “In 1832, Parliament passed a law that changed the British electoral system. It was known as the Great Reform Act, which basically gave the vote to middle class men, leaving working men disappointed.
      The Reform Act became law in response to years of criticism of the electoral system from those outside and inside Parliament. Elections in Britain were neither fair nor representative. In order to vote, a person had to own property or pay certain taxes to qualify, which excluded most working class people.”

       

      Via the Burton on Trent History group:

      “a very early image of High street and Horninglow street junction, where the original ‘ Bargates’ were in the days of the Abbey. ‘Gate’ is the Saxon meaning Road, ‘Bar’ quite self explanatory, meant ‘to stop entrance’. There was another Bargate across Cat street (Station street), the Abbot had these constructed to regulate the Traders coming into town, in the days when the Abbey ran things. In the photo you can see the Posts on the corner, designed to stop Carts and Carriages mounting the Pavement. Only three Posts remain today and they are Listed.”

      Horninglow St

       

      On the 1841 census, Solomon’s occupation was Carrier. Daughter Sarah is still living at home, and Sarah Grattidge, 13 years old, lives with them. Solomon’s daughter Mary had married William Grattidge in 1839.

      Solomon Stubbs of Horninglow Street, Burton on Trent, is listed as an Earthenware Dealer in the 1842 Pigot’s Directory of Staffordshire.

      In May 1844 Solomon’s wife Phillis died.  In July 1844 daughter Sarah married Thomas Brandon in Burton on Trent. It was noted in the newspaper announcement that this was the first wedding to take place at the Holy Trinity church.

      Solomon married Charlotte Bell by licence the following year in 1845.   She was considerably younger than him, born in 1824.  On the marriage certificate Solomon’s occupation is potter.  It seems that he had the earthenware business as well as the land carrier business, in addition to owning a number of properties.

      The marriage of Solomon Stubbs and Charlotte Bell:

      1845 Solomon Stubbs

       

      Also in 1845, Solomon’s daughter Phillis was married in Burton on Trent to John Devitt, son of CD Devitt, Esq, formerly of the General Post Office Dublin.

      Solomon Stubbs died in September 1857 in Burton on Trent.  In the Staffordshire Advertiser on Saturday 3 October 1857:

      “On the 22nd ultimo, suddenly, much respected, Solomon Stubbs, of Guild-street, Burton-on-Trent, aged 74 years.”

       

      In the Staffordshire Advertiser, 24th October 1857, the auction of the property of Solomon Stubbs was announced:

      “BURTON ON TRENT, on Thursday, the 29th day of October, 1857, at six o’clock in the evening, subject to conditions then to be produced:— Lot I—All those four DWELLING HOUSES, with the Gardens and Outbuildings thereto belonging, situate in Stanleystreet, on Goose Moor, in Burton-on-Trent aforesaid, the property of the late Mr. Solomon Stubbs, and in the respective occupations of Mr. Moreland, Mr. Scattergood, Mr. Gough, and Mr. Antony…..”

      1857 Solomoon Stubbs

       

      Sadly, the graves of Solomon, his wife Phillis, and their infant daughter Maria have since been removed and are listed in the UK Records of the Removal of Graves and Tombstones 1601-2007.

      #7236

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      Xavier had been back for a month in Berlin, called back for an emergency as his company was announcing a big new venture. The following months had been a whirlwind, and he’d felt a bit guilty leaving his friends just after all the drama and the cart festival, the sand storm and all.

      Truth is, the sands of Australia weren’t much to his taste, and he couldn’t dedicate enough of his attention to all the distraction going on. What was Zara saying already? Like trucks in the night? Something like that, they’d gone, all of them their own way. Even AL and the game had stayed silent for while, not sending any new challenges.

      It was ironic in a sense, considering his company was all abuzz with AI news, new human interfaces, threat of job loses by the million, data privacy concerns etc. It was already a matter of fact for him, and frankly, he was a bit bored by it now, even though the craze was showing no sign of abating.

      “Illusion of depth of knowledge” or rather illusion of explanatory depth — that was was got him to think. All of this automatically generated expressions would be giving huge knowledge at everybody’s fingertips, but with either no willingness to truly understand, or always a nagging doubt it was just a neat narrative that could be completely imagined.

      The quest for the elusive spark of creativity was still on. If one thing was sure, it wasn’t to be found in AI.

      Suddenly, his phone rang, jolting him out of his daydreams. It was Youssef.

      “Hey man, how’s it going?” Xavier asked, pleasantly surprised at the call.

      “Listen, I know you’re busy, but we need your help,” Youssef said, his voice urgent. “Yasmin’s gone missing.”

      “What do you mean she’s gone missing?”

      “We don’t know. We haven’t heard back from her since weeks. Zara’s been trying to reach her, but she’s not answering her phone. We’re all getting worried,” Youssef explained.

      Xavier felt a wave of guilt wash over him. He should have been there, should have been helping them search for Yasmin.

      There was a silence on the line.

      “Look, we had a crazy idea. Can’t your AL or the game give us any clues?” Youssef asked.

      “Well, we’ve set boundaries on the system for ethical reasons Youssef. We can’t just spy on people. And who’s to tell she doesn’t just need the space? It wouldn’t have been unheard of. I’m sure she’ll come back in no time, with a smile and a song.”

      “I hope so…” Youssef sounded disappointed. “So you won’t help?”

      Xavier took a breathe. “Not this time my friend, I’m afraid. But I tell you what. You can go an post an advertisement at the Faded Cabbage pub, in the game’s Old District. Someone who knows someone may be able to help.”

      “Thanks for the tip, man… It’s was good to talk to you.” Youssef hanged up.

      #7166
      EricEric
      Keymaster

        Godfrey had been in a mood. Which one, it was hard to tell; he was switching from overwhelmed, grumpy and snappy, to surprised and inspired in a flicker of a second.

        Maybe it had to do with the quantity of material he’d been reviewing. Maybe there were secret codes in it, or it was simply the sleep deprivation.

        Inspired by Elizabeth active play with her digital assistant —which she called humorously Whinley, he’d tried various experiments with her series of written, half-written, second-hand, discarded, published and unpublished, drivel-labeled manuscripts he could put his hand on to try to see if something —anything— would come out of it.

        After all, Liz’ generous prose had always to be severely edited to meet the editorial standards, and as she’d failed to produce new best-sellers since the pandemic had hit, he’d had to resort to exploring old material to meet the shareholders expectations.

        He had to be careful, since some were so tartied up, that at times the botty Whinley would deem them banworthy. “Botty Banworth” was Liz’ character name for this special alternate prudish identity of her assistant. She’d run after that to write about it. After all, “you simply can’t ignore a story character when they pop in, that would be rude” was her motto.

        So Godfrey in turn took to enlist Whinley to see what could be made of the raw material and he’d been both terribly disappointed and at the same time completely awestruck by the results. Terribly disappointed of course, as Whinley repeatedly failed to grasp most of the subtleties, or any of the contextual finely layered structures. While it was good at outlining, summarising, extracting some characters, or content, it couldn’t imagine, excite, or transcend the content it was fed with.

        Which had come as the awestruck surprise for Godfrey. No matter how raw, unpolished, completely off-the-charts rank with madness or replete with seeming randomness the content was, there was always something that could be inferred from it. Even more, there was no end to what could be seen into it. It was like life itself. Or looking at a shining gem or kaleidoscope, it would take endless configurations and had almost infinite potential.

        It was rather incredible and revisited his opinion of what being a writer meant. It was not simply aligning words. There was some magic at play there to infuse them, to dance with intentions, and interpret the subtle undercurrents of the imagination. In a sense, the words were dead, but the meaning behind them was still alive somehow, captured in the amber of the composition, as a fount of potentials.

        What crafting or editing of the story meant for him, was that he had to help the writer reconnect with this intent and cast her spell of words to surf on the waves of potential towards an uncharted destination. But the map of stories he was thinking about was not the territory. Each story could be revisited in endless variations and remain fresh. There was a difference between being a map maker, and being a tour-operator or guide.

        He could glimpse Liz’ intention had never been to be either of these roles. She was only the happy bumbling explorer on the unchartered territories of her fertile mind, enlisting her readers for the journey. Like a Columbus of stories, she’d sell a dream trusting she would somehow make it safely to new lands and even bigger explorations.

        Just as Godfrey was lost in abyss of perplexity, the door to his office burst open. Liz, Finnley, and Roberto stood in the doorway, all dressed in costumes made of odds and ends.

        “You are late for the fancy dress rehearsal!” Liz shouted, in her a pirate captain outfit, her painted eye patch showing her eye with an old stitched red plush thing that looked like a rat perched on her shoulder supposed to look like a mock parrot.

        “What was the occasion again?”

        “I may have found a new husband.” she said blushing like a young damsel.

        Finnley, in her mummy costume made with TP rolls, well… did her thing she does with her eyes.

        #6612

        In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

        Two young women, identical to the purple lock of hair hiding their left eye, entered the room. They moved as one person to the table, balancing their arms and bouncing on the floor like little girls. Youssef couldn’t help a shiver as he remembered The Shining.

        “We are the twins,” they said, looking at him from behind their purple lock of hair. “Don’t mind us.”

        One spoke a few milliseconds after the other, giving their combined voice an otherworldly touch that wasn’t reassuring. One took the sheets of paper from under the obsidian stone and the other the notebooks. After an hesitation they left the stone on the table and went back to the door.

        “Wait,” said Youssef as they were about to leave, “What was on that paper? It looked like a map.”

        “We leave you the stone,” they said without looking at him. “You might need it.”

        As they shut the door, Youssef jumped out of his bed and tried to catch up with them. People couldn’t just enter his room like that. But when he flung the door open, the corridor was empty. He had the impression echoes of a combined laugh remained in the air and, tired as he was, decided not to look for them. Better not break the veil between dream and reality.

        Intrigued by what the girls said, he took the black stone from the table and the last snicker bar from his backpack. He noted he would have to go to the grocery store tomorrow to buy some. Once he was back on his bed, he engulfed the snack and, while chewing, turned the stone around, trying to figure out what the girls meant by “You might need it”. The stone was cold to the touch and his reflection kept changing but nothing particular happened. Disappointed, he put the stone on his pillow and resumed the game on his phone.

        Youssef finds himself in a small ghost town in what looks like the middle of the Australian outback. He’s standing in the town square, surrounded by an old post office, a saloon, and a few other ramshackle buildings.

        He had a hard time focusing on the game. He started to feel the fatigue from the day. He yawned and started to doze off.

        :fleuron:

        Youssef is standing in the town square, surrounded by an old post office, a saloon, and a few other ramshackle buildings. Scraps of mist are floating towards him. A ghostly laugh resounds from behind. He turns swiftly only to see a flash of purple disappear in a dark alleyway. He starts to run to catch them but a man, thrown out of the saloon, stumbles in front of him and they roll together on the dust.

        “It’s not that I don’t like you,” said the man, “but you’re heavy.”

        Youssef rolls on the side, mumbling some excuses and looks at where the twins had disappeared but the alleyway was gone. 

        “I think you broke one of my rib with your stone,” says the man, feeling his chest.

        He looks as old as the town itself and quite harmless in his clothes, too big for him.

        “What stone?” asks Youssef

        The old man points at a fragment of black obsidian between them on the ground. 

        “Don’t show them,” he says, “or they’ll take it from you.”

        “What did you do?”

        “They don’t like it when you ask questions about the old mines.”

        #6419

        In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

        “I’d advise you not to take the parrot, Zara,” Harry the vet said, “There are restrictions on bringing dogs and other animals into state parks, and you can bet some jobsworth official will insist she stays in a cage at the very least.”

        “Yeah, you’re right, I guess I’ll leave her here. I want to call in and see my cousin in Camden on the way to the airport in Sydney anyway.   He has dozens of cats, I’d hate for anything to happen to Pretty Girl,” Zara replied.

        “Is that the distant cousin you met when you were doing your family tree?” Harry asked, glancing up from the stitches he was removing from a wounded wombat.  “There, he’s good to go.  Give him a couple more days, then he can be released back where he came from.”

        Zara smiled at Harry as she picked up the animal. “Yes!  We haven’t met in person yet, and he’s going to show me the church my ancestor built. He says people have been spotting ghosts there lately, and there are rumours that it’s the ghost of the old convict Isaac who built it.  If I can’t find photos of the ancestors, maybe I can get photos of their ghosts instead,” Zara said with a laugh.

        “Good luck with that,” Harry replied raising an eyebrow. He liked Zara, she was quirkier than the others.

        Zara hadn’t found it easy to research her mothers family from Bangalore in India, but her fathers English family had been easy enough.  Although Zara had been born in England and emigrated to Australia in her late 20s, many of her ancestors siblings had emigrated over several generations, and Zara had managed to trace several down and made contact with a few of them.   Isaac Stokes wasn’t a direct ancestor, he was the brother of her fourth great grandfather but his story had intrigued her.  Sentenced to transportation for stealing tools for his work as a stonemason seemed to have worked in his favour.  He built beautiful stone buildings in a tiny new town in the 1800s in the charming style of his home town in England.

        Zara planned to stay in Camden for a couple of days before meeting the others at the Flying Fish Inn, anticipating a pleasant visit before the crazy adventure started.

         

        ~~~

         

        Zara stepped down from the bus, squinting in the bright sunlight and looking around for her newfound cousin  Bertie.   A lanky middle aged man in dungarees and a red baseball cap came forward with his hand extended.

        “Welcome to Camden, Zara I presume! Great to meet you!” he said shaking her hand and taking her rucksack.  Zara was taken aback to see the family resemblance to her grandfather.  So many scattered generations and yet there was still a thread of familiarity.  “I bet you’re hungry, let’s go and get some tucker at Belle’s Cafe, and then I bet you want to see the church first, hey?  Whoa, where’d that dang parrot come from?” Bertie said, ducking quickly as the bird swooped right in between them.

        “Oh no, it’s Pretty Girl!” exclaimed Zara. “She wasn’t supposed to come with me, I didn’t bring her! How on earth did you fly all this way to get here the same time as me?” she asked the parrot.

        “Pretty Girl has her ways, don’t forget to feed the parrot,” the bird replied with a squalk that resembled a mirthful guffaw.

        “That’s one strange parrot you got here, girl!” Bertie said in astonishment.

        “Well, seeing as you’re here now, Pretty Girl, you better come with us,” Zara said.

        “Obviously,” replied Pretty Girl.  It was hard to say for sure, but Zara was sure she detected an avian eye roll.

         

        ~~~

         

        They sat outside under a sunshade to eat rather than cause any upset inside the cafe.  Zara fancied an omelette but Pretty Girl objected, so she ordered hash browns instead and a fruit salad for the parrot.  Bertie was a good sport about the strange talking bird after his initial surprise.

        Bertie told her a bit about the ghost sightings, which had only started quite recently.  They started when I started researching him, Zara thought to herself, almost as if he was reaching out. Her imagination was running riot already.

         

        ghost of Isaac Stokes

         

        Bertie showed Zara around the church, a small building made of sandstone, but no ghost appeared in the bright heat of the afternoon.  He took her on a little tour of Camden, once a tiny outpost but now a suburb of the city, pointing out all the original buildings, in particular the ones that Isaac had built.  The church was walking distance of Bertie’s house and Zara decided to slip out and stroll over there after everyone had gone to bed.

        Bertie had kindly allowed Pretty Girl to stay in the guest bedroom with her, safe from the cats, and Zara intended that the parrot stay in the room, but Pretty Girl was having none of it and insisted on joining her.

        “Alright then, but no talking!  I  don’t want you scaring any ghost away so just keep a low profile!”

        The moon was nearly full and it was a pleasant walk to the church.   Pretty Girl fluttered from tree to tree along the sidewalk quietly.  Enchanting aromas of exotic scented flowers wafted into her nostrils and Zara felt warmly relaxed and optimistic.

        Zara was disappointed to find that the church was locked for the night, and realized with a sigh that she should have expected this to be the case.  She wandered around the outside, trying to peer in the windows but there was nothing to be seen as the glass reflected the street lights.   These things are not done in a hurry, she reminded herself, be patient.

        Sitting under a tree on the grassy lawn attempting to open her mind to receiving ghostly communications (she wasn’t quite sure how to do that on purpose, any ghosts she’d seen previously had always been accidental and unexpected)  Pretty Girl landed on her shoulder rather clumsily, pressing something hard and chill against her cheek.

        “I told you to keep a low profile!” Zara hissed, as the parrot dropped the key into her lap.  “Oh! is this the key to the church door?”

        It was hard to see in the dim light but Zara was sure the parrot nodded, and was that another avian eye roll?

        Zara walked slowly over the grass to the church door, tingling with anticipation.   Pretty Girl hopped along the ground behind her.  She turned the key in the lock and slowly pushed open the heavy door and walked inside and  up the central aisle, looking around.  And then she saw him.

        Zara gasped. For a breif moment as the spectral wisps cleared, he looked almost solid.  And she could see his tattoos.

        “Oh my god,” she whispered, “It is really you. I recognize those tattoos from the description in the criminal registers. Some of them anyway, it seems you have a few more tats since you were transported.”

        “Aye, I did that, wench. I were allays fond o’ me tats, does tha like ’em?”

        He actually spoke to me!  This was beyond Zara’s wildest hopes. Quick, ask him some questions!

        “If you don’t mind me asking, Isaac, why did you lie about who your father was on your marriage register?  I almost thought it wasn’t you, you know, that I had the wrong Isaac Stokes.”

        A deafening rumbling laugh filled the building with echoes and the apparition dispersed in a labyrinthine swirl of tattood wisps.

        “A story for another day,” whispered Zara,  “Time to go back to Berties. Come on Pretty Girl. And put that key back where you found it.”

         

        Ghost of Isaac Stokes

        #6368
        EricEric
        Keymaster

          Something in the style of FPooh:

          Arona heard the music growing louder as she approached the source of the sound. She could see a group of people gathered around a large fire, the flickering light casting shadows on the faces of the dancers. She hesitated for a moment, remembering the isolation of her journey and wondering if she was ready to be among people again. But the music was too inviting, and she found herself drawn towards the group.

          As she neared the fire, she saw a young man playing a flute, the music flowing from his fingers with a fluid grace that captivated her. He looked up as she approached, and their eyes met. She could see the surprise and curiosity in his gaze, and she smiled, feeling a sense of connection she had not felt in a long time.

          Fiona was sitting on a bench in the park, watching the children play. She had brought her sketchbook with her, but for once she didn’t feel the urge to draw. Instead she watched the children’s laughter, feeling content and at peace. Suddenly, she saw a young girl running towards her, a look of pure joy on her face. The girl stopped in front of her and held out a flower, offering it to Fiona with a smile.

          Taken aback, Fiona took the flower and thanked the girl. The girl giggled and ran off to join her friends. Fiona looked down at the flower in her hand, and she felt a sense of inspiration, like a spark igniting within her. She opened her sketchbook and began to draw, feeling the weight lift from her shoulders and the magic of creativity flowing through her.

          Minky led the group of misfits towards the emporium, his bowler hat bobbing on his head. He chattered excitedly, telling stories of the wondrous items to be found within Mr Jib’s store. Yikesy followed behind, still lost in his thoughts of Arona and feeling a sense of dread at the thought of buying a bowler hat. The green fairy flitted along beside him, her wings a blur of movement as she chattered with the parrot perched on her shoulder.

          As they reached the emporium, they were disappointed to find it closed. But Minky refused to be discouraged, and he led them to a nearby cafe where they could sit and enjoy some tea and cake while they wait for the emporium to open. The green fairy was delighted, and she ordered a plate of macarons, smiling as she tasted the sweetness of the confections.

          About creativity & everyday magic

          Fiona had always been drawn to the magic of creativity, the way a blank page could be transformed into a world of wonder and beauty. But lately, she had been feeling stuck, unable to find the spark that ignited her imagination. She would sit with her sketchbook, pencil in hand, and nothing would come to her.

          She started to question her abilities, wondering if she had lost the magic of her art. She spent long hours staring at her blank pages, feeling a weight on her chest that seemed to be growing heavier every day.

          But then she remembered the green fairy’s tears and Yikesy’s longing for Arona, and she realized that the magic of creativity wasn’t something that could be found only in art. It was all around her, in the everyday moments of life.

          She started to look for the magic in the small things, like the way the sunlight filtered through the trees, or the way a child’s laughter could light up a room. She found it in the way a stranger’s smile could lift her spirits, and in the way a simple cup of tea could bring her comfort.

          And as she started to see the magic in the everyday, she found that the weight on her chest lifted and the spark of inspiration returned. She picked up her pencil and began to draw, feeling the magic flowing through her once again.

          She understand that creativity blocks aren’t a destination, but just a step, just like the bowler hat that Minky had bought for them all, a bit of everyday magic, nothing too fancy but a sense of belonging, a sense of who they are and where they are going. And she let her pencil flow, with the hopes that one day, they will all find their way home.

          #6318

          In reply to: The Sexy Wooden Leg

          “You’d better sit down,” said Olga gesturing to the end of her bed. As a rule, she did not have visitors so she saw no need to clutter up the available space in her tiny room with an extra chair. A large proportion of her life was spent in her armchair and she was content that way. While Egbert perched on the end of the bed, she lowered herself into the soft and familiar confines of her armchair and felt instantly soothed. It was true, sometimes she felt a tinge of regret when she considered how disappointed her younger self would be to see her now. But she hadn’t lived through what I’ve lived through so she can mind her own damn business,” she thought.

          “It is just a story, twisted in the telling I expect.” Olga knew her voice held no conviction.

          Egbert opened his mouth as though to speak. Closed it again.

          “You look like a fish,” said Olga folding her arms.

          “They say you and the Mayor go back a long way. Are you telling me that is not true?

          “And what if we do?”

          “You know he is Ursula’s uncle and a very powerful man. They say even the great president Voldomeer Zumbaskee holds him in great regard. They say …”

          “Pfft! They say!” snapped Olga. “Who are these chattering fools you listen to, Egbert Gofindlevsky?  I’d rather end up on the streets than ask a favour from that mountebank.”

          Egbert jumped up from the bed and shook a fist at her. “And end up on the streets you will, Olga Herringbonevsky, along with the rest of us. You really want that on  your conscience?”

          #6286
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            Matthew Orgill and His Family

             

            Matthew Orgill 1828-1907 was the Orgill brother who went to Australia, but returned to Measham.  Matthew married Mary Orgill in Measham in October 1856, having returned from Victoria, Australia in May of that year.

            Although Matthew was the first Orgill brother to go to Australia, he was the last one I found, and that was somewhat by accident, while perusing “Orgill” and “Measham” in a newspaper archives search.  I chanced on Matthew’s obituary in the Nuneaton Observer, Friday 14 June 1907:

            LATE MATTHEW ORGILL PEACEFUL END TO A BLAMELESS LIFE.

            ‘Sunset and Evening Star And one clear call for me.”

            It is with very deep regret that we have to announce the death of Mr. Matthew Orgill, late of Measham, who passed peacefully away at his residence in Manor Court Road, Nuneaton, in the early hours of yesterday morning. Mr. Orgill, who was in his eightieth year, was a man with a striking history, and was a very fine specimen of our best English manhood. In early life be emigrated to South Africa—sailing in the “Hebrides” on 4th February. 1850—and was one of the first settlers at the Cape; afterwards he went on to Australia at the time of the Gold Rush, and ultimately came home to his native England and settled down in Measham, in Leicestershire, where he carried on a successful business for the long period of half-a-century.

            He was full of reminiscences of life in the Colonies in the early days, and an hour or two in his company was an education itself. On the occasion of the recall of Sir Harry Smith from the Governorship of Natal (for refusing to be a party to the slaying of the wives and children in connection with the Kaffir War), Mr. Orgill was appointed to superintend the arrangements for the farewell demonstration. It was one of his boasts that he made the first missionary cart used in South Africa, which is in use to this day—a monument to the character of his work; while it is an interesting fact to note that among Mr. Orgill’s papers there is the original ground-plan of the city of Durban before a single house was built.

            In Africa Mr. Orgill came in contact with the great missionary, David Livingstone, and between the two men there was a striking resemblance in character and a deep and lasting friendship. Mr. Orgill could give a most graphic description of the wreck of the “Birkenhead,” having been in the vicinity at the time when the ill-fated vessel went down. He played a most prominent part on the occasion of the famous wreck of the emigrant ship, “Minerva.” when, in conjunction with some half-a-dozen others, and at the eminent risk of their own lives, they rescued more than 100 of the unfortunate passengers. He was afterwards presented with an interesting relic as a memento of that thrilling experience, being a copper bolt from the vessel on which was inscribed the following words: “Relic of the ship Minerva, wrecked off Bluff Point, Port Natal. 8.A.. about 2 a.m.. Friday, July 5, 1850.”

            Mr. Orgill was followed to the Colonies by no fewer than six of his brothers, all of whom did well, and one of whom married a niece (brother’s daughter) of the late Mr. William Ewart Gladstone.

            On settling down in Measham his kindly and considerate disposition soon won for him a unique place in the hearts of all the people, by whom he was greatly beloved. He was a man of sterling worth and integrity. Upright and honourable in all his dealings, he led a Christian life that was a pattern to all with whom he came in contact, and of him it could truly he said that he wore the white flower of a blameless life.

            He was a member of the Baptist Church, and although beyond much active service since settling down in Nuneaton less than two years ago he leaves behind him a record in Christian service attained by few. In politics he was a Radical of the old school. A great reader, he studied all the questions of the day, and could back up every belief he held by sound and fearless argument. The South African – war was a great grief to him. He knew the Boers from personal experience, and although he suffered at the time of the war for his outspoken condemnation, he had the satisfaction of living to see the people of England fully recognising their awful blunder. To give anything like an adequate idea of Mr. Orgill’s history would take up a great amount of space, and besides much of it has been written and commented on before; suffice it to say that it was strenuous, interesting, and eventful, and yet all through his hands remained unspotted and his heart was pure.

            He is survived by three daughters, and was father-in-law to Mr. J. S. Massey. St Kilda. Manor Court Road, to whom deep and loving sympathy is extended in their sore bereavement by a wide circle of friends. The funeral is arranged to leave for Measham on Monday at twelve noon.

             

            “To give anything like an adequate idea of Mr. Orgill’s history would take up a great amount of space, and besides much of it has been written and commented on before…”

            I had another look in the newspaper archives and found a number of articles mentioning him, including an intriguing excerpt in an article about local history published in the Burton Observer and Chronicle 8 August 1963:

            on an upstairs window pane he scratched with his diamond ring “Matthew Orgill, 1st July, 1858”

            Matthew Orgill window

            Matthew orgill window 2

             

            I asked on a Measham facebook group if anyone knew the location of the house mentioned in the article and someone kindly responded. This is the same building, seen from either side:

            Measham Wharf

             

            Coincidentally, I had already found this wonderful photograph of the same building, taken in 1910 ~ three years after Matthew’s death.

            Old Measham wharf

             

            But what to make of the inscription in the window?

            Matthew and Mary married in October 1856, and their first child (according to the records I’d found thus far) was a daughter Mary born in 1860.  I had a look for a Matthew Orgill birth registered in 1858, the date Matthew had etched on the window, and found a death for a Matthew Orgill in 1859.  Assuming I would find the birth of Matthew Orgill registered on the first of July 1958, to match the etching in the window, the corresponding birth was in July 1857!

            Matthew and Mary had four children. Matthew, Mary, Clara and Hannah.  Hannah Proudman Orgill married Joseph Stanton Massey.  The Orgill name continues with their son Stanley Orgill Massey 1900-1979, who was a doctor and surgeon.  Two of Stanley’s four sons were doctors, Paul Mackintosh Orgill Massey 1929-2009, and Michael Joseph Orgill Massey 1932-1989.

             

            Mary Orgill 1827-1894, Matthews wife, was an Orgill too.

            And this is where the Orgill branch of the tree gets complicated.

            Mary’s father was Henry Orgill born in 1805 and her mother was Hannah Proudman born in 1805.
            Henry Orgill’s father was Matthew Orgill born in 1769 and his mother was Frances Finch born in 1771.

            Mary’s husband Matthews parents are Matthew Orgill born in 1798 and Elizabeth Orgill born in 1803.

            Another Orgill Orgill marriage!

            Matthews parents,  Matthew and Elizabeth, have the same grandparents as each other, Matthew Orgill born in 1736 and Ann Proudman born in 1735.

            But Matthews grandparents are none other than Matthew Orgill born in 1769 and Frances Finch born in 1771 ~ the same grandparents as his wife Mary!

            #6284
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              To Australia

              Grettons

              Charles Herbert Gretton 1876-1954

              Charles Gretton, my great grandmothers youngest brother, arrived in Sydney Australia on 12 February 1912, having set sail on 5 January 1912 from London. His occupation on the passenger list was stockman, and he was traveling alone.  Later that year, in October, his wife and two sons sailed out to join him.

              Gretton 1912 passenger

               

              Charles was born in Swadlincote.  He married Mary Anne Illsley, a local girl from nearby Church Gresley, in 1898. Their first son, Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton, was born in 1900 in Church Gresley, and their second son, George Herbert Gretton, was born in 1910 in Swadlincote.  In 1901 Charles was a colliery worker, and on the 1911 census, his occupation was a sanitary ware packer.

              Charles and Mary Anne had two more sons, both born in Footscray:  Frank Orgill Gretton in 1914, and Arthur Ernest Gretton in 1920.

              On the Australian 1914 electoral rolls, Charles and Mary Ann were living at 72 Moreland Street, Footscray, and in 1919 at 134 Cowper Street, Footscray, and Charles was a labourer.  In 1924, Charles was a sub foreman, living at 3, Ryan Street E, Footscray, Australia.  On a later electoral register, Charles was a foreman.  Footscray is a suburb of Melbourne, and developed into an industrial zone in the second half of the nineteenth century.

              Charles died in Victoria in 1954 at the age of 77. His wife Mary Ann died in 1958.

              Gretton obit 1954

               

              Charles and Mary Ann Gretton:

              Charles and Mary Ann Gretton

               

              Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton 1900-1955

              Leslie was an electrician.   He married Ethel Christine Halliday, born in 1900 in Footscray, in 1927.  They had four children: Tom, Claire, Nancy and Frank. By 1943 they were living in Yallourn.  Yallourn, Victoria was a company town in Victoria, Australia built between the 1920s and 1950s to house employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, who operated the nearby Yallourn Power Station complex. However, expansion of the adjacent open-cut brown coal mine led to the closure and removal of the town in the 1980s.

              On the 1954 electoral registers, daughter Claire Elizabeth Gretton, occupation teacher, was living at the same address as Leslie and Ethel.

              Leslie died in Yallourn in 1955, and Ethel nine years later in 1964, also in Yallourn.

               

              George Herbert Gretton 1910-1970

              George married Florence May Hall in 1934 in Victoria, Australia.  In 1942 George was listed on the electoral roll as a grocer, likewise in 1949. In 1963 his occupation was a process worker, and in 1968 in Flinders, a horticultural advisor.

              George died in Lang Lang, not far from Melbourne, in 1970.

               

              Frank Orgill Gretton 1914-

              Arthur Ernest Gretton 1920-

               

              Orgills

              John Orgill 1835-1911

              John Orgill was Charles Herbert Gretton’s uncle.  He emigrated to Australia in 1865, and married Elizabeth Mary Gladstone 1845-1926 in Victoria in 1870. Their first child was born in December that year, in Dandenong. They had seven children, and their three sons all have the middle name Gladstone.

              John Orgill was a councillor for the Shire of Dandenong in 1873, and between 1876 and 1879.

              John Orgill:

              John Orgill

               

              John Orgill obituary in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal, 21 December 1911:

              John Orgill obit

               

               

              John’s wife Elizabeth Orgill, a teacher and a “a public spirited lady” according to newspaper articles, opened a hydropathic hospital in Dandenong called Gladstone House.

              Elizabeth Gladstone Orgill:

              Elizabeth Gladstone Orgill

               

              On the Old Dandenong website:

              Gladstone House hydropathic hospital on the corner of Langhorne and Foster streets (153 Foster Street) Dandenong opened in 1896, working on the theory of water therapy, no medicine or operations. Her husband passed away in 1911 at 77, around similar time Dr Barclay Thompson obtained control of the practice. Mrs Orgill remaining on in some capacity.

              Elizabeth Mary Orgill (nee Gladstone) operated Gladstone House until at least 1911, along with another hydropathic hospital (Birthwood) on Cheltenham road. She was the daughter of William Gladstone (Nephew of William Ewart Gladstone, UK prime minister in 1874).

              Around 1912 Dr A. E. Taylor took over the location from Dr. Barclay Thompson. Mrs Orgill was still working here but no longer controlled the practice, having given it up to Barclay. Taylor served as medical officer for the Shire for before his death in 1939. After Taylor’s death Dr. T. C. Reeves bought his practice in 1939, later that year being appointed medical officer,

              Gladstone Road in Dandenong is named after her family, who owned and occupied a farming paddock in the area on former Police Paddock ground, the Police reserve having earlier been reduced back to Stud Road.

              Hydropathy (now known as Hydrotherapy) and also called water cure, is a part of medicine and alternative medicine, in particular of naturopathy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment.

              Gladstone House, Dandenong:

              Gladstone House

               

               

              John’s brother Robert Orgill 1830-1915 also emigrated to Australia. I met (online) his great great grand daughter Lidya Orgill via the Old Dandenong facebook group.

              John’s other brother Thomas Orgill 1833-1908 also emigrated to the same part of Australia.

              Thomas Orgill:

              Thomas Orgill

               

              One of Thomas Orgills sons was George Albert Orgill 1880-1949:

              George Albert Orgill

               

              A letter was published in The South Bourke & Mornington Journal (Richmond, Victoria, Australia) on 17 Jun 1915, to Tom Orgill, Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) from hospital by his brother George Albert Orgill (4th Pioneers) describing landing of Covering Party prior to dawn invasion of Gallipoli:

              George Albert Orgill letter

               

              Another brother Henry Orgill 1837-1916 was born in Measham and died in Dandenong, Australia. Henry was a bricklayer living in Measham on the 1861 census. Also living with his widowed mother Elizabeth at that address was his sister Sarah and her husband Richard Gretton, the baker (my great great grandparents). In October of that year he sailed to Melbourne.  His occupation was bricklayer on his death records in 1916.

              Two of Henry’s sons, Arthur Garfield Orgill born 1888 and Ernest Alfred Orgill born 1880 were killed in action in 1917 and buried in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. Another son, Frederick Stanley Orgill, died in 1897 at the age of seven.

              A fifth brother, William Orgill 1842-   sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 1861, at 19 years of age. Four years later in 1865 he sailed from Victoria, Australia to New Zealand.

               

              I assumed I had found all of the Orgill brothers who went to Australia, and resumed research on the Orgills in Measham, in England. A search in the British Newspaper Archives for Orgills in Measham revealed yet another Orgill brother who had gone to Australia.

              Matthew Orgill 1828-1907 went to South Africa and to Australia, but returned to Measham.

              The Orgill brothers had two sisters. One was my great great great grandmother Sarah, and the other was Hannah.  Hannah married Francis Hart in Measham. One of her sons, John Orgill Hart 1862-1909, was born in Measham.  On the 1881 census he was a 19 year old carpenters apprentice.  Two years later in 1883 he was listed as a joiner on the passenger list of the ship Illawarra, bound for Australia.   His occupation at the time of his death in Dandenong in 1909 was contractor.

              An additional coincidental note about Dandenong: my step daughter Emily’s Australian partner is from Dandenong.

               

               

              Housleys

              Charles Housley 1823-1856

              Charles Housley emigrated to Australia in 1851, the same year that his brother George emigrated to USA.  Charles is mentioned in the Narrative on the Letters by Barbara Housley, and appears in the Housley Letters chapters.

               

              Rushbys

              George “Mike” Rushby 1933-

              Mike moved to Australia from South Africa. His story is a separate chapter.

              #6276
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                Ellastone and Mayfield
                Malkins and Woodwards
                Parish Registers

                 

                Jane Woodward


                It’s exciting, as well as enormously frustrating, to see so many Woodward’s in the Ellastone parish registers, and even more so because they go back so far. There are parish registers surviving from the 1500’s: in one, dated 1579, the death of Thomas Woodward was recorded. His father’s name was Humfrey.

                Jane Woodward married Rowland Malkin in 1751, in Thorpe, Ashbourne. Jane was from Mathfield (also known as Mayfield), Ellastone, on the Staffordshire side of the river Dove. Rowland was from Clifton, Ashbourne, on the Derbyshire side of the river. They were neighbouring villages, but in different counties.

                Jane Woodward was born in 1726 according to the marriage transcription. No record of the baptism can be found for her, despite there having been at least four other Woodward couples in Ellastone and Mayfield baptizing babies in the 1720’s and 1730’s.  Without finding out the baptism with her parents names on the parish register, it’s impossible to know which is the correct line to follow back to the earlier records.

                I found a Mayfield history group on Facebook and asked if there were parish records existing that were not yet online. A member responded that she had a set on microfiche and had looked through the relevant years and didn’t see a Jane Woodward, but she did say that some of the pages were illegible.

                The Ellasone parish records from the 1500s surviving at all, considering the events in 1673, is remarkable. To be so close, but for one indecipherable page from the 1700s, to tracing the family back to the 1500s! The search for the connecting link to the earlier records continues.

                Some key events in the history of parish registers from familysearch:

                In medieval times there were no parish registers. For some years before the Reformation, monastic houses (especially the smaller ones) the parish priest had been developing the custom of noting in an album or on the margins of the service books, the births and deaths of the leading local families.
                1538 – Through the efforts of Thomas Cromwell a mandate was issued by Henry VIII to keep parish registers. This order that every parson, vicar or curate was to enter in a book every wedding, christening and burial in his parish. The parish was to provide a sure coffer with two locks, the parson having the custody of one key, the wardens the others. The entries were to be made each Sunday after the service in the presence of one of the wardens.
                1642-60 – During the Civil War registers were neglected and Bishop Transcripts were not required.
                1650 – In the restoration of Charles they went back to the church to keep christenings, marriages and burial. The civil records that were kept were filed in with the parish in their registers. it is quite usual to find entries explaining the situation during the Interregnum. One rector stated that on 23 April 1643 “Our church was defaced our font thrown down and new forms of prayer appointed”. Another minister not quite so bold wrote “When the war, more than a civil war was raging most grimly between royalists and parliamentarians throughout the greatest part of England, I lived well because I lay low”.
                1653 – Cromwell, whose army had defeated the Royalists, was made Lord Protector and acted as king. He was a Puritan. The parish church of England was disorganized, many ministers fled for their lives, some were able to hide their registers and other registers were destroyed. Cromwell ruled that there would be no one religion in England all religions could be practiced. The government took away from the ministers not only the custody of the registers, but even the solemnization of the marriage ceremony. The marriage ceremony was entrusted to the justices to form a new Parish Register (not Registrar) elected by all the ratepayers in a parish, and sworn before and approved by a magistrate.. Parish clerks of the church were made a civil parish clerk and they recorded deaths, births and marriages in the civil parishes.

                 

                Ellastone:

                “Ellastone features as ‘Hayslope’ in George Eliot’s Adam Bede, published in 1859. It earned this recognition because the author’s father spent the early part of his life in the village working as a carpenter.”

                Adam Bede Cottage, Ellastone:

                Ellasone Adam Bede

                “It was at Ellastone that Robert Evans, George Eliot’s father, passed his early years and worked as a carpenter with his brother Samuel; and it was partly from reminiscences of her father’s talk and from her uncle Samuel’s wife’s preaching experiences that the author constructed the very powerful and moving story of Adam Bede.”

                 

                Mary Malkin

                1765-1838

                Ellen Carrington’s mother was Mary Malkin.

                Ellastone:

                Ellastone

                 

                 

                 

                Ashbourn the 31st day of May in the year of our Lord 1751.  The marriage of Rowland Malkin and Jane Woodward:

                Rowland Malkin marriage 1751

                #6266
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  From Tanganyika with Love

                  continued part 7

                  With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                  Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

                  Dearest Family,

                  George arrived today to take us home to Mbulu but Sister Marianne will not allow
                  me to travel for another week as I had a bit of a set back after baby’s birth. At first I was
                  very fit and on the third day Sister stripped the bed and, dictionary in hand, started me
                  off on ante natal exercises. “Now make a bridge Mrs Rushby. So. Up down, up down,’
                  whilst I obediently hoisted myself aloft on heels and head. By the sixth day she
                  considered it was time for me to be up and about but alas, I soon had to return to bed
                  with a temperature and a haemorrhage. I got up and walked outside for the first time this
                  morning.

                  I have had lots of visitors because the local German settlers seem keen to see
                  the first British baby born in the hospital. They have been most kind, sending flowers
                  and little German cards of congratulations festooned with cherubs and rather sweet. Most
                  of the women, besides being pleasant, are very smart indeed, shattering my illusion that
                  German matrons are invariably fat and dowdy. They are all much concerned about the
                  Czecko-Slovakian situation, especially Sister Marianne whose home is right on the
                  border and has several relations who are Sudentan Germans. She is ant-Nazi and
                  keeps on asking me whether I think England will declare war if Hitler invades Czecko-
                  Slovakia, as though I had inside information.

                  George tells me that he has had a grass ‘banda’ put up for us at Mbulu as we are
                  both determined not to return to those prison-like quarters in the Fort. Sister Marianne is
                  horrified at the idea of taking a new baby to live in a grass hut. She told George,
                  “No,No,Mr Rushby. I find that is not to be allowed!” She is an excellent Sister but rather
                  prim and George enjoys teasing her. This morning he asked with mock seriousness,
                  “Sister, why has my wife not received her medal?” Sister fluttered her dictionary before
                  asking. “What medal Mr Rushby”. “Why,” said George, “The medal that Hitler gives to
                  women who have borne four children.” Sister started a long and involved explanation
                  about the medal being only for German mothers whilst George looked at me and
                  grinned.

                  Later. Great Jubilation here. By the noise in Sister Marianne’s sitting room last night it
                  sounded as though the whole German population had gathered to listen to the wireless
                  news. I heard loud exclamations of joy and then my bedroom door burst open and
                  several women rushed in. “Thank God “, they cried, “for Neville Chamberlain. Now there
                  will be no war.” They pumped me by the hand as though I were personally responsible
                  for the whole thing.

                  George on the other hand is disgusted by Chamberlain’s lack of guts. Doesn’t
                  know what England is coming to these days. I feel too content to concern myself with
                  world affairs. I have a fine husband and four wonderful children and am happy, happy,
                  happy.

                  Eleanor.

                  Mbulu. 30th September 1938

                  Dearest Family,

                  Here we are, comfortably installed in our little green house made of poles and
                  rushes from a nearby swamp. The house has of course, no doors or windows, but
                  there are rush blinds which roll up in the day time. There are two rooms and a little porch
                  and out at the back there is a small grass kitchen.

                  Here we have the privacy which we prize so highly as we are screened on one
                  side by a Forest Department plantation and on the other three sides there is nothing but
                  the rolling countryside cropped bare by the far too large herds of cattle and goats of the
                  Wambulu. I have a lovely lazy time. I still have Kesho-Kutwa and the cook we brought
                  with us from the farm. They are both faithful and willing souls though not very good at
                  their respective jobs. As one of these Mbeya boys goes on safari with George whose
                  job takes him from home for three weeks out of four, I have taken on a local boy to cut
                  firewood and heat my bath water and generally make himself useful. His name is Saa,
                  which means ‘Clock’

                  We had an uneventful but very dusty trip from Oldeani. Johnny Jo travelled in his
                  pram in the back of the boxbody and got covered in dust but seems none the worst for
                  it. As the baby now takes up much of my time and Kate was showing signs of
                  boredom, I have engaged a little African girl to come and play with Kate every morning.
                  She is the daughter of the head police Askari and a very attractive and dignified little
                  person she is. Her name is Kajyah. She is scrupulously clean, as all Mohammedan
                  Africans seem to be. Alas, Kajyah, though beautiful, is a bore. She simply does not
                  know how to play, so they just wander around hand in hand.

                  There are only two drawbacks to this little house. Mbulu is a very windy spot so
                  our little reed house is very draughty. I have made a little tent of sheets in one corner of
                  the ‘bedroom’ into which I can retire with Johnny when I wish to bathe or sponge him.
                  The other drawback is that many insects are attracted at night by the lamp and make it
                  almost impossible to read or sew and they have a revolting habit of falling into the soup.
                  There are no dangerous wild animals in this area so I am not at all nervous in this
                  flimsy little house when George is on safari. Most nights hyaenas come around looking
                  for scraps but our dogs, Fanny and Paddy, soon see them off.

                  Eleanor.

                  Mbulu. 25th October 1938

                  Dearest Family,

                  Great news! a vacancy has occurred in the Game Department. George is to
                  transfer to it next month. There will be an increase in salary and a brighter prospect for
                  the future. It will mean a change of scene and I shall be glad of that. We like Mbulu and
                  the people here but the rains have started and our little reed hut is anything but water
                  tight.

                  Before the rain came we had very unpleasant dust storms. I think I told you that
                  this is a treeless area and the grass which normally covers the veldt has been cropped
                  to the roots by the hungry native cattle and goats. When the wind blows the dust
                  collects in tall black columns which sweep across the country in a most spectacular
                  fashion. One such dust devil struck our hut one day whilst we were at lunch. George
                  swept Kate up in a second and held her face against his chest whilst I rushed to Johnny
                  Jo who was asleep in his pram, and stooped over the pram to protect him. The hut
                  groaned and creaked and clouds of dust blew in through the windows and walls covering
                  our persons, food, and belongings in a black pall. The dogs food bowls and an empty
                  petrol tin outside the hut were whirled up and away. It was all over in a moment but you
                  should have seen what a family of sweeps we looked. George looked at our blackened
                  Johnny and mimicked in Sister Marianne’s primmest tones, “I find that this is not to be
                  allowed.”

                  The first rain storm caught me unprepared when George was away on safari. It
                  was a terrific thunderstorm. The quite violent thunder and lightening were followed by a
                  real tropical downpour. As the hut is on a slight slope, the storm water poured through
                  the hut like a river, covering the entire floor, and the roof leaked like a lawn sprinkler.
                  Johnny Jo was snug enough in the pram with the hood raised, but Kate and I had a
                  damp miserable night. Next morning I had deep drains dug around the hut and when
                  George returned from safari he managed to borrow an enormous tarpaulin which is now
                  lashed down over the roof.

                  It did not rain during the next few days George was home but the very next night
                  we were in trouble again. I was awakened by screams from Kate and hurriedly turned up
                  the lamp to see that we were in the midst of an invasion of siafu ants. Kate’s bed was
                  covered in them. Others appeared to be raining down from the thatch. I quickly stripped
                  Kate and carried her across to my bed, whilst I rushed to the pram to see whether
                  Johnny Jo was all right. He was fast asleep, bless him, and slept on through all the
                  commotion, whilst I struggled to pick all the ants out of Kate’s hair, stopping now and
                  again to attend to my own discomfort. These ants have a painful bite and seem to
                  choose all the most tender spots. Kate fell asleep eventually but I sat up for the rest of
                  the night to make sure that the siafu kept clear of the children. Next morning the servants
                  dispersed them by laying hot ash.

                  In spite of the dampness of the hut both children are blooming. Kate has rosy
                  cheeks and Johnny Jo now has a fuzz of fair hair and has lost his ‘old man’ look. He
                  reminds me of Ann at his age.

                  Eleanor.

                  Iringa. 30th November 1938

                  Dearest Family,

                  Here we are back in the Southern Highlands and installed on the second floor of
                  another German Fort. This one has been modernised however and though not so
                  romantic as the Mbulu Fort from the outside, it is much more comfortable.We are all well
                  and I am really proud of our two safari babies who stood up splendidly to a most trying
                  journey North from Mbulu to Arusha and then South down the Great North Road to
                  Iringa where we expect to stay for a month.

                  At Arusha George reported to the headquarters of the Game Department and
                  was instructed to come on down here on Rinderpest Control. There is a great flap on in
                  case the rinderpest spread to Northern Rhodesia and possibly onwards to Southern
                  Rhodesia and South Africa. Extra veterinary officers have been sent to this area to
                  inoculate all the cattle against the disease whilst George and his African game Scouts will
                  comb the bush looking for and destroying diseased game. If the rinderpest spreads,
                  George says it may be necessary to shoot out all the game in a wide belt along the
                  border between the Southern Highlands of Tanganyika and Northern Rhodesia, to
                  prevent the disease spreading South. The very idea of all this destruction sickens us
                  both.

                  George left on a foot safari the day after our arrival and I expect I shall be lucky if I
                  see him occasionally at weekends until this job is over. When rinderpest is under control
                  George is to be stationed at a place called Nzassa in the Eastern Province about 18
                  miles from Dar es Salaam. George’s orderly, who is a tall, cheerful Game Scout called
                  Juma, tells me that he has been stationed at Nzassa and it is a frightful place! However I
                  refuse to be depressed. I now have the cheering prospect of leave to England in thirty
                  months time when we will be able to fetch Ann and George and be a proper family
                  again. Both Ann and George look happy in the snapshots which mother-in-law sends
                  frequently. Ann is doing very well at school and loves it.

                  To get back to our journey from Mbulu. It really was quite an experience. It
                  poured with rain most of the way and the road was very slippery and treacherous the
                  120 miles between Mbulu and Arusha. This is a little used earth road and the drains are
                  so blocked with silt as to be practically non existent. As usual we started our move with
                  the V8 loaded to capacity. I held Johnny on my knee and Kate squeezed in between
                  George and me. All our goods and chattels were in wooden boxes stowed in the back
                  and the two houseboys and the two dogs had to adjust themselves to the space that
                  remained. We soon ran into trouble and it took us all day to travel 47 miles. We stuck
                  several times in deep mud and had some most nasty skids. I simply clutched Kate in
                  one hand and Johnny Jo in the other and put my trust in George who never, under any
                  circumstances, loses his head. Poor Johnny only got his meals when circumstances
                  permitted. Unfortunately I had put him on a bottle only a few days before we left Mbulu
                  and, as I was unable to buy either a primus stove or Thermos flask there we had to
                  make a fire and boil water for each meal. Twice George sat out in the drizzle with a rain
                  coat rapped over his head to protect a miserable little fire of wet sticks drenched with
                  paraffin. Whilst we waited for the water to boil I pacified John by letting him suck a cube
                  of Tate and Lyles sugar held between my rather grubby fingers. Not at all according to
                  the book.

                  That night George, the children and I slept in the car having dumped our boxes
                  and the two servants in a deserted native hut. The rain poured down relentlessly all night
                  and by morning the road was more of a morass than ever. We swerved and skidded
                  alarmingly till eventually one of the wheel chains broke and had to be tied together with
                  string which constantly needed replacing. George was so patient though he was wet
                  and muddy and tired and both children were very good. Shortly before reaching the Great North Road we came upon Jack Gowan, the Stock Inspector from Mbulu. His car
                  was bogged down to its axles in black mud. He refused George’s offer of help saying
                  that he had sent his messenger to a nearby village for help.

                  I hoped that conditions would be better on the Great North Road but how over
                  optimistic I was. For miles the road runs through a belt of ‘black cotton soil’. which was
                  churned up into the consistency of chocolate blancmange by the heavy lorry traffic which
                  runs between Dodoma and Arusha. Soon the car was skidding more fantastically than
                  ever. Once it skidded around in a complete semi circle so George decided that it would
                  be safer for us all to walk whilst he negotiated the very bad patches. You should have
                  seen me plodding along in the mud and drizzle with the baby in one arm and Kate
                  clinging to the other. I was terrified of slipping with Johnny. Each time George reached
                  firm ground he would return on foot to carry Kate and in this way we covered many bad
                  patches.We were more fortunate than many other travellers. We passed several lorries
                  ditched on the side of the road and one car load of German men, all elegantly dressed in
                  lounge suits. One was busy with his camera so will have a record of their plight to laugh
                  over in the years to come. We spent another night camping on the road and next day
                  set out on the last lap of the journey. That also was tiresome but much better than the
                  previous day and we made the haven of the Arusha Hotel before dark. What a picture
                  we made as we walked through the hall in our mud splattered clothes! Even Johnny was
                  well splashed with mud but no harm was done and both he and Kate are blooming.
                  We rested for two days at Arusha and then came South to Iringa. Luckily the sun
                  came out and though for the first day the road was muddy it was no longer so slippery
                  and the second day found us driving through parched country and along badly
                  corrugated roads. The further South we came, the warmer the sun which at times blazed
                  through the windscreen and made us all uncomfortably hot. I have described the country
                  between Arusha and Dodoma before so I shan’t do it again. We reached Iringa without
                  mishap and after a good nights rest all felt full of beans.

                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  You will be surprised to note that we are back on the farm! At least the children
                  and I are here. George is away near the Rhodesian border somewhere, still on
                  Rinderpest control.

                  I had a pleasant time at Iringa, lots of invitations to morning tea and Kate had a
                  wonderful time enjoying the novelty of playing with children of her own age. She is not
                  shy but nevertheless likes me to be within call if not within sight. It was all very suburban
                  but pleasant enough. A few days before Christmas George turned up at Iringa and
                  suggested that, as he would be working in the Mbeya area, it might be a good idea for
                  the children and me to move to the farm. I agreed enthusiastically, completely forgetting
                  that after my previous trouble with the leopard I had vowed to myself that I would never
                  again live alone on the farm.

                  Alas no sooner had we arrived when Thomas, our farm headman, brought the
                  news that there were now two leopards terrorising the neighbourhood, and taking dogs,
                  goats and sheep and chickens. Traps and poisoned bait had been tried in vain and he
                  was sure that the female was the same leopard which had besieged our home before.
                  Other leopards said Thomas, came by stealth but this one advertised her whereabouts
                  in the most brazen manner.

                  George stayed with us on the farm over Christmas and all was quiet at night so I
                  cheered up and took the children for walks along the overgrown farm paths. However on
                  New Years Eve that darned leopard advertised her presence again with the most blood
                  chilling grunts and snarls. Horrible! Fanny and Paddy barked and growled and woke up
                  both children. Kate wept and kept saying, “Send it away mummy. I don’t like it.” Johnny
                  Jo howled in sympathy. What a picnic. So now the whole performance of bodyguards
                  has started again and ‘till George returns we confine our exercise to the garden.
                  Our little house is still cosy and sweet but the coffee plantation looks very
                  neglected. I wish to goodness we could sell it.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 14th February 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  After three months of moving around with two small children it is heavenly to be
                  settled in our own home, even though Nzassa is an isolated spot and has the reputation
                  of being unhealthy.

                  We travelled by car from Mbeya to Dodoma by now a very familiar stretch of
                  country, but from Dodoma to Dar es Salaam by train which made a nice change. We
                  spent two nights and a day in the Splendid Hotel in Dar es Salaam, George had some
                  official visits to make and I did some shopping and we took the children to the beach.
                  The bay is so sheltered that the sea is as calm as a pond and the water warm. It is
                  wonderful to see the sea once more and to hear tugs hooting and to watch the Arab
                  dhows putting out to sea with their oddly shaped sails billowing. I do love the bush, but
                  I love the sea best of all, as you know.

                  We made an early start for Nzassa on the 3rd. For about four miles we bowled
                  along a good road. This brought us to a place called Temeke where George called on
                  the District Officer. His house appears to be the only European type house there. The
                  road between Temeke and the turn off to Nzassa is quite good, but the six mile stretch
                  from the turn off to Nzassa is a very neglected bush road. There is nothing to be seen
                  but the impenetrable bush on both sides with here and there a patch of swampy
                  ground where rice is planted in the wet season.

                  After about six miles of bumpy road we reached Nzassa which is nothing more
                  than a sandy clearing in the bush. Our house however is a fine one. It was originally built
                  for the District Officer and there is a small court house which is now George’s office. The
                  District Officer died of blackwater fever so Nzassa was abandoned as an administrative
                  station being considered too unhealthy for Administrative Officers but suitable as
                  Headquarters for a Game Ranger. Later a bachelor Game Ranger was stationed here
                  but his health also broke down and he has been invalided to England. So now the
                  healthy Rushbys are here and we don’t mean to let the place get us down. So don’t
                  worry.

                  The house consists of three very large and airy rooms with their doors opening
                  on to a wide front verandah which we shall use as a living room. There is also a wide
                  back verandah with a store room at one end and a bathroom at the other. Both
                  verandahs and the end windows of the house are screened my mosquito gauze wire
                  and further protected by a trellis work of heavy expanded metal. Hasmani, the Game
                  Scout, who has been acting as caretaker, tells me that the expanded metal is very
                  necessary because lions often come out of the bush at night and roam around the
                  house. Such a comforting thought!

                  On our very first evening we discovered how necessary the mosquito gauze is.
                  After sunset the air outside is thick with mosquitos from the swamps. About an acre of
                  land has been cleared around the house. This is a sandy waste because there is no
                  water laid on here and absolutely nothing grows here except a rather revolting milky
                  desert bush called ‘Manyara’, and a few acacia trees. A little way from the house there is
                  a patch of citrus trees, grape fruit, I think, but whether they ever bear fruit I don’t know.
                  The clearing is bordered on three sides by dense dusty thorn bush which is
                  ‘lousy with buffalo’ according to George. The open side is the road which leads down to
                  George’s office and the huts for the Game Scouts. Only Hasmani and George’s orderly
                  Juma and their wives and families live there, and the other huts provide shelter for the
                  Game Scouts from the bush who come to Nzassa to collect their pay and for a short
                  rest. I can see that my daily walk will always be the same, down the road to the huts and
                  back! However I don’t mind because it is far too hot to take much exercise.

                  The climate here is really tropical and worse than on the coast because the thick
                  bush cuts us off from any sea breeze. George says it will be cooler when the rains start
                  but just now we literally drip all day. Kate wears nothing but a cotton sun suit, and Johnny
                  a napkin only, but still their little bodies are always moist. I have shorn off all Kate’s lovely
                  shoulder length curls and got George to cut my hair very short too.

                  We simply must buy a refrigerator. The butter, and even the cheese we bought
                  in Dar. simply melted into pools of oil overnight, and all our meat went bad, so we are
                  living out of tins. However once we get organised I shall be quite happy here. I like this
                  spacious house and I have good servants. The cook, Hamisi Issa, is a Swahili from Lindi
                  whom we engaged in Dar es Salaam. He is a very dignified person, and like most
                  devout Mohammedan Cooks, keeps both his person and the kitchen spotless. I
                  engaged the house boy here. He is rather a timid little body but is very willing and quite
                  capable. He has an excessively plain but cheerful wife whom I have taken on as ayah. I
                  do not really need help with the children but feel I must have a woman around just in
                  case I go down with malaria when George is away on safari.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 28th February 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  George’s birthday and we had a special tea party this afternoon which the
                  children much enjoyed. We have our frig now so I am able to make jellies and provide
                  them with really cool drinks.

                  Our very first visitor left this morning after spending only one night here. He is Mr
                  Ionides, the Game Ranger from the Southern Province. He acted as stand in here for a
                  short while after George’s predecessor left for England on sick leave, and where he has
                  since died. Mr Ionides returned here to hand over the range and office formally to
                  George. He seems a strange man and is from all accounts a bit of a hermit. He was at
                  one time an Officer in the Regular Army but does not look like a soldier, he wears the
                  most extraordinary clothes but nevertheless contrives to look top-drawer. He was
                  educated at Rugby and Sandhurst and is, I should say, well read. Ionides told us that he
                  hated Nzassa, particularly the house which he thinks sinister and says he always slept
                  down in the office.

                  The house, or at least one bedroom, seems to have the same effect on Kate.
                  She has been very nervous at night ever since we arrived. At first the children occupied
                  the bedroom which is now George’s. One night, soon after our arrival, Kate woke up
                  screaming to say that ‘something’ had looked at her through the mosquito net. She was
                  in such a hysterical state that inspite of the heat and discomfort I was obliged to crawl into
                  her little bed with her and remained there for the rest of the night.

                  Next night I left a night lamp burning but even so I had to sit by her bed until she
                  dropped off to sleep. Again I was awakened by ear-splitting screams and this time
                  found Kate standing rigid on her bed. I lifted her out and carried her to a chair meaning to
                  comfort her but she screeched louder than ever, “Look Mummy it’s under the bed. It’s
                  looking at us.” In vain I pointed out that there was nothing at all there. By this time
                  George had joined us and he carried Kate off to his bed in the other room whilst I got into
                  Kate’s bed thinking she might have been frightened by a rat which might also disturb
                  Johnny.

                  Next morning our houseboy remarked that he had heard Kate screaming in the
                  night from his room behind the kitchen. I explained what had happened and he must
                  have told the old Scout Hasmani who waylaid me that afternoon and informed me quite
                  seriously that that particular room was haunted by a ‘sheitani’ (devil) who hates children.
                  He told me that whilst he was acting as caretaker before our arrival he one night had his
                  wife and small daughter in the room to keep him company. He said that his small
                  daughter woke up and screamed exactly as Kate had done! Silly coincidence I
                  suppose, but such strange things happen in Africa that I decided to move the children
                  into our room and George sleeps in solitary state in the haunted room! Kate now sleeps
                  peacefully once she goes to sleep but I have to stay with her until she does.

                  I like this house and it does not seem at all sinister to me. As I mentioned before,
                  the rooms are high ceilinged and airy, and have cool cement floors. We have made one
                  end of the enclosed verandah into the living room and the other end is the playroom for
                  the children. The space in between is a sort of no-mans land taken over by the dogs as
                  their special territory.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 25th March 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  George is on safari down in the Rufigi River area. He is away for about three
                  weeks in the month on this job. I do hate to see him go and just manage to tick over until
                  he comes back. But what fun and excitement when he does come home.
                  Usually he returns after dark by which time the children are in bed and I have
                  settled down on the verandah with a book. The first warning is usually given by the
                  dogs, Fanny and her son Paddy. They stir, sit up, look at each other and then go and sit
                  side by side by the door with their noses practically pressed to the mosquito gauze and
                  ears pricked. Soon I can hear the hum of the car, and so can Hasmani, the old Game
                  Scout who sleeps on the back verandah with rifle and ammunition by his side when
                  George is away. When he hears the car he turns up his lamp and hurries out to rouse
                  Juma, the houseboy. Juma pokes up the fire and prepares tea which George always
                  drinks whist a hot meal is being prepared. In the meantime I hurriedly comb my hair and
                  powder my nose so that when the car stops I am ready to rush out and welcome
                  George home. The boy and Hasmani and the garden boy appear to help with the
                  luggage and to greet George and the cook, who always accompanies George on
                  Safari. The home coming is always a lively time with much shouting of greetings.
                  ‘Jambo’, and ‘Habari ya safari’, whilst the dogs, beside themselves with excitement,
                  rush around like lunatics.

                  As though his return were not happiness enough, George usually collects the
                  mail on his way home so there is news of Ann and young George and letters from you
                  and bundles of newspapers and magazines. On the day following his return home,
                  George has to deal with official mail in the office but if the following day is a weekday we
                  all, the house servants as well as ourselves, pile into the boxbody and go to Dar es
                  Salaam. To us this means a mornings shopping followed by an afternoon on the beach.
                  It is a bit cooler now that the rains are on but still very humid. Kate keeps chubby
                  and rosy in spite of the climate but Johnny is too pale though sturdy enough. He is such
                  a good baby which is just as well because Kate is a very demanding little girl though
                  sunny tempered and sweet. I appreciate her company very much when George is
                  away because we are so far off the beaten track that no one ever calls.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 28th April 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  You all seem to wonder how I can stand the loneliness and monotony of living at
                  Nzassa when George is on safari, but really and truly I do not mind. Hamisi the cook
                  always goes on safari with George and then the houseboy Juma takes over the cooking
                  and I do the lighter housework. the children are great company during the day, and when
                  they are settled for the night I sit on the verandah and read or write letters or I just dream.
                  The verandah is entirely enclosed with both wire mosquito gauze and a trellis
                  work of heavy expanded metal, so I am safe from all intruders be they human, animal, or
                  insect. Outside the air is alive with mosquitos and the cicadas keep up their monotonous
                  singing all night long. My only companions on the verandah are the pale ghecco lizards
                  on the wall and the two dogs. Fanny the white bull terrier, lies always near my feet
                  dozing happily, but her son Paddy, who is half Airedale has a less phlegmatic
                  disposition. He sits alert and on guard by the metal trellis work door. Often a lion grunts
                  from the surrounding bush and then his hackles rise and he stands up stiffly with his nose
                  pressed to the door. Old Hasmani from his bedroll on the back verandah, gives a little
                  cough just to show he is awake. Sometimes the lions are very close and then I hear the
                  click of a rifle bolt as Hasmani loads his rifle – but this is usually much later at night when
                  the lights are out. One morning I saw large pug marks between the wall of my bedroom
                  and the garage but I do not fear lions like I did that beastly leopard on the farm.
                  A great deal of witchcraft is still practiced in the bush villages in the
                  neighbourhood. I must tell you about old Hasmani’s baby in connection with this. Last
                  week Hasmani came to me in great distress to say that his baby was ‘Ngongwa sana ‘
                  (very ill) and he thought it would die. I hurried down to the Game Scouts quarters to see
                  whether I could do anything for the child and found the mother squatting in the sun
                  outside her hut with the baby on her lap. The mother was a young woman but not an
                  attractive one. She appeared sullen and indifferent compared with old Hasmani who
                  was very distressed. The child was very feverish and breathing with difficulty and
                  seemed to me to be suffering from bronchitis if not pneumonia. I rubbed his back and
                  chest with camphorated oil and dosed him with aspirin and liquid quinine. I repeated the
                  treatment every four hours, but next day there was no apparent improvement.
                  In the afternoon Hasmani begged me to give him that night off duty and asked for
                  a loan of ten shillings. He explained to me that it seemed to him that the white man’s
                  medicine had failed to cure his child and now he wished to take the child to the local witch
                  doctor. “For ten shillings” said Hasmani, “the Maganga will drive the devil out of my
                  child.” “How?” asked I. “With drums”, said Hasmani confidently. I did not know what to
                  do. I thought the child was too ill to be exposed to the night air, yet I knew that if I
                  refused his request and the child were to die, Hasmani and all the other locals would hold
                  me responsible. I very reluctantly granted his request. I was so troubled by the matter
                  that I sent for George’s office clerk. Daniel, and asked him to accompany Hasmani to the
                  ceremony and to report to me the next morning. It started to rain after dark and all night
                  long I lay awake in bed listening to the drums and the light rain. Next morning when I
                  went out to the kitchen to order breakfast I found a beaming Hasmani awaiting me.
                  “Memsahib”, he said. “My child is well, the fever is now quite gone, the Maganga drove
                  out the devil just as I told you.” Believe it or not, when I hurried to his quarters after
                  breakfast I found the mother suckling a perfectly healthy child! It may be my imagination
                  but I thought the mother looked pretty smug.The clerk Daniel told me that after Hasmani
                  had presented gifts of money and food to the ‘Maganga’, the naked baby was placed
                  on a goat skin near the drums. Most of the time he just lay there but sometimes the witch
                  doctor picked him up and danced with the child in his arms. Daniel seemed reluctant to
                  talk about it. Whatever mumbo jumbo was used all this happened a week ago and the
                  baby has never looked back.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

                  Dearest Family,

                  Did I tell you that one of George’s Game Scouts was murdered last month in the
                  Maneromango area towards the Rufigi border. He was on routine patrol, with a porter
                  carrying his bedding and food, when they suddenly came across a group of African
                  hunters who were busy cutting up a giraffe which they had just killed. These hunters were
                  all armed with muzzle loaders, spears and pangas, but as it is illegal to kill giraffe without
                  a permit, the Scout went up to the group to take their names. Some argument ensued
                  and the Scout was stabbed.

                  The District Officer went to the area to investigate and decided to call in the Police
                  from Dar es Salaam. A party of police went out to search for the murderers but after
                  some days returned without making any arrests. George was on an elephant control
                  safari in the Bagamoyo District and on his return through Dar es Salaam he heard of the
                  murder. George was furious and distressed to hear the news and called in here for an
                  hour on his way to Maneromango to search for the murderers himself.

                  After a great deal of strenuous investigation he arrested three poachers, put them
                  in jail for the night at Maneromango and then brought them to Dar es Salaam where they
                  are all now behind bars. George will now have to prosecute in the Magistrate’s Court
                  and try and ‘make a case’ so that the prisoners may be committed to the High Court to
                  be tried for murder. George is convinced of their guilt and justifiably proud to have
                  succeeded where the police failed.

                  George had to borrow handcuffs for the prisoners from the Chief at
                  Maneromango and these he brought back to Nzassa after delivering the prisoners to
                  Dar es Salaam so that he may return them to the Chief when he revisits the area next
                  week.

                  I had not seen handcuffs before and picked up a pair to examine them. I said to
                  George, engrossed in ‘The Times’, “I bet if you were arrested they’d never get
                  handcuffs on your wrist. Not these anyway, they look too small.” “Standard pattern,”
                  said George still concentrating on the newspaper, but extending an enormous relaxed
                  left wrist. So, my dears, I put a bracelet round his wrist and as there was a wide gap I
                  gave a hard squeeze with both hands. There was a sharp click as the handcuff engaged
                  in the first notch. George dropped the paper and said, “Now you’ve done it, my love,
                  one set of keys are in the Dar es Salaam Police Station, and the others with the Chief at
                  Maneromango.” You can imagine how utterly silly I felt but George was an angel about it
                  and said as he would have to go to Dar es Salaam we might as well all go.

                  So we all piled into the car, George, the children and I in the front, and the cook
                  and houseboy, immaculate in snowy khanzus and embroidered white caps, a Game
                  Scout and the ayah in the back. George never once complain of the discomfort of the
                  handcuff but I was uncomfortably aware that it was much too tight because his arm
                  above the cuff looked red and swollen and the hand unnaturally pale. As the road is so
                  bad George had to use both hands on the wheel and all the time the dangling handcuff
                  clanked against the dashboard in an accusing way.

                  We drove straight to the Police Station and I could hear the roars of laughter as
                  George explained his predicament. Later I had to put up with a good deal of chaffing
                  and congratulations upon putting the handcuffs on George.

                  Eleanor.

                  Nzassa 5th August 1939

                  Dearest Family,

                  George made a point of being here for Kate’s fourth birthday last week. Just
                  because our children have no playmates George and I always do all we can to make
                  birthdays very special occasions. We went to Dar es Salaam the day before the
                  birthday and bought Kate a very sturdy tricycle with which she is absolutely delighted.
                  You will be glad to know that your parcels arrived just in time and Kate loved all your
                  gifts especially the little shop from Dad with all the miniature tins and packets of
                  groceries. The tea set was also a great success and is much in use.

                  We had a lively party which ended with George and me singing ‘Happy
                  Birthday to you’, and ended with a wild game with balloons. Kate wore her frilly white net
                  party frock and looked so pretty that it seemed a shame that there was no one but us to
                  see her. Anyway it was a good party. I wish so much that you could see the children.
                  Kate keeps rosy and has not yet had malaria. Johnny Jo is sturdy but pale. He
                  runs a temperature now and again but I am not sure whether this is due to teething or
                  malaria. Both children of course take quinine every day as George and I do. George
                  quite frequently has malaria in spite of prophylactic quinine but this is not surprising as he
                  got the germ thoroughly established in his system in his early elephant hunting days. I
                  get it too occasionally but have not been really ill since that first time a month after my
                  arrival in the country.

                  Johnny is such a good baby. His chief claim to beauty is his head of soft golden
                  curls but these are due to come off on his first birthday as George considers them too
                  girlish. George left on safari the day after the party and the very next morning our wood
                  boy had a most unfortunate accident. He was chopping a rather tough log when a chip
                  flew up and split his upper lip clean through from mouth to nostril exposing teeth and
                  gums. A truly horrible sight and very bloody. I cleaned up the wound as best I could
                  and sent him off to the hospital at Dar es Salaam on the office bicycle. He wobbled
                  away wretchedly down the road with a white cloth tied over his mouth to keep off the
                  dust. He returned next day with his lip stitched and very swollen and bearing a
                  resemblance to my lip that time I used the hair remover.

                  Eleanor.

                  Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

                  Dearest Family,

                  So now another war has started and it has disrupted even our lives. We have left
                  Nzassa for good. George is now a Lieutenant in the King’s African Rifles and the children
                  and I are to go to a place called Morogoro to await further developments.
                  I was glad to read in today’s paper that South Africa has declared war on
                  Germany. I would have felt pretty small otherwise in this hotel which is crammed full of
                  men who have been called up for service in the Army. George seems exhilarated by
                  the prospect of active service. He is bursting out of his uniform ( at the shoulders only!)
                  and all too ready for the fray.

                  The war came as a complete surprise to me stuck out in the bush as I was without
                  wireless or mail. George had been away for a fortnight so you can imagine how
                  surprised I was when a messenger arrived on a bicycle with a note from George. The
                  note informed me that war had been declared and that George, as a Reserve Officer in
                  the KAR had been called up. I was to start packing immediately and be ready by noon
                  next day when George would arrive with a lorry for our goods and chattels. I started to
                  pack immediately with the help of the houseboy and by the time George arrived with
                  the lorry only the frig remained to be packed and this was soon done.

                  Throughout the morning Game Scouts had been arriving from outlying parts of
                  the District. I don’t think they had the least idea where they were supposed to go or
                  whom they were to fight but were ready to fight anybody, anywhere, with George.
                  They all looked very smart in well pressed uniforms hung about with water bottles and
                  ammunition pouches. The large buffalo badge on their round pill box hats absolutely
                  glittered with polish. All of course carried rifles and when George arrived they all lined up
                  and they looked most impressive. I took some snaps but unfortunately it was drizzling
                  and they may not come out well.

                  We left Nzassa without a backward glance. We were pretty fed up with it by
                  then. The children and I are spending a few days here with George but our luggage, the
                  dogs, and the houseboys have already left by train for Morogoro where a small house
                  has been found for the children and me.

                  George tells me that all the German males in this Territory were interned without a
                  hitch. The whole affair must have been very well organised. In every town and
                  settlement special constables were sworn in to do the job. It must have been a rather
                  unpleasant one but seems to have gone without incident. There is a big transit camp
                  here at Dar for the German men. Later they are to be sent out of the country, possibly to
                  Rhodesia.

                  The Indian tailors in the town are all terribly busy making Army uniforms, shorts
                  and tunics in khaki drill. George swears that they have muddled their orders and he has
                  been given the wrong things. Certainly the tunic is far too tight. His hat, a khaki slouch hat
                  like you saw the Australians wearing in the last war, is also too small though it is the
                  largest they have in stock. We had a laugh over his other equipment which includes a
                  small canvas haversack and a whistle on a black cord. George says he feels like he is
                  back in his Boy Scouting boyhood.

                  George has just come in to say the we will be leaving for Morogoro tomorrow
                  afternoon.

                  Eleanor.

                  Morogoro 14th September 1939

                  Dearest Family,

                  Morogoro is a complete change from Nzassa. This is a large and sprawling
                  township. The native town and all the shops are down on the flat land by the railway but
                  all the European houses are away up the slope of the high Uluguru Mountains.
                  Morogoro was a flourishing town in the German days and all the streets are lined with
                  trees for coolness as is the case in other German towns. These trees are the flamboyant
                  acacia which has an umbrella top and throws a wide but light shade.

                  Most of the houses have large gardens so they cover a considerable area and it
                  is quite a safari for me to visit friends on foot as our house is on the edge of this area and
                  the furthest away from the town. Here ones house is in accordance with ones seniority in
                  Government service. Ours is a simple affair, just three lofty square rooms opening on to
                  a wide enclosed verandah. Mosquitoes are bad here so all doors and windows are
                  screened and we will have to carry on with our daily doses of quinine.

                  George came up to Morogoro with us on the train. This was fortunate because I
                  went down with a sharp attack of malaria at the hotel on the afternoon of our departure
                  from Dar es Salaam. George’s drastic cure of vast doses of quinine, a pillow over my
                  head, and the bed heaped with blankets soon brought down the temperature so I was
                  fit enough to board the train but felt pretty poorly on the trip. However next day I felt
                  much better which was a good thing as George had to return to Dar es Salaam after two
                  days. His train left late at night so I did not see him off but said good-bye at home
                  feeling dreadful but trying to keep the traditional stiff upper lip of the wife seeing her
                  husband off to the wars. He hopes to go off to Abyssinia but wrote from Dar es Salaam
                  to say that he is being sent down to Rhodesia by road via Mbeya to escort the first
                  detachment of Rhodesian white troops.

                  First he will have to select suitable camping sites for night stops and arrange for
                  supplies of food. I am very pleased as it means he will be safe for a while anyway. We
                  are both worried about Ann and George in England and wonder if it would be safer to
                  have them sent out.

                  Eleanor.

                  Morogoro 4th November 1939

                  Dearest Family,

                  My big news is that George has been released from the Army. He is very
                  indignant and disappointed because he hoped to go to Abyssinia but I am terribly,
                  terribly glad. The Chief Secretary wrote a very nice letter to George pointing out that he
                  would be doing a greater service to his country by his work of elephant control, giving
                  crop protection during the war years when foodstuffs are such a vital necessity, than by
                  doing a soldiers job. The Government plan to start a huge rice scheme in the Rufiji area,
                  and want George to control the elephant and hippo there. First of all though. he must go
                  to the Southern Highlands Province where there is another outbreak of Rinderpest, to
                  shoot out diseased game especially buffalo, which might spread the disease.

                  So off we go again on our travels but this time we are leaving the two dogs
                  behind in the care of Daniel, the Game Clerk. Fanny is very pregnant and I hate leaving
                  her behind but the clerk has promised to look after her well. We are taking Hamisi, our
                  dignified Swahili cook and the houseboy Juma and his wife whom we brought with us
                  from Nzassa. The boy is not very good but his wife makes a cheerful and placid ayah
                  and adores Johnny.

                  Eleanor.

                  Iringa 8th December 1939

                  Dearest Family,

                  The children and I are staying in a small German house leased from the
                  Custodian of Enemy Property. I can’t help feeling sorry for the owners who must be in
                  concentration camps somewhere.George is away in the bush dealing with the
                  Rinderpest emergency and the cook has gone with him. Now I have sent the houseboy
                  and the ayah away too. Two days ago my houseboy came and told me that he felt
                  very ill and asked me to write a ‘chit’ to the Indian Doctor. In the note I asked the Doctor
                  to let me know the nature of his complaint and to my horror I got a note from him to say
                  that the houseboy had a bad case of Venereal Disease. Was I horrified! I took it for
                  granted that his wife must be infected too and told them both that they would have to
                  return to their home in Nzassa. The boy shouted and the ayah wept but I paid them in
                  lieu of notice and gave them money for the journey home. So there I was left servant
                  less with firewood to chop, a smokey wood burning stove to control, and of course, the
                  two children.

                  To add to my troubles Johnny had a temperature so I sent for the European
                  Doctor. He diagnosed malaria and was astonished at the size of Johnny’s spleen. He
                  said that he must have had suppressed malaria over a long period and the poor child
                  must now be fed maximum doses of quinine for a long time. The Doctor is a fatherly
                  soul, he has been recalled from retirement to do this job as so many of the young
                  doctors have been called up for service with the army.

                  I told him about my houseboy’s complaint and the way I had sent him off
                  immediately, and he was very amused at my haste, saying that it is most unlikely that
                  they would have passed the disease onto their employers. Anyway I hated the idea. I
                  mean to engage a houseboy locally, but will do without an ayah until we return to
                  Morogoro in February.

                  Something happened today to cheer me up. A telegram came from Daniel which
                  read, “FLANNEL HAS FIVE CUBS.”

                  Eleanor.

                  Morogoro 10th March 1940

                  Dearest Family,

                  We are having very heavy rain and the countryside is a most beautiful green. In
                  spite of the weather George is away on safari though it must be very wet and
                  unpleasant. He does work so hard at his elephant hunting job and has got very thin. I
                  suppose this is partly due to those stomach pains he gets and the doctors don’t seem
                  to diagnose the trouble.

                  Living in Morogoro is much like living in a country town in South Africa, particularly
                  as there are several South African women here. I go out quite often to morning teas. We
                  all take our war effort knitting, and natter, and are completely suburban.
                  I sometimes go and see an elderly couple who have been interred here. They
                  are cold shouldered by almost everyone else but I cannot help feeling sorry for them.
                  Usually I go by invitation because I know Mrs Ruppel prefers to be prepared and
                  always has sandwiches and cake. They both speak English but not fluently and
                  conversation is confined to talking about my children and theirs. Their two sons were
                  students in Germany when war broke out but are now of course in the German Army.
                  Such nice looking chaps from their photographs but I suppose thorough Nazis. As our
                  conversation is limited I usually ask to hear a gramophone record or two. They have a
                  large collection.

                  Janet, the ayah whom I engaged at Mbeya, is proving a great treasure. She is a
                  trained hospital ayah and is most dependable and capable. She is, perhaps, a little strict
                  but the great thing is that I can trust her with the children out of my sight.
                  Last week I went out at night for the first time without George. The occasion was
                  a farewell sundowner given by the Commissioner of Prisoners and his wife. I was driven
                  home by the District Officer and he stopped his car by the back door in a large puddle.
                  Ayah came to the back door, storm lamp in hand, to greet me. My escort prepared to
                  drive off but the car stuck. I thought a push from me might help, so without informing the
                  driver, I pushed as hard as I could on the back of the car. Unfortunately the driver
                  decided on other tactics. He put the engine in reverse and I was knocked flat on my back
                  in the puddle. The car drove forward and away without the driver having the least idea of
                  what happened. The ayah was in quite a state, lifting me up and scolding me for my
                  stupidity as though I were Kate. I was a bit shaken but non the worse and will know
                  better next time.

                  Eleanor.

                  Morogoro 14th July 1940

                  Dearest Family,

                  How good it was of Dad to send that cable to Mother offering to have Ann and
                  George to live with you if they are accepted for inclusion in the list of children to be
                  evacuated to South Africa. It would be wonderful to know that they are safely out of the
                  war zone and so much nearer to us but I do dread the thought of the long sea voyage
                  particularly since we heard the news of the sinking of that liner carrying child evacuees to
                  Canada. I worry about them so much particularly as George is so often away on safari.
                  He is so comforting and calm and I feel brave and confident when he is home.
                  We have had no news from England for five weeks but, when she last wrote,
                  mother said the children were very well and that she was sure they would be safe in the
                  country with her.

                  Kate and John are growing fast. Kate is such a pretty little girl, rosy in spite of the
                  rather trying climate. I have allowed her hair to grow again and it hangs on her shoulders
                  in shiny waves. John is a more slightly built little boy than young George was, and quite
                  different in looks. He has Dad’s high forehead and cleft chin, widely spaced brown eyes
                  that are not so dark as mine and hair that is still fair and curly though ayah likes to smooth it
                  down with water every time she dresses him. He is a shy child, and although he plays
                  happily with Kate, he does not care to play with other children who go in the late
                  afternoons to a lawn by the old German ‘boma’.

                  Kate has playmates of her own age but still rather clings to me. Whilst she loves
                  to have friends here to play with her, she will not go to play at their houses unless I go
                  too and stay. She always insists on accompanying me when I go out to morning tea
                  and always calls JanetJohn’s ayah”. One morning I went to a knitting session at a
                  neighbours house. We are all knitting madly for the troops. As there were several other
                  women in the lounge and no other children, I installed Kate in the dining room with a
                  colouring book and crayons. My hostess’ black dog was chained to the dining room
                  table leg, but as he and Kate are on friendly terms I was not bothered by this.
                  Some time afterwards, during a lull in conversation, I heard a strange drumming
                  noise coming from the dining room. I went quickly to investigate and, to my horror, found
                  Kate lying on her back with the dog chain looped around her neck. The frightened dog
                  was straining away from her as far as he could get and the chain was pulled so tightly
                  around her throat that she could not scream. The drumming noise came from her heels
                  kicking in a panic on the carpet.

                  Even now I do not know how Kate got herself into this predicament. Luckily no
                  great harm was done but I think I shall do my knitting at home in future.

                  Eleanor.

                  Morogoro 16th November 1940

                  Dearest Family,

                  I much prefer our little house on the hillside to the larger one we had down below.
                  The only disadvantage is that the garden is on three levels and both children have had
                  some tumbles down the steps on the tricycle. John is an extremely stoical child. He
                  never cries when he hurts himself.

                  I think I have mentioned ‘Morningside’ before. It is a kind of Resthouse high up in
                  the Uluguru Mountains above Morogoro. Jess Howe-Browne, who runs the large
                  house as a Guest House, is a wonderful woman. Besides running the boarding house
                  she also grows vegetables, flowers and fruit for sale in Morogoro and Dar es Salaam.
                  Her guests are usually women and children from Dar es Salaam who come in the hot
                  season to escape the humidity on the coast. Often the mothers leave their children for
                  long periods in Jess Howe-Browne’s care. There is a road of sorts up the mountain side
                  to Morningside, but this is so bad that cars do not attempt it and guests are carried up
                  the mountain in wicker chairs lashed to poles. Four men carry an adult, and two a child,
                  and there are of course always spare bearers and they work in shifts.

                  Last week the children and I went to Morningside for the day as guests. John
                  rode on my lap in one chair and Kate in a small chair on her own. This did not please
                  Kate at all. The poles are carried on the bearers shoulders and one is perched quite high.
                  The motion is a peculiar rocking one. The bearers chant as they go and do not seem
                  worried by shortness of breath! They are all hillmen of course and are, I suppose, used
                  to trotting up and down to the town.

                  Morningside is well worth visiting and we spent a delightful day there. The fresh
                  cool air is a great change from the heavy air of the valley. A river rushes down the
                  mountain in a series of cascades, and the gardens are shady and beautiful. Behind the
                  property is a thick indigenous forest which stretches from Morningside to the top of the
                  mountain. The house is an old German one, rather in need of repair, but Jess has made
                  it comfortable and attractive, with some of her old family treasures including a fine old
                  Grandfather clock. We had a wonderful lunch which included large fresh strawberries and
                  cream. We made the return journey again in the basket chairs and got home before dark.
                  George returned home at the weekend with a baby elephant whom we have
                  called Winnie. She was rescued from a mud hole by some African villagers and, as her
                  mother had abandoned her, they took her home and George was informed. He went in
                  the truck to fetch her having first made arrangements to have her housed in a shed on the
                  Agriculture Department Experimental Farm here. He has written to the Game Dept
                  Headquarters to inform the Game Warden and I do not know what her future will be, but
                  in the meantime she is our pet. George is afraid she will not survive because she has
                  had a very trying time. She stands about waist high and is a delightful creature and quite
                  docile. Asian and African children as well as Europeans gather to watch her and George
                  encourages them to bring fruit for her – especially pawpaws which she loves.
                  Whilst we were there yesterday one of the local ladies came, very smartly
                  dressed in a linen frock, silk stockings, and high heeled shoes. She watched fascinated
                  whilst Winnie neatly split a pawpaw and removed the seeds with her trunk, before
                  scooping out the pulp and putting it in her mouth. It was a particularly nice ripe pawpaw
                  and Winnie enjoyed it so much that she stretched out her trunk for more. The lady took
                  fright and started to run with Winnie after her, sticky trunk outstretched. Quite an
                  entertaining sight. George managed to stop Winnie but not before she had left a gooey
                  smear down the back of the immaculate frock.

                  Eleanor.

                   

                  #6264
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    From Tanganyika with Love

                    continued  ~ part 5

                    With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                    Chunya 16th December 1936

                    Dearest Family,

                    Since last I wrote I have visited Chunya and met several of the diggers wives.
                    On the whole I have been greatly disappointed because there is nothing very colourful
                    about either township or women. I suppose I was really expecting something more like
                    the goldrush towns and women I have so often seen on the cinema screen.
                    Chunya consists of just the usual sun-dried brick Indian shops though there are
                    one or two double storied buildings. Most of the life in the place centres on the
                    Goldfields Hotel but we did not call there. From the store opposite I could hear sounds
                    of revelry though it was very early in the afternoon. I saw only one sight which was quite
                    new to me, some elegantly dressed African women, with high heels and lipsticked
                    mouths teetered by on their way to the silk store. “Native Tarts,” said George in answer
                    to my enquiry.

                    Several women have called on me and when I say ‘called’ I mean called. I have
                    grown so used to going without stockings and wearing home made dresses that it was
                    quite a shock to me to entertain these ladies dressed to the nines in smart frocks, silk
                    stockings and high heeled shoes, handbags, makeup and whatnot. I feel like some
                    female Rip van Winkle. Most of the women have a smart line in conversation and their
                    talk and views on life would make your nice straight hair curl Mummy. They make me feel
                    very unsophisticated and dowdy but George says he has a weakness for such types
                    and I am to stay exactly as I am. I still do not use any makeup. George says ‘It’s all right
                    for them. They need it poor things, you don’t.” Which, though flattering, is hardly true.
                    I prefer the men visitors, though they also are quite unlike what I had expected
                    diggers to be. Those whom George brings home are all well educated and well
                    groomed and I enjoy listening to their discussion of the world situation, sport and books.
                    They are extremely polite to me and gentle with the children though I believe that after a
                    few drinks at the pub tempers often run high. There were great arguments on the night
                    following the abdication of Edward VIII. Not that the diggers were particularly attached to
                    him as a person, but these men are all great individualists and believe in freedom of
                    choice. George, rather to my surprise, strongly supported Edward. I did not.

                    Many of the diggers have wireless sets and so we keep up to date with the
                    news. I seldom leave camp. I have my hands full with the three children during the day
                    and, even though Janey is a reliable ayah, I would not care to leave the children at night
                    in these grass roofed huts. Having experienced that fire on the farm, I know just how
                    unlikely it would be that the children would be rescued in time in case of fire. The other
                    women on the diggings think I’m crazy. They leave their children almost entirely to ayahs
                    and I must confess that the children I have seen look very well and happy. The thing is
                    that I simply would not enjoy parties at the hotel or club, miles away from the children
                    and I much prefer to stay at home with a book.

                    I love hearing all about the parties from George who likes an occasional ‘boose
                    up’ with the boys and is terribly popular with everyone – not only the British but with the
                    Germans, Scandinavians and even the Afrikaans types. One Afrikaans woman said “Jou
                    man is ‘n man, al is hy ‘n Engelsman.” Another more sophisticated woman said, “George
                    is a handsome devil. Aren’t you scared to let him run around on his own?” – but I’m not. I
                    usually wait up for George with sandwiches and something hot to drink and that way I
                    get all the news red hot.

                    There is very little gold coming in. The rains have just started and digging is
                    temporarily at a standstill. It is too wet for dry blowing and not yet enough water for
                    panning and sluicing. As this camp is some considerable distance from the claims, all I see of the process is the weighing of the daily taking of gold dust and tiny nuggets.
                    Unless our luck changes I do not think we will stay on here after John Molteno returns.
                    George does not care for the life and prefers a more constructive occupation.
                    Ann and young George still search optimistically for gold. We were all saddened
                    last week by the death of Fanny, our bull terrier. She went down to the shopping centre
                    with us and we were standing on the verandah of a store when a lorry passed with its
                    canvas cover flapping. This excited Fanny who rushed out into the street and the back
                    wheel of the lorry passed right over her, killing her instantly. Ann was very shocked so I
                    soothed her by telling her that Fanny had gone to Heaven. When I went to bed that
                    night I found Ann still awake and she asked anxiously, “Mummy, do you think God
                    remembered to give Fanny her bone tonight?”

                    Much love to all,
                    Eleanor.

                    Itewe, Chunya 23rd December 1936

                    Dearest Family,

                    Your Christmas parcel arrived this morning. Thank you very much for all the
                    clothing for all of us and for the lovely toys for the children. George means to go hunting
                    for a young buffalo this afternoon so that we will have some fresh beef for Christmas for
                    ourselves and our boys and enough for friends too.

                    I had a fright this morning. Ann and Georgie were, as usual, searching for gold
                    whilst I sat sewing in the living room with Kate toddling around. She wandered through
                    the curtained doorway into the store and I heard her playing with the paraffin pump. At
                    first it did not bother me because I knew the tin was empty but after ten minutes or so I
                    became irritated by the noise and went to stop her. Imagine my horror when I drew the
                    curtain aside and saw my fat little toddler fiddling happily with the pump whilst, curled up
                    behind the tin and clearly visible to me lay the largest puffadder I have ever seen.
                    Luckily I acted instinctively and scooped Kate up from behind and darted back into the
                    living room without disturbing the snake. The houseboy and cook rushed in with sticks
                    and killed the snake and then turned the whole storeroom upside down to make sure
                    there were no more.

                    I have met some more picturesque characters since I last wrote. One is a man
                    called Bishop whom George has known for many years having first met him in the
                    Congo. I believe he was originally a sailor but for many years he has wandered around
                    Central Africa trying his hand at trading, prospecting, a bit of elephant hunting and ivory
                    poaching. He is now keeping himself by doing ‘Sign Writing”. Bish is a gentle and
                    dignified personality. When we visited his camp he carefully dusted a seat for me and
                    called me ‘Marm’, quite ye olde world. The only thing is he did spit.

                    Another spitter is the Frenchman in a neighbouring camp. He is in bed with bad
                    rheumatism and George has been going across twice a day to help him and cheer him
                    up. Once when George was out on the claim I went across to the Frenchman’s camp in
                    response to an SOS, but I think he was just lonely. He showed me snapshots of his
                    two daughters, lovely girls and extremely smart, and he chatted away telling me his life
                    history. He punctuated his remarks by spitting to right and left of the bed, everywhere in
                    fact, except actually at me.

                    George took me and the children to visit a couple called Bert and Hilda Farham.
                    They have a small gold reef which is worked by a very ‘Heath Robinson’ type of
                    machinery designed and erected by Bert who is reputed to be a clever engineer though
                    eccentric. He is rather a handsome man who always looks very spruce and neat and
                    wears a Captain Kettle beard. Hilda is from Johannesburg and quite a character. She
                    has a most generous figure and literally masses of beetroot red hair, but she also has a
                    warm deep voice and a most generous disposition. The Farhams have built
                    themselves a more permanent camp than most. They have a brick cottage with proper
                    doors and windows and have made it attractive with furniture contrived from petrol
                    boxes. They have no children but Hilda lavishes a great deal of affection on a pet
                    monkey. Sometimes they do quite well out of their gold and then they have a terrific
                    celebration at the Club or Pub and Hilda has an orgy of shopping. At other times they
                    are completely broke but Hilda takes disasters as well as triumphs all in her stride. She
                    says, “My dear, when we’re broke we just live on tea and cigarettes.”

                    I have met a young woman whom I would like as a friend. She has a dear little
                    baby, but unfortunately she has a very wet husband who is also a dreadful bore. I can’t
                    imagine George taking me to their camp very often. When they came to visit us George
                    just sat and smoked and said,”Oh really?” to any remark this man made until I felt quite
                    hysterical. George looks very young and fit and the children are lively and well too. I ,
                    however, am definitely showing signs of wear and tear though George says,
                    “Nonsense, to me you look the same as you always did.” This I may say, I do not
                    regard as a compliment to the young Eleanor.

                    Anyway, even though our future looks somewhat unsettled, we are all together
                    and very happy.

                    With love,
                    Eleanor.

                    Itewe, Chunya 30th December 1936

                    Dearest Family,

                    We had a very cheery Christmas. The children loved the toys and are so proud
                    of their new clothes. They wore them when we went to Christmas lunch to the
                    Cresswell-Georges. The C-Gs have been doing pretty well lately and they have a
                    comfortable brick house and a large wireless set. The living room was gaily decorated
                    with bought garlands and streamers and balloons. We had an excellent lunch cooked by
                    our ex cook Abel who now works for the Cresswell-Georges. We had turkey with
                    trimmings and plum pudding followed by nuts and raisons and chocolates and sweets
                    galore. There was also a large variety of drinks including champagne!

                    There were presents for all of us and, in addition, Georgie and Ann each got a
                    large tin of chocolates. Kate was much admired. She was a picture in her new party frock
                    with her bright hair and rosy cheeks. There were other guests beside ourselves and
                    they were already there having drinks when we arrived. Someone said “What a lovely
                    child!” “Yes” said George with pride, “She’s a Marie Stopes baby.” “Truby King!” said I
                    quickly and firmly, but too late to stop the roar of laughter.

                    Our children played amicably with the C-G’s three, but young George was
                    unusually quiet and surprised me by bringing me his unopened tin of chocolates to keep
                    for him. Normally he is a glutton for sweets. I might have guessed he was sickening for
                    something. That night he vomited and had diarrhoea and has had an upset tummy and a
                    slight temperature ever since.

                    Janey is also ill. She says she has malaria and has taken to her bed. I am dosing
                    her with quinine and hope she will soon be better as I badly need her help. Not only is
                    young George off his food and peevish but Kate has a cold and Ann sore eyes and
                    they all want love and attention. To complicate things it has been raining heavily and I
                    must entertain the children indoors.

                    Eleanor.

                    Itewe, Chunya 19th January 1937

                    Dearest Family,

                    So sorry I have not written before but we have been in the wars and I have had neither
                    the time nor the heart to write. However the worst is now over. Young George and
                    Janey are both recovering from Typhoid Fever. The doctor had Janey moved to the
                    native hospital at Chunya but I nursed young George here in the camp.

                    As I told you young George’s tummy trouble started on Christmas day. At first I
                    thought it was only a protracted bilious attack due to eating too much unaccustomed rich
                    food and treated him accordingly but when his temperature persisted I thought that the
                    trouble might be malaria and kept him in bed and increased the daily dose of quinine.
                    He ate less and less as the days passed and on New Years Day he seemed very
                    weak and his stomach tender to the touch.

                    George fetched the doctor who examined small George and said he had a very
                    large liver due no doubt to malaria. He gave the child injections of emertine and quinine
                    and told me to give young George frequent and copious drinks of water and bi-carb of
                    soda. This was more easily said than done. Young George refused to drink this mixture
                    and vomited up the lime juice and water the doctor had suggested as an alternative.
                    The doctor called every day and gave George further injections and advised me
                    to give him frequent sips of water from a spoon. After three days the child was very
                    weak and weepy but Dr Spiers still thought he had malaria. During those anxious days I
                    also worried about Janey who appeared to be getting worse rather that better and on
                    January the 3rd I asked the doctor to look at her. The next thing I knew, the doctor had
                    put Janey in his car and driven her off to hospital. When he called next morning he
                    looked very grave and said he wished to talk to my husband. I said that George was out
                    on the claim but if what he wished to say concerned young George’s condition he might
                    just as well tell me.

                    With a good deal of reluctance Dr Spiers then told me that Janey showed all the
                    symptoms of Typhoid Fever and that he was very much afraid that young George had
                    contracted it from her. He added that George should be taken to the Mbeya Hospital
                    where he could have the professional nursing so necessary in typhoid cases. I said “Oh
                    no,I’d never allow that. The child had never been away from his family before and it
                    would frighten him to death to be sick and alone amongst strangers.” Also I was sure that
                    the fifty mile drive over the mountains in his weak condition would harm him more than
                    my amateur nursing would. The doctor returned to the camp that afternoon to urge
                    George to send our son to hospital but George staunchly supported my argument that
                    young George would stand a much better chance of recovery if we nursed him at home.
                    I must say Dr Spiers took our refusal very well and gave young George every attention
                    coming twice a day to see him.

                    For some days the child was very ill. He could not keep down any food or liquid
                    in any quantity so all day long, and when he woke at night, I gave him a few drops of
                    water at a time from a teaspoon. His only nourishment came from sucking Macintosh’s
                    toffees. Young George sweated copiously especially at night when it was difficult to
                    change his clothes and sponge him in the draughty room with the rain teeming down
                    outside. I think I told you that the bedroom is a sort of shed with only openings in the wall
                    for windows and doors, and with one wall built only a couple of feet high leaving a six
                    foot gap for air and light. The roof leaked and the damp air blew in but somehow young
                    George pulled through.

                    Only when he was really on the mend did the doctor tell us that whilst he had
                    been attending George, he had also been called in to attend to another little boy of the same age who also had typhoid. He had been called in too late and the other little boy,
                    an only child, had died. Young George, thank God, is convalescent now, though still on a
                    milk diet. He is cheerful enough when he has company but very peevish when left
                    alone. Poor little lad, he is all hair, eyes, and teeth, or as Ann says” Georgie is all ribs ribs
                    now-a-days Mummy.” He shares my room, Ann and Kate are together in the little room.
                    Anyway the doctor says he should be up and around in about a week or ten days time.
                    We were all inoculated against typhoid on the day the doctor made the diagnosis
                    so it is unlikely that any of us will develop it. Dr Spiers was most impressed by Ann’s
                    unconcern when she was inoculated. She looks gentle and timid but has always been
                    very brave. Funny thing when young George was very ill he used to wail if I left the
                    room, but now that he is convalescent he greatly prefers his dad’s company. So now I
                    have been able to take the girls for walks in the late afternoons whilst big George
                    entertains small George. This he does with the minimum of effort, either he gets out
                    cartons of ammunition with which young George builds endless forts, or else he just sits
                    beside the bed and cleans one of his guns whilst small George watches with absorbed
                    attention.

                    The Doctor tells us that Janey is also now convalescent. He says that exhusband
                    Abel has been most attentive and appeared daily at the hospital with a tray of
                    food that made his, the doctor’s, mouth water. All I dare say, pinched from Mrs
                    Cresswell-George.

                    I’ll write again soon. Lots of love to all,
                    Eleanor.

                    Chunya 29th January 1937

                    Dearest Family,

                    Georgie is up and about but still tires very easily. At first his legs were so weak
                    that George used to carry him around on his shoulders. The doctor says that what the
                    child really needs is a long holiday out of the Tropics so that Mrs Thomas’ offer, to pay all
                    our fares to Cape Town as well as lending us her seaside cottage for a month, came as
                    a Godsend. Luckily my passport is in order. When George was in Mbeya he booked
                    seats for the children and me on the first available plane. We will fly to Broken Hill and go
                    on to Cape Town from there by train.

                    Ann and George are wildly thrilled at the idea of flying but I am not. I remember
                    only too well how airsick I was on the old Hannibal when I flew home with the baby Ann.
                    I am longing to see you all and it will be heaven to give the children their first seaside
                    holiday.

                    I mean to return with Kate after three months but, if you will have him, I shall leave
                    George behind with you for a year. You said you would all be delighted to have Ann so
                    I do hope you will also be happy to have young George. Together they are no trouble
                    at all. They amuse themselves and are very independent and loveable.
                    George and I have discussed the matter taking into consideration the letters from
                    you and George’s Mother on the subject. If you keep Ann and George for a year, my
                    mother-in-law will go to Cape Town next year and fetch them. They will live in England
                    with her until they are fit enough to return to the Tropics. After the children and I have left
                    on this holiday, George will be able to move around and look for a job that will pay
                    sufficiently to enable us to go to England in a few years time to fetch our children home.
                    We both feel very sad at the prospect of this parting but the children’s health
                    comes before any other consideration. I hope Kate will stand up better to the Tropics.
                    She is plump and rosy and could not look more bonny if she lived in a temperate
                    climate.

                    We should be with you in three weeks time!

                    Very much love,
                    Eleanor.

                    Broken Hill, N Rhodesia 11th February 1937

                    Dearest Family,

                    Well here we are safe and sound at the Great Northern Hotel, Broken Hill, all
                    ready to board the South bound train tonight.

                    We were still on the diggings on Ann’s birthday, February 8th, when George had
                    a letter from Mbeya to say that our seats were booked on the plane leaving Mbeya on
                    the 10th! What a rush we had packing up. Ann was in bed with malaria so we just
                    bundled her up in blankets and set out in John Molteno’s car for the farm. We arrived that
                    night and spent the next day on the farm sorting things out. Ann and George wanted to
                    take so many of their treasures and it was difficult for them to make a small selection. In
                    the end young George’s most treasured possession, his sturdy little boots, were left
                    behind.

                    Before leaving home on the morning of the tenth I took some snaps of Ann and
                    young George in the garden and one of them with their father. He looked so sad. After
                    putting us on the plane, George planned to go to the fishing camp for a day or two
                    before returning to the empty house on the farm.

                    John Molteno returned from the Cape by plane just before we took off, so he
                    will take over the running of his claims once more. I told John that I dreaded the plane trip
                    on account of air sickness so he gave me two pills which I took then and there. Oh dear!
                    How I wished later that I had not done so. We had an extremely bumpy trip and
                    everyone on the plane was sick except for small George who loved every moment.
                    Poor Ann had a dreadful time but coped very well and never complained. I did not
                    actually puke until shortly before we landed at Broken Hill but felt dreadfully ill all the way.
                    Kate remained rosy and cheerful almost to the end. She sat on my lap throughout the
                    trip because, being under age, she travelled as baggage and was not entitled to a seat.
                    Shortly before we reached Broken Hill a smartly dressed youngish man came up
                    to me and said, “You look so poorly, please let me take the baby, I have children of my
                    own and know how to handle them.” Kate made no protest and off they went to the
                    back of the plane whilst I tried to relax and concentrate on not getting sick. However,
                    within five minutes the man was back. Kate had been thoroughly sick all over his collar
                    and jacket.

                    I took Kate back on my lap and then was violently sick myself, so much so that
                    when we touched down at Broken Hill I was unable to speak to the Immigration Officer.
                    He was so kind. He sat beside me until I got my diaphragm under control and then
                    drove me up to the hotel in his own car.

                    We soon recovered of course and ate a hearty dinner. This morning after
                    breakfast I sallied out to look for a Bank where I could exchange some money into
                    Rhodesian and South African currency and for the Post Office so that I could telegraph
                    to George and to you. What a picnic that trip was! It was a terribly hot day and there was
                    no shade. By the time we had done our chores, the children were hot, and cross, and
                    tired and so indeed was I. As I had no push chair for Kate I had to carry her and she is
                    pretty heavy for eighteen months. George, who is still not strong, clung to my free arm
                    whilst Ann complained bitterly that no one was helping her.

                    Eventually Ann simply sat down on the pavement and declared that she could
                    not go another step, whereupon George of course decided that he also had reached his
                    limit and sat down too. Neither pleading no threats would move them so I had to resort
                    to bribery and had to promise that when we reached the hotel they could have cool
                    drinks and ice-cream. This promise got the children moving once more but I am determined that nothing will induce me to stir again until the taxi arrives to take us to the
                    station.

                    This letter will go by air and will reach you before we do. How I am longing for
                    journeys end.

                    With love to you all,
                    Eleanor.

                    Leaving home 10th February 1937,  George Gilman Rushby with Ann and Georgie (Mike) Rushby:

                    George Rushby Ann and Georgie

                    NOTE
                    We had a very warm welcome to the family home at Plumstead Cape Town.
                    After ten days with my family we moved to Hout Bay where Mrs Thomas lent us her
                    delightful seaside cottage. She also provided us with two excellent maids so I had
                    nothing to do but rest and play on the beach with the children.

                    After a month at the sea George had fully recovered his health though not his
                    former gay spirits. After another six months with my parents I set off for home with Kate,
                    leaving Ann and George in my parent’s home under the care of my elder sister,
                    Marjorie.

                    One or two incidents during that visit remain clearly in my memory. Our children
                    had never met elderly people and were astonished at the manifestations of age. One
                    morning an elderly lady came around to collect church dues. She was thin and stooped
                    and Ann surveyed her with awe. She turned to me with a puzzled expression and
                    asked in her clear voice, “Mummy, why has that old lady got a moustache – oh and a
                    beard?’ The old lady in question was very annoyed indeed and said, “What a rude little
                    girl.” Ann could not understand this, she said, “But Mummy, I only said she had a
                    moustache and a beard and she has.” So I explained as best I could that when people
                    have defects of this kind they are hurt if anyone mentions them.

                    A few days later a strange young woman came to tea. I had been told that she
                    had a most disfiguring birthmark on her cheek and warned Ann that she must not
                    comment on it. Alas! with the kindest intentions Ann once again caused me acute
                    embarrassment. The young woman was hardly seated when Ann went up to her and
                    gently patted the disfiguring mark saying sweetly, “Oh, I do like this horrible mark on your
                    face.”

                    I remember also the afternoon when Kate and George were christened. My
                    mother had given George a white silk shirt for the occasion and he wore it with intense
                    pride. Kate was baptised first without incident except that she was lost in admiration of a
                    gold bracelet given her that day by her Godmother and exclaimed happily, “My
                    bangle, look my bangle,” throughout the ceremony. When George’s turn came the
                    clergyman held his head over the font and poured water on George’s forehead. Some
                    splashed on his shirt and George protested angrily, “Mum, he has wet my shirt!” over
                    and over again whilst I led him hurriedly outside.

                    My last memory of all is at the railway station. The time had come for Kate and
                    me to get into our compartment. My sisters stood on the platform with Ann and George.
                    Ann was resigned to our going, George was not so, at the last moment Sylvia, my
                    younger sister, took him off to see the engine. The whistle blew and I said good-bye to
                    my gallant little Ann. “Mummy”, she said urgently to me, “Don’t forget to wave to
                    George.”

                    And so I waved good-bye to my children, never dreaming that a war would
                    intervene and it would be eight long years before I saw them again.

                    #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

                          #6253
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            My Grandparents Kitchen

                            My grandmother used to have golden syrup in her larder, hanging on the white plastic coated storage rack that was screwed to the inside of the larder door. Mostly the larder door was left propped open with an old flat iron, so you could see the Heinz ketchup and home made picallilli (she made a particularly good picallili), the Worcester sauce and the jar of pickled onions, as you sat at the kitchen table.

                            If you were sitting to the right of the kitchen table you could see an assortment of mismatched crockery, cups and bowls, shoe cleaning brushes, and at the back, tiny tins of baked beans and big ones of plum tomatoes,  and normal sized tins of vegetable and mushroom soup.  Underneath the little shelves that housed the tins was a blue plastic washing up bowl with a few onions, some in, some out of the yellow string bag they came home from the expensive little village supermarket in.

                            There was much more to the left in the awkward triangular shape under the stairs, but you couldn’t see under there from your seat at the kitchen table.  You could see the shelf above the larder door which held an ugly china teapot of graceless modern lines, gazed with metallic silver which was wearing off in places. Beside the teapot sat a serving bowl, squat and shapely with little handles, like a flattened Greek urn, in white and reddish brown with flecks of faded gilt. A plain white teapot completed the trio, a large cylindrical one with neat vertical ridges and grooves.

                            There were two fridges under the high shallow wooden wall cupboard.  A waist high bulbous old green one with a big handle that pulled out with a clunk, and a chest high sleek white one with a small freezer at the top with a door of its own.  On the top of the fridges were biscuit and cracker tins, big black keys, pencils and brittle yellow notepads, rubber bands and aspirin value packs and a bottle of Brufen.  There was a battered old maroon spectacle case and a whicker letter rack, letters crammed in and fanning over the top.  There was always a pile of glossy advertising pamphlets and flyers on top of the fridges, of the sort that were best put straight into the tiny pedal bin.

                            My grandmother never lined the pedal bin with a used plastic bag, nor with a specially designed plastic bin liner. The bin was so small that the flip top lid was often gaping, resting on a mound of cauliflower greens and soup tins.  Behind the pedal bin, but on the outer aspect of the kitchen wall, was the big black dustbin with the rubbery lid. More often than not, the lid was thrust upwards. If Thursday when the dustbin men came was several days away, you’d wish you hadn’t put those newspapers in, or those old shoes!  You stood in the softly drizzling rain in your slippers, the rubbery sheild of a lid in your left hand and the overflowing pedal bin in the other.  The contents of the pedal bin are not going to fit into the dustbin.  You sigh, put the pedal bin and the dustbin lid down, and roll up your sleeves ~ carefully, because you’ve poked your fingers into a porridge covered teabag.  You grab the sides of the protruding black sack and heave. All being well,  the contents should settle and you should have several inches more of plastic bag above the rim of the dustbin.  Unless of course it’s a poor quality plastic bag in which case your fingernail will go through and a horizontal slash will appear just below rubbish level.  Eventually you upend the pedal bin and scrape the cigarette ash covered potato peelings into the dustbin with your fingers. By now the fibres of your Shetland wool jumper are heavy with damp, just like the fuzzy split ends that curl round your pale frowning brow.  You may push back your hair with your forearm causing the moisture to bead and trickle down your face, as you turn the brass doorknob with your palm and wrist, tea leaves and cigarette ash clinging unpleasantly to your fingers.

                            The pedal bin needs rinsing in the kitchen sink, but the sink is full of mismatched saucepans, some new in shades of harvest gold, some battered and mishapen in stainless steel and aluminium, bits of mashed potato stuck to them like concrete pebbledash. There is a pale pink octagonally ovoid shallow serving dish and a little grey soup bowl with a handle like a miniature pottery saucepan decorated with kitcheny motifs.

                            The water for the coffee bubbles in a suacepan on the cream enamelled gas cooker. My grandmother never used a kettle, although I do remember a heavy flame orange one. The little pan for boiling water had a lip for easy pouring and a black plastic handle.

                            The steam has caused the condensation on the window over the sink to race in rivulets down to the fablon coated windowsill.  The yellow gingham curtains hang limply, the left one tucked behind the back of the cooker.

                            You put the pedal bin back it it’s place below the tea towel holder, and rinse your mucky fingers under the tap. The gas water heater on the wall above you roars into life just as you turn the tap off, and disappointed, subsides.

                            As you lean over to turn the cooker knob, the heat from the oven warms your arm. The gas oven was almost always on, the oven door open with clean tea towels and sometimes large white pants folded over it to air.

                            The oven wasn’t the only heat in my grandparents kitchen. There was an electric bar fire near the red formica table which used to burn your legs. The kitchen table was extended by means of a flap at each side. When I was small I wasn’t allowed to snap the hinge underneath shut as my grandmother had pinched the skin of her palm once.

                            The electric fire was plugged into the same socket as the radio. The radio took a minute or two to warm up when you switched it on, a bulky thing with sharp seventies edges and a reddish wood effect veneer and big knobs.  The light for my grandfathers workshop behind the garage (where he made dentures) was plugged into the same socket, which had a big heavy white three way adaptor in. The plug for the washing machine was hooked by means of a bit of string onto a nail or hook so that it didn’t fall down behing the washing machine when it wasn’t plugged in. Everything was unplugged when it wasn’t in use.  Sometimes there was a shrivelled Christmas cactus on top of the radio, but it couldn’t hide the adaptor and all those plugs.

                            Above the washing machine was a rhomboid wooden wall cupboard with sliding frsoted glass doors.  It was painted creamy gold, the colour of a nicotine stained pub ceiling, and held packets of Paxo stuffing and little jars of Bovril and Marmite, packets of Bisto and a jar of improbably red Maraschino cherries.

                            The nicotine coloured cupboard on the opposite wall had half a dozen large hooks screwed under the bottom shelf. A variety of mugs and cups hung there when they weren’t in the bowl waiting to be washed up. Those cupboard doors seemed flimsy for their size, and the thin beading on the edge of one door had come unstuck at the bottom and snapped back if you caught it with your sleeve.  The doors fastened with a little click in the centre, and the bottom of the door reverberated slightly as you yanked it open. There were always crumbs in the cupboard from the numerous packets of bisucits and crackers and there was always an Allbran packet with the top folded over to squeeze it onto the shelf. The sugar bowl was in there, sticky grains like sandpaper among the biscuit crumbs.

                            Half of one of the shelves was devoted to medicines: grave looking bottles of codeine linctus with no nonsense labels,  brown glass bottles with pills for rheumatism and angina.  Often you would find a large bottle, nearly full, of Brewers yeast or vitamin supplements with a dollar price tag, souvenirs of the familys last visit.  Above the medicines you’d find a faded packet of Napolitana pasta bows or a dusty packet of muesli. My grandparents never used them but she left them in the cupboard. Perhaps the dollar price tags and foreign foods reminded her of her children.

                            If there had been a recent visit you would see monstrous jars of Sanka and Maxwell House coffee in there too, but they always used the coffee.  They liked evaporated milk in their coffee, and used tins and tins of “evap” as they called it. They would pour it over tinned fruit, or rhubard crumble or stewed apples.

                            When there was just the two of them, or when I was there as well, they’d eat at the kitchen table. The table would be covered in a white embroidered cloth and the food served in mismatched serving dishes. The cutlery was large and bent, the knife handles in varying shades of bone. My grandfathers favourite fork had the tip of each prong bent in a different direction. He reckoned it was more efficient that way to spear his meat.  He often used to chew his meat and then spit it out onto the side of his plate. Not in company, of course.  I can understand why he did that, not having eaten meat myself for so long. You could chew a piece of meat for several hours and still have a stringy lump between your cheek and your teeth.

                            My grandfather would always have a bowl of Allbran with some Froment wheat germ for his breakfast, while reading the Daily Mail at the kitchen table.  He never worse slippers, always shoes indoors,  and always wore a tie.  He had lots of ties but always wore a plain maroon one.  His shirts were always cream and buttoned at throat and cuff, and eventually started wearing shirts without detachable collars. He wore greeny grey trousers and a cardigan of the same shade most of the time, the same colour as a damp English garden.

                            The same colour as the slimy green wooden clothes pegs that I threw away and replaced with mauve and fuschia pink plastic ones.  “They’re a bit bright for up the garden, aren’t they,” he said.  He was right. I should have ignored the green peg stains on the laundry.  An English garden should be shades of moss and grassy green, rich umber soil and brick red walls weighed down with an atmosphere of dense and heavy greyish white.

                            After Grandma died and Mop had retired (I always called him Mop, nobody knows why) at 10:00am precisely Mop would  have a cup of instant coffee with evap. At lunch, a bowl of tinned vegetable soup in his special soup bowl, and a couple of Krackawheat crackers and a lump of mature Cheddar. It was a job these days to find a tasty cheddar, he’d say.

                            When he was working, and he worked until well into his seventies, he took sandwiches. Every day he had the same sandwich filling: a combination of cheese, peanut butter and marmite.  It was an unusal choice for an otherwise conventional man.  He loved my grandmothers cooking, which wasn’t brilliant but was never awful. She was always generous with the cheese in cheese sauces and the meat in meat pies. She overcooked the cauliflower, but everyone did then. She made her gravy in the roasting pan, and made onion sauce, bread sauce, parsley sauce and chestnut stuffing.  She had her own version of cosmopolitan favourites, and called her quiche a quiche when everyone was still calling it egg and bacon pie. She used to like Auntie Daphne’s ratatouille, rather exotic back then, and pronounced it Ratta Twa.  She made pizza unlike any other, with shortcrust pastry smeared with tomato puree from a tube, sprinkled with oregano and great slabs of cheddar.

                            The roast was always overdone. “We like our meat well done” she’d say. She’d walk up the garden to get fresh mint for the mint sauce and would announce with pride “these runner beans are out of the garding”. They always grew vegetables at the top of the garden, behind the lawn and the silver birch tree.  There was always a pudding: a slice of almond tart (always with home made pastry), a crumble or stewed fruit. Topped with evap, of course.

                            #6240
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              Phyllis Ellen Marshall

                              1909 – 1983

                              Phyllis Marshall

                               

                              Phyllis, my grandfather George Marshall’s sister, never married. She lived in her parents home in Love Lane, and spent decades of her later life bedridden, living alone and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She had her bed in the front downstairs room, and had cords hanging by her bed to open the curtains, turn on the tv and so on, and she had carers and meals on wheels visit her daily. The room was dark and grim, but Phyllis was always smiling and cheerful.  Phyllis loved the Degas ballerinas and had a couple of prints on the walls.

                              I remember visiting her, but it has only recently registered that this was my great grandparents house. When I was a child, we visited her and she indicated a tin on a chest of drawers and said I could take a biscuit. It was a lemon puff, and was the stalest biscuit I’d ever had. To be polite I ate it. Then she offered me another one! I declined, but she thought I was being polite and said “Go on! You can have another!” I ate another one, and have never eaten a lemon puff since that day.

                              Phyllis’s nephew Bryan Marshall used to visit her regularly. I didn’t realize how close they were until recently, when I resumed contact with Bryan, who emigrated to USA in the 1970s following a successful application for a job selling stained glass windows and church furnishings.

                              I asked on a Stourbridge facebook group if anyone remembered her.

                              AF  Yes I remember her. My friend and I used to go up from Longlands school every Friday afternoon to do jobs for her. I remember she had a record player and we used to put her 45rpm record on Send in the Clowns for her. Such a lovely lady. She had her bed in the front room.

                              KW I remember very clearly a lady in a small house in Love Lane with alley at the left hand.  I was intrigued by this lady who used to sit with the front door open and she was in a large chair of some sort. I used to see people going in and out and the lady was smiling. I was young then (31) and wondered how she coped but my sense was she had lots of help.  I’ve never forgotten that lady in Love Lane sitting in the open door way I suppose when it was warm enough.

                              LR I used to deliver meals on wheels to her lovely lady.

                              I sent Bryan the comments from the Stourbridge group and he replied:

                              Thanks Tracy. I don’t recognize the names here but lovely to see such kind comments.
                              In the early 70’s neighbors on Corser Street, Mr. & Mrs. Walter Braithwaite would pop around with occasional visits and meals. Walter was my piano teacher for awhile when I was in my early twenties. He was a well known music teacher at Rudolph Steiner School (former Elmfield School) on Love Lane. A very fine school. I seem to recall seeing a good article on Walter recently…perhaps on the Stourbridge News website. He was very well known.
                              I’m ruminating about life with my Aunt Phyllis. We were very close. Our extra special time was every Saturday at 5pm (I seem to recall) we’d watch Doctor Who. Right from the first episode. We loved it. Likewise I’d do the children’s crossword out of Woman’s Realm magazine…always looking to win a camera but never did ! She opened my mind to the Bible, music and ballet. She once got tickets and had a taxi take us into Birmingham to see the Bolshoi Ballet…at a time when they rarely left their country. It was a very big deal in the early 60’s. ! I’ve many fond memories about her and grandad which I’ll share in due course. I’d change the steel needle on the old record player, following each play of the 78rpm records…oh my…another world.

                              Bryan continues reminiscing about Phyllis in further correspondence:

                              Yes, I can recall those two Degas prints. I don’t know much of Phyllis’ early history other than she was a hairdresser in Birmingham. I want to say at John Lewis, for some reason (so there must have been a connection and being such a large store I bet they did have a salon?)
                              You will know that she had severe and debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that eventually gnarled her hands and moved through her body. I remember strapping on her leg/foot braces and hearing her writhe in pain as I did so but she wanted to continue walking standing/ getting up as long as she could. I’d take her out in the wheelchair and I can’t believe I say it along …but down Stanley Road!! (I had subsequent nightmares about what could have happened to her, had I tripped or let go!) She loved Mary Stevens Park, the swans, ducks and of course Canadian geese. Was grateful for everything in creation. As I used to go over Hanbury Hill on my visit to Love Lane, she would always remind me to smell the “sea-air” as I crested the hill.
                              In the earlier days she smoked cigarettes with one of those long filters…looking like someone from the twenties.

                              I’ll check on “Send in the clowns”. I do recall that music. I remember also she loved to hear Neil Diamond. Her favorites in classical music gave me an appreciation of Elgar and Delius especially. She also loved ballet music such as Swan Lake and Nutcracker. Scheherazade and La Boutique Fantastic also other gems.
                              When grandad died she and aunt Dorothy shared more about grandma (who died I believe when John and I were nine-months old…therefore early 1951). Grandma (Mary Ann Gilman Purdy) played the piano and loved Strauss and Offenbach. The piano in the picture you sent had a bad (wonky) leg which would fall off and when we had the piano at 4, Mount Road it was rather dangerous. In any event my parents didn’t want me or others “banging on it” for fear of waking the younger brothers so it disappeared at sometime.
                              By the way, the dog, Flossy was always so rambunctious (of course, she was a JRT!) she was put on the stairway which fortunately had a door on it. Having said that I’ve always loved dogs so was very excited to see her and disappointed when she was not around. 

                              Phyllis with her parents William and Mary Marshall, and Flossie the dog in the garden at Love Lane:

                              Phyllis William and Mary Marshall

                               

                              Bryan continues:

                              I’ll always remember the early days with the outside toilet with the overhead cistern caked in active BIG spider webs. I used to have to light a candle to go outside, shielding the flame until destination. In that space I’d set the candle down and watch the eery shadows move from side to side whilst…well anyway! Then I’d run like hell back into the house. Eventually the kitchen wall was broken through so it became an indoor loo. Phew!
                              In the early days the house was rented for ten-shillings a week…I know because I used to take over a ten-bob-note to a grumpy lady next door who used to sign the receipt in the rent book. Then, I think she died and it became available for $600.00 yes…the whole house for $600.00 but it wasn’t purchased then. Eventually aunt Phyllis purchased it some years later…perhaps when grandad died.

                              I used to work much in the back garden which was a lovely walled garden with arch-type decorations in the brickwork and semicircular shaped capping bricks. The abundant apple tree. Raspberry and loganberry canes. A gooseberry bush and huge Victoria plum tree on the wall at the bottom of the garden which became a wonderful attraction for wasps! (grandad called the “whasps”). He would stew apples and fruit daily.
                              Do you remember their black and white cat Twinky? Always sat on the pink-screen TV and when she died they were convinced that “that’s wot got ‘er”. Grandad of course loved all his cats and as he aged, he named them all “Billy”.

                              Have you come across the name “Featherstone” in grandma’s name. I don’t recall any details but Dorothy used to recall this. She did much searching of the family history Such a pity she didn’t hand anything on to anyone. She also said that we had a member of the family who worked with James Watt….but likewise I don’t have details.
                              Gifts of chocolates to Phyllis were regular and I became the recipient of the overflow!

                              What a pity Dorothy’s family history research has disappeared!  I have found the Featherstone’s, and the Purdy who worked with James Watt, but I wonder what else Dorothy knew.

                              I mentioned DH Lawrence to Bryan, and the connection to Eastwood, where Bryan’s grandma (and Phyllis’s mother) Mary Ann Gilman Purdy was born, and shared with him the story about Francis Purdy, the Primitive Methodist minister, and about Francis’s son William who invented the miners lamp.

                              He replied:

                              As a nosy young man I was looking through the family bookcase in Love Lane and came across a brown paper covered book. Intrigued, I found “Sons and Lovers” D.H. Lawrence. I knew it was a taboo book (in those days) as I was growing up but now I see the deeper connection. Of course! I know that Phyllis had I think an earlier boyfriend by the name of Maurice who lived in Perry Barr, Birmingham. I think he later married but was always kind enough to send her a book and fond message each birthday (Feb.12). I guess you know grandad’s birthday – July 28. We’d always celebrate those days. I’d usually be the one to go into Oldswinford and get him a cardigan or pullover and later on, his 2oz tins of St. Bruno tobacco for his pipe (I recall the room filled with smoke as he puffed away).
                              Dorothy and Phyllis always spoke of their ancestor’s vocation as a Minister. So glad to have this history! Wow, what a story too. The Lord rescued him from mischief indeed. Just goes to show how God can change hearts…one at a time.
                              So interesting to hear about the Miner’s Lamp. My vicar whilst growing up at St. John’s in Stourbridge was from Durham and each Harvest Festival, there would be a miner’s lamp placed upon the altar as a symbol of the colliery and the bountiful harvest.

                              More recollections from Bryan about the house and garden at Love Lane:

                              I always recall tea around the three legged oak table bedecked with a colorful seersucker cloth. Battenburg cake. Jam Roll. Rich Tea and Digestive biscuits. Mr. Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes! Home-made jam.  Loose tea from the Coronation tin cannister. The ancient mangle outside the back door and the galvanized steel wash tub with hand-operated agitator on the underside of the lid. The hand operated water pump ‘though modernisation allowed for a cold tap only inside, above the single sink and wooden draining board. A small gas stove and very little room for food preparation. Amazing how the Marshalls (×7) managed in this space!

                              The small window over the sink in the kitchen brought in little light since the neighbor built on a bathroom annex at the back of their house, leaving #47 with limited light, much to to upset of grandad and Phyllis. I do recall it being a gloomy place..i.e.the kitchen and back room.

                              The garden was lovely. Long and narrow with privet hedge dividing the properties on the right and the lovely wall on the left. Dorothy planted spectacular lilac bushes against the wall. Vivid blues, purples and whites. Double-flora. Amazing…and with stunning fragrance. Grandad loved older victorian type plants such as foxgloves and comfrey. Forget-me-nots and marigolds (calendulas) in abundance.  Rhubarb stalks. Always plantings of lettuce and other vegetables. Lots of mint too! A large varigated laurel bush outside the front door!

                              Such a pleasant walk through the past. 

                              An autograph book belonging to Phyllis from the 1920s has survived in which each friend painted a little picture, drew a cartoon, or wrote a verse.  This entry is perhaps my favourite:

                              Ripping Time

                              #6238
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                Ellen (Nellie) Purdy

                                My grandfathers aunt Nellie Purdy 1872-1947 grew up with his mother Mary Ann at the Gilmans in Buxton.  We knew she was a nurse or a matron, and that she made a number of trips to USA.

                                I started looking for passenger lists and immigration lists (we had already found some of them, and my cousin Linda Marshall in Boston found some of them), and found one in 1904 with details of the “relatives address while in US”.

                                October 31st, 1904, Ellen Purdy sailed from Liverpool to Baltimore on the Friesland. She was a 32 year old nurse and she paid for her own ticket. The address of relatives in USA was Druid Hill and Lafayette Ave, Baltimore, Maryland.

                                I wondered if she stayed with relatives, perhaps they were the Housley descendants. It was her great uncle George Housley who emigrated in 1851, not so far away in Pennsylvania. I wanted to check the Baltimore census to find out the names at that address, in case they were Housley’s. So I joined a Baltimore History group on facebook, and asked how I might find out.  The people were so enormously helpful!  The address was the Home of the Friendless, an orphanage. (a historic landmark of some note I think), and someone even found Ellen Purdy listed in the Baltimore directory as a nurse there.

                                She sailed back to England in 1913.   Ellen sailed in 1900 and 1920 as well but I haven’t unraveled those trips yet.

                                THE HOME OF THE FRIENDLESS, is situated at the corner of Lafayette and Druid Hill avenues, Baltimore. It is a large brick building, which was erected at a cost of $62,000. It was organized in 1854.The chief aim of the founders of this institution was to respond to a need for providing a home for the friendless and homeless children, orphans, and half-orphans, or the offspring of vagrants. It has been managed since its organization by a board of ladies, who, by close attention and efficient management, have made the institution one of the most prominent charitable institutions in the State. From its opening to the present time there have been received 5,000 children, and homes have been secured for nearly one thousand of this number. The institution has a capacity of about 200 inmates. The present number of beneficiaries is 165. A kindergarten and other educational facilities are successfully conducted. The home knows no demonimational creed, being non-sectarian. Its principal source of revenue is derived from private contributions. For many years the State has appropriated different sums towards it maintenance, and the General Assembly of 1892 contributed the sum of $3,000 per annum.

                                A later trip:   The ship’s manifest from May 1920 the Baltic lists Ellen on board arriving in Ellis Island heading to Baltimore age 48. The next of kin is listed as George Purdy (her father) of 2 Gregory Blvd Forest Side, Nottingham. She’s listed as a nurse, and sailed from Liverpool May 8 1920.

                                Ellen Purdy

                                 

                                Ellen eventually retired in England and married Frank Garbett, a tax collector,  at the age of 51 in Herefordshire.  Judging from the number of newspaper articles I found about her, she was an active member of the community and was involved in many fundraising activities for the local cottage hospital.

                                Her obituary in THE KINGTON TIMES, NOVEMBER 8, 1947:
                                Mrs. Ellen Garbett wife of Mr. F. Garbett, of Brook Cottage, Kingsland, whose funeral took place at St. Michael’s Church, Kingsland, on October 30th, was a familiar figure in the district, and by her genial manner and kindly ways had endeared herself to many.
                                Mrs Garbett had had a wide experience in the nursing profession. Beginning her training in this country, she went to the Italian Riviera and there continued her work, later going to the United States. In 1916 she gained the Q.A.I.M.N.S. and returned to England and was appointed sister at the Lord Derby Military Hospital, an appointment she held for four years.

                                We didn’t know that Ellen had worked on the Italian Riviera, and hope in due course to find out more about it.

                                Mike Rushby, Ellen’s sister Kate’s grandson in Australia, spoke to his sister in USA recently about Nellie Purdy. She replied:   I told you I remembered Auntie Nellie coming to Jacksdale. She gave me a small green leatherette covered bible which I still have ( though in a very battered condition). Here is a picture of it.

                                Ellen Purdy bible

                                #6222
                                TracyTracy
                                Participant

                                  George Gilman Rushby: The Cousin Who Went To Africa

                                  The portrait of the woman has “mother of Catherine Housley, Smalley” written on the back, and one of the family photographs has “Francis Purdy” written on the back. My first internet search was “Catherine Housley Smalley Francis Purdy”. Easily found was the family tree of George (Mike) Rushby, on one of the genealogy websites. It seemed that it must be our family, but the African lion hunter seemed unlikely until my mother recalled her father had said that he had a cousin who went to Africa. I also noticed that the lion hunter’s middle name was Gilman ~ the name that Catherine Housley’s daughter ~ my great grandmother, Mary Ann Gilman Purdy ~ adopted, from her aunt and uncle who brought her up.

                                  I tried to contact George (Mike) Rushby via the ancestry website, but got no reply. I searched for his name on Facebook and found a photo of a wildfire in a place called Wardell, in Australia, and he was credited with taking the photograph. A comment on the photo, which was a few years old, got no response, so I found a Wardell Community group on Facebook, and joined it. A very small place, population some 700 or so, and I had an immediate response on the group to my question. They knew Mike, exchanged messages, and we were able to start emailing. I was in the chair at the dentist having an exceptionally long canine root canal at the time that I got the message with his email address, and at that moment the song Down in Africa started playing.

                                  Mike said it was clever of me to track him down which amused me, coming from the son of an elephant and lion hunter.  He didn’t know why his father’s middle name was Gilman, and was not aware that Catherine Housley’s sister married a Gilman.

                                  Mike Rushby kindly gave me permission to include his family history research in my book.  This is the story of my grandfather George Marshall’s cousin.  A detailed account of George Gilman Rushby’s years in Africa can be found in another chapter called From Tanganyika With Love; the letters Eleanor wrote to her family.

                                  George Gilman Rushby:

                                  George Gilman Rushby

                                   

                                  The story of George Gilman Rushby 1900-1969, as told by his son Mike:

                                  George Gilman Rushby:
                                  Elephant hunter,poacher, prospector, farmer, forestry officer, game ranger, husband to Eleanor, and father of 6 children who now live around the world.

                                  George Gilman Rushby was born in Nottingham on 28 Feb 1900 the son of Catherine Purdy and John Henry Payling Rushby. But John Henry died when his son was only one and a half years old, and George shunned his drunken bullying stepfather Frank Freer and was brought up by Gypsies who taught him how to fight and took him on regular poaching trips. His love of adventure and his ability to hunt were nurtured at an early stage of his life.
                                  The family moved to Eastwood, where his mother Catherine owned and managed The Three Tuns Inn, but when his stepfather died in mysterious circumstances, his mother married a wealthy bookmaker named Gregory Simpson. He could afford to send George to Worksop College and to Rugby School. This was excellent schooling for George, but the boarding school environment, and the lack of a stable home life, contributed to his desire to go out in the world and do his own thing. When he finished school his first job was as a trainee electrician with Oaks & Co at Pye Bridge. He also worked part time as a motor cycle mechanic and as a professional boxer to raise the money for a voyage to South Africa.

                                  In May 1920 George arrived in Durban destitute and, like many others, living on the beach and dependant upon the Salvation Army for a daily meal. However he soon got work as an electrical mechanic, and after a couple of months had earned enough money to make the next move North. He went to Lourenco Marques where he was appointed shift engineer for the town’s power station. However he was still restless and left the comfort of Lourenco Marques for Beira in August 1921.

                                  Beira was the start point of the new railway being built from the coast to Nyasaland. George became a professional hunter providing essential meat for the gangs of construction workers building the railway. He was a self employed contractor with his own support crew of African men and began to build up a satisfactory business. However, following an incident where he had to shoot and kill a man who attacked him with a spear in middle of the night whilst he was sleeping, George left the lower Zambezi and took a paddle steamer to Nyasaland (Malawi). On his arrival in Karongo he was encouraged to shoot elephant which had reached plague proportions in the area – wrecking African homes and crops, and threatening the lives of those who opposed them.

                                  His next move was to travel by canoe the five hundred kilometre length of Lake Nyasa to Tanganyika, where he hunted for a while in the Lake Rukwa area, before walking through Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) to the Congo. Hunting his way he overachieved his quota of ivory resulting in his being charged with trespass, the confiscation of his rifles, and a fine of one thousand francs. He hunted his way through the Congo to Leopoldville then on to the Portuguese enclave, near the mouth of the mighty river, where he worked as a barman in a rough and tough bar until he received a message that his old friend Lumb had found gold at Lupa near Chunya. George set sail on the next boat for Antwerp in Belgium, then crossed to England and spent a few weeks with his family in Jacksdale before returning by sea to Dar es Salaam. Arriving at the gold fields he pegged his claim and almost immediately went down with blackwater fever – an illness that used to kill three out of four within a week.

                                  When he recovered from his fever, George exchanged his gold lease for a double barrelled .577 elephant rifle and took out a special elephant control licence with the Tanganyika Government. He then headed for the Congo again and poached elephant in Northern Rhodesia from a base in the Congo. He was known by the Africans as “iNyathi”, or the Buffalo, because he was the most dangerous in the long grass. After a profitable hunting expedition in his favourite hunting ground of the Kilombera River he returned to the Congo via Dar es Salaam and Mombassa. He was after the Kabalo district elephant, but hunting was restricted, so he set up his base in The Central African Republic at a place called Obo on the Congo tributary named the M’bomu River. From there he could make poaching raids into the Congo and the Upper Nile regions of the Sudan. He hunted there for two and a half years. He seldom came across other Europeans; hunters kept their own districts and guarded their own territories. But they respected one another and he made good and lasting friendships with members of that small select band of adventurers.

                                  Leaving for Europe via the Congo, George enjoyed a short holiday in Jacksdale with his mother. On his return trip to East Africa he met his future bride in Cape Town. She was 24 year old Eleanor Dunbar Leslie; a high school teacher and daughter of a magistrate who spent her spare time mountaineering, racing ocean yachts, and riding horses. After a whirlwind romance, they were betrothed within 36 hours.

                                  On 25 July 1930 George landed back in Dar es Salaam. He went directly to the Mbeya district to find a home. For one hundred pounds he purchased the Waizneker’s farm on the banks of the Mntshewe Stream. Eleanor, who had been delayed due to her contract as a teacher, followed in November. Her ship docked in Dar es Salaam on 7 Nov 1930, and they were married that day. At Mchewe Estate, their newly acquired farm, they lived in a tent whilst George with some help built their first home – a lovely mud-brick cottage with a thatched roof. George and Eleanor set about developing a coffee plantation out of a bush block. It was a very happy time for them. There was no electricity, no radio, and no telephone. Newspapers came from London every two months. There were a couple of neighbours within twenty miles, but visitors were seldom seen. The farm was a haven for wild life including snakes, monkeys and leopards. Eleanor had to go South all the way to Capetown for the birth of her first child Ann, but with the onset of civilisation, their first son George was born at a new German Mission hospital that had opened in Mbeya.

                                  Occasionally George had to leave the farm in Eleanor’s care whilst he went off hunting to make his living. Having run the coffee plantation for five years with considerable establishment costs and as yet no return, George reluctantly started taking paying clients on hunting safaris as a “white hunter”. This was an occupation George didn’t enjoy. but it brought him an income in the days when social security didn’t exist. Taking wealthy clients on hunting trips to kill animals for trophies and for pleasure didn’t amuse George who hunted for a business and for a way of life. When one of George’s trackers was killed by a leopard that had been wounded by a careless client, George was particularly upset.
                                  The coffee plantation was approaching the time of its first harvest when it was suddenly attacked by plagues of borer beetles and ring barking snails. At the same time severe hail storms shredded the crop. The pressure of the need for an income forced George back to the Lupa gold fields. He was unlucky in his gold discoveries, but luck came in a different form when he was offered a job with the Forestry Department. The offer had been made in recognition of his initiation and management of Tanganyika’s rainbow trout project. George spent most of his short time with the Forestry Department encouraging the indigenous people to conserve their native forests.

                                  In November 1938 he transferred to the Game Department as Ranger for the Eastern Province of Tanganyika, and over several years was based at Nzasa near Dar es Salaam, at the old German town of Morogoro, and at lovely Lyamungu on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Then the call came for him to be transferred to Mbeya in the Southern Province for there was a serious problem in the Njombe district, and George was selected by the Department as the only man who could possibly fix the problem.

                                  Over a period of several years, people were being attacked and killed by marauding man-eating lions. In the Wagingombe area alone 230 people were listed as having been killed. In the Njombe district, which covered an area about 200 km by 300 km some 1500 people had been killed. Not only was the rural population being decimated, but the morale of the survivors was so low, that many of them believed that the lions were not real. Many thought that evil witch doctors were controlling the lions, or that lion-men were changing form to kill their enemies. Indeed some wichdoctors took advantage of the disarray to settle scores and to kill for reward.

                                  By hunting down and killing the man-eaters, and by showing the flesh and blood to the doubting tribes people, George was able to instil some confidence into the villagers. However the Africans attributed the return of peace and safety, not to the efforts of George Rushby, but to the reinstallation of their deposed chief Matamula Mangera who had previously been stood down for corruption. It was Matamula , in their eyes, who had called off the lions.

                                  Soon after this adventure, George was appointed Deputy Game Warden for Tanganyika, and was based in Arusha. He retired in 1956 to the Njombe district where he developed a coffee plantation, and was one of the first in Tanganyika to plant tea as a major crop. However he sensed a swing in the political fortunes of his beloved Tanganyika, and so sold the plantation and settled in a cottage high on a hill overlooking the Navel Base at Simonstown in the Cape. It was whilst he was there that TV Bulpin wrote his biography “The Hunter is Death” and George wrote his book “No More The Tusker”. He died in the Cape, and his youngest son Henry scattered his ashes at the Southern most tip of Africa where the currents of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet .

                                  George Gilman Rushby:

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