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    TracyTracy
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      From Tanganyika with Love

      continued

      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

      Mchewe Estate. 11th July 1931.

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Lots of love,
      Eleanor

      Mchewe Estate. 8th. August 1931

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Mchewe Estate. Sept.6th. 1931

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

      Very much love,
      Eleanor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Eleanor Rushby

       

      Mchewe Estate. June 15th 1932

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Your very loving,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate Mbeya July 18th 1932

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Lots and lots of love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate August 11th 1932

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Much love to all,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 28th Sept. 1932

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

      Much love to all,
      Eleanor.

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

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

      We all send our love,
      Eleanor.

      Mbeya Hospital. April 25th. 1933

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Very much love,
      Eleanor.

      Mbeya Hospital. 2nd May 1933.

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

      Much love from a proud mother of two.
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate 12May 1933

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

      Your affectionate,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1933

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

      your affectionate,
      Eleanor

      Mchewe Estate. August 10 th. 1933

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

      Very much love
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. October 27th 1933

      Dear Family,

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

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

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

      Lots and lots of love,
      Eleanor.

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

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Very much love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 14th February 1934.

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

      Much love to all,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 1st October 1934

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

      Lots of love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. November 4th 1934

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Lots of love to all,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 28th December 1934

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

      Much love to you all,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 5th January 1935

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

      Much love,
      Eleanor.

      Mchewe Estate. 18th February 1935

      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

      Lots of love, Eleanor

      #6260
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        From Tanganyika with Love

        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

         

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Much love my dear,
        your jubilant
        Eleanor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Bless you all,
        Eleanor.

        S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor Leslie.

        Eleanor and George Rushby:

        Eleanor and George Rushby

        Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Your cave woman
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Much love to you all,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Your loving
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Very much love,
        Eleanor.

        Mbeya 23rd December 1930

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

        26th December 1930

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

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

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

        Lots and lots of love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Your loving,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

        Very much love,
        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

        Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

        Dear Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        #6259
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          George “Mike” Rushby

          A short autobiography of George Gilman Rushby’s son, published in the Blackwall Bugle, Australia.

          Early in 2009, Ballina Shire Council Strategic and
          Community Services Group Manager, Steve Barnier,
          suggested that it would be a good idea for the Wardell
          and District community to put out a bi-monthly
          newsletter. I put my hand up to edit the publication and
          since then, over 50 issues of “The Blackwall Bugle”
          have been produced, encouraged by Ballina Shire
          Council who host the newsletter on their website.
          Because I usually write the stories that other people
          generously share with me, I have been asked by several
          community members to let them know who I am. Here is
          my attempt to let you know!

          My father, George Gilman Rushby was born in England
          in 1900. An Electrician, he migrated to Africa as a young
          man to hunt and to prospect for gold. He met Eleanor
          Dunbar Leslie who was a high school teacher in Cape
          Town. They later married in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika.
          I was the second child and first son and was born in a
          mud hut in Tanganyika in 1933. I spent my first years on
          a coffee plantation. When four years old, and with
          parents and elder sister on a remote goldfield, I caught
          typhoid fever. I was seriously ill and had no access to
          proper medical facilities. My paternal grandmother
          sailed out to Africa from England on a steam ship and
          took me back to England for medical treatment. My
          sister Ann came too. Then Adolf Hitler started WWII and
          Ann and I were separated from our parents for 9 years.

          Sister Ann and I were not to see him or our mother for
          nine years because of the war. Dad served as a Captain in
          the King’s African Rifles operating in the North African
          desert, while our Mum managed the coffee plantation at
          home in Tanganyika.

          Ann and I lived with our Grandmother and went to
          school in Nottingham England. In 1946 the family was
          reunited. We lived in Mbeya in Southern Tanganyika
          where my father was then the District Manager of the
          National Parks and Wildlife Authority. There was no
          high school in Tanganyika so I had to go to school in
          Nairobi, Kenya. It took five days travelling each way by
          train and bus including two days on a steamer crossing
          Lake Victoria.

          However, the school year was only two terms with long
          holidays in between.

          When I was seventeen, I left high school. There was
          then no university in East Africa. There was no work
          around as Tanganyika was about to become
          independent of the British Empire and become
          Tanzania. Consequently jobs were reserved for
          Africans.

          A war had broken out in Korea. I took a day off from
          high school and visited the British Army headquarters
          in Nairobi. I signed up for military service intending to
          go to Korea. The army flew me to England. During
          Army basic training I was nicknamed ‘Mike’ and have
          been called Mike ever since. I never got to Korea!
          After my basic training I volunteered for the Parachute
          Regiment and the army sent me to Egypt where the
          Suez Canal was under threat. I carried out parachute
          operations in the Sinai Desert and in Cyprus and
          Jordan. I was then selected for officer training and was
          sent to England to the Eaton Hall Officer Cadet School
          in Cheshire. Whilst in Cheshire, I met my future wife
          Jeanette. I graduated as a Second Lieutenant in the
          Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and was posted to West
          Berlin, which was then one hundred miles behind the
          Iron Curtain. My duties included patrolling the
          demarcation line that separated the allies from the
          Russian forces. The Berlin Wall was yet to be built. I
          also did occasional duty as guard commander of the
          guard at Spandau Prison where Adolf Hitler’s deputy
          Rudolf Hess was the only prisoner.

          From Berlin, my Regiment was sent to Malaya to
          undertake deep jungle operations against communist
          terrorists that were attempting to overthrow the
          Malayan Government. I was then a Lieutenant in
          command of a platoon of about 40 men which would go
          into the jungle for three weeks to a month with only air
          re-supply to keep us going. On completion of my jungle
          service, I returned to England and married Jeanette. I
          had to stand up throughout the church wedding
          ceremony because I had damaged my right knee in a
          competitive cross-country motorcycle race and wore a
          splint and restrictive bandage for the occasion!
          At this point I took a career change and transferred
          from the infantry to the Royal Military Police. I was in
          charge of the security of British, French and American
          troops using the autobahn link from West Germany to
          the isolated Berlin. Whilst in Germany and Austria I
          took up snow skiing as a sport.

          Jeanette and I seemed to attract unusual little
          adventures along the way — each adventure trivial in
          itself but adding up to give us a ‘different’ path through
          life. Having climbed Mount Snowdon up the ‘easy way’
          we were witness to a serious climbing accident where a
          member of the staff of a Cunard Shipping Line
          expedition fell and suffered serious injury. It was
          Sunday a long time ago. The funicular railway was
          closed. There was no telephone. So I ran all the way
          down Mount Snowdon to raise the alarm.

          On a road trip from Verden in Germany to Berlin with
          our old Opel Kapitan motor car stacked to the roof with
          all our worldly possessions, we broke down on the ice and snow covered autobahn. We still had a hundred kilometres to go.

          A motorcycle patrolman flagged down a B-Double
          tanker. He hooked us to the tanker with a very short tow
          cable and off we went. The truck driver couldn’t see us
          because we were too close and his truck threw up a
          constant deluge of ice and snow so we couldn’t see
          anyway. We survived the hundred kilometre ‘sleigh
          ride!’

          I then went back to the other side of the world where I
          carried out military police duties in Singapore and
          Malaya for three years. I took up scuba diving and
          loved the ocean. Jeanette and I, with our two little
          daughters, took a holiday to South Africa to see my
          parents. We sailed on a ship of the Holland-Afrika Line.
          It broke down for four days and drifted uncontrollably
          in dangerous waters off the Skeleton Coast of Namibia
          until the crew could get the ship’s motor running again.
          Then, in Cape Town, we were walking the beach near
          Hermanus with my youngest brother and my parents,
          when we found the dead body of a man who had thrown
          himself off a cliff. The police came and secured the site.
          Back with the army, I was promoted to Major and
          appointed Provost Marshal of the ACE Mobile Force
          (Allied Command Europe) with dual headquarters in
          Salisbury, England and Heidelberg, Germany. The cold
          war was at its height and I was on operations in Greece,
          Denmark and Norway including the Arctic. I had
          Norwegian, Danish, Italian and American troops in my
          unit and I was then also the Winter Warfare Instructor
          for the British contingent to the Allied Command
          Europe Mobile Force that operated north of the Arctic
          Circle.

          The reason for being in the Arctic Circle? From there
          our special forces could look down into northern
          Russia.

          I was not seeing much of my two young daughters. A
          desk job was looming my way and I decided to leave
          the army and migrate to Australia. Why Australia?
          Well, I didn’t want to go back to Africa, which
          seemed politically unstable and the people I most
          liked working with in the army, were the Australian
          troops I had met in Malaya.

          I migrated to Brisbane, Australia in 1970 and started
          working for Woolworths. After management training,
          I worked at Garden City and Brookside then became
          the manager in turn of Woolworths stores at
          Paddington, George Street and Redcliff. I was also the
          first Director of FAUI Queensland (The Federation of
          Underwater Diving Instructors) and spent my spare
          time on the Great Barrier Reef. After 8 years with
          Woollies, I opted for a sea change.

          I moved with my family to Evans Head where I
          converted a convenience store into a mini
          supermarket. When IGA moved into town, I decided
          to take up beef cattle farming and bought a cattle
          property at Collins Creek Kyogle in 1990. I loved
          everything about the farm — the Charolais cattle, my
          horses, my kelpie dogs, the open air, fresh water
          creek, the freedom, the lifestyle. I also became a
          volunteer fire fighter with the Green Pigeon Brigade.
          In 2004 I sold our farm and moved to Wardell.
          My wife Jeanette and I have been married for 60 years
          and are now retired. We have two lovely married
          daughters and three fine grandchildren. We live in the
          greatest part of the world where we have been warmly
          welcomed by the Wardell community and by the
          Wardell Brigade of the Rural Fire Service. We are
          very happy here.

          Mike Rushby

          A short article sent to Jacksdale in England from Mike Rushby in Australia:

          Rushby Family

          #6222
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            George Gilman Rushby: The Cousin Who Went To Africa

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

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

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

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

            George Gilman Rushby:

            George Gilman Rushby

             

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            George Gilman Rushby:

            #6196

            Ay, the framework knittin’ were ‘ard work, but it were our own, and better by a mile than what come next. We ‘ad the frame in our home and all the family helped, the girls’d be the seamers and the spool threaders and many a fine stocking we made in our cottages, until those industrialists and capitalists came to our fair dales with their factories and such and took our livelihoods from under our noses.

            We ‘ad a needle maker in our village, a miller and a baker, and a dressmaker. We ‘ad farms and a dairy and a butcher, and all the old families in our parish ‘ad their place. There’s always those that find work hard, and those that find it rewarding, but even them as found the framework knittin’ ‘ard soon changed their tune about the framework knittin’ being hard when they was doubled over under gods green earth all the day long in the coal mines.

            Ay, the changes wrought upon our fair parish wreaked an unholy disruption upon the face of village life.  It were the inclosures act what started our downfall, when our common land was took from us, that were indeed the beginning of the end of our fine community of largely honest souls, and even the good nature of the gent from the hall and the Parish poor fund couldn’t halt the downfall.

            Ay and I’ve traveled to the future and seen the ungoldy sight of it now. The old farm on the turnpike road surrounded now by house upon house and not an onion nor a carrot to be seen growing in their gardens, and the fronts all hardened floors for those contraptions they move around in, and empty all day long with not a sign of life until nightfall when they all come home and go inside and shut the doors, and never a one passing the time of day with their neighbours over the garden fence, and not a chicken or a cow in sight.

            There’s no needlemaker now, and the mill’s been knocked down, and there are painted lines on all the hard roads, although I will say that ugly as they are they don’t get near so rutted and muddy when the weather’s bad.

            I can’t stay long when I visit the future with that woman who comes to call upon us asking questions. I can’t stay long at all.

            #6185

            “I’ll be right back!” Nora told Will, who was stirring a big bubbling pot on the stove. “Need to wash my hands.”

            She had a quick look around the bedroom she’d slept in for her missing phone. Nowhere to be found!  Maybe she could find Will’s phone when he went out to feed the donkey, and call her phone to try and locate it. Damn, that wouldn’t work either. Will had said there was no network here. That would explain why her phone stopped working when she was alone in the dark woods.

            “Smells delicious!” she said brightly, scraping a chair back across the brick floor and seating herself at the kitchen table.

            The home made soup was chock full of vegetables and looked and smelled wonderful, but it had a peculiar acrid aftertaste.  Nora tried to ignore it, taking gulps of wine in between each mouthful to eliminate the bitterness.  She wished it wasn’t soup in a way, so that she’d be able to surreptitiously palm some of it off onto the dogs that were waiting hopefully under the table.  If only Will would leave the room for a minute, but he seemed to be watching her every move.

            “Very tasty, but I can’t manage another mouthful, it’s so filling,” she said, but Will looked so offended that she sighed and carried on eating. He topped up her wine glass.

            By the time Nora had finished the soup, she felt quite nauseous and stood up quickly to head for the bathroom. The room started to spin and she held on to the edge of the table, but it was no good. The spinning didn’t stop and she crashed to the floor, unconscious.

            Smiling with satisfaction, Will stood up and walked around the table to where she lay. Shame he’d had to put her to sleep, really she was quite a nice woman and cute, too, in a funny elfin way.  He’d started to like her.  Plenty of time to get to know her now, anyway. She wouldn’t be going anywhere for awhile.

            He picked her up and carried her to the secret room behind his workshop on the other side of the patio.  The walls and floor were thick stone, and there were no windows.  He laid her on the bench, locked the door, and went back in the house to fetch blankets and bedding and a pile of books for her to read when she came round.  Probably not for a good 24 hours he reckoned, somehow she’d managed to eat all the soup.  He would put much less in the next batch, just enough to keep her docile and sleepy.

            It would only be for a few days, just long enough for him to find that box and move it to a safer location. He’d been entrusted to make sure the contents of the box were preserved for the people in the future, and he was a man of his word.

            If they had listened to him in the first place this would never have happened.  Burying a box was a risk: all kinds of possibilities existed for a buried box to be accidentally unearthed.   He had suggested encasing the contents inside a concrete statue, but they’d ignored him. Well, now was his chance.  He was looking forward to making a new statue.

            #6176
            EricEric
            Keymaster

              Godfrey was getting itchy. The hazmat suit with built-in peanut dispenser was getting stickier by the minute, but he needed it to stay in the room, and provide the moral support Liz’ needed during her bout of glowid.

              She’d caught a mean streak, some said a Tartessian variant, which like all version caused the subject to gradually lose sense of inhibition (which in the case of Liz’ made the changes in her normal behaviour so subtle, it could have explain why it wasn’t detected until much later). After that, the usual symptoms of glowing started to display themselves. At first, Liz’ had dismissed them as hot flashes, but when she started to faintly glow in the dark, there was no longer room for hesitation. She had to be put in solitary confinement and monitored to keep her from sparkling, which was the severe form of the malady.

              Bronkel has called” Godfrey said in between mouthfuls. “Actually his secretary did. He sent a list of words to inspire you back into writing.”

              “Trend surfing keywords now?” Liz’ was inflamed and started to blink like a police siren. “I AM setting the future trends, so he’d rather let me do my job, or I’ll publish elsewhere.”

              “And…” Godfrey ventured softly “… care to share what new trends you’ve been blazing lately?”

              Finnley chuckled at the inappropriate choice of words.

              #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!

              #6087

              In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

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

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

              “So tell me, a front for what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              “So Uncle Basil is in the past!”

              “Exactly.”

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

              #6086

              In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

              “A dil-do factory?” She was aghast. “A fucking carrot dildo factory?”

              “Admit it, we’re rubbish at this” Tara said. “Even Rosamund may be better at this than us.”

              “Oh don’t push it.” Star lit a large cigar, a nasty habit that cropped up when she was nervous. She blew a smoke ring and sighed. “At least the rogering was a nice change. Good clean sex, almost a spiritual experience.”

              “Oh come now, with all the don’t-need-to-know details…”

              “Well, don’t be such a prude, you were there after all. With all that luscious moaning. Haven’t seen you so flushed in ages…” Star tittered in that high-pitched laughter that could shatter crystal flutes.

              “Wait… a minute.” Tara was having a brainwave. “We may have overlooked something.”

              “What? In the sex department?”

              “Shush, you lascivious banshee… In the flushed department.”

              “What? Don’t speak riddles tart, I can’t handle riddles when my body’s aching from all that gymnastic.”

              “Can’t you see? They got to get rid of the dissident stuff unfit for cultish dildoing, if you catch my drift.”

              “Oh I catch it alright, but I’ve checked the loo… Oh, what? you mean the compost pile?”

              “I’ve seen trucks parked out the back, they where labelled… Organic Lou’s Disposal Services… OLDS… That’s probably how they remove their archives, if you see what I mean.”

              “Alright, alright, we’ll go investigate them tomorrow. Meanwhile, what about Mr French?” Star was puffing on her cigar making a good effort at trying to remember and link the details together.

              “I have a theory. Although it usually would be more in your area of theories.”

              “What? Alien abduction?”

              “No, don’t be ridiculous. I’m talking time travel… Haven’t you noticed the scent of celery when we were at the mansion and the appartment?”

              “A dead give-away for time-travelling shenanigans!”

              “Exactly. And if I’m correct, might well be that it’s Mr French from the future who phoned us, before he returned to his timeline. Probably because he already knows we’re going to crack the case. Before we know.”

              “Oh, that’s nice. Would have been nicer if he’d told us how to solve it instead, if he knew, from the future and all? Are you not sure he’s not from his past instead, like before he got in that dreadful car accident?”

              “Oh well, doesn’t matter does it? And probably won’t any longer once we locate the Uncle Basil in the Drooling Home of Retired Vegetables.”

              #6071

              In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

              “Listen” said Gabe, the cult leader. “How long have you been Gourd level? One year?”

              The other nodded.

              “See Gavin, I think you’re ready to go Operating Tomathetan.”

              Gavin gulped. “But, but… are you sure about such a leap? And… what about…”

              “Oh, don’t worry about him, the yielding of his crops has been written, and it’s not good. Better look toward the future Gavin. And let me ask you something, don’t you think about the future?”

              When the Great Leader Undisputed Gabe had spoken, it was customary to bow and continue listen, in case he wasn’t finished.

              “Is there anything more I can do you for, oh GLUG?”

              “Sure. Get me your proposal for the new organization of the crops. No rush. Tomorrow will be fine.”

              “Your great leaderness is too bountiful.”

              “Of course. Now scram, I have rituals to attend to.” And with that, Great Leader Undisputed Gabe made a hasty retreat into the inner sanctum with his favourite vestal priestess of the moment.

              :fleuron:

              Gavin was flummoxed. It had all been foretold by the heretic Basil. He wondered, should he consult him? The weight of this sudden assignment felt heavy on his shoulders. He wondered how he could solve the mountain of problems that had accumulated like horse shit on a pile of manure.

              :fleuron:

              “You’ll see, it’s all connected.” Star signaled Tara when they were ushered into the inner sanctum. “I’m sure all the trail of clues have led to this for a reason. Have I told you about my theories about multiple timelines and probable selves? Maybe the Vince who called us called us from a different probability…”

              “You probably right, but that nurse outfit is really too tight.” Tara wiggled impatiently on her chair.

              “AH! There you are!” a manly voice behind them. “Welcome, welcome, young fresh divine sprouts.”

              “Did he call us prouts?” Tara almost tittered. “Sshtt” Star elbowed her.

              Gabe took a while to observe them, then made a face. “Not the freshest batch I had, I must admit, but that should do.”

              He clapped his hands, and a woman entered. “Get those two well anointed, and prepared in the art of leafing.”

              Tara and Star looked at each other with an air of utter incomprehension on their faces, but decided unanimously to just go with the flow. Who knows, if all was indeed connected, it would probably bring them one step closer to Uncle Basil and the solving of mysterious comatose Vince.

              #5831

              In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

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

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

              “Do you mind illuminating my inferior mind?”

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

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

              “Indeed.”

              #5828

              Day 222

              Or is it just 22? I’m losing count. Who would have guessed after the escape from the cruise nightmare, we’d be again confined to our homes. The world has gone in stasis, and it feels like the story has taken a dire turn. At least it is a welcome change; unpredictability reshuffles the cards,… if only slightly.

              We now should have more time to write the story of our lives, yet it’s still difficult to not feel absorbed by the global apathy and the impeding measures. Is it a failure of imagination?— I’m not sure I can project myself into a future without discarding a lot of useless garbage. Maybe it’s a collective wake-up call.

              For now, the whale is fed, but she’s close to an indigestion of epidemic scare news. We need to change her diet, that’s what I know. Because we’re in its belly, and it starts to smell of death.

              So, who’s up for a quest?

              #5593
              EricEric
              Keymaster

                Was trying to get a basic timeline in place for future reference:

                • (1935) Birth of Mater
                • (1958) Mater marries her childhood sweetheart (ref)
                • (1965) Birth of Fred
                • (1970) Birth of Aunt Idle
                • (1978) April 12th, Mater’s husband dies
                • (1998) Birth of Devan
                • (2000) Birth of the twins Coriander & Clove
                • (2008) Birth of Prune
                • (2014) Start of Prune’s journal about the Inn (she’s 6 at the time – ref)
                • (2017) visit of Arona, Albie, Maeve, Hilda, Sanso etc. to the Inn
                • (2020) The year of the Great Fires (ref). Mater is 85. Idle is 50. The twins are 20. Prune is 12.
                • (2027) First settlers on Mars; Prune’s left for a boarding school to pursue her dreams

                Fast forward 15 years later

                • (2035) Idle receives news from the twins (now aged 35) & waterlark adventures.
                  Mater is alive and kicking at 100.

                Fast forward a little more

                • (2049) Prune arrives with a commercial flight on Mars, having won a place through a reality show.
                  Mater is deceased. She would have been 114.
                  Little after, the Mars mission is revealed to be an elaborately constructed mass illusion, and the program is terminated via an alien invasion simulation; like the other survivors from the program, she returns to Australia but cannot reveal the details of the program.
                #4837
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Liz was not pleased about the latest insubordinate action of those plotting against her. Fashion choices indeed! She had been sorting out her wardrobe, having to do it all herself because of Finnley’s latest scam to take time off, putting away the summery things and bringing out the clothes for the coming cooler weather.

                  She’d had the usual little thrill at seeing familiar old favourites, clothes that she’d felt comfortable and happy in for many years. It would be unthinkable to throw them out, like tossing out an old friend just because they were getting wrinkled and saggy, or fat in the wrong places.

                  Liz prided herself on her thoughtfulness about the environment when making her “fashion” choices, always choosing second hand items. She liked to think they already had a little of their own history, and that they appreciated being rescued. She abhorred the trends that the gullible lapped up when she saw them looking ridiculous in unflattering unsuitable clothes that would be clearly out of fashion just as they were starting to look pleasantly worn in.

                  Warming to the theme, Liz recalled some of the particularly useless garments she’d seen over the years. Woolly polo neck sweaters that were sleeveless, for example. In what possible weather would one wear such a thing, without either suffering from a stifling hot neck, or goose flesh arms? High heeled shoes was another thing. The evidence was clear, judging by the amount of high heeled shoes in immaculate only worn once condition that littered the second hand markets. Nobody could walk in them, and nobody wanted them. Oddly enough though, people were still somehow persuaded to buy more and more new ones. Maybe one day in the future, collectors would have glass fronted cabinets, full of antique high heeled shoes. Or perhaps it would baffle future archaeologists, and they would guess they had been for religious or ritual purposes.

                  Liz decided to turn the tables on this new character, Alessandro. She would give him a lesson or two on dress sense. The first thing she would tell him was that labels are supposed to be worn on the inside, not the outside.

                  “One doesn’t write “Avon” in orange make up on one’s face, dear, even if it’s been seen in one of those shiny colourful publications,” Liz said it kindly so as not to rile him too much. “One doesn’t write “Pepto Dismal” in pink marker pen upon ones stomach.”

                  Alessandro glanced at Finnley, who avoided catching his eye. He cleared his throat and said brightly, “I’ve organized a shopping trip, Liz! Come on, let’s go!”

                  “While you’re out, I’ll see what Liz has thrown out, so I can cut it up for dolls clothes,” Fnnley said, to which Liz retorted, “I have thrown nothing out.” Liz cut Finnley short as she protested that Liz didn’t wear most of it anyway. “Yes, but I might, one day.”

                  Turning to Alessandro, she said “Although I’m a busy woman, I will come shopping with you, my boy. You clearly need some pointers,” she added, looking at his shoes.

                  #4744

                  In reply to: The Stories So Near

                  EricEric
                  Keymaster

                    Newer developments

                    POP-IN THREAD (Maeve, Lucinda, Shawn-Paul, Jerk, [Granola])

                    Granola is popping in and out of the stories, exploring interacting more physically with her friends through Tiku, a bush lady focus of hers.
                    Luckily (not so coincidentally) Maeve and Shawn-Paul were given coupons to travel from their rural Canada town to the middle of Australia. Maeve is suspicious of being followed by a strange man, and tags along with Shawn-Paul to keep a cover of a young couple. Maeve is trying to find the key to the doll that she made in her secret mission for Uncle Fergus, which has suddenly reappeared at her friend Lucinda’s place. She’ll probably is going to have to check on the other dolls that she made as well.
                    Jerk continues to administrate some forum where among other things, special dolls are found and exchanged, and he moderates some strange messages.
                    Lucinda is enjoying Fabio’s company, Maeve’s dog, that she has in her care while Maeve is travelling.

                    FLYING FISH INN THREAD (Mater/Finly, Idle/Coriander/Clove, Devan, Prune, [Tiku])

                    The mysteries of the Flying Fish Inn seem to unravel slowly, like Idle’s wits.
                    Long time family member are being drawn inexplicably, such as Prune and brother Devan. The local bush lady Tiku is helping Finly with the catering, although Finly would rather do everything by herself. The totemic Fish was revealed to be a talisman placed here against bad luck – “for all the good it did” (Mater).
                    Bert, thought to be an old flame of Mater, who’s acted for the longest time as gardener, handyman and the likes, is revealed to be the father of Prune, Devan, Coriander and Clove’s mother. Mater knew of course and kept him around. He was trained in codes during his time with the military, and has a stash of potentially dangerous books. He may be the key to the mystery of the underground tunnels leading to the mines, and hidden chests of gold. Devan is onto a mystery that a guy on a motorbike (thought to be Uncle Fergus of Maeve’s story) told him about.

                    DOLINE THREAD (Arona, Sanso/Lottie, Ugo, Albie)

                    Mandrake & Albie after a trip in the bayou, and looking for the dragon Leormn’s pearls and the sabulmantium, have finally found Arona after they have emerged from the interdimentional water network from the Doline, to the coast of Australia in our reality, where cats don’t usually talk.
                    Albie is expecting a quest, while the others are just following Arona’s lead, as she is in possession of a mysterious key with 3 words engraved.
                    After some traveling in hot air balloon, and with a local jeep, they have arrived at a local Inn in the bush, with a rather peculiar family of owners, and quite colorful roster of guests. That’s not even counting the all-you-can-eat lizard meat buffet. What joy.

                    NEWSREEL THREAD (Ms Bossy, Hilda/Connie, Sophie, Ricardo)

                    Ms Bossy is looking to uncover the Doctor’s surely nefarious plans while her newspaper business isn’t doing so well. She’s got some help from Ricardo the intern. They have found out that the elderly temp worker who’s fascinated by the future, Sophie (aka Sweet Sophie) had been the first subject of the Doctor’s experiments. Sophie has been trying to uncover clues in the dreams, but it’s just likely she is still a sleeper agent of the Doctor.
                    Despite all common sense and SMS threats, Hilda & Connie have gone in Australia to chase a trail (from a flimsy tip-off from Superjerk that may have gone to Lucinda to her friend journalist). They are in touch with Lucinda, and post their updates on social media, flirting with the risk of being uncovered and having trouble come at their door.
                    Sha, Glo and Mavis are considering reaching out for a vacation of the nursing home to get new free beauty treatments.
                    In his secret lair, the Doctor is reviving his team of brazen teafing operatives: the magpies.

                    LIZ THREAD (Finnley, Liz, Roberto, Godfrey)

                    Not much happened as usual, mostly an entertaining night with Inspector Melon who is quizzing Liz’ about her last novel about mysterious messages hidden in dolls with secret keys, which may be her best novel yet…

                    DRAGON 💚 WOOD THREAD (Glynnis, Eleri, Fox/Gorrash, Rukshan)

                    Before Rukshan goes to the underworld land of Giants, he’s going to the cottage to gather some of his team of friends, Fox, Ollie etc. Glynis is taking care of Tak during Margoritt’s winter time in the city. Margoritt’s sister, Muriel is an uninvited and unpleasant guest at the cottage.
                    Tak is making friends with a young girl who may have special powers (Nesy).
                    The biggest mystery now is… is the loo going to get fixed in time?

                    #4725

                    A wild eyed crow was cawing relentlessly since the wee hours of the dawn.
                    Nothing much had moved since everyone arrived at the Inn, and in contrast with the hot days, the cool night had sent everyone shivering under the thin woolen blankets that smelled of naphthalene.
                    Deep down, Bert was glad to see the old Inn come back to life, even if for a little while. He was weary of the witch though. She wouldn’t be here without some supernatural mischief afoot.
                    He glanced in the empty hall, putting his muddy pair of boots outside, not to incur the fury of Finly. He almost started calling to see if anybody was home, but thought better of it. Speaking of the devil, Finly was already up and busy at the small kitchen stove, and had done some outstanding croissants. In truth, despite all her flaws, he liked her; she was a capable lady, although never big on sweet talks. No wonder she and Mater did get along well.
                    Bert started to walk along the hall towards the hangar, where he knew old cases where stored, one with a particular book that he needed. It was hard to guess what would happen next. He found the book, that was hidden on the side of the case, and scratched his head while smiling a big wide grin.
                    He was feeling alive with the kind of energy that could be a poor advisor were his mind not sharp as a gator’s tooth.

                    The book had a lot of gibberish in it, like it was written in a sort of automatic writing. For some reason, after the termite honey episode, Idle had started to collect odd books, and she was starting to see spy games hidden in the strangest patterns.
                    Despite being a lazy pothead, the girl was smart, though. Some of her books were codes.

                    Bert’s had his fair run with those during his early years in the military. So he’d hidden the most dangerous ones that Idle had unwittingly found, so that she and the rest of the family wouldn’t run into trouble.
                    Most of the time, she’d simply forget about having bought or bargained for them, but in some cases, there was a silly obsession with her that rendered her crazy about some of those books. Usually the girls, especially the twins, would get the blame for what was thought a child’s prank. Luckily her anger wouldn’t last long.

                    This book though was a bit different. Bert had never found the coding pattern, nor the logic about it. And some bits of it looked like it talked about the Inn. “Encoded pattern from the future”, “remote viewing from the past”, Idle’s suggestions would have run wild with imaginative solutions. Maybe she was onto something…

                    He looked a two bits, struck by some of the parts:

                    The inn had been open for a long time before any of the tenants had come, and it had been full of people once it had been full all day long.
                    She had gone back after a while and opened up the little room for the evening and people could be seen milling about.
                    The rest of the tenants had remained out on their respective streets and were quiet and peaceful.
                    ‘So it’s the end of a cold year.’
                    The woman with golden hair and green eyes seemed to have no intention of staying in the inn as well; she was already preparing for the next year.
                    When the cold dawn had started to rise the door to the inn had been open all night long. The young man with red hair sitting on a nearby bench had watched a few times before opening his eyes to see the man that had followed him home.

                    There was a young red hair boy that had arrived. He was curious as to the man following.

                    The other random bit talked about something else. Like a stuff of nightmares. And his name was on it.

                    The small girl stood beside him, still covered with her night clothes. She felt naked by the side of the road. There was nothing else to do.
                    In the distance, Bert could faintly hear the howling of the woods, as two large, black dogs pounced, their jaws ready to tear her to pieces. The young girl stared in wonder and fear before the dog, before biting it, then she was gone. She ran off through the bushes. “Ah…” she whispered to herself. “Why am I not alive?” She thought to herself: this is all I need.
                    If I am here, they’ll kill or hurt my kids. They won’t miss me for nothing.
                    She ran the last few kilometers to her little cottage; not long after, Bert heard the sound of the forest. He was glad it was.

                    Maybe the witch was not here for nothing after all.

                    #4626
                    AvatarJib
                    Participant

                      Shawn Paul had decided that this particular day was dedicated to his writing. He had warned his friends not to call him and put his phone on silent mode. It was 9am and he had a long day of writing ahead of him.
                      He almost felt the electricity in his fingers as he touched the keyboard of his laptop. He imagined himself as a pianist of words preparing himself before a concert in front of the crowd of his future readers.
                      Shawn Paul pushed away the voice of his mother telling him with an irritating voice that he had the attention span of a shrimp in a whirlpool during a storm, which the boy had never truely understood, but today he was willing not to even let his inner voices distract him. He breathed deeply three times as he had learned last week-end during a workshop, and imagined his mother’s voice as a slimy slug that he could put away in a box with a seal into a chest with chains and lots of locks, that he buried in the deepest trench of the Pacific ocean. He was a writer and had a vivid imagination after all, why not use it to his benefit.
                      A smile of satisfaction wavered on the corner of his mouth while a drop of sweat slowly made its way to the corner of his left eye. He blinked and the doorbell rang.
                      Shawn Paul’s fragile smile transformed into a fixed grin ready to break down. Someone was laughing, and when the bell rang a second time, Shawn Paul realised it was his own contained hysterical laugh.

                      He breathed in deeply at his desk and got up too quickly, bumping his knee in one corner.
                      Ouch! he cried silently.
                      It would not take long he reminded himself, limping to the door.
                      What could it be ? The postman ?

                      Shawn Paul opened the door. An old man he had never seen, was standing there with a packet in his hands. If he was not the postman, at least you had the packet right said a voice in Shawn Paul’s head.
                      The old man opened his mouth, certainly to speak, but instead started to cough as if he was about to snuff it. It lasted some time and Shawn Paul repulsed by the loose cough retreated a bit into his flat. It was his old fear of contagion creeping out again. He berated himself he should not feel that way and he should show compassion, but at least if the old man could stop, it would be easier.

                      “For you!” said the old man when his cough finally stopped. He put the packet in Shawn Paul’s hands and left without another word.

                      #4600
                      AvatarJib
                      Participant

                        (…)

                        The pigeons dove from the thirtieth floor’s balcony in an attempt to mimic the planes it had seen above, or maybe in an attempt to mimic the ultrabright advertisement that its mother’s mother had seen long ago. It had left an unalterable trace in that lineage’s DNA.

                        The pigeon that had seen at least one plane had been a pigeon, but when the pigeons dove and created a ripple, they didn’t leave a trace like the pigeons that had witnessed only the distant planes.

                        In the air, they were flying against the wind, while on ground they were falling along a riverbank.

                        “I guess they didn’t hear a loud noise because when they stopped for some distance they stopped and looked up, and what they saw looked as if they had died.”

                        In the future, those pigeons, who could remember the names of the buildings they had seen during the war, could join together and explore another world and its inhabitants were not like them.

                        On one of the banks of the river, a lone pigeon watched them from afar, and she looked at them with the calm of a mother on her child while saying,

                        “Please tell me something. If they are so brave, then tell me anything.”

                        She didn’t say any of the usual questions from a child, but she knew the answers in her

                        #4582
                        EricEric
                        Keymaster

                          “There it is” he pointed at the worn-out dusty book he’d found after turning around the whole library. “Techromancers appear at the seams between realities. They possess technologies to divine outcomes beyond conventional means of the place in which they appear — in a word, they are from the futures, always, whenever the period they were found in — a reason for which scholars have surmised they come from a unique convergence point of the infinite lines of time in a real projective space of time, hinting at the nature of an all-connected roundabout timeline. Although them popping in existence at awkward places is not unheard of, they tend to stay discrete for fear of the Timeline Riots Impeachment Police.

                          “T’isn’t that helpful now, is it” he said dusting a peanut from the floor before cracking the shell open. “And doesn’t tell us why Finnley is so emotional now. Or where is Roberto. If I were to worry, that would worry me more…”

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