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  • #7651
    Yurara FamelikiYurara Fameliki
    Participant

      Exploring further potential backstory for the characters – to be explored further…

      :fleuron2:

      This thread beautifully connects to the lingering themes of fractured ideals, missed opportunities, and the pull of reconnection. Here’s an expanded exploration of the “habitats participatifs” (co-housing communities) and how they tie the characters together while weaving in subtle links to their estrangement and Matteo’s role as the fifth element.

      Backstory: The Co-Housing Dream

      Habitat Participatif: A Shared Vision

      The group’s initial bond, forged through shared values and late-night conversations, had coalesced around a dream: buying land in the Drôme region of France to create a co-housing community. The French term habitat participatif—intergenerational, eco-conscious, and collaborative living—perfectly encapsulated their ideals.

      What Drew Them In:

      • Amei: Longing for a sense of rootedness and community after years of drifting.
      • Elara: Intrigued by the participatory aspect, where decisions were made collectively, blending science and sustainability.
      • Darius: Enchanted by the idea of shared creative spaces and a slower, more intentional way of living.
      • Lucien: Inspired by the communal energy, imagining workshops where art could flourish outside the constraints of traditional galleries.

      The Land in Drôme

      They had narrowed their options to a specific site near the village of Crest, not far from Lyon. The land, sprawling and sun-drenched, had an old farmhouse that could serve as a communal hub, surrounded by fields and woods. A nearby river threaded through the valley, and the faint outline of mountains painted the horizon.

      The traboules of Lyon, labyrinthine passageways, had captivated Amei during an earlier visit, leaving her wondering if their metaphorical weaving through life could mirror the paths their group sought to create.

      The Role of Monsieur Renard

      When it came to financing, the group faced challenges. None of them were particularly wealthy, and pooling their resources fell short. Enter Monsieur Renard, whose interest in supporting “projects with potential” brought him into their orbit through Éloïse.

      Initial Promise:

      • Renard presented himself as a patron of innovation, sustainability, and community projects, offering seed funding in exchange for a minor share in the enterprise.
      • His charisma and Éloïse’s insistence made him seem like the perfect ally—until his controlling tendencies emerged.

      The Split: Fractured Trust

      Renard’s involvement—and Éloïse’s increasing influence on Darius—created fault lines in the group.

      1. Darius’s Drift:
        • Darius became entranced by Renard and Éloïse’s vision of community as something deeper, bordering on spiritual. Renard spoke of “energetic alignment” and the importance of a guiding vision, which resonated with Darius’s creative side.
        • He began advocating for Renard’s deeper involvement, insisting the project couldn’t succeed without external backing.
      2. Elara’s Resistance:
        • Elara, ever the pragmatist, saw Renard as manipulative, his promises too vague and his influence too broad. Her resistance created tension with Darius, whom she accused of being naive.
        • “This isn’t about community for him,” she had said. “It’s about control.”
      3. Lucien’s Hesitation:
        • Lucien, torn between loyalty to his friends and his own fascination with Éloïse, wavered. Her talk of labyrinths and collective energy intrigued him, but he grew wary of her sway over Darius.
        • When Renard offered to fund Lucien’s art, he hesitated, sensing a price he couldn’t articulate.
      4. Amei’s Silence:
        • Amei, haunted by her own experiences with manipulation in past relationships, withdrew. She saw the dream slipping away but couldn’t bring herself to fight for it.

      Matteo’s Unseen Role

      Unbeknownst to the others, Matteo had been invited to join as a fifth partner—a practical addition to balance their idealism. His background in construction and agriculture, coupled with his easygoing nature, made him a perfect fit.

      The Missed Connection:

      • Matteo had visited the Drôme site briefly, a stranger to the group but intrigued by their vision. His presence was meant to ground their plans, to bring practicality to their shared dream.
      • By the time he arrived, however, the group’s fractures were deepening. Renard’s shadow loomed too large, and the guru-like influence of Éloïse had soured the collaborative energy. Matteo left quietly, sensing the dream unraveling before it could take root.

      The Fallout: A Fractured Dream

      The group dissolved after a final argument about Renard’s involvement:

      • Elara refused to move forward with his funding. “I’m not selling my future to him,” she said bluntly.
      • Darius, feeling betrayed, accused her of sabotaging the dream out of stubbornness.
      • Lucien, caught in the middle, tried to mediate but ultimately sided with Elara.
      • Amei, already pulling away, suggested they put the project on hold.

      The land was never purchased. The group scattered soon after, their estrangement compounded by the pandemic. Matteo drifted in a different direction, their connection lost before it could form.

      Amei’s Perspective: Post-Split Reflection

      In the scene where Amei buys candles :

      • The shopkeeper’s comments about “seeking something greater” resonate with Amei’s memory of the co-housing dream and how it became entangled with Éloïse and Renard’s influence.
      • Her sharper-than-usual reply reflects her lingering bitterness over the way “seeking” led to manipulation and betrayal.

      Reunion at the Café: A New Beginning

      When the group reunites, the dream of the co-housing project lingers as a symbol of what was lost—but also of what could still be reclaimed. Matteo’s presence at the café bridges the gap between their fractured past and a potential new path.

      Matteo’s Role:

      • His unspoken connection to the co-housing plan becomes a point of quiet irony: he was meant to be part of their story all along but arrived too late. Now, at the café, he steps into the role he missed years ago—the one who helps them see the threads that still bind them.
      #7608

      “Maybe I’m just old fashioned but those things are just weird,” Truella shook her head as she tried to get her focus and equilibrium back.  “Great pics though, Jez.  Look how clean my nails are.”

      “I thought we were going to Amalfi, I was looking forward to that,” said Frella, not sure whether she liked the VR pod experience.

      “So was I until I found out about the Limoncello. Can’t stand that evil brew, instant heartburn.”

      “You don’t have to drink it, Tru,” Eris replied with a withering look.  “We need to buy a few things before Giovanni’s time travel trip to the abandoned Colosseum. Secateurs and zip lock plastic bags for the seeds and plant cuttings. I wonder where the proper stores are, we seem to be surrounded with souvenir and gift shops and bakeries.”

      “I’ll get a trowel. No, I’m not planning to start a dig, but it might come in handy. I’ll go with Eris and you two can mooch about buying over priced tourist tat.  Get me a dozen postcards, will you? And some shawls and scarves for the photos at the Colosseum.”

      #6368
      ÉricÉric
      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.

        #6306
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Looking for Robert Staley

           

          William Warren (1835-1880) of Newhall (Stapenhill) married Elizabeth Staley (1836-1907) in 1858. Elizabeth was born in Newhall, the daughter of John Staley (1795-1876) and Jane Brothers. John was born in Newhall, and Jane was born in Armagh, Ireland, and they were married in Armagh in 1820. Elizabeths older brothers were born in Ireland: William in 1826 and Thomas in Dublin in 1830. Francis was born in Liverpool in 1834, and then Elizabeth in Newhall in 1836; thereafter the children were born in Newhall.

          Marriage of John Staley and Jane Brothers in 1820:

          1820 marriage Armagh

           

           

          My grandmother related a story about an Elizabeth Staley who ran away from boarding school and eloped to Ireland, but later returned. The only Irish connection found so far is Jane Brothers, so perhaps she meant Elizabeth Staley’s mother. A boarding school seems unlikely, and it would seem that it was John Staley who went to Ireland.

          The 1841 census states Jane’s age as 33, which would make her just 12 at the time of her marriage. The 1851 census states her age as 44, making her 13 at the time of her 1820 marriage, and the 1861 census estimates her birth year as a more likely 1804. Birth records in Ireland for her have not been found. It’s possible, perhaps, that she was in service in the Newhall area as a teenager (more likely than boarding school), and that John and Jane ran off to get married in Ireland, although I haven’t found any record of a child born to them early in their marriage. John was an agricultural labourer, and later a coal miner.

          John Staley was the son of Joseph Staley (1756-1838) and Sarah Dumolo (1764-). Joseph and Sarah were married by licence in Newhall in 1782. Joseph was a carpenter on the marriage licence, but later a collier (although not necessarily a miner).

          The Derbyshire Record Office holds records of  an “Estimate of Joseph Staley of Newhall for the cost of continuing to work Pisternhill Colliery” dated 1820 and addresssed to Mr Bloud at Calke Abbey (presumably the owner of the mine)

          Josephs parents were Robert Staley and Elizabeth. I couldn’t find a baptism or birth record for Robert Staley. Other trees on an ancestry site had his birth in Elton, but with no supporting documents. Robert, as stated in his 1795 will, was a Yeoman.

          “Yeoman: A former class of small freeholders who farm their own land; a commoner of good standing.”
          “Husbandman: The old word for a farmer below the rank of yeoman. A husbandman usually held his land by copyhold or leasehold tenure and may be regarded as the ‘average farmer in his locality’. The words ‘yeoman’ and ‘husbandman’ were gradually replaced in the later 18th and 19th centuries by ‘farmer’.”

          He left a number of properties in Newhall and Hartshorne (near Newhall) including dwellings, enclosures, orchards, various yards, barns and acreages. It seemed to me more likely that he had inherited them, rather than moving into the village and buying them.

          There is a mention of Robert Staley in a 1782 newpaper advertisement.

          “Fire Engine To Be Sold.  An exceedingly good fire engine, with the boiler, cylinder, etc in good condition. For particulars apply to Mr Burslem at Burton-upon-Trent, or Robert Staley at Newhall near Burton, where the engine may be seen.”

          fire engine

           

          Was the fire engine perhaps connected with a foundry or a coal mine?

          I noticed that Robert Staley was the witness at a 1755 marriage in Stapenhill between Barbara Burslem and Richard Daston the younger esquire. The other witness was signed Burslem Jnr.

           

          Looking for Robert Staley

           

          I assumed that once again, in the absence of the correct records, a similarly named and aged persons baptism had been added to the tree regardless of accuracy, so I looked through the Stapenhill/Newhall parish register images page by page. There were no Staleys in Newhall at all in the early 1700s, so it seemed that Robert did come from elsewhere and I expected to find the Staleys in a neighbouring parish. But I still didn’t find any Staleys.

          I spoke to a couple of Staley descendants that I’d met during the family research. I met Carole via a DNA match some months previously and contacted her to ask about the Staleys in Elton. She also had Robert Staley born in Elton (indeed, there were many Staleys in Elton) but she didn’t have any documentation for his birth, and we decided to collaborate and try and find out more.

          I couldn’t find the earlier Elton parish registers anywhere online, but eventually found the untranscribed microfiche images of the Bishops Transcripts for Elton.

          via familysearch:
          “In its most basic sense, a bishop’s transcript is a copy of a parish register. As bishop’s transcripts generally contain more or less the same information as parish registers, they are an invaluable resource when a parish register has been damaged, destroyed, or otherwise lost. Bishop’s transcripts are often of value even when parish registers exist, as priests often recorded either additional or different information in their transcripts than they did in the original registers.”

           

          Unfortunately there was a gap in the Bishops Transcripts between 1704 and 1711 ~ exactly where I needed to look. I subsequently found out that the Elton registers were incomplete as they had been damaged by fire.

          I estimated Robert Staleys date of birth between 1710 and 1715. He died in 1795, and his son Daniel died in 1805: both of these wills were found online. Daniel married Mary Moon in Stapenhill in 1762, making a likely birth date for Daniel around 1740.

          The marriage of Robert Staley (assuming this was Robert’s father) and Alice Maceland (or Marsland or Marsden, depending on how the parish clerk chose to spell it presumably) was in the Bishops Transcripts for Elton in 1704. They were married in Elton on 26th February. There followed the missing parish register pages and in all likelihood the records of the baptisms of their first children. No doubt Robert was one of them, probably the first male child.

          (Incidentally, my grandfather’s Marshalls also came from Elton, a small Derbyshire village near Matlock.  The Staley’s are on my grandmothers Warren side.)

          The parish register pages resume in 1711. One of the first entries was the baptism of Robert Staley in 1711, parents Thomas and Ann. This was surely the one we were looking for, and Roberts parents weren’t Robert and Alice.

          But then in 1735 a marriage was recorded between Robert son of Robert Staley (and this was unusual, the father of the groom isn’t usually recorded on the parish register) and Elizabeth Milner. They were married on the 9th March 1735. We know that the Robert we were looking for married an Elizabeth, as her name was on the Stapenhill baptisms of their later children, including Joseph Staleys.  The 1735 marriage also fit with the assumed birth date of Daniel, circa 1740. A baptism was found for a Robert Staley in 1738 in the Elton registers, parents Robert and Elizabeth, as well as the baptism in 1736 for Mary, presumably their first child. Her burial is recorded the following year.

          The marriage of Robert Staley and Elizabeth Milner in 1735:

          rbt staley marriage 1735

           

          There were several other Staley couples of a similar age in Elton, perhaps brothers and cousins. It seemed that Thomas and Ann’s son Robert was a different Robert, and that the one we were looking for was prior to that and on the missing pages.

          Even so, this doesn’t prove that it was Elizabeth Staleys great grandfather who was born in Elton, but no other birth or baptism for Robert Staley has been found. It doesn’t explain why the Staleys moved to Stapenhill either, although the Enclosures Act and the Industrial Revolution could have been factors.

          The 18th century saw the rise of the Industrial Revolution and many renowned Derbyshire Industrialists emerged. They created the turning point from what was until then a largely rural economy, to the development of townships based on factory production methods.

          The Marsden Connection

          There are some possible clues in the records of the Marsden family.  Robert Staley married Alice Marsden (or Maceland or Marsland) in Elton in 1704.  Robert Staley is mentioned in the 1730 will of John Marsden senior,  of Baslow, Innkeeper (Peacock Inne & Whitlands Farm). He mentions his daughter Alice, wife of Robert Staley.

          In a 1715 Marsden will there is an intriguing mention of an alias, which might explain the different spellings on various records for the name Marsden:  “MARSDEN alias MASLAND, Christopher – of Baslow, husbandman, 28 Dec 1714. son Robert MARSDEN alias MASLAND….” etc.

          Some potential reasons for a move from one parish to another are explained in this history of the Marsden family, and indeed this could relate to Robert Staley as he married into the Marsden family and his wife was a beneficiary of a Marsden will.  The Chatsworth Estate, at various times, bought a number of farms in order to extend the park.

          THE MARSDEN FAMILY
          OXCLOSE AND PARKGATE
          In the Parishes of
          Baslow and Chatsworth

          by
          David Dalrymple-Smith

          “John Marsden (b1653) another son of Edmund (b1611) faired well. By the time he died in
          1730 he was publican of the Peacock, the Inn on Church Lane now called the Cavendish
          Hotel, and the farmer at “Whitlands”, almost certainly Bubnell Cliff Farm.”

          “Coal mining was well known in the Chesterfield area. The coalfield extends as far as the
          Gritstone edges, where thin seams outcrop especially in the Baslow area.”

          “…the occupants were evicted from the farmland below Dobb Edge and
          the ground carefully cleared of all traces of occupation and farming. Shelter belts were
          planted especially along the Heathy Lea Brook. An imposing new drive was laid to the
          Chatsworth House with the Lodges and “The Golden Gates” at its northern end….”

          Although this particular event was later than any events relating to Robert Staley, it’s an indication of how farms and farmland disappeared, and a reason for families to move to another area:

          “The Dukes of Devonshire (of Chatsworth)  were major figures in the aristocracy and the government of the
          time. Such a position demanded a display of wealth and ostentation. The 6th Duke of
          Devonshire, the Bachelor Duke, was not content with the Chatsworth he inherited in 1811,
          and immediately started improvements. After major changes around Edensor, he turned his
          attention at the north end of the Park. In 1820 plans were made extend the Park up to the
          Baslow parish boundary. As this would involve the destruction of most of the Farm at
          Oxclose, the farmer at the Higher House Samuel Marsden (b1755) was given the tenancy of
          Ewe Close a large farm near Bakewell.
          Plans were revised in 1824 when the Dukes of Devonshire and Rutland “Exchanged Lands”,
          reputedly during a game of dice. Over 3300 acres were involved in several local parishes, of
          which 1000 acres were in Baslow. In the deal Devonshire acquired the southeast corner of
          Baslow Parish.
          Part of the deal was Gibbet Moor, which was developed for “Sport”. The shelf of land
          between Parkgate and Robin Hood and a few extra fields was left untouched. The rest,
          between Dobb Edge and Baslow, was agricultural land with farms, fields and houses. It was
          this last part that gave the Duke the opportunity to improve the Park beyond his earlier
          expectations.”

           

          The 1795 will of Robert Staley.

          Inriguingly, Robert included the children of his son Daniel Staley in his will, but omitted to leave anything to Daniel.  A perusal of Daniels 1808 will sheds some light on this:  Daniel left his property to his six reputed children with Elizabeth Moon, and his reputed daughter Mary Brearly. Daniels wife was Mary Moon, Elizabeths husband William Moons daughter.

          The will of Robert Staley, 1795:

          1795 will 2

          1795 Rbt Staley will

           

          The 1805 will of Daniel Staley, Robert’s son:

          This is the last will and testament of me Daniel Staley of the Township of Newhall in the parish of Stapenhill in the County of Derby, Farmer. I will and order all of my just debts, funeral and testamentary expenses to be fully paid and satisfied by my executors hereinafter named by and out of my personal estate as soon as conveniently may be after my decease.

          I give, devise and bequeath to Humphrey Trafford Nadin of Church Gresely in the said County of Derby Esquire and John Wilkinson of Newhall aforesaid yeoman all my messuages, lands, tenements, hereditaments and real and personal estates to hold to them, their heirs, executors, administrators and assigns until Richard Moon the youngest of my reputed sons by Elizabeth Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years upon trust that they, my said trustees, (or the survivor of them, his heirs, executors, administrators or assigns), shall and do manage and carry on my farm at Newhall aforesaid and pay and apply the rents, issues and profits of all and every of my said real and personal estates in for and towards the support, maintenance and education of all my reputed children by the said Elizabeth Moon until the said Richard Moon my youngest reputed son shall attain his said age of twenty one years and equally share and share and share alike.

          And it is my will and desire that my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall recruit and keep up the stock upon my farm as they in their discretion shall see occasion or think proper and that the same shall not be diminished. And in case any of my said reputed children by the said Elizabeth Moon shall be married before my said reputed youngest son shall attain his age of twenty one years that then it is my will and desire that non of their husbands or wives shall come to my farm or be maintained there or have their abode there. That it is also my will and desire in case my reputed children or any of them shall not be steady to business but instead shall be wild and diminish the stock that then my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall have full power and authority in their discretion to sell and dispose of all or any part of my said personal estate and to put out the money arising from the sale thereof to interest and to pay and apply the interest thereof and also thereunto of the said real estate in for and towards the maintenance, education and support of all my said reputed children by the said
          Elizabeth Moon as they my said trustees in their discretion that think proper until the said Richard Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years.

          Then I give to my grandson Daniel Staley the sum of ten pounds and to each and every of my sons and daughters namely Daniel Staley, Benjamin Staley, John Staley, William Staley, Elizabeth Dent and Sarah Orme and to my niece Ann Brearly the sum of five pounds apiece.

          I give to my youngest reputed son Richard Moon one share in the Ashby Canal Navigation and I direct that my said trustees or trustee for the time being shall have full power and authority to pay and apply all or any part of the fortune or legacy hereby intended for my youngest reputed son Richard Moon in placing him out to any trade, business or profession as they in their discretion shall think proper.
          And I direct that to my said sons and daughters by my late wife and my said niece shall by wholly paid by my said reputed son Richard Moon out of the fortune herby given him. And it is my will and desire that my said reputed children shall deliver into the hands of my executors all the monies that shall arise from the carrying on of my business that is not wanted to carry on the same unto my acting executor and shall keep a just and true account of all disbursements and receipts of the said business and deliver up the same to my acting executor in order that there may not be any embezzlement or defraud amongst them and from and immediately after my said reputed youngest son Richard Moon shall attain his age of twenty one years then I give, devise and bequeath all my real estate and all the residue and remainder of my personal estate of what nature and kind whatsoever and wheresoever unto and amongst all and every my said reputed sons and daughters namely William Moon, Thomas Moon, Joseph Moon, Richard Moon, Ann Moon, Margaret Moon and to my reputed daughter Mary Brearly to hold to them and their respective heirs, executors, administrator and assigns for ever according to the nature and tenure of the same estates respectively to take the same as tenants in common and not as joint tenants.

          And lastly I nominate and appoint the said Humphrey Trafford Nadin and John Wilkinson executors of this my last will and testament and guardians of all my reputed children who are under age during their respective minorities hereby revoking all former and other wills by me heretofore made and declaring this only to be my last will.

          In witness whereof I the said Daniel Staley the testator have to this my last will and testament set my hand and seal the eleventh day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five.

           

          #6263
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued  ~ part 4

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Life is very quiet just now. Our neighbours have left and I miss them all especially
            Joni who was always a great bearer of news. We also grew fond of his Swedish
            brother-in-law Max, whose loud ‘Hodi’ always brought a glad ‘Karibu’ from us. His wife,
            Marion, I saw less often. She is not strong and seldom went visiting but has always
            been friendly and kind and ready to share her books with me.

            Ann’s birthday is looming ahead and I am getting dreadfully anxious that her
            parcels do not arrive in time. I am delighted that you were able to get a good head for
            her doll, dad, but horrified to hear that it was so expensive. You would love your
            ‘Charming Ann’. She is a most responsible little soul and seems to have outgrown her
            mischievous ways. A pity in a way, I don’t want her to grow too serious. You should see
            how thoroughly Ann baths and towels herself. She is anxious to do Georgie and Kate
            as well.

            I did not mean to teach Ann to write until after her fifth birthday but she has taught
            herself by copying the large print in newspaper headlines. She would draw a letter and
            ask me the name and now I find that at four Ann knows the whole alphabet. The front
            cement steps is her favourite writing spot. She uses bits of white clay we use here for
            whitewashing.

            Coffee prices are still very low and a lot of planters here and at Mbosi are in a
            mess as they can no longer raise mortgages on their farms or get advances from the
            Bank against their crops. We hear many are leaving their farms to try their luck on the
            Diggings.

            George is getting fed up too. The snails are back on the shamba and doing
            frightful damage. Talk of the plagues of Egypt! Once more they are being collected in
            piles and bashed into pulp. The stench on the shamba is frightful! The greybeards in the
            village tell George that the local Chief has put a curse on the farm because he is angry
            that the Government granted George a small extension to the farm two years ago! As
            the Chief was consulted at the time and was agreeable this talk of a curse is nonsense
            but goes to show how the uneducated African put all disasters down to witchcraft.

            With much love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Ann’s birthday yesterday was not quite the gay occasion we had hoped. The
            seventh was mail day so we sent a runner for the mail, hoping against hope that your
            parcel containing the dolls head had arrived. The runner left for Mbeya at dawn but, as it
            was a very wet day, he did not return with the mail bag until after dark by which time Ann
            was fast asleep. My heart sank when I saw the parcel which contained the dolls new
            head. It was squashed quite flat. I shed a few tears over that shattered head, broken
            quite beyond repair, and George felt as bad about it as I did. The other parcel arrived in
            good shape and Ann loves her little sewing set, especially the thimble, and the nursery
            rhymes are a great success.

            Ann woke early yesterday and began to open her parcels. She said “But
            Mummy, didn’t Barbara’s new head come?” So I had to show her the fragments.
            Instead of shedding the flood of tears I expected, Ann just lifted the glass eyes in her
            hand and said in a tight little voice “Oh poor Barbara.” George saved the situation. as
            usual, by saying in a normal voice,”Come on Ann, get up and lets play your new
            records.” So we had music and sweets before breakfast. Later I removed Barbara’s
            faded old blond wig and gummed on the glossy new brown one and Ann seems quite
            satisfied.

            Last night, after the children were tucked up in bed, we discussed our financial
            situation. The coffee trees that have survived the plagues of borer beetle, mealie bugs
            and snails look strong and fine, but George says it will be years before we make a living
            out of the farm. He says he will simply have to make some money and he is leaving for
            the Lupa on Saturday to have a look around on the Diggings. If he does decide to peg
            a claim and work it he will put up a wattle and daub hut and the children and I will join him
            there. But until such time as he strikes gold I shall have to remain here on the farm and
            ‘Keep the Home Fires Burning’.

            Now don’t go and waste pity on me. Women all over the country are having to
            stay at home whilst their husbands search for a livelihood. I am better off than most
            because I have a comfortable little home and loyal servants and we still have enough
            capitol to keep the wolf from the door. Anyway this is the rainy season and hardly the
            best time to drag three small children around the sodden countryside on prospecting
            safaris.

            So I’ll stay here at home and hold thumbs that George makes a lucky strike.

            Heaps of love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Well, George has gone but here we are quite safe and cosy. Kate is asleep and
            Ann and Georgie are sprawled on the couch taking it in turns to enumerate the things
            God has made. Every now and again Ann bothers me with an awkward question. “Did
            God make spiders? Well what for? Did he make weeds? Isn’t He silly, mummy? She is
            becoming a very practical person. She sews surprisingly well for a four year old and has
            twice made cakes in the past week, very sweet and liberally coloured with cochineal and
            much appreciated by Georgie.

            I have been without George for a fortnight and have adapted myself to my new
            life. The children are great company during the day and I have arranged my evenings so
            that they do not seem long. I am determined that when George comes home he will find
            a transformed wife. I read an article entitled ‘Are you the girl he married?’ in a magazine
            last week and took a good look in the mirror and decided that I certainly was not! Hair dry,
            skin dry, and I fear, a faint shadow on the upper lip. So now I have blown the whole of
            your Christmas Money Order on an order to a chemist in Dar es Salaam for hair tonic,
            face cream and hair remover and am anxiously awaiting the parcel.

            In the meantime, after tucking the children into bed at night, I skip on the verandah
            and do the series of exercises recommended in the magazine article. After this exertion I
            have a leisurely bath followed by a light supper and then read or write letters to pass
            the time until Kate’s ten o’clock feed. I have arranged for Janey to sleep in the house.
            She comes in at 9.30 pm and makes up her bed on the living room floor by the fire.

            The days are by no means uneventful. The day before yesterday the biggest
            troop of monkeys I have ever seen came fooling around in the trees and on the grass
            only a few yards from the house. These monkeys were the common grey monkeys
            with black faces. They came in all sizes and were most entertaining to watch. Ann and
            Georgie had a great time copying their antics and pulling faces at the monkeys through
            the bedroom windows which I hastily closed.

            Thomas, our headman, came running up and told me that this troop of monkeys
            had just raided his maize shamba and asked me to shoot some of them. I would not of
            course do this. I still cannot bear to kill any animal, but I fired a couple of shots in the air
            and the monkeys just melted away. It was fantastic, one moment they were there and
            the next they were not. Ann and Georgie thought I had been very unkind to frighten the
            poor monkeys but honestly, when I saw what they had done to my flower garden, I
            almost wished I had hardened my heart and shot one or two.

            The children are all well but Ann gave me a nasty fright last week. I left Ann and
            Georgie at breakfast whilst I fed Fanny, our bull terrier on the back verandah. Suddenly I
            heard a crash and rushed inside to find Ann’s chair lying on its back and Ann beside it on
            the floor perfectly still and with a paper white face. I shouted for Janey to bring water and
            laid Ann flat on the couch and bathed her head and hands. Soon she sat up with a wan
            smile and said “I nearly knocked my head off that time, didn’t I.” She must have been
            standing on the chair and leaning against the back. Our brick floors are so terribly hard that
            she might have been seriously hurt.

            However she was none the worse for the fall, but Heavens, what an anxiety kids
            are.

            Lots of love,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

            Dearest Family,

            It was marvellous of you to send another money order to replace the one I spent
            on cosmetics. With this one I intend to order boots for both children as a protection from
            snake bite, though from my experience this past week the threat seems to be to the
            head rather than the feet. I was sitting on the couch giving Kate her morning milk from a
            cup when a long thin snake fell through the reed ceiling and landed with a thud just behind
            the couch. I shouted “Nyoka, Nyoka!” (Snake,Snake!) and the houseboy rushed in with
            a stick and killed the snake. I then held the cup to Kate’s mouth again but I suppose in
            my agitation I tipped it too much because the baby choked badly. She gasped for
            breath. I quickly gave her a sharp smack on the back and a stream of milk gushed
            through her mouth and nostrils and over me. Janey took Kate from me and carried her
            out into the fresh air on the verandah and as I anxiously followed her through the door,
            another long snake fell from the top of the wall just missing me by an inch or so. Luckily
            the houseboy still had the stick handy and dispatched this snake also.

            The snakes were a pair of ‘boomslangs’, not nice at all, and all day long I have
            had shamba boys coming along to touch hands and say “Poli Memsahib” – “Sorry
            madam”, meaning of course ‘Sorry you had a fright.’

            Apart from that one hectic morning this has been a quiet week. Before George
            left for the Lupa he paid off most of the farm hands as we can now only afford a few
            labourers for the essential work such as keeping the weeds down in the coffee shamba.
            There is now no one to keep the grass on the farm roads cut so we cannot use the pram
            when we go on our afternoon walks. Instead Janey carries Kate in a sling on her back.
            Janey is a very clean slim woman, and her clothes are always spotless, so Kate keeps
            cool and comfortable. Ann and Georgie always wear thick overalls on our walks as a
            protection against thorns and possible snakes. We usually make our way to the
            Mchewe River where Ann and Georgie paddle in the clear cold water and collect shiny
            stones.

            The cosmetics parcel duly arrived by post from Dar es Salaam so now I fill the
            evenings between supper and bed time attending to my face! The much advertised
            cream is pink and thick and feels revolting. I smooth it on before bedtime and keep it on
            all night. Just imagine if George could see me! The advertisements promise me a skin
            like a rose in six weeks. What a surprise there is in store for George!

            You will have been wondering what has happened to George. Well on the Lupa
            he heard rumours of a new gold strike somewhere in the Sumbawanga District. A couple
            of hundred miles from here I think, though I am not sure where it is and have no one to
            ask. You look it up on the map and tell me. John Molteno is also interested in this and
            anxious to have it confirmed so he and George have come to an agreement. John
            Molteno provided the porters for the journey together with prospecting tools and
            supplies but as he cannot leave his claims, or his gold buying business, George is to go
            on foot to the area of the rumoured gold strike and, if the strike looks promising will peg
            claims in both their names.

            The rainy season is now at its height and the whole countryside is under water. All
            roads leading to the area are closed to traffic and, as there are few Europeans who
            would attempt the journey on foot, George proposes to get a head start on them by
            making this uncomfortable safari. I have just had my first letter from George since he left
            on this prospecting trip. It took ages to reach me because it was sent by runner to
            Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia, then on by lorry to Mpika where it was put on a plane
            for Mbeya. George writes the most charming letters which console me a little upon our
            all too frequent separations.

            His letter was cheerful and optimistic, though reading between the lines I should
            say he had a grim time. He has reached Sumbawanga after ‘a hell of a trip’, to find that
            the rumoured strike was at Mpanda and he had a few more days of foot safari ahead.
            He had found the trip from the Lupa even wetter than he had expected. The party had
            three days of wading through swamps sometimes waist deep in water. Of his sixteen
            porters, four deserted an the second day out and five others have had malaria and so
            been unable to carry their loads. He himself is ‘thin but very fit’, and he sounds full of
            beans and writes gaily of the marvellous holiday we will have if he has any decent luck! I
            simply must get that mink and diamonds complexion.

            The frustrating thing is that I cannot write back as I have no idea where George is
            now.

            With heaps of love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

            Dearest Family,
            How kind you are. Another parcel from home. Although we are very short
            of labourers I sent a special runner to fetch it as Ann simply couldn’t bear the suspense
            of waiting to see Brenda, “My new little girl with plaits.” Thank goodness Brenda is
            unbreakable. I could not have born another tragedy. She really is an exquisite little doll
            and has hardly been out of Ann’s arms since arrival. She showed Brenda proudly to all
            the staff. The kitchen boy’s face was a study. His eyes fairly came out on sticks when he
            saw the dolls eyes not only opening and shutting, but moving from side to side in that
            incredibly lifelike way. Georgie loves his little model cars which he carries around all day
            and puts under his pillow at night.

            As for me, I am enchanted by my very smart new frock. Janey was so lavish with
            her compliments when I tried the frock on, that in a burst of generosity I gave her that
            rather tartish satin and lace trousseau nighty, and she was positively enthralled. She
            wore it that very night when she appeared as usual to doss down by the fire.
            By the way it was Janey’s turn to have a fright this week. She was in the
            bathroom washing the children’s clothes in an outsize hand basin when it happened. As
            she took Georgie’s overalls from the laundry basket a large centipede ran up her bare
            arm. Luckily she managed to knock the centipede off into the hot water in the hand basin.
            It was a brute, about six inches long of viciousness with a nasty sting. The locals say that
            the bite is much worse than a scorpions so Janey had a lucky escape.

            Kate cut her first two teeth yesterday and will, I hope, sleep better now. I don’t
            feel that pink skin food is getting a fair trial with all those broken nights. There is certainly
            no sign yet of ‘The skin he loves to touch”. Kate, I may say, is rosy and blooming. She
            can pull herself upright providing she has something solid to hold on to. She is so plump
            I have horrible visions of future bow legs so I push her down, but she always bobs up
            again.

            Both Ann and Georgie are mad on books. Their favourites are ‘Barbar and
            Celeste” and, of all things, ‘Struvel Peter’ . They listen with absolute relish to the sad tale
            of Harriet who played with matches.

            I have kept a laugh for the end. I am hoping that it will not be long before George
            comes home and thought it was time to take the next step towards glamour, so last
            Wednesday after lunch I settled the children on their beds and prepared to remove the ,
            to me, obvious down on my upper lip. (George always loyally says that he can’t see
            any.) Well I got out the tube of stuff and carefully followed the directions. I smoothed a
            coating on my upper lip. All this was watched with great interest by the children, including
            the baby, who stood up in her cot for a better view. Having no watch, I had propped
            the bedroom door open so that I could time the operation by the cuckoo clock in the
            living room. All the children’s surprised comments fell on deaf ears. I would neither talk
            nor smile for fear of cracking the hair remover which had set hard. The set time was up
            and I was just about to rinse the remover off when Kate slipped, knocking her head on
            the corner of the cot. I rushed to the rescue and precious seconds ticked off whilst I
            pacified her.

            So, my dears, when I rinsed my lip, not only the plaster and the hair came away
            but the skin as well and now I really did have a Ronald Coleman moustache – a crimson
            one. I bathed it, I creamed it, powdered it but all to no avail. Within half an hour my lip
            had swollen until I looked like one of those Duckbilled West African women. Ann’s
            comments, “Oh Mummy, you do look funny. Georgie, doesn’t Mummy look funny?”
            didn’t help to soothe me and the last straw was that just then there was the sound of a car drawing up outside – the first car I had heard for months. Anyway, thank heaven, it
            was not George, but the representative of a firm which sells agricultural machinery and
            farm implements, looking for orders. He had come from Dar es Salaam and had not
            heard that all the planters from this district had left their farms. Hospitality demanded that I
            should appear and offer tea. I did not mind this man because he was a complete
            stranger and fat, middle aged and comfortable. So I gave him tea, though I didn’t
            attempt to drink any myself, and told him the whole sad tale.

            Fortunately much of the swelling had gone next day and only a brown dryness
            remained. I find myself actually hoping that George is delayed a bit longer. Of one thing
            I am sure. If ever I grow a moustache again, it stays!

            Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Sound the trumpets, beat the drums. George is home again. The safari, I am sad
            to say, was a complete washout in more ways than one. Anyway it was lovely to be
            together again and we don’t yet talk about the future. The home coming was not at all as
            I had planned it. I expected George to return in our old A.C. car which gives ample
            warning of its arrival. I had meant to wear my new frock and make myself as glamourous
            as possible, with our beautiful babe on one arm and our other jewels by my side.
            This however is what actually happened. Last Saturday morning at about 2 am , I
            thought I heard someone whispering my name. I sat up in bed, still half asleep, and
            there was George at the window. He was thin and unshaven and the tiredest looking
            man I have ever seen. The car had bogged down twenty miles back along the old Lupa
            Track, but as George had had no food at all that day, he decided to walk home in the
            bright moonlight.

            This is where I should have served up a tasty hot meal but alas, there was only
            the heal of a loaf and no milk because, before going to bed I had given the remaining
            milk to the dog. However George seemed too hungry to care what he ate. He made a
            meal off a tin of bully, a box of crustless cheese and the bread washed down with cup
            after cup of black tea. Though George was tired we talked for hours and it was dawn
            before we settled down to sleep.

            During those hours of talk George described his nightmarish journey. He started
            up the flooded Rukwa Valley and there were days of wading through swamp and mud
            and several swollen rivers to cross. George is a strong swimmer and the porters who
            were recruited in that area, could also swim. There remained the problem of the stores
            and of Kianda the houseboy who cannot swim. For these they made rough pole rafts
            which they pulled across the rivers with ropes. Kianda told me later that he hopes never
            to make such a journey again. He swears that the raft was submerged most of the time
            and that he was dragged through the rivers underwater! You should see the state of
            George’s clothes which were packed in a supposedly water tight uniform trunk. The
            whole lot are mud stained and mouldy.

            To make matters more trying for George he was obliged to live mostly on
            porters rations, rice and groundnut oil which he detests. As all the district roads were
            closed the little Indian Sores in the remote villages he passed had been unable to
            replenish their stocks of European groceries. George would have been thinner had it not
            been for two Roman Catholic missions enroute where he had good meals and dry
            nights. The Fathers are always wonderfully hospitable to wayfarers irrespective of
            whether or not they are Roman Catholics. George of course is not a Catholic. One finds
            the Roman Catholic missions right out in the ‘Blue’ and often on spots unhealthy to
            Europeans. Most of the Fathers are German or Dutch but they all speak a little English
            and in any case one can always fall back on Ki-Swahili.

            George reached his destination all right but it soon became apparent that reports
            of the richness of the strike had been greatly exaggerated. George had decided that
            prospects were brighter on the Lupa than on the new strike so he returned to the Lupa
            by the way he had come and, having returned the borrowed equipment decided to
            make his way home by the shortest route, the old and now rarely used road which
            passes by the bottom of our farm.

            The old A.C. had been left for safe keeping at the Roman Catholic Galala
            Mission 40 miles away, on George’s outward journey, and in this old car George, and
            the houseboy Kianda , started for home. The road was indescribably awful. There were long stretches that were simply one big puddle, in others all the soil had been washed
            away leaving the road like a rocky river bed. There were also patches where the tall
            grass had sprung up head high in the middle of the road,
            The going was slow because often the car bogged down because George had
            no wheel chains and he and Kianda had the wearisome business of digging her out. It
            was just growing dark when the old A.C. settled down determinedly in the mud for the
            last time. They could not budge her and they were still twenty miles from home. George
            decided to walk home in the moonlight to fetch help leaving Kianda in charge of the car
            and its contents and with George’s shot gun to use if necessary in self defence. Kianda
            was reluctant to stay but also not prepared to go for help whilst George remained with
            the car as lions are plentiful in that area. So George set out unarmed in the moonlight.
            Once he stopped to avoid a pride of lion coming down the road but he circled safely
            around them and came home without any further alarms.

            Kianda said he had a dreadful night in the car, “With lions roaming around the car
            like cattle.” Anyway the lions did not take any notice of the car or of Kianda, and the next
            day George walked back with all our farm boys and dug and pushed the car out of the
            mud. He brought car and Kianda back without further trouble but the labourers on their
            way home were treed by the lions.

            The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

            Lots and lots of love,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Young George’s third birthday passed off very well yesterday. It started early in
            the morning when he brought his pillow slip of presents to our bed. Kate was already
            there and Ann soon joined us. Young George liked all the presents you sent, especially
            the trumpet. It has hardly left his lips since and he is getting quite smart about the finger
            action.

            We had quite a party. Ann and I decorated the table with Christmas tree tinsel
            and hung a bunch of balloons above it. Ann also decorated young George’s chair with
            roses and phlox from the garden. I had made and iced a fruit cake but Ann begged to
            make a plain pink cake. She made it entirely by herself though I stood by to see that
            she measured the ingredients correctly. When the cake was baked I mixed some soft
            icing in a jug and she poured it carefully over the cake smoothing the gaps with her
            fingers!

            During the party we had the gramophone playing and we pulled crackers and
            wore paper hats and altogether had a good time. I forgot for a while that George is
            leaving again for the Lupa tomorrow for an indefinite time. He was marvellous at making
            young George’s party a gay one. You will have noticed the change from Georgie to
            young George. Our son declares that he now wants to be called George, “Like Dad”.
            He an Ann are a devoted couple and I am glad that there is only a fourteen
            months difference in their ages. They play together extremely well and are very
            independent which is just as well for little Kate now demands a lot of my attention. My
            garden is a real cottage garden and looks very gay and colourful. There are hollyhocks
            and Snapdragons, marigolds and phlox and of course the roses and carnations which, as
            you know, are my favourites. The coffee shamba does not look so good because the
            small labour force, which is all we can afford, cannot cope with all the weeds. You have
            no idea how things grow during the wet season in the tropics.

            Nothing alarming ever seems to happen when George is home, so I’m afraid this
            letter is rather dull. I wanted you to know though, that largely due to all your gifts of toys
            and sweets, Georgie’s 3rd birthday party went with a bang.

            Your very affectionate,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

            Dearest Family,

            I am sorry to hear that Mummy worries about me so much. “Poor Eleanor”,
            indeed! I have a quite exceptional husband, three lovely children, a dear little home and
            we are all well.It is true that I am in rather a rut but what else can we do? George comes
            home whenever he can and what excitement there is when he does come. He cannot
            give me any warning because he has to take advantage of chance lifts from the Diggings
            to Mbeya, but now that he is prospecting nearer home he usually comes walking over
            the hills. About 50 miles of rough going. Really and truly I am all right. Although our diet is
            monotonous we have plenty to eat. Eggs and milk are cheap and fruit plentiful and I
            have a good cook so can devote all my time to the children. I think it is because they are
            my constant companions that Ann and Georgie are so grown up for their years.
            I have no ayah at present because Janey has been suffering form rheumatism
            and has gone home for one of her periodic rests. I manage very well without her except
            in the matter of the afternoon walks. The outward journey is all right. George had all the
            grass cut on his last visit so I am able to push the pram whilst Ann, George and Fanny
            the dog run ahead. It is the uphill return trip that is so trying. Our walk back is always the
            same, down the hill to the river where the children love to play and then along the car
            road to the vegetable garden. I never did venture further since the day I saw a leopard
            jump on a calf. I did not tell you at the time as I thought you might worry. The cattle were
            grazing on a small knoll just off our land but near enough for me to have a clear view.
            Suddenly the cattle scattered in all directions and we heard the shouts of the herd boys
            and saw – or rather had the fleeting impression- of a large animal jumping on a calf. I
            heard the herd boy shout “Chui, Chui!” (leopard) and believe me, we turned in our
            tracks and made for home. To hasten things I picked up two sticks and told the children
            that they were horses and they should ride them home which they did with
            commendable speed.

            Ann no longer rides Joseph. He became increasingly bad tempered and a
            nuisance besides. He took to rolling all over my flower beds though I had never seen
            him roll anywhere else. Then one day he kicked Ann in the chest, not very hard but
            enough to send her flying. Now George has given him to the native who sells milk to us
            and he seems quite happy grazing with the cattle.

            With love to you all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Since I last wrote George has been home and we had a lovely time as usual.
            Whilst he was here the District Commissioner and his wife called. Mr Pollock told
            George that there is to be a big bush clearing scheme in some part of the Mbeya
            District to drive out Tsetse Fly. The game in the area will have to be exterminated and
            there will probably be a job for George shooting out the buffalo. The pay would be
            good but George says it is a beastly job. Although he is a professional hunter, he hates
            slaughter.

            Mrs P’s real reason for visiting the farm was to invite me to stay at her home in
            Mbeya whilst she and her husband are away in Tukuyu. Her English nanny and her small
            daughter will remain in Mbeya and she thought it might be a pleasant change for us and
            a rest for me as of course Nanny will do the housekeeping. I accepted the invitation and I
            think I will go on from there to Tukuyu and visit my friend Lillian Eustace for a fortnight.
            She has given us an open invitation to visit her at any time.

            I had a letter from Dr Eckhardt last week, telling me that at a meeting of all the
            German Settlers from Mbeya, Tukuyu and Mbosi it had been decided to raise funds to
            build a school at Mbeya. They want the British Settlers to co-operate in this and would
            be glad of a subscription from us. I replied to say that I was unable to afford a
            subscription at present but would probably be applying for a teaching job.
            The Eckhardts are the leaders of the German community here and are ardent
            Nazis. For this reason they are unpopular with the British community but he is the only
            doctor here and I must say they have been very decent to us. Both of them admire
            George. George has still not had any luck on the Lupa and until he makes a really
            promising strike it is unlikely that the children and I will join him. There is no fresh milk there
            and vegetables and fruit are imported from Mbeya and Iringa and are very expensive.
            George says “You wouldn’t be happy on the diggings anyway with a lot of whores and
            their bastards!”

            Time ticks away very pleasantly here. Young George and Kate are blooming
            and I keep well. Only Ann does not look well. She is growing too fast and is listless and
            pale. If I do go to Mbeya next week I shall take her to the doctor to be overhauled.
            We do not go for our afternoon walks now that George has returned to the Lupa.
            That leopard has been around again and has killed Tubbage that cowardly Alsatian. We
            gave him to the village headman some months ago. There is no danger to us from the
            leopard but I am terrified it might get Fanny, who is an excellent little watchdog and
            dearly loved by all of us. Yesterday I sent a note to the Boma asking for a trap gun and
            today the farm boys are building a trap with logs.

            I had a mishap this morning in the garden. I blundered into a nest of hornets and
            got two stings in the left arm above the elbow. Very painful at the time and the place is
            still red and swollen.

            Much love to you all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

            Dearest Family,

            Well here we are at Mbeya, comfortably installed in the District Commissioner’s
            house. It is one of two oldest houses in Mbeya and is a charming gabled place with tiled
            roof. The garden is perfectly beautiful. I am enjoying the change very much. Nanny
            Baxter is very entertaining. She has a vast fund of highly entertaining tales of the goings
            on amongst the British Aristocracy, gleaned it seems over the nursery teacup in many a
            Stately Home. Ann and Georgie are enjoying the company of other children.
            People are very kind about inviting us out to tea and I gladly accept these
            invitations but I have turned down invitations to dinner and one to a dance at the hotel. It
            is no fun to go out at night without George. There are several grass widows at the pub
            whose husbands are at the diggings. They have no inhibitions about parties.
            I did have one night and day here with George, he got the chance of a lift and
            knowing that we were staying here he thought the chance too good to miss. He was
            also anxious to hear the Doctor’s verdict on Ann. I took Ann to hospital on my second
            day here. Dr Eckhardt said there was nothing specifically wrong but that Ann is a highly
            sensitive type with whom the tropics does not agree. He advised that Ann should
            spend a year in a more temperate climate and that the sooner she goes the better. I felt
            very discouraged to hear this and was most relieved when George turned up
            unexpectedly that evening. He phoo-hood Dr Eckhardt’s recommendation and next
            morning called in Dr Aitkin, the Government Doctor from Chunya and who happened to
            be in Mbeya.

            Unfortunately Dr Aitkin not only confirmed Dr Eckhardt’s opinion but said that he
            thought Ann should stay out of the tropics until she had passed adolescence. I just don’t
            know what to do about Ann. She is a darling child, very sensitive and gentle and a
            lovely companion to me. Also she and young George are inseparable and I just cannot
            picture one without the other. I know that you would be glad to have Ann but how could
            we bear to part with her?

            Your worried but affectionate,
            Eleanor.

            Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

            Dearest Family,

            As you see we have moved to Tukuyu and we are having a lovely time with
            Lillian Eustace. She gave us such a warm welcome and has put herself out to give us
            every comfort. She is a most capable housekeeper and I find her such a comfortable
            companion because we have the same outlook in life. Both of us are strictly one man
            women and that is rare here. She has a two year old son, Billy, who is enchanted with
            our rolly polly Kate and there are other children on the station with whom Ann and
            Georgie can play. Lillian engaged a temporary ayah for me so I am having a good rest.
            All the children look well and Ann in particular seems to have benefited by the
            change to a cooler climate. She has a good colour and looks so well that people all
            exclaim when I tell them, that two doctors have advised us to send Ann out of the
            country. Perhaps after all, this holiday in Tukuyu will set her up.

            We had a trying journey from Mbeya to Tukuyu in the Post Lorry. The three
            children and I were squeezed together on the front seat between the African driver on
            one side and a vast German on the other. Both men smoked incessantly – the driver
            cigarettes, and the German cheroots. The cab was clouded with a blue haze. Not only
            that! I suddenly felt a smarting sensation on my right thigh. The driver’s cigarette had
            burnt a hole right through that new checked linen frock you sent me last month.
            I had Kate on my lap all the way but Ann and Georgie had to stand against the
            windscreen all the way. The fat German offered to take Ann on his lap but she gave him
            a very cold “No thank you.” Nor did I blame her. I would have greatly enjoyed the drive
            under less crowded conditions. The scenery is gorgeous. One drives through very high
            country crossing lovely clear streams and at one point through rain forest. As it was I
            counted the miles and how thankful I was to see the end of the journey.
            In the days when Tanganyika belonged to the Germans, Tukuyu was the
            administrative centre for the whole of the Southern Highlands Province. The old German
            Fort is still in use as Government offices and there are many fine trees which were
            planted by the Germans. There is a large prosperous native population in this area.
            They go in chiefly for coffee and for bananas which form the basis of their diet.
            There are five British married couples here and Lillian and I go out to tea most
            mornings. In the afternoon there is tennis or golf. The gardens here are beautiful because
            there is rain or at least drizzle all the year round. There are even hedge roses bordering
            some of the district roads. When one walks across the emerald green golf course or
            through the Boma gardens, it is hard to realise that this gentle place is Tropical Africa.
            ‘Such a green and pleasant land’, but I think I prefer our corner of Tanganyika.

            Much love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe. 12th November 1936

            Dearest Family,

            We had a lovely holiday but it is so nice to be home again, especially as Laza,
            the local Nimrod, shot that leopard whilst we were away (with his muzzleloader gun). He
            was justly proud of himself, and I gave him a tip so that he could buy some native beer
            for a celebration. I have never seen one of theses parties but can hear the drums and
            sounds of merrymaking, especially on moonlight nights.

            Our house looks so fresh and uncluttered. Whilst I was away, the boys
            whitewashed the house and my houseboy had washed all the curtains, bedspreads,
            and loose covers and watered the garden. If only George were here it would be
            heaven.

            Ann looked so bonny at Tukuyu that I took her to the Government Doctor there
            hoping that he would find her perfectly healthy, but alas he endorsed the finding of the
            other two doctors so, when an opportunity offers, I think I shall have to send Ann down
            to you for a long holiday from the Tropics. Mother-in-law has offered to fetch her next
            year but England seems so far away. With you she will at least be on the same
            continent.

            I left the children for the first time ever, except for my stay in hospital when Kate
            was born, to go on an outing to Lake Masoko in the Tukuyu district, with four friends.
            Masoko is a beautiful, almost circular crater lake and very very deep. A detachment of
            the King’s African Rifles are stationed there and occupy the old German barracks
            overlooking the lake.

            We drove to Masoko by car and spent the afternoon there as guests of two
            British Army Officers. We had a good tea and the others went bathing in the lake but i
            could not as I did not have a costume. The Lake was as beautiful as I had been lead to
            imagine and our hosts were pleasant but I began to grow anxious as the afternoon
            advanced and my friends showed no signs of leaving. I was in agonies when they
            accepted an invitation to stay for a sundowner. We had this in the old German beer
            garden overlooking the Lake. It was beautiful but what did I care. I had promised the
            children that I would be home to give them their supper and put them to bed. When I
            did at length return to Lillian’s house I found the situation as I had expected. Ann, with her
            imagination had come to the conclusion that I never would return. She had sobbed
            herself into a state of exhaustion. Kate was screaming in sympathy and George 2 was
            very truculent. He wouldn’t even speak to me. Poor Lillian had had a trying time.
            We did not return to Mbeya by the Mail Lorry. Bill and Lillian drove us across to
            Mbeya in their new Ford V8 car. The children chattered happily in the back of the car
            eating chocolate and bananas all the way. I might have known what would happen! Ann
            was dreadfully and messily car sick.

            I engaged the Mbeya Hotel taxi to drive us out to the farm the same afternoon
            and I expect it will be a long time before we leave the farm again.

            Lots and lots of love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Chunya 27th November 1936

            Dearest Family,

            You will be surprised to hear that we are all together now on the Lupa goldfields.
            I have still not recovered from my own astonishment at being here. Until last Saturday
            night I never dreamed of this move. At about ten o’clock I was crouched in the inglenook
            blowing on the embers to make a fire so that I could heat some milk for Kate who is
            cutting teeth and was very restless. Suddenly I heard a car outside. I knew it must be
            George and rushed outside storm lamp in hand. Sure enough, there was George
            standing by a strange car, and beaming all over his face. “Something for you my love,”
            he said placing a little bundle in my hand. It was a knotted handkerchief and inside was a
            fine gold nugget.

            George had that fire going in no time, Kate was given the milk and half an aspirin
            and settles down to sleep, whilst George and I sat around for an hour chatting over our
            tea. He told me that he had borrowed the car from John Molteno and had come to fetch
            me and the children to join him on the diggings for a while. It seems that John, who has a
            camp at Itewe, a couple of miles outside the township of Chunya, the new
            Administrative Centre of the diggings, was off to the Cape to visit his family for a few
            months. John had asked George to run his claims in his absence and had given us the
            loan of his camp and his car.

            George had found the nugget on his own claim but he is not too elated because
            he says that one good month on the diggings is often followed by several months of
            dead loss. However, I feel hopeful, we have had such a run of bad luck that surely it is
            time for the tide to change. George spent Sunday going over the farm with Thomas, the
            headman, and giving him instructions about future work whilst I packed clothes and
            kitchen equipment. I have brought our ex-kitchenboy Kesho Kutwa with me as cook and
            also Janey, who heard that we were off to the Lupa and came to offer her services once
            more as ayah. Janey’s ex-husband Abel is now cook to one of the more successful
            diggers and I think she is hoping to team up with him again.

            The trip over the Mbeya-Chunya pass was new to me and I enjoyed it very
            much indeed. The road winds over the mountains along a very high escarpment and
            one looks down on the vast Usangu flats stretching far away to the horizon. At the
            highest point the road rises to about 7000 feet, and this was too much for Ann who was
            leaning against the back of my seat. She was very thoroughly sick, all over my hair.
            This camp of John Molteno’s is very comfortable. It consists of two wattle and
            daub buildings built end to end in a clearing in the miombo bush. The main building
            consists of a large living room, a store and an office, and the other of one large bedroom
            and a small one separated by an area for bathing. Both buildings are thatched. There are
            no doors, and there are no windows, but these are not necessary because one wall of
            each building is built up only a couple of feet leaving a six foot space for light and air. As
            this is the dry season the weather is pleasant. The air is fresh and dry but not nearly so
            hot as I expected.

            Water is a problem and must be carried long distances in kerosene tins.
            vegetables and fresh butter are brought in a van from Iringa and Mbeya Districts about
            once a fortnight. I have not yet visited Chunya but I believe it is as good a shopping
            centre as Mbeya so we will be able to buy all the non perishable food stuffs we need.
            What I do miss is the fresh milk. The children are accustomed to drinking at least a pint of
            milk each per day but they do not care for the tinned variety.

            Ann and young George love being here. The camp is surrounded by old
            prospecting trenches and they spend hours each day searching for gold in the heaps of gravel. Sometimes they find quartz pitted with little spots of glitter and they bring them
            to me in great excitement. Alas it is only Mica. We have two neighbours. The one is a
            bearded Frenchman and the other an Australian. I have not yet met any women.
            George looks very sunburnt and extremely fit and the children also look well.
            George and I have decided that we will keep Ann with us until my Mother-in-law comes
            out next year. George says that in spite of what the doctors have said, he thinks that the
            shock to Ann of being separated from her family will do her more harm than good. She
            and young George are inseparable and George thinks it would be best if both
            George and Ann return to England with my Mother-in-law for a couple of years. I try not
            to think at all about the breaking up of the family.

            Much love to all,
            Eleanor.

             

            #6261
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              continued

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              Mchewe Estate. 11th July 1931.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Lots of love,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. 8th. August 1931

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Mchewe Estate. Sept.6th. 1931

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor Rushby

               

              Mchewe Estate. June 15th 1932

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Your very loving,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate Mbeya July 18th 1932

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Lots and lots of love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate August 11th 1932

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Much love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 28th Sept. 1932

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Much love to all,
              Eleanor.

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

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              We all send our love,
              Eleanor.

              Mbeya Hospital. April 25th. 1933

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mbeya Hospital. 2nd May 1933.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Much love from a proud mother of two.
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate 12May 1933

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

              Your affectionate,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1933

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              your affectionate,
              Eleanor

              Mchewe Estate. August 10 th. 1933

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Very much love
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. October 27th 1933

              Dear Family,

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

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

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

              Lots and lots of love,
              Eleanor.

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

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 14th February 1934.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Much love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 1st October 1934

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              Lots of love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. November 4th 1934

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Lots of love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 28th December 1934

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Much love to you all,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 5th January 1935

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              Much love,
              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate. 18th February 1935

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

              Lots of love, Eleanor

              #6260
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                From Tanganyika with Love

                With thanks to Mike Rushby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love my dear,
                your jubilant
                Eleanor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Bless you all,
                Eleanor.

                S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Eleanor Leslie.

                Eleanor and George Rushby:

                Eleanor and George Rushby

                Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Your cave woman
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love to you all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Your loving
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Very much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mbeya 23rd December 1930

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                26th December 1930

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

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

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

                Lots and lots of love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Your loving,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Very much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

                Dear Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Eleanor.

                #6087

                In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                “I knew it!” Tara had gone to investigate early, disguised as an elderly jogger in a velvet teal jogging. “Seemed clear enough that that retirement home was a front…”

                Later when she came back to the office, she was quizzed by Star, who was still yawning despite the bright sunlight.

                “So tell me, a front for what?”

                “Can’t you guess?” Tara said, removing her false teeth.

                “Nooo?” her hand flew at Star’s mouth and incredulous face.

                “Yes, hmm-hmm; you guessed right: a time travel agency.”

                “Oh dangit, they stole my idea! After all the virus pandemic thing, they sure know how to surf the crisis to make a buck. The buying carrots alibi traffic, and now that!”

                “Yep, guess that people unable to go anywhere for holidays make up for a good clientele. You can imagine the slogans: Celerity: Why go anywhere? When we can send you anywhen! “

                “And a convenient way of disposing of nosy people too. I hope they didn’t send Uncle Basil to the Dinosaurs, can’t imagine the stench of those Time sewers.”

                “Oh no, don’t think he was affluent enough, you see. Apparently you pay by the time meter. The further in time, the pricier. And I guess the surest way to dispose of someone would be in the past rather than in the future…”

                “So Uncle Basil is in the past!”

                “Exactly.”

                “Well, I could have told you that from the start. No wonder Mr French paid us in advance then, he already knew we’d crack that case. Our first case’s closed, dear! If Mr French ever wakes up and calls, we’ll just redirect him to our Time Dragglers friends in Marseille for their ‘relative lost in time’ retrieval package. Now, anyone for mojitos?”

                #6066

                In reply to: The Pistil Maze

                “It’s funny,” he said, squinting his eyes. “Looks like the maze kind of fades out.”

                “Oh yeah, that happens all the time. People lose interest you see, then it all but vanishes from their experience. Quaint, I know.”

                Kahurangi, nicknamed Kahu, was trying hard to get interested, see if the structure would come back into focus. But there were more fun things around. He asked again to the guy who was selling pop corn at the entrance.

                “T’is normal that people wander around with… well, pets? Look at this guy, with a piglet on a leash. It’s cute, don’t get me wrong, and probably more useful when you’re looking for truffles…”

                “Pretty normal. Seems animal have a sense around this thing, or so it’s believed. Many will bring one and try again. Look, I buried my snake not long ago, it was getting tired I think. Not sure they make the best animals to cover ground there.” He continued “Are you buying me something or what?”

                “Oh sure, give me that, and a bottle of water.”

                He handed a crumpled bill of 5 and thanked.

                “A word of unsollicited advice?”

                Kahu noded “Sure.”

                “See those piles of rocks over there, along the way?”

                “Looks like inukshuks, are they? Strange place to find them though.”

                “Yeah, you’ll tend to see more as you get along. People started to build them to pinpoint places they’d been, but over time, they became encampments, and people lost the will to move on.”

                “So what?”

                “Don’t stay too long around them.”

                Kahu shrugged and moved along. The maze was starting to get in focus again, there was not a minute to spare.

                #5831

                In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                “Are you sure this is a good idea? Replacing all our culture with carrots seems a bit extreme.”

                “We entered unheard of territory. And yes, carrots are the future of our community. We need more carrots.”

                “Do you mind illuminating my inferior mind?”

                “What do you think? People are allowed to go out only in a few cases. Walking your dog, buying food. It is easier to grow carrots than to breed puppies. It also take less time. We need to be able to go out at will. Take a bunch of carrots and no policeman can tell that you weren’t out for illicit purpose.”

                “Oh! You’re so clever. No wonder you’re the head of our new cult.”

                “Indeed.”

                #5822

                The evening helper said she was very sorry to tell me that my niece wouldn’t be able to make it this week, as she’d been on holiday and got quarantined.  You needn’t be sorry about that, I told her, I don’t know who she is anyway.  Not that I’m ungrateful, it’s very kind of her to come and visit me.  She tells me all about people I’ve never heard of, and I pretend to take an interest. I’m polite you see, brought up that way.

                Then she said, you’ll have to go easy on the toilet paper, it’s all sold out. Panic buying, she said.

                That’s what happens when people start shitting themselves with fear, I said, and she tutted at me as if I was a seven year old, the cheeky young whippersnapper.  And how shall I go easy on it, shall I crap outside behind the flat topped bushes under my window? Wipe my arse on a leaf?

                Don’t be daft, you’d fall over, she replied crisply. She had a point.  My hip’s still playing me up, so my plans to escape are on hold. Not much point in it with all this quarantine nonsense going on anyway.   I might get rounded up and put in a tent by a faceless moron in a hazmat suit.  I must say the plague doctors outfits were much more stylish.  And there was no panic buying of loo rolls in those days either.

                I don’t know what the world’s coming to. A handful of people with a cough and everyone loses their minds.  Then again, when the plague came, everyone lost their minds too. Not over toilet paper though.  We didn’t start losing our minds until the carts started rolling past every night full of the bodies.  No paper masks in those days either, we wound scarves around our faces because of the stench.

                The worst thing was being locked in the house when the kitchen maid came down with it.  All of us, all of the nine children, my wife and her mother, the cook and the maids, all of us untouched, all but that one kitchen maid.  If only they’d taken her away, the rest of us might not have perished.  Not having enough food did us in, we were weakened with starvation. Shut in the house for weeks, with no escape.  Nothing to do but feast on the fears, like a smothering cloud. Like as not, we just gave up, and said, plague, carry me off, I can bear no more. I know after the youngest 6 children and the oldest boy died, I had no will to live.  I died before the wife did and felt a bit guilty about that, leaving her to face the rest of it alone.  She wasn’t happy about that, and who can blame her.

                One thing for sure, it wasn’t running out of blasted toilet paper that was worrying me.

                #4695

                The note had troubled Maeve. It was different than the one Shawn Paul received, not only because it was handwritten and very long, but also because it implied someone, potentially even several groups, were after the dolls and the keys.
                “You have to retrieve them,” the note eventually said, “and use the clues they hide to find the important people they protect.”

                There was no signature, but it sounded so much like uncle Fergus, oddly wordy and mysterious. Was he still alive after all this time? Did he still ride his Harley?

                Maeve’s first thought after the surprise was that she needed someone to take care of Fabio. The next thought felt like a brilliant idea. Lucinda. Maeve would go ask her to take care of Fabio during her vacation to Australia and would use that opportunity to spirit away the doll. She had the intuition she might need it afterwards.

                So she prepared her luggage and cuddled Fabio who knew he wouldn’t be part of the trip.
                “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I need you to keep that sad face of yours when we go see Lucinda.” In response, Fabio wiggled his tail happily and tried to lick Maeve’s face. “No! Keep the face,” she mimicked what she thought was a sad face.

                After all was packed she went to Lucinda’s with Fabio and her luggage.
                “I’m sorry, I’m going on a trip and I need someone to take care of Fabio,” Maeve said. As she had imagined Lucinda was moved by Fabio’s look and couldn’t refuse to take car of him.
                “Of course! He’ll be well treated here with my new parrot.”
                “Huhu,” said the colourful bird.
                “I think it comes from New Zealand,” said Lucinda. “It flew in yesterday and had not left ever since despite me not putting it into a cage, so I’m buying it food. It seems particularly fond of that doll I told you about the other day.”
                Indeed, the parrot was on the sofa, trying to open the doll’s head. That’s when Fabio jumped and tried to catch the bird. He clearly didn’t like it and the parrot flew away to a higher ground on an old grannies’ Welsh dresser, making a few glasses and china fall down in an awful breaking noise. Lucinda tried to catch the bird or the china or Fabio, but could do neither of the three.

                Seizing that as an opportunity, Maeve put the doll in her messenger bag.
                “I don’t want to bother you longer, I have a plane to catch. Bye,” she said, and she left with bags and luggage without checking if Lucinda had heard.

                At the elevator, she met with Shawn Paul.
                “Hi.”
                “Hi. I’m going to the airport,” the young man said. “Australia. Like you?”
                She felt uncomfortable. The note hadn’t mention anything about him. Unless he was part of one of those groups who were after the dolls. Maeve grumbled something while holding her bag closer. She didn’t know if she could trust him.

                #4624
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  The light in the apartment darkened and Lucida glanced up from her book and noticed the gathering clouds visible through the glass doors that opened onto her balcony. Frowning, she reached for her phone to check tomorrows weather forecast. The weekly outdoor market was one of the highlights of her week. With a sigh of relief she noted that there was no expectation of rain. Clouds perhaps, which wasn’t a bad thing. It wouldn’t be too hot, and the glare of the sun wouldn’t make it difficult to see all the the things laid out to entice a potential buyer on trestle tables and blankets.

                  Lucinda had made a list ~ the usual things, like fruit and vegetables from the farms outside the city; perhaps she’d find a second hand cake tin to try out the new recipe, and some white sheets for the costumes for the Roman themed party she’d been invited to, maybe some more books. But what excited her most was the chance of finding something unexpected, or something unusual. And more often than not, she did.

                  She added birthday present to the list, not having any idea what that might be. Lucinda found choosing gifts extraordinarily difficult, and had tried all manner of tactics to change her irrational angst about the whole thing. One Christmas she’d tried just picking one shop and choosing as many random things as people on her gift list. In fact that had worked as well as any other method, but still felt unsettling and unsatisfactory. The next year she informed everyone that she wouldn’t be buying presents at all, and asked friends and family to reciprocate likewise. Some had and some hadn’t, resulting in yet more confusion. Was she to be grateful for the gifts, despite the lack of her own reciprocation? Or peeved that they had ignored her wishes?

                  Birthdays were different though. A personal individual celebration was not the same thing as Christmas with all it’s stifling traditions and expectations. It would be churlish to refuse to buy a birthday gift. And so birthday gift remained on the shopping list, as it had been last week, and the week before.

                  A birthday gift had already been purchased the previous week. Lucinda glanced up at the top shelf of the bookcase where the doll sat, languidly looking down at her. She felt a pang of emotion, as she did each time she looked at that doll. She loved the doll and wanted to keep it for herself, that was one thing. That was one of the things that always happened when she chose a gift that she liked herself: she talked herself into keeping it; that it was her taste and not the recipients. That it would be obvious that she’d chosen it because SHE liked it, not keeping the other person in mind.

                  But that wasn’t the only thing confounding her this time. The doll wanted to stay with her, she was sure of it. It wasn’t just her wanting to keep the doll. It wasn’t any old doll, either. That was the other thing. It seemed very clear that it was one of Maeve’s dolls. It had to be, she was sure of it.

                  When she got home with her purchases the week before, her intention had been to go and show Maeve what she’d found. Then something stopped her: what if it made her sad that one of her creations had been discarded, put up for sale at a market along with old cake tins and second hand sheets? No, she couldn’t possibly risk it, and luckily Maeve didn’t know the birthday girl who was the doll was intended for, so she’d never know.

                  But then Lucinda realized she had to keep the strange gaunt doll with the grey dreadlocks and patchwork dress. She couldn’t possibly give her away.

                  I hope I don’t find another doll at the market tomorrow, and have to keep that as well! thought Lucinda, and immediately felt goosebumps rise as an errant breeze ruffled the dolls dreadlocks.

                  #4494
                  Jib
                  Participant

                    The entrance to the cellar was in the library, just behind a book shelf that had been pushed away. How convenient, Godfrey thought.
                    “Roberto has been busy,” he said, appreciating the new little wheels under the elm wood bookshelves. He tried it several times and saw that the wheels were perfectly oiled and made no sound.
                    “Too oily,” said Finnley tutting disapprovingly at the stains on the wooden floor. She was already thinking of buying a new carpet, or maybe a new puppy that would help her dust the floor as it followed along. It would have to be small and energetic. Not too energetic though.
                    Liz was fascinated by the door. It was an old door, carved certainly in oak wood and painted with oddly hypnotic patterns. She looked at the tonic glass she still had in her hands. “Did you put something in my tonic?” she asked. The glass pigheadedly refused to focus on the bottom of her eye.
                    “I think it was empty,” said Godfrey. “Or at least it is now.” He took the glass from Liz and came back quickly, not wanting to miss the opening. He handed a pair of pink and shiny scissors to Liz who glanced at them and then at Godfrey with a puzzled look.

                    “Do you expect me to cut your hair?” Liz asked him. “I think you should have your hair cut,” she added because it seemed to crawl and wave on his head. She looked at Finnley. “Yours too, dear, I’m afraid.”
                    Finnley’s lips and eyes thinned as she tried her sharp face on Liz who cackled, and Finnley just shrugged and tutted again.

                    “Well, use them to cut the red ribbon of course.” Godfrey nodded in the direction of the door and Liz saw that there was a fluffy red ribbon sagging between the side shelves and barring the entrance to the cellar. How come she hadn’t seen it before.

                    She took the scissors and winced when the sound of the cutting resounded like nails on a blackboard, and for a moment she shuddered as the face of Sister Clarissa and her magnifying goggles popped out of the door. A horrendous sight, if you asked her. Liz had always suspected that their only use was to traumatise the students. She had forgotten she went to a catholic school.

                    The door was finally opened, and Liz hoped what they found downstairs would not bring up more of those memories.

                    #4219

                    As the crow flies, Glenville is about 100 miles from the Forest of Enchantment.

                    “What a pretty town!” tourists to the area would exclaim, delighted by the tree lined streets and quaint houses with thatched roofs and brightly painted exteriors. They didn’t see the dark underside which rippled just below the surface of this exuberant facade. If they stayed for more than a few days, sure enough, they would begin to sense it. “Time to move on, perhaps,” they would say uneasily, although unsure exactly why and often putting it down to their own restless natures.

                    Glynis Cotfield was born in one of these houses. Number 4 Leafy Lane. Number 4 had a thatched roof and was painted a vibrant shade of yellow. There were purple trims around each window and a flower box either side of the front door containing orange flowers which each spring escaped their confines to sprawl triumphantly down the side of the house.

                    Her father, Kevin Cotfield, was a bespectacled clerk who worked in an office at the local council. He was responsible for building permits and making sure people adhered to very strict requirements to ‘protect the special and unique character of Glenville’.

                    And her mother, Annelie … well, her mother was a witch. Annelie Cotfield came from a long line of witches and she had 3 siblings, all of whom practised the magical arts in some form or other.

                    Uncle Brettwick could make fire leap from any part of his body. Once, he told Glynis she could put her hand in the fire and it wouldn’t hurt her. Tentatively she did. To her amazement the fire was cold; it felt like the air on a frosty winter’s day. She knew he could also make the fire burning hot, if he wanted. Some people were a little scared of her Uncle Brettwick and there were occasions—such as when Lucy Dickwit told everyone at school they should spit at Glynis because she came from an ‘evil witch family’—when she used this to her advantage.

                    “Yes, and I will tell my Uncle to come and burn down your stinking house if you don’t shut your stinking stupid mouth!” she said menacingly, sticking her face close to Lucy’s face. “And give me your bracelet,” she added as an after thought. It had worked. She got her peace and she got the bracelet.

                    Aunt Janelle could move objects with her mind. She set up a stall in the local market and visitors to the town would give her money to watch their trinkets move. “Lay it on the table”, she would command them imperiously. “See, I place my hands very far from your coin. I do not touch it. See?” Glynis would giggle because Aunt Janelle put on a funny accent and wore lots of garish makeup and would glare ferociously at the tourists.

                    But Aunt Bethell was Glynis’s favourite—she made magic with stories. “I am the Mistress of Illusions,” she would tell people proudly. When Glynis was little, Aunt Bethell would create whole stories for her entertainment. When Glynis tried to touch the story characters, her hand would go right through them. And Aunt Bethell didn’t even have to be in the same room as Glynis to send her a special magical story. Glynis adored Aunt Bethell.

                    Her mother, Annelie, called herself a healer but others called her a witch. She concocted powerful healing potions using recipes from her ’Big Book of Spells’, a book which had belonged to Annelie’s mother and her mother before her. On the first page of the book, in spindly gold writing it said: ‘May we never forget our LOVE of Nature and the Wisdom of Ages’. When Glynis asked what the ‘Wisdom of Ages’ meant, her mother said it was a special knowing that came from the heart and from our connection with All That Is. She said Glynis had the Wisdom of Ages too and then she would ask Glynis to gather herbs from the garden for her potions. Glynis didn’t think she had any particular wisdom and wondered if it was a ploy on her mother’s part to get free labour. She obeyed grudgingly but drew the line at learning any spells. And on this matter her father sided with her. “Don’t fill her mind with all that hocus pocus stuff,” he would say grumpily.

                    Despite this, the house was never empty; people came from all over to buy her mother’s potions and often to have their fortunes told as well. Mostly while her father was at work.

                    Glynis’s best friend when she was growing up was Tomas. Tomas lived at number 6 Leafy Lane. They both knew instinctively they shared a special bond because Tomas’s father also practised magic. He was a sorcerer. Glynis was a bit scared of Tomas’s Dad who had a funny crooked walk and never spoke directly to her. “Tell your friend you must come home now, Tomas,” he would call over the fence.

                    Being the son of a sorcerer, Tomas would also be a sorcerer. “It is my birthright,” he told her seriously one day. Glynis was impressed and wondered if Tomas had the Wisdom of Ages but it seemed a bit rude to ask in case he didn’t.

                    When Tomas was 13, his father took him away to begin his sorcery apprenticeship. Sometimes he would be gone for days at a time. Tomas never talked about where he went or what he did there. But he started to change: always a quiet boy, he became increasingly dark and brooding.

                    Glynis felt uneasy around this new Tomas and his growing possessiveness towards her. When Paul Ackleworthy asked her to the School Ball, Tomas was so jealous he broke Paul’s leg. Of course, nobody other than Glynis guessed it was Tomas who caused Paul’s bike to suddenly wobble so that he fell in the way of a passing car.

                    “You could have fucking killed him!” she had shouted at Tomas.

                    Tomas just shrugged. This was when she started to be afraid of him.

                    One day he told her he was going for his final initiation into the ‘Sorcerer Fraternity’.

                    “I have to go away for quite some time; I am not sure how long, but I want you to wait for me, Glynis.”

                    “Wait for you?”

                    He looked at her intensely. “It is destined for us to be together and you must promise you will be here for me when I get back.”

                    Glynis searched for her childhood friend in his eyes but she could no longer find him there.

                    “Look, Tomas, I don’t know,” she stuttered, wary of him, unwilling to tell the truth. “Maybe we shouldn’t make any arrangements like this … after all you might be away for a long time. You might meet someone else even …. some hot Sorceress,” she added, trying not to sound hopeful.

                    Suddenly, Glynis found herself flying. A gust of wind from nowhere lifted her from her feet, spun her round and then held her suspended, as though trying to decide what to do next, before letting her go. She landed heavily at Tomas’s feet.

                    “Ow!” she said angrily.

                    “Promise me.”

                    “Okay! I promise!” she said.

                    Her mother’s face went white when Glynis told her what Tomas had done.

                    That evening there was a gathering of Uncle Brettwick and the Aunts. There was much heated discussion which would cease abruptly when Glynis or her father entered the room. “Alright, dearie?” one of the Aunts would say, smiling way too brightly. And over the following days and weeks there was a flurry of magical activity at 4 Leafy Lane, all accompanied by fervent and hushed whisperings.

                    Glynis knew they were trying to help her, and was grateful, but after the initial fear, she became defiant. “Who the hell did he think he was, anyway?” She left Glenville to study architecture at the prestigious College of Mugglebury. It was there she met Conway, who worked in the cafe where she stopped for coffee each morning on her way to class. They fell in love and moved in together, deciding that as soon as Glynis had graduated they would marry. It had been 4 years since she had last seen Tomas and he was now no more than a faint anxious fluttering in her chest.

                    It was a Friday when she got the news that Conway had driven in the path of an oncoming truck and was killed instantly. She knew it was Friday because she was in the supermarket buying supplies for a party that weekend to celebrate her exams being over when she got the call. And it was the same day Tomas turned up at her house.

                    And it was then she knew.

                    “You murderer!” she had screamed through her tears. “Kill me too, if you want to. I will never love you.”

                    “You’ve broken my heart,” he said. “And for that you must pay the price. If I can’t have you then I will make sure no-one else wants you either.”

                    “You don’t have a heart to break,” she whispered.

                    Dragon face,” Tomas hissed as he left.

                    Glynis returned to Glenville just long enough to tell her family she was leaving again. “No, she didn’t know where,” she said, her heart feeling like stone. Her mother and her Aunts cried and begged her to reconsider. Her Uncle smouldered in silent fury and let off little puffs of smoke from his ears which he could not contain. Her father was simply bewildered and wanted to know what was all the fuss about and for crying out loud why was she wearing a burka?

                    The day she left her mother gave her the ‘Book of Spells”. Glynis knew how precious this book was to her mother but could only think how heavy it would be to lug around with her on her journey.

                    “Remember, Glynis,” her mother said as she hugged Glynis tightly to her, “the sorcerers have powerful magic but it is a mere drop in the ocean in comparison to the magic of All That Is. You have that great power within you and no sorcerer can take take that from you. You have the power to transform this into something beautiful.”

                    #3694

                    Aunt Idle:

                    It was good to see the back of them, although it was a shame that Crispin Cornwall ~ alias Godfrey Trueman, I now knew ~ hadn’t paid his bill. I could trace him via Liz, but I wanted to keep a distance. I had two pieces of the Tattler, Trout and Trueman puzzle, but who was Trout? Why did they send me that note made of ripped up maps, and what did Flora have to do with it all? And what were they doing buying up ghost towns?

                    Of course, considering Liz was involved, it was entirely possible that none of it meant anything at all. Then again, with Liz, one never knew. And I don’t know a thing about Trueman, and less about Trout.

                    Perhaps there was a clue in room 8.

                    #3635
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Aunt Idle:

                      Trying to get a conversation out of Bert was like trying to prise a can of beans open with a nappy pin. If he’d been a bit more willing to discuss it with me I might have told him about the note, but I didn’t. I suppose he was disgruntled because I was more interested in that medical team buying up ghost towns than his bridge, so we sat in silence for the rest of the trip. Not that I wasn’t interested in the place on the other side of the river, but there was something very odd going on, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. That note, made from old maps at the Brundy place, then Flora’s card with the same name on ~ what the dickens was going on? Should I ask Flora point blank, or would that alert her that I was on to her? Might be better to be more subtle, see what I could find out before confronting her. I even thought of getting the remote view team to see if they could find anything out ~ although the results were so sketchy that might just be a wild goose chase, lead me off in the wrong direction.

                      “Take the next left, Idle, down this here track,” Bert said.

                      Miles away I was, so I didn’t hear him at first and had to slam the brakes on a bit sharpish. I caught Bert rolling his eyes at me and glared at him.

                      The track hadn’t been driven on for months, if not years ~ that much was obvious. We bumped along kicking up a cloud of dust for a few miles before the river came into sight, then the track followed the river for another half a mile or so, eventually petering out.

                      “We’ll have to walk from here,” said Bert, getting out of the car. I passed Bert the rucksack with the bottled water and locked the car. “You don’t need to lock the car here” Bert snorted.

                      “Habit,” I snapped, “Lead the way.”

                      #3331

                      “I’m so booooored” Amar sighed, after his eleventh 5-minute break of the morning was over.
                      He looked at his polished nails, then at his two companions.
                      “It’s so clean we could eat on that damn sewer’s floor, you should stop cleaning! Come on!”

                      Reginald looked at him with pursed lips and a fist firmly planted on his hips “And, you are suggesting somethin’, or are you just going to rub it in some more?”

                      “Hell yeah, if we’re going to be stuck here, we could redecorate, and make this place a bit more interesting. I’m thinking an underground club, with art deco sculptures and some bit of goth in the back, a stage with fat pole dancers, a disco ball and silver shimmer metallic glowing paint,… Don’t get me started!”

                      “Sounds like a lot of work…” Reginald replied after a moment, giving no hint he was buying it.
                      “But then, we ain’t got much to do, and I’ll be dying of boredom if we don’t shake this thing up. Count me in!”

                      #2972

                      “I still don’t know what we’re doing here, Glo. Azerbaijan in the middle of bloody winter?”

                      “The nightlife, Sharon, the nightlife!”

                      “So what do we do during the day, then? Besides freeze our ample tits off?”

                      “Let’s have a cuppa somewhere and decide. I saw some lovely pastries in that cafe over there, come on.”

                      ~~~

                      Sharon licked the crumbs from her fingers and leaned over the table, whispering to Gloria. “Can’t help but eavesdrop, did you hear what those two on the table behind me just said? Something about buying carpets. I could do with a new rug for the bathroom, shall we follow them? They seem to know their way around here.”

                      “I dunno, Shar, they look a bit tipsy to me. Look at all those empty Guinness cans.”

                      #2955
                      ÉricÉric
                      Keymaster

                        While stroking his mustache fondly, Ed Steam had the clearest realization that although he’d done that quite a few times in the past mostly to his advantage, it was a lot of work to rewrite timelines and figure out the hows and whens of everyone in his team.
                        Maybe it was actually time for him to restore the original timeline while disappearing — by faking his own death to be certain nobody would thwart his carefully thought retirement plan. Then, he could also stop dyeing his mustache he figured… So many things to take care of, retirement would be so sweet.
                        Although the Egyptian timeturner gave him all the time in the world, he actually felt like he’d lost already a great deal too much of it, and started to enact his plan without further ado.

                        Procuring a body double was actually not so hard. The last surge had brought a few of them in Thrifteen’s Alley in their Moreguest Facility. A switch and a twist of the pocket portal and a zap and a blink of the miniaturizer was enough to get there and come back in seconds with a frozen pocket-size life-suspended body from the testing stock, with convincing enough miniaturized slim lips, safely put in a test tube in his waistcoat pocket.
                        A six-shot cudgel from his artefact war trove was all he needed to make sure the amateur assassin in red robes they’d hired would be taken care of easily.
                        Then, an enscombulator bedazzler ray spray would be enough to convince Mari Fe she’d managed to hit him, buying him time enough to then deminiaturize the thawed slim-lipped body double, to slip in his stead.
                        Last, but not least, he would then have a few seconds to discombobulize Mari Fe while disappearing with a backup transportable portal. The plan was perfect. The original timeline restored in pristine conditions.
                        Only for a few minor details of course. He’d almost forgotten to reprogram the mini-man in his pocket with enough memories for him to be a convincing Ed-himself sans la moustache of course. At least, for the short time he would survive (surge victims discovered still alive were placed in life suspension by the team, but this was mostly for medical analysis as they usually wouldn’t survive their conditions).
                        Oh, and the bloody mustache of course… A squeeze of foolicle solventilator would be enough to make it temporarily invisible.

                        Simple enough… Well, sandbagging Mari Fe would have probably conveyed similar results with minimal efforts, although the elegance of his plan, as well as the fact that he was loath to hit ladies did unmistakably weight in favour of it.

                        And with that, he would be back in time for dinner.
                        In fact, he already was.

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