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  • #6469

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    The door opened and Youssef saw Natalie, still waiting for him. Indeed, he needed help. He decided to accept  sands_of_time contact request, hopping it was not another Thi Gang trick.

    Sands_of_time is trying to make contact : ✅ACCEPT <> ➡️DENY ❓

    A princess on horse back emerged from the sand. The veil on her hair floated in a wind that soon cleared all the dust from her garment and her mount, revealing a princess with a delicate face and some prominent attributes that didn’t leave Youssef indifferent. She was smiling at him, and her horse, who had six legs and looked a bit like a camel, snorted at the bear.

    “I love doing that, said the princess. At least I don’t get to spit sand afterward like when my sister’s grand-kids want to bury me in the sand at the beach…”

    It broke the charm. It reminded Youssef it was all a game. That princess was an avatar. Was it even a girl on the other side ? And how old ? Youssef, despite his stature, felt as vulnerable as when his mother left him for the afternoon with an old aunt in Sudan when he was five and she kept wanting to dress him with colourful girl outfits. He shivered and the bear growled at the camel-horse, reminding Youssef how hungry he was.

    sands_of_time?” he asked.

    “Yes. I like this AI game. Makes me feel like I’m twenty again. Not as fun as a mushroom trip though, but… with less secondary effects. Anyway, I saw you needed help with that girl. A ‘reel’ nuisance if you ask me, sticky like a sea cucumber.”

    “How do you know ? Did you plant bugs on my phone ? Are you with the Thi Gang ?” 

    The bear moved toward them and roared and the camel-horse did a strange sound. The princess appeased her mount with a touch of her hand.

    “Oh! Boy, calm down your heat. Nothing so prosaic. I have other means, she said with a grin. Call me Sweet Sophie, I’m a real life reporter. Was just laying down on my dream couch looking for clues about a Dr Patelonus, the man’s mixed up in some monkey trafficking business, when I saw that strange llama dressed like a tibetan monk, except it was a bit too mayonnaise for a tibetan monk. Anyway, he led me to you and told me to contact you through this Quirk Quest Game, suggesting you might have some intel for me about that monkey business of mine. So I put on my VR helmet, which actually reminds me of a time at the hair salon, and a gorgeous beehive… but anyway you wouldn’t understand. So I had to accept one of those quests and find you in the game. Which was a lot less easier than RV I can tell you. The only thing, I couldn’t interact with you unless you accepted contact. So here I am, ready for you to tell me about Dr Patelonus. But I can see that first we need to get you out of here.”

    Youssef had no idea about what she was talking about. VR; RV ? one and the same ? He decided not to tell her he knew nothing about monkeys or doctors until he was out of Natalie’s reach. If indeed sands_of_timecould help.

    “So what do I do ?” asked Youssef.

    “Let me first show you my real self. I’ve always wanted to try that. Wait a moment. I need to focus.”

    The princess avatar looked in the distance, her eyes lost beyond this world. Suddenly, Youssef felt a presence creeping into his mind. He heard a laugh and saw an old lady in yoga pants on a couch! He roared and almost let go of his phone again.

    The princess smiled.

    “Now, wouldn’t be fair if only I knew what you looked like in real life. Although you’re pretty close to your avatar… Don’t you seem a tad afraid of experimenting with new things. :yahoo_smug:

    She laughed again, and this time Youssef saw her “real” face superimposed on the princess avatar. It gave him goosebumps.

    “Now’s your opening, she said. The girl’s busy giving directions to someone else. Get out of the bathroom! Now!”

    Youssef had the strangest feeling that the voice had come at the same time from the phone speakers and from inside his head. His body acted on its own as if he was a puppet. He pushed the bathroom door open and rushed outside.

    #6343
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum

      William James Stokes

       

      William James Stokes was the first son of Thomas Stokes and Eliza Browning. Oddly, his birth was registered in Witham in Essex, on the 6th September 1841.

      Birth certificate of William James Stokes:

      birth William Stokes

       

      His father Thomas Stokes has not yet been found on the 1841 census, and his mother Eliza was staying with her uncle Thomas Lock in Cirencester in 1841. Eliza’s mother Mary Browning (nee Lock) was staying there too. Thomas and Eliza were married in September 1840 in Hempstead in Gloucestershire.

      It’s a mystery why William was born in Essex but one possibility is that his father Thomas, who later worked with the Chipperfields making circus wagons, was staying with the Chipperfields who were wheelwrights in Witham in 1841. Or perhaps even away with a traveling circus at the time of the census, learning the circus waggon wheelwright trade. But this is a guess and it’s far from clear why Eliza would make the journey to Witham to have the baby when she was staying in Cirencester a few months prior.

      In 1851 Thomas and Eliza, William and four younger siblings were living in Bledington in Oxfordshire.

      William was a 19 year old wheelwright living with his parents in Evesham in 1861. He married Elizabeth Meldrum in December 1867 in Hackney, London. He and his father are both wheelwrights on the marriage register.

      Marriage of William James Stokes and Elizabeth Meldrum in 1867:

      1867 William Stokes

       

      William and Elizabeth had a daughter, Elizabeth Emily Stokes, in 1868 in Shoreditch, London.

      On the 3rd of December 1870, William James Stokes was admitted to Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. One week later on the 10th of December, he was dead.

      On his death certificate the cause of death was “general paralysis and exhaustion, certified. MD Edgar Sheppard in attendance.” William was just 29 years old.

      Death certificate William James Stokes:

      death William Stokes

       

      I asked on a genealogy forum what could possibly have caused this death at such a young age. A retired pathology professor replied that “in medicine the term General Paralysis is only used in one context – that of Tertiary Syphilis.”
      “Tertiary syphilis is the third and final stage of syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that unfolds in stages when the individual affected doesn’t receive appropriate treatment.”

      From the article “Looking back: This fascinating and fatal disease” by Jennifer Wallis:

      “……in asylums across Britain in the late 19th century, with hundreds of people receiving the diagnosis of general paralysis of the insane (GPI). The majority of these were men in their 30s and 40s, all exhibiting one or more of the disease’s telltale signs: grandiose delusions, a staggering gait, disturbed reflexes, asymmetrical pupils, tremulous voice, and muscular weakness. Their prognosis was bleak, most dying within months, weeks, or sometimes days of admission.

      The fatal nature of GPI made it of particular concern to asylum superintendents, who became worried that their institutions were full of incurable cases requiring constant care. The social effects of the disease were also significant, attacking men in the prime of life whose admission to the asylum frequently left a wife and children at home. Compounding the problem was the erratic behaviour of the general paralytic, who might get themselves into financial or legal difficulties. Delusions about their vast wealth led some to squander scarce family resources on extravagant purchases – one man’s wife reported he had bought ‘a quantity of hats’ despite their meagre income – and doctors pointed to the frequency of thefts by general paralytics who imagined that everything belonged to them.”

       

      The London Archives hold the records for Colney Hatch, but they informed me that the particular records for the dates that William was admitted and died were in too poor a condition to be accessed without causing further damage.

      Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum gained such notoriety that the name “Colney Hatch” appeared in various terms of abuse associated with the concept of madness. Infamous inmates that were institutionalized at Colney Hatch (later called Friern Hospital) include Jack the Ripper suspect Aaron Kosminski from 1891, and from 1911 the wife of occultist Aleister Crowley. In 1993 the hospital grounds were sold and the exclusive apartment complex called Princess Park Manor was built.

      Colney Hatch:

      Colney Hatch

       

      In 1873 Williams widow married William Hallam in Limehouse in London. Elizabeth died in 1930, apparently unaffected by her first husbands ailment.

      #6299

      In reply to: The Sexy Wooden Leg

      Looking at the blemish feverish man on the camp bed, General Lyaksandro Rudechenko clenched his fists. The wooden leg, that had been the symbol of the Oocranian Resistance for the last year was now lying on the floor. President Voldomeer had contracted a virus that confounded their best doctors and the remaining chiefs of the Oocranian Resistance feared he would soon join the men fallen for their country.

      — Nobody must know that the sexiest man of Oocrane is incapacitated. We need a replacement, said the General.

      — President Voldomeer told me of a man, the very man who made that wooden leg, said Major Myroslava Kovalev, the candle light reflecting in her glass eye. He lives in the Dumbass region. He’s a secret twin or something, President Voldomeer was not so clear about that part, but at least they look alike. To make it more real, we can have his leg removed, she added pointing at the wooden leg.

      She was proud of being one of the only women ranking that high in the military. His fellow people might not be Lazies, but they had some old idea about women, that were not the best choice for fighting. Myroslava had always wanted to prove them wrong, and this conflict had been her chance to rise almost to the top. She looked at the dying man who was once her ladder. He had been sexy, and certainly could do many things with his wooden leg. Now he was but the shadow of a man, pale and blurry as cataract. If she had loved him, she might have shed a tear.

      Myroslava looked at General Rudechenko’s pockmarked face and shivered. She wouldn’t even share a cab with him. But he was the next in command, and before Voldomeer fell ill, she was on her way to take his place, even closer to the top.

      — Let me bring him to you, she added.

      — That’s a suicide mission, said the general. Permission granted.

      — Thank you General ! said Myroslava doing the military salute before leaving the tent.

      Despite his being from Dumbass and having made some mistakes in his life, Lyaksandro was not stupid. He knew quite well what that woman wanted. He called, Glib, his aide-de-camp.

      — Make sure she gets lost behind the enemy lines.

      #6286
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        Matthew Orgill and His Family

         

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

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

        LATE MATTHEW ORGILL PEACEFUL END TO A BLAMELESS LIFE.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

         

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

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

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

        Matthew Orgill window

        Matthew orgill window 2

         

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

        Measham Wharf

         

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

        Old Measham wharf

         

        But what to make of the inscription in the window?

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

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

         

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

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

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

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

        Another Orgill Orgill marriage!

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

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

        #6266
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          From Tanganyika with Love

          continued part 7

          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

          Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu. 30th September 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu. 25th October 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Iringa. 30th November 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 14th February 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 28th February 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 25th March 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 28th April 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Nzassa 5th August 1939

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Morogoro 14th September 1939

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Morogoro 4th November 1939

          Dearest Family,

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Iringa 8th December 1939

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Morogoro 10th March 1940

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Morogoro 14th July 1940

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Morogoro 16th November 1940

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

           

          #6263
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued  ~ part 4

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            With much love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            Heaps of love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Lots of love,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            With heaps of love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

            Lots and lots of love,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Your very affectionate,
            Eleanor

            Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

            With love to you all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            Much love to you all,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

            Your worried but affectionate,
            Eleanor.

            Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

            Much love,
            Eleanor.

            Mchewe. 12th November 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Lots and lots of love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Chunya 27th November 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Much love to all,
            Eleanor.

             

            #6237
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              Murder At The Bennistons

              We don’t know exactly what happened immediately after the death of Catherine Housley’s mother in 1849, but by 1850 the two older daughters Elizabeth and Mary Anne were inmates in Belper Workhouse.  Catherine was just six weeks old, so presumably she was with a wet nurse, possibly even prior to her mothers death.  By 1851, according to the census, she was living in Heanor, a small town near to Smalley,  with John Benniston, a framework knitter, and his family. Framework knitters (abbreviated to FWK should you happen to see it on a census) rented a large loom and made stockings and everyone in the family helped. Often the occupation of other household members would be “seamer”: they would stitch the stocking seams together.  Catherine was still living with the Bennistons ten years later in 1861.

              Framework Knitters

               

              I read some chapters of a thesis on the south Derbyshire poor in the 1800s and found some illuminating information about indentured apprenticeship of children especially if one parent died. It was not at all uncommon,  and framework knitters in particular often had indentured apprentices.  It was a way to ensure the child was fed and learned a skill.  Children commonly worked from the age of ten or 12 anyway. They were usually placed walking distance of the family home and maintained contact. The indenture could be paid by the parish poor fund, which cost them slightly less than sending them to the poorhouse, and could be paid off by a parent if circumstances improved to release the child from the apprenticeship.
              A child who was an indentured apprentice would continue a normal life after the term of apprenticeship, usually still in contact with family locally.

              I found a newspaper article titled “Child Murder at Heanor” dated 1858.

              Heanor baby murder

              A 23 year old lodger at the Bennistons, Hannah Cresswell, apparently murdered a new born baby that she gave birth to in the privy, which the midwife took away and had buried as a still birth. The baby was exhumed after an anonymous tip off from a neighbour, citing that it was the 4th such incident. Catherine Housley would have been nine years old at the time.

              Heanor baby murder 2

               

              Subsequent newspaper articles indicate that the case was thrown out, despite the doctors evidence that the baby had been beaten to death.

              In July 1858 the inquest was held in the King of Prussia,  on the Hannah Cresswell baby murder at the Bennistons.

              The King of Prussia, Heanor, in 1860:

              King of Prussia Heanor

              #6222
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                George Gilman Rushby: The Cousin Who Went To Africa

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

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

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

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

                George Gilman Rushby:

                George Gilman Rushby

                 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                George Gilman Rushby:

                #6019

                In reply to: Story Bored

                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Board 8, Story 2

                  Margit, the maudlin woman on the beach, was clearly the mad doctors mother. The old snapshot Aunt Idle found of the boy Brynjúlfursdóttir a.k.a. Bronklehampton proved that he was indulging in strange experiments even as a young child.

                  Becky regretted marrying Sean but was glad she kept the wedding presents, especially that YouDo doll.  Who knew what that YouDo doll was capable of at the time, but it’s ability to teleport items during the quarantine was proving extremely useful.

                  Sam wasn’t impressed with the  Spider Amusement Park.  “It may have a spider, but it’s not much of a park and certainly doesn’t look very amusing,” he said while perusing the holiday brochures.

                  #5844

                  Life around the woods had changed in a strange way since the appearance of the beaver fever. It was called after some theory from where it came from. Some said patient zero was a trapper far off in the woods who caught an infected beaver and sold its fur to the market. The fur then contaminated the coat maker and then the clients who tried on that coat, hence leading to contamination nests in the entire realm. The beaver fever took time to incubate, so when people first noticed the trapper wasn’t coming back, it was too late.

                  That’s not such a bad thing to live a little recluse in the woods, thought Eleri. She usually was restless and lately had been wandering off into town and into the countryside looking for things to paint with her tar black pigment. It is a new phase of experimentation, she had said to Glynis who had been wondering if she could include more variety to her palette. I’m looking to capture the contrasting soul of what I’m painting.

                  Don’t you mean contrasted? asked Glynis.

                  Do I? Whatever, I’m experimenting.

                  Glynis knew better than to argue with Eleri, and Eleri knew better than trying to make words fit the world. It was better to make the world fit her words. How could you explain that to someone? So she assumed people understood.

                  With the curfew, though, it had first become harder. Then she had found a way by painting her own garments tar black and to complete her attire, she had asked Fox. He had also found a hobby and with a sharp knife and a log he could make you a mask so vivid to look alike anything you asked. Eleri had asked him for a crow and had painted it tar black. She looked like those doctors during the plague a few centuries back and dressed like that people certainly respected the safety distance promulgated by Leroway’s decree.

                  That man seemed hard to get rid off, especially in time such as those. Eleri suspected that Leroway was not the man she knew and once courted her. She needed to get close to investigate. Her new attire, if it might not help with the investigation at least would help embolden her and stave off boredom.

                  #5822

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  #4780

                  “B’s in trouble!” Gloria cried out, waking up the two other snoring ladies who almost fell from their rocking chairs.
                  “Whatcha sayin’ my Glor’?” Sharon was the first to react once she put her hand on her teeth.
                  “Sayin’ that our B’s in trouble!”
                  “Can’t let that be, cannit?” Sharon retorted “But where daya think you got your intel’ love, ain’t our B dead last year?”
                  “Sure thing but I got up one my brainwaves, t’was vivid as day, like when I got my cataract all strung up and the good doctors lazered my eyes aye. She was stuck in a big ruby!”
                  “Ahaha, that’s got to be a big ruby fossur’, remember ‘ow big our B was!”
                  “Oh shush Shar’, lemme thing alright. Think it all links back to our beauty treatments I’m sure, hasn’t anybody answered our advert’?” Gloria asked Mavis
                  “Oh bleedin’ hell no, I forgot to check, lemme get my spectacles, dear!” Mavis answered.

                  THERE, THERE!” Mavis jumped at the article. “A time and location for a rendez-vous.” she said suggestively. “When do we sneak out?”

                  “Tonight, tonight alright, all my store of Stillnox is already in the water supply, everybody’s going to snore in no time.”

                  Glor’, I think we’ll have a problem.” Sharon said plaintively. “I drank plenty of the ol’ water supply alright too, the doctor said I needed to drink plenty with my lady problems and all.”

                  #4711
                  AvatarJib
                  Participant

                    The aircon was buzzing and Sophie walked in her pajamas through the open space to reach her dreaming base. That’s how she secretly called it. She could feel the eyes of her colleagues following her, and as usual she felt proud to be the center of attention. It didn’t matter that it was jealousy or anything else. People were looking at her and she was doing something different.

                    Once in her base of operation, she settled on the couch and looked at the brew that had been brought for her. It was her second attempt at remote viewing the Doctor and this time she had requested a bucket and some padding around the sharp corners. She feared a little the unleashing of her wild nature, but in truth she had no idea what to expect. She had read on the Internet that there was nothing to fear and that there would be no side effects, and usually with her natural paranoia she would have double checked before using the drugs, but her obsession with the Doctors had rendered her a little bit… more reckless.

                    She pinched her nose and swallowed the brew. One gulp. But some of it stayed in her mouth and nausea followed. She didn’t like the taste at all. Then she laid down the couch and waited. The effects weren’t long to come. Space lit up, soon followed by the usual geometrical dynamic animation and the strange floating spirits. One of them looked like her old nanny. She had a hair on her chin and Sophie couldn’t focus on anything else. The hair grew and multiplied on the face, it was soon a forest of wiggling glowing worms growing indefinitely.

                    After what seemed an eternity to her, she saw the doors. A huge circle made of doors like a giant neckless. Sophie giggled at the typo especially that she could see the neckless giant now below the doors. It was definitely a male, with boobs covered by skulls.

                    Find the door, she reminded herself. Her thought took the shape of a butterflowck —understand a flow of a flock of butterflies— that rippled in a pond of honey… suckles.

                    It reached the door and she was sucked in.

                    :fleuron:

                    “Why are they doing this?” asked a male voice behind her. “They’re supposed to be magpies, not monkeys.”
                    “I’m not sure,” said a bald woman with six fingers and an ethereal beehive hairdo. The strange thing was that she had a beard.
                    “Do something quick. I need them operational soon” said the man, “You’re the one controlling them after all,” he added with poison in his voice.
                    “Yes, Doctor.”

                    Sophie startled at the name. She turned around and tried to look at the man, but he was headless, or rather pixelated. Shit! I watch too much science fiction, she thought.

                    “Anyway,” he continued. What are the news on the dolls’ front?”
                    “We are closing in on the next target, Doctor. It’s a small Inn in Australia where the vortex or probabilities converge. I took the liberty to send another sleeping agent there to steal the key and the list of other addresses from the dollmaker. He’s taking the same airplane as she is.”

                    #4674
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      The doctors assistant remembered a joke he’d heard about oysters.

                      “Save money on expensive oysters by drinking sea water out of an ashtray,” he said.

                      But the doctor was too busy hooting with laughter at his own jokes to hear him.

                      #4642
                      F LoveF Love
                      Participant

                        Finnley, how on earth did you manage to insert yourself in the kitchen and do the dishes while I was standing here twittering about doctors and whatnot. And here you are and the dishes are done but when I started my comment, I swear they were still on the bench.”
                        Liz peered at Finnley suspiciously.
                        “Do you have magical properties you aren’t sharing with us?” she asked.

                        #4125
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Corrie:

                          I’m getting a bit worried about Aunt Idle, she’s been in Iceland ages and we haven’t heard from her, and nothing on her blog for ages, either. When I found this, I did a bit of research into the Bronklehampton case. That’s another story.

                          Aunt Idle was going to visit her old friend Margit Brynjúlfursdóttir. It was all very hush hush: Margit had intimated that there was to be a family reunion, but it was to be a surprise party, and she mustn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Margit had sent her the tickets to Keflavik, instructing her to inform her family and friends that she had won the trip in a story writing competition.

                          It was Idle’s first trip to Iceland. She had met Margit in a beach bar near Cairns some years ago, just after the scandalous expose on the goings on of a mad doctor on a remote south Pacific island. The Icelandic woman had been drowning her sorrows, and Idle had been a shoulder to cry on. The age old story of a wayward son, a brilliant mind, so full of potential, victim of a conniving nurse , and now sadly incarcerated on the wrong side of the law.

                          Aunt Idle didn’t immediately make a connection between the name Brynjúlfursdóttir and Bronklehampton, indeed it would have been impossible to do so using conventional means, Icelandic naming laws and traditions being what they were. But the intuitive Idle had made a connection notwithstanding. The maudlin woman in the beach bar was clearly the mad doctors mother.

                          Idle had invited Margit to come and stay at the Flying Fish Inn for a few weeks before returning to Iceland, a visit which turned out to last almost a year. Over the months, Margit confided in her new friend Idle. Nobody back home in Iceland knew that the doctor in the lurid headlines was her son, and Margit wanted to keep it that way, but it was a relief to be able to talk about it to someone. Idle wasn’t all that sure that Margit was fully in the picture regarding the depths to which the fruit of her loins had sunk, but she witnessed the womans outpourings with tact and compassion and they became good friends.

                          The fasten your seatbelts sign flashed and pinged. The landing at Keflavik was going to be on time.”

                          ~~~

                          ““I wish you’d told me about the 60’s fancy dress party, Margit, I’d have brought an outfit with me,” said Idle.

                          Margit looked at her friend quizzically. “What makes you think there’s a fancy dress party?”

                          “Why, all the beehive hair do’s! It’s the only explanation I could think of. If it’s not a 60’s party, then why…..?”

                          Idle noticed Margit eyeing her long grey dreadlocks distastefully. Self consciously she flung them over her shoulder, inopportunely landing the end of one of them in a plate of some foul substance the passing waiter was carrying.

                          Margit jumped at the chance. “Darling, how horrid! All that rams bottom sauce all over your hair! Do try the coconut shampoo I put in your bathroom.””

                          ~~~

                          And that was the last I’d heard from Aunt Idle.

                          #4077

                          “Well, hello there! My name is Barbara, I will be your host during your stay at the Hidden People Estate of Genethic Rejuvenation. Welcome Ms and Mr Asparagus !”

                          Barbara’s luscious mane of blond hair was a sight to behold. Tina was almost jealous. She quickly remembered her guru’s words of the day.

                          “ Dogs bark at what they don’t understand: See the Positive

                          So despite her hopes for a less effusive (almost annoyingly American) introductions, she got her critical mind busy with quickly finding five things to appreciate about Barbara. It was tougher that it looked. Well, for one, she liked the cleanliness of her white nurse blouse…

                          Barbara’s chatter seemed inexhaustible, as they coursed through the grounds of the Estate.
                          “Of course, we have arranged for your appointment with the best doctors, they will get you in tip-top shape in no time” she giggled irrepressibly.

                          Tina glanced at Quentin. Her cousin was calm as a clam, as usual. He didn’t even seem to register the strangeness of that establishment.

                          “I’ll be leaving you to have a hot shower, and refreshments, complimentary of the house of course, and I’ll be meeting you later. Dinner will be served at 7, please be on time. Tomorrow morning, breakfast is served from 7 to 9, and your appointment is at 9:30, with Dr B. In case you need anything, you have my number.” Barbara giggled again, blinking at Quentin in what could hardly be construed as flirting.

                          “I’ll skip dinner Q, see you at breakfast tomorrow”, Tina closed the door on her cousin without ceremony.

                          She finally collapsed on the bed, crushed by fatigue of the flight, jet-lag and all that road trip through small European winding paths. Made you almost miss Maine.

                          #4072

                          Aunt Idle was going to visit her old friend Margit Brynjúlfursdóttir. It was all very hush hush: Margit had intimated that there was to be a family reunion, but it was to be a surprise party, and she mustn’t breathe a word of it to anyone. Margit had sent her the tickets to Keflavik, instructing her to inform her family and friends that she had won the trip in a story writing competition.

                          It was Idle’s first trip to Iceland. She had met Margit in a beach bar near Cairns some years ago, just after the scandalous expose on the goings on of a mad doctor on a remote south Pacific island. The Icelandic woman had been drowning her sorrows, and Idle had been a shoulder to cry on. The age old story of a wayward son, a brilliant mind, so full of potential, victim of a conniving nurse , and now sadly incarcerated on the wrong side of the law.

                          Aunt Idle didn’t immediately make a connection between the name Brynjúlfursdóttir and Bronklehampton, indeed it would have been impossible to do so using conventional means, Icelandic naming laws and traditions being what they were. But the intuitive Idle had made a connection notwithstanding. The maudlin woman in the beach bar was clearly the mad doctors mother.

                          Idle had invited Margit to come and stay at the Flying Fish Inn for a few weeks before returning to Iceland, a visit which turned out to last almost a year. Over the months, Margit confided in her new friend Idle. Nobody back home in Iceland knew that the doctor in the lurid headlines was her son, and Margit wanted to keep it that way, but it was a relief to be able to talk about it to someone. Idle wasn’t all that sure that Margit was fully in the picture regarding the depths to which the fruit of her loins had sunk, but she witnessed the womans outpourings with tact and compassion and they became good friends.

                          The fasten your seatbelts sign flashed and pinged. The landing at Keflavik was going to be on time.

                          #3786

                          In reply to: The Hosts of Mars

                          prUneprUne
                          Participant

                            I dreamt about Mater last night. She was her old self, brilliant and snappily dangerous.

                            It’s been the first dream I’ve been able to remember in weeks. I don’t know why I expected the great beyond space to be less… claustrophobic, but there’s no escaping the confinement.
                            I was telling her I was missing home, the air, the smell of eucalyptus trees, the rains before winter. I think I even became sentimental about my sisters. Hardly a news from them these days, but how could I blame them. They are always busy on some down-to-earth cause, and I know better than to criticize those on the ground actually doing something to change the wrongdoings of the world.
                            When I started to cry uncontrollably, Mater told me I was a baby, and that I should man up. Typical Mater. Dido would have called her names under her breath, I think that was her way to express her love for her. People are silly.

                            In the dream, I stopped crying but the tears had swollen into a river, and I was starting to drown, things became hellish and I could barely breathe, but somehow I could still feel Mater’s presence, like a beacon. I made it out of the torrents onto an island. There were many refugees. The doctors had the strangest blue eyes, and Mater’s voice told me to trust the process but not the doctors. Then I felt all the blue eyes looking at me, and I woke up in a sweat.

                            Hans is still deep in a peaceful sleep, so I went out of the bedroom to get some water and check on the piggy and her litter. They are always sleeping blissfully too. It’s a wonder when you think of it, that I thought it was just getting fatter when it actually was pregnant from before we left Earth. Now they’re mostly an open secret, as everyone finds them so cute.

                            The most difficult was to conceal them from the reality TV show’s cameras. The hysterical fans are always scrutinizing every move we all make, and keeping some privacy is tricky, but apart from the external prying eyes, pretty much everyone here know about them and it’s like a game of hide and seek. I like how it fuels the speculations and paranoia of the Mars bunker debunking association, who think we’re all part of a mass cover-up. I’ve spent some time on their website when I couldn’t sleep the first weeks when we arrived. I would probably have never known about it, but I just searched for myself on the web, and found this thread about the new conspirators. I had to laugh at the beginning, but they raise reasonable doubts in the middle of their rants. By now, I know better than to raise the topic, especially after all the religious nonsense. Seems there are some people that get really annoyed when I asked naive questions about it, like Maya.

                            Like I said. People are silly.

                            #3618

                            Aunt Idle:

                            Bert came with me. Usually one of us always stayed home to keep an eye on Mater and the kids, but now we had that capable girl, Finly, to keep an eye on things.

                            It was good to get away from the place for a few hours, and head off on a different route to the usual shopping and errand trips. The nearest sizable town was in the opposite direction; it was years since I’d been to Ninetown. I asked Bert about the place on the other side of the river, what was it that intrigued him so. I’ll be honest, I wondered if he was losing his marbles when he said it was the medieval ruins over there.

                            “Don’t be daft, Bert, how can there be medieval ruins over there?” I asked.

                            “I didn’t say they were medieval, Idle, I said that’s what they looked like,” he replied.

                            “But …but history, Bert! There’s no history here of medieval towns! Who could have built it?”

                            “That’s why I found it so fucking interesting, but if it doesn’t fit the picture, nobody wants to hear anything about it!”

                            “Well I’m interested Bert. Yes, yes, I know I wasn’t interested before, but I am now.”

                            Bert grunted and lit a cigarette.

                            ~~~

                            We stopped at a roadside restaurant just outside Ninetown for lunch. The midday heat was enervating, but inside the restaurant was a pleasant few degrees cooler. Bert wasn’t one for small talk, so I picked up a local paper to peruse while I ate my sandwich and Bert tucked into a greasy heap of chips and meat. I flicked through it without much interest in the mundane goings on of the town, that is, until I saw those names: Tattler, Trout and Trueman.

                            It was an article about a ghost town on the other side of Ninetown that had been bought up by a consortium of doctors. Apparently they’d acquired it for pennies as it had been completely deserted for decades, with the intention of developing it into an exclusive clinic.

                            “There’s something fishy about that!” I exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Several of the locals turned to look at me. I lowered my voice, not wanting to attract any more attention while I tried to make sense of it.

                            “Read this!” I passed the paper over the Bert.

                            “So what?” he asked. “Who cares?”

                            “Look!” I said, jabbing my finger on the names Tattler, Trout and Trueman. Bert looked puzzled, understandably enough. “Allow me to explain” I said, and I told him about the business card that Flora had left on the porch table.

                            “What does Flora have to do with this consortium of doctors? And what the hell is the point in setting up a clinic there, in the middle of nowhere?”

                            “That,” I replied, “Is the question!”

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