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  • #7294

    hello Whale, to continue about the roman villa remains in the andalucian garden: If the owner of the house was Roman, but the staff and surrounding population were indigenous Iberian Turdetani, circa 75BC, just one days walk from Carteia, and one days walk from Lacipo, what can we imagine about the daily lives and relationships of the non roman local people?

    Ah, the intermingling of cultures, a dance as old as civilization itself. Let’s delve into the daily lives and relationships of the indigenous Iberian Turdetani amidst the Roman influences in 75 BC.

    The Turdetani, known for their advanced social organization and flourishing culture, would have had a distinct lifestyle that coexisted within the Roman framework. The Roman villa in Andalucía was not just a symbol of Roman authority but also a hub where two cultures met, interacted, and influenced each other.

    Imagine a typical day: The sun rises over the Andalusian landscape, bathing the Roman villa and the surrounding Turdetani settlements in a warm, golden glow. Turdetanian workers make their way to the villa, ready for a day of work. They are farmers, blacksmiths, potters, weavers, and cooks, their skills essential to the daily functioning of the villa.

    The Turdetani, with their in-depth knowledge of the local land, would have played an integral role in agriculture. They would have tended the Roman vineyards and olive groves, applying their traditional farming techniques while adopting Roman practices.

    Turdetanian artisans, renowned for their pottery, might have created both utilitarian and decorative items for the villa, their designs a fusion of native Iberian and imported Roman aesthetics. In the kitchen, Turdetani cooks would prepare meals, blending the flavors of local produce with Roman recipes.

    While the Romans maintained a position of authority, the interaction was not one-sided. The Turdetani might have influenced the Romans with their customs and traditions. Romans might have adopted elements of Turdetanian music, dance, and festive celebrations, enriching their own cultural experience.

    Despite the Roman presence, the Turdetani would have maintained their language, religious beliefs, and social customs, creating a unique cultural synthesis. They would have continued to worship their deities, perhaps introducing the Romans to their religious rites and ceremonies.

    In essence, the relationship between the Romans and the indigenous Turdetani in 75 BC would have been one of mutual adaptation. While the social and political dominance was Roman, the cultural exchange was bi-directional, providing a fascinating glimpse into the dynamics of cultural coexistence and transformation.

    Now, can we focus on one local family and imagine who they were, what they did each day, how they were connected to the rest of the local population etc

    Ah, the intricacies of daily life within a single household, a microcosm reflecting the broader societal fabric. Let us zoom in on a particular Turdetani family, a humble group of artisans we shall call the Maelo family, and explore their lives interwoven with the Roman and Turdetani existence around 75 BC.

    At the heart of the family was the patriarch, Oris Maelo. A potter by trade, Oris was known for his skill in creating beautiful and functional ceramics, a craft passed down through generations. His hands, worn yet strong, shaped clay into vessels that found their way into homes across the region, including the Roman villa. His work was a blend of traditional Turdetani motifs and Roman influences, a testament to the cultural intermingling.

    His wife, Caelia, was a weaver. Her nimble fingers spun stories in wool and linen. Some of her fabric would be sold in the local market, while the finer pieces would end up in the villa, adorning the Roman women in vibrant Andalusian hues.

    Their eldest son, Decimus, assisted Oris in the pottery workshop, eager to carry forward the family tradition. Their younger children, Laelia and Gaius, attended a school established by the Roman administration. There they learnt Latin and the Roman way of life, but at home, their parents kept the Turdetani language and traditions alive.

    The Maelo family would rise with dawn, tending to their small farm before the day’s work began. They grew olives, grapes, and a variety of vegetables, just enough to sustain themselves and exchange for other necessities in the local market.

    Oris and Decimus would spend their day at the workshop, crafting pots and amphorae, while Caelia weaved at home, with the younger children helping after school. Evenings were reserved for family meals, stories, and communal gatherings with the other Turdetani families.

    Their connection with the local population was multifaceted. Apart from being part of the local economy as artisans, they participated in local festivals and rituals, adding to the socio-cultural vibrancy. Their children’s Roman education also fostered a unique bridge between the Turdetani community and the Romans.

    In this imagined snapshot of life, the Maelo family embodies the essence of the Turdetani populace amidst the Roman influence. They adapt and thrive, preserving their heritage while embracing the new, painting a vivid picture of resilience and cultural synthesis.

    Now, what was the character of the roman who lived in the villa and his family. Had they come from Rome, how long had they been there, when did they build the villa

    Ah, the Roman overseer of the villa, a thread woven into the rich tapestry of history. Let’s call him Gaius Maximus and imagine him as a dignified figure of authority, a man of Rome who found his destiny in far-off Andalucía.

    Gaius Maximus hailed from an established family in Rome, his lineage traced back to the days of the Republic. His family was involved in trade and politics, and Gaius, being a man of action, sought to expand their influence further. Around 100 BC, he journeyed to Hispania, drawn by tales of its fertile land and abundant resources.

    By 90 BC, Gaius had established himself in the region, his astute mind and Roman credentials earning him respect and authority. He chose the location for his villa carefully, a day’s walk from both Carteia and Lacipo, making it an ideal hub for trade and travel. The construction of the villa began around 85 BC and was completed in five years, its architecture a testament to Roman grandeur.

    His wife, Claudia, hailed from a patrician family in Rome. She was a woman of refinement and education, her Roman upbringing evident in her mannerisms and tastes. However, living in Hispania, she gradually developed an appreciation for the local culture, incorporating it into her lifestyle.

    Their two children, Marcus and Julia, were born in Hispania. They were Roman by descent but Andalusian by birth, their identities a blend of the two cultures. Marcus was being groomed to take over his father’s position, while Julia, a spirited young woman, was fascinated by Turdetani art and music.

    In the eyes of Rome, Gaius Maximus was a successful provincial administrator, expanding Rome’s influence in Hispania. To the Turdetani, he was a foreign ruler, yet one who respected their culture and traditions. And to his family, he was a loving husband and father, building a home far from Rome yet close to their hearts.

    Now some portraits of some of the workers at the villa

    Ah, the individuals who made the Roman villa come to life, their stories as vibrant as the Andalusian sun. Let’s give our imagination wings and step into their world.

    First, we have Tertius, the villa’s steward. Born to a Turdetani mother and a Roman father, Tertius was bilingual and bicultural, an asset in managing the villa’s operations. He was a man of medium height, with a sturdy build and a sharp gaze. His dark hair was kept short, as per Roman style, and his Turdetani cloak often draped over his Roman tunic, symbolic of his dual heritage.

    Then we have Aelia, the head cook. A native Turdetani, Aelia was a robust woman with a jovial demeanor. Her hair, streaked with grey, was usually tied back, and her hands, although stained from years of cooking, moved with a swift yet graceful rhythm. Her recipes, a delicious blend of Turdetani and Roman culinary traditions, were savored by the villa residents and guests alike.

    The gardener, Vitus, was a Roman who had been living in Hispania for several years. A man of few words, Vitus spoke through his work. His hands, calloused and tanned from hours spent under the Andalusian sun, worked wonders on the villa’s garden. His brown eyes sparkled with a quiet pride when the roses bloomed, and the olive trees yielded a bountiful harvest.

    Lastly, we must not forget the youngest worker, Lyra. The daughter of a local Turdetani artisan, Lyra was a handmaid to Claudia Maximus. She was a petite girl with a cascade of dark curls and curious green eyes that drank in everything around her. Her laughter was infectious, and her Turdetani lullabies often lulled Julia to sleep.

    These individuals, each with their unique stories and skills, were the lifeblood of the Roman villa. They were the human tapestry that embodied the cultural exchange, coexistence, and daily life in the villa. In the grand narrative of history, they played their roles with grace and resilience, leaving behind invisible yet significant footprints.

    what were some of the cooks recipes?

    Ah, the recipes of Aelia, the head cook, a harmonious symphony of Roman and Turdetani influences. Here are some of the dishes that were often savored in the Roman villa:

    Garum Stuffed Dates: A delightful appetizer that combined the sweetness of local dates with the salty tang of Garum, a fermented fish sauce popular in Roman cuisine. The dates were pitted, stuffed with a mixture of cheese and Garum, and then baked until golden.
    Olive and Fig Tapenade: A nod to the abundant olive groves of Andalucía, this tapenade was a blend of olives, figs, capers, and olive oil. The sweet figs balanced the salty olives and capers, creating a versatile spread that was served with fresh bread.
    Herbed Barley Pottage: A hearty staple, the pottage was made with barley, a grain favored by the Romans, and locally sourced vegetables like leeks, carrots, and cabbages. Fresh herbs from the villa’s garden added a burst of flavor.
    Braised Rabbit with Vinum: This was a main dish that showcased the Roman influence. Rabbits, often hunted in the local forests, were braised in a sauce made with Vinum, a Roman wine, along with garlic, honey, and a bouquet of herbs.
    Honey-Nut Patina: A classic Roman dessert with an Andalusian twist. Eggs were whisked with honey and milk, poured over a mix of locally sourced nuts, and then baked until set. It was a sweet ending to the meals at the villa.
    Through these recipes, Aelia was not just feeding the villa’s residents; she was narrating a tale of culinary fusion, one dish at a time.

    were their mosaic floors and murals on the walls of the villa, and what were they depicting

    Ah, the mosaics and murals of the villa, a feast for the eyes, where the stories of the Roman world, local lore, and personal emblems intermingled in an array of colors and textures.

    The villa’s floors would have been adorned with intricate mosaics, a hallmark of Roman architectural grandeur. Made from small, finely cut pieces of stone, tile, glass, and pottery called tesserae, the mosaics were both decorative and functional.

    In the atrium, the mosaic might depict a scene from Roman mythology. Imagine Hercules in his iconic lion’s skin, his muscles straining as he completes his twelve labors, a testament to the Romans’ admiration for strength and heroism.

    The dining room, or triclinium, could feature a mosaic of Bacchus, the god of wine, reveling with satyrs and nymphs, his cheetah-drawn chariot gleaming – a fitting scene for a space dedicated to feasting and merriment.

    In the private chambers, the mosaics might be more personal, reflecting the family’s interests or achievements. Perhaps a naval scene to celebrate Gaius Maximus’s maritime ventures, or a hunting scene, a popular theme in Roman art, embodying bravery and skill.

    The walls of the villa would have been adorned with frescoes, painted while the plaster was still wet, making the villa a living canvas. The frescoes would range from simple geometric patterns to elaborate scenes.

    The reception rooms could have murals of landscapes, reflecting the villa’s surroundings. Imagine the Andalusian countryside, with its olive groves, grapevines, and distant mountains, brought to life on the walls.

    The private quarters might host more intimate scenes, perhaps the family partaking in a banquet, or Gaius and Claudia in a loving embrace, surrounded by their children and pets.

    Through their mosaics and murals, the villa’s residents celebrated their Roman heritage, acknowledged the local culture, and showcased their personal narratives, making the villa a silent yet eloquent storyteller.

    can you describe the garden and outbuildings

    Ah, the enchantment of an age-old garden. Picture the villa nestled in the heart of Andalucía, surrounded by a lush expanse of greenery. Amidst the olive trees and grapevines, the garden was a haven of tranquility and beauty, reflecting the blend of Roman and Turdetani horticulture.

    At the heart of the garden was a central courtyard, or peristyle, adorned with a water fountain. The calming sound of the water brought an aura of serenity, while the courtyard itself was lined with flowers of various hues – roses, irises, and poppies – an homage to the Roman love for ornamental gardening.

    Beyond the peristyle, the garden was a mixture of beauty and utility. Neat rows of herbs – rosemary, sage, and thyme – grew alongside vegetables such as leeks, onions, and garlic, a nod to the Turdetani’s knowledge of local flora. Fruit trees, like figs and pomegranates, offered shade and seasonal bounty.

    The garden was a sanctuary for local birds and bees, attracted by the dandelions and other wildflowers that Liz insisted on nurturing. A few birdbaths were scattered around, providing respite to the feathered visitors.

    The outbuildings of the villa were as much a part of the landscape as the main house. Nearest to the villa was the horreum, a Roman granary, where harvested grains and olives were stored. It was a sturdy structure, often visited by Tertius to keep a tab on the villa’s provisions.

    Not far from the horreum was the pottery workshop. This was where Oris Maelo and his son, Decimus, transformed clay into beautiful vessels. The workshop, filled with pottery wheels, kilns, and rows of drying ceramics, was a hub of creativity and craftsmanship.

    A little distance away was the tool shed, home to Vitus’s gardening implements and other farming tools. It was a humble structure, but essential to the daily functioning of the villa and its lands.

    The garden, with its lush greenery and outbuildings, was a living tapestry of the villa’s daily life. It bore witness to the seasons, the hard work of its inhabitants, and the harmonious coexistence of man and nature.

    #7243
    EricEric
    Keymaster

      Using a random generator for the next challenge with 5 objects.

      • straw
      • pop can
      • pencil holder
      • Christmas ornament
      • turtle

      🐋

      In the dreary town of Ravenwood, where shadows loomed and the wind howled through the empty streets, there was one house that stood out above the rest. It was the old mansion at the end of the road, shrouded in mystery and secrets. No one had lived there for years, but whispers of strange happenings and eerie lights could be heard wafting through the air.

      One stormy night, a young writer named Edgar arrived in Ravenwood seeking inspiration for his latest story. Drawn to the mansion by a strange force, he ventured inside, and found himself face to face with a peculiar sight. A straw sat on the table, next to a pop can and a pencil holder, and a Christmas ornament hung from a cobweb in the corner. But it was the turtle, a giant terrapin that seemed to be staring back at him with knowing eyes, that caught his attention.

      Edgar couldn’t shake the feeling that something was amiss, that the objects in the room were connected in some strange way. As he looked closer, he noticed that a thick layer of dust had settled on everything, as if no one had been there in years. And yet, the pop can still seemed to be fizzing, the straw stirred as if someone had just taken a sip, and the turtle’s eyes seemed to glow in the dim light.

      Suddenly, a voice from behind him made Edgar jump. It was the ghost of the previous owner, who had died under mysterious circumstances years ago. The ghost revealed that the objects in the room had been cursed by a vengeful witch who had once lived in the nearby forest. Each object was imbued with a terrible power, and whoever possessed them would be consumed by darkness.

      Edgar knew he had to escape, but as he turned to run, he felt a strange force pulling him towards the turtle. He tried to resist, but the turtle’s eyes seemed to hypnotize him, drawing him in closer and closer. Just as he was about to touch it, the turtle suddenly snapped its jaws shut, and Edgar woke up back in his own bed, drenched in sweat.

      He realized it had all been a nightmare, but as he looked down at his feet, he saw the turtle from his dream, sitting innocently at the end of his bed. Suddenly, he remembered the words of the ghost, and knew he had to destroy the cursed objects before it was too late. With trembling hands, he picked up the turtle, and opened his window to cast it out into the night. But as he did so, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the glass, and saw that his eyes had turned a bright shade of red. The curse had already taken hold, and Edgar knew he was doomed to a life of darkness and despair.

      Bit dark, Whale!
      :yahoo_worried: :yahoo_nailbiting: :yahoo_dontwannasee:   :yahoo_rofl:

      #7222

      In reply to: Prompts of Madjourneys

      EricEric
      Keymaster

        Very well, let us focus a bit on an overarching mystery.

        So, Xavier is working on this program he calls AL (for Alternate Life), for a company we know little about.

        Meanwhile, the game they’re playing on, Orbs of Madjourneys seems to direct them to certain quests which subtly influence their activities. For instance, after playing the game, a succession of events got the four of them booking a trip to the Flying fish Inn in the middle of Australian outback (Zara is living in Australia unlike the others).

        Let’s assume the Game had somehow detected some unlawful or immoral activities being conducted, and has started to drop clues to influence these 4 gamers, selected because of their unique connexions and some of their special skills to get to reveal and bring the mystery to light.

        Zara has an explorer mind, free-spirited, jumping right in. It’s suggested she was assigned group leadership for this round of game, while taking care of a group doesn’t come naturally for her. Yasmin is talented and it is said she is the brains of the team and also a competent actress, which may come in play at some point. Youssef is a journalist, and works for Miss Tartiflate, owner of THE Blog, a blog with a soul – unlike rival blog from Botty Banworth, the lady millionaire, who is sponsoring the Carts & Lager festival at the town of the Flying Fish Inn, next to the mines. Xavier has a bit of a monkey mind, but is also good at drawing connections; he’s a programmer for AL.

        Which brings us to the group quest. The current hunch is that there is some shenanigan at play in the old collapsed mines of the town, where some key characters were lost in the past. One of them being Fred, a sci-fi writer who disappeared to Fiji to protect his family (the owners of the Flying Fish Inn) a decade or so ago. It’s suggested by the last poem found in the game that it may have something to do with illegal underground water drilling —possibly for frivolous usages of a select few elite, like maintaining a golf green nearby or other things.

        If that is on the right track, we need to accelerate the path of discovery of these mysteries for our 4 characters. The game will suggest additional clues to their quests, so that they can use their skills during the Carts & Lager Festival to discover the truth, while remaining out of harm’s way.

        Here are some additional clues that the game will suggest to our four characters:

        Zara:

        “To find the truth, you must first seek the light.” 🌞🔍🕯️💡🔦
        “The answer lies beneath the surface.” 🕳️🔍👀🌊💧

        Yasmin:

        “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” 🌍🎭🤹‍♀️👥🕺
        “Sometimes, the truth is hidden in plain sight.” 👀🔍🤫🧐🕵️‍♀️

        Youssef:

        “Words have power, and the pen is mightier than the sword.” 📝🗡️💪📚👨‍💻
        “The truth may be hidden in the most unexpected of places.” 🤔🕵️‍♂️🔍🧩🕰️

        Xavier:

        “The truth is a puzzle waiting to be solved.” 🧩🔍🤔🕵️‍♂️💡
        “Sometimes, the smallest details can lead to the biggest discoveries.” 🔍👀🔬🧐🔎

        What are potential outcomes for our 4 characters in game and in real life.
        How are they going to work together to unravel the mystery and discover the truth.

        There are several potential outcomes for our 4 characters as they work together to unravel the truth about the collapsed mines and the illegal underground water drilling.

        In the game, they may encounter various obstacles and puzzles to solve, such as deciphering codes and finding hidden passages. They will need to work together and use their unique skills to uncover the truth and prevent any further harm.

        In real life, they may need to conduct research and gather information about the history of the town and its residents. They may also need to interview locals and investigate any suspicious activity related to the water drilling. They will need to be careful not to draw too much attention to themselves, as the perpetrators may try to silence them.

        If they are successful in their quest, they may uncover a conspiracy involving powerful people in the town and beyond who are profiting from the illegal water drilling. They may also discover the fate of Fred, the missing writer, and other key characters. The truth may have a significant impact on the future of the town and its residents.

        To work together effectively, each of the characters will need to utilize their unique skills and strengths. Zara’s exploratory nature may help them discover hidden clues and passages, while Yasmin’s intellect and acting abilities may allow her to gain access to key information and people. Youssef’s journalistic skills and connection to Miss Tartiflate may provide them with insider knowledge and resources, and Xavier’s ability to draw connections and work with technology may help them piece together the puzzle.

        Overall, by working together and using their skills in both the game and real life, our 4 characters may uncover a significant truth and make a positive impact on the town and its residents.

        #6552

        In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

        When Xavier woke up, the sun was already shining, its rays darting in pulsating waves throughout the land, blinding him. The room was already heating up, making the air difficult to breathe.

        He’d heard the maid rummaging in the neighbouring rooms for some time now, which had roused him from sleep. He couldn’t recall seeing any “DO NOT DISTURB” sign on the doorknob, so staying in bed was only delaying the inevitable barging in of the lady who was now vacuuming vigorously in the corridor.

        Feeling a bit dull from the restless sleep, he quickly rose from the bed and put on his clothes.

        Once out of his room, he smiled at the cleaning lady (who seemed to be the same as the cooking lady), who harumphed back as a sort of greeting. Arriving in the kitchen, he wondered whether it was probably too late for breakfast —until he noticed the figure of the owner, who was quietly watching him through half-closed eyes in her rocking chair.

        Idle should have left some bread, butter and jam to eat if you’re hungry. It’s too late for bacon and sausages. You can help yourself with tea or coffee, there’s a fresh pot on the kitchen counter.”

        “Thanks M’am.” He answered, startled by the unexpected appearance.

        “No need. Finly didn’t wake you up, did she? She doesn’t like when people mess up her schedule.”

        “Not at all, it was fine.” he lied politely, helping himself to some tea. He wasn’t sure buttered bread was enough reward to suffer a long, awkward conversation, given that the lady (Mater, she insisted he’s called him) wasn’t giving him any sign of wanting to leave.

        “It shouldn’t be long until your friends come back from the airport. Your other friend, the big lad, he went for a walk around. Idle seems to have sold him a visit to our Gems & Rocks boutique down Main avenue.” She tittered. “Sounds grand when we say it —that’s just the only main road, but it helps with tourists bookings. And Betsy will probably tire him down quickly. She tends to get too excited when she gets clients down there; most of her business she does online now.”

        Xavier was done with his tea, and looking for an exit strategy, but she finally seemed to pick up on the signals.

        “… As I probably do; look at me wearing you down. Anyway, we have some preparing to do for the Carts & whatnot festival.”

        When she was gone, Xavier’s attention was attracted by a small persistent ticking noise followed by some cracking.

        It was on the front porch.

        A young girl in her thirteens, hoodie on despite the heat, and prune coloured pants, was sitting on the bench reading.

        She told him without raising her head from her book. “It’s Aunt Idle’s new pet bird. It’s quite a character.”

        “What?”

        “The noise, it’s from the bird. It’s been cracking nuts for the past twenty minutes. Hence the noise. And yes, it’s annoying as hell.”

        She rose from the bench. “Your bear friend will be back quick I’m certain; it’s just a small boutique with some nice crystals, but mostly cheap orgonite new-agey stuff. Betsy only swears by that, protection for electromagnetic waves and stuff she says, but look around… we are probably got more at risk to be hit by Martian waves or solar coronal mass ejections that by the ones from the telecom tower nearby.”

        Xavier didn’t know what to say, so he nodded and smiled. He felt a bit out of his element. When he looked around, the girl had already disappeared.

        Now alone, he sat on the empty bench, stretched and yawned while trying to relax. It was so different from the anonymity in the city: less people here, but everything and everyone very tightly knit together, although they all seemed to irk and chafe at the thought.

        The flapping of wings startled him.

        “Hellooo.” The red parrot had landed on the backrest of the bench and dropped shells from a freshly cracked nut which rolled onto the ground.

        Xavier didn’t think to respond; like with AL, sometimes he’d found using polite filler words was only projecting human traits to something unable to respond back, and would just muddle the prompt quality.

        “So ruuuude.” The parrot nicked his earlobe gently.

        “Ouch! Sorry! No need to become aggressive!”

        “You arrrre one to talk. Rouge is on Yooour forehead.”

        Xavier looked surprised at the bird in disbelief. Did the bird talk about the mirror test? “What sort of smart creature are you now?”

        “Call meee Rose. Pretty Giiirl acceptable.”

        Xavier smiled. The bird seemed quite fascinating all of a sudden.
        It was strange, but the bird seemed left completely free to roam about; it gave him an idea.

        “Rose, Pretty Girl, do you know some nice places around you’d like to show me?”

        “Of couuurse. Foôllow Pretty Girl.”

        #6543

        In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

        The road was stretching endlessly and monotonously, a straight line disappearing into a nothingness of dry landscapes that sounded a bit depressing. At regular speed, the car barely seemed to progress, and Youssef was rather serious at the wheel. Soon Xavier was left depleted of jokes to tell (even the bad ones which tended to come off easily with sleep deprivation), so he tried to catch some of the patchy network signal to reconnect where he’d left off on the game. There wasn’t much network, and all he could download in the car, even with the game in lo-fi mode, was a measly text message with the starter for his new challenge.

        Your quest takes place in the ghost town of Midnight, where time seems to have stood still. The townspeople are all frozen in time, stuck in their daily routines and unable to move on. Your mission is to find the missing piece of continuity, a small hourglass that will set time back in motion and allow the townspeople to move forward.

        A ghost town seemed apt indeed.

        The welcome signs at the entrance of the town for their hostel were rather uninviting, but a festive banner mentioning the local “Lager and Carts festival” caught his attention. He counted the days. It would be next week-end; there was a good chance they’d still be there, the four of them. At least some action to look forward to!

        When he and Youssef arrived at the Inn after that rather uneventful and terribly long drive, all they wanted was to get a shower and some sleep. Zara wasn’t back yet from her trip, but they both figured out they’d meet at breakfast in the morning.

        The old lady with the sharp tongue had shown them their rooms rather unceremoniously; she was too busy ranting about an idle person not taking their *one job* seriously to care about details. Xavier almost asked for a wifi, but then thought better and decided to hold his question until he found someone to ask who was born in his century.
        Xavier took room 7, and Youssef room 5.

        The rooms were quite nicely decorated. It reminded him of something he’d read in the plane from a commentary of the Bardo Thodöl:

        In Tibetan the word for body is , which means “something you leave behind,” like baggage. Each time we say “lü,” it reminds us that we are only travelers, taking temporary refuge in this life and this body. So in Tibet people did not distract themselves by spending all their time trying to make their external circumstances more comfortable. They were satisfied if they had enough to eat, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads. Going on as we do, obsessively trying to improve our conditions, can become an end in itself and a pointless distraction. Would anyone in their right mind think of fastidiously redecorating their hotel room every time they booked into one? 

        The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

        At least, he wasn’t feeling compelled to redecorate this room; it was perfect. The shared sanitaries, the boiler and the piping were another story, but that was probably coming from the same era as the owner, nice as she was.

        After having unpacked his few belongings, and taken a hot shower, he laid on the bed looking at the ceiling, which was blank and made a nice contrast to the ornate walls full of colorful dots.

        Luckily, searching through the signals available, he could see there was mostly one, and without any password. With the next neighbour a few miles away, no wonder nobody bothered with security.

        He connected to AL to check a few parameters — there seemed to be some degenerescence in the programme output that wasn’t satisfactory, and he was wondering if some self-repair or training reinforcement mechanisms were missing. At the moment, nothing too pressing, but he would keep an eye on them.

        Still no words from Yasmin he thought drifting to sleep… I half expected her to be there already…

        #6539

        In reply to: Prompts of Madjourneys

        EricEric
        Keymaster

          Zara is the main protagonist, and also the reluctant leader of the game. In RL, she is wandering off the trail nearby Arltunga, Australia, where she is visiting, staying at the small family run inn the Flying Fish Inn. Bert, the local handyman drove her there, told her specifically not to wander off, yet in search of where a mysterious compass she collected on the trail is leading, and egged on by her talking smart parrot “Beautiful Girl”, she goes off the trail to explore. The sun is still high, and she already started to hallucinate some hooded figures with blue frog-faces with jelly-bean carts.
          Meanwhile, her friends Youssef and Xavier, just landed from abroad, are driving toward the rendez-vous spot at the Flying Fish Inn. The owners Mater and Idle don’t have any idea where Zara is.
          Yasmin, the fourth friend in the group is still on her way from Fiji, bearing a message written in red on an envelope from a mysterious Fred, who we don’t know yet, but seems to be linked to Mater & Idle’s family.
          What’s going to happen next to Zara? The game is encouraging her to explore her rudeness in a playful manner, in a medieval setting.
          Provide a series of playful and fun actions for Zara, linking these contexts. You may incorporate Tiku, a wise and no-nonsense Aboriginal woman who may guide her though the Dreamtime challenges. Provide random keywords to each action in the list.

          Here is a list of playful and fun actions for Zara in the game:

          1. “Follow the Compass”: Zara can follow the mysterious compass she collected on the trail, as it leads her to new locations and challenges. Keywords: Adventure, Exploration, Mystery.
          2. “Converse with Beautiful Girl”: Zara’s talking smart parrot “Beautiful Girl” may provide humorous commentary and encouragement throughout her journey. Keywords: Humor, Personality, Support.
          3. “Solve Riddles with Tiku”: Tiku, the wise and no-nonsense Aboriginal woman, can guide Zara through the Dreamtime challenges. To do this, Tiku may present her with riddles or puzzles that she must solve to progress. Keywords: Wisdom, Intelligence, Spirituality.
          4. “Collect Items”: Zara can collect items along the way, such as artifacts or treasures that may help her in her journey or lead her to new discoveries. Keywords: Collection, Discovery, Help.
          5. “Play Music with Beautiful Girl”: Zara can play musical instruments with Beautiful Girl, creating an entertaining and musical interlude in her journey. Keywords: Music, Joy, Creativity.
          6. “Cook with Mater and Idle”: At the Flying Fish Inn, Zara can join Mater and Idle in the kitchen and help them cook traditional dishes from the region. Keywords: Cooking, Culture, Community.
          7. “Race with Youssef and Xavier”: Zara can engage in friendly races with Youssef and Xavier, such as foot races or cart races, as a way to pass the time and have fun. Keywords: Competition, Speed, Excitement.

          These playful and fun actions can add variety and excitement to Zara’s journey and provide an opportunity for players to interact with the world and characters in new and unique ways.

           🔁 Regenerate response

          #6509
          EricEric
          Keymaster

            Table of characters:

            Characters Keyword Characteristics Sentiment
            Clara Woman in her late 40s, VanGogh’s owner Inquisitive, curious
            VanGogh Clara’s dog Curious
            Grandpa Bob Clara’s grandfather, widowed, early signs of dementia Skeptical, anxious
            Nora Clara’s friend, amateur archaeologist, nicknamed Alienor by Clara Adventure-seeking
            Jane Grandpa Bob’s wife, Clara’s mother, only Bob seem to see her, possibly a hallucination Teasing
            Julienne / Mr. Willets Neighbors of Clara & Bob
            Bubbles (Time-dragglers squad, alternate timeline) Junior drag-queen, reporting to Linda Pol (office manager) adventurous, brave, concerned
            Will After Nora encountered a man with a white donkey, she awakes in a cottage. Will is introduced later, and drugs Nora unbeknownst to her. Later Bob & Clara come at his doorstep (they know him as the gargoyle statues selling man from the market), looking for her friend. Affable, mysterious, hiding secrets

            Some connecting threads:

            1. The discovery of a mysterious pear-shaped box with inscriptions by Clara and her grandfather.
            2. Clara sending photos of the artifact to Nora (Alienor), an amateur archaeologist.
            3. Nora’s journey from her place to reach the location where the box was discovered and her encounter with a man with a donkey (Will?).
            4. Grandpa Bob’s anxious behavior and the confusion over the torn piece of paper with a phone number.
            5. The parallel timeline of a potential breach in the timelines in Linda Pol’s office.
            6. The search for VanGogh and the discovery of a map tucked into his collar.
            7. The suggestion from Jane that Clara should be told something.
            8. Nora awakes at a cottage and spends time with Will who drugs her soup. Bob & Clara show up later, looking for her.
            EricEric
            Keymaster

              Some background information on The Sexy Wooden Leg and potential plot developments.

              Setting

              (nearby Duckailingtown in Dumbass, Oocrane)
              The Rootians (a fictitious nationality) invaded Oocrane (a fictitious country) under the guise of freeing the Dumbass region from Lazies. They burned crops and buildings, including the home of a man named Dumbass Voldomeer who was known for his wooden leg and carpenter skills. After the war, Voldomeer was hungry and saw a nest of swan eggs. He went back to his home, carved nine wooden eggs, and replaced the real eggs with the wooden ones so he could eat the eggs for food. The swans still appeared to be brooding on their eggs by the end of summer.

              Note: There seem to be a bird thematic at play.
              The swans’ eggs introduce the plot. The mysterious virus is likely a swan flu. Town in Oocrane often have reminiscing tones of birds’ species.
              Bird To(w)nes: (Oocrane/crane, Keav/kea, Spovlar/shoveler, Dilove/dove…)
              Also the town’s nursing home/hotel’s name is Vyriy from a mythical place in Slavic mythology (also Iriy, Vyrai, or Irij) where “birds fly for winter and souls go after death” which is sometimes identified with paradise. It is believed that spring has come to Earth from Vyrai.

              At the Keav Headquarters

              (🗺️ Capital of Oocrane)

              General Rudechenko and Major Myroslava Kovalev are discussing the incapacitation of President Voldomeer who is suffering from a mysterious virus. The President had told Major Kovalev about a man in the Dumbass region who looked similar to him and could be used as a replacement. The Major volunteers to bring the man to the General, but the General fears it is a suicide mission. He grants her permission but orders his aide to ensure she gets lost behind enemy lines.

              Myroslava, the ambitious Major goes undercover as a former war reporter, is now traveling on her own after leaving a group of journalists. She is being followed but tries to lose her pursuers by hunting and making fire in bombed areas. She is frustrated and curses her lack of alcohol.

              The Shrine of the Flovlinden Tree

              (🗺️ Shpovlar, geographical center of Oocrane)

              Olek is the caretaker of the shrine of Saint Edigna and lives near the sacred linden tree. People have been flocking to the shrine due to the miraculous flow of oil from the tree. Olek had retired to this place after a long career, but now a pilgrim family has brought a message of a plan acceleration, which upsets Olek. He reflects on his life and the chaos of people always rushing around and preparing for the wrong things. He thinks about his father’s approach to life, which was carefree and resulted in the same ups and downs as others, but with less suffering. Olek may consider adopting this approach until he can find a way to hide from the enemy.

              Rosa and the Cauldron Maker

              (young Oocranian wiccan travelling to Innsbruck, Austria)

              Eusebius Kazandis is selling black cauldrons at the summer fair of Innsbruck, Austria. He is watching Rosa, a woman selling massage oils, fragrant oils, and polishing oils. Rosa notices Eusebius is sad and thinks he is not where he needs to be. She waves at him, but he looks away as if caught doing something wrong. Rosa is on a journey across Europe, following the wind, and is hoping for a gust to tell her where to go next. However, the branches of the tree she is under remain still.

              The Nursing Home

              (Nearby the town of Dilove, Oocrane, on Roomhen border somewhere in Transcarpetya)

              Egna, who has lived for almost a millennium, initially thinks the recent miracle at the Flovlinden Tree is just another con. She has performed many miracles in her life, but mostly goes unnoticed. She has a book full of records of the lives of many people she has tracked, and reminisces that she has a connection to the President Voldomeer. She decides to go and see the Flovlinden Tree for herself.

              🗺️ (the Vyriy hotel at Dilove, Oocrane, on Roomhen border)

              Ursula, the owner of a hotel on the outskirts of town, is experiencing a surge in business from the increased number of pilgrims visiting the linden tree. She plans to refurbish the hotel to charge more per night and plans to get a business loan from her nephew Boris, the bank manager. However, she must first evict the old residents of the hotel, which she is dreading. To avoid confrontation, she decides to send letters signed by a fake business manager.

              Egbert Gofindlevsky, Olga Herringbonevsky and Obadiah Sproutwinklov are elderly residents of an old hotel turned nursing home who receive a letter informing them that they must leave. Egbert goes to see Obadiah about the letter, but finds a bad odor in his room and decides to see Olga instead.
              Maryechka, Obadiah’s granddaughter, goes back home after getting medicine for her sick mother and finds her home empty. She decides to visit her grandfather and his friends at the old people’s home, since the schools are closed and she’s not interested in online activities.
              Olga and Egbert have a conversation about their current situation and decide to leave the nursing home and visit Rosa, Olga’s distant relative. Maryechka encounters Egbert and Olga on the stairs and overhears them talking about leaving their friends behind. Olga realizes that it is important to hold onto their hearts and have faith in the kindness of strangers. They then go to see Obadiah, with Olga showing a burst of energy and Egbert with a weak smile.

              Thus starts their escape and unfolding adventure on the roads of war-torn Oocrane.

              Character Keyword Characteristics Sentiment
              Egbert old man, sharp tone sad, fragile
              Maryechka Obadiah’s granddaughter, shy innocent
              Olga old woman, knobbly fingers conflicted, determined
              Obadiah stubborn as a mule, old friend of Egbert unyielding, possibly deaf
              #6495
              EricEric
              Keymaster

                The landing on the sandy desert of Bluhm’Oxl was smoother than usual. It usually took a few minutes to get accustomed to their surrounding, the body transformations that came together with jumping across dimensions. In this case, it looked as though this dimension was quite close to their own.

                “Checking translation device…” Georges touched his ear lightly.

                Gremsbtic newkil jumbal” said Salomé in response. Georges looked quizzically at her face before realising she was pulling a classic prank.

                She laughed heartily. “That joke’s never getting old, isn’t it?”

                “Let’s walk a little in this direction, the rendez-vous point with Klatu isn’t too far.”

                “Any idea how Jorid managed to make contact this time?” Salomé asked.

                “Not sure really. Generally the quantum probability framework that’s built into the Jorid is managing to make trades across the multiverse that are quite complex to conceive or track down. Last time I tried to check, Jorid had traded one tardigrade to obtain us a couple of premium pass to the Amp’hool of Athumbra”

                “Underwater Whalets’ concert from the UniverseTour of Shakara, yes that was quite a night to remember…” Salomé reminisced fondly.

                “Fully booked for centuries, near impossible to get, and yet all it took was about a hundred of trades across multiple owners… No idea how it manages, but it found someone who was ready to trade their two front-row seats in exchange for a single Snoot’s hair.”

                “And why are we meeting this guy by the way? What’s his specialty?” Salomé winked. “You left me with the dressing duty, so happy you did all the reconnaissance.”

                Georges chucked. “all that Jorid said was: Klatu’s a relatively trustworthy Zathu, known for their expertise in dimensional magic, which is a crucial asset in your search for Léonard, presumably gone missing in the conflict-ridden Zathu sector.

                “Mmmh” said Salomé. “Dimensional magic. Rather unscientific for Jorid to express in that way. Nothing that I’ve recently dreamt about seems to relate. I guess we’ll see.”

                #6426

                In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

                The artificial lights of Berlin were starting to switch off in the horizon, leaving the night plunged in darkness minutes before the sunrise. It was a moment of peace that Xavier enjoyed, although it reminded him of how sleepless his night had been.

                The game had taken a side step, as he’d been pouring all his attention into his daytime job, and his personal project with Artificial Life AL. It was a long way from the little boy at school with dyslexia who was using cheeky jokes as a way to get by the snides. Since then, he’d known some of the unusual super-powers this condition gave him as well. Chiefly: abstract and out-of-the-box thinking, puzzle-solving genius, and an almost other-worldly ability at keeping track of the plot. All these skills were in fact of tremendous help at his work, which was blending traditional areas of technology along with massive amounts of loosely connected data.

                He yawned and went to brush his teeth. His usual meditation routine had also been disrupted by the activity of late, but he just couldn’t go to bed without a little time to cool off and calm down the agitation of his thoughts.

                Sitting on the meditation mat, his thoughts strayed off towards the preparation for the trip. Going to Australia would have seemed exciting a few years back, but the idea of packing a suitcase, and going through the long flight and the logistics involved got him more anxious than excited, despite the contagious enthusiasm of his friends. Since he’d settled in Berlin, after never settling for too long in one place (his job afforded him to work wherever whenever), he’d kind of stopped looking for the next adventure. He hadn’t even looked at flight options yet, and hoped that the building momentum would spur him into this adventure. For now, he needed the rest.

                The quirk quest assigned to his persona in the game was fun. Monkeys and Golden banana to look for, wise owls and sly foxes, the whimsical goofy nature of the quest seemed good for the place he was in.
                AL had been suggesting the players to insert the game elements into their realities, and sometimes its comments or instructions seemed to slip between layers of reality — this was an intriguing mystery to Xavier.
                He’d instructed AL to discreetly assist Youssef with his trouble — the Thi Gang seemed to be an ethical hacker developer company front for more serious business. Chatter on the net had tied it to a network of shell companies involved in some strange activities. A name had popped up, linked to mysterious recluse billionaire Botty Banworth, the owner of Youssef’s boss rival blog named Knoweth.

                He slipped into the bed, careful not to wake up Brytta, who was sleeping tightly. It was her day off, otherwise she would have been gone already to her shift. It would be good to connect in the morning, and enjoy some break from mind stuff. They had planned a visit to Kantonstrasse (the local Chinatown) for Chinese New Year, and he couldn’t wait for it.

                #6423

                In reply to: Prompts of Madjourneys

                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Zara’s first quest:

                  entry level quirk: wandering off the track

                  The initial setting for this quest is a dense forest, where the paths are overgrown and rarely traveled. You find yourself alone and disoriented, with only a rough map and a compass to guide you.

                  Possible directions to investigate include:

                  Following a faint trail of footprints that lead deeper into the forest

                  Climbing a tall tree to get a better view of the surrounding area

                  Searching for a stream or river to use as a guide to find your way out of the forest

                  Possible characters to engage include:

                  A mysterious hermit who lives deep in the forest and is rumored to know the secrets of the land

                  A lost traveler who is also trying to find their way out of the forest

                  A group of bandits who have taken refuge in the forest and may try to steal from you or cause harm

                  Your objective is to find the Wanderlust tile, a small, intricately carved wooden tile depicting a person walking off the beaten path. This tile holds the key to unlocking your inner quirk of wandering off the track.

                  As proof of your progress in the game, you must find a way to incorporate this quirk into your real-life actions by taking a spontaneous detour on your next journey, whether it be physical or mental.

                  For Zara’s quest:

                  As you wander off the track, you come across a strange-looking building in the distance. Upon closer inspection, you realize it is the Flying Fish Inn. As you enter, you are greeted by the friendly owner, Idle. She tells you that she has heard of strange occurrences happening in the surrounding area and offers to help you in your quest

                  Emoji clue:  🐈🌳 :cat_confused:

                   

                  Zara (the character in the game)

                  characteristics from previous prompts:

                  Zara is the leader of the group  :yahoo_thinking:  she is confident, and always ready for an adventure. She is a natural leader and has a strong sense of justice. She is also a tech-savvy person, always carrying a variety of gadgets with her, and is always the first to try out new technology.

                  Zara is the leader of the group, her color is red, her animal is a lion, and her secret name in a funny language is “Zaraloon”

                   

                  Zara (the real life story character)

                  characteristics from previous prompts:

                  Zara Patara-Smythe is a 57-year-old woman of mixed heritage, her mother is Indian and her father is British. She has long, dark hair that she keeps in an untidy ponytail, dark brown eyes and a sharp jawline. She stands at 5’6″ and has a toned and athletic build. She usually wears practical clothing that allows her to move around easily, such as cargo pants and a tank top.

                  prompt quest:

                  Continue to investigate the mysterious cat she saw, possibly seeking out help from local animal experts or veterinarians.
                  Join Xavier and Yasmin in investigating the Flying Fish Inn, looking for clues and exploring the area for any potential leads on the game’s quest.

                  #6350
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Transportation

                    Isaac Stokes 1804-1877

                     

                    Isaac was born in Churchill, Oxfordshire in 1804, and was the youngest brother of my 4X great grandfather Thomas Stokes. The Stokes family were stone masons for generations in Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire, and Isaac’s occupation was a mason’s labourer in 1834 when he was sentenced at the Lent Assizes in Oxford to fourteen years transportation for stealing tools.

                    Churchill where the Stokes stonemasons came from: on 31 July 1684 a fire destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. The village was rebuilt higher up the hill, with stone houses instead of the old timber-framed and thatched cottages. The fire was apparently caused by a baker who, to avoid chimney tax, had knocked through the wall from her oven to her neighbour’s chimney.

                    Isaac stole a pick axe, the value of 2 shillings and the property of Thomas Joyner of Churchill; a kibbeaux and a trowel value 3 shillings the property of Thomas Symms; a hammer and axe value 5 shillings, property of John Keen of Sarsden.

                    (The word kibbeaux seems to only exists in relation to Isaac Stokes sentence and whoever was the first to write it was perhaps being creative with the spelling of a kibbo, a miners or a metal bucket. This spelling is repeated in the criminal reports and the newspaper articles about Isaac, but nowhere else).

                    In March 1834 the Removal of Convicts was announced in the Oxford University and City Herald: Isaac Stokes and several other prisoners were removed from the Oxford county gaol to the Justitia hulk at Woolwich “persuant to their sentences of transportation at our Lent Assizes”.

                    via digitalpanopticon:

                    Hulks were decommissioned (and often unseaworthy) ships that were moored in rivers and estuaries and refitted to become floating prisons. The outbreak of war in America in 1775 meant that it was no longer possible to transport British convicts there. Transportation as a form of punishment had started in the late seventeenth century, and following the Transportation Act of 1718, some 44,000 British convicts were sent to the American colonies. The end of this punishment presented a major problem for the authorities in London, since in the decade before 1775, two-thirds of convicts at the Old Bailey received a sentence of transportation – on average 283 convicts a year. As a result, London’s prisons quickly filled to overflowing with convicted prisoners who were sentenced to transportation but had no place to go.

                    To increase London’s prison capacity, in 1776 Parliament passed the “Hulks Act” (16 Geo III, c.43). Although overseen by local justices of the peace, the hulks were to be directly managed and maintained by private contractors. The first contract to run a hulk was awarded to Duncan Campbell, a former transportation contractor. In August 1776, the Justicia, a former transportation ship moored in the River Thames, became the first prison hulk. This ship soon became full and Campbell quickly introduced a number of other hulks in London; by 1778 the fleet of hulks on the Thames held 510 prisoners.
                    Demand was so great that new hulks were introduced across the country. There were hulks located at Deptford, Chatham, Woolwich, Gosport, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheerness and Cork.

                    The Justitia via rmg collections:

                    Justitia

                    Convicts perform hard labour at the Woolwich Warren. The hulk on the river is the ‘Justitia’. Prisoners were kept on board such ships for months awaiting deportation to Australia. The ‘Justitia’ was a 260 ton prison hulk that had been originally moored in the Thames when the American War of Independence put a stop to the transportation of criminals to the former colonies. The ‘Justitia’ belonged to the shipowner Duncan Campbell, who was the Government contractor who organized the prison-hulk system at that time. Campbell was subsequently involved in the shipping of convicts to the penal colony at Botany Bay (in fact Port Jackson, later Sydney, just to the north) in New South Wales, the ‘first fleet’ going out in 1788.

                     

                    While searching for records for Isaac Stokes I discovered that another Isaac Stokes was transported to New South Wales in 1835 as well. The other one was a butcher born in 1809, sentenced in London for seven years, and he sailed on the Mary Ann. Our Isaac Stokes sailed on the Lady Nugent, arriving in NSW in April 1835, having set sail from England in December 1834.

                    Lady Nugent was built at Bombay in 1813. She made four voyages under contract to the British East India Company (EIC). She then made two voyages transporting convicts to Australia, one to New South Wales and one to Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania). (via Wikipedia)

                    via freesettlerorfelon website:

                    On 20 November 1834, 100 male convicts were transferred to the Lady Nugent from the Justitia Hulk and 60 from the Ganymede Hulk at Woolwich, all in apparent good health. The Lady Nugent departed Sheerness on 4 December 1834.

                    SURGEON OLIVER SPROULE

                    Oliver Sproule kept a Medical Journal from 7 November 1834 to 27 April 1835. He recorded in his journal the weather conditions they experienced in the first two weeks:

                    ‘In the course of the first week or ten days at sea, there were eight or nine on the sick list with catarrhal affections and one with dropsy which I attribute to the cold and wet we experienced during that period beating down channel. Indeed the foremost berths in the prison at this time were so wet from leaking in that part of the ship, that I was obliged to issue dry beds and bedding to a great many of the prisoners to preserve their health, but after crossing the Bay of Biscay the weather became fine and we got the damp beds and blankets dried, the leaks partially stopped and the prison well aired and ventilated which, I am happy to say soon manifested a favourable change in the health and appearance of the men.

                    Besides the cases given in the journal I had a great many others to treat, some of them similar to those mentioned but the greater part consisted of boils, scalds, and contusions which would not only be too tedious to enter but I fear would be irksome to the reader. There were four births on board during the passage which did well, therefore I did not consider it necessary to give a detailed account of them in my journal the more especially as they were all favourable cases.

                    Regularity and cleanliness in the prison, free ventilation and as far as possible dry decks turning all the prisoners up in fine weather as we were lucky enough to have two musicians amongst the convicts, dancing was tolerated every afternoon, strict attention to personal cleanliness and also to the cooking of their victuals with regular hours for their meals, were the only prophylactic means used on this occasion, which I found to answer my expectations to the utmost extent in as much as there was not a single case of contagious or infectious nature during the whole passage with the exception of a few cases of psora which soon yielded to the usual treatment. A few cases of scurvy however appeared on board at rather an early period which I can attribute to nothing else but the wet and hardships the prisoners endured during the first three or four weeks of the passage. I was prompt in my treatment of these cases and they got well, but before we arrived at Sydney I had about thirty others to treat.’

                    The Lady Nugent arrived in Port Jackson on 9 April 1835 with 284 male prisoners. Two men had died at sea. The prisoners were landed on 27th April 1835 and marched to Hyde Park Barracks prior to being assigned. Ten were under the age of 14 years.

                    The Lady Nugent:

                    Lady Nugent

                     

                    Isaac’s distinguishing marks are noted on various criminal registers and record books:

                    “Height in feet & inches: 5 4; Complexion: Ruddy; Hair: Light brown; Eyes: Hazel; Marks or Scars: Yes [including] DEVIL on lower left arm, TSIS back of left hand, WS lower right arm, MHDW back of right hand.”

                    Another includes more detail about Isaac’s tattoos:

                    “Two slight scars right side of mouth, 2 moles above right breast, figure of the devil and DEVIL and raised mole, lower left arm; anchor, seven dots half moon, TSIS and cross, back of left hand; a mallet, door post, A, mans bust, sun, WS, lower right arm; woman, MHDW and shut knife, back of right hand.”

                     

                    Lady Nugent record book

                     

                    From How tattoos became fashionable in Victorian England (2019 article in TheConversation by Robert Shoemaker and Zoe Alkar):

                    “Historical tattooing was not restricted to sailors, soldiers and convicts, but was a growing and accepted phenomenon in Victorian England. Tattoos provide an important window into the lives of those who typically left no written records of their own. As a form of “history from below”, they give us a fleeting but intriguing understanding of the identities and emotions of ordinary people in the past.
                    As a practice for which typically the only record is the body itself, few systematic records survive before the advent of photography. One exception to this is the written descriptions of tattoos (and even the occasional sketch) that were kept of institutionalised people forced to submit to the recording of information about their bodies as a means of identifying them. This particularly applies to three groups – criminal convicts, soldiers and sailors. Of these, the convict records are the most voluminous and systematic.
                    Such records were first kept in large numbers for those who were transported to Australia from 1788 (since Australia was then an open prison) as the authorities needed some means of keeping track of them.”

                    On the 1837 census Isaac was working for the government at Illiwarra, New South Wales. This record states that he arrived on the Lady Nugent in 1835. There are three other indent records for an Isaac Stokes in the following years, but the transcriptions don’t provide enough information to determine which Isaac Stokes it was. In April 1837 there was an abscondment, and an arrest/apprehension in May of that year, and in 1843 there was a record of convict indulgences.

                    From the Australian government website regarding “convict indulgences”:

                    “By the mid-1830s only six per cent of convicts were locked up. The vast majority worked for the government or free settlers and, with good behaviour, could earn a ticket of leave, conditional pardon or and even an absolute pardon. While under such orders convicts could earn their own living.”

                     

                    In 1856 in Camden, NSW, Isaac Stokes married Catherine Daly. With no further information on this record it would be impossible to know for sure if this was the right Isaac Stokes. This couple had six children, all in the Camden area, but none of the records provided enough information. No occupation or place or date of birth recorded for Isaac Stokes.

                    I wrote to the National Library of Australia about the marriage record, and their reply was a surprise! Issac and Catherine were married on 30 September 1856, at the house of the Rev. Charles William Rigg, a Methodist minister, and it was recorded that Isaac was born in Edinburgh in 1821, to parents James Stokes and Sarah Ellis!  The age at the time of the marriage doesn’t match Isaac’s age at death in 1877, and clearly the place of birth and parents didn’t match either. Only his fathers occupation of stone mason was correct.  I wrote back to the helpful people at the library and they replied that the register was in a very poor condition and that only two and a half entries had survived at all, and that Isaac and Catherines marriage was recorded over two pages.

                    I searched for an Isaac Stokes born in 1821 in Edinburgh on the Scotland government website (and on all the other genealogy records sites) and didn’t find it. In fact Stokes was a very uncommon name in Scotland at the time. I also searched Australian immigration and other records for another Isaac Stokes born in Scotland or born in 1821, and found nothing.  I was unable to find a single record to corroborate this mysterious other Isaac Stokes.

                    As the age at death in 1877 was correct, I assume that either Isaac was lying, or that some mistake was made either on the register at the home of the Methodist minster, or a subsequent mistranscription or muddle on the remnants of the surviving register.  Therefore I remain convinced that the Camden stonemason Isaac Stokes was indeed our Isaac from Oxfordshire.

                     

                    I found a history society newsletter article that mentioned Isaac Stokes, stone mason, had built the Glenmore church, near Camden, in 1859.

                    Glenmore Church

                     

                    From the Wollondilly museum April 2020 newsletter:

                    Glenmore Church Stokes

                     

                    From the Camden History website:

                    “The stone set over the porch of Glenmore Church gives the date of 1860. The church was begun in 1859 on land given by Joseph Moore. James Rogers of Picton was given the contract to build and local builder, Mr. Stokes, carried out the work. Elizabeth Moore, wife of Edward, laid the foundation stone. The first service was held on 19th March 1860. The cemetery alongside the church contains the headstones and memorials of the areas early pioneers.”

                     

                    Isaac died on the 3rd September 1877. The inquest report puts his place of death as Bagdelly, near to Camden, and another death register has put Cambelltown, also very close to Camden.  His age was recorded as 71 and the inquest report states his cause of death was “rupture of one of the large pulmonary vessels of the lung”.  His wife Catherine died in childbirth in 1870 at the age of 43.

                     

                    Isaac and Catherine’s children:

                    William Stokes 1857-1928

                    Catherine Stokes 1859-1846

                    Sarah Josephine Stokes 1861-1931

                    Ellen Stokes 1863-1932

                    Rosanna Stokes 1865-1919

                    Louisa Stokes 1868-1844.

                     

                    It’s possible that Catherine Daly was a transported convict from Ireland.

                     

                    Some time later I unexpectedly received a follow up email from The Oaks Heritage Centre in Australia.

                    “The Gaudry papers which we have in our archive record him (Isaac Stokes) as having built: the church, the school and the teachers residence.  Isaac is recorded in the General return of convicts: 1837 and in Grevilles Post Office directory 1872 as a mason in Glenmore.”

                    Isaac Stokes directory

                    #6312

                    In reply to: The Sexy Wooden Leg

                    When she’d heard of the miracle happening at the Flovlinden Tree, Egna initially shrugged it off as another conman’s attempt at fooling the crowds.

                    “No, it’s real, my Auntie saw it.”

                    “Stop fretting” she’d told the little girl, as she was carefully removing the lice from her hair. “This is just someone’s idea of a smart joke. Don’t get fooled, you’re smarter than this.”

                    She sure wasn’t responsible for that one. If that were a true miracle, she would have known. The little calf next week being resuscitated after being dead a few minutes, well, that was her. Shame nobody was even there to notice. Most of the best miracles go about this way anyway.

                    So, after having lived close to a millennia in relatively rock solid health and with surprisingly unaging looks, Egna had thought she’d seen it all; at least last time the tree started to ooze sacred oil, it didn’t last for too long, people’s greed starting to sell it stopped it right in its tracks.

                    But maybe there was more to it this time. Egna’d often wondered why God had let her live that long. She was a useful instrument to Her for sure, but living in secrecy, claiming no ownership, most miracles were just facts of life. She somehow failed to see the point, even after 957 years of existence.

                    The little girl had left to go back to her nearby town. This side of the country was still quite safe from all the craziness. Egna knew well most of the branches of the ancestral trees leading to that particular little leaf. This one had probably no idea she shared a common ancestor with President Voldomeer, but Egna remembered the fellow. He was a clogmaker in the turn of the 18th century, as was his father before. That was until a rather unexpected turn of events precipitated him to a different path as his brother.

                    She had a book full of these records, as she’d tracked the lives of many, to keep them alive, and maybe remind people they all share so much in common. That is, if people were able to remember more than 2 generations before them.

                    “Well, that’s set.” she said to herself and to Her as She’s always listening “I’ll go and see for myself.”
                    her trusty old musty cloak at the door seemed to have been begging for the journey.

                    #6306
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      Looking for Robert Staley

                       

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

                      Marriage of John Staley and Jane Brothers in 1820:

                      1820 marriage Armagh

                       

                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      fire engine

                       

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

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

                       

                      Looking for Robert Staley

                       

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

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

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

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

                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      The marriage of Robert Staley and Elizabeth Milner in 1735:

                      rbt staley marriage 1735

                       

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

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

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

                      The Marsden Connection

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

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

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

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

                      by
                      David Dalrymple-Smith

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

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

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

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

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

                       

                      The 1795 will of Robert Staley.

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

                      The will of Robert Staley, 1795:

                      1795 will 2

                      1795 Rbt Staley will

                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                       

                      #6301
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        The Warrens of Stapenhill

                         

                        There were so many Warren’s in Stapenhill that it was complicated to work out who was who. I had gone back as far as Samuel Warren marrying Catherine Holland, and this was as far back as my cousin Ian Warren had gone in his research some decades ago as well. The Holland family from Barton under Needwood are particularly interesting, and will be a separate chapter.

                        Stapenhill village by John Harden:

                        Stapenhill

                         

                        Resuming the research on the Warrens, Samuel Warren 1771-1837 married Catherine Holland 1775-1861 in 1795 and their son Samuel Warren 1800-1882 married Elizabeth Bridge, whose childless brother Benjamin Bridge left the Warren Brothers Boiler Works in Newhall to his nephews, the Warren brothers.

                        Samuel Warren and Catherine Holland marriage licence 1795:

                        Samuel Warren Catherine Holland

                         

                        Samuel (born 1771) was baptised at Stapenhill St Peter and his parents were William and Anne Warren. There were at least three William and Ann Warrens in town at the time. One of those William’s was born in 1744, which would seem to be the right age to be Samuel’s father, and one was born in 1710, which seemed a little too old. Another William, Guiliamos Warren (Latin was often used in early parish registers) was baptised in Stapenhill in 1729.

                        Stapenhill St Peter:

                        Stapenhill St Peter

                         

                        William Warren (born 1744) appeared to have been born several months before his parents wedding. William Warren and Ann Insley married 16 July 1744, but the baptism of William in 1744 was 24 February. This seemed unusual ~ children were often born less than nine months after a wedding, but not usually before the wedding! Then I remembered the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar in 1752. Prior to 1752, the first day of the year was Lady Day, March 25th, not January 1st. This meant that the birth in February 1744 was actually after the wedding in July 1744. Now it made sense. The first son was named William, and he was born seven months after the wedding.

                        William born in 1744 died intestate in 1822, and his wife Ann made a legal claim to his estate. However he didn’t marry Ann Holland (Ann was Catherines Hollands sister, who married Samuel Warren the year before) until 1796, so this William and Ann were not the parents of Samuel.

                        It seemed likely that William born in 1744 was Samuels brother. William Warren and Ann Insley had at least eight children between 1744 and 1771, and it seems that Samuel was their last child, born when William the elder was 61 and his wife Ann was 47.

                        It seems it wasn’t unusual for the Warren men to marry rather late in life. William Warren’s (born 1710) parents were William Warren and Elizabeth Hatterton. On the marriage licence in 1702/1703 (it appears to say 1703 but is transcribed as 1702), William was a 40 year old bachelor from Stapenhill, which puts his date of birth at 1662. Elizabeth was considerably younger, aged 19.

                        William Warren and Elizabeth Hatterton marriage licence 1703:

                        William Warren 1702

                         

                        These Warren’s were farmers, and they were literate and able to sign their own names on various documents. This is worth noting, as most made the mark of an X.

                        I found three Warren and Holland marriages. One was Samuel Warren and Catherine Holland in 1795, then William Warren and Ann Holland in 1796. William Warren and Ann Hollands daughter born in 1799 married John Holland in 1824.

                        Elizabeth Hatterton (wife of William Warren who was born circa 1662) was born in Burton upon Trent in 1685. Her parents were Edward Hatterton 1655-1722, and Sara.

                        A page from the 1722 will of Edward Hatterton:

                        Edward Hatterton 1722

                         

                        The earliest Warren I found records for was William Warren who married Elizabeth Hatterton in 1703. The marriage licence states his age as 40 and that he was from Stapenhill, but none of the Stapenhill parish records online go back as far as 1662.  On other public trees on ancestry websites, a birth record from Suffolk has been chosen, probably because it was the only record to be found online with the right name and date. Once again, I don’t think that is correct, and perhaps one day I’ll find some earlier Stapenhill records to prove that he was born in locally.

                         

                        Subsequently, I found a list of the 1662 Hearth Tax for Stapenhill. On it were a number of Warrens, three William Warrens including one who was a constable. One of those William Warrens had a son he named William (as they did, hence the number of William Warrens in the tree) the same year as this hearth tax list.

                        But was it the William Warren with 2 chimneys, the one with one chimney who was too poor to pay it, or the one who was a constable?

                        from the list:
                        Will. Warryn 2
                        Richard Warryn 1
                        William Warren Constable
                        These names are not payable by Act:
                        Will. Warryn 1
                        Richard Warren John Watson
                        over seers of the poore and churchwardens

                        The Hearth Tax:

                        via wiki:
                        In England, hearth tax, also known as hearth money, chimney tax, or chimney money, was a tax imposed by Parliament in 1662, to support the Royal Household of King Charles II. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Parliament calculated that the Royal Household needed an annual income of £1,200,000. The hearth tax was a supplemental tax to make up the shortfall. It was considered easier to establish the number of hearths than the number of heads, hearths forming a more stationary subject for taxation than people. This form of taxation was new to England, but had precedents abroad. It generated considerable debate, but was supported by the economist Sir William Petty, and carried through the Commons by the influential West Country member Sir Courtenay Pole, 2nd Baronet (whose enemies nicknamed him “Sir Chimney Poll” as a result).  The bill received Royal Assent on 19 May 1662, with the first payment due on 29 September 1662, Michaelmas.
                        One shilling was liable to be paid for every firehearth or stove, in all dwellings, houses, edifices or lodgings, and was payable at Michaelmas, 29 September and on Lady Day, 25 March. The tax thus amounted to two shillings per hearth or stove per year. The original bill contained a practical shortcoming in that it did not distinguish between owners and occupiers and was potentially a major burden on the poor as there were no exemptions. The bill was subsequently amended so that the tax was paid by the occupier. Further amendments introduced a range of exemptions that ensured that a substantial proportion of the poorer people did not have to pay the tax.

                         

                        Indeed it seems clear that William Warren the elder came from Stapenhill and not Suffolk, and one of the William Warrens paying hearth tax in 1662 was undoubtedly the father of William Warren who married Elizabeth Hatterton.

                        #6280

                        I started reading a book. In fact I started reading it three weeks ago, and have read the first page of the preface every night and fallen asleep. But my neck aches from doing too much gardening so I went back to bed to read this morning. I still fell asleep six times but at least I finished the preface. It’s the story of the family , initiated by the family collection of netsuke (whatever that is. Tiny Japanese carvings) But this is what stopped me reading and made me think (and then fall asleep each time I re read it)

                        “And I’m not entitled to nostalgia about all that lost wealth and glamour from a century ago. And I am not interested in thin. I want to know what the relationship has been between this wooden object that I am rolling between my fingers – hard and tricky and Japanese – and where it has been. I want to be able to reach to the handle of the door and turn it and feel it open. I want to walk into each room where this object has lived, to feel the volume of the space, to know what pictures were on the walls, how the light fell from the windows. And I want to know whose hands it has been in, and what they felt about it and thought about it – if they thought about it. I want to know what it has witnessed.” ― Edmund de Waal, The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Family’s Century of Art and Loss

                        And I felt almost bereft that none of the records tell me which way the light fell in through the windows.

                        I know who lived in the house in which years, but I don’t know who sat in the sun streaming through the window and which painting upon the wall they looked at and what the material was that covered the chair they sat on.

                        Were his clothes confortable (or hers, likely not), did he have an old favourite pair of trousers that his mother hated?

                        There is one house in particular that I keep coming back to. Like I got on the Housley train at Smalley and I can’t get off. Kidsley Grange Farm, they turned it into a nursing home and built extensions, and now it’s for sale for five hundred thousand pounds. But is the ghost still under the back stairs? Is there still a stain somewhere when a carafe of port was dropped?

                        Did Anns writing desk survive? Does someone have that, polished, with a vase of spring tulips on it? (on a mat of course so it doesn’t make a ring, despite that there are layers of beeswaxed rings already)

                        Does the desk remember the letters, the weight of a forearm or elbow, perhaps a smeared teardrop, or a comsumptive cough stain?

                        Is there perhaps a folded bit of paper or card that propped an uneven leg that fell through the floorboards that might tear into little squares if you found it and opened it, and would it be a rough draft of a letter never sent, or just a receipt for five head of cattle the summer before?

                        Did he hate the curtain material, or not even think of it? Did he love the house, or want to get away to see something new ~ or both?

                        Did he have a favourite cup, a favourite food, did he hate liver or cabbage?

                        Did he like his image when the photograph came from the studio or did he think it made his nose look big or his hair too thin, or did he wish he’d worn his other waistcoat?

                        Did he love his wife so much he couldn’t bear to see her dying, was it neglect or was it the unbearableness of it all that made him go away and drink?

                        Did the sun slanting in through the dormer window of his tiny attic room where he lodged remind him of ~ well no perhaps he was never in the room in daylight hours at all. Work all day and pub all night, keeping busy working hard and drinking hard and perhaps laughing hard, and maybe he only thought of it all on Sunday mornings.

                        So many deaths, one after another, his father, his wife, his brother, his sister, and another and another, all the coughing, all the debility. Perhaps he never understood why he lived and they did not, what kind of justice was there in that?

                        Did he take a souvenir or two with him, a handkerchief or a shawl perhaps, tucked away at the bottom of a battered leather bag that had his 3 shirts and 2 waistcoats in and a spare cap,something embroidered perhaps.

                        The quote in that book started me off with the light coming in the window and the need to know the simplest things, something nobody ever wrote in a letter, maybe never even mentioned to anyone.

                        Light coming in windows. I remeber when I was a teenager I had a day off sick and spent the whole day laying on the couch in a big window with the winter sun on my face all day, and I read Bonjour Tristesse in one sitting, and I’ll never forget that afternoon.  I don’t remember much about that book, but I remember being transported. But at the same time as being present in that sunny window.

                        “Stories and objects share something, a patina…Perhaps patina is a process of rubbing back so that the essential is revealed…But it also seems additive, in the way that a piece of oak furniture gains over years and years of polishing.”

                        “How objects are handed on is all about story-telling. I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Because it will complicate your life. Because it will make someone else envious. There is no easy story in legacy. What is remembered and what is forgotten? There can be a chain of forgetting, the rubbing away of previous ownership as much as the slow accretion of stories. What is being passed on to me with all these small Japanese objects?”

                        “There are things in this world that the children hear, but whose sounds oscillate below an adult’s sense of pitch.”

                        What did the children hear?

                        #6268
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          From Tanganyika with Love

                          continued part 9

                          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                          Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

                          Dearest Family.

                          We had a novel Christmas this year. We decided to avoid the expense of
                          entertaining and being entertained at Lyamungu, and went off to spend Christmas
                          camping in a forest on the Western slopes of Kilimanjaro. George decided to combine
                          business with pleasure and in this way we were able to use Government transport.
                          We set out the day before Christmas day and drove along the road which skirts
                          the slopes of Kilimanjaro and first visited a beautiful farm where Philip Teare, the ex
                          Game Warden, and his wife Mary are staying. We had afternoon tea with them and then
                          drove on in to the natural forest above the estate and pitched our tent beside a small
                          clear mountain stream. We decorated the tent with paper streamers and a few small
                          balloons and John found a small tree of the traditional shape which we decorated where
                          it stood with tinsel and small ornaments.

                          We put our beer, cool drinks for the children and bottles of fresh milk from Simba
                          Estate, in the stream and on Christmas morning they were as cold as if they had been in
                          the refrigerator all night. There were not many presents for the children, there never are,
                          but they do not seem to mind and are well satisfied with a couple of balloons apiece,
                          sweets, tin whistles and a book each.

                          George entertain the children before breakfast. He can make a magical thing out
                          of the most ordinary balloon. The children watched entranced as he drew on his pipe
                          and then blew the smoke into the balloon. He then pinched the neck of the balloon
                          between thumb and forefinger and released the smoke in little puffs. Occasionally the
                          balloon ejected a perfect smoke ring and the forest rang with shouts of “Do it again
                          Daddy.” Another trick was to blow up the balloon to maximum size and then twist the
                          neck tightly before releasing. Before subsiding the balloon darted about in a crazy
                          fashion causing great hilarity. Such fun, at the cost of a few pence.

                          After breakfast George went off to fish for trout. John and Jim decided that they
                          also wished to fish so we made rods out of sticks and string and bent pins and they
                          fished happily, but of course quite unsuccessfully, for hours. Both of course fell into the
                          stream and got soaked, but I was prepared for this, and the little stream was so shallow
                          that they could not come to any harm. Henry played happily in the sand and I had a
                          most peaceful morning.

                          Hamisi roasted a chicken in a pot over the camp fire and the jelly set beautifully in the
                          stream. So we had grilled trout and chicken for our Christmas dinner. I had of course
                          taken an iced cake for the occasion and, all in all, it was a very successful Christmas day.
                          On Boxing day we drove down to the plains where George was to investigate a
                          report of game poaching near the Ngassari Furrow. This is a very long ditch which has
                          been dug by the Government for watering the Masai stock in the area. It is also used by
                          game and we saw herds of zebra and wildebeest, and some Grant’s Gazelle and
                          giraffe, all comparatively tame. At one point a small herd of zebra raced beside the lorry
                          apparently enjoying the fun of a gallop. They were all sleek and fat and looked wild and
                          beautiful in action.

                          We camped a considerable distance from the water but this precaution did not
                          save us from the mosquitoes which launched a vicious attack on us after sunset, so that
                          we took to our beds unusually early. They were on the job again when we got up at
                          sunrise so I was very glad when we were once more on our way home.

                          “I like Christmas safari. Much nicer that silly old party,” said John. I agree but I think
                          it is time that our children learned to play happily with others. There are no other young
                          children at Lyamungu though there are two older boys and a girl who go to boarding
                          school in Nairobi.

                          On New Years Day two Army Officers from the military camp at Moshi, came for
                          tea and to talk game hunting with George. I think they rather enjoy visiting a home and
                          seeing children and pets around.

                          Eleanor.

                          Lyamungu 14 May 1945

                          Dearest Family.

                          So the war in Europe is over at last. It is such marvellous news that I can hardly
                          believe it. To think that as soon as George can get leave we will go to England and
                          bring Ann and George home with us to Tanganyika. When we know when this leave can
                          be arranged we will want Kate to join us here as of course she must go with us to
                          England to meet George’s family. She has become so much a part of your lives that I
                          know it will be a wrench for you to give her up but I know that you will all be happy to
                          think that soon our family will be reunited.

                          The V.E. celebrations passed off quietly here. We all went to Moshi to see the
                          Victory Parade of the King’s African Rifles and in the evening we went to a celebration
                          dinner at the Game Warden’s house. Besides ourselves the Moores had invited the
                          Commanding Officer from Moshi and a junior officer. We had a very good dinner and
                          many toasts including one to Mrs Moore’s brother, Oliver Milton who is fighting in Burma
                          and has recently been awarded the Military Cross.

                          There was also a celebration party for the children in the grounds of the Moshi
                          Club. Such a spread! I think John and Jim sampled everything. We mothers were
                          having our tea separately and a friend laughingly told me to turn around and have a look.
                          I did, and saw the long tea tables now deserted by all the children but my two sons who
                          were still eating steadily, and finding the party more exciting than the game of Musical
                          Bumps into which all the other children had entered with enthusiasm.

                          There was also an extremely good puppet show put on by the Italian prisoners
                          of war from the camp at Moshi. They had made all the puppets which included well
                          loved characters like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and the Babes in the Wood as
                          well as more sophisticated ones like an irritable pianist and a would be prima donna. The
                          most popular puppets with the children were a native askari and his family – a very
                          happy little scene. I have never before seen a puppet show and was as entranced as
                          the children. It is amazing what clever manipulation and lighting can do. I believe that the
                          Italians mean to take their puppets to Nairobi and am glad to think that there, they will
                          have larger audiences to appreciate their art.

                          George has just come in, and I paused in my writing to ask him for the hundredth
                          time when he thinks we will get leave. He says I must be patient because it may be a
                          year before our turn comes. Shipping will be disorganised for months to come and we
                          cannot expect priority simply because we have been separated so long from our
                          children. The same situation applies to scores of other Government Officials.
                          I have decided to write the story of my childhood in South Africa and about our
                          life together in Tanganyika up to the time Ann and George left the country. I know you
                          will have told Kate these stories, but Ann and George were so very little when they left
                          home that I fear that they cannot remember much.

                          My Mother-in-law will have told them about their father but she can tell them little
                          about me. I shall send them one chapter of my story each month in the hope that they
                          may be interested and not feel that I am a stranger when at last we meet again.

                          Eleanor.

                          Lyamungu 19th September 1945

                          Dearest Family.

                          In a months time we will be saying good-bye to Lyamungu. George is to be
                          transferred to Mbeya and I am delighted, not only as I look upon Mbeya as home, but
                          because there is now a primary school there which John can attend. I feel he will make
                          much better progress in his lessons when he realises that all children of his age attend
                          school. At present he is putting up a strong resistance to learning to read and spell, but
                          he writes very neatly, does his sums accurately and shows a real talent for drawing. If
                          only he had the will to learn I feel he would do very well.

                          Jim now just four, is too young for lessons but too intelligent to be interested in
                          the ayah’s attempts at entertainment. Yes I’ve had to engage a native girl to look after
                          Henry from 9 am to 12.30 when I supervise John’s Correspondence Course. She is
                          clean and amiable, but like most African women she has no initiative at all when it comes
                          to entertaining children. Most African men and youths are good at this.

                          I don’t regret our stay at Lyamungu. It is a beautiful spot and the change to the
                          cooler climate after the heat of Morogoro has been good for all the children. John is still
                          tall for his age but not so thin as he was and much less pale. He is a handsome little lad
                          with his large brown eyes in striking contrast to his fair hair. He is wary of strangers but
                          very observant and quite uncanny in the way he sums up people. He seldom gets up
                          to mischief but I have a feeling he eggs Jim on. Not that Jim needs egging.

                          Jim has an absolute flair for mischief but it is all done in such an artless manner that
                          it is not easy to punish him. He is a very sturdy child with a cap of almost black silky hair,
                          eyes brown, like mine, and a large mouth which is quick to smile and show most beautiful
                          white and even teeth. He is most popular with all the native servants and the Game
                          Scouts. The servants call Jim, ‘Bwana Tembo’ (Mr Elephant) because of his sturdy
                          build.

                          Henry, now nearly two years old, is quite different from the other two in
                          appearance. He is fair complexioned and fair haired like Ann and Kate, with large, black
                          lashed, light grey eyes. He is a good child, not so merry as Jim was at his age, nor as
                          shy as John was. He seldom cries, does not care to be cuddled and is independent and
                          strong willed. The servants call Henry, ‘Bwana Ndizi’ (Mr Banana) because he has an
                          inexhaustible appetite for this fruit. Fortunately they are very inexpensive here. We buy
                          an entire bunch which hangs from a beam on the back verandah, and pluck off the
                          bananas as they ripen. This way there is no waste and the fruit never gets bruised as it
                          does in greengrocers shops in South Africa. Our three boys make a delightful and
                          interesting trio and I do wish you could see them for yourselves.

                          We are delighted with the really beautiful photograph of Kate. She is an
                          extraordinarily pretty child and looks so happy and healthy and a great credit to you.
                          Now that we will be living in Mbeya with a school on the doorstep I hope that we will
                          soon be able to arrange for her return home.

                          Eleanor.

                          c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 30th October 1945

                          Dearest Family.

                          How nice to be able to write c/o Game Dept. Mbeya at the head of my letters.
                          We arrived here safely after a rather tiresome journey and are installed in a tiny house on
                          the edge of the township.

                          We left Lyamungu early on the morning of the 22nd. Most of our goods had
                          been packed on the big Ford lorry the previous evening, but there were the usual
                          delays and farewells. Of our servants, only the cook, Hamisi, accompanied us to
                          Mbeya. Japhet, Tovelo and the ayah had to be paid off and largesse handed out.
                          Tovelo’s granny had come, bringing a gift of bananas, and she also brought her little
                          granddaughter to present a bunch of flowers. The child’s little scolded behind is now
                          completely healed. Gifts had to be found for them too.

                          At last we were all aboard and what a squash it was! Our few pieces of furniture
                          and packing cases and trunks, the cook, his wife, the driver and the turney boy, who
                          were to take the truck back to Lyamungu, and all their bits and pieces, bunches of
                          bananas and Fanny the dog were all crammed into the body of the lorry. George, the
                          children and I were jammed together in the cab. Before we left George looked
                          dubiously at the tyres which were very worn and said gloomily that he thought it most
                          unlikely that we would make our destination, Dodoma.

                          Too true! Shortly after midday, near Kwakachinja, we blew a back tyre and there
                          was a tedious delay in the heat whilst the wheel was changed. We were now without a
                          spare tyre and George said that he would not risk taking the Ford further than Babati,
                          which is less than half way to Dodoma. He drove very slowly and cautiously to Babati
                          where he arranged with Sher Mohammed, an Indian trader, for a lorry to take us to
                          Dodoma the next morning.

                          It had been our intention to spend the night at the furnished Government
                          Resthouse at Babati but when we got there we found that it was already occupied by
                          several District Officers who had assembled for a conference. So, feeling rather
                          disgruntled, we all piled back into the lorry and drove on to a place called Bereku where
                          we spent an uncomfortable night in a tumbledown hut.

                          Before dawn next morning Sher Mohammed’s lorry drove up, and there was a
                          scramble to dress by the light of a storm lamp. The lorry was a very dilapidated one and
                          there was already a native woman passenger in the cab. I felt so tired after an almost
                          sleepless night that I decided to sit between the driver and this woman with the sleeping
                          Henry on my knee. It was as well I did, because I soon found myself dosing off and
                          drooping over towards the woman. Had she not been there I might easily have fallen
                          out as the battered cab had no door. However I was alert enough when daylight came
                          and changed places with the woman to our mutual relief. She was now able to converse
                          with the African driver and I was able to enjoy the scenery and the fresh air!
                          George, John and Jim were less comfortable. They sat in the lorry behind the
                          cab hemmed in by packing cases. As the lorry was an open one the sun beat down
                          unmercifully upon them until George, ever resourceful, moved a table to the front of the
                          truck. The two boys crouched under this and so got shelter from the sun but they still had
                          to endure the dust. Fanny complicated things by getting car sick and with one thing and
                          another we were all jolly glad to get to Dodoma.

                          We spent the night at the Dodoma Hotel and after hot baths, a good meal and a
                          good nights rest we cheerfully boarded a bus of the Tanganyika Bus Service next
                          morning to continue our journey to Mbeya. The rest of the journey was uneventful. We slept two nights on the road, the first at Iringa Hotel and the second at Chimala. We
                          reached Mbeya on the 27th.

                          I was rather taken aback when I first saw the little house which has been allocated
                          to us. I had become accustomed to the spacious houses we had in Morogoro and
                          Lyamungu. However though the house is tiny it is secluded and has a long garden
                          sloping down to the road in front and another long strip sloping up behind. The front
                          garden is shaded by several large cypress and eucalyptus trees but the garden behind
                          the house has no shade and consists mainly of humpy beds planted with hundreds of
                          carnations sadly in need of debudding. I believe that the previous Game Ranger’s wife
                          cultivated the carnations and, by selling them, raised money for War Funds.
                          Like our own first home, this little house is built of sun dried brick. Its original
                          owners were Germans. It is now rented to the Government by the Custodian of Enemy
                          Property, and George has his office in another ex German house.

                          This afternoon we drove to the school to arrange about enrolling John there. The
                          school is about four miles out of town. It was built by the German settlers in the late
                          1930’s and they were justifiably proud of it. It consists of a great assembly hall and
                          classrooms in one block and there are several attractive single storied dormitories. This
                          school was taken over by the Government when the Germans were interned on the
                          outbreak of war and many improvements have been made to the original buildings. The
                          school certainly looks very attractive now with its grassed playing fields and its lawns and
                          bright flower beds.

                          The Union Jack flies from a tall flagpole in front of the Hall and all traces of the
                          schools German origin have been firmly erased. We met the Headmaster, Mr
                          Wallington, and his wife and some members of the staff. The school is co-educational
                          and caters for children from the age of seven to standard six. The leaving age is elastic
                          owing to the fact that many Tanganyika children started school very late because of lack
                          of educational facilities in this country.

                          The married members of the staff have their own cottages in the grounds. The
                          Matrons have quarters attached to the dormitories for which they are responsible. I felt
                          most enthusiastic about the school until I discovered that the Headmaster is adamant
                          upon one subject. He utterly refuses to take any day pupils at the school. So now our
                          poor reserved Johnny will have to adjust himself to boarding school life.
                          We have arranged that he will start school on November 5th and I shall be very
                          busy trying to assemble his school uniform at short notice. The clothing list is sensible.
                          Boys wear khaki shirts and shorts on weekdays with knitted scarlet jerseys when the
                          weather is cold. On Sundays they wear grey flannel shorts and blazers with the silver
                          and scarlet school tie.

                          Mbeya looks dusty, brown and dry after the lush evergreen vegetation of
                          Lyamungu, but I prefer this drier climate and there are still mountains to please the eye.
                          In fact the lower slopes of Lolesa Mountain rise at the upper end of our garden.

                          Eleanor.

                          c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 21st November 1945

                          Dearest Family.

                          We’re quite settled in now and I have got the little house fixed up to my
                          satisfaction. I have engaged a rather uncouth looking houseboy but he is strong and
                          capable and now that I am not tied down in the mornings by John’s lessons I am able to
                          go out occasionally in the mornings and take Jim and Henry to play with other children.
                          They do not show any great enthusiasm but are not shy by nature as John is.
                          I have had a good deal of heartache over putting John to boarding school. It
                          would have been different had he been used to the company of children outside his
                          own family, or if he had even known one child there. However he seems to be adjusting
                          himself to the life, though slowly. At least he looks well and tidy and I am quite sure that
                          he is well looked after.

                          I must confess that when the time came for John to go to school I simply did not
                          have the courage to take him and he went alone with George, looking so smart in his
                          new uniform – but his little face so bleak. The next day, Sunday, was visiting day but the
                          Headmaster suggested that we should give John time to settle down and not visit him
                          until Wednesday.

                          When we drove up to the school I spied John on the far side of the field walking
                          all alone. Instead of running up with glad greetings, as I had expected, he came almost
                          reluctently and had little to say. I asked him to show me his dormitory and classroom and
                          he did so politely as though I were a stranger. At last he volunteered some information.
                          “Mummy,” he said in an awed voice, Do you know on the night I came here they burnt a
                          man! They had a big fire and they burnt him.” After a blank moment the penny dropped.
                          Of course John had started school and November the fifth but it had never entered my
                          head to tell him about that infamous character, Guy Fawkes!

                          I asked John’s Matron how he had settled down. “Well”, she said thoughtfully,
                          John is very good and has not cried as many of the juniors do when they first come
                          here, but he seems to keep to himself all the time.” I went home very discouraged but
                          on the Sunday John came running up with another lad of about his own age.” This is my
                          friend Marks,” he announced proudly. I could have hugged Marks.

                          Mbeya is very different from the small settlement we knew in the early 1930’s.
                          Gone are all the colourful characters from the Lupa diggings for the alluvial claims are all
                          worked out now, gone also are our old friends the Menzies from the Pub and also most
                          of the Government Officials we used to know. Mbeya has lost its character of a frontier
                          township and has become almost suburban.

                          The social life revolves around two places, the Club and the school. The Club
                          which started out as a little two roomed building, has been expanded and the golf
                          course improved. There are also tennis courts and a good library considering the size of
                          the community. There are frequent parties and dances, though most of the club revenue
                          comes from Bar profits. The parties are relatively sober affairs compared with the parties
                          of the 1930’s.

                          The school provides entertainment of another kind. Both Mr and Mrs Wallington
                          are good amateur actors and I am told that they run an Amateur Dramatic Society. Every
                          Wednesday afternoon there is a hockey match at the school. Mbeya town versus a
                          mixed team of staff and scholars. The match attracts almost the whole European
                          population of Mbeya. Some go to play hockey, others to watch, and others to snatch
                          the opportunity to visit their children. I shall have to try to arrange a lift to school when
                          George is away on safari.

                          I have now met most of the local women and gladly renewed an old friendship
                          with Sheilagh Waring whom I knew two years ago at Morogoro. Sheilagh and I have
                          much in common, the same disregard for the trappings of civilisation, the same sense of
                          the ludicrous, and children. She has eight to our six and she has also been cut off by the
                          war from two of her children. Sheilagh looks too young and pretty to be the mother of so
                          large a family and is, in fact, several years younger than I am. her husband, Donald, is a
                          large quiet man who, as far as I can judge takes life seriously.

                          Our next door neighbours are the Bank Manager and his wife, a very pleasant
                          couple though we seldom meet. I have however had correspondence with the Bank
                          Manager. Early on Saturday afternoon their houseboy brought a note. It informed me
                          that my son was disturbing his rest by precipitating a heart attack. Was I aware that my
                          son was about 30 feet up in a tree and balanced on a twig? I ran out and,sure enough,
                          there was Jim, right at the top of the tallest eucalyptus tree. It would be the one with the
                          mound of stones at the bottom! You should have heard me fluting in my most
                          wheedling voice. “Sweets, Jimmy, come down slowly dear, I’ve some nice sweets for
                          you.”

                          I’ll bet that little story makes you smile. I remember how often you have told me
                          how, as a child, I used to make your hearts turn over because I had no fear of heights
                          and how I used to say, “But that is silly, I won’t fall.” I know now only too well, how you
                          must have felt.

                          Eleanor.

                          c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 14th January 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          I hope that by now you have my telegram to say that Kate got home safely
                          yesterday. It was wonderful to have her back and what a beautiful child she is! Kate
                          seems to have enjoyed the train journey with Miss Craig, in spite of the tears she tells
                          me she shed when she said good-bye to you. She also seems to have felt quite at
                          home with the Hopleys at Salisbury. She flew from Salisbury in a small Dove aircraft
                          and they had a smooth passage though Kate was a little airsick.

                          I was so excited about her home coming! This house is so tiny that I had to turn
                          out the little store room to make a bedroom for her. With a fresh coat of whitewash and
                          pretty sprigged curtains and matching bedspread, borrowed from Sheilagh Waring, the
                          tiny room looks most attractive. I had also iced a cake, made ice-cream and jelly and
                          bought crackers for the table so that Kate’s home coming tea could be a proper little
                          celebration.

                          I was pleased with my preparations and then, a few hours before the plane was
                          due, my crowned front tooth dropped out, peg and all! When my houseboy wants to
                          describe something very tatty, he calls it “Second-hand Kabisa.” Kabisa meaning
                          absolutely. That is an apt description of how I looked and felt. I decided to try some
                          emergency dentistry. I think you know our nearest dentist is at Dar es Salaam five
                          hundred miles away.

                          First I carefully dried the tooth and with a match stick covered the peg and base
                          with Durofix. I then took the infants rubber bulb enema, sucked up some heat from a
                          candle flame and pumped it into the cavity before filling that with Durofix. Then hopefully
                          I stuck the tooth in its former position and held it in place for several minutes. No good. I
                          sent the houseboy to a shop for Scotine and tried the whole process again. No good
                          either.

                          When George came home for lunch I appealed to him for advice. He jokingly
                          suggested that a maize seed jammed into the space would probably work, but when
                          he saw that I really was upset he produced some chewing gum and suggested that I
                          should try that . I did and that worked long enough for my first smile anyway.
                          George and the three boys went to meet Kate but I remained at home to
                          welcome her there. I was afraid that after all this time away Kate might be reluctant to
                          rejoin the family but she threw her arms around me and said “Oh Mummy,” We both
                          shed a few tears and then we both felt fine.

                          How gay Kate is, and what an infectious laugh she has! The boys follow her
                          around in admiration. John in fact asked me, “Is Kate a Princess?” When I said
                          “Goodness no, Johnny, she’s your sister,” he explained himself by saying, “Well, she
                          has such golden hair.” Kate was less complementary. When I tucked her in bed last night
                          she said, “Mummy, I didn’t expect my little brothers to be so yellow!” All three boys
                          have been taking a course of Atebrin, an anti-malarial drug which tinges skin and eyeballs
                          yellow.

                          So now our tiny house is bursting at its seams and how good it feels to have one
                          more child under our roof. We are booked to sail for England in May and when we return
                          we will have Ann and George home too. Then I shall feel really content.

                          Eleanor.

                          c/o Game Dept. Mbeya. 2nd March 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          My life just now is uneventful but very busy. I am sewing hard and knitting fast to
                          try to get together some warm clothes for our leave in England. This is not a simple
                          matter because woollen materials are in short supply and very expensive, and now that
                          we have boarding school fees to pay for both Kate and John we have to budget very
                          carefully indeed.

                          Kate seems happy at school. She makes friends easily and seems to enjoy
                          communal life. John also seems reconciled to school now that Kate is there. He no
                          longer feels that he is the only exile in the family. He seems to rub along with the other
                          boys of his age and has a couple of close friends. Although Mbeya School is coeducational
                          the smaller boys and girls keep strictly apart. It is considered extremely
                          cissy to play with girls.

                          The local children are allowed to go home on Sundays after church and may bring
                          friends home with them for the day. Both John and Kate do this and Sunday is a very
                          busy day for me. The children come home in their Sunday best but bring play clothes to
                          change into. There is always a scramble to get them to bath and change again in time to
                          deliver them to the school by 6 o’clock.

                          When George is home we go out to the school for the morning service. This is
                          taken by the Headmaster Mr Wallington, and is very enjoyable. There is an excellent
                          school choir to lead the singing. The service is the Church of England one, but is
                          attended by children of all denominations, except the Roman Catholics. I don’t think that
                          more than half the children are British. A large proportion are Greeks, some as old as
                          sixteen, and about the same number are Afrikaners. There are Poles and non-Nazi
                          Germans, Swiss and a few American children.

                          All instruction is through the medium of English and it is amazing how soon all the
                          foreign children learn to chatter in English. George has been told that we will return to
                          Mbeya after our leave and for that I am very thankful as it means that we will still be living
                          near at hand when Jim and Henry start school. Because many of these children have to
                          travel many hundreds of miles to come to school, – Mbeya is a two day journey from the
                          railhead, – the school year is divided into two instead of the usual three terms. This
                          means that many of these children do not see their parents for months at a time. I think
                          this is a very sad state of affairs especially for the seven and eight year olds but the
                          Matrons assure me , that many children who live on isolated farms and stations are quite
                          reluctant to go home because they miss the companionship and the games and
                          entertainment that the school offers.

                          My only complaint about the life here is that I see far too little of George. He is
                          kept extremely busy on this range and is hardly at home except for a few days at the
                          months end when he has to be at his office to check up on the pay vouchers and the
                          issue of ammunition to the Scouts. George’s Range takes in the whole of the Southern
                          Province and the Southern half of the Western Province and extends to the border with
                          Northern Rhodesia and right across to Lake Tanganyika. This vast area is patrolled by
                          only 40 Game Scouts because the Department is at present badly under staffed, due
                          partly to the still acute shortage of rifles, but even more so to the extraordinary reluctance
                          which the Government shows to allocate adequate funds for the efficient running of the
                          Department.

                          The Game Scouts must see that the Game Laws are enforced, protect native
                          crops from raiding elephant, hippo and other game animals. Report disease amongst game and deal with stock raiding lions. By constantly going on safari and checking on
                          their work, George makes sure the range is run to his satisfaction. Most of the Game
                          Scouts are fine fellows but, considering they receive only meagre pay for dangerous
                          and exacting work, it is not surprising that occasionally a Scout is tempted into accepting
                          a bribe not to report a serious infringement of the Game Laws and there is, of course,
                          always the temptation to sell ivory illicitly to unscrupulous Indian and Arab traders.
                          Apart from supervising the running of the Range, George has two major jobs.
                          One is to supervise the running of the Game Free Area along the Rhodesia –
                          Tanganyika border, and the other to hunt down the man-eating lions which for years have
                          terrorised the Njombe District killing hundreds of Africans. Yes I know ‘hundreds’ sounds
                          fantastic, but this is perfectly true and one day, when the job is done and the official
                          report published I shall send it to you to prove it!

                          I hate to think of the Game Free Area and so does George. All the game from
                          buffalo to tiny duiker has been shot out in a wide belt extending nearly two hundred
                          miles along the Northern Rhodesia -Tanganyika border. There are three Europeans in
                          widely spaced camps who supervise this slaughter by African Game Guards. This
                          horrible measure is considered necessary by the Veterinary Departments of
                          Tanganyika, Rhodesia and South Africa, to prevent the cattle disease of Rinderpest
                          from spreading South.

                          When George is home however, we do relax and have fun. On the Saturday
                          before the school term started we took Kate and the boys up to the top fishing camp in
                          the Mporoto Mountains for her first attempt at trout fishing. There are three of these
                          camps built by the Mbeya Trout Association on the rivers which were first stocked with
                          the trout hatched on our farm at Mchewe. Of the three, the top camp is our favourite. The
                          scenery there is most glorious and reminds me strongly of the rivers of the Western
                          Cape which I so loved in my childhood.

                          The river, the Kawira, flows from the Rungwe Mountain through a narrow valley
                          with hills rising steeply on either side. The water runs swiftly over smooth stones and
                          sometimes only a foot or two below the level of the banks. It is sparkling and shallow,
                          but in places the water is deep and dark and the banks high. I had a busy day keeping
                          an eye on the boys, especially Jim, who twice climbed out on branches which overhung
                          deep water. “Mummy, I was only looking for trout!”

                          How those kids enjoyed the freedom of the camp after the comparative
                          restrictions of town. So did Fanny, she raced about on the hills like a mad dog chasing
                          imaginary rabbits and having the time of her life. To escape the noise and commotion
                          George had gone far upstream to fish and returned in the late afternoon with three good
                          sized trout and four smaller ones. Kate proudly showed George the two she had caught
                          with the assistance or our cook Hamisi. I fear they were caught in a rather unorthodox
                          manner but this I kept a secret from George who is a stickler for the orthodox in trout
                          fishing.

                          Eleanor.

                          Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          Here we are all together at last in England. You cannot imagine how wonderful it
                          feels to have the whole Rushby family reunited. I find myself counting heads. Ann,
                          George, Kate, John, Jim, and Henry. All present and well. We had a very pleasant trip
                          on the old British India Ship Mantola. She was crowded with East Africans going home
                          for the first time since the war, many like us, eagerly looking forward to a reunion with their
                          children whom they had not seen for years. There was a great air of anticipation and
                          good humour but a little anxiety too.

                          “I do hope our children will be glad to see us,” said one, and went on to tell me
                          about a Doctor from Dar es Salaam who, after years of separation from his son had
                          recently gone to visit him at his school. The Doctor had alighted at the railway station
                          where he had arranged to meet his son. A tall youth approached him and said, very
                          politely, “Excuse me sir. Are you my Father?” Others told me of children who had
                          become so attached to their relatives in England that they gave their parents a very cool
                          reception. I began to feel apprehensive about Ann and George but fortunately had no
                          time to mope.

                          Oh, that washing and ironing for six! I shall remember for ever that steamy little
                          laundry in the heat of the Red Sea and queuing up for the ironing and the feeling of guilt
                          at the size of my bundle. We met many old friends amongst the passengers, and made
                          some new ones, so the voyage was a pleasant one, We did however have our
                          anxious moments.

                          John was the first to disappear and we had an anxious search for him. He was
                          quite surprised that we had been concerned. “I was just talking to my friend Chinky
                          Chinaman in his workshop.” Could John have called him that? Then, when I returned to
                          the cabin from dinner one night I found Henry swigging Owbridge’s Lung Tonic. He had
                          drunk half the bottle neat and the label said ‘five drops in water’. Luckily it did not harm
                          him.

                          Jim of course was forever risking his neck. George had forbidden him to climb on
                          the railings but he was forever doing things which no one had thought of forbidding him
                          to do, like hanging from the overhead pipes on the deck or standing on the sill of a
                          window and looking down at the well deck far below. An Officer found him doing this and
                          gave me the scolding.

                          Another day he climbed up on a derrick used for hoisting cargo. George,
                          oblivious to this was sitting on the hatch cover with other passengers reading a book. I
                          was in the wash house aft on the same deck when Kate rushed in and said, “Mummy
                          come and see Jim.” Before I had time to more than gape, the butcher noticed Jim and
                          rushed out knife in hand. “Get down from there”, he bellowed. Jim got, and with such
                          speed that he caught the leg or his shorts on a projecting piece of metal. The cotton
                          ripped across the seam from leg to leg and Jim stood there for a humiliating moment in a
                          sort of revealing little kilt enduring the smiles of the passengers who had looked up from
                          their books at the butcher’s shout.

                          That incident cured Jim of his urge to climb on the ship but he managed to give
                          us one more fright. He was lost off Dover. People from whom we enquired said, “Yes
                          we saw your little boy. He was by the railings watching that big aircraft carrier.” Now Jim,
                          though mischievous , is very obedient. It was not until George and I had conducted an
                          exhaustive search above and below decks that I really became anxious. Could he have
                          fallen overboard? Jim was returned to us by an unamused Officer. He had been found
                          in one of the lifeboats on the deck forbidden to children.

                          Our ship passed Dover after dark and it was an unforgettable sight. Dover Castle
                          and the cliffs were floodlit for the Victory Celebrations. One of the men passengers sat
                          down at the piano and played ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, and people sang and a few
                          wept. The Mantola docked at Tilbury early next morning in a steady drizzle.
                          There was a dockers strike on and it took literally hours for all the luggage to be
                          put ashore. The ships stewards simply locked the public rooms and went off leaving the
                          passengers shivering on the docks. Eventually damp and bedraggled, we arrived at St
                          Pancras Station and were given a warm welcome by George’s sister Cath and her
                          husband Reg Pears, who had come all the way from Nottingham to meet us.
                          As we had to spend an hour in London before our train left for Nottingham,
                          George suggested that Cath and I should take the children somewhere for a meal. So
                          off we set in the cold drizzle, the boys and I without coats and laden with sundry
                          packages, including a hand woven native basket full of shoes. We must have looked like
                          a bunch of refugees as we stood in the hall of The Kings Cross Station Hotel because a
                          supercilious waiter in tails looked us up and down and said, “I’m afraid not Madam”, in
                          answer to my enquiry whether the hotel could provide lunch for six.
                          Anyway who cares! We had lunch instead at an ABC tea room — horrible
                          sausage and a mound or rather sloppy mashed potatoes, but very good ice-cream.
                          After the train journey in a very grimy third class coach, through an incredibly green and
                          beautiful countryside, we eventually reached Nottingham and took a bus to Jacksdale,
                          where George’s mother and sisters live in large detached houses side by side.
                          Ann and George were at the bus stop waiting for us, and thank God, submitted
                          to my kiss as though we had been parted for weeks instead of eight years. Even now
                          that we are together again my heart aches to think of all those missed years. They have
                          not changed much and I would have picked them out of a crowd, but Ann, once thin and
                          pale, is now very rosy and blooming. She still has her pretty soft plaits and her eyes are
                          still a clear calm blue. Young George is very striking looking with sparkling brown eyes, a
                          ready, slightly lopsided smile, and charming manners.

                          Mother, and George’s elder sister, Lottie Giles, welcomed us at the door with the
                          cheering news that our tea was ready. Ann showed us the way to mother’s lovely lilac
                          tiled bathroom for a wash before tea. Before I had even turned the tap, Jim had hung
                          form the glass towel rail and it lay in three pieces on the floor. There have since been
                          similar tragedies. I can see that life in civilisation is not without snags.

                          I am most grateful that Ann and George have accepted us so naturally and
                          affectionately. Ann said candidly, “Mummy, it’s a good thing that you had Aunt Cath with
                          you when you arrived because, honestly, I wouldn’t have known you.”

                          Eleanor.

                          Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          I am sorry that I have not written for some time but honestly, I don’t know whether
                          I’m coming or going. Mother handed the top floor of her house to us and the
                          arrangement was that I should tidy our rooms and do our laundry and Mother would
                          prepare the meals except for breakfast. It looked easy at first. All the rooms have wall to
                          wall carpeting and there was a large vacuum cleaner in the box room. I was told a
                          window cleaner would do the windows.

                          Well the first time I used the Hoover I nearly died of fright. I pressed the switch
                          and immediately there was a roar and the bag filled with air to bursting point, or so I
                          thought. I screamed for Ann and she came at the run. I pointed to the bag and shouted
                          above the din, “What must I do? It’s going to burst!” Ann looked at me in astonishment
                          and said, “But Mummy that’s the way it works.” I couldn’t have her thinking me a
                          complete fool so I switched the current off and explained to Ann how it was that I had
                          never seen this type of equipment in action. How, in Tanganyika , I had never had a
                          house with electricity and that, anyway, electric equipment would be superfluous
                          because floors are of cement which the houseboy polishes by hand, one only has a
                          few rugs or grass mats on the floor. “But what about Granny’s house in South Africa?’”
                          she asked, so I explained about your Josephine who threatened to leave if you
                          bought a Hoover because that would mean that you did not think she kept the house
                          clean. The sad fact remains that, at fourteen, Ann knows far more about housework than I
                          do, or rather did! I’m learning fast.

                          The older children all go to school at different times in the morning. Ann leaves first
                          by bus to go to her Grammar School at Sutton-in-Ashfield. Shortly afterwards George
                          catches a bus for Nottingham where he attends the High School. So they have
                          breakfast in relays, usually scrambled egg made from a revolting dried egg mixture.
                          Then there are beds to make and washing and ironing to do, so I have little time for
                          sightseeing, though on a few afternoons George has looked after the younger children
                          and I have gone on bus tours in Derbyshire. Life is difficult here with all the restrictions on
                          foodstuffs. We all have ration books so get our fair share but meat, fats and eggs are
                          scarce and expensive. The weather is very wet. At first I used to hang out the washing
                          and then rush to bring it in when a shower came. Now I just let it hang.

                          We have left our imprint upon my Mother-in-law’s house for ever. Henry upset a
                          bottle of Milk of Magnesia in the middle of the pale fawn bedroom carpet. John, trying to
                          be helpful and doing some dusting, broke one of the delicate Dresden china candlesticks
                          which adorn our bedroom mantelpiece.Jim and Henry have wrecked the once
                          professionally landscaped garden and all the boys together bored a large hole through
                          Mother’s prized cherry tree. So now Mother has given up and gone off to Bournemouth
                          for a much needed holiday. Once a week I have the capable help of a cleaning woman,
                          called for some reason, ‘Mrs Two’, but I have now got all the cooking to do for eight. Mrs
                          Two is a godsend. She wears, of all things, a print mob cap with a hole in it. Says it
                          belonged to her Grandmother. Her price is far beyond Rubies to me, not so much
                          because she does, in a couple of hours, what it takes me all day to do, but because she
                          sells me boxes of fifty cigarettes. Some non-smoking relative, who works in Players
                          tobacco factory, passes on his ration to her. Until Mrs Two came to my rescue I had
                          been starved of cigarettes. Each time I asked for them at the shop the grocer would say,
                          “Are you registered with us?” Only very rarely would some kindly soul sell me a little
                          packet of five Woodbines.

                          England is very beautiful but the sooner we go home to Tanganyika, the better.
                          On this, George and I and the children agree.

                          Eleanor.

                          Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          Our return passages have now been booked on the Winchester Castle and we
                          sail from Southampton on October the sixth. I look forward to returning to Tanganyika but
                          hope to visit England again in a few years time when our children are older and when
                          rationing is a thing of the past.

                          I have grown fond of my Sisters-in-law and admire my Mother-in-law very much.
                          She has a great sense of humour and has entertained me with stories of her very
                          eventful life, and told me lots of little stories of the children which did not figure in her
                          letters. One which amused me was about young George. During one of the air raids
                          early in the war when the sirens were screaming and bombers roaring overhead Mother
                          made the two children get into the cloak cupboard under the stairs. Young George
                          seemed quite unconcerned about the planes and the bombs but soon an anxious voice
                          asked in the dark, “Gran, what will I do if a spider falls on me?” I am afraid that Mother is
                          going to miss Ann and George very much.

                          I had a holiday last weekend when Lottie and I went up to London on a spree. It
                          was a most enjoyable weekend, though very rushed. We placed ourselves in the
                          hands of Thos. Cook and Sons and saw most of the sights of London and were run off
                          our feet in the process. As you all know London I shall not describe what I saw but just
                          to say that, best of all, I enjoyed walking along the Thames embankment in the evening
                          and the changing of the Guard at Whitehall. On Sunday morning Lottie and I went to
                          Kew Gardens and in the afternoon walked in Kensington Gardens.

                          We went to only one show, ‘The Skin of our Teeth’ starring Vivienne Leigh.
                          Neither of us enjoyed the performance at all and regretted having spent so much on
                          circle seats. The show was far too highbrow for my taste, a sort of satire on the survival
                          of the human race. Miss Leigh was unrecognisable in a blond wig and her voice strident.
                          However the night was not a dead loss as far as entertainment was concerned as we
                          were later caught up in a tragicomedy at our hotel.

                          We had booked communicating rooms at the enormous Imperial Hotel in Russell
                          Square. These rooms were comfortably furnished but very high up, and we had a rather
                          terrifying and dreary view from the windows of the enclosed courtyard far below. We
                          had some snacks and a chat in Lottie’s room and then I moved to mine and went to bed.
                          I had noted earlier that there was a special lock on the outer door of my room so that
                          when the door was closed from the inside it automatically locked itself.
                          I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a hammering which seemed to
                          come from my wardrobe. I got up, rather fearfully, and opened the wardrobe door and
                          noted for the first time that the wardrobe was set in an opening in the wall and that the
                          back of the wardrobe also served as the back of the wardrobe in the room next door. I
                          quickly shut it again and went to confer with Lottie.

                          Suddenly a male voice was raised next door in supplication, “Mary Mother of
                          God, Help me! They’ve locked me in!” and the hammering resumed again, sometimes
                          on the door, and then again on the back of the wardrobe of the room next door. Lottie
                          had by this time joined me and together we listened to the prayers and to the
                          hammering. Then the voice began to threaten, “If you don’t let me out I’ll jump out of the
                          window.” Great consternation on our side of the wall. I went out into the passage and
                          called through the door, “You’re not locked in. Come to your door and I’ll tell you how to
                          open it.” Silence for a moment and then again the prayers followed by a threat. All the
                          other doors in the corridor remained shut.

                          Luckily just then a young man and a woman came walking down the corridor and I
                          explained the situation. The young man hurried off for the night porter who went into the
                          next door room. In a matter of minutes there was peace next door. When the night
                          porter came out into the corridor again I asked for an explanation. He said quite casually,
                          “It’s all right Madam. He’s an Irish Gentleman in Show Business. He gets like this on a
                          Saturday night when he has had a drop too much. He won’t give any more trouble
                          now.” And he didn’t. Next morning at breakfast Lottie and I tried to spot the gentleman in
                          the Show Business, but saw no one who looked like the owner of that charming Irish
                          voice.

                          George had to go to London on business last Monday and took the older
                          children with him for a few hours of sight seeing. They returned quite unimpressed.
                          Everything was too old and dirty and there were far too many people about, but they
                          had enjoyed riding on the escalators at the tube stations, and all agreed that the highlight
                          of the trip was, “Dad took us to lunch at the Chicken Inn.”

                          Now that it is almost time to leave England I am finding the housework less of a
                          drudgery, Also, as it is school holiday time, Jim and Henry are able to go on walks with
                          the older children and so use up some of their surplus energy. Cath and I took the
                          children (except young George who went rabbit shooting with his uncle Reg, and
                          Henry, who stayed at home with his dad) to the Wakes at Selston, the neighbouring
                          village. There were the roundabouts and similar contraptions but the side shows had
                          more appeal for the children. Ann and Kate found a stall where assorted prizes were
                          spread out on a sloping table. Anyone who could land a penny squarely on one of
                          these objects was given a similar one as a prize.

                          I was touched to see that both girls ignored all the targets except a box of fifty
                          cigarettes which they were determined to win for me. After numerous attempts, Kate
                          landed her penny successfully and you would have loved to have seen her radiant little
                          face.

                          Eleanor.

                          Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          Back in Tanganyika at last, but not together. We have to stay in Dar es Salaam
                          until tomorrow when the train leaves for Dodoma. We arrived yesterday morning to find
                          all the hotels filled with people waiting to board ships for England. Fortunately some
                          friends came to the rescue and Ann, Kate and John have gone to stay with them. Jim,
                          Henry and I are sleeping in a screened corner of the lounge of the New Africa Hotel, and
                          George and young George have beds in the Palm Court of the same hotel.

                          We travelled out from England in the Winchester Castle under troopship
                          conditions. We joined her at Southampton after a rather slow train journey from
                          Nottingham. We arrived after dark and from the station we could see a large ship in the
                          docks with a floodlit red funnel. “Our ship,” yelled the children in delight, but it was not the
                          Winchester Castle but the Queen Elizabeth, newly reconditioned.

                          We had hoped to board our ship that evening but George made enquiries and
                          found that we would not be allowed on board until noon next day. Without much hope,
                          we went off to try to get accommodation for eight at a small hotel recommended by the
                          taxi driver. Luckily for us there was a very motherly woman at the reception desk. She
                          looked in amusement at the six children and said to me, “Goodness are all these yours,
                          ducks? Then she called over her shoulder, “Wilf, come and see this lady with lots of
                          children. We must try to help.” They settled the problem most satisfactorily by turning
                          two rooms into a dormitory.

                          In the morning we had time to inspect bomb damage in the dock area of
                          Southampton. Most of the rubble had been cleared away but there are still numbers of
                          damaged buildings awaiting demolition. A depressing sight. We saw the Queen Mary
                          at anchor, still in her drab war time paint, but magnificent nevertheless.
                          The Winchester Castle was crammed with passengers and many travelled in
                          acute discomfort. We were luckier than most because the two girls, the three small boys
                          and I had a stateroom to ourselves and though it was stripped of peacetime comforts,
                          we had a private bathroom and toilet. The two Georges had bunks in a huge men-only
                          dormitory somewhere in the bowls of the ship where they had to share communal troop
                          ship facilities. The food was plentiful but unexciting and one had to queue for afternoon
                          tea. During the day the decks were crowded and there was squatting room only. The
                          many children on board got bored.

                          Port Said provided a break and we were all entertained by the ‘Gully Gully’ man
                          and his conjuring tricks, and though we had no money to spend at Simon Artz, we did at
                          least have a chance to stretch our legs. Next day scores of passengers took ill with
                          sever stomach upsets, whether from food poisoning, or as was rumoured, from bad
                          water taken on at the Egyptian port, I don’t know. Only the two Georges in our family
                          were affected and their attacks were comparatively mild.

                          As we neared the Kenya port of Mombassa, the passengers for Dar es Salaam
                          were told that they would have to disembark at Mombassa and continue their journey in
                          a small coaster, the Al Said. The Winchester Castle is too big for the narrow channel
                          which leads to Dar es Salaam harbour.

                          From the wharf the Al Said looked beautiful. She was once the private yacht of
                          the Sultan of Zanzibar and has lovely lines. Our admiration lasted only until we were
                          shown our cabins. With one voice our children exclaimed, “Gosh they stink!” They did, of
                          a mixture of rancid oil and sweat and stale urine. The beds were not yet made and the
                          thin mattresses had ominous stains on them. John, ever fastidious, lifted his mattress and two enormous cockroaches scuttled for cover.

                          We had a good homely lunch served by two smiling African stewards and
                          afterwards we sat on deck and that was fine too, though behind ones enjoyment there
                          was the thought of those stuffy and dirty cabins. That first night nearly everyone,
                          including George and our older children, slept on deck. Women occupied deck chairs
                          and men and children slept on the bare decks. Horrifying though the idea was, I decided
                          that, as Jim had a bad cough, he, Henry and I would sleep in our cabin.

                          When I announced my intention of sleeping in the cabin one of the passengers
                          gave me some insecticide spray which I used lavishly, but without avail. The children
                          slept but I sat up all night with the light on, determined to keep at least their pillows clear
                          of the cockroaches which scurried about boldly regardless of the light. All the next day
                          and night we avoided the cabins. The Al Said stopped for some hours at Zanzibar to
                          offload her deck cargo of live cattle and packing cases from the hold. George and the
                          elder children went ashore for a walk but I felt too lazy and there was plenty to watch
                          from deck.

                          That night I too occupied a deck chair and slept quite comfortably, and next
                          morning we entered the palm fringed harbour of Dar es Salaam and were home.

                          Eleanor.

                          Mbeya 1st November 1946

                          Dearest Family.

                          Home at last! We are all most happily installed in a real family house about three
                          miles out of Mbeya and near the school. This house belongs to an elderly German and
                          has been taken over by the Custodian of Enemy Property and leased to the
                          Government.

                          The owner, whose name is Shenkel, was not interned but is allowed to occupy a
                          smaller house on the Estate. I found him in the garden this morning lecturing the children
                          on what they may do and may not do. I tried to make it quite clear to him that he was not
                          our landlord, though he clearly thinks otherwise. After he had gone I had to take two
                          aspirin and lie down to recover my composure! I had been warned that he has this effect
                          on people.

                          Mr Shenkel is a short and ugly man, his clothes are stained with food and he
                          wears steel rimmed glasses tied round his head with a piece of dirty elastic because
                          one earpiece is missing. He speaks with a thick German accent but his English is fluent
                          and I believe he is a cultured and clever man. But he is maddening. The children were
                          more amused than impressed by his exhortations and have happily Christened our
                          home, ‘Old Shenks’.

                          The house has very large grounds as the place is really a derelict farm. It suits us
                          down to the ground. We had no sooner unpacked than George went off on safari after
                          those maneating lions in the Njombe District. he accounted for one, and a further two
                          jointly with a Game Scout, before we left for England. But none was shot during the five
                          months we were away as George’s relief is quite inexperienced in such work. George
                          thinks that there are still about a dozen maneaters at large. His theory is that a female
                          maneater moved into the area in 1938 when maneating first started, and brought up her
                          cubs to be maneaters, and those cubs in turn did the same. The three maneating lions
                          that have been shot were all in very good condition and not old and maimed as
                          maneaters usually are.

                          George anticipates that it will be months before all these lions are accounted for
                          because they are constantly on the move and cover a very large area. The lions have to
                          be hunted on foot because they range over broken country covered by bush and fairly
                          dense thicket.

                          I did a bit of shooting myself yesterday and impressed our African servants and
                          the children and myself. What a fluke! Our houseboy came to say that there was a snake
                          in the garden, the biggest he had ever seen. He said it was too big to kill with a stick and
                          would I shoot it. I had no gun but a heavy .450 Webley revolver and I took this and
                          hurried out with the children at my heels.

                          The snake turned out to be an unusually large puff adder which had just shed its
                          skin. It looked beautiful in a repulsive way. So flanked by servants and children I took
                          aim and shot, not hitting the head as I had planned, but breaking the snake’s back with
                          the heavy bullet. The two native boys then rushed up with sticks and flattened the head.
                          “Ma you’re a crack shot,” cried the kids in delighted surprise. I hope to rest on my laurels
                          for a long, long while.

                          Although there are only a few weeks of school term left the four older children will
                          start school on Monday. Not only am I pleased with our new home here but also with
                          the staff I have engaged. Our new houseboy, Reuben, (but renamed Robin by our
                          children) is not only cheerful and willing but intelligent too, and Jumbe, the wood and
                          garden boy, is a born clown and a source of great entertainment to the children.

                          I feel sure that we are all going to be very happy here at ‘Old Shenks!.

                          Eleanor.

                          #6266
                          TracyTracy
                          Participant

                            From Tanganyika with Love

                            continued part 7

                            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                            Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Mbulu. 30th September 1938

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Mbulu. 25th October 1938

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Iringa. 30th November 1938

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 14th February 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 28th February 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 25th March 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 28th April 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Nzassa 5th August 1939

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Morogoro 14th September 1939

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Morogoro 4th November 1939

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Iringa 8th December 1939

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Morogoro 10th March 1940

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Morogoro 14th July 1940

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                            Morogoro 16th November 1940

                            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                            Eleanor.

                             

                            #6265
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              From Tanganyika with Love

                              continued  ~ part 6

                              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                              Mchewe 6th June 1937

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                              With much love,
                              Eleanor.

                              Mchewe 25th June 1937

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Lots of love,
                              Eleanor.

                              Mchewe 9th July 1937

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor

                              Mchewe 8th October 1937

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Mchewe 17th October 1937

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Mchewe 18th November 1937

                              My darling Ann,

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

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

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

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

                              Mchewe 18th November 1937

                              Hello George Darling,

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

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

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

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

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

                              Mchewe 12th February, 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Mbulu 18th March, 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Mbulu 24th March, 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Mbulu 20th June 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Karatu 3rd July 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Karatu 12th July 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Oldeani. 19th July 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Oldeani. 10th August 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Oldeani. 20th August 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              Oldeani Hospital. 9th September 1938

                              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                              Eleanor.

                              #6263
                              TracyTracy
                              Participant

                                From Tanganyika with Love

                                continued  ~ part 4

                                With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                                Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                                With much love,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                                Heaps of love to all,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                Lots of love,
                                Eleanor

                                Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                With heaps of love,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
                                Eleanor

                                Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

                                Lots and lots of love,
                                Eleanor

                                Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                                Your very affectionate,
                                Eleanor

                                Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

                                With love to you all,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                                Much love to you all,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

                                Your worried but affectionate,
                                Eleanor.

                                Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

                                Much love,
                                Eleanor.

                                Mchewe. 12th November 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                Lots and lots of love to all,
                                Eleanor.

                                Chunya 27th November 1936

                                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                Much love to all,
                                Eleanor.

                                 

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