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  • #6391
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      write the plot of an absurd non-linear novel, featuring 4 characters

      The novel begins with the introduction of four characters: a retired archaeologist named Harold, a struggling musician named Samantha, a disillusioned corporate drone named Tim, and a reclusive inventor named Claire.

      Harold, who is obsessed with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, discovers a mysterious underground chamber beneath a pyramid in Egypt. Inside, he finds a strange device that he believes is a time machine. Harold decides to use the device to travel back in time to ancient Egypt in order to decipher the hieroglyphs.

      Samantha, who is trying to make a name for herself as a musician, is struggling to come up with new material for her music. One day, she discovers that she can create beautiful music by communicating with plants telepathically. She becomes obsessed with this new form of music-making and decides to quit her day job and pursue it full-time.

      Tim, who is stuck in a dead-end job, is feeling unfulfilled and uninspired. One day, he stumbles upon a robotic mime performance art show. The performance inspires him to quit his job and pursue his dream of becoming a mime artist.

      Claire, who is a reclusive inventor, has been working on a project to create a type of artificial intelligence that can communicate with humans using calligraphic body language. She finally succeeds and creates an AI that she names “Calli”.

      As the story progresses, the characters’ paths begin to intersect in unexpected ways. Harold gets stuck in ancient Egypt and has to rely on Samantha’s telepathic plant communication skills to find a way back to the present. Tim’s robotic mime art becomes a hit and he starts working with Claire to integrate Calli into his performances.

      As the story reaches its climax, all four characters come together to use their unique skills and abilities to solve a problem that threatens the fate of the world.

      Throughout the novel, the plot unfolds in a non-linear fashion, jumping back and forth in time and between the different character’s perspectives. The story is filled with absurdity and unexpected twists and turns, leaving the reader guessing until the very end.

      What sort of problem that threatens the fate of the world will be resolved by their combined skills?

      As the story progresses, the characters begin to uncover a sinister plot by a group of powerful individuals who are intent on using the time machine to alter the course of history for their own gain. They plan to use the time machine to go back in time and change key events that would give them immense wealth and power in the present. Harold and Samantha, with the help of Tim and Claire, must race against time to stop the villains from carrying out their plan.

      Harold’s expertise in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs plays a crucial role in deciphering the clues that lead to the location of the time machine. Samantha’s telepathic plant communication skills are used to locate the hidden underground chamber where the time machine is kept. Tim’s robotic mime art and Claire’s AI Calli are used to infiltrate the villains’ hideout and gather intelligence on their plans.

      In the final act, the four characters come together to use their unique skills and abilities to stop the villains from altering history. Harold uses his knowledge of ancient Egypt to navigate the time machine and travel back in time to stop the villains from changing key events. Samantha uses her telepathic plant communication skills to communicate with the plants in the past and gather information on the villains’ whereabouts. Tim and Claire use their robotic mime and AI skills to create a diversion and distract the villains while Harold and Samantha complete their mission.

      In the end, the four characters succeed in stopping the villains and saving the fate of the world. The novel ends with the four characters going their separate ways, but they all know that they will always have each other to rely on in the face of any challenge that comes their way.

      #6389

      “What in the good name of our Lady, have these two been on?” Miss Bossy was at a loss for words while Ricardo was waiting sheepishly at her desk, as though he was expecting an outburst.
      “Look, Ricardo, I’m not against a little tweaking for newsworthiness, but this takes twisting reality to a whole new level!

      Ricardo had just dropped their last article.

      Local Hero at the Rescue – Stray Residents found after in a trip of a lifetime
      article by Hilda Astoria & Continuity Brown

      In a daring and heroic move, Nurse Trassie, a local hero and all-around fantastic human being, managed to track down and rescue three elderly women who had gone on an adventure of a lifetime. Sharon, Mavis, and Gloria (names may have been altered to preserve their anonymity) were residents of a UK nursing home who, in a moment of pure defiance and desire for adventure, decided to go off their meds and escape to the Nordics.

      The three women, who had been feeling cooped up and underappreciated in their nursing home, decided to take matters into their own hands and embark on a journey to see the world. They had heard of the beautiful landscapes and friendly people of the Nordics and their rejuvenating traditional cures and were determined to experience it for themselves.

      Their journey, however, was not without its challenges. They faced many obstacles, including harsh weather conditions and language barriers. But they were determined to press on, and their determination paid off when they were taken in by a kind-hearted local doctor who gave them asylum and helped them rehabilitate stray animals.

      Nurse Trassie, who had been on the lookout for the women since their disappearance, finally caught wind of their whereabouts and set out to rescue them. She tracked them down to the Nordics, where she found them living in a small facility in the woods, surrounded by a menagerie of stray animals they had taken in and were nursing back to health, including rare orangutans retired from local circus.

      Upon her arrival, Nurse Trassie was greeted with open arms by the women, who were overjoyed to see her. They told her of their adventures and showed her around their cabin, introducing her to the animals they had taken in and the progress they had made in rehabilitating them.

      Nurse Trassie, who is known for her compassion and dedication to her patients, was deeply touched by the women’s story and their love for the animals. She knew that they needed to be back in the care of professionals and that the animals needed to be properly cared for, so she made arrangements to bring them back home.

      The women were reluctant to leave their newfound home and the animals they had grown to love, but they knew that it was the right thing to do. They said their goodbyes and set off on the long journey back home with Nurse Trassie by their side.

      The three women returned to their nursing home filled with stories to share, and Nurse Trassie was hailed as a hero for her efforts in rescuing them. They were greeted with cheers and applause from the staff and other residents, who were thrilled to have them back safe and sound.

      Nurse Trassie, who is known for her sharp wit and sense of humor, commented on the situation with a tongue-in-cheek remark, “It’s not every day that you get to rescue three feisty elderlies from the wilds of the Nordics and bring them back to safety. I’m just glad I could be of service.”

      In conclusion, the three women’s adventure in the Nordics may have been unorthodox, but it was an adventure nonetheless. They were able to see the world and help some animals in the process. Their story serves as a reminder to never give up on your dreams, no matter your age or circumstances. And of course, a big shoutout to Nurse Trassie for her heroic actions and dedication to her patients.

      Bossy sighed. “It might do for now, but don’t let those two abuse the artificial intelligence to write article for them… I liked their old style better. This feels too… tidy. We’re not the A-News network, let’s not forget our purpose.”

      Ricardo nodded. Miss Bossy had been more mellow since the sales of the newspaper had exploded during the pandemic. With people at home, looking for conspiracies and all, the newspaper had known a resurgence of interest, and they even had to hire new staff. Giles Gibber, Glimmer Gambol (came heavily recommended by Blithe, the PI friend of Hilda’s), Samuel Sproink and Fionna Flibbergibbet.

      “And how is Sophie? That adventure into her past trauma was a bit much on her…” she mused.

      “She’s doing alright” answered Ricardo. “She’s learning to hone her remote-viewing skills to send our staff into new mysteries to solve. With a bit of AI assist…”

      “Oh, stop it already with your AI-this, AI-that! Hope there’ll still be room for some madness in all that neatly tidy purring of polite output.”

      “That’s why we’re here for, I reckon.” Ric’ smiled wryly.

      #6367
      ÉricÉric
      Keymaster

        Something in the style of TPooh:

        The family tree was a tangled web of branches and roots, stretching back centuries and even millennia. The branches were thick with the leaves of secrets, scandals, and mysteries that the family had accumulated over the years. They were a close-knit group, friends for all time, and they loved nothing more than exploring the twists and turns of their family history.

        They met regularly in their dreams, in a place they called The City, where they could exchange stories and clues they had uncovered during their waking hours. They often found themselves in the midst of strange and puzzling occurrences, and they would spend hours discussing the possible meanings and connections of these events. They saw the world as a tapestry, with each thread and pattern contributing to the greater picture. They were the weavers of their own story, the authors of their own fate.

        But as the years went on, their dreams began to take on a darker and more ominous tone. They started having nightmares of monstrous beasts, and some of them even saw these beasts in the daylight, as if they were falling through the cracks in reality. They compared notes and found that they were often seeing the same beasts, and this led to heated debates about what these beasts represented and whether they were real or just figments of their imagination.

        But no matter what they encountered, the family remained united in their quest to unravel the secrets of their past and to weave a tapestry that would be the envy of all. They were thick as thieves and they would never give up their pursuit of the truth, no matter how many rules they had to break along the way.

        #6365
        matermater
        Participant

          Prune has got me into this AI stuff… It sounds like gibberish to me, but Idle sounded amazed at the stuff it spewed out.

          With some info on our family story, Prune got it to try and predict the future…

          Sounds like a big plate of bog, but we’ll see how it goes.

          Sure, here are a few possible events that could occur between Mater’s 100th birthday and her death in the Flying Fish Inn story:

          1. Mater decides to throw herself a grand birthday party, inviting all of her friends and family from the small outback town. However, things take a turn for the strange when a group of extraterrestrial beings crash the party and reveal themselves to be long-time fans of Mater’s famous bush tucker cuisine.
          2. Mater begins to experience vivid dreams and hallucinations, in which she is visited by the ghost of her late husband. As the dreams become more frequent, the family begins to suspect that there may be something more to them than just Mater’s mind playing tricks on her.
          3. Mater’s granddaughter Prune becomes increasingly obsessed with her dream of traveling to Mars, and begins to notice strange occurrences happening around the inn that seem to be connected to her aspiration.
          4. A group of eccentric scientists arrive at the inn, conducting research on the local flora and fauna. They eventually discover a species of sentient plants living in the area, and Mater becomes convinced that the plants are communicating with her in her dreams.
          5. With her health declining, Mater begins to spend more and more time tending to her garden, where she is visited by an old kookaburra who seems to possess an otherworldly intelligence. The bird becomes Mater’s companion and confidant in the final days of her life.
          6. As the Great Fires ravage the Australian bush, Mater makes the difficult decision to shut down the inn and evacuate the guests. But as they flee, they realize that the fire is not just a natural disaster, but something far more sinister and mystical.
          7. In her final days, Mater begins to remember strange and vivid details of her life that she never could have known, as if she lived a previous life in another time and place. As she dies, she whispers something to Prune, which opens her eyes to a new reality that may have been hidden from her all along
          8. It turns out the family had a lot of secrets, and the only way to escape it, was to leave the inn, but it was not an escape for all. Through the series of events, secrets are revealed, and some truths cannot be undone.Note that these events are fictional and whimsical in nature, but as they keeps it grounded to a sense of doldrums in the Australian bush and occasionally guests help to unravel some of the overarching mysteries it could make a fitting storyline for the story.
          #6364
          ÉricÉric
          Keymaster

            Please suggest a creative, a little ghostic but mostly uplifting plot outline for the continuation of the story of Twilight in her travels to join the freak circus and become famous for her craft on the west coast

            — The Far-West saga — In 1850s, in a probable reality of South America, we get acquainted with Twilight (Twi) and her brothers Jo and Elroy. They have a precious blue bull in their possession, coveted by Ogrean, the kingpin of the town. Hopefully for them, Ogrean is arrested (temporarily) by Ted Marshall, the sheriff for his possible trafficking. Notably, Ogrean is possibly involved in some of the crystal skulls discoveries, during his travel to New Honduras. Twi who was dancing in the saloon of Madame Butterbutt, the town’s hallucinogenic toads-to-lick dispenser (insert some other romantic subplots involving the other dancer etc.) decides to go traveling in a freakus (freak show/circus). She is now close to the West Coast, where she hopes to succeed in her writing and other artistic skills.

            As Twilight (Twi) travels with the freak circus, she faces many challenges and obstacles on her journey to the West Coast. Despite the difficulties, she remains determined to make a name for herself as a writer and artist.

            As she travels through small towns and larger cities, she begins to realize that the world is much bigger than she ever imagined. She meets a diverse group of people, some of whom are kind and supportive, while others are cruel and dismissive of her dreams.

            Despite the negative reactions she receives from some people, Twi persists and begins to gain a reputation as a talented writer and performer. As she gains more experience and confidence, she starts to incorporate her own unique style into her performances, which sets her apart from the other performers in the circus.

            As she approaches the West Coast, she begins to feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. She has heard that the West Coast is a place of endless possibilities, where creative minds can thrive. She is determined to make her mark and become famous for her craft.

            As she settles in the west, she finds herself surrounded by artists and writers like herself, who inspire her to push herself even further. She begins to gain a following and her writing is widely read. She discovers that her talent is not only limited to writing, but she also has a natural talent for other art forms as well.

            Eventually, Twi’s reputation as a talented artist and writer precedes her and she becomes a sought-after performer in the West Coast, and her creative work is being showcased in galleries and theaters. As she continues to achieve success in her career, she begins to realize that the West Coast is not just a place of endless possibilities but also the place where she belongs, and the place where her dreams come true.

            Throughout her journey, she also keeps in touch with her brothers, Jo and Elroy, who now run the farm and take care of the blue bull. They tell her that the bull, now named Blue-Dream, became a legend in the village and they get a good price for its breeding.

            As the story continues, she finds herself also involved in some adventures and exciting subplots, like discovering a secret underground cave filled with precious crystals and some interesting characters, like the enigmatic sheriff Ted Marshall who always cross her path, and the mysterious Ogrean who seems to have a connection to her past and the bull.

            The End.

            #6332
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              “Sweet dreams till sunbeams find yooooou,  sweet dreams that leave all worrIIIIEEs behind you,  la la la laaa your dreeeams whatever they beeeee,  dream a little dreeeeeam of mee….la la la la l laaaaa laah…”

              #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 Janet “John’s ayah”. One morning I went to a knitting session at a
                neighbours house. We are all knitting madly for the troops. As there were several other
                women in the lounge and no other children, I installed Kate in the dining room with a
                colouring book and crayons. My hostess’ black dog was chained to the dining room
                table leg, but as he and Kate are on friendly terms I was not bothered by this.
                Some time afterwards, during a lull in conversation, I heard a strange drumming
                noise coming from the dining room. I went quickly to investigate and, to my horror, found
                Kate lying on her back with the dog chain looped around her neck. The frightened dog
                was straining away from her as far as he could get and the chain was pulled so tightly
                around her throat that she could not scream. The drumming noise came from her heels
                kicking in a panic on the carpet.

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

                Eleanor.

                Morogoro 16th November 1940

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Eleanor.

                 

                #6264
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  From Tanganyika with Love

                  continued  ~ part 5

                  With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                  Chunya 16th December 1936

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Much love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Itewe, Chunya 23rd December 1936

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  With love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Itewe, Chunya 30th December 1936

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                  Eleanor.

                  Itewe, Chunya 19th January 1937

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  Chunya 29th January 1937

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  We should be with you in three weeks time!

                  Very much love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Broken Hill, N Rhodesia 11th February 1937

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  With love to you all,
                  Eleanor.

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

                  George Rushby Ann and Georgie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  #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.

                     

                    #6262
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      From Tanganyika with Love

                      continued  ~ part 3

                      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                      Mchewe Estate. 22nd March 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      I am feeling much better now that I am five months pregnant and have quite got
                      my appetite back. Once again I go out with “the Mchewe Hunt” which is what George
                      calls the procession made up of the donkey boy and donkey with Ann confidently riding
                      astride, me beside the donkey with Georgie behind riding the stick which he much
                      prefers to the donkey. The Alsatian pup, whom Ann for some unknown reason named
                      ‘Tubbage’, and the two cats bring up the rear though sometimes Tubbage rushes
                      ahead and nearly knocks me off my feet. He is not the loveable pet that Kelly was.
                      It is just as well that I have recovered my health because my mother-in-law has
                      decided to fly out from England to look after Ann and George when I am in hospital. I am
                      very grateful for there is no one lse to whom I can turn. Kath Hickson-Wood is seldom on
                      their farm because Hicky is working a guano claim and is making quite a good thing out of
                      selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi. They camp out at the claim, a series of
                      caves in the hills across the valley and visit the farm only occasionally. Anne Molteno is
                      off to Cape Town to have her baby at her mothers home and there are no women in
                      Mbeya I know well. The few women are Government Officials wives and they come
                      and go. I make so few trips to the little town that there is no chance to get on really
                      friendly terms with them.

                      Janey, the ayah, is turning into a treasure. She washes and irons well and keeps
                      the children’s clothes cupboard beautifully neat. Ann and George however are still
                      reluctant to go for walks with her. They find her dull because, like all African ayahs, she
                      has no imagination and cannot play with them. She should however be able to help with
                      the baby. Ann is very excited about the new baby. She so loves all little things.
                      Yesterday she went into ecstasies over ten newly hatched chicks.

                      She wants a little sister and perhaps it would be a good thing. Georgie is so very
                      active and full of mischief that I feel another wild little boy might be more than I can
                      manage. Although Ann is older, it is Georgie who always thinks up the mischief. They
                      have just been having a fight. Georgie with the cooks umbrella versus Ann with her frilly
                      pink sunshade with the inevitable result that the sunshade now has four broken ribs.
                      Any way I never feel lonely now during the long hours George is busy on the
                      shamba. The children keep me on my toes and I have plenty of sewing to do for the
                      baby. George is very good about amusing the children before their bedtime and on
                      Sundays. In the afternoons when it is not wet I take Ann and Georgie for a walk down
                      the hill. George meets us at the bottom and helps me on the homeward journey. He
                      grabs one child in each hand by the slack of their dungarees and they do a sort of giant
                      stride up the hill, half walking half riding.

                      Very much love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      A great flap here. We had a letter yesterday to say that mother-in-law will be
                      arriving in four days time! George is very amused at my frantic efforts at spring cleaning
                      but he has told me before that she is very house proud so I feel I must make the best
                      of what we have.

                      George is very busy building a store for the coffee which will soon be ripening.
                      This time he is doing the bricklaying himself. It is quite a big building on the far end of the
                      farm and close to the river. He is also making trays of chicken wire nailed to wooden
                      frames with cheap calico stretched over the wire.

                      Mother will have to sleep in the verandah room which leads off the bedroom
                      which we share with the children. George will have to sleep in the outside spare room as
                      there is no door between the bedroom and the verandah room. I am sewing frantically
                      to make rose coloured curtains and bedspread out of material mother-in-law sent for
                      Christmas and will have to make a curtain for the doorway. The kitchen badly needs
                      whitewashing but George says he cannot spare the labour so I hope mother won’t look.
                      To complicate matters, George has been invited to lunch with the Governor on the day
                      of Mother’s arrival. After lunch they are to visit the newly stocked trout streams in the
                      Mporotos. I hope he gets back to Mbeya in good time to meet mother’s plane.
                      Ann has been off colour for a week. She looks very pale and her pretty fair hair,
                      normally so shiny, is dull and lifeless. It is such a pity that mother should see her like this
                      because first impressions do count so much and I am looking to the children to attract
                      attention from me. I am the size of a circus tent and hardly a dream daughter-in-law.
                      Georgie, thank goodness, is blooming but he has suddenly developed a disgusting
                      habit of spitting on the floor in the manner of the natives. I feel he might say “Gran, look
                      how far I can spit and give an enthusiastic demonstration.

                      Just hold thumbs that all goes well.

                      your loving but anxious,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 28th June 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      Mother-in-law duly arrived in the District Commissioner’s car. George did not dare
                      to use the A.C. as she is being very temperamental just now. They also brought the
                      mail bag which contained a parcel of lovely baby clothes from you. Thank you very
                      much. Mother-in-law is very put out because the large parcel she posted by surface
                      mail has not yet arrived.

                      Mother arrived looking very smart in an ankle length afternoon frock of golden
                      brown crepe and smart hat, and wearing some very good rings. She is a very
                      handsome woman with the very fair complexion that goes with red hair. The hair, once
                      Titan, must now be grey but it has been very successfully tinted and set. I of course,
                      was shapeless in a cotton maternity frock and no credit to you. However, so far, motherin-
                      law has been uncritical and friendly and charmed with the children who have taken to
                      her. Mother does not think that the children resemble me in any way. Ann resembles her
                      family the Purdys and Georgie is a Morley, her mother’s family. She says they had the
                      same dark eyes and rather full mouths. I say feebly, “But Georgie has my colouring”, but
                      mother won’t hear of it. So now you know! Ann is a Purdy and Georgie a Morley.
                      Perhaps number three will be a Leslie.

                      What a scramble I had getting ready for mother. Her little room really looks pretty
                      and fresh, but the locally woven grass mats arrived only minutes before mother did. I
                      also frantically overhauled our clothes and it a good thing that I did so because mother
                      has been going through all the cupboards looking for mending. Mother is kept so busy
                      in her own home that I think she finds time hangs on her hands here. She is very good at
                      entertaining the children and has even tried her hand at picking coffee a couple of times.
                      Mother cannot get used to the native boy servants but likes Janey, so Janey keeps her
                      room in order. Mother prefers to wash and iron her own clothes.

                      I almost lost our cook through mother’s surplus energy! Abel our previous cook
                      took a new wife last month and, as the new wife, and Janey the old, were daggers
                      drawn, Abel moved off to a job on the Lupa leaving Janey and her daughter here.
                      The new cook is capable, but he is a fearsome looking individual called Alfani. He has a
                      thick fuzz of hair which he wears long, sometimes hidden by a dingy turban, and he
                      wears big brass earrings. I think he must be part Somali because he has a hawk nose
                      and a real Brigand look. His kitchen is never really clean but he is an excellent cook and
                      as cooks are hard to come by here I just keep away from the kitchen. Not so mother!
                      A few days after her arrival she suggested kindly that I should lie down after lunch
                      so I rested with the children whilst mother, unknown to me, went out to the kitchen and
                      not only scrubbed the table and shelves but took the old iron stove to pieces and
                      cleaned that. Unfortunately in her zeal she poked a hole through the stove pipe.
                      Had I known of these activities I would have foreseen the cook’s reaction when
                      he returned that evening to cook the supper. he was furious and wished to leave on the
                      spot and demanded his wages forthwith. The old Memsahib had insulted him by
                      scrubbing his already spotless kitchen and had broken his stove and made it impossible
                      for him to cook. This tirade was accompanied by such waving of hands and rolling of
                      eyes that I longed to sack him on the spot. However I dared not as I might not get
                      another cook for weeks. So I smoothed him down and he patched up the stove pipe
                      with a bit of tin and some wire and produced a good meal. I am wondering what
                      transformations will be worked when I am in hospital.

                      Our food is really good but mother just pecks at it. No wonder really, because
                      she has had some shocks. One day she found the kitchen boy diligently scrubbing the box lavatory seat with a scrubbing brush which he dipped into one of my best large
                      saucepans! No one can foresee what these boys will do. In these remote areas house
                      servants are usually recruited from the ranks of the very primitive farm labourers, who first
                      come to the farm as naked savages, and their notions of hygiene simply don’t exist.
                      One day I said to mother in George’s presence “When we were newly married,
                      mother, George used to brag about your cooking and say that you would run a home
                      like this yourself with perhaps one ‘toto’. Mother replied tartly, “That was very bad of
                      George and not true. If my husband had brought me out here I would not have stayed a
                      month. I think you manage very well.” Which reply made me warm to mother a lot.
                      To complicate things we have a new pup, a little white bull terrier bitch whom
                      George has named Fanny. She is tiny and not yet house trained but seems a plucky
                      and attractive little animal though there is no denying that she does look like a piglet.

                      Very much love to all,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 3rd August 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      Here I am in hospital, comfortably in bed with our new daughter in her basket
                      beside me. She is a lovely little thing, very plump and cuddly and pink and white and
                      her head is covered with tiny curls the colour of Golden Syrup. We meant to call her
                      Margery Kate, after our Marj and my mother-in-law whose name is Catherine.
                      I am enjoying the rest, knowing that George and mother will be coping
                      successfully on the farm. My room is full of flowers, particularly with the roses and
                      carnations which grow so well here. Kate was not due until August 5th but the doctor
                      wanted me to come in good time in view of my tiresome early pregnancy.

                      For weeks beforehand George had tinkered with the A.C. and we started for
                      Mbeya gaily enough on the twenty ninth, however, after going like a dream for a couple
                      of miles, she simply collapsed from exhaustion at the foot of a hill and all the efforts of
                      the farm boys who had been sent ahead for such an emergency failed to start her. So
                      George sent back to the farm for the machila and I sat in the shade of a tree, wondering
                      what would happen if I had the baby there and then, whilst George went on tinkering
                      with the car. Suddenly she sprang into life and we roared up that hill and all the way into
                      Mbeya. The doctor welcomed us pleasantly and we had tea with his family before I
                      settled into my room. Later he examined me and said that it was unlikely that the baby
                      would be born for several days. The new and efficient German nurse said, “Thank
                      goodness for that.” There was a man in hospital dying from a stomach cancer and she
                      had not had a decent nights sleep for three nights.

                      Kate however had other plans. I woke in the early morning with labour pains but
                      anxious not to disturb the nurse, I lay and read or tried to read a book, hoping that I
                      would not have to call the nurse until daybreak. However at four a.m., I went out into the
                      wind which was howling along the open verandah and knocked on the nurse’s door. She
                      got up and very crossly informed me that I was imagining things and should get back to
                      bed at once. She said “It cannot be so. The Doctor has said it.” I said “Of course it is,”
                      and then and there the water broke and clinched my argument. She then went into a flat
                      spin. “But the bed is not ready and my instruments are not ready,” and she flew around
                      to rectify this and also sent an African orderly to call the doctor. I paced the floor saying
                      warningly “Hurry up with that bed. I am going to have the baby now!” She shrieked
                      “Take off your dressing gown.” But I was passed caring. I flung myself on the bed and
                      there was Kate. The nurse had done all that was necessary by the time the doctor
                      arrived.

                      A funny thing was, that whilst Kate was being born on the bed, a black cat had
                      kittens under it! The doctor was furious with the nurse but the poor thing must have crept
                      in out of the cold wind when I went to call the nurse. A happy omen I feel for the baby’s
                      future. George had no anxiety this time. He stayed at the hospital with me until ten
                      o’clock when he went down to the hotel to sleep and he received the news in a note
                      from me with his early morning tea. He went to the farm next morning but will return on
                      the sixth to fetch me home.

                      I do feel so happy. A very special husband and three lovely children. What
                      more could anyone possibly want.

                      Lots and lots of love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 20th August 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      Well here we are back at home and all is very well. The new baby is very placid
                      and so pretty. Mother is delighted with her and Ann loved her at sight but Georgie is not
                      so sure. At first he said, “Your baby is no good. Chuck her in the kalonga.” The kalonga
                      being the ravine beside the house , where, I regret to say, much of the kitchen refuse is
                      dumped. he is very jealous when I carry Kate around or feed her but is ready to admire
                      her when she is lying alone in her basket.

                      George walked all the way from the farm to fetch us home. He hired a car and
                      native driver from the hotel, but drove us home himself going with such care over ruts
                      and bumps. We had a great welcome from mother who had had the whole house
                      spring cleaned. However George loyally says it looks just as nice when I am in charge.
                      Mother obviously, had had more than enough of the back of beyond and
                      decided to stay on only one week after my return home. She had gone into the kitchen
                      one day just in time to see the houseboy scooping the custard he had spilt on the table
                      back into the jug with the side of his hand. No doubt it would have been served up
                      without a word. On another occasion she had walked in on the cook’s daily ablutions. He
                      was standing in a small bowl of water in the centre of the kitchen, absolutely naked,
                      enjoying a slipper bath. She left last Wednesday and gave us a big laugh before she
                      left. She never got over her horror of eating food prepared by our cook and used to
                      push it around her plate. Well, when the time came for mother to leave for the plane, she
                      put on the very smart frock in which she had arrived, and then came into the sitting room
                      exclaiming in dismay “Just look what has happened, I must have lost a stone!’ We
                      looked, and sure enough, the dress which had been ankle deep before, now touched
                      the floor. “Good show mother.” said George unfeelingly. “You ought to be jolly grateful,
                      you needed to lose weight and it would have cost you the earth at a beauty parlour to
                      get that sylph-like figure.”

                      When mother left she took, in a perforated matchbox, one of the frilly mantis that
                      live on our roses. She means to keep it in a goldfish bowl in her dining room at home.
                      Georgie and Ann filled another matchbox with dead flies for food for the mantis on the
                      journey.

                      Now that mother has left, Georgie and Ann attach themselves to me and firmly
                      refuse to have anything to do with the ayah,Janey. She in any case now wishes to have
                      a rest. Mother tipped her well and gave her several cotton frocks so I suspect she wants
                      to go back to her hometown in Northern Rhodesia to show off a bit.
                      Georgie has just sidled up with a very roguish look. He asked “You like your
                      baby?” I said “Yes indeed I do.” He said “I’ll prick your baby with a velly big thorn.”

                      Who would be a mother!
                      Eleanor

                      Mchewe Estate. 20th September 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      I have been rather in the wars with toothache and as there is still no dentist at
                      Mbeya to do the fillings, I had to have four molars extracted at the hospital. George
                      says it is fascinating to watch me at mealtimes these days because there is such a gleam
                      of satisfaction in my eye when I do manage to get two teeth to meet on a mouthful.
                      About those scissors Marj sent Ann. It was not such a good idea. First she cut off tufts of
                      George’s hair so that he now looks like a bad case of ringworm and then she cut a scalp
                      lock, a whole fist full of her own shining hair, which George so loves. George scolded
                      Ann and she burst into floods of tears. Such a thing as a scolding from her darling daddy
                      had never happened before. George immediately made a long drooping moustache
                      out of the shorn lock and soon had her smiling again. George is always very gentle with
                      Ann. One has to be , because she is frightfully sensitive to criticism.

                      I am kept pretty busy these days, Janey has left and my houseboy has been ill
                      with pneumonia. I now have to wash all the children’s things and my own, (the cook does
                      George’s clothes) and look after the three children. Believe me, I can hardly keep awake
                      for Kate’s ten o’clock feed.

                      I do hope I shall get some new servants next month because I also got George
                      to give notice to the cook. I intercepted him last week as he was storming down the hill
                      with my large kitchen knife in his hand. “Where are you going with my knife?” I asked.
                      “I’m going to kill a man!” said Alfani, rolling his eyes and looking extremely ferocious. “He
                      has taken my wife.” “Not with my knife”, said I reaching for it. So off Alfani went, bent on
                      vengeance and I returned the knife to the kitchen. Dinner was served and I made no
                      enquiries but I feel that I need someone more restful in the kitchen than our brigand
                      Alfani.

                      George has been working on the car and has now fitted yet another radiator. This
                      is a lorry one and much too tall to be covered by the A.C.’s elegant bonnet which is
                      secured by an old strap. The poor old A.C. now looks like an ancient shoe with a turned
                      up toe. It only needs me in it with the children to make a fine illustration to the old rhyme!
                      Ann and Georgie are going through a climbing phase. They practically live in
                      trees. I rushed out this morning to investigate loud screams and found Georgie hanging
                      from a fork in a tree by one ankle, whilst Ann stood below on tiptoe with hands stretched
                      upwards to support his head.

                      Do I sound as though I have straws in my hair? I have.
                      Lots of love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 11th October 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      Thank goodness! I have a new ayah name Mary. I had heard that there was a
                      good ayah out of work at Tukuyu 60 miles away so sent a messenger to fetch her. She
                      arrived after dark wearing a bright dress and a cheerful smile and looked very suitable by
                      the light of a storm lamp. I was horrified next morning to see her in daylight. She was
                      dressed all in black and had a rather sinister look. She reminds me rather of your old maid
                      Candace who overheard me laughing a few days before Ann was born and croaked
                      “Yes , Miss Eleanor, today you laugh but next week you might be dead.” Remember
                      how livid you were, dad?

                      I think Mary has the same grim philosophy. Ann took one look at her and said,
                      “What a horrible old lady, mummy.” Georgie just said “Go away”, both in English and Ki-
                      Swahili. Anyway Mary’s references are good so I shall keep her on to help with Kate
                      who is thriving and bonny and placid.

                      Thank you for the offer of toys for Christmas but, if you don’t mind, I’d rather have
                      some clothing for the children. Ann is quite contented with her dolls Barbara and Yvonne.
                      Barbara’s once beautiful face is now pieced together like a jigsaw puzzle having come
                      into contact with Georgie’s ever busy hammer. However Ann says she will love her for
                      ever and she doesn’t want another doll. Yvonne’s hay day is over too. She
                      disappeared for weeks and we think Fanny, the pup, was the culprit. Ann discovered
                      Yvonne one morning in some long wet weeds. Poor Yvonne is now a ghost of her
                      former self. All the sophisticated make up was washed off her papier-mâché face and
                      her hair is decidedly bedraggled, but Ann was radiant as she tucked her back into bed
                      and Yvonne is as precious to Ann as she ever was.

                      Georgie simply does not care for toys. His paint box, hammer and the trenching
                      hoe George gave him for his second birthday are all he wants or needs. Both children
                      love books but I sometimes wonder whether they stimulate Ann’s imagination too much.
                      The characters all become friends of hers and she makes up stories about them to tell
                      Georgie. She adores that illustrated children’s Bible Mummy sent her but you would be
                      astonished at the yarns she spins about “me and my friend Jesus.” She also will call
                      Moses “Old Noses”, and looking at a picture of Jacob’s dream, with the shining angels
                      on the ladder between heaven and earth, she said “Georgie, if you see an angel, don’t
                      touch it, it’s hot.”

                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 17th October 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      I take back the disparaging things I said about my new Ayah, because she has
                      proved her worth in an unexpected way. On Wednesday morning I settled Kate in he
                      cot after her ten o’clock feed and sat sewing at the dining room table with Ann and
                      Georgie opposite me, both absorbed in painting pictures in identical seed catalogues.
                      Suddenly there was a terrific bang on the back door, followed by an even heavier blow.
                      The door was just behind me and I got up and opened it. There, almost filling the door
                      frame, stood a huge native with staring eyes and his teeth showing in a mad grimace. In
                      his hand he held a rolled umbrella by the ferrule, the shaft I noticed was unusually long
                      and thick and the handle was a big round knob.

                      I was terrified as you can imagine, especially as, through the gap under the
                      native’s raised arm, I could see the new cook and the kitchen boy running away down to
                      the shamba! I hastily tried to shut and lock the door but the man just brushed me aside.
                      For a moment he stood over me with the umbrella raised as though to strike. Rather
                      fortunately, I now think, I was too petrified to say a word. The children never moved but
                      Tubbage, the Alsatian, got up and jumped out of the window!

                      Then the native turned away and still with the same fixed stare and grimace,
                      began to attack the furniture with his umbrella. Tables and chairs were overturned and
                      books and ornaments scattered on the floor. When the madman had his back turned and
                      was busily bashing the couch, I slipped round the dining room table, took Ann and
                      Georgie by the hand and fled through the front door to the garage where I hid the
                      children in the car. All this took several minutes because naturally the children were
                      terrified. I was worried to death about the baby left alone in the bedroom and as soon
                      as I had Ann and Georgie settled I ran back to the house.

                      I reached the now open front door just as Kianda the houseboy opened the back
                      door of the lounge. He had been away at the river washing clothes but, on hearing of the
                      madman from the kitchen boy he had armed himself with a stout stick and very pluckily,
                      because he is not a robust boy, had returned to the house to eject the intruder. He
                      rushed to attack immediately and I heard a terrific exchange of blows behind me as I
                      opened our bedroom door. You can imagine what my feelings were when I was
                      confronted by an empty cot! Just then there was an uproar inside as all the farm
                      labourers armed with hoes and pangas and sticks, streamed into the living room from the
                      shamba whence they had been summoned by the cook. In no time at all the huge
                      native was hustled out of the house, flung down the front steps, and securely tied up
                      with strips of cloth.

                      In the lull that followed I heard a frightened voice calling from the bathroom.
                      ”Memsahib is that you? The child is here with me.” I hastily opened the bathroom door
                      to find Mary couched in a corner by the bath, shielding Kate with her body. Mary had
                      seen the big native enter the house and her first thought had been for her charge. I
                      thanked her and promised her a reward for her loyalty, and quickly returned to the garage
                      to reassure Ann and Georgie. I met George who looked white and exhausted as well
                      he might having run up hill all the way from the coffee store. The kitchen boy had led him
                      to expect the worst and he was most relieved to find us all unhurt if a bit shaken.
                      We returned to the house by the back way whilst George went to the front and
                      ordered our labourers to take their prisoner and lock him up in the store. George then
                      discussed the whole affair with his Headman and all the labourers after which he reported
                      to me. “The boys say that the bastard is an ex-Askari from Nyasaland. He is not mad as
                      you thought but he smokes bhang and has these attacks. I suppose I should take him to
                      Mbeya and have him up in court. But if I do that you’ll have to give evidence and that will be a nuisance as the car won’t go and there is also the baby to consider.”

                      Eventually we decided to leave the man to sleep off the effects of the Bhang
                      until evening when he would be tried before an impromptu court consisting of George,
                      the local Jumbe(Headman) and village Elders, and our own farm boys and any other
                      interested spectators. It was not long before I knew the verdict because I heard the
                      sound of lashes. I was not sorry at all because I felt the man deserved his punishment
                      and so did all the Africans. They love children and despise anyone who harms or
                      frightens them. With great enthusiasm they frog-marched him off our land, and I sincerely
                      hope that that is the last we see or him. Ann and Georgie don’t seem to brood over this
                      affair at all. The man was naughty and he was spanked, a quite reasonable state of
                      affairs. This morning they hid away in the small thatched chicken house. This is a little brick
                      building about four feet square which Ann covets as a dolls house. They came back
                      covered in stick fleas which I had to remove with paraffin. My hens are laying well but
                      they all have the ‘gapes’! I wouldn’t run a chicken farm for anything, hens are such fussy,
                      squawking things.

                      Now don’t go worrying about my experience with the native. Such things
                      happen only once in a lifetime. We are all very well and happy, and life, apart from the
                      children’s pranks is very tranquil.

                      Lots and lots of love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 25th October 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      The hot winds have dried up the shamba alarmingly and we hope every day for
                      rain. The prices for coffee, on the London market, continue to be low and the local
                      planters are very depressed. Coffee grows well enough here but we are over 400
                      miles from the railway and transport to the railhead by lorry is very expensive. Then, as
                      there is no East African Marketing Board, the coffee must be shipped to England for
                      sale. Unless the coffee fetches at least 90 pounds a ton it simply doesn’t pay to grow it.
                      When we started planting in 1931 coffee was fetching as much as 115 pounds a ton but
                      prices this year were between 45 and 55 pounds. We have practically exhausted our
                      capitol and so have all our neighbours. The Hickson -Woods have been keeping their
                      pot boiling by selling bat guano to the coffee farmers at Mbosi but now everyone is
                      broke and there is not a market for fertilisers. They are offering their farm for sale at a very
                      low price.

                      Major Jones has got a job working on the district roads and Max Coster talks of
                      returning to his work as a geologist. George says he will have to go gold digging on the
                      Lupa unless there is a big improvement in the market. Luckily we can live quite cheaply
                      here. We have a good vegetable garden, milk is cheap and we have plenty of fruit.
                      There are mulberries, pawpaws, grenadillas, peaches, and wine berries. The wine
                      berries are very pretty but insipid though Ann and Georgie love them. Each morning,
                      before breakfast, the old garden boy brings berries for Ann and Georgie. With a thorn
                      the old man pins a large leaf from a wild fig tree into a cone which he fills with scarlet wine
                      berries. There is always a cone for each child and they wait eagerly outside for the daily
                      ceremony of presentation.

                      The rats are being a nuisance again. Both our cats, Skinny Winnie and Blackboy
                      disappeared a few weeks ago. We think they made a meal for a leopard. I wrote last
                      week to our grocer at Mbalizi asking him whether he could let us have a couple of kittens
                      as I have often seen cats in his store. The messenger returned with a nailed down box.
                      The kitchen boy was called to prize up the lid and the children stood by in eager
                      anticipation. Out jumped two snarling and spitting creatures. One rushed into the kalonga
                      and the other into the house and before they were captured they had drawn blood from
                      several boys. I told the boys to replace the cats in the box as I intended to return them
                      forthwith. They had the colouring, stripes and dispositions of wild cats and I certainly
                      didn’t want them as pets, but before the boys could replace the lid the cats escaped
                      once more into the undergrowth in the kalonga. George fetched his shotgun and said he
                      would shoot the cats on sight or they would kill our chickens. This was more easily said
                      than done because the cats could not be found. However during the night the cats
                      climbed up into the loft af the house and we could hear them moving around on the reed
                      ceiling.

                      I said to George,”Oh leave the poor things. At least they might frighten the rats
                      away.” That afternoon as we were having tea a thin stream of liquid filtered through the
                      ceiling on George’s head. Oh dear!!! That of course was the end. Some raw meat was
                      put on the lawn for bait and yesterday George shot both cats.

                      I regret to end with the sad story of Mary, heroine in my last letter and outcast in
                      this. She came to work quite drunk two days running and I simply had to get rid of her. I
                      have heard since from Kath Wood that Mary lost her last job at Tukuyu for the same
                      reason. She was ayah to twin girls and one day set their pram on fire.

                      So once again my hands are more than full with three lively children. I did say
                      didn’t I, when Ann was born that I wanted six children?

                      Very much love from us all, Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 8th November 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      To set your minds at rest I must tell you that the native who so frightened me and
                      the children is now in jail for attacking a Greek at Mbalizi. I hear he is to be sent back to
                      Rhodesia when he has finished his sentence.

                      Yesterday we had one of our rare trips to Mbeya. George managed to get a couple of
                      second hand tyres for the old car and had again got her to work so we are celebrating our
                      wedding anniversary by going on an outing. I wore the green and fawn striped silk dress
                      mother bought me and the hat and shoes you sent for my birthday and felt like a million
                      dollars, for a change. The children all wore new clothes too and I felt very proud of them.
                      Ann is still very fair and with her refined little features and straight silky hair she
                      looks like Alice in Wonderland. Georgie is dark and sturdy and looks best in khaki shirt
                      and shorts and sun helmet. Kate is a pink and gold baby and looks good enough to eat.
                      We went straight to the hotel at Mbeya and had the usual warm welcome from
                      Ken and Aunty May Menzies. Aunty May wears her hair cut short like a mans and
                      usually wears shirt and tie and riding breeches and boots. She always looks ready to go
                      on safari at a moments notice as indeed she is. She is often called out to a case of illness
                      at some remote spot.

                      There were lots of people at the hotel from farms in the district and from the
                      diggings. I met women I had not seen for four years. One, a Mrs Masters from Tukuyu,
                      said in the lounge, “My God! Last time I saw you , you were just a girl and here you are
                      now with two children.” To which I replied with pride, “There is another one in a pram on
                      the verandah if you care to look!” Great hilarity in the lounge. The people from the
                      diggings seem to have plenty of money to throw around. There was a big party on the
                      go in the bar.

                      One of our shamba boys died last Friday and all his fellow workers and our
                      house boys had the day off to attend the funeral. From what I can gather the local
                      funerals are quite cheery affairs. The corpse is dressed in his best clothes and laid
                      outside his hut and all who are interested may view the body and pay their respects.
                      The heir then calls upon anyone who had a grudge against the dead man to say his say
                      and thereafter hold his tongue forever. Then all the friends pay tribute to the dead man
                      after which he is buried to the accompaniment of what sounds from a distance, very
                      cheerful keening.

                      Most of our workmen are pagans though there is a Lutheran Mission nearby and
                      a big Roman Catholic Mission in the area too. My present cook, however, claims to be
                      a Christian. He certainly went to a mission school and can read and write and also sing
                      hymns in Ki-Swahili. When I first engaged him I used to find a large open Bible
                      prominently displayed on the kitchen table. The cook is middle aged and arrived here
                      with a sensible matronly wife. To my surprise one day he brought along a young girl,
                      very plump and giggly and announced proudly that she was his new wife, I said,”But I
                      thought you were a Christian Jeremiah? Christians don’t have two wives.” To which he
                      replied, “Oh Memsahib, God won’t mind. He knows an African needs two wives – one
                      to go with him when he goes away to work and one to stay behind at home to cultivate
                      the shamba.

                      Needles to say, it is the old wife who has gone to till the family plot.

                      With love to all,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 21st November 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      The drought has broken with a bang. We had a heavy storm in the hills behind
                      the house. Hail fell thick and fast. So nice for all the tiny new berries on the coffee! The
                      kids loved the excitement and three times Ann and Georgie ran out for a shower under
                      the eaves and had to be changed. After the third time I was fed up and made them both
                      lie on their beds whilst George and I had lunch in peace. I told Ann to keep the
                      casement shut as otherwise the rain would drive in on her bed. Half way through lunch I
                      heard delighted squeals from Georgie and went into the bedroom to investigate. Ann
                      was standing on the outer sill in the rain but had shut the window as ordered. “Well
                      Mummy , you didn’t say I mustn’t stand on the window sill, and I did shut the window.”
                      George is working so hard on the farm. I have a horrible feeling however that it is
                      what the Africans call ‘Kazi buri’ (waste of effort) as there seems no chance of the price of
                      coffee improving as long as this world depression continues. The worry is that our capitol
                      is nearly exhausted. Food is becoming difficult now that our neighbours have left. I used
                      to buy delicious butter from Kath Hickson-Wood and an African butcher used to kill a
                      beast once a week. Now that we are his only European customers he very rarely kills
                      anything larger than a goat, and though we do eat goat, believe me it is not from choice.
                      We have of course got plenty to eat, but our diet is very monotonous. I was
                      delighted when George shot a large bushbuck last week. What we could not use I cut
                      into strips and the salted strips are now hanging in the open garage to dry.

                      With love to all,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 6th December 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      We have had a lot of rain and the countryside is lovely and green. Last week
                      George went to Mbeya taking Ann with him. This was a big adventure for Ann because
                      never before had she been anywhere without me. She was in a most blissful state as
                      she drove off in the old car clutching a little basket containing sandwiches and half a bottle
                      of milk. She looked so pretty in a new blue frock and with her tiny plaits tied with
                      matching blue ribbons. When Ann is animated she looks charming because her normally
                      pale cheeks become rosy and she shows her pretty dimples.

                      As I am still without an ayah I rather looked forward to a quiet morning with only
                      Georgie and Margery Kate to care for, but Georgie found it dull without Ann and wanted
                      to be entertained and even the normally placid baby was peevish. Then in mid morning
                      the rain came down in torrents, the result of a cloudburst in the hills directly behind our
                      house. The ravine next to our house was a terrifying sight. It appeared to be a great
                      muddy, roaring waterfall reaching from the very top of the hill to a point about 30 yards
                      behind our house and then the stream rushed on down the gorge in an angry brown
                      flood. The roar of the water was so great that we had to yell at one another to be heard.
                      By lunch time the rain had stopped and I anxiously awaited the return of Ann and
                      George. They returned on foot, drenched and hungry at about 2.30pm . George had
                      had to abandon the car on the main road as the Mchewe River had overflowed and
                      turned the road into a muddy lake. The lower part of the shamba had also been flooded
                      and the water receded leaving branches and driftwood amongst the coffee. This was my
                      first experience of a real tropical storm. I am afraid that after the battering the coffee has
                      had there is little hope of a decent crop next year.

                      Anyway Christmas is coming so we don’t dwell on these mishaps. The children
                      have already chosen their tree from amongst the young cypresses in the vegetable
                      garden. We all send our love and hope that you too will have a Happy Christmas.

                      Eleanor

                      Mchewe Estate. 22nd December 1935

                      Dearest Family,

                      I’ve been in the wars with my staff. The cook has been away ill for ten days but is
                      back today though shaky and full of self pity. The houseboy, who really has been a brick
                      during the cooks absence has now taken to his bed and I feel like taking to Mine! The
                      children however have the Christmas spirit and are making weird and wonderful paper
                      decorations. George’s contribution was to have the house whitewashed throughout and
                      it looks beautifully fresh.

                      My best bit of news is that my old ayah Janey has been to see me and would
                      like to start working here again on Jan 1st. We are all very well. We meant to give
                      ourselves an outing to Mbeya as a Christmas treat but here there is an outbreak of
                      enteric fever there so will now not go. We have had two visitors from the Diggings this
                      week. The children see so few strangers that they were fascinated and hung around
                      staring. Ann sat down on the arm of the couch beside one and studied his profile.
                      Suddenly she announced in her clear voice, “Mummy do you know, this man has got
                      wax in his ears!” Very awkward pause in the conversation. By the way when I was
                      cleaning out little Kate’s ears with a swab of cotton wool a few days ago, Ann asked
                      “Mummy, do bees have wax in their ears? Well, where do you get beeswax from
                      then?”

                      I meant to keep your Christmas parcel unopened until Christmas Eve but could
                      not resist peeping today. What lovely things! Ann so loves pretties and will be
                      delighted with her frocks. My dress is just right and I love Georgie’s manly little flannel
                      shorts and blue shirt. We have bought them each a watering can. I suppose I shall
                      regret this later. One of your most welcome gifts is the album of nursery rhyme records. I
                      am so fed up with those that we have. Both children love singing. I put a record on the
                      gramophone geared to slow and off they go . Georgie sings more slowly than Ann but
                      much more tunefully. Ann sings in a flat monotone but Georgie with great expression.
                      You ought to hear him render ‘Sing a song of sixpence’. He cannot pronounce an R or
                      an S. Mother has sent a large home made Christmas pudding and a fine Christmas
                      cake and George will shoot some partridges for Christmas dinner.
                      Think of us as I shall certainly think of you.

                      Your very loving,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 2nd January 1936

                      Dearest Family,

                      Christmas was fun! The tree looked very gay with its load of tinsel, candles and
                      red crackers and the coloured balloons you sent. All the children got plenty of toys
                      thanks to Grandparents and Aunts. George made Ann a large doll’s bed and I made
                      some elegant bedding, Barbara, the big doll is now permanently bed ridden. Her poor
                      shattered head has come all unstuck and though I have pieced it together again it is a sad
                      sight. If you have not yet chosen a present for her birthday next month would you
                      please get a new head from the Handy House. I enclose measurements. Ann does so
                      love the doll. She always calls her, “My little girl”, and she keeps the doll’s bed beside
                      her own and never fails to kiss her goodnight.

                      We had no guests for Christmas this year but we were quite festive. Ann
                      decorated the dinner table with small pink roses and forget-me-knots and tinsel and the
                      crackers from the tree. It was a wet day but we played the new records and both
                      George and I worked hard to make it a really happy day for the children. The children
                      were hugely delighted when George made himself a revolting set of false teeth out of
                      plasticine and a moustache and beard of paper straw from a chocolate box. “Oh Daddy
                      you look exactly like Father Christmas!” cried an enthralled Ann. Before bedtime we lit
                      all the candles on the tree and sang ‘Away in a Manger’, and then we opened the box of
                      starlights you sent and Ann and Georgie had their first experience of fireworks.
                      After the children went to bed things deteriorated. First George went for his bath
                      and found and killed a large black snake in the bathroom. It must have been in the
                      bathroom when I bathed the children earlier in the evening. Then I developed bad
                      toothache which kept me awake all night and was agonising next day. Unfortunately the
                      bridge between the farm and Mbeya had been washed away and the water was too
                      deep for the car to ford until the 30th when at last I was able to take my poor swollen
                      face to Mbeya. There is now a young German woman dentist working at the hospital.
                      She pulled out the offending molar which had a large abscess attached to it.
                      Whilst the dentist attended to me, Ann and Georgie played happily with the
                      doctor’s children. I wish they could play more often with other children. Dr Eckhardt was
                      very pleased with Margery Kate who at seven months weighs 17 lbs and has lovely
                      rosy cheeks. He admired Ann and told her that she looked just like a German girl. “No I
                      don’t”, cried Ann indignantly, “I’m English!”

                      We were caught in a rain storm going home and as the old car still has no
                      windscreen or side curtains we all got soaked except for the baby who was snugly
                      wrapped in my raincoat. The kids thought it great fun. Ann is growing up fast now. She
                      likes to ‘help mummy’. She is a perfectionist at four years old which is rather trying. She
                      gets so discouraged when things do not turn out as well as she means them to. Sewing
                      is constantly being unpicked and paintings torn up. She is a very sensitive child.
                      Georgie is quite different. He is a man of action, but not silent. He talks incessantly
                      but lisps and stumbles over some words. At one time Ann and Georgie often
                      conversed in Ki-Swahili but they now scorn to do so. If either forgets and uses a Swahili
                      word, the other points a scornful finger and shouts “You black toto”.

                      With love to all,
                      Eleanor.

                      #6260
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        From Tanganyika with Love

                        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                         

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Much love my dear,
                        your jubilant
                        Eleanor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Bless you all,
                        Eleanor.

                        S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Eleanor Leslie.

                        Eleanor and George Rushby:

                        Eleanor and George Rushby

                        Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Your cave woman
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Much love to you all,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Your loving
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Very much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mbeya 23rd December 1930

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                        26th December 1930

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

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

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

                        Lots and lots of love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Your loving,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                        Very much love,
                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

                        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                        Eleanor.

                        Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

                        Dear Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        Eleanor.

                        #6241
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Kidsley Grange Farm and The Quakers Next Door

                          Kidsley Grange Farm in Smalley, Derbyshire, was the home of the Housleys in the 1800s.  William Housley 1781-1848 was born in nearby Selston.   His wife Ellen Carrington 1795-1872 was from a long line of Carringtons in Smalley.  They had ten children between 1815 and 1838.  Samuel, my 3x great grandfather, was the second son born in 1816.

                          The original farm has been made into a nursing home in recent years, which at the time of writing is up for sale at £500,000. Sadly none of the original farm appears visible with all the new additions.

                          The farm before it was turned into a nursing home:

                          Kidsley Grange Farm

                          Kidsley Grange Farm and Kidsley Park, a neighbouring farm, are mentioned in a little book about the history of Smalley.  The neighbours at Kidsley Park, the Davy’s,  were friends of the Housleys. They were Quakers.

                          Smalley Farms

                           

                          In Kerry’s History of Smalley:

                          Kidsley Park Farm was owned by Daniel Smith,  a prominent Quaker and the last of the Quakers at Kidsley. His daughter, Elizabeth Davy, widow of William Davis, married WH Barber MB of Smalley. Elizabeth was the author of the poem “Farewell to Kidsley Park”.

                          Emma Housley sent one of Elizabeth Davy’s poems to her brother George in USA.

                           “We have sent you a piece of poetry that Mrs. Davy composed about our ‘Old House.’ I am sure you will like it though you may not understand all the allusions she makes use of as well as we do.”

                          Farewell to Kidsley Park
                          Farewell, Farewell, Thy pathways now by strangers feet are trod,
                          And other hands and horses strange henceforth shall turn thy sod,
                          Yes, other eyes may watch the buds expanding in the spring.
                          And other children round the hearth the coming years may bring,
                          But mine will be the memory of cares and pleasures there,
                          Intenser ~ that no living thing in some of them can share,
                          Commencing with the loved, and lost, in days of long ago,
                          When one was present on whose head Atlantic’s breezes blow,
                          Long years ago he left that roof, and made a home afar ~
                          For that is really only “home” where life’s affections are!
                          How many thoughts come o’er me, for old Kidsley has “a name
                          And memory” ~ in the hearts of some not unknown to fame.
                          We dream not, in those happy times, that I should be the last,
                          Alone, to leave my native place ~ alone, to meet the blast,
                          I loved each nook and corner there, each leaf and blade of grass,
                          Each moonlight shadow on the pond I loved: but let it pass,
                          For mine is still the memory that only death can mar;
                          I fancy I shall see it reflecting every star.
                          The graves of buried quadrupeds, affectionate and true,
                          Will have the olden sunshine, and the same bright morning dew,
                          But the birds that sang at even when the autumn leaves were seer,
                          Will miss the crumbs they used to get, in winters long and drear.
                          Will the poor down-trodden miss me? God help them if they do!
                          Some manna in the wilderness, His goodness guide them to!
                          Farewell to those who love me! I shall bear them still in mind,
                          And hope to be remembered by those I left behind:
                          Do not forget the aged man ~ though another fills his place ~
                          Another, bearing not his name, nor coming of his race.
                          His creed might be peculiar; but there was much of good
                          Successors will not imitate, because not understood.
                          Two hundred years have come and past since George Fox ~ first of “Friends” ~
                          Established his religion there ~ which my departure ends.
                          Then be it so: God prosper these in basket and in store,
                          And make them happy in my place ~ my dwelling, never more!
                          For I may be a wanderer ~ no roof nor hearthstone mine:
                          May light that cometh from above my resting place define.
                          Gloom hovers o’er the prospect now, but He who was my friend,
                          In the midst of troubled waters, will see me to the end.

                          Elizabeth Davy, June 6th, 1863, Derby.

                          Another excerpt from Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters from the family in Smalley to George in USA mentions the Davy’s:

                          Anne’s will was probated October 14, 1856. Mr. William Davy of Kidsley Park appeared for the family. Her estate was valued at under £20. Emma was to receive fancy needlework, a four post bedstead, feather bed and bedding, a mahogany chest of drawers, plates, linen and china. Emma was also to receive Anne’s writing desk! There was a condition that Ellen would have use of these items until her death.
                          The money that Anne was to receive from her grandfather, William Carrington, and her father, William Housley was to be distributed one third to Joseph, one third to Emma, and one third to be divided between her four neices: John’s daughter Elizabeth, 18, and Sam’s daughters Elizabeth, 10, Mary Anne, 9 and Catherine, age 7 to be paid by the trustees as they think “most useful and proper.” Emma Lyon and Elizabeth Davy were the witnesses.

                          Mrs. Davy wrote to George on March 21 1856 sending some gifts from his sisters and a portrait of their mother–“Emma is away yet and A is so much worse.” Mrs. Davy concluded: “With best wishes
                           for thy health and prosperity in this world and the next I am thy sincere friend.” Whenever the girls sent greetings from Mrs. Davy they used her Quaker speech pattern of “thee and thy.”

                           

                          #6159

                          Nora moves silently along the path, placing her feet with care. It is more overgrown in the wood than she remembers, but then it is such a long time since she came this way. She can see in the distance something small and pale. A gentle gust of wind and It seems to stir, as if shivering, as if caught.

                          Nora feels strange, there is a strong sense of deja vu now that she has entered the forest.

                          She comes to a halt. The trees are still now, not a leaf stirs. She can hear nothing other than the sound of her own breathing. She can’t see the clearing yet either, but she remembers it’s further on, beyond the next winding of the path. She can see it in her mind’s eye though, a rough circle of random stones, with a greenish liquid light filtering through. The air smells of leaf mould and it is spongy underfoot. There’s a wooden bench, a grassy bank, and a circular area of emerald green moss. Finn thinks of it as place of enchantment, a fairy ring.

                          Wait! Who is Finn? Where is this story coming from that whispers in her ear as she makes her way through the woods to her destination, the halfway point of her clandestine journey? Who is Finn?

                          She reaches the tiny shivering thing and sees that it is a scrap of paper, impaled on a broken branch. She reaches out gently and touches it, then eases if off the branch, taking care not to rip it further. There is a message scribbled on the paper, incomplete. meet me, is all it says now

                          The crumpled up paper among the dead leaves beside the path catches her eye.  No, not impaled on a branch but still, a bit of paper catches her eye as the mysterious  ~ ephemeral, invisible ~ story teller continues softly telling her tale

                          Finn feels dreamy and floaty. She smiles to herself, thinking of the purpose of her mission, feeling as though it is a message to her from the past. She is overwhelmed for a moment with a sense of love and acceptance towards her younger self. Yes, she whispers softly to the younger Finn, I will meet you at the fairy ring. We will talk a bit. Maybe I can help

                          But wait, there is no meaningful message on the crumpled paper that Nora picks up and opens out. It’s nothing but a shopping receipt.  Disappointed, she screws it back up and aims to toss it into the undergrowth, but she hesitates.  Surely it can’t have no meaning at all, she thinks, not after the strange whispered story and the synchronicity of finding it just at that moment.  She opens it back up again, and reads the list of items.

                          Olive oil, wine, wheat, garum…. wait, what? Garum? She looks at the date on the receipt ~ a common enough looking till roll receipt, the kind you find in any supermarket ~ but what is this date? 57BC?   How can that be?  Even if she had mistranslated BC ~ perhaps it means British Cooperative, or Better Compare or some such supermarket name ~  the year of 57 makes little sense anyway.  And garum, how to explain that! Nora only knows of garum in relation to Romans, there is no garum on the shelves between the mayonaisse and the ketchup these days, after all.

                          Nora smooths the receipt and folds it neatly in half and puts it in her pocket.  The shadows are long now and she still has some distance to walk before the halfway village.  As she resumes her journey, she hears whispered in her ear: You unlocked the blue diamond mode. You’re on a quest now!

                          Smiling now, she accelerates her pace.  The lowering sun is casting a golden light, and she feels fortified.

                          #6156

                          Clara couldn’t sleep. Alienor’s message asking if she knew anyone in the little village was playing on her mind. She knew she knew someone there, but couldn’t remember who it was. The more she tried to remember, the more frustrated she became. It wasn’t that her mind was blank: it was a tense conglomeration of out of focus wisps, if a wisp could be described as tense.

                          Clara glanced at the time ~ almost half past three. Grandpa would be up in a few hours.  She climbed out of bed and padded over to her suitcase, half unpacked on the floor under the window, and extracted the book from the jumble of garments.

                          A stranger had handed her a book in the petrol station forecourt, a woman in a stylish black hat and a long coat.  Wait! What is it? Clara called, but the woman was already inside the back seat of a long sleek car, soundlessly closing the door. Obliged to attend to her transaction, the car slipped away behind Clara’s back.  Thank you, she whispered into the distance of the dark night in the direction the woman had gone.  When she opened her car door, the interior light shone on the book and the word Albina caught her eye. She put the book on the passenger seat and started the car. Her thoughts returned to her journey, and she thought no more about it.

                          Returning to her bed and propping her pillows up behind her head, Clara started to read.

                          This Chrysoprase was a real gargoyle; he even did not need to be described. I just could not understand how he moved if he was made of stone, not to mention how he was able to speak. He was like the Stone Guest from the story Don Juan, though the Stone Guest was a giant statue, and Chrysoprase was only about a meter tall.

                          Chrysoprase said: But we want to pay you honor and Gerard is very hungry.

                          “Most important is wine, don’t forget wine!” – Gerard jumped up.

                          “I’ll call the kitchen” – here the creature named Chrysoprase gets from the depth of his pocket an Iphone and calls.
                          I was absolutely shocked. The Iphone! The latest model! It was not just the latest model, it was a model of the future, which was in the hands of this creature. I said that he was made of stone, no, now he was made of flesh and he was already dressed in wide striped trousers. What is going on? Is it a dream? Only in dreams such metamorphosis can happen.

                          He was made of stone, now he is made of flesh. He was in his natural form, that is, he was not dressed, and now he is wearing designer’s trousers. A phrase came to my mind: “Everything was in confusion in the Oblonsky house.”

                          Contrary to Clara’s expectations ~ reading in bed invariably sent her to sleep after a few paragraphs ~ she found she was wide awake and sitting bolt upright.

                          Of course! Now she remembered who lived in that little village!

                          #6065

                          Those last few days have been hectic. But we finally arrived. I can’t believe we survived all those police controls and those christian mobs, and I didn’t know Kady was a adept at car borrowing.

                          I forgot my journal because it was on the computer and I didn’t take the computer. So I don’t know how to contact you, Whale, other than using the old method: with a pen and a sheet of paper. Max gave me this piece of wrapping in which Kady had put the chocolate. He said he can still reuse it later with the writing. He’s nice, although he doesn’t look like it. I think I like him.

                          However, the whole thing is not like I expected. Oh sure, the pistil itself is quite impressive: that lone and long stem coming out of that canyon and surrounded by those mountains in the distance. I’m talking about the camp. It’s like a refugee camp, and all of them avid to be able to go in somehow. I’m not sure what they expect. Kady hasn’t been in a sharing mood lately, and I haven’t asked that many questions. But she told Max we had to discuss before we go in tomorrow. So I’m feeling nervous about what I’ll learn tonight.

                          I’ve been told once: ask and you will receive. What am I supposed to know now? What am I supposed to do? Maybe that’s not the right question because I just got my voice telling me that I’m not supposed to know or do anything. Maybe supposed is not the right word. I’m too tired and excited at the same time to figure it out, but you get the gist I’m sure.

                          I didn’t have any more dreams. I’ve been watching the drawings in that book religiously every night of that trip before I go to sleep. Although I’m not truly sincere when I say that I didn’t have any more dreams. I had at least one that I recall. It was like some news about a parallel self, one that got the virus. I dreamt about that other me before, he couldn’t breath and it hurt. I had wondered if he had died because I didn’t have any more dreams about him, until last night. He seemed ok, he had recovered quite well considering the difficulties. He was at a gathering with other people at some kind of Lebanese buffet. I’m not too fond of the spicy merguez sausages, I prefer the hummus.

                          Max is calling, diner is ready. He’s made lasagna, apparently he makes the the best lasagna in the whole camp. I’m not sure when will be the next time I contact you so far Whale.

                          #6064

                          I’ve been up since god knows what time. Got up for the loo and couldn’t face going back to the awful nightmares.  That girl that came yesterday said she’d been having nightmares, she said it was common now, people having nightmares, what with the quarantine. I think I might have just snorted at the silly girl, but when I woke up last night I wondered if it was true. Or maybe I’m just a suggestible old fool.

                          Anyway, I stayed up because lord knows I don’t want to be in a city in America at night, not waking and not dreaming either. I’ve had a feeling for a long time, and much longer than this virus, that it was like a horror movie and it would behoove me not to watch it anymore or I’d be having nightmares.  I didn’t stop watching though, sort of a horrified fascination, like I’d watched this far so why stop now.

                          In the dream I was on a dark city street at a bus stop, it was night time and the lights were bright in a shop window on the other side of the sidewalk.  I had a bunch of tickets in my hand all stapled together, but they were indecipherable. I had no idea where I was going or how to get there.  Then I noticed the man that was by my side,  a stranger that seemed to have latched on to me, had stolen all my tickets and replaced them with the rolled up used ticket stubs.  I made him give me back my tickets but then I knew I couldn’t trust him.

                          Then I realized I hadn’t finished packing properly and only had a ragged orange towel with bloodstains on it.  So I go back home (I say home but I don’t know what house it was) to pack my bags properly, and find a stack of nice new black towels, and replace the bloody orange one.

                          I’m walking around the house, wondering what else I should pack, and one room leads into another, and then another, and then another, in a sort of spiral direction (highly improbable because you’d have ended up back in the same room, in real life) and then I found a lovely room and thought to myself, What a nice room! You’d never have known it was there because it wasn’t on the way to anywhere and didn’t seem to have a function as a room.

                          It was familiar and I remembered I’d been there before, in another dream, years ago.  It had lovely furniture in it, big old polished wooden pieces, but not cluttered, the room was white and bright and spacious. Lovely big old bureau on one wall, I remember that piece quite clearly. Not a speck of dust on it and the lovely dark sheen of ancient polished oak.

                          Anyway in the dream I didn’t take anything from the room, and probably should have just stayed there but the next thing I know, I’m in a car with my mother and she races off down the fast lane of an empty motorway. I’m thinking, surely she doesn’t know how to take me where I have to go? She seemed so confident, so out of character the way she was driving.

                          I got up for the loo and all I kept thinking about was that awful scene in the  city street, which admittedly doesn’t sound that bad. I won’t bother telling the girl about it when she comes to do my breakfast, it loses a little in the telling, I think.

                          But the more I think about that lovely room at the end of the spiral of rooms, the more I’m trying to wrack my brains to remember where I’ve seen that room before.  I’ve half a mind to go back there and open that dark oak bureau and see what’s inside.

                          #6062

                          In reply to: The Pistil Maze

                          Jib
                          Participant

                            The journey to the Pistil itself would have been worth its own story, thought Charlton. They had to avoid road blocks, crowds of chanting christians that had certainly vowed to spread the virus as fast as possible, and howlers who you were never sure weren’t the real thing from Teen Wolf. They had to be, in such a landscape. Once arid, it had turned greener in just a few weeks. Rain was now weekly when drops of water used to only show up with the bottles of water from the tourists.

                            Despite Kady’s advice not to take anything, he’d still brought the book of drawings. Kady had said nothing about the book, nor the clothes, or the snacks. Charlton was sometimes literal about what people told him, but he also knew it. So he didn’t say anything when he saw Kady had her own backpack with clothes, some money and food. During the trip, he tried to reproduce the experience with the drawings and the dreams —but nothing happened. Charlton felt a little disappointed.

                            They saw the pistil long before they arrived at its foot. It was at the end of the day and the sunset was splashing its reds and purples all around it. Charlton had had time to get used to its tall presence in the landscape. Yet, seeing it at a close range from below was a strange experience. Taller than the tallest man-made tower. He wondered what he was supposed to feel in its presence. Awe? Electricity? Enlightenment? Bursts of inspiration? This should at least be a mystical moment, but all he could feel was annoyance at the crowd of people crawling around like aphids avid to suck its sap.

                            Kady looked more annoyed than surprised. She was walking past the flock as if she knew exactly where to go. Charlton followed, feeling dizzy by the sudden increase of activity and smells. He soon got nauseous at the mix of incense and fried sausages.

                            “There are so many of them,” he eventually said. “How come? It was so difficult just for the two of us to avoid police controls. Do we have to wait with them?”

                            “Nah! They’re just the usual bunch of weirdoes,” Kady said. “They’ve been here a long time. I bet some of them aren’t even aware there have been a virus. But stay close. I don’t want to lose you, it’s a maze before the maze. I just need to see someone before we go in.”

                            They walked for about another ten minutes before stopping in front of a big tent. There, a big man with a boxer’s face was repairing all kind of electronics on a table with the application of a surgeon. Phones, cameras, coffee machines… Charlton wondered how they got electricity to make it all work.

                            “Hey, Kady!” said the man. “You’re back. Did you give it to her?” His face looked anxious.

                            “Of course Max! I even got an answer,” Kady said handing him a pink envelope. Max smelled it.

                            “Her favourite perfume,” he said with a broad smile.

                            “I told you she still loves you. I also brought you something else.” Kady dropped a box on the table among the electronics. Charlton didn’t think it could be possible to witness the expression of a ten year old child on such a hard face, but what was inside the box certainly did magic.

                            “You brought chocolate?”

                            “Yep.”

                            “Did you find the chestnut one?”

                            “Yep.”

                            “My favourite,” said Max to Charlton. “Is this your friend?”

                            “Max, meet Charlton. Charlton, Max. Listen, we plan on going in tomorrow, but tonight we need a place to get some rest.”

                            “I told you, you’re always welcome. Did you know she saved my life in there?”

                            “Saved your life?” asked Charlton looking hesitantly at Kady. “No, I didn’t know.”

                            #6029
                            Jib
                            Participant

                              Based on post #5959 in The Whale’s Diaries Collection.

                              As soon as Charlton finished editing his journal entry, someone knocked at the door. It was Kady in a red dress. She looked different than his dream. For starter she was not restless and she had some kind of self-assurance that she didn’t have before.

                              “Oh! Hello,” Charlton said. “Are we going to the pistil?”

                              “So you got the dream I sent you. It’ll be easier. I’m not against a cup of tea. It’s been a long time since I could enjoy one in a couch.”

                              Charlton made some rare Da Hong Pao Chinese tea, the one called Big Red Dress. A warm and rich aroma steamed out of the purple clay teapot he had brought from a trip in China. He thought the tea was a nice touch considering his friend’s garment.

                              “So, where have you been?” he asked.

                              Kady brought up the little cup to her nose and smelled the tea.

                              “Oh! You truly know your shit, Charlton.” She took a sip before continuing. “The pistils, they have been around for longer than everybody think. We call it the Pistil Maze,” Kady said. She looked at him with hesitation in her eyes. “You may not believe me, but aliens put it there, you know. Who else? But most of the people they don’t understand. They don’t want to. It’s too frightening for their little comfort. People are perceiving them now because of the virus. It’s making them able to see their frequency when they weren’t able to before. But they have been there for a long time.”

                              Then Kady told Charlton about an ancient alien race from another dimension that was bringing a power, a treasure of knowledge and abilities, but that current humans bodies were too weak to bear its intensity, and that people had to somehow upgrade before they could. The pistils, they were a series of mazes, a path to transformation. People had to follow it in order to change themselves and there was not just one path. Everyone had to follow their own.

                              The whole story about the pistils fascinated Charlton, especially after his dream. It didn’t took him long before asking his next question.

                              “Do I need to pack up special things for the trip?”

                              “Actually you don’t. We’ll find all that we need inside.”

                              #6026

                              Dear Jorid Whale,

                              My hands are shaking while I type this on the keyboard.

                              I’m not sure which of last night’s dreams is the bizarrest. Bizarre in a fantastic way, although for certain people it might be called grotesque. I’m certain it has something to do with that book I ordered online last week. I don’t usually read books and certainly not like this one. But the confinement, it makes you consider making things out of your ordinary.

                              It’s called The Enchanted Forest of Changes, by a Chinese artist Níngméng (柠檬). They say his artist name means lemon, but that some of his friends call him Níng mèng 凝梦 (curdle dreams), which to my ears sound exactly the same except a little bit angrier. I found out about him on a forum about creepy dolls abandoned in forests all around the world. Yeah exactly, the confinement effect again. Apparently it started with a few dolls in a forest in Michigan, and then suddenly people started to find them everywhere. I wonder if some people are really into the confinement thing or if it’s just me using that as a reason to stay home.

                              Anyway, someone on that forum posted one of the picture of that book and it caught my eye. So much so that I dreamt of it the following night. So I bought the book and it’s mostly ink drawings, but they seem to speak directly to some part of you that you were not even aware you had. I almost hear whispers when I look at the drawings. And then I have those dreams.

                              Last night I dreamt of a cat that had been raised as a boy. He even had the shape of one, but shorter maybe. He had learned to talk and use his paws as hands, his claws had grown into fingers, had lost most of his fur and he was wearing clothes. If I was amazed by such a feat, it kinda seemed normal for the people I met in that dream. It just took a lot of efforts, love and dedication to raise this kind of children.

                              And Whale, I feel tingling in my arms. This morning you showed me the picture of a kitten! That’s not a mere coincidence. I’m feeling so excited, my hands are too slow to type what I want to write. I fear I’m going to forget an important detail.

                              About the second dream. The world was in shock, there was this giant… thing that looked like a pistil and that had grown during the night in some arid area. It was taller than the tallest human made tower. Its extremity was cone shaped, and I confess that the whole thing looked like some kind of dick to me.

                              Plants and trees had followed in the following days as if the pistil had changed the climatic conditions (autocorrect wanted to write climactic, is that you playing around?).

                              The pistil was protected by some kind of field and it couldn’t be approached by everyone. Governments had tried, pharmaceutical companies had tried. People who wanted to make gold out of it, they were all rejected. But for some reason some people could approach. Anyone, not just the pure of hearts or the noble ones. Actually a whole bunch of weirdoes started to take their chances. Some were allowed in and some where not. Nobody knew what was the deciding factor.

                              A friend of mine that I have not seen in years during my waking life, she came back and asked me to come with her. So we went and were allowed in. My recall of the events after that is fuzzy. But I get the strange impression that I will spend more time in there later on.

                              [Edited in the afternoon]

                              I don’t believe it! It’s on the news everywhere. It has even replaced the news about the virus and the confinement.

                              Giant pistils have appeared around the world, but it seems only people who had been infected can see them.

                              Crazy rumours run on the internet. Giant mass hallucination caused by the virus. Some people say it’s alien technology, spores engineered to control our brains.

                              There is one not so far from where I live. Should I wait for Kady to call me?

                              #5995

                              Fanella was frantic, trying to think of a way to escape with her baby.  The atmosphere in this city was unbearable at the best of times, and especially in this house, but now it was excruciating. It wasn’t that she was afraid of the plague that was terrorizing people, it was the way the people were reacting that was so alarming.  They were howling like wolves, a sure sign of lunacy since time immemorial. The sound of it made her blood run cold.

                              Nobody had seen the president for over a week and rumours were rife. Many said that he’d died, and they were keeping it secret to avoid civil unrest.  An office junior was continuing his tweets to the nation, using a random predictive text algorithm. Nobody had noticed. That wasn’t strictly true of course as many had commented that the messages now made marginally more sense.

                              Fanella could sense the swelling chaos in the air, both inside the house and beyond, in the city and in the nation. Everyone was losing their minds. She had to escape.

                              She consulted the U Chong:

                               (Chin / Jin) : Progress / Advance. It represents Prospering, as well as Progress. It is symbolic of meeting the great man.

                              The great man! Of course! Lazuli Galore would come to rescue her! But how would he know where to find her? Would he be able to travel freely? He’d find a way, surely! But how would he know she needed help? It was so complicated. So hard to know what to do!

                              But first things first. Fanella crept down to the kitchen, in the dead  of the night while everyone was tucked up in their beds with their fitful nightmares, and filled a rucksack with provisions. Then she crept up the back stairs to her hideout in the attic of the west wing.  The baby was still sleeping soundly. Fanella lay down and pulled a blanket round them both. Maybe the answer would come in a dream. If not, she’d think about it again tomorrow.

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