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Darius: A Map of People

June 2023 – Capesterre-Belle-Eau, Guadeloupe

The air in Capesterre-Belle-Eau was thick with humidity, the kind that clung to your skin and made every movement slow and deliberate. Darius leaned against the railing of the veranda, his gaze fixed on the horizon where the sky blends into the sea. The scent of wet earth and banana leaves filling the air. He was home.

It had been nearly a year since hurricane Fiona swept through Guadeloupe, its winds blowing a trail of destruction across homes, plantations, and lives. Capesterre-Belle-Eau had been among the hardest hit, its banana plantations reduced to ruin and its roads washed away in torrents of mud.

Darius hadn’t been here when it happened. He’d read about it from across the Atlantic, the news filtering through headlines and phone calls from his aunt, her voice brittle with worry.

“Darius, you should come back,” she’d said. “The land remembers everyone who’s left it.”

It was an unusual thing for her to say, but the words lingered. By the time he arrived in early 2023 to join the relief efforts, the worst of the crisis had passed, but the scars remained—on the land, on the people, and somewhere deep inside himself.

Home, and Not — Now, passing days having turned into quick six months, Darius was still here, though he couldn’t say why. He had thrown himself into the work, helped to rebuild homes, clear debris, and replant crops. But it wasn’t just the physical labor that kept him—it was the strange sensation of being rooted in a place he’d once fled.

Capesterre-Belle-Eau wasn’t just home; it was bones-deep memories of childhood. The long walks under the towering banana trees, the smell of frying codfish and steaming rice from his aunt’s kitchen, the rhythm of gwoka drums carrying through the evening air.

“Tu reviens pour rester cette fois ?” Come back to stay? a neighbor had asked the day he returned, her eyes sharp with curiosity.

He had laughed, brushing off the question. “On verra,” he’d replied. We’ll see.

But deep down, he knew the answer. He wasn’t back for good. He was here to make amends—not just to the land that had raised him but to himself.

A Map of Travels — On the veranda that afternoon, Darius opened his phone and scrolled through his photo gallery. Each image was pinned to a digital map, marking all the places he’d been since he got the phone. Of all places, it was Budapest which popped out, a poor snapshot of Buda Castle.

He found it a funny thought — just like where he was now, he hadn’t planned to stay so long there. He remembered the date: 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. He’d spent in Budapest most of it, sketching the empty streets.

Five years ago, their little group of four had all been reconnecting in Paris, full of plans that never came to fruition. By late 2019, the group had scattered, each of them drawn into their own orbits, until the first whispers of the pandemic began to ripple across the world.

Funding his travels had never been straightforward. He’d tried his hand at dozens of odd jobs over the years—bartending in Lisbon, teaching English in Marrakech, sketching portraits in tourist squares across Europe. He lived frugally, keeping his possessions light and his plans loose. Yet, his confidence had a way of opening doors; people trusted him without knowing why, offering him opportunities that always seemed to arrive at just the right time.

Even during the pandemic, when the world seemed to fold in on itself, he had found a way.

Darius had already arrived in Budapest by then, living cheaply in a rented studio above a bakery. The city had remained open longer than most in Europe or the world, its streets still alive with muted activity even as the rest of Europe closed down. He’d wandered freely for months, sketching graffiti-covered bridges, quiet cafes, and the crumbling facades of buildings that seemed to echo his own restlessness.

When the lockdowns finally came like everywhere else, it was just before winter, he’d stayed, uncertain of where else to go. His days became a rhythm of sketching, reading, and sending postcards. Amei was one of the few who replied—but never ostentatiously. It was enough to know she was still there, even if the distance between them felt greater than ever.

But the map didn’t tell the whole story. It didn’t show the faces, the laughter, the fleeting connections that had made those places matter.

Swatting at a buzzing mosquito, he reached for the small leather-bound folio on the table beside him. Inside was a collection of fragments: ticket stubs, pressed flowers, a frayed string bracelet gifted by a child in Guatemala, and a handful of postcards he’d sent to Amei but had never been sure she received.

One of them, yellowed at the edges, showed a labyrinth carved into stone. He turned it over, his own handwriting staring back at him.

“Amei,” it read. “I thought of you today. Of maps and paths and the people who make them worth walking. Wherever you are, I hope you’re well. —D.”

He hadn’t sent it. Amei’s responses had always been brief—a quick WhatsApp message, a thumbs-up on his photos, or a blue tick showing she’d read his posts. But they’d never quite managed to find their way back to the conversations they used to have.

The Market —  The next morning, Darius wandered through the market in Trois-Rivières, a smaller town nestled between the sea and the mountains. The vendors called out their wares—bunches of golden bananas, pyramids of vibrant mangoes, bags of freshly ground cassava flour.

“Tiens, Darius!” called a woman selling baskets woven from dried palm fronds. “You’re not at work today?”

“Day off,” he said, smiling as he leaned against her stall. “Figured I’d treat myself.”

She handed him a small woven bracelet, her eyes twinkling. “A gift. For luck, wherever you go next.”

Darius accepted it with a quiet laugh. “Merci, tatie.”

As he turned to leave, he noticed a couple at the next stall—tourists, by the look of them, their backpacks and wide-eyed curiosity marking them as outsiders. They made him suddenly realise how much he missed the lifestyle.

The woman wore an orange scarf, its boldness standing out as if the color orange itself had disappeared from the spectrum, and only a single precious dash could be seen into all the tones of the market. Something else about them caught his attention. Maybe it was the way they moved together, or the way the man gestured as he spoke, as if every word carried weight.

“Nice scarf,” Darius said casually as he passed.

The woman smiled, adjusting the fabric. “Thanks. Picked it up in Rajasthan. It’s been with me everywhere since.”

Her partner added, “It’s funny, isn’t it? The things we carry. Sometimes it feels like they know more about where we’ve been than we do.”

Darius tilted his head, intrigued. “Do you ever think about maps? Not the ones that lead to places, but the ones that lead to people. Paths crossing because they’re meant to.”

The man grinned. “Maybe it’s not about the map itself,” he said. “Maybe it’s about being open to seeing the connections.”

A Letter to Amei —  That evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Darius sat at the edge of the bay, his feet dangling above the water. The leather-bound folio sat open beside him, its contents spread out in the fading light.

He picked up the labyrinth postcard again, tracing its worn edges with his thumb.

“Amei,” he wrote on the back just under the previous message a second one —the words flowing easily this time. “Guadeloupe feels like a map of its own, its paths crossing mine in ways I can’t explain. It made me think of you. I hope you’re well. —D.”

He folded the card into an envelope and tucked it into his bag, resolving to send it the next day.

As he watched the waves lap against the rocks, he felt a sense of motion rolling like waves asking to be surfed. He didn’t know where the next path would lead next, but he felt it was time to move on again.

As Frigella, deep in her investigation of Herma’s cottage, meticulously examined the chest’s contents looking for potential clues missed at first glance that could explain more about the postcard, with its distinctive stamp featuring an ear of maize, she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched.

“By the gods, not that interloper again,” she muttered under her breath, sensing the familiar prickling at the back of her neck. She knew Cedric’s gaze all too well—part curiosity, part menace. The young witch hunter was like a moth to a flame, drawn to the coven’s mysteries and, more specifically, to Frella herself, for reasons that likely perplexed even him.

Herma, oblivious to the undercurrents, continued to sift through the chest with Frella. As the silence thickened, Frella’s mind wandered to the last encounter with Cedric. His naïve bravado was almost laughable, yet there he was, lurking in the shadows, ever the novice hunter out of his depth.

“Careful, Herma,” Frella warned with a sharp glance at the window. “We may have an unwelcome observer. This certain Cedric Spellbind has a knack for being where he shouldn’t.”

Herma chuckled, dismissing the tension with a wave. “Him? A mere boy chasing phantoms. He won’t bother us.”

Frella wasn’t so sure. Spellbind’s persistence was a nettlesome thorn, yet she knew how to handle such a busybody. For now, she would focus on the task at hand, but a mental note was made: keep an eye on Cedric. He was, after all, as unpredictable as the spring winds that brought them here far too early.

Potential Plot Arch

The uncovered box in the garden of Bob & Clara is a Time Capsule which was actually buried in the future, but mistakenly sent to the past. It has symbols etched on it, that activate some nano-technology.
Due to its contact with it, Bob starts recovering his memories, while retaining the hallucinations of his dead wife Jane, which actually become more credible and intense.

Will Tarkin is actually a time traveler from the future, who came to live a simple life in the past, selling stone gargoyles at the local supermarket and rediscovering the ways of his ancestors.

With the box being found and opened at the wrong time, it creates unwanted attention from the Time Dragglers who need to intervene to prevent alterations of the timeline.
Contents of the box are in part encoded books of stories from local families and would have revealed important things about the past, Jane’s death, and Clara’s future.

With Bob recovering his memories, it’s revealed Jane and Bob were actually also refugees from the future, but had aged naturally in the past, which is why Will seemed to recognize Bob. Bob was living in hiding from the Time Police, but with the box discovery, it changes everything. The box being opened at the wrong time disrupts the natural flow of events and starts causing unexpected consequences. This creates a complex web of relationships and events that must be untangled and understood in order to move forward.

With his recovering of mental capacities, Bob partners with Will in order to restore the natural flow of time, even if it means his mental health will deteriorate again, which he is happy to do while continuing to live the rest of his life span with his daughter.

Potential developments

Clara Meets the Mysterious Will

Nora finally reaches the little village where Clara and Bob live and is greeted by a man named Will
Will seems to know Bob from somewhere
Clara starts to feel suspicious of Will’s intentions and begins to investigate

The Power of Memories

Bob starts to have flashbacks of his past and begins to remember the connection between him, Will, and the mysterious time capsule
Bob realizes that Jane, his wife, had been keeping something from him and that the time capsule holds the key to unlocking the truth
Jane appears to Bob and urges him to tell Clara about their past and the significance of the time capsule

The Truth Behind the Capsule

Nora, Clara, and Bob finally find the answers they’ve been searching for by opening the time capsule
The contents of the capsule reveal a shocking truth about Jane’s past and the reason behind her death
They learn that Jane was part of a secret society that protected ancient knowledge and artifacts and that the time capsule was meant to be opened at a specific time
The group realizes that they were meant to find the capsule and continue Jane’s work in protecting the knowledge and artifacts

The Ties Between Living and Dead

Bob comes to terms with Jane’s death and the role she played in their lives
Clara and Bob grow closer as they work together to continue Jane’s work and preserve the knowledge and artifacts
The group encounters obstacles but with the help of the spirits of the past, they are able to overcome them and succeed in their mission

A Realization of the Past and Present

Clara, Bob, and Nora come to realize the power of memories and how they shape our present and future
They also learn that things never truly remain buried and that the past always finds a way to resurface
The group successfully preserves the knowledge and artifacts, ensuring that they will be passed down for generations to come
The story ends with Clara, Bob, and Nora sitting by the fire, reflecting on their journey and the lessons they’ve learned.

The Grattidge Family

The first Grattidge to appear in our tree was Emma Grattidge (1853-1911) who married Charles Tomlinson (1847-1907) in 1872.

Charles Tomlinson (1873-1929) was their son and he married my great grandmother Nellie Fisher. Their daughter Margaret (later Peggy Edwards) was my grandmother on my fathers side.

Emma Grattidge was born in Wolverhampton, the daughter and youngest child of William Grattidge (1820-1887) born in Foston, Derbyshire, and Mary Stubbs, born in Burton on Trent, daughter of Solomon Stubbs, a land carrier. William and Mary married at St Modwens church, Burton on Trent, in 1839. It’s unclear why they moved to Wolverhampton. On the 1841 census William was employed as an agent, and their first son William was nine months old. Thereafter, William was a licensed victuallar or innkeeper.

William Grattidge was born in Foston, Derbyshire in 1820. His parents were Thomas Grattidge, farmer (1779-1843) and Ann Gerrard (1789-1822) from Ellastone. Thomas and Ann married in 1813 in Ellastone. They had five children before Ann died at the age of 25:

Bessy was born in 1815, Thomas in 1818, William in 1820, and Daniel Augustus and Frederick were twins born in 1822. They were all born in Foston. (records say Foston, Foston and Scropton, or Scropton)

On the 1841 census Thomas had nine people additional to family living at the farm in Foston, presumably agricultural labourers and help.

After Ann died, Thomas had three children with Kezia Gibbs (30 years his junior) before marrying her in 1836, then had a further four with her before dying in 1843. Then Kezia married Thomas’s nephew Frederick Augustus Grattidge (born in 1816 in Stafford) in London in 1847 and had two more!

The siblings of William Grattidge (my 3x great grandfather):

Frederick Grattidge (1822-1872) was a schoolmaster and never married. He died at the age of 49 in Tamworth at his twin brother Daniels address.

Daniel Augustus Grattidge (1822-1903) was a grocer at Gungate in Tamworth.

Thomas Grattidge (1818-1871) married in Derby, and then emigrated to Illinois, USA.

Bessy Grattidge  (1815-1840) married John Buxton, farmer, in Ellastone in January 1838. They had three children before Bessy died in December 1840 at the age of 25: Henry in 1838, John in 1839, and Bessy Buxton in 1840. Bessy was baptised in January 1841. Presumably the birth of Bessy caused the death of Bessy the mother.

Bessy Buxton’s gravestone:

“Sacred to the memory of Bessy Buxton, the affectionate wife of John Buxton of Stanton She departed this life December 20th 1840, aged 25 years. “Husband, Farewell my life is Past, I loved you while life did last. Think on my children for my sake, And ever of them with I take.”

20 Dec 1840, Ellastone, Staffordshire

In the 1843 will of Thomas Grattidge, farmer of Foston, he leaves fifth shares of his estate, including freehold real estate at Findern,  to his wife Kezia, and sons William, Daniel, Frederick and Thomas. He mentions that the children of his late daughter Bessy, wife of John Buxton, will be taken care of by their father.  He leaves the farm to Keziah in confidence that she will maintain, support and educate his children with her.

An excerpt from the will:

I give and bequeath unto my dear wife Keziah Grattidge all my household goods and furniture, wearing apparel and plate and plated articles, linen, books, china, glass, and other household effects whatsoever, and also all my implements of husbandry, horses, cattle, hay, corn, crops and live and dead stock whatsoever, and also all the ready money that may be about my person or in my dwelling house at the time of my decease, …I also give my said wife the tenant right and possession of the farm in my occupation….

A page from the 1843 will of Thomas Grattidge:

William Grattidges half siblings (the offspring of Thomas Grattidge and Kezia Gibbs):

Albert Grattidge (1842-1914) was a railway engine driver in Derby. In 1884 he was driving the train when an unfortunate accident occured outside Ambergate. Three children were blackberrying and crossed the rails in front of the train, and one little girl died.

Albert Grattidge:

George Grattidge (1826-1876) was baptised Gibbs as this was before Thomas married Kezia. He was a police inspector in Derby.

George Grattidge:

Edwin Grattidge (1837-1852) died at just 15 years old.

Ann Grattidge (1835-) married Charles Fletcher, stone mason, and lived in Derby.

Louisa Victoria Grattidge (1840-1869) was sadly another Grattidge woman who died young. Louisa married Emmanuel Brunt Cheesborough in 1860 in Derby. In 1861 Louisa and Emmanuel were living with her mother Kezia in Derby, with their two children Frederick and Ann Louisa. Emmanuel’s occupation was sawyer. (Kezia Gibbs second husband Frederick Augustus Grattidge was a timber merchant in Derby)

At the time of her death in 1869, Emmanuel was the landlord of the White Hart public house at Bridgegate in Derby.

The Derby Mercury of 17th November 1869:

“On Wednesday morning Mr Coroner Vallack held an inquest in the Grand
Jury-room, Town-hall, on the body of Louisa Victoria Cheeseborough, aged
33, the wife of the landlord of the White Hart, Bridge-gate, who committed
suicide by poisoning at an early hour on Sunday morning. The following
evidence was taken:

Mr Frederick Borough, surgeon, practising in Derby, deposed that he was
called in to see the deceased about four o’clock on Sunday morning last. He
accordingly examined the deceased and found the body quite warm, but dead.
He afterwards made enquiries of the husband, who said that he was afraid
that his wife had taken poison, also giving him at the same time the
remains of some blue material in a cup. The aunt of the deceased’s husband
told him that she had seen Mrs Cheeseborough put down a cup in the
club-room, as though she had just taken it from her mouth. The witness took
the liquid home with him, and informed them that an inquest would
necessarily have to be held on Monday. He had made a post mortem
examination of the body, and found that in the stomach there was a great
deal of congestion. There were remains of food in the stomach and, having
put the contents into a bottle, he took the stomach away. He also examined
the heart and found it very pale and flabby. All the other organs were
comparatively healthy; the liver was friable.

Hannah Stone, aunt of the deceased’s husband, said she acted as a servant
in the house. On Saturday evening, while they were going to bed and whilst
witness was undressing, the deceased came into the room, went up to the
bedside, awoke her daughter, and whispered to her. but what she said the
witness did not know. The child jumped out of bed, but the deceased closed
the door and went away. The child followed her mother, and she also
followed them to the deceased’s bed-room, but the door being closed, they
then went to the club-room door and opening it they saw the deceased
standing with a candle in one hand. The daughter stayed with her in the
room whilst the witness went downstairs to fetch a candle for herself, and
as she was returning up again she saw the deceased put a teacup on the
table. The little girl began to scream, saying “Oh aunt, my mother is
going, but don’t let her go”. The deceased then walked into her bed-room,
and they went and stood at the door whilst the deceased undressed herself.
The daughter and the witness then returned to their bed-room. Presently
they went to see if the deceased was in bed, but she was sitting on the
floor her arms on the bedside. Her husband was sitting in a chair fast
asleep. The witness pulled her on the bed as well as she could.
Ann Louisa Cheesborough, a little girl, said that the deceased was her
mother. On Saturday evening last, about twenty minutes before eleven
o’clock, she went to bed, leaving her mother and aunt downstairs. Her aunt
came to bed as usual. By and bye, her mother came into her room – before
the aunt had retired to rest – and awoke her. She told the witness, in a
low voice, ‘that she should have all that she had got, adding that she
should also leave her her watch, as she was going to die’. She did not tell
her aunt what her mother had said, but followed her directly into the
club-room, where she saw her drink something from a cup, which she
afterwards placed on the table. Her mother then went into her own room and
shut the door. She screamed and called her father, who was downstairs. He
came up and went into her room. The witness then went to bed and fell
asleep. She did not hear any noise or quarrelling in the house after going
to bed.

Police-constable Webster was on duty in Bridge-gate on Saturday evening
last, about twenty minutes to one o’clock. He knew the White Hart
public-house in Bridge-gate, and as he was approaching that place, he heard
a woman scream as though at the back side of the house. The witness went to
the door and heard the deceased keep saying ‘Will you be quiet and go to
bed’. The reply was most disgusting, and the language which the
police-constable said was uttered by the husband of the deceased, was
immoral in the extreme. He heard the poor woman keep pressing her husband
to go to bed quietly, and eventually he saw him through the keyhole of the
door pass and go upstairs. his wife having gone up a minute or so before.
Inspector Fearn deposed that on Sunday morning last, after he had heard of
the deceased’s death from supposed poisoning, he went to Cheeseborough’s
public house, and found in the club-room two nearly empty packets of
Battie’s Lincoln Vermin Killer – each labelled poison.

Several of the Jury here intimated that they had seen some marks on the
deceased’s neck, as of blows, and expressing a desire that the surgeon
should return, and re-examine the body. This was accordingly done, after
which the following evidence was taken:

Mr Borough said that he had examined the body of the deceased and observed
a mark on the left side of the neck, which he considered had come on since
death. He thought it was the commencement of decomposition.
This was the evidence, after which the jury returned a verdict “that the
deceased took poison whilst of unsound mind” and requested the Coroner to
censure the deceased’s husband.

The Coroner told Cheeseborough that he was a disgusting brute and that the
jury only regretted that the law could not reach his brutal conduct.
However he had had a narrow escape. It was their belief that his poor
wife, who was driven to her own destruction by his brutal treatment, would
have been a living woman that day except for his cowardly conduct towards
her.

The inquiry, which had lasted a considerable time, then closed.”

 

In this article it says:

“it was the “fourth or fifth remarkable and tragical event – some of which were of the worst description – that has taken place within the last twelve years at the White Hart and in the very room in which the unfortunate Louisa Cheesborough drew her last breath.”

Sheffield Independent – Friday 12 November 1869:

numerous cats fear sounds
lawrence contents joined sister melbourne
high african nonsense reported
andrew dear kianda derbyshire
black class bucks second

From Tanganyika with Love

continued  ~ part 6

With thanks to Mike Rushby.

Mchewe 6th June 1937

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

With much love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe 25th June 1937

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Lots of love,
Eleanor.

Mchewe 9th July 1937

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor

Mchewe 8th October 1937

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Mchewe 17th October 1937

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Mchewe 18th November 1937

My darling Ann,

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

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

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

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

Mchewe 18th November 1937

Hello George Darling,

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

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

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

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

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

Mchewe 12th February, 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Mbulu 18th March, 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Mbulu 24th March, 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Mbulu 20th June 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Karatu 3rd July 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Karatu 12th July 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Oldeani. 19th July 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Oldeani. 10th August 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Oldeani. 20th August 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

Oldeani Hospital. 9th September 1938

Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

Eleanor.

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.

 

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.

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

My Grandparents Kitchen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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