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  • #7391

    Jeezel didn’t really have time to go back to her routine after the Brasilian shambles. She had lost her favorite wig when during the race to the portal she turned back to face the pigmy hippo charging at the coven, a durante of toucans attacked her, which in turn stopped her in the middle of casting the Halteus Maximus spell as two pairs of arms snatched her from a flat death. She learned later that it was Truella and Eris who caught her arms. Her wig had fallen and they didn’t allow her go back to pick it up. Seeing the hippo trample her wig in the mud broke her heart.

    “Jeez! We need you to open the portal!”

    In the end, she shout out in triumph as the portal sliced the beast in two dead halves.

    She had spent hours looking for a similar wig on the internet, forgetting about her duties and her work. But it had finally arrived and she was ready to resume. But before, she put all her wigs on diplay on mannequin heads and check for misplaced locks or rebel strand of hair. She added a touch of sparkling pink fairy dust on some of them and introduced the new wig to her siblings.

    “Don’t forget the Criniere Céleste Extravaganza, dear,”said Lumina in between licking her rear paws.

    “I was going to,” said Jeezel a bit irritated.

    With a flick of her bejeweled wand and a sashay of her hips, she invoked a shower of sparkling light and gentle hum of harps to welcome the new addition.

    “Adorn my collection with splendor anew, bring forth the beauty, both fierce and true…”

    The wig started to levitate, glowing with a divine aura before delicately settling down into its rightful place among its fabulous brethren.

    Now everything was ready for her next show.

    #7377

    With the carnival in full swing, Truella was finding it hard to focus on everything that was going on. Was this mission more chaotic than usual, or did it seem that way because she wasn’t giving it her full attention?  She hadn’t thought too much about Jezeel not closing the portal.  She was having enough trouble stabilizing her own bilocation spell.

    Where was Frigella when she needed her?   And what was going on with that Cedric guy? Truella decided to go in search of her. Frigella was always good at explaining and clarifying things that she hadn’t been paying attention to.

    Outside on the pavement, Truella paused to light a cigarette.  The street were a cocophany of raucus banter and gay shreiks, a riot of colour and imagination and Truella stood rapt at the sights and sounds. Such a contrast from her quiet life at home in the garden with only ghosts for company.  In a way Truella was glad that Roger was still missing with the pack of monkeys, rather than leaving him alone at home.

    “Aye, look at all them monkey costumes, our Mavis, they’m really good int they, look just like real monkeys,” a chubby Englishwoman in a garish pink outfit said, passing by where Truella was standing.

    “That’s because they ARE real monkeys, ya daft cow,” retorted her companion.  “And they’re all following that big fella.”

    Ooh, that big burly chap?” piped up the third woman in the group. “I clocked him right off, come on girls, let’s go after the big boy.”

    Ooh, Sha, what are you like, ya tart.”

    As the three women cackled and trotted off after the monkeys, Truella’s peaceful interlude came to an abrupt halt.  What burly man with a pack of monkeys?  Surely not, surely Roger and his monkeys hadn’t entered that portal that Jez forgot to close?

    #7359

    Head witch Malové must have been used to it, for having seen that magic at play a number of times… there was nothing like the strange serendipity of chaos.

    After the smoke had finally cleared, Malové couldn’t bear to stand amidst the wreckage of their once impeccably arranged ritual space. She looked at the mess, the sheer ridiculousness of it all, and decided to go for a brisk walk in the streets of Limerick. The light drizzle and sharp sting of the winter air brought back some pink to her pale face. To cover her perfectly coiffed head, he wrapped her shawl, black and shiny as a dung beetle, and moved swiftly cutting through the crowds effortlessly, parting the human congeries like Moses did the Red Sea. She was never unnoticed; her tall lean silhouette, accentuated by the sleek robe noire, the vertigo of her stiletto, the cheekbones so sharp they could kill — there was nothing common about her frame; and after the years, and all the side glances, she’d clearly lost practice on how to give a damn.

    It was at the turn of a dark corner illuminated by the neon sign of a Chinese local eatery under which the delivery guy was having a break that the synchronicity stuck her. A slow smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. From chaos, clarity had emerged.

    Vaping, hookah, e-cigarettes —all the rage among the mindless masses. And there, in the plumes of artificially flavoured smoke, was their opportunity. A new way to infiltrate the consciousness of the people, to subtly attune their energies and guide them towards emotional management —or at the very least, less stupidity.

    She imagined their Incense —the sacred concoctions of herbs and essences, entwined with potent spells— being drawn into eager lungs, seeping into the bloodstream, entangling with the very atoms of their being, a sweet balm better than the usual deleterious micro-plastics. The witches wouldn’t just be casting spells; they’d be weaving their magic into the fabric of life itself, one puff at a time.

    The more she thought about it, the brighter the idea seemed. It was audacious, unconventional, bordering on scandalous. A few days ago maybe, she would have balked at the mere thought. But desperate times called for this… elegant, simply perfect. For the witches of the Quadrivium Coven of Mystiques, she had even less doubts or concerns about warming them up to such iconoclastic idea. She knew a group of them, those black sheep never to shy away from a little controversy. And if they could use the vaping trend to spread their influence, then why not? Enough with surviving on the Chinese New Year only, the whole world was ripe for extended incensing.

    #7253
    AvatarJib
    Participant

      A scream not unlike those of Irish Banshees made Roberto jump and inadvertently cut the head of the duck shaped box tree he was tending to and had been carefully shaping for years. He looked, first, horrified at the headless duck, then towards the manor, from where the scream had originated. The grand patio door was open and revealed Finnley standing behind the pink furred sofa. He could only see her back. She was wearing green dungarees that oddly gave her an adventurous Lara Croft look. She brandished her duster and plunger like a pair of combat knives in front of Godfrey and a disheveled Liz. Godfrey picked up a book and frowned.
      All he could make were two words “Dung” and “rat”. Could that be related to that time when Liz asked him to find a solution for the rat she had spotted several times near the pool? Did Finnley find rat dungs somewhere? Roberto thought the problem would have been resolved with the poisonous wheat, but he never found a body.

      He looked again at Finnley, Godfrey and Liz. Seeing them all agitated, an idea started to sprout in his mind. The inauguration of Tatler’s Roman Villa was near. Walter Melon had responded positively to his suggestion. Maybe he could find special someones for the other two too. His abuela had always told him he had a knack for finding missing pieces.

      He picked up the duck’s head and put it back on top of the box tree. He pouted. Could a piece of wire and some special glue do the trick? There might be another solution. The duck’s body just looked like a whale calf.

      #7217
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        “Well now, Godfrey,” said Liz, who was trying to get up to speed with the latest developments her editor had been pondering in his journal, “And who might this potential new husband be?  It’s a wonder you didn’t have me dressed in a pink satin nightgown with ostrich feather mules.  Let me guess!” she  added with a flash of inspiration. “Will it involve a thread jump?”   Liz winked conspiratorialy at Roberto and then frowned. “You look fed up darling, why don’t you take the day off? Forget the gardening, the bees will thank you for it. Be a dear and go and wake Finnley up, heaven only knows why she sleeps all day and stays up all night.”

        #7163
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          Aunt Idle

          Contention 

          Endless legal squabbling,
          Eventually it comes to blows.
          Zhang Ji has a speech defect,
          Hair loose, turning northward.

          I don’t know what the dickens that I Ching is supposed to mean, I was hoping it would give me a clue about that new guest.  There’s something about her but I can’t put my finger on it. I must remember to ask Bert about her, see if he’s noticed anything funny. Not that she’s acting funny, not unusual for a guest who’s travelled far to get here ~ and anyone getting here has travelled, let’s face it ~ to stay in their room catching up on sleep, but I don’t know, there is something niggling me about her. I barely caught a glimpse of her but she seemed familiar somehow.  I’ll ask Bert, but we’re all so busy now what with the lager and cart race coming up, and those four friends staying, and god only knows when that dust storm comes what we’re supposed to do to entertain them all when they can’t go outside, and they’ll be expecting poor old Finly to keep the place dusted and the windows cleaned.   I sometimes think I prefered it here when nobody hardly came.

          Hardly got a moment to myself and our Prune is up to something but god knows I don’t have time to follow her around, and there’s no weaseling anything out of her when she’s got one of her secret missions going on.  Mater’s pulled her finger out, it has to be said, she’s been as good as gold with the guests, she can turn the old dear charm on when she wants to, and she’s pulled out all the stops playing the gracious hostess, and I can’t say a word against good old Finly. She’s a cheeky minx when we’re not busy but she’s been a real trooper.  I think I’ll speak to Mater about a little bonus for her.   Yes, I think that might sweeten her up for when I ask her to do my roots tomorrow which reminds me to put pink dye on Berts list for when he goes to Alice in the morning.

          Honestly there’s too much to think about, I haven’t had a minute to get a costume ready for the cart race, maybe I’ll ask the twins.  Gotta say it, they’ve been brilliant organizing the cart decorating with the four friends. They’re a lovely group, I just wish I had more time to hang out with them, especially the big guy, oh my.  Maybe after the cart race, anything can happen after a cart race, lord knows ~ it was after a cart race in a dust storm that Howard and I had a fling and thank god Betsy never found out, she’s have had my guts for garters and nobody would have blamed her.  I still wonder what happened to Howard. We always had a soft spot for each other, but he felt so guilty he never strayed from Betsy again. I’d have been game, I’ll be honest, but I didn’t push it.  Betsy was a big girl back in those days, but nowhere near as big as she is now. Must be hard for her wondering what happened to her husband all these years, no wonder she got sucked into all that mumbo jumbo and stuffing her chops all day long.

          And not being able to claim the inheritance that would have been Howards, that must have been hard.  They could have lived in the lap of luxury for the rest of their lives when Howard’s father died, and he hasn’t died yet, must be pushing 90 by now.  I know she’s hoping Howard didn’t die in the mines ~ obviously ~ and that he’ll come back one day somehow, and you can bet your bottom dollar she’s hoping he comes back before the old man dies and it all gets left to someone else.

          That new guest went in Betsy’s before she even checked in here,  Corrie saw her, I guess she’s into mumbo jumbo in a big way if she had to get supplies of crystals or amulets or whatever they sell in there, before checking in to the hotel.

          #6625

          Aunt Idle

          I had an idea to take them breakfast in bed but I overslept. Especially the big muscley one with the dark glowering looks, I tell you, ooof!  Haven’t seen men like that around here in I don’t know how long. The cheeky looking blond one looked a bit of alright too. Bit too young for me though. Well, no, not too young for me at all, just that I reckon I look way too old for them.  Nice to see some new faces about the place.  Nice gals, too. Seems to be a bit of life coming back to the old place, and there’ll be a bunch of people coming in for the cart and lager race.   I think I might dye my roots, get rid of the grey. Hot pink maybe, do a few dreads to match, brighten myself up.

          #6621

          In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

          As the four of them walked into the tavern, having walked the mile or so from the Flying Fish Inn to the main street of the tiny town, Zara noticed the black BMW that she and Yasmin had seen parked outside the Piggly supermarket on the way back from the airport in Alice.  She elbowed Yasmin in the ribs to point it out, but there was no need as Yasmin was already snorting nervously at the sight of it.

          black bmw

           

          Sister Finli caught sight of them as she was just about to leave Betsy’s gem shop and paused until they’d disappeared into the bar before leaving the shop.   It was the first time that Finli had seen Betsy in the flesh, and what a lot of flesh there was to see.   Finli was horrifed, comparing her own elegant thin fingers with the fat sausage like digits of Betsy.  She would never have expected Betsy to look this way. Still, it had thrown her, and she lost her usual efficient composure and quickly purchased a pink speckled gummy bear necklace.  Annoyingly, this transaction reminded her that she seemed to have lost her crucifix.

          Finli was an orphan.  The nuns had named her Finean Lisa. Finean meant beautiful daughter, and Lisa meant devoted to god.  Later they shortened it to Finli.  She’d spent all her life at the orphanage in Suva, having been deposited there at birth, and although she had no particular calling to be a nun, she had not known what else to do with her life.  It was the only family she’d ever known, and so she stayed on.  It was only in the past year or two that she’d had any curiosity about who her real parents were, when she read about DNA tests and ancestry research. She’d been told in the past that no records existed as she had been found on the doorstep of the orphanage one morning 43 years ago.  The knowledge had filled her with comtempt for her parents, whoever they were,  and for the most part she pushed them from her mind, not caring to know.  But when she read about all the successes of adopted people finding their real parents, she was consumed with curiosity. At first she just wanted to know who they were. But once she had found their names, she wanted to know more. She wanted to know why.  One thing led to another.

          Her real father had disappeared, lost down some mines although the story there was far from clear.  Indeed, that particular story was a darn sight more than unclear, it was downright fishy.  Her real mother was was alive and kicking, and living near to the mines where Howard had disappeared. Finli deduced that she must have been born, or at least conceived, in this godforsaken place in the outback.  What an ignominous start to her uneventful life.

          She knew that Fred was her uncle, but she had not told him she knew that. Did Fred know who she was? He’d always been kind to her, but then, he was affable to everyone.   When it came to her knowledge that Fred had given that tiresome snorting volunteer girl a parcel to take with her, to, of all places! that very town in the outback, Finli simply had to know what was in it.  But she didn’t want to spill the beans too soon, in case it hindered her attempts to find the truth about Howard, her father.   She decided to travel to the town incognito.  But how was she going to find the money for it?  Well, she knew she was burning her bridges, but she had to do it. She stole the golden chalice from the church and sold it on Ubay.  She was suprised at how much money it fetched. Not only could she afford the trip, she could do it in style.

          It was an exciting adventure, but Finli was not accustomed to travel and adventure. In fact, she was dreading meeting her mother.   At times she wished she’d just stayed at the orphanage.  But it was too late now. She was here.

          Finli

          #6507

          In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

          To Youssef’s standards, a plane was never big and Flight AL357 was even smaller. When he found his seat, he had to ask a sweaty Chinese man and a snorting woman in a suit with a bowl cut and pink almond shaped glasses to move out so he could squeeze himself in the small space allotted to economy class passengers. On his right, an old lady looked at the size of his arms and almost lost her teeth. She snapped her mouth shut just in time and returned quickly to her magazine. Her hands were trembling and Youssef couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or something else.

          The pilote announced they were ready to leave and Youssef sighed with relief. Which was short lived when he got the first bump on the back of his seat. He looked back, apologising to the woman with the bowl cut on his left. Behind him was a kid wearing a false moustache and chewing like a cow. He was swinging his tiny legs, hitting the back of Youssef’s seat with the regularity of a metronome. The kid blew his gum until the bubble exploded. The mother looked ready to open fire if Youssef started to complain. He turned back again and tried to imagine he was getting a massage in one of those Japanese shiatsu chairs you find in some airports.

          The woman in front of him had thrown her very blond hair atop her seat and it was all over his screen. The old lady looked at him and offered him a gum. He wondered how she could chew gums with her false teeth, and kindly declined. The woman with the bowl cut and pink glasses started to talk to her sweaty neighbour in Chinese. The man looked at Youssef as if he had been caught by a tiger and was going to get eaten alive. His eyes were begging for help.

          As the plane started to move, the old woman started to talk.

          « Hi, I’m Gladys. I am afraid of flying, she said. Can I hold your hand during take off ? »

          After another bump on his back, Youssef sighed. It was going to be a long flight for everyone.

          As soon as they had gained altitude, Youssef let go of the old woman’s hand. She hadn’t stopped talking about her daughter and how she was going to be happy to see her again. The flight attendant passed by with a trolley and offered them a drink and a bag of peanuts. The old woman took a glass of red wine. Youssef was tempted to take a coke and dip the hair of the woman in front of him in it. He had seen a video on LooTube recently with a girl in a similar situation. She had stuck gum and lollypops in the hair of her nemesis, dipped a few strands in her soda and clipped strands randomly with her nail cutter. He could ask the old woman one of her gums, but thought that if a girl could do it, it would certainly not go well for him if he tried.

          Instead he asked the flight attendant if there was wifi on board. Sadly there was none. He had hoped at least the could play the game and catch up with his friends during that long flight to Sydney.

          :fleuron:

          When the doors opened, Youssef thought he was free of them all. He was tired, his back hurt, and he couldn’t sleep because the kid behind him kept crying and kicking, the food looked like it had been regurgitated twice by a yak, and the old chatty woman had drained his batteries. She said she wouldn’t sleep on a plane because she had to put her dentures in a glass for hygiene reasons and feared someone would steal them while she had her eyes closed.

          He walked with long strides in the corridors up to the custom counters and picked a line, eager to put as much distance between him and the other passengers. Xavier had sent him a message saying he was arriving in Sydney in a few hours. Youssef thought it would be nice to change his flight so that they could go together to Alice Spring. He could do some time with a friend for a change.

          His bushy hair stood on end when he heard the voice of the old woman just behind him. He wondered how she had managed to catch up so fast. He saw a small cart driving away.

          « I wanted to tell, Gladys said, it was such a nice flight in your company. How long have you before your flight to Alice? We can have a coffee together. »

          Youssef mentally said sorry to his friend. He couldn’t wait for the next flight.

          #6383
          EricEric
          Keymaster

            GODFREY! Come right here this instant!” Liz was infuriated and had to restrain herself not to throw the bound manuscript at her confidente’s face when he emerged from the corridor into her pink boudoir.

            “What is it Liz my dear?”

            “What is this horrible thing that has my name on it?” she showed the manuscript. “It has no zest whatsoever, it’s so neat, and linear, tidy, continuous… It’s insufferably perfect! And those main characters, ugh… Young, and flawless, perfect in every sense it’s unbearable!”

            “I have something to confess Liz’… Since Finnley has started her new business ventures… wait, don’t shout yet… I had to try some of this AI generated stuff. I thought the title ‘Adventures in the Uncanny Valley’ would have been a give-away…”

            Elizabeth Tattler was at a loss for words… The only thing she could blurt out ultimately was “FIND ME FINNLEY!!”

            #6267
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              continued part 8

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              Morogoro 20th January 1941

              Dearest Family,

              It is all arranged for us to go on three months leave to Cape Town next month so
              get out your flags. How I shall love showing off Kate and John to you and this time
              George will be with us and you’ll be able to get to know him properly. You can’t think
              what a comfort it will be to leave all the worries of baggage and tipping to him. We will all
              be travelling by ship to Durban and from there to Cape Town by train. I rather dread the
              journey because there is a fifth little Rushby on the way and, as always, I am very
              queasy.

              Kate has become such a little companion to me that I dread the thought of leaving
              her behind with you to start schooling. I miss Ann and George so much now and must
              face separation from Kate as well. There does not seem to be any alternative though.
              There is a boarding school in Arusha and another has recently been started in Mbeya,
              but both places are so far away and I know she would be very unhappy as a boarder at
              this stage. Living happily with you and attending a day school might wean her of her
              dependance upon me. As soon as this wretched war ends we mean to get Ann and
              George back home and Kate too and they can then all go to boarding school together.
              If I were a more methodical person I would try to teach Kate myself, but being a
              muddler I will have my hands full with Johnny and the new baby. Life passes pleasantly
              but quietly here. Much of my time is taken up with entertaining the children and sewing
              for them and just waiting for George to come home.

              George works so hard on these safaris and this endless elephant hunting to
              protect native crops entails so much foot safari, that he has lost a good deal of weight. it
              is more than ten years since he had a holiday so he is greatly looking forward to this one.
              Four whole months together!

              I should like to keep the ayah, Janet, for the new baby, but she says she wants
              to return to her home in the Southern Highlands Province and take a job there. She is
              unusually efficient and so clean, and the houseboy and cook are quite scared of her. She
              bawls at them if the children’s meals are served a few minutes late but she is always
              respectful towards me and practically creeps around on tiptoe when George is home.
              She has a room next to the outside kitchen. One night thieves broke into the kitchen and
              stole a few things, also a canvas chair and mat from the verandah. Ayah heard them, and
              grabbing a bit of firewood, she gave chase. Her shouts so alarmed the thieves that they
              ran off up the hill jettisoning their loot as they ran. She is a great character.

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 30th July 1941

              Dearest Family,

              Safely back in Morogoro after a rather grim voyage from Durban. Our ship was
              completely blacked out at night and we had to sleep with warm clothing and life belts
              handy and had so many tedious boat drills. It was a nuisance being held up for a whole
              month in Durban, because I was so very pregnant when we did embark. In fact George
              suggested that I had better hide in the ‘Ladies’ until the ship sailed for fear the Captain
              might refuse to take me. It seems that the ship, on which we were originally booked to
              travel, was torpedoed somewhere off the Cape.

              We have been given a very large house this tour with a mosquito netted
              sleeping porch which will be fine for the new baby. The only disadvantage is that the
              house is on the very edge of the residential part of Morogoro and Johnny will have to
              go quite a distance to find playmates.

              I still miss Kate terribly. She is a loving little person. I had prepared for a scene
              when we said good-bye but I never expected that she would be the comforter. It
              nearly broke my heart when she put her arms around me and said, “I’m so sorry
              Mummy, please don’t cry. I’ll be good. Please don’t cry.” I’m afraid it was all very
              harrowing for you also. It is a great comfort to hear that she has settled down so happily.
              I try not to think consciously of my absent children and remind myself that there are
              thousands of mothers in the same boat, but they are always there at the back of my
              mind.

              Mother writes that Ann and George are perfectly happy and well, and that though
              German bombers do fly over fairly frequently, they are unlikely to drop their bombs on
              a small place like Jacksdale.

              George has already left on safari to the Rufiji. There was no replacement for his
              job while he was away so he is anxious to get things moving again. Johnny and I are
              going to move in with friends until he returns, just in case all the travelling around brings
              the new baby on earlier than expected.

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 26th August 1941

              Dearest Family,

              Our new son, James Caleb. was born at 3.30 pm yesterday afternoon, with a
              minimum of fuss, in the hospital here. The Doctor was out so my friend, Sister Murray,
              delivered the baby. The Sister is a Scots girl, very efficient and calm and encouraging,
              and an ideal person to have around at such a time.

              Everything, this time, went without a hitch and I feel fine and proud of my
              bouncing son. He weighs nine pounds and ten ounces and is a big boned fellow with
              dark hair and unusually strongly marked eyebrows. His eyes are strong too and already
              seem to focus. George is delighted with him and brought Hugh Nelson to see him this
              morning. Hugh took one look, and, astonished I suppose by the baby’s apparent
              awareness, said, “Gosh, this one has been here before.” The baby’s cot is beside my
              bed so I can admire him as much as I please. He has large strong hands and George
              reckons he’ll make a good boxer some day.

              Another of my early visitors was Mabemba, George’s orderly. He is a very big
              African and looks impressive in his Game Scouts uniform. George met him years ago at
              Mahenge when he was a young elephant hunter and Mabemba was an Askari in the
              Police. Mabemba takes quite a proprietary interest in the family.

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 25th December 1941

              Dearest Family,

              Christmas Day today, but not a gay one. I have Johnny in bed with a poisoned
              leg so he missed the children’s party at the Club. To make things a little festive I have
              put up a little Christmas tree in the children’s room and have hung up streamers and
              balloons above the beds. Johnny demands a lot of attention so it is fortunate that little
              James is such a very good baby. He sleeps all night until 6 am when his feed is due.
              One morning last week I got up as usual to feed him but I felt so dopey that I
              thought I’d better have a cold wash first. I went into the bathroom and had a hurried
              splash and then grabbed a towel to dry my face. Immediately I felt an agonising pain in
              my nose. Reason? There was a scorpion in the towel! In no time at all my nose looked
              like a pear and felt burning hot. The baby screamed with frustration whilst I feverishly
              bathed my nose and applied this and that in an effort to cool it.

              For three days my nose was very red and tender,”A real boozer nose”, said
              George. But now, thank goodness, it is back to normal.

              Some of the younger marrieds and a couple of bachelors came around,
              complete with portable harmonium, to sing carols in the early hours. No sooner had we
              settled down again to woo sleep when we were disturbed by shouts and screams from
              our nearest neighbour’s house. “Just celebrating Christmas”, grunted George, but we
              heard this morning that the neighbour had fallen down his verandah steps and broken his
              leg.

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro Hospital 30th September 1943

              Dearest Family,

              Well now we are eight! Our new son, Henry, was born on the night of the 28th.
              He is a beautiful baby, weighing ten pounds three and a half ounces. This baby is very
              well developed, handsome, and rather superior looking, and not at all amusing to look at
              as the other boys were.George was born with a moustache, John had a large nose and
              looked like a little old man, and Jim, bless his heart, looked rather like a baby
              chimpanzee. Henry is different. One of my visitors said, “Heaven he’ll have to be a
              Bishop!” I expect the lawn sleeves of his nightie really gave her that idea, but the baby
              does look like ‘Someone’. He is very good and George, John, and Jim are delighted
              with him, so is Mabemba.

              We have a dear little nurse looking after us. She is very petite and childish
              looking. When the baby was born and she brought him for me to see, the nurse asked
              his name. I said jokingly, “His name is Benjamin – the last of the family.” She is now very
              peeved to discover that his real name is Henry William and persists in calling him
              ‘Benjie’.I am longing to get home and into my pleasant rut. I have been away for two
              whole weeks and George is managing so well that I shall feel quite expendable if I don’t
              get home soon. As our home is a couple of miles from the hospital, I arranged to move
              in and stay with the nursing sister on the day the baby was due. There I remained for ten
              whole days before the baby was born. Each afternoon George came and took me for a
              ride in the bumpy Bedford lorry and the Doctor tried this and that but the baby refused
              to be hurried.

              On the tenth day I had the offer of a lift and decided to go home for tea and
              surprise George. It was a surprise too, because George was entertaining a young
              Game Ranger for tea and my arrival, looking like a perambulating big top, must have
              been rather embarrassing.Henry was born at the exact moment that celebrations started
              in the Township for the end of the Muslim religious festival of Ramadan. As the Doctor
              held him up by his ankles, there was the sound of hooters and firecrackers from the town.
              The baby has a birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon above his left eyebrow.

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 26th January 1944

              Dearest Family,

              We have just heard that we are to be transferred to the Headquarters of the
              Game Department at a place called Lyamungu in the Northern Province. George is not
              at all pleased because he feels that the new job will entail a good deal of office work and
              that his beloved but endless elephant hunting will be considerably curtailed. I am glad of
              that and I am looking forward to seeing a new part of Tanganyika and particularly
              Kilimanjaro which dominates Lyamungu.

              Thank goodness our menagerie is now much smaller. We found a home for the
              guinea pigs last December and Susie, our mischievous guinea-fowl, has flown off to find
              a mate.Last week I went down to Dar es Salaam for a check up by Doctor John, a
              woman doctor, leaving George to cope with the three boys. I was away two nights and
              a day and returned early in the morning just as George was giving Henry his six o’clock
              bottle. It always amazes me that so very masculine a man can do my chores with no
              effort and I have a horrible suspicion that he does them better than I do. I enjoyed the
              short break at the coast very much. I stayed with friends and we bathed in the warm sea
              and saw a good film.

              Now I suppose there will be a round of farewell parties. People in this country
              are most kind and hospitable.

              Eleanor.

              Lyamungu 20th March 1944

              Dearest Family,

              We left Morogoro after the round of farewell parties I had anticipated. The final
              one was at the Club on Saturday night. George made a most amusing speech and the
              party was a very pleasant occasion though I was rather tired after all the packing.
              Several friends gathered to wave us off on Monday morning. We had two lorries
              loaded with our goods. I rode in the cab of the first one with Henry on my knee. George
              with John and Jim rode in the second one. As there was no room for them in the cab,
              they sat on our couch which was placed across the width of the lorry behind the cab. This
              seat was not as comfortable as it sounds, because the space behind the couch was
              taken up with packing cases which were not lashed in place and these kept moving
              forward as the lorry bumped its way over the bad road.

              Soon there was hardly any leg room and George had constantly to stand up and
              push the second layer of packing cases back to prevent them from toppling over onto
              the children and himself. As it is now the rainy season the road was very muddy and
              treacherous and the lorries travelled so slowly it was dark by the time we reached
              Karogwe from where we were booked to take the train next morning to Moshi.
              Next morning we heard that there had been a washaway on the line and that the
              train would be delayed for at least twelve hours. I was not feeling well and certainly did
              not enjoy my day. Early in the afternoon Jimmy ran into a wall and blackened both his
              eyes. What a child! As the day wore on I felt worse and worse and when at last the train
              did arrive I simply crawled into my bunk whilst George coped nobly with the luggage
              and the children.

              We arrived at Moshi at breakfast time and went straight to the Lion Cub Hotel
              where I took to my bed with a high temperature. It was, of course, malaria. I always have
              my attacks at the most inopportune times. Fortunately George ran into some friends
              called Eccles and the wife Mollie came to my room and bathed Henry and prepared his
              bottle and fed him. George looked after John and Jim. Next day I felt much better and
              we drove out to Lyamungu the day after. There we had tea with the Game Warden and
              his wife before moving into our new home nearby.

              The Game Warden is Captain Monty Moore VC. He came out to Africa
              originally as an Officer in the King’s African Rifles and liked the country so much he left the
              Army and joined the Game Department. He was stationed at Banagi in the Serengetti
              Game Reserve and is well known for his work with the lions there. He particularly tamed
              some of the lions by feeding them so that they would come out into the open and could
              readily be photographed by tourists. His wife Audrey, has written a book about their
              experiences at Banagi. It is called “Serengetti”

              Our cook, Hamisi, soon had a meal ready for us and we all went to bed early.
              This is a very pleasant house and I know we will be happy here. I still feel a little shaky
              but that is the result of all the quinine I have taken. I expect I shall feel fine in a day or two.

              Eleanor.

              Lyamungu 15th May 1944

              Dearest Family,

              Well, here we are settled comfortably in our very nice house. The house is
              modern and roomy, and there is a large enclosed verandah, which will be a Godsend in
              the wet weather as a playroom for the children. The only drawback is that there are so
              many windows to be curtained and cleaned. The grounds consist of a very large lawn
              and a few beds of roses and shrubs. It is an ideal garden for children, unlike our steeply
              terraced garden at Morogoro.

              Lyamungu is really the Government Coffee Research Station. It is about sixteen
              miles from the town of Moshi which is the centre of the Tanganyika coffee growing
              industry. Lyamungu, which means ‘place of God’ is in the foothills of Mt Kilimanjaro and
              we have a beautiful view of Kilimanjaro. Kibo, the more spectacular of the two mountain
              peaks, towers above us, looking from this angle, like a giant frosted plum pudding. Often the mountain is veiled by cloud and mist which sometimes comes down to
              our level so that visibility is practically nil. George dislikes both mist and mountain but I
              like both and so does John. He in fact saw Kibo before I did. On our first day here, the
              peak was completely hidden by cloud. In the late afternoon when the children were
              playing on the lawn outside I was indoors hanging curtains. I heard John call out, “Oh
              Mummy, isn’t it beautiful!” I ran outside and there, above a scarf of cloud, I saw the
              showy dome of Kibo with the setting sun shining on it tingeing the snow pink. It was an
              unforgettable experience.

              As this is the rainy season, the surrounding country side is very lush and green.
              Everywhere one sees the rich green of the coffee plantations and the lighter green of
              the banana groves. Unfortunately our walks are rather circumscribed. Except for the main road to Moshi, there is nowhere to walk except through the Government coffee
              plantation. Paddy, our dog, thinks life is pretty boring as there is no bush here and
              nothing to hunt. There are only half a dozen European families here and half of those are
              on very distant terms with the other half which makes the station a rather uncomfortable
              one.

              The coffee expert who runs this station is annoyed because his European staff
              has been cut down owing to the war, and three of the vacant houses and some office
              buildings have been taken over temporarily by the Game Department. Another house
              has been taken over by the head of the Labour Department. However I don’t suppose
              the ill feeling will effect us much. We are so used to living in the bush that we are not
              socially inclined any way.

              Our cook, Hamisi, came with us from Morogoro but I had to engage a new
              houseboy and kitchenboy. I first engaged a houseboy who produced a wonderful ‘chit’
              in which his previous employer describes him as his “friend and confidant”. I felt rather
              dubious about engaging him and how right I was. On his second day with us I produced
              some of Henry’s napkins, previously rinsed by me, and asked this boy to wash them.
              He looked most offended and told me that it was beneath his dignity to do women’s
              work. We parted immediately with mutual relief.

              Now I have a good natured fellow named Japhet who, though hard on crockery,
              is prepared to do anything and loves playing with the children. He is a local boy, a
              member of the Chagga tribe. These Chagga are most intelligent and, on the whole, well
              to do as they all have their own small coffee shambas. Japhet tells me that his son is at
              the Uganda University College studying medicine.The kitchen boy is a tall youth called
              Tovelo, who helps both Hamisi, the cook, and the houseboy and also keeps an eye on
              Henry when I am sewing. I still make all the children’s clothes and my own. Life is
              pleasant but dull. George promises that he will take the whole family on safari when
              Henry is a little older.

              Eleanor.

              Lyamungu 18th July 1944

              Dearest Family,

              Life drifts quietly by at Lyamungu with each day much like the one before – or
              they would be, except that the children provide the sort of excitement that prohibits
              boredom. Of the three boys our Jim is the best at this. Last week Jim wandered into the
              coffee plantation beside our house and chewed some newly spayed berries. Result?
              A high temperature and nasty, bloody diarrhoea, so we had to rush him to the hospital at
              Moshi for treatment. however he was well again next day and George went off on safari.
              That night there was another crisis. As the nights are now very cold, at this high
              altitude, we have a large fire lit in the living room and the boy leaves a pile of logs
              beside the hearth so that I can replenish the fire when necessary. Well that night I took
              Henry off to bed, leaving John and Jim playing in the living room. When their bedtime
              came, I called them without leaving the bedroom. When I had tucked John and Jim into
              bed, I sat reading a bedtime story as I always do. Suddenly I saw smoke drifting
              through the door, and heard a frightening rumbling noise. Japhet rushed in to say that the
              lounge chimney was on fire! Picture me, panic on the inside and sweet smile on the
              outside, as I picked Henry up and said to the other two, “There’s nothing to be
              frightened about chaps, but get up and come outside for a bit.” Stupid of me to be so
              heroic because John and Jim were not at all scared but only too delighted at the chance
              of rushing about outside in the dark. The fire to them was just a bit of extra fun.

              We hurried out to find one boy already on the roof and the other passing up a
              brimming bucket of water. Other boys appeared from nowhere and soon cascades of
              water were pouring down the chimney. The result was a mountain of smouldering soot
              on the hearth and a pool of black water on the living room floor. However the fire was out
              and no serious harm done because all the floors here are cement and another stain on
              the old rug will hardly be noticed. As the children reluctantly returned to bed John
              remarked smugly, “I told Jim not to put all the wood on the fire at once but he wouldn’t
              listen.” I might have guessed!

              However it was not Jim but John who gave me the worst turn of all this week. As
              a treat I decided to take the boys to the river for a picnic tea. The river is not far from our
              house but we had never been there before so I took the kitchen boy, Tovelo, to show
              us the way. The path is on the level until one is in sight of the river when the bank slopes
              steeply down. I decided that it was too steep for the pram so I stopped to lift Henry out
              and carry him. When I looked around I saw John running down the slope towards the
              river. The stream is not wide but flows swiftly and I had no idea how deep it was. All I
              knew was that it was a trout stream. I called for John, “Stop, wait for me!” but he ran on
              and made for a rude pole bridge which spanned the river. He started to cross and then,
              to my horror, I saw John slip. There was a splash and he disappeared under the water. I
              just dumped the baby on the ground, screamed to the boy to mind him and ran madly
              down the slope to the river. Suddenly I saw John’s tight fitting felt hat emerge, then his
              eyes and nose. I dashed into the water and found, to my intense relief, that it only
              reached up to my shoulders but, thank heaven no further. John’s steady eyes watched
              me trustingly as I approached him and carried him safely to the bank. He had been
              standing on a rock and had not panicked at all though he had to stand up very straight
              and tall to keep his nose out of water. I was too proud of him to scold him for
              disobedience and too wet anyway.

              I made John undress and put on two spare pullovers and wrapped Henry’s
              baby blanket round his waist like a sarong. We made a small fire over which I crouched
              with literally chattering teeth whilst Tovelo ran home to fetch a coat for me and dry clothes
              for John.

              Eleanor.

              Lyamungu 16th August 1944

              Dearest Family,

              We have a new bull terrier bitch pup whom we have named Fanny III . So once
              more we have a menagerie , the two dogs, two cats Susie and Winnie, and
              some pet hens who live in the garage and are a real nuisance.

              As John is nearly six I thought it time that he started lessons and wrote off to Dar
              es Salaam for the correspondence course. We have had one week of lessons and I am
              already in a state of physical and mental exhaustion. John is a most reluctant scholar.
              “Why should I learn to read, when you can read to me?” he asks, and “Anyway why
              should I read such stupid stuff, ‘Run Rover Run’, and ‘Mother play with baby’ . Who
              wants to read about things like that? I don’t.”

              He rather likes sums, but the only subject about which he is enthusiastic is
              prehistoric history. He laps up information about ‘The Tree Dwellers’, though he is very
              sceptical about the existence of such people. “God couldn’t be so silly to make people
              so stupid. Fancy living in trees when it is easy to make huts like the natives.” ‘The Tree
              Dwellers is a highly imaginative story about a revolting female called Sharptooth and her
              offspring called Bodo. I have a very clear mental image of Sharptooth, so it came as a
              shock to me and highly amused George when John looked at me reflectively across the
              tea table and said, “Mummy I expect Sharptooth looked like you. You have a sharp
              tooth too!” I have, my eye teeth are rather sharp, but I hope the resemblance stops
              there.

              John has an uncomfortably logical mind for a small boy. The other day he was
              lying on the lawn staring up at the clouds when he suddenly muttered “I don’t believe it.”
              “Believe what?” I asked. “That Jesus is coming on a cloud one day. How can he? The
              thick ones always stay high up. What’s he going to do, jump down with a parachute?”
              Tovelo, my kitchen boy, announced one evening that his grandmother was in the
              kitchen and wished to see me. She was a handsome and sensible Chagga woman who
              brought sad news. Her little granddaughter had stumbled backwards into a large cooking
              pot of almost boiling maize meal porridge and was ‘ngongwa sana’ (very ill). I grabbed
              a large bottle of Picric Acid and a packet of gauze which we keep for these emergencies
              and went with her, through coffee shambas and banana groves to her daughter’s house.
              Inside the very neat thatched hut the mother sat with the naked child lying face
              downwards on her knee. The child’s buttocks and the back of her legs were covered in
              huge burst blisters from which a watery pus dripped. It appeared that the accident had
              happened on the previous day.

              I could see that it was absolutely necessary to clean up the damaged area, and I
              suddenly remembered that there was a trained African hospital dresser on the station. I
              sent the father to fetch him and whilst the dresser cleaned off the sloughed skin with
              forceps and swabs saturated in Picric Acid, I cut the gauze into small squares which I
              soaked in the lotion and laid on the cleaned area. I thought the small pieces would be
              easier to change especially as the whole of the most tender parts, front and back, were
              badly scalded. The child seemed dazed and neither the dresser nor I thought she would
              live. I gave her half an aspirin and left three more half tablets to be given four hourly.
              Next day she seemed much brighter. I poured more lotion on the gauze
              disturbing as few pieces as possible and again the next day and the next. After a week
              the skin was healing well and the child eating normally. I am sure she will be all right now.
              The new skin is a brilliant red and very shiny but it is pale round the edges of the burnt
              area and will I hope later turn brown. The mother never uttered a word of thanks, but the
              granny is grateful and today brought the children a bunch of bananas.

              Eleanor.

              c/o Game Dept. P.O.Moshi. 29th September 1944

              Dearest Mummy,

              I am so glad that you so enjoyed my last letter with the description of our very
              interesting and enjoyable safari through Masailand. You said you would like an even
              fuller description of it to pass around amongst the relations, so, to please you, I have
              written it out in detail and enclose the result.

              We have spent a quiet week after our exertions and all are well here.

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Safari in Masailand

              George and I were at tea with our three little boys on the front lawn of our house
              in Lyamungu, Northern Tanganyika. It was John’s sixth birthday and he and Jim, a
              happy sturdy three year old, and Henry, aged eleven months, were munching the
              squares of plain chocolate which rounded off the party, when George said casually
              across the table to me, “Could you be ready by the day after tomorrow to go on
              safari?” “Me too?” enquired John anxiously, before I had time to reply, and “Me too?”
              echoed Jim. “yes, of course I can”, said I to George and “of course you’re coming too”,
              to the children who rate a day spent in the bush higher than any other pleasure.
              So in the early morning two days later, we started out happily for Masailand in a
              three ton Ford lorry loaded to capacity with the five Rushbys, the safari paraphernalia,
              drums of petrol and quite a retinue of servants and Game Scouts. George travelling
              alone on his monthly safaris, takes only the cook and a couple of Game Scouts, but this was to be a safari de luxe.

              Henry and I shared the cab with George who was driving, whilst John and Jim
              with the faithful orderly Mabemba beside them to point out the game animals, were
              installed upon rolls of bedding in the body of the lorry. The lorry lumbered along, first
              through coffee shambas, and then along the main road between Moshi and Arusha.
              After half an hour or so, we turned South off the road into a track which crossed the
              Sanya Plains and is the beginning of this part of Masailand. Though the dry season was
              at its height, and the pasture dry and course, we were soon passing small groups of
              game. This area is a Game Sanctuary and the antelope grazed quietly quite undisturbed
              by the passing lorry. Here and there zebra stood bunched by the road, a few wild
              ostriches stalked jerkily by, and in the distance some wildebeest cavorted around in their
              crazy way.

              Soon the grasslands gave way to thorn bush, and we saw six fantastically tall
              giraffe standing motionless with their heads turned enquiringly towards us. George
              stopped the lorry so the children could have a good view of them. John was enchanted
              but Jim, alas, was asleep.

              At mid day we reached the Kikoletwa River and turned aside to camp. Beside
              the river, under huge leafy trees, there was a beautiful camping spot, but the river was
              deep and reputed to be full of crocodiles so we passed it by and made our camp
              some distance from the river under a tall thorn tree with a flat lacy canopy. All around the
              camp lay uprooted trees of similar size that had been pushed over by elephants. As
              soon as the lorry stopped a camp chair was set up for me and the Game Scouts quickly
              slashed down grass and cleared the camp site of thorns. The same boys then pitched the tent whilst George himself set up the three camp beds and the folding cot for Henry,
              and set up the safari table and the canvas wash bowl and bath.

              The cook in the meantime had cleared a cool spot for the kitchen , opened up the
              chop boxes and started a fire. The cook’s boy and the dhobi (laundry boy) brought
              water from the rather muddy river and tea was served followed shortly afterward by an
              excellent lunch. In a very short time the camp had a suprisingly homely look. Nappies
              fluttered from a clothes line, Henry slept peacefully in his cot, John and Jim sprawled on
              one bed looking at comics, and I dozed comfortably on another.

              George, with the Game Scouts, drove off in the lorry about his work. As a Game
              Ranger it is his business to be on a constant look out for poachers, both African and
              European, and for disease in game which might infect the valuable herds of Masai cattle.
              The lorry did not return until dusk by which time the children had bathed enthusiastically in
              the canvas bath and were ready for supper and bed. George backed the lorry at right
              angles to the tent, Henry’s cot and two camp beds were set up in the lorry, the tarpaulin
              was lashed down and the children put to bed in their novel nursery.

              When darkness fell a large fire was lit in front of the camp, the exited children at
              last fell asleep and George and I sat on by the fire enjoying the cool and quiet night.
              When the fire subsided into a bed of glowing coals, it was time for our bed. During the
              night I was awakened by the sound of breaking branches and strange indescribable
              noises.” Just elephant”, said George comfortably and instantly fell asleep once more. I
              didn’t! We rose with the birds next morning, but breakfast was ready and in a
              remarkably short time the lorry had been reloaded and we were once more on our way.
              For about half a mile we made our own track across the plain and then we turned
              into the earth road once more. Soon we had reached the river and were looking with
              dismay at the suspension bridge which we had to cross. At the far side, one steel
              hawser was missing and there the bridge tilted dangerously. There was no handrail but
              only heavy wooden posts which marked the extremities of the bridge. WhenGeorge
              measured the distance between the posts he found that there could be barely two
              inches to spare on either side of the cumbersome lorry.

              He decided to risk crossing, but the children and I and all the servants were told to
              cross the bridge and go down the track out of sight. The Game Scouts remained on the
              river bank on the far side of the bridge and stood ready for emergencies. As I walked
              along anxiously listening, I was horrified to hear the lorry come to a stop on the bridge.
              There was a loud creaking noise and I instantly visualised the lorry slowly toppling over
              into the deep crocodile infested river. The engine restarted, the lorry crossed the bridge
              and came slowly into sight around the bend. My heart slid back into its normal position.
              George was as imperturbable as ever and simply remarked that it had been a near
              thing and that we would return to Lyamungu by another route.

              Beyond the green river belt the very rutted track ran through very uninteresting
              thorn bush country. Henry was bored and tiresome, jumping up and down on my knee
              and yelling furiously. “Teeth”, said I apologetically to George, rashly handing a match
              box to Henry to keep him quiet. No use at all! With a fat finger he poked out the tray
              spilling the matches all over me and the floor. Within seconds Henry had torn the
              matchbox to pieces with his teeth and flung the battered remains through the window.
              An empty cigarette box met with the same fate as the match box and the yells
              continued unabated until Henry slept from sheer exhaustion. George gave me a smile,
              half sympathetic and half sardonic, “Enjoying the safari, my love?” he enquired. On these
              trying occasions George has the inestimable advantage of being able to go into a Yogilike
              trance, whereas I become irritated to screaming point.

              In an effort to prolong Henry’s slumber I braced my feet against the floor boards
              and tried to turn myself into a human shock absorber as we lurched along the eroded
              track. Several times my head made contact with the bolt of a rifle in the rack above, and
              once I felt I had shattered my knee cap against the fire extinguisher in a bracket under the
              dash board.

              Strange as it may seem, I really was enjoying the trip in spite of these
              discomforts. At last after three years I was once more on safari with George. This type of
              country was new to me and there was so much to see We passed a family of giraffe
              standing in complete immobility only a few yards from the track. Little dick-dick. one of the smallest of the antelope, scuttled in pairs across the road and that afternoon I had my first view of Gerenuk, curious red brown antelope with extremely elongated legs and giraffe-like necks.

              Most interesting of all was my first sight of Masai at home. We could hear a tuneful
              jangle of cattle bells and suddenly came across herds of humped cattle browsing upon
              the thorn bushes. The herds were guarded by athletic,striking looking Masai youths and men.
              Each had a calabash of water slung over his shoulder and a tall, highly polished spear in his
              hand. These herdsmen were quite unselfconscious though they wore no clothing except for one carelessly draped blanket. Very few gave us any greeting but glanced indifferently at us from under fringes of clay-daubed plaited hair . The rest of their hair was drawn back behind the ears to display split earlobes stretched into slender loops by the weight of heavy brass or copper tribal ear rings.

              Most of the villages were set well back in the bush out of sight of the road but we did pass one
              typical village which looked most primitive indeed. It consisted simply of a few mound like mud huts which were entirely covered with a plaster of mud and cattle dung and the whole clutch of huts were surrounded by a ‘boma’ of thorn to keep the cattle in at night and the lions out. There was a gathering of women and children on the road at this point. The children of both sexes were naked and unadorned, but the women looked very fine indeed. This is not surprising for they have little to do but adorn themselves, unlike their counterparts of other tribes who have to work hard cultivating the fields. The Masai women, and others I saw on safari, were far more amiable and cheerful looking than the men and were well proportioned.

              They wore skirts of dressed goat skin, knee length in front but ankle length behind. Their arms
              from elbow to wrist, and legs from knee to ankle, were encased in tight coils of copper and
              galvanised wire. All had their heads shaved and in some cases bound by a leather band
              embroidered in red white and blue beads. Circular ear rings hung from slit earlobes and their
              handsome throats were encircled by stiff wire necklaces strung with brightly coloured beads. These
              necklaces were carefully graded in size and formed deep collars almost covering their breasts.
              About a quarter of a mile further along the road we met eleven young braves in gala attire, obviously on their way to call on the girls. They formed a line across the road and danced up and down until the lorry was dangerously near when they parted and grinned cheerfully at us. These were the only cheerful
              looking male Masai that I saw. Like the herdsmen these youths wore only a blanket, but their
              blankets were ochre colour, and elegantly draped over their backs. Their naked bodies gleamed with oil. Several had painted white stripes on their faces, and two had whitewashed their faces entirely which I
              thought a pity. All had their long hair elaborately dressed and some carried not only one,
              but two gleaming spears.

              By mid day George decided that we had driven far enough for that day. He
              stopped the lorry and consulted a rather unreliable map. “Somewhere near here is a
              place called Lolbeni,” he said. “The name means Sweet Water, I hear that the
              government have piped spring water down from the mountain into a small dam at which
              the Masai water their cattle.” Lolbeni sounded pleasant to me. Henry was dusty and
              cross, the rubber sheet had long slipped from my lap to the floor and I was conscious of
              a very damp lap. ‘Sweet Waters’ I felt, would put all that right. A few hundred yards
              away a small herd of cattle was grazing, so George lit his pipe and relaxed at last, whilst
              a Game Scout went off to find the herdsman. The scout soon returned with an ancient
              and emaciated Masai who was thrilled at the prospect of his first ride in a lorry and
              offered to direct us to Lolbeni which was off the main track and about four miles away.

              Once Lolbeni had been a small administrative post and a good track had
              led to it, but now the Post had been abandoned and the road is dotted with vigourous
              thorn bushes and the branches of larger thorn trees encroach on the track The road had
              deteriorated to a mere cattle track, deeply rutted and eroded by heavy rains over a
              period of years. The great Ford truck, however, could take it. It lurched victoriously along,
              mowing down the obstructions, tearing off branches from encroaching thorn trees with its
              high railed sides, spanning gorges in the track, and climbing in and out of those too wide
              to span. I felt an army tank could not have done better.

              I had expected Lolbeni to be a green oasis in a desert of grey thorns, but I was
              quickly disillusioned. To be sure the thorn trees were larger and more widely spaced and
              provided welcome shade, but the ground under the trees had been trampled by thousands of cattle into a dreary expanse of dirty grey sand liberally dotted with cattle droppings and made still more uninviting by the bleached bones of dead beasts.

              To the right of this waste rose a high green hill which gave the place its name and from which
              the precious water was piped, but its slopes were too steep to provide a camping site.
              Flies swarmed everywhere and I was most relieved when George said that we would
              stay only long enough to fill our cans with water. Even the water was a disappointment!
              The water in the small dam was low and covered by a revolting green scum, and though
              the water in the feeding pipe was sweet, it trickled so feebly that it took simply ages to
              fill a four gallon can.

              However all these disappointments were soon forgotten for we drove away
              from the flies and dirt and trampled sand and soon, with their quiet efficiency, George
              and his men set up a comfortable camp. John and Jim immediately started digging
              operations in the sandy soil whilst Henry and I rested. After tea George took his shot
              gun and went off to shoot guinea fowl and partridges for the pot. The children and I went
              walking, keeping well in site of camp, and soon we saw a very large flock of Vulturine
              Guineafowl, running aimlessly about and looking as tame as barnyard fowls, but melting
              away as soon as we moved in their direction.

              We had our second quiet and lovely evening by the camp fire, followed by a
              peaceful night.

              We left Lolbeni very early next morning, which was a good thing, for as we left
              camp the herds of thirsty cattle moved in from all directions. They were accompanied by
              Masai herdsmen, their naked bodies and blankets now covered by volcanic dust which
              was being stirred in rising clouds of stifling ash by the milling cattle, and also by grey
              donkeys laden with panniers filled with corked calabashes for water.

              Our next stop was Nabarera, a Masai cattle market and trading centre, where we
              reluctantly stayed for two days in a pokey Goverment Resthouse because George had
              a job to do in that area. The rest was good for Henry who promptly produced a tooth
              and was consequently much better behaved for the rest of the trip. George was away in the bush most of the day but he returned for afternoon tea and later took the children out
              walking. We had noticed curious white dumps about a quarter mile from the resthouse
              and on the second afternoon we set out to investigate them. Behind the dumps we
              found passages about six foot wide, cut through solid limestone. We explored two of
              these and found that both passages led steeply down to circular wells about two and a
              half feet in diameter.

              At the very foot of each passage, beside each well, rough drinking troughs had
              been cut in the stone. The herdsmen haul the water out of the well in home made hide
              buckets, the troughs are filled and the cattle driven down the ramps to drink at the trough.
              It was obvious that the wells were ancient and the sloping passages new. George tells
              me that no one knows what ancient race dug the original wells. It seems incredible that
              these deep and narrow shafts could have been sunk without machinery. I craned my
              neck and looked above one well and could see an immensely long shaft reaching up to
              ground level. Small footholds were cut in the solid rock as far as I could see.
              It seems that the Masai are as ignorant as ourselves about the origin of these
              wells. They do say however that when their forebears first occupied what is now known
              as Masailand, they not only found the Wanderobo tribe in the area but also a light
              skinned people and they think it possible that these light skinned people dug the wells.
              These people disappeared. They may have been absorbed or, more likely, they were
              liquidated.

              The Masai had found the well impractical in their original form and had hired
              labourers from neighbouring tribes to cut the passages to water level. Certainly the Masai are not responsible for the wells. They are a purely pastoral people and consider manual labour extremely degrading.

              They live chiefly on milk from their herd which they allow to go sour, and mix with blood that has been skilfully tapped from the necks of living cattle. They do not eat game meat, nor do they cultivate any
              land. They hunt with spears, but hunt only lions, to protect their herds, and to test the skill
              and bravery of their young warriors. What little grain they do eat is transported into
              Masailand by traders. The next stage of our journey took us to Ngassamet where
              George was to pick up some elephant tusks. I had looked forward particularly to this
              stretch of road for I had heard that there was a shallow lake at which game congregates,
              and at which I had great hopes of seeing elephants. We had come too late in the
              season though, the lake was dry and there were only piles of elephant droppings to
              prove that elephant had recently been there in numbers. Ngassamet, though no beauty
              spot, was interesting. We saw more elaborate editions of the wells already described, and as this area
              is rich in cattle we saw the aristocrats of the Masai. You cannot conceive of a more arrogant looking male than a young Masai brave striding by on sandalled feet, unselfconscious in all his glory. All the young men wore the casually draped traditional ochre blanket and carried one or more spears. But here belts and long knife sheaths of scarlet leather seem to be the fashion. Here fringes do not seem to be the thing. Most of these young Masai had their hair drawn smoothly back and twisted in a pointed queue, the whole plastered with a smooth coating of red clay. Some tied their horn shaped queues over their heads
              so that the tip formed a deep Satanic peak on the brow. All these young men wore the traditional
              copper earrings and I saw one or two with copper bracelets and one with a necklace of brightly coloured
              beads.

              It so happened that, on the day of our visit to Ngassamet, there had been a
              baraza (meeting) which was attended by all the local headmen and elders. These old
              men came to pay their respects to George and a more shrewd and rascally looking
              company I have never seen, George told me that some of these men own up to three
              thousand head of cattle and more. The chief was as fat and Rabelasian as his second in
              command was emaciated, bucktoothed and prim. The Chief shook hands with George
              and greeted me and settled himself on the wall of the resthouse porch opposite
              George. The lesser headmen, after politely greeting us, grouped themselves in a
              semi circle below the steps with their ‘aides’ respectfully standing behind them. I
              remained sitting in the only chair and watched the proceedings with interest and
              amusement.

              These old Masai, I noticed, cared nothing for adornment. They had proved
              themselves as warriors in the past and were known to be wealthy and influential so did
              not need to make any display. Most of them had their heads comfortably shaved and
              wore only a drab blanket or goatskin cloak. Their only ornaments were earrings whose
              effect was somewhat marred by the serviceable and homely large safety pin that
              dangled from the lobe of one ear. All carried staves instead of spears and all, except for
              Buckteeth and one blind old skeleton of a man, appeared to have a keenly developed
              sense of humour.

              “Mummy?” asked John in an urgent whisper, “Is that old blind man nearly dead?”
              “Yes dear”, said I, “I expect he’ll soon die.” “What here?” breathed John in a tone of
              keen anticipation and, until the meeting broke up and the old man left, he had John’s
              undivided attention.

              After local news and the game situation had been discussed, the talk turned to the
              war. “When will the war end?” moaned the fat Chief. “We have made great gifts of cattle
              to the War Funds, we are taxed out of existence.” George replied with the Ki-Swahili
              equivalent of ‘Sez you!’. This sally was received with laughter and the old fellows rose to
              go. They made their farewells and dignified exits, pausing on their way to stare at our
              pink and white Henry, who sat undismayed in his push chair giving them stare for stare
              from his striking grey eyes.

              Towards evening some Masai, prompted no doubt by our native servants,
              brought a sheep for sale. It was the last night of the fast of Ramadan and our
              Mohammedan boys hoped to feast next day at our expense. Their faces fell when
              George refused to buy the animal. “Why should I pay fifteen shillings for a sheep?” he
              asked, “Am I not the Bwana Nyama and is not the bush full of my sheep?” (Bwana
              Nyama is the native name for a Game Ranger, but means literally, ‘Master of the meat’)
              George meant that he would shoot a buck for the men next day, but this incident was to
              have a strange sequel. Ngassamet resthouse consists of one room so small we could
              not put up all our camp beds and George and I slept on the cement floor which was
              unkind to my curves. The night was bitterly cold and all night long hyaenas screeched
              hideously outside. So we rose at dawn without reluctance and were on our way before it
              was properly light.

              George had decided that it would be foolhardy to return home by our outward
              route as he did not care to risk another crossing of the suspension bridge. So we
              returned to Nabarera and there turned onto a little used track which would eventually take
              us to the Great North Road a few miles South of Arusha. There was not much game
              about but I saw Oryx which I had not previously seen. Soon it grew intolerably hot and I
              think all of us but George were dozing when he suddenly stopped the lorry and pointed
              to the right. “Mpishi”, he called to the cook, “There’s your sheep!” True enough, on that
              dreary thorn covered plain,with not another living thing in sight, stood a fat black sheep.

              There was an incredulous babbling from the back of the lorry. Every native
              jumped to the ground and in no time at all the wretched sheep was caught and
              slaughtered. I felt sick. “Oh George”, I wailed, “The poor lost sheep! I shan’t eat a scrap
              of it.” George said nothing but went and had a look at the sheep and called out to me,
              “Come and look at it. It was kindness to kill the poor thing, the vultures have been at it
              already and the hyaenas would have got it tonight.” I went reluctantly and saw one eye
              horribly torn out, and small deep wounds on the sheep’s back where the beaks of the
              vultures had cut through the heavy fleece. Poor thing! I went back to the lorry more
              determined than ever not to eat mutton on that trip. The Scouts and servants had no
              such scruples. The fine fat sheep had been sent by Allah for their feast day and that was
              the end of it.

              “ ‘Mpishi’ is more convinced than ever that I am a wizard”, said George in
              amusement as he started the lorry. I knew what he meant. Several times before George
              had foretold something which had later happened. Pure coincidence, but strange enough
              to give rise to a legend that George had the power to arrange things. “What happened
              of course”, explained George, “Is that a flock of Masai sheep was driven to market along
              this track yesterday or the day before. This one strayed and was not missed.”

              The day grew hotter and hotter and for long miles we looked out for a camping
              spot but could find little shade and no trace of water anywhere. At last, in the early
              afternoon we reached another pokey little rest house and asked for water. “There is no
              water here,” said the native caretaker. “Early in the morning there is water in a well nearby
              but we are allowed only one kerosene tin full and by ten o’clock the well is dry.” I looked
              at George in dismay for we were all so tired and dusty. “Where do the Masai from the
              village water their cattle then?” asked George. “About two miles away through the bush.
              If you take me with you I shall show you”, replied the native.

              So we turned off into the bush and followed a cattle track even more tortuous than
              the one to Lolbeni. Two Scouts walked ahead to warn us of hazards and I stretched my
              arm across the open window to fend off thorns. Henry screamed with fright and hunger.
              But George’s efforts to reach water went unrewarded as we were brought to a stop by
              a deep donga. The native from the resthouse was apologetic. He had mistaken the
              path, perhaps if we turned back we might find it. George was beyond speech. We
              lurched back the way we had come and made our camp under the first large tree we
              could find. Then off went our camp boys on foot to return just before dark with the water.
              However they were cheerful for there was an unlimited quantity of dry wood for their fires
              and meat in plenty for their feast. Long after George and I left our campfire and had gone
              to bed, we could see the cheerful fires of the boys and hear their chatter and laughter.
              I woke in the small hours to hear the insane cackling of hyaenas gloating over a
              find. Later I heard scuffling around the camp table, I peered over the tailboard of the lorry
              and saw George come out of his tent. What are you doing?” I whispered. “Looking for
              something to throw at those bloody hyaenas,” answered George for all the world as
              though those big brutes were tomcats on the prowl. Though the hyaenas kept up their
              concert all night the children never stirred, nor did any of them wake at night throughout
              the safari.

              Early next morning I walked across to the camp kitchen to enquire into the loud
              lamentations coming from that quarter. “Oh Memsahib”, moaned the cook, “We could
              not sleep last night for the bad hyaenas round our tents. They have taken every scrap of
              meat we had left over from the feast., even the meat we had left to smoke over the fire.”
              Jim, who of our three young sons is the cook’s favourite commiserated with him. He said
              in Ki-Swahili, which he speaks with great fluency, “Truly those hyaenas are very bad
              creatures. They also robbed us. They have taken my hat from the table and eaten the
              new soap from the washbowl.

              Our last day in the bush was a pleasantly lazy one. We drove through country
              that grew more open and less dry as we approached Arusha. We pitched our camp
              near a large dam, and the water was a blessed sight after a week of scorched country.
              On the plains to the right of our camp was a vast herd of native cattle enjoying a brief
              rest after their long day trek through Masailand. They were destined to walk many more
              weary miles before reaching their destination, a meat canning factory in Kenya.
              The ground to the left of the camp rose gently to form a long low hill and on the
              grassy slopes we could see wild ostriches and herds of wildebeest, zebra and
              antelope grazing amicably side by side. In the late afternoon I watched the groups of
              zebra and wildebeest merge into one. Then with a wildebeest leading, they walked
              down the slope in single file to drink at the vlei . When they were satisfied, a wildebeest
              once more led the herd up the trail. The others followed in a long and orderly file, and
              vanished over the hill to their evening pasture.

              When they had gone, George took up his shotgun and invited John to
              accompany him to the dam to shoot duck. This was the first time John had acted as
              retriever but he did very well and proudly helped to carry a mixed bag of sand grouse
              and duck back to camp.

              Next morning we turned into the Great North Road and passed first through
              carefully tended coffee shambas and then through the township of Arusha, nestling at
              the foot of towering Mount Meru. Beyond Arusha we drove through the Usa River
              settlement where again coffee shambas and European homesteads line the road, and
              saw before us the magnificent spectacle of Kilimanjaro unveiled, its white snow cap
              gleaming in the sunlight. Before mid day we were home. “Well was it worth it?” enquired
              George at lunch. “Lovely,” I replied. ”Let’s go again soon.” Then thinking regretfully of
              our absent children I sighed, “If only Ann, George, and Kate could have gone with us
              too.”

              Lyamungu 10th November. 1944

              Dearest Family.

              Mummy wants to know how I fill in my time with George away on safari for weeks
              on end. I do believe that you all picture me idling away my days, waited on hand and
              foot by efficient servants! On the contrary, life is one rush and the days never long
              enough.

              To begin with, our servants are anything but efficient, apart from our cook, Hamisi
              Issa, who really is competent. He suffers from frustration because our budget will not run
              to elaborate dishes so there is little scope for his culinary art. There is one masterpiece
              which is much appreciated by John and Jim. Hamisi makes a most realistic crocodile out
              of pastry and stuffs its innards with minced meat. This revolting reptile is served on a
              bed of parsley on my largest meat dish. The cook is a strict Mohammedan and
              observes all the fasts and daily prayers and, like all Mohammedans he is very clean in
              his person and, thank goodness, in the kitchen.

              His wife is his pride and joy but not his helpmate. She does absolutely nothing
              but sit in a chair in the sun all day, sipping tea and smoking cigarettes – a more
              expensive brand than mine! It is Hamisi who sweeps out their quarters, cooks
              delectable curries for her, and spends more than he can afford on clothing and trinkets for
              his wife. She just sits there with her ‘Mona Lisa’ smile and her painted finger and toe
              nails, doing absolutely nothing.

              The thing is that natives despise women who do work and this applies especially
              to their white employers. House servants much prefer a Memsahib who leaves
              everything to them and is careless about locking up her pantry. When we first came to
              Lyamungu I had great difficulty in employing a houseboy. A couple of rather efficient
              ones did approach me but when they heard the wages I was prepared to pay and that
              there was no number 2 boy, they simply were not interested. Eventually I took on a
              local boy called Japhet who suits me very well except that his sight is not good and he
              is extremely hard on the crockery. He tells me that he has lost face by working here
              because his friends say that he works for a family that is too mean to employ a second
              boy. I explained that with our large family we simply cannot afford to pay more, but this
              didn’t register at all. Japhet says “But Wazungu (Europeans) all have money. They just
              have to get it from the Bank.”

              The third member of our staff is a strapping youth named Tovelo who helps both
              cook and boy, and consequently works harder than either. What do I do? I chivvy the
              servants, look after the children, supervise John’s lessons, and make all my clothing and
              the children’s on that blessed old hand sewing machine.

              The folk on this station entertain a good deal but we usually decline invitations
              because we simply cannot afford to reciprocate. However, last Saturday night I invited
              two couples to drinks and dinner. This was such an unusual event that the servants and I
              were thrown into a flurry. In the end the dinner went off well though it ended in disaster. In
              spite of my entreaties and exhortations to Japhet not to pile everything onto the tray at
              once when clearing the table, he did just that. We were starting our desert and I was
              congratulating myself that all had gone well when there was a frightful crash of breaking
              china on the back verandah. I excused myself and got up to investigate. A large meat
              dish, six dinner plates and four vegetable dishes lay shattered on the cement floor! I
              controlled my tongue but what my eyes said to Japhet is another matter. What he said
              was, “It is not my fault Memsahib. The handle of the tray came off.”

              It is a curious thing about native servants that they never accept responsibility for
              a mishap. If they cannot pin their misdeeds onto one of their fellow servants then the responsibility rests with God. ‘Shauri ya Mungu’, (an act of God) is a familiar cry. Fatalists
              can be very exasperating employees.

              The loss of my dinner service is a real tragedy because, being war time, one can
              buy only china of the poorest quality made for the native trade. Nor was that the final
              disaster of the evening. When we moved to the lounge for coffee I noticed that the
              coffee had been served in the battered old safari coffee pot instead of the charming little
              antique coffee pot which my Mother-in-law had sent for our tenth wedding anniversary.
              As there had already been a disturbance I made no comment but resolved to give the
              cook a piece of my mind in the morning. My instructions to the cook had been to warm
              the coffee pot with hot water immediately before serving. On no account was he to put
              the pewter pot on the hot iron stove. He did and the result was a small hole in the base
              of the pot – or so he says. When I saw the pot next morning there was a two inch hole in
              it.

              Hamisi explained placidly how this had come about. He said he knew I would be
              mad when I saw the little hole so he thought he would have it mended and I might not
              notice it. Early in the morning he had taken the pewter pot to the mechanic who looks
              after the Game Department vehicles and had asked him to repair it. The bright individual
              got busy with the soldering iron with the most devastating result. “It’s his fault,” said
              Hamisi, “He is a mechanic, he should have known what would happen.”
              One thing is certain, there will be no more dinner parties in this house until the war
              is ended.

              The children are well and so am I, and so was George when he left on his safari
              last Monday.

              Much love,
              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.

                 

                #6262
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  From Tanganyika with Love

                  continued  ~ part 3

                  With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                  Mchewe Estate. 22nd March 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Very much love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Just hold thumbs that all goes well.

                  your loving but anxious,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 28th June 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Very much love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 3rd August 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Lots and lots of love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 20th August 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                  Who would be a mother!
                  Eleanor

                  Mchewe Estate. 20th September 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Mchewe Estate. 11th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 17th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  Lots and lots of love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 25th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  Very much love from us all, Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 8th November 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 21st November 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 6th December 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Eleanor

                  Mchewe Estate. 22nd December 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Your very loving,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 2nd January 1936

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  #6260
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    From Tanganyika with Love

                    With thanks to Mike Rushby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                     

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Much love my dear,
                    your jubilant
                    Eleanor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Bless you all,
                    Eleanor.

                    S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Eleanor Leslie.

                    Eleanor and George Rushby:

                    Eleanor and George Rushby

                    Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Your cave woman
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Much love to you all,
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Your loving
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Very much love,
                    Eleanor.

                    Mbeya 23rd December 1930

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                    26th December 1930

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

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

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

                    Lots and lots of love,
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Your loving,
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                    Very much love,
                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

                    Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                    Eleanor.

                    Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

                    Dear Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                    Eleanor.

                    #6255
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      My Grandparents

                      George Samuel Marshall 1903-1995

                      Florence Noreen Warren (Nora) 1906-1988

                      I always called my grandfather Mop, apparently because I couldn’t say the name Grandpa, but whatever the reason, the name stuck. My younger brother also called him Mop, but our two cousins did not.

                      My earliest memories of my grandparents are the picnics.  Grandma and Mop loved going out in the car for a picnic. Favourite spots were the Clee Hills in Shropshire, North Wales, especially Llanbedr, Malvern, and Derbyshire, and closer to home, the caves and silver birch woods at Kinver Edge, Arley by the river Severn, or Bridgnorth, where Grandma’s sister Hildreds family lived.  Stourbridge was on the western edge of the Black Country in the Midlands, so one was quickly in the countryside heading west.  They went north to Derbyshire less, simply because the first part of the trip entailed driving through Wolverhampton and other built up and not particularly pleasant urban areas.  I’m sure they’d have gone there more often, as they were both born in Derbyshire, if not for that initial stage of the journey.

                      There was predominantly grey tartan car rug in the car for picnics, and a couple of folding chairs.  There were always a couple of cushions on the back seat, and I fell asleep in the back more times than I can remember, despite intending to look at the scenery.  On the way home Grandma would always sing,  “Show me the way to go home, I’m tired and I want to go to bed, I had a little drink about an hour ago, And it’s gone right to my head.”  I’ve looked online for that song, and have not found it anywhere!

                      Grandma didn’t just make sandwiches for picnics, there were extra containers of lettuce, tomatoes, pickles and so on.  I used to love to wash up the picnic plates in the little brook on the Clee Hills, near Cleeton St Mary.  The close cropped grass was ideal for picnics, and Mop and the sheep would Baaa at each other.

                      Mop would base the days outting on the weather forcast, but Grandma often used to say he always chose the opposite of what was suggested. She said if you want to go to Derbyshire, tell him you want to go to Wales.  I recall him often saying, on a gloomy day, Look, there’s a bit of clear sky over there.  Mop always did the driving as Grandma never learned to drive. Often she’d dust the dashboard with a tissue as we drove along.

                      My brother and I often spent the weekend at our grandparents house, so that our parents could go out on a Saturday night.  They gave us 5 shillings pocket money, which I used to spend on two Ladybird books at 2 shillings and sixpence each.  We had far too many sweets while watching telly in the evening ~ in the dark, as they always turned the lights off to watch television.  The lemonade and pop was Corona, and came in returnable glass bottles.  We had Woodpecker cider too, even though it had a bit of an alcohol content.

                      Mop smoked Kensitas and Grandma smoked Sovereign cigarettes, or No6, and the packets came with coupons.  They often let me choose something for myself out of the catalogue when there were enough coupons saved up.

                      When I had my first garden, in a rented house a short walk from theirs, they took me to garden nurseries and taught me all about gardening.  In their garden they had berberis across the front of the house under the window, and cotoneaster all along the side of the garage wall. The silver birth tree on the lawn had been purloined as a sapling from Kinver edge, when they first moved into the house.  (they lived in that house on Park Road for more than 60 years).  There were perennials and flowering shrubs along the sides of the back garden, and behind the silver birch, and behind that was the vegeatable garden.  Right at the back was an Anderson shelter turned into a shed, the rhubarb, and the washing line, and the canes for the runner beans in front of those.  There was a little rose covered arch on the path on the left, and privet hedges all around the perimeter.

                      My grandfather was a dental technician. He worked for various dentists on their premises over the years, but he always had a little workshop of his own at the back of his garage. His garage was full to the brim of anything that might potentially useful, but it was not chaotic. He knew exactly where to find anything, from the tiniest screw for spectacles to a useful bit of wire. He was “mechanicaly minded” and could always fix things like sewing machines and cars and so on.

                      Mop used to let me sit with him in his workshop, and make things out of the pink wax he used for gums to embed the false teeth into prior to making the plaster casts. The porcelain teeth came on cards, and were strung in place by means of little holes on the back end of the teeth. I still have a necklace I made by threading teeth onto a string. There was a foot pedal operated drill in there as well, possibly it was a dentists drill previously, that he used with miniature grinding or polishing attachments. Sometimes I made things out of the pink acrylic used for the final denture, which had a strong smell and used to harden quickly, so you had to work fast. Initially, the workshop was to do the work for Uncle Ralph, Grandmas’s sisters husband, who was a dentist. In later years after Ralph retired, I recall a nice man called Claude used to come in the evening to collect the dentures for another dental laboratory. Mop always called his place of work the laboratory.

                      Grandma loved books and was always reading, in her armchair next to the gas fire. I don’t recall seeing Mop reading a book, but he was amazingly well informed about countless topics.
                      At family gatherings, Mops favourite topic of conversation after dinner was the atrocities committed over the centuries by organized religion.

                      My grandfather played snooker in his younger years at the Conservative club. I recall my father assuming he voted Conservative, and Mop told him in no uncertain terms that he’s always voted Labour. When asked why he played snooker at the Conservative club and not the Labour club, he said with a grin that “it was a better class of people”, but that he’d never vote Conservative because it was of no benefit to the likes of us working people.

                      Grandma and her sister in law Marie had a little grocers shop on Brettel Lane in Amblecote for a few years but I have no personal recollection of that as it was during the years we lived in USA. I don’t recall her working other than that. She had a pastry making day once a week, and made Bakewell tart, apple pie, a meat pie, and her own style of pizza. She had an old black hand operated sewing machine, and made curtains and loose covers for the chairs and sofa, but I don’t think she made her own clothes, at least not in later years. I have her sewing machine here in Spain.
                      At regular intervals she’d move all the furniture around and change the front room into the living room and the back into the dining room and vice versa. In later years Mop always had the back bedroom (although when I lived with them aged 14, I had the back bedroom, and painted the entire room including the ceiling purple). He had a very lumpy mattress but he said it fit his bad hip perfectly.

                      Grandma used to alternate between the tiny bedroom and the big bedroom at the front. (this is in later years, obviously) The wardrobes and chests of drawers never changed, they were oak and substantial, but rather dated in appearance. They had a grandfather clock with a brass face and a grandmother clock. Over the fireplace in the living room was a Utrillo print. The bathroom and lavatory were separate rooms, and the old claw foot bath had wood panels around it to make it look more modern. There was a big hot water geyser above it. Grandma was fond of using stick on Fablon tile effects to try to improve and update the appearance of the bathroom and kitchen. Mop was a generous man, but would not replace household items that continued to function perfectly well. There were electric heaters in all the rooms, of varying designs, and gas fires in living room and dining room. The coal house on the outside wall was later turned into a downstairs shower room, when Mop moved his bedroom downstairs into the front dining room, after Grandma had died and he was getting on.

                      Utrillo

                      Mop was 91 when he told me he wouldn’t be growing any vegetables that year. He said the sad thing was that he knew he’d never grow vegetables again. He worked part time until he was in his early 80s.

                      #6253
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        My Grandparents Kitchen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        #6240
                        TracyTracy
                        Participant

                          Phyllis Ellen Marshall

                          1909 – 1983

                          Phyllis Marshall

                           

                          Phyllis, my grandfather George Marshall’s sister, never married. She lived in her parents home in Love Lane, and spent decades of her later life bedridden, living alone and crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. She had her bed in the front downstairs room, and had cords hanging by her bed to open the curtains, turn on the tv and so on, and she had carers and meals on wheels visit her daily. The room was dark and grim, but Phyllis was always smiling and cheerful.  Phyllis loved the Degas ballerinas and had a couple of prints on the walls.

                          I remember visiting her, but it has only recently registered that this was my great grandparents house. When I was a child, we visited her and she indicated a tin on a chest of drawers and said I could take a biscuit. It was a lemon puff, and was the stalest biscuit I’d ever had. To be polite I ate it. Then she offered me another one! I declined, but she thought I was being polite and said “Go on! You can have another!” I ate another one, and have never eaten a lemon puff since that day.

                          Phyllis’s nephew Bryan Marshall used to visit her regularly. I didn’t realize how close they were until recently, when I resumed contact with Bryan, who emigrated to USA in the 1970s following a successful application for a job selling stained glass windows and church furnishings.

                          I asked on a Stourbridge facebook group if anyone remembered her.

                          AF  Yes I remember her. My friend and I used to go up from Longlands school every Friday afternoon to do jobs for her. I remember she had a record player and we used to put her 45rpm record on Send in the Clowns for her. Such a lovely lady. She had her bed in the front room.

                          KW I remember very clearly a lady in a small house in Love Lane with alley at the left hand.  I was intrigued by this lady who used to sit with the front door open and she was in a large chair of some sort. I used to see people going in and out and the lady was smiling. I was young then (31) and wondered how she coped but my sense was she had lots of help.  I’ve never forgotten that lady in Love Lane sitting in the open door way I suppose when it was warm enough.

                          LR I used to deliver meals on wheels to her lovely lady.

                          I sent Bryan the comments from the Stourbridge group and he replied:

                          Thanks Tracy. I don’t recognize the names here but lovely to see such kind comments.
                          In the early 70’s neighbors on Corser Street, Mr. & Mrs. Walter Braithwaite would pop around with occasional visits and meals. Walter was my piano teacher for awhile when I was in my early twenties. He was a well known music teacher at Rudolph Steiner School (former Elmfield School) on Love Lane. A very fine school. I seem to recall seeing a good article on Walter recently…perhaps on the Stourbridge News website. He was very well known.
                          I’m ruminating about life with my Aunt Phyllis. We were very close. Our extra special time was every Saturday at 5pm (I seem to recall) we’d watch Doctor Who. Right from the first episode. We loved it. Likewise I’d do the children’s crossword out of Woman’s Realm magazine…always looking to win a camera but never did ! She opened my mind to the Bible, music and ballet. She once got tickets and had a taxi take us into Birmingham to see the Bolshoi Ballet…at a time when they rarely left their country. It was a very big deal in the early 60’s. ! I’ve many fond memories about her and grandad which I’ll share in due course. I’d change the steel needle on the old record player, following each play of the 78rpm records…oh my…another world.

                          Bryan continues reminiscing about Phyllis in further correspondence:

                          Yes, I can recall those two Degas prints. I don’t know much of Phyllis’ early history other than she was a hairdresser in Birmingham. I want to say at John Lewis, for some reason (so there must have been a connection and being such a large store I bet they did have a salon?)
                          You will know that she had severe and debilitating rheumatoid arthritis that eventually gnarled her hands and moved through her body. I remember strapping on her leg/foot braces and hearing her writhe in pain as I did so but she wanted to continue walking standing/ getting up as long as she could. I’d take her out in the wheelchair and I can’t believe I say it along …but down Stanley Road!! (I had subsequent nightmares about what could have happened to her, had I tripped or let go!) She loved Mary Stevens Park, the swans, ducks and of course Canadian geese. Was grateful for everything in creation. As I used to go over Hanbury Hill on my visit to Love Lane, she would always remind me to smell the “sea-air” as I crested the hill.
                          In the earlier days she smoked cigarettes with one of those long filters…looking like someone from the twenties.

                          I’ll check on “Send in the clowns”. I do recall that music. I remember also she loved to hear Neil Diamond. Her favorites in classical music gave me an appreciation of Elgar and Delius especially. She also loved ballet music such as Swan Lake and Nutcracker. Scheherazade and La Boutique Fantastic also other gems.
                          When grandad died she and aunt Dorothy shared more about grandma (who died I believe when John and I were nine-months old…therefore early 1951). Grandma (Mary Ann Gilman Purdy) played the piano and loved Strauss and Offenbach. The piano in the picture you sent had a bad (wonky) leg which would fall off and when we had the piano at 4, Mount Road it was rather dangerous. In any event my parents didn’t want me or others “banging on it” for fear of waking the younger brothers so it disappeared at sometime.
                          By the way, the dog, Flossy was always so rambunctious (of course, she was a JRT!) she was put on the stairway which fortunately had a door on it. Having said that I’ve always loved dogs so was very excited to see her and disappointed when she was not around. 

                          Phyllis with her parents William and Mary Marshall, and Flossie the dog in the garden at Love Lane:

                          Phyllis William and Mary Marshall

                           

                          Bryan continues:

                          I’ll always remember the early days with the outside toilet with the overhead cistern caked in active BIG spider webs. I used to have to light a candle to go outside, shielding the flame until destination. In that space I’d set the candle down and watch the eery shadows move from side to side whilst…well anyway! Then I’d run like hell back into the house. Eventually the kitchen wall was broken through so it became an indoor loo. Phew!
                          In the early days the house was rented for ten-shillings a week…I know because I used to take over a ten-bob-note to a grumpy lady next door who used to sign the receipt in the rent book. Then, I think she died and it became available for $600.00 yes…the whole house for $600.00 but it wasn’t purchased then. Eventually aunt Phyllis purchased it some years later…perhaps when grandad died.

                          I used to work much in the back garden which was a lovely walled garden with arch-type decorations in the brickwork and semicircular shaped capping bricks. The abundant apple tree. Raspberry and loganberry canes. A gooseberry bush and huge Victoria plum tree on the wall at the bottom of the garden which became a wonderful attraction for wasps! (grandad called the “whasps”). He would stew apples and fruit daily.
                          Do you remember their black and white cat Twinky? Always sat on the pink-screen TV and when she died they were convinced that “that’s wot got ‘er”. Grandad of course loved all his cats and as he aged, he named them all “Billy”.

                          Have you come across the name “Featherstone” in grandma’s name. I don’t recall any details but Dorothy used to recall this. She did much searching of the family history Such a pity she didn’t hand anything on to anyone. She also said that we had a member of the family who worked with James Watt….but likewise I don’t have details.
                          Gifts of chocolates to Phyllis were regular and I became the recipient of the overflow!

                          What a pity Dorothy’s family history research has disappeared!  I have found the Featherstone’s, and the Purdy who worked with James Watt, but I wonder what else Dorothy knew.

                          I mentioned DH Lawrence to Bryan, and the connection to Eastwood, where Bryan’s grandma (and Phyllis’s mother) Mary Ann Gilman Purdy was born, and shared with him the story about Francis Purdy, the Primitive Methodist minister, and about Francis’s son William who invented the miners lamp.

                          He replied:

                          As a nosy young man I was looking through the family bookcase in Love Lane and came across a brown paper covered book. Intrigued, I found “Sons and Lovers” D.H. Lawrence. I knew it was a taboo book (in those days) as I was growing up but now I see the deeper connection. Of course! I know that Phyllis had I think an earlier boyfriend by the name of Maurice who lived in Perry Barr, Birmingham. I think he later married but was always kind enough to send her a book and fond message each birthday (Feb.12). I guess you know grandad’s birthday – July 28. We’d always celebrate those days. I’d usually be the one to go into Oldswinford and get him a cardigan or pullover and later on, his 2oz tins of St. Bruno tobacco for his pipe (I recall the room filled with smoke as he puffed away).
                          Dorothy and Phyllis always spoke of their ancestor’s vocation as a Minister. So glad to have this history! Wow, what a story too. The Lord rescued him from mischief indeed. Just goes to show how God can change hearts…one at a time.
                          So interesting to hear about the Miner’s Lamp. My vicar whilst growing up at St. John’s in Stourbridge was from Durham and each Harvest Festival, there would be a miner’s lamp placed upon the altar as a symbol of the colliery and the bountiful harvest.

                          More recollections from Bryan about the house and garden at Love Lane:

                          I always recall tea around the three legged oak table bedecked with a colorful seersucker cloth. Battenburg cake. Jam Roll. Rich Tea and Digestive biscuits. Mr. Kipling’s exceedingly good cakes! Home-made jam.  Loose tea from the Coronation tin cannister. The ancient mangle outside the back door and the galvanized steel wash tub with hand-operated agitator on the underside of the lid. The hand operated water pump ‘though modernisation allowed for a cold tap only inside, above the single sink and wooden draining board. A small gas stove and very little room for food preparation. Amazing how the Marshalls (×7) managed in this space!

                          The small window over the sink in the kitchen brought in little light since the neighbor built on a bathroom annex at the back of their house, leaving #47 with limited light, much to to upset of grandad and Phyllis. I do recall it being a gloomy place..i.e.the kitchen and back room.

                          The garden was lovely. Long and narrow with privet hedge dividing the properties on the right and the lovely wall on the left. Dorothy planted spectacular lilac bushes against the wall. Vivid blues, purples and whites. Double-flora. Amazing…and with stunning fragrance. Grandad loved older victorian type plants such as foxgloves and comfrey. Forget-me-nots and marigolds (calendulas) in abundance.  Rhubarb stalks. Always plantings of lettuce and other vegetables. Lots of mint too! A large varigated laurel bush outside the front door!

                          Such a pleasant walk through the past. 

                          An autograph book belonging to Phyllis from the 1920s has survived in which each friend painted a little picture, drew a cartoon, or wrote a verse.  This entry is perhaps my favourite:

                          Ripping Time

                          #6214
                          AvatarJib
                          Participant

                            When Finnley got out of her full body bathing suit, Liz gaped at her.

                            “It appears your suit wasn’t that waterproof after all. You should have kept the receipt. Now you can’t ask for a refund.”

                            Finnley rolled her eyes while sending daggers. Liz caught them in extremis with her pen and put them down in writing at the end of her pink notebook for later reference. She thought maybe they could be an appropriate prop for the family betrayal she planned to write about in her next chapter. Daggers between the shoulder blades were always a nice effect.

                            “I don’t need a receipt, I ordered them online.”

                            “What do you mean? What does she mean Gordon? She looks so mad, she won’t answer me… and stop eating those bloody nuts. That’s not good for your cholesterol.”

                            “Actually that’s the reverse,” said Gordon.

                            “Stop eating them! I find the crunching noise and the movement of your tongue on your teeth disturbing.”

                            “She means she kept the email with the e-receipt. Knowing her she’s probably kept it in the trash for safekeeping.”

                            Finnley threw another pair of daggers.

                            “Ouch!” Gordon said.

                            “You deserved that,” said Liz. “You were mean. Now I need to talk to Godfrey. He’ll know the answers, he always know. Where is he?”

                            “Just behind you. I’m always behind you.”

                            “Don’t say that, it can be misinterpreted. Anyway, can you answer the question?”

                            “She kept the email with the e-receipt in her trash can. You know, it’s an internet thing. Like the writing workshop you asked me to help you organise.”

                            “Oh! I totally forgot about that.”

                            “You have 57 inscriptions. The chat session starts in 5, no 7 minutes. Should I be worried?”

                            “No you shouldn’t. Just do the typing for me please. You type faster than me, I’m still doing it with one finger, well two actually, now I can use both hands.”

                            “Okay, you’ll speak to me as if you were speaking to them and I shall write down your words faithfully.”

                            “You can do the speaking too, dear. Godfrey, you’ve known me for so long, you know better than me what I’m going to say.”

                            Liz looked at Finnley’s blue hands and turned back to Godfrey. “Oh, and before you do that, prepare some cucumbers slice, I need a power nap.”

                            #6213
                            TracyTracy
                            Participant

                              “Well, I wish you would stop interrupting me while I fill in the empty pages of my pink notebook with gripping stories, I keep losing my thread. Most annoying!” Liz sighed.  She wrote Liz snapped at first and then erased it and changed it to Liz sighed. Then she added Liz sighed with the very mildest slight irritation and then became exasperated with the whole thing and told herself to just leave it and try to move on!

                              But really, Finnley’s timing, as usual! Just as Liz had worked out the direct line to the characters fathers mothers fathers fathers mothers fathers mothers fathers father and mother, Finnley wafts through the scene, making herself conspicuous, and scattering Liz’s tenuous concentration like feathers in the wind.

                              “And I don’t want to hear a word about apostrophes either,” she added, mentally noting the one in don’t.

                              “Oh, now I see what you’re doing, Liz!” Gordon appeared, smoking a pipe. “Very clever!”

                              “Good God, Gordon, you’re smoking a pipe!” It was an astonishing sight. “What an astonishing sight! Where are your nuts?”

                              “Well, it’s like this,” Gordon grinned, “I’ve been eating nuts in every scene for, how long? I just can’t face another nut.”

                              Liz barked out a loud cackle.  “You think that’s bad, have you seen what they keep dressing me in? Anyway, ” she asked, “What do you mean clever and you see what I’m doing? What am I doing?”

                              “The code, of course!  I spotted it right away,” Gordon replied smugly.

                              Finnley heaved herself out of the pool and walked over to Liz and Gordon. (is it Gordon or Godfrey? Liz felt the cold tendrils of dread that she had somehow gone off the track and would have to retrace her steps and get in a  fearful muddle Oh no!  )

                              A splat of blue algae across her face, as Finnley flicked the sodden strands of dyed debris off that clung to her hair and body, halted the train of thought that Liz had embarked on, and came to an abrupt collision with a harmless wet fish, you could say, as it’s shorter than saying  an abrupt collision with a bit of dyed blue algae. 

                              Liz yawned.  Finnley was already asleep.

                              “What was in that blue dye?”

                              #6211
                              AvatarJib
                              Participant

                                Today the planets are aligned, thought Liz as she looked at the blue sky out the French door. The frills of her glitter pink Charnel bathing suit wiggled with excitement.

                                It was one of those rare days of this summer where rain wasn’t pouring somewhere in the garden. Every single day: clouds, clouds, clouds. If they weren’t above the mansion, they were above the pool. If they weren’t above the pool, they were flooding the lawn in between the mansion and the pool.

                                But today, the sun had risen in a sky free of clouds and Liz was determined to have that dip in the newly repaired swimming pool with a watermelon mojito served by Roberto in his shiny leather speedo. The pool had been half frozen half boiling for so long that they had forgotten the swimming part. Once fixed, the summer had turned into a mid season rainy weather.

                                ‘I don’t want to get wet before I get into the pool’, Liz had said to Finnley.

                                Liz looked at her pink notebook lying on the coffee table. Resisting the temptation to fill in the empty pages with gripping stories, she hopped on the patio, flounces bouncing and her goocci flip-flops clacking. With a sparkling foot, Liz tested the grass. It was dry enough, which meant she would not inadvertently walk on a slug or a snail. She particularly hated the cracking noise and the wetness afterward under her feet.

                                Roberto was bent forward. Liz frowned. He was not wearing his leather speedo. And his hands and pants were covered in green goo.

                                ‘What happened?’ she asked in front of the disaster.

                                Roberto shrugged, obviously overwhelmed by the goo.

                                ‘Green algae’, said Godfrey popping up out of nowhere with a handful of cashews. ‘The ice and fire had kept it at bay for some time. But once it was back to normal the pool was a perfect environment for their development. I already called the maintenance company. They come next week.’

                                ‘What? Next week?’

                                ‘Yes. That’s sad. It’s the season. We are not the only ones to have that problem.’

                                That said he threw a cashew in his mouth and popped back to nowhere he came from.

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