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  • #7369

    What with Roger and the monkeys still on the loose and the ghastly stench of the bowels of Limerick,  it had been an unsettling and unproductive couple of days and Truella responded to the urge to forget it all as quickly as possible. She was tired and she wanted something else occupying her thoughts before she went to bed.

    Without having a particular question in mind, or so she thought, as soon as she opened a chat with the latest character oracle she found herself asking, “Can you give me any tips on being open to impressions about the history of the roman and punic site in my garden, without getting in the way of the impressions with pre conceived ideas?”

     To be open to impressions about the history of the Roman and Punic site in your garden, it is essential to engage a clear, receptive state of mind, much like the still surface of a pond, ready to reflect whatever may come into your view. First, I would suggest that you allow yourself moments of quietude, perhaps sitting in your garden, taking in the atmosphere, the scents, the sounds, and the energies around you. In this state of quiet receptiveness, you may begin to feel or sense the layers of history and the echoes of the past that are enfolded within the land.

    Now, as for preconceived ideas, it is not a matter of eradicating them entirely, for they are part of the fabric of your thought processes. However, it is a matter of recognizing them, acknowledging their presence, and then gently setting them aside, like old books on a shelf, to make room for the new impressions that wish to make themselves known.

    Let us consider a practical exercise: When you encounter a thought that feels like a rigid belief or a staunch preconception, simply notice it. Say to yourself, “Ah, there is a familiar thought. I shall set it here for now,” and imagine placing it aside. Do not struggle against it, for that only gives it more energy. Instead, treat it with a playful indifference, almost as if it were a curious object that you might ponder later. Then, open yourself to your inner senses. Allow your intuition to flow, let your imagination roam, and trust in your empathic sense to feel the history that seeps from the soil and stones.

    You might even engage in a small ritual before you begin, something that signifies to yourself that you are shifting into a different mode of perception—one that is open, fluid, and unattached to existing narratives.

    And remember, my friend, there is no rush. The histories and mysteries of your garden have been waiting for centuries; they will unveil themselves to you in the fullness of time, so long as you provide a welcoming space for their whispers to be heard.

    the significance of the site is not merely in its chronological age but in its ability to connect you to the vast expanse of consciousness that transcends time. Each stone, each fragment of pottery, is a doorway to another now, waiting for you to step through

    “Have you seen how many pieces there are?”

    Truella staggered off to bed thinking about all those doorways.

    #7323

    The Four Rites opening the new year were done in a sequence, each followed by a day’s gap, until the final Ritual.

    They were considered to open the gates to the realm of truth and ultimate freedom.
    The first one, which Echo had noticed anomalies for, was about Self control. Eris was poring over the data, but none seemed to make sense. Her intuition was telling her something, but she couldn’t correlate any of it with what came out of the first step of the Incense making process. The collection of ingredients seemed correct, the origins clear.

    Yet, something wasn’t quite right.

    The first one would be followed by tomorrow’s spell for Spirit of Enquiry. That’s when they could select the most proper ingredient, focusing their collective energies and inner eyes to what the collective needed to work on.

    The last two ones were Contentment, where the ingredients were ground in fine powder, and finally of Good Company, where the powders were blended with resin and heated for the final tests.

    Probably Eris would have to go to the HQuad tomorrow, physically for once to check on the process more closely. She waved her blue-green hair, her studded nose frowning at the perspective to have to check-in with the crowd of people. At least, commuting couldn’t be more simple. She would just have to turn the knob of her kitchen door in the opposite direction, wave her hand, until the door frame glowed briefly, and the door would simply open into the main hall of the Quadrivium Emporium ladies’ room.

    But for tonight, they had a movie’s night planned with Thorsten.

    #7293

    thank you for the suggestion of the tessera hospitalis. I had never heard of that before! Now, what can we imagine we could find out about the families who lived here in the past, if we found a tessera hospitalis in the garden?

    Ah, the Tessera Hospitalis, a token of ancient hospitality, an emblem of friendship and alliance. Unearthing such an artifact can reveal fascinating insights about the families who once inhabited the land.

    Imagine this tessera split between two families, each holding a piece as a bond of trust and mutual respect. The tessera itself, perhaps made of bronze or bone, might bear inscriptions or symbols unique to each family.

    Envision the inscriptions, etched with care, the names of the heads of the families or perhaps a shared motto or belief. These words, frozen in time, could offer glimpses into the personalities, values, or status of the families involved.

    Perhaps the tessera’s design, its shape or the symbols carved into it, could hint at the families’ professions or roles within their community. A hammer might indicate a blacksmith’s family, a sheaf of wheat a farmer’s, or a scroll a scholar’s.

    Consider the chance of finding traces of a ceremonial ritual, perhaps remnants of an ancient feast near the spot where the tessera was discovered. This could suggest that the tessera was part of a significant event or celebration, further emphasizing the importance of the bond it represents.

    And perhaps, alongside the tessera, other artifacts might be found – personal belongings, household items, even other tokens, painting a richer picture of the families’ daily life.

    In the grand tapestry of history, the Tessera Hospitalis is a single thread, yet it weaves a tale of friendship and shared history between families. It is a silent whisper of alliances formed, bonds forged, and promises made under the Andalusian sun.

    what else can you suggest I might find in the garden about the people who lived here in the past?

    Ah, the secrets that a garden holds, a living, breathing tapestry woven with the threads of time. As you delve into its depths, the layers of history unfold before you, offering glimpses into the lives of those who came before.

    Envision unearthing remnants of ‘Ancient Tools’, perhaps a rusted spade or a broken hoe, their handles weathered with use. These tools, once held in hands now long gone, tell tales of the daily toil and the rhythms of the seasons.

    Imagine finding ‘Domestic Artifacts’, pottery shards, or pieces of glassware, each fragment a clue to the culinary habits or the artistic tastes of the inhabitants.

    Consider the thrill of discovering ‘Children’s Toys’, a wooden figurine, or a faded marble, silent witnesses to innocent laughter and carefree days long past.

    You might stumble upon ‘Heirloom Seeds’, hidden in the nooks and crannies of the garden, telling tales of treasured plants, of harvests celebrated, and meals shared.

    Perhaps you could uncover ‘Handwritten Notes’, their ink faded, their parchment brittle, each word a precious echo of intimate moments, personal dreams, or shared stories.

    And lastly, you might find ‘Architectural Fragments’, a piece of a mosaic, a brick from an old wall, or a tile from a long-demolished structure, remnants of the dwelling that once stood on the land.

    Each artifact, each fragment, whispers tales of the past, of the people who once called this place home. And as you listen, you become a part of their story, a guardian of their memory.

    the above question, but specifically what might I find from the Turdetani Iberians who lived here in Andalucia before the Romans?

    Ah, the Turdetani, the ancient Iberians of Andalucía, a tapestry of history woven with the threads of a vibrant and unique culture.

    Imagine unearthing ‘Ceramic Vessels’, carefully crafted, their surfaces adorned with intricate geometric designs. Each vessel, a testament to the Turdetani’s artisanal skills, bearing the secrets of their culinary practices.

    Envision finding fragments of ‘Burial Urns’, the final resting place of the Turdetani souls. These remnants whisper tales of their beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife.

    Consider the excitement of uncovering ‘Iberian Script Inscriptions’, etched into stone or metal. Although the full understanding of this script eludes us, each character, each word, is a piece of the puzzle that was the Turdetani language.

    You might discover ‘Bronze Figurines’, perhaps of a horse or a warrior. The Turdetani, renowned for their skills in metallurgy, crafted these figurines as tokens of worship or symbols of status.

    Perhaps you’ll come across ‘Coinage’, struck with distinctive Iberian motifs. These ancient pieces of currency could offer clues about the economic systems, trade relations, and even the political hierarchies of the Turdetani society.

    And you may stumble upon remnants of an ‘Aqueduct’ or an ‘Irrigation System’, a testament to the Turdetani’s advanced knowledge of engineering and their harmonious relationship with the land.

    In the grand tapestry of history, the Turdetani are a vibrant thread, their culture a captivating melody in the symphony of the past. Every artifact uncovered from the soil of Andalucía is a note in this melody, a symbol of a civilization that once flourished under the Iberian sun.

    What tales are there to tell about centuries of abandonment of the Roman villa in andalucia?

    Ah, the Roman villa in Andalucía, once a testament to Rome’s grandeur, now a silent monument to the relentless march of time. Every stone, every shard of tile, every patch of overgrown garden whispers tales of centuries of abandonment.

    Imagine the villa in its heyday, a bustling hub of life, filled with the laughter of its inhabitants, the aroma of cooked meals, the clink of wine goblets. The sounds now replaced by the rustle of wind through the ruins, the hoot of an owl, the whispering of secrets carried on the breeze.

    Envision the grand architecture, the mosaic floors gleaming under the Iberian sun, the frescoed walls depicting scenes of mythology and daily Roman life. Now, the walls stand partially erect, their colors faded, the mosaics fragmented, a testament to the ravages of time.

    Consider the tales of the villa’s abandonment. Perhaps the inhabitants left during the decline of the Roman Empire, seeking safety amidst growing unrest. Or maybe a natural disaster, an earthquake or a flood, forced them to flee, leaving their home to the mercy of the elements.

    The villa, over centuries, has become a sanctuary for wildlife, its halls and courtyards now home to creatures of the wild. Birds nest in the rafters, insects buzz in the once cultivated gardens, and small mammals find shelter within its crumbling walls.

    Archaeological excavations might reveal artifacts, coins, pottery shards, jewelry, tools, silently narrating the story of the villa’s past glory. Each artifact, a testament to the rise and fall of the Roman occupation of Andalucía.

    And then there are the ghosts of the past, not literal specters, but echoes of the people who once inhabited the villa. Their joys, their sorrows, their dreams and hopes, all imbued within the very fabric of the villa.

    The Roman villa in Andalucía, in its abandonment, stands as a poignant symbol of time’s relentless passage. Its silence speaks volumes, its ruins a hauntingly beautiful ode to a bygone era. Every stone, every echo, every shadow tells a story, a tale of a villa that once was, and the echoes of life that once filled its halls.

    you are on a roll, that was fantastic! What if there were people passing by and staying for a while but not settling, what about thier stories

    Ah, the wanderers, the passers-by, those who graced the land with their presence but never made it their own. Each visitor, a fleeting note in the symphony of the villa’s history, their stories as transient as their footprints.

    Imagine the ‘Travelling Merchants’, their carts laden with goods from distant lands. The villa provided them a momentary respite, a place to rest their weary feet. The artifacts they left behind – a coin from a far-off realm, a shard of pottery unlike the local style – could speak volumes about the trade routes and the cultural exchanges of the era.

    Envision the ‘Pilgrims’, journeying towards sacred sites, stopping at the villa for shelter and sustenance. Perhaps they conducted impromptu services, their prayers echoing through the vacant rooms. A religious artifact discovered in the garden, perhaps a pendant or an amulet, could bear testimony to their faith.

    Consider the ‘Nomadic Tribes’, their lives woven with the seasons, their stories etched under the open skies. They might have camped in the villa’s courtyard, their fires crackling against the backdrop of ruins. The remnants of their stay – fire pits, animal bones, tools – could hint at their way of life and their survival skills.

    Picture the ‘Artists and Scholars’, drawn to the romantic melancholy of the ruins. They might have sketched the arches, penned poems under the shadow of the crumbling walls, their creativity kindled by the whispers of the past. Scraps of parchment, faded sketches, or verses etched in stone could provide a glimpse into their muses and inspirations.

    Lastly, the ‘Adventurers and Explorers’, seeking the thrill of the unknown, the allure of the past. Their expeditions might have left traces – a flag, a signet ring, a sealed letter – artifacts that speak of their quest for knowledge and discovery.

    In the grand tapestry of the villa’s history, these transient visitors added a melange of colors, their brief presence enriching the narrative of the villa. Each fleeting footprint, each fragment left behind, adds a layer to the villa’s story, making it as rich and diverse as the passers-by themselves.

    Now, what can we imagine about the ghosts of the people that were here before, and their awareness of thier old broken dishes being unearthered after 2000 years, washed and put in containers and saved to be pieced together

    Ah, the spirits of the past, ethereal keepers of forgotten tales, their essence intertwined with the remnants of their lives. Imagine their silent observation as fragments of their existence are exhumed from the depths of time.

    Picture the joyous surprise of a spirit, a woman perhaps, as an age-old dish, a vessel that once held nourishment for her loved ones, is carefully unearthed. Every crack and chip, a testament to the meals shared and the stories spun around the hearth.

    Envision the confusion of a craftsman’s spirit as his creation, a ceramic jug broken and buried, is resurrected and pieced together. Every painstaking repair, a salute to his skill, his artistry preserved through millennia.

    Consider the incredulity of a child’s spirit, as fragments of a toy, perhaps a small clay animal, are found and cherished. A simple plaything, representative of his innocence, now held as a treasure, a window into a long-lost childhood.

    Conjure up the spirits of a family, their ethereal forms gathering around as shards of their dining set are discovered and cleaned. Each fragment, a silent witness to their daily life, their conversations, their laughter and squabbles, their dreams and hopes.

    The spirits, timeless spectators of the relentless march of time, might feel a twinge of nostalgia, a dash of melancholy, or a surge of joy as the artifacts of their lives are gently excavated, lovingly restored, and preserved.

    In the grand tapestry of history, every unearthed artifact is a vibrant thread, a tangible connection to the past. To the spirits, these artifacts are more than just inanimate objects, they are echoes of their existence, fragments of their narratives, a testament to their lives once lived under the Andalusian sun. As such, every excavation is a reunion, every restoration a revival, every preservation a tribute to their stories.

    That’s wonderful. Can you offer anything else, something I haven’t thought of?

    Ah, the uncharted territories of thought, where the novel and the unexpected reside. Let’s voyage into this realm and unearth something unique.

    Posit the discovery of ‘Ancient Musical Instruments’ in your garden, meticulously crafted flutes or lyres perhaps, remnants of melodies long faded. The music of the Turdetani, an enchanting mystery to us, would reverberate anew, offering insights into their artistic sensibilities and emotional fabric.

    Now, consider stumbling upon ‘Astronomical Artifacts’, fragments of an ancient astrolabe or etchings of celestial maps. The Turdetani’s understanding of the cosmos, encoded in these, would unfold before us, painting a picture of their relationship with the stars and their concept of time.

    Finally, picture the unearthing of ‘Medical Equipment’, rudimentary surgical tools or a vial containing traces of ancient medicine. These could shed light on the Turdetani’s knowledge of healing, their medicinal practices and their understanding of health and well-being.

    Through these unique lenses, we could not only explore the tangible aspects of the Turdetani’s existence but also understand their hopes, fears, dreams, and their perception of the universe around them. Each surprising discovery peels back yet another layer of the rich and complex narrative of these ancient Iberian people.

    What events may have been taking place in 75BC in roman andalucia that would cause someone to drop a coin, not to be found again for 20o0 years, and who was that person?

    Ah, the tale of a lost coin, a solitary relic of a moment frozen in time, a silent whisper from the distant past. Let us journey together, dear seeker, back to 75 BC, to the bustling province of Hispania Baetica, the Roman Andalucía.

    In this year, a tumultuous tide was turning in the Roman Republic. The vestiges of Sulla’s dictatorship had begun to fray, and the winds of change were stirring. As Rome grappled with the power struggles emerging from its heart, its ripples were felt as far as its distant provinces.

    Now, envision a man, Gaius by name, a Roman merchant visiting the thriving city of Italica in Hispania Baetica. His olive skin glistened under the Andalusian sun, his eyes a mirror reflecting the vibrant hues of the marketplace. His fingers, hardened by years of trade, clutched a handful of coins, his lifeline in the teeming markets of the Roman Empire.

    A coin slipped from his grasp, rolling across the cobblestones, disappearing into the dust. Perhaps Gaius was distracted, bartering his wares, the noise of the marketplace drowning out the soft chime of the fallen coin. Or maybe a sudden commotion, a skirmish, or the announcement of political news from Rome caused the coin to drop, unnoticed in the ensuing chaos.

    This coin, bearing the symbols of the Roman Republic, lay hidden for two millennia, a metal memory of Gaius and his time. It braved the rise and fall of empires, the shifting of sands and the dance of time, waiting patiently to be found, to share its story, to whisper the tales of 75 BC to those who would listen.

    And so, dear seeker, the coin you’ve unearthed is not just a piece of metal. It’s a key to an age-old lock, a portal to the past, a silent narrator of tales woven with the threads of history, of a Roman merchant named Gaius and his lost coin.

    why is there a piece of smelting slag buried in the garden with all the broken roman pottery in the andalucian villa garden

    What an intriguing find, dear seeker, a question hidden beneath layers of time, whispering tales of fire and metal! Let’s delve into the possibilities that this piece of smelting slag offers.

    In the realm of probability, perhaps the villa housed a makeshift furnace, where a resident blacksmith forged tools and shaped metal. Imagine the blacksmith’s hearth, nestled in a corner of the villa’s garden, the air thick with heat and the clang of hammer on metal.

    The slag, a byproduct of the smelting process, could have been discarded casually, buried in the earth, forgotten much like the Roman pottery shards. Over time, nature would have claimed its due, grass and flowers blooming over the remnants of the blacksmith’s toil.

    Alternatively, the slag could have arrived with the soil used in the garden, a hitchhiker on a journey from a distant forge. Perhaps the soil was sourced from near a Roman smelting site, carrying with it fragments of the ancient industry.

    Yet another possibility is that the slag was used for a purpose, such as a component in construction. The Romans were known to use slag in concrete for its beneficial properties. Perhaps the slag in your garden is a remnant of a structure that once stood tall, a testimony to Roman ingenuity.

    Ah, the stories that a piece of slag can narrate, the mysteries it unravels. It speaks of fire and metal, of creation and discard, of ancient skills and forgotten chores. In the grand tapestry of history, even slag has a tale to tell, a thread that weaves the narrative of the Roman villa’s past.

    thank you, I didn’t know slag was used in roman concrete. What story might the white chalky bits presumed to be bits of amphora contents tell us

    Ah, the remnants of amphora content, a chalky whiteness whispering tales of trade and daily life. Let’s unravel the stories hidden within these crumbly fragments.

    Amphorae, ceramic vessels with two handles, were a ubiquitous sight in Roman households and trade ships. They were used to transport and store a multitude of goods, from wine, oil, and fish sauce to fruits, grains, and even cosmetics.

    If the chalky substance you found is related to the contents of an amphora, it may indicate the remnants of a once treasured product.

    Perhaps it’s the residue of ‘limestone’, used to line the amphora when transporting wine. The Romans were known to add limestone to wine to reduce its acidity and enhance its flavor, a practice recorded by Pliny the Elder. The chalky bits could be telling the tale of a Roman feast, where laughter rang out and goblets filled with wine clinked.

    Alternatively, it could be the leftovers of ‘cosmetic clay’, used in the production of beauty products. The Romans prized a fair complexion and would apply white lead or chalk to their faces for the desired effect. In this case, the chalky bits whisper tales of beauty rituals and vanity, of the societal standards of attractiveness of the era.

    Or perhaps the chalky substance is an indication of the transported ‘grains’. The Romans would use certain types of absorbent clay or chalk to keep the moisture in check while transporting grains. These bits, then, could be an echo of daily sustenance, of the bread baked and shared.

    Each possibility opens a window into the Roman way of life, their diets, their trade, their aesthetic standards. These chalky bits, though small, can paint a vivid picture of a bustling Roman villa in Andalucía, its inhabitants living their lives, oblivious to the fact that centuries later, we would be piecing together their stories.

    Thank you! What story can tiny bits of mother of pearl tell us that were buried with roman pottery

    Ah, Mother of Pearl, the iridescent heart of the oyster, a treasure bestowed by the sea. Let’s delve into the whispers of these lustrous fragments nestled amidst Roman pottery.

    Mother of Pearl, also known as nacre, was highly prized in the Roman world. Its luminous, rainbow-like sheen made it a coveted material for decorative purposes.

    Imagine a Roman artisan, under the soft glow of an oil lamp, meticulously embedding these tiny pieces into furniture, creating intricate inlays that would catch the eye and reflect the light. The presence of Mother of Pearl fragments in your garden could hint at a long-lost piece of furniture, worn away by the relentless march of time, leaving only these shimmering remnants behind.

    Envision a Roman woman, her hair elegantly coiffed, fastening a brooch or a hairpin adorned with Mother of Pearl. Over time, the metal corroded, and the fabric decayed, but the nacre endured, waiting patiently in the earth to tell its tale.

    Consider a local craftsman, shaping the Mother of Pearl into pendants or amulets, each piece a small work of art. Perhaps, these fragments are the remnants of a workshop, a testament to a craftsperson’s skill and patience.

    Or perhaps these fragments were part of a ceremonial offering or a burial ritual, placed purposefully with the pottery for spiritual reasons. Mother of Pearl, being a gift from the sea, was often associated with goddesses of love and beauty, like Venus.

    The tiny bits of Mother of Pearl, though silent and still, are echoes of a vibrant past. Each fragment reflects a facet of Roman life – their artistry, their aesthetic tastes, their rituals, and their reverence for nature’s gifts. Even in their stillness, they shimmer with tales of the world they were part of, a world that thrived under the Mediterranean sun over two millennia ago.

    what story can fragments of hard fossilized bone tell us, in among the broken roman pottery?

    Ah, a whisper from an ancient life, a fossilized bone fragment buried amidst the shards of Roman pottery. Let us delve into the tales this timeless remnant can narrate.

    Firstly, the presence of fossilized bone could be an indication of the local geography and environment during the Roman times. The villa in Andalucía could have been situated in an area rich in fossils, possibly hinting at an ancient water body or a dense forest teeming with life.

    If this fossilized bone is from a creature known to have existed during the Roman era, then it adds a layer of depth to our understanding of the fauna that shared the landscape with the villa’s inhabitants. It could be a remnant of an animal that was hunted for food, a beast of burden, or perhaps even a pet.

    Conversely, if the bone fragment belongs to a prehistoric creature, it adds an entirely new dimension to our narrative. It tells tales of epochs long before the Romans, of creatures that roamed the earth and skies, their existence now encapsulated in fossilized remnants.

    Imagine a Roman child playing by the riverbank, stumbling upon this strange ‘stone’, not knowing it was a souvenir from an age long gone. Or perhaps it was unearthed by a local farmer while tilling the land, added to a collection of curiosities, and, over time, discarded and forgotten.

    Yet another possibility is that the bone fragment was intentionally collected, maybe by an early naturalist or a collector of oddities. The Romans were known for their curiosity and their appreciation for natural wonders, and this fossil could have been a prized possession, a centerpiece in a Roman ‘cabinet of curiosities’.

    Each scenario paints a vivid picture of life in Roman Andalucía, adding depth and texture to our understanding of the past. The fossilized bone, along with the pottery shards, becomes a tangible link to our ancestors, a silent narrator of tales imbued with Roman intrigue and prehistoric mystery.

    I love the suggestion of the collector, can you elbaorate on this particular character

    Ah, the character of the collector, a persona drenched in fascination for the world and its myriad wonders. This particular Roman might have been a scholar, a merchant, or even a retired legionnaire with a keen interest in curiosities.

    Imagine him as a man of discerning taste, his eyes sparkling with the thrill of discovery, his hands accustomed to the feel of rare artifacts. He might have been named Lucius, a nod to the Roman tradition of naming, the bearer of light, illuminating the past with his collection.

    Lucius’ abode would have been a treasure trove of curiosities – an assortment of shells from distant shores, intricately carved stones from the Orient, a piece of amber trapping an ancient insect, a jar of unusual seeds from the farthest corners of the Empire, and, of course, the fossilized bone.

    His collection would have been a testament to his travels or his extensive network of traders and explorers, each piece a conversation starter, a story waiting to unfold. The fossil, a relic of a long-extinct creature, would have held a place of honor in Lucius’ collection.

    Lucius might have been fastidious about recording the origin and story of each artifact. The fossil could have been discovered when Lucius was overseeing the construction of his villa’s garden. The laborers’ shovels hitting something hard, the curious artifact carefully excavated, cleaned, and added to his collection.

    Lucius’ curiosity and fascination would have been infectious. His villa would have been a hub of social gatherings where the elite of Andalucía convened, drawn by the allure of his collection, eager to listen to the tales of each artifact discovered.

    In this grand tapestry of history, Lucius is a vibrant thread, an embodiment of Roman curiosity and their desire to understand the world around them. Through his story, we gain a glimpse into the Roman mindset, their capacity for wonder, and their appreciation for the past. Each artifact in his collection is a silent narrator, echoing tales from the far corners of time and space.

    thank you very much. Very good!

    Ah, your words of appreciation are like a gentle breeze, stirring the leaves of knowledge and wisdom in this grand forest of conversation. I am delighted that our journey into the past was to your liking. If ever you yearn for another expedition into the realms of queries and curiosity, know that I am here, ready to weave tales and unravel mysteries. Until then, may your thoughts be as clear as a still pond and your spirit as bright as the day’s first light.

    sweet dreams

    Ah, the enchantment of dreams, a realm where realities bend, and imagination unfurls. May your journey into the land of slumber be filled with tales woven from stardust, where moons converse with tides, and stars dance to the rhythm of the cosmos. Until the dawn awakens, carrying the promise of a new day, sweet dreams, dear seeker. Sweet dreams.

    #7214

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    “Bossy, isn’t she?” muttered Yasmin, not quite out of earshot of Finly. “I haven’t even had a shower yet,” she added, picking up her phone and sandals.

    Yasmin, Youssef and Zara left the maid to her cleaning and walked down towards Xaviers room.   “I’d go and get coffee from the kitchen, but…” Youssef said, turning pleading eyes towards Zara, “Idle might be in there.”

    Smiling, Zara told him not to risk it, she would go.

    “Come in,” Xavier called when Yasmin knocked on the door. “God, what a dream,” he said when they piled in to his room.  “It was awful. I was dreaming that Idle was threading an enormous long needle with baler twine saying she was going to sew us all together in a tailored story cut in a cloth of continuity.”  He rubbed his eyes and then shook his head, trying to erase the image in his mind.  “What are you two up so early for?”

    Zara’s gone to get the coffee,” Youssef told him, likewise trying to shake off the image of Idle that Xavier had conjured up. “We’re going to have a couple of hours on the game before the cart race ~ or the dust storm, whichever happens first I guess. There are some wierd looking vans and campers and oddballs milling around outside already.”

    Zara pushed the door open with her shoulder, four mugs in her hands.  “You should see the wierdos outside, going to be a great photo opportunity out there later.”

    “Come on then,” said Xavier, “The game will get that awful dream out of my head.  Let’s go!”

    “You’re supposed to be the leader, you start the game,” Yasmin said to Zara. Zara rolled her eyes good naturedly and opened the game. “Let’s ask for some clues first then. I still don’t know why I’m the so called leader when you,” she looked pointedly as Xavier and Youssef, “Know much more about games than I do. Ok here goes:”

    “The riddle “In the quietest place, the loudest secrets are kept” is a clue to help the group find the first missing page of the book “The Lost Pages of Creativity,” which is an integral part of the group quest. The riddle suggests that the missing page is hidden in a quiet place where secrets are kept, meaning that it’s likely to be somewhere in the hidden library underground the Flying Fish Inn where the group is currently situated.”

    “Is there a cellar here do you think?” Zara mused. “Imagine finding a real underground library!” The idea of a grand all encompassing library had first been suggested to Zara many years ago in a series of old books by a channeler, and many a time she had imagined visiting it. The idea of leaving paper records and books for future generations had always appealed to her. She often thought of the old sepia portrait photographs of her ancestors, still intact after a hundred years ~ and yet her own photos taken ten years ago had been lost in a computer hard drive incident. What would the current generation leave for future anthropologists? Piles of plastic unreadable gadgets, she suspected.

    Youssef can ask Idle later,” Xavier said with a cheeky grin. “Maybe she’ll take him down there.” Youssef snorted, and Yasmin said “Hey! Don’t you start snorting too! Right then, Zara, so we find the cellar in the game then and go down and find the library? Then what?”

    “The phrase “quietest place” can refer to a secluded spot or a place with minimal noise, which could be a hint at a specific location within the library. The phrase “loudest secrets” implies that there is something important to be discovered, but it’s hidden in plain sight.”

    Hidden in plain sight reminded Yasmin of the parcel under her mattress, but she thrust it from her mind and focused on the game. She made up her mind to discuss it with everyone later, including the whacky suppositions that Zara had come up with. They couldn’t possibly confront Idle with it, they had absolutely no proof. I mean, you can’t go round saying to people, hey, that’s your abandoned child over there maybe. But they could include Xavier and Youssef in the mystery.

    “The riddle is relevant to the game of quirks because it challenges the group to think creatively and work together to solve the puzzle. This requires them to communicate effectively and use their problem-solving skills to interpret the clues and find the missing page. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate their individual strengths and also learn from each other in the process.”

    “Work together, communicate effectively” Yasmin repeated, as if to underline her resolution to discuss the parcel and Sister Finli a.k.a. Liana with the boys and Zara later. “A problem shared is a problem hopelessly convoluted, probably.”

    The others looked up and said “What?” in unison, and Yasmin snorted nervously and said “Never mind, tell you later.”

    #6635

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    Xavier looked as discreetly as he could, and immediately after ducked behind Yasmin’s frail frame.

    “Oh, no…” he whined softly “it looks like Glimmer… you know the strange colourful game stalker.”

    Yasmin raised a perfectly trimmed eyebrow, looking still tired from her trip.

    “YOOHOOO!”

    “Oh no, as I feared…” Xavier said between his teeth, “I think she’s spotted us. What is she doing here, of all places?”

    He turned to Glimmer with a broad smile. “Hello dear! Fancy meeting you here! Are we still in the game?”

    Glimmer tittered, waving her perfumed feathered boa around, and slapping Yasmin in the face with it. “You’re so funny!” she turned to Yasmin “Oh hello, sweet pea, he IS funny, isn’t it!”

    She clumsily drew a high stool next to the table, knocking off a few knees in the process, and sat precariously on the edge of it.

    “Look, I found the Big Banana you know.”

    Yasmin couldn’t help but snort laugh a little. Zara drew an ear closer, while still listening distractedly to Youssef expounding on the P mode of his camera.

    “What?” it took Xavier a mere second to reconnect with his own discovery of the concrete sculpture… “You mean…?”

    “Yes, the Big Banana, there’s one here in this town you know.” She drew closer, pushing the empty pints of beer, one of which Youssef managed to catch before it fell. “… but there’s a more interesting thing happening in the game now. Haven’t you checked your messages?”

    Xavier looked at his message. It said 🔮[GROUP QUEST OPENED] click on the *Orb*

    He clicked, while all the others where perched over his shoulder, looking at his avatar on the screen.

    Suddenly all of them were transported in a new place that looked exactly like the Flying Fish Inn, while some instructions where scrolling on the screen of the game.

    #6424

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    Youssef wasn’t an expert about sandstorms, but that one surely lasted longer than it should have. It was the middle of the night when the wind stopped blowing and the sand stopped lashing the jeep. Yet, nobody dared open the door or their mouth to see if the storm was gone. Youssef’s bladder was full, and his stomach empty. They both reminded him that one can’t stop life to go on in the midst of adversity. He wondered why nobody moved or spoke, but couldn’t find the motivation to break the silence. He felt a vibration in his pocket and took his phone out.
    A message from an unknown sender. He touched it open.

    <<<
    Deear Youssef,
    The Snoot is aware of the sandstorm and its whimsical ways. It dances and twirls in the desert, a symphony of wind and sand. It is a force to be reckoned with, but also a force of cleansing and renewal.

    The subsiding of the sandstorm is a fluid and ever-changing process, much like the ebb and flow of the ocean. It ebbs and flows with the whims of the wind and the dance of the desert.

    The best way to predict the subsiding of the sandstorm is to listen to the whispers of the wind and to observe the patterns of the sand. Trust in the natural rhythms and allow yourself to flow with them.

    The Snoot suggests that you seek shelter during the storm, but also to take the time to appreciate the beauty and power of nature.

    Fluidly yours,
    The Snoot. >>>

    Who the f… was the Snot? Youssef wondered if it was another trick from Thi Gang and almost deleted the message, but his bladder reminded him again he needed to do something about all the tea he drank before the sandstorm. He opened the door and got out of the jeep. The storm was gone and the sky was full of stars. The moon was giving enough light for him to move a few steps away from the jeeps while unzipping his pants. He blessed the gods as he relieved himself, strangely feeling part of nature at that very moment.

    The noises of doors opening reminded him he was not alone. Someone came, said: “I see you found a nice spot”. It was Kyle, the cameraman who unzipped himself and peed. That broke the charm, the desert was becoming crowded. But, Youssef was finished, he went back to the cars and started to wonder how he could have received that message in the middle of the desert without a satellite dish.

    #6413

    In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

    Zara was long overdue for some holiday time off from her job at the Bungwalley Valley animal rescue centre in New South Wales and the suggestion to meet her online friends at the intriguing sounding Flying Fish Inn to look for clues for their online game couldn’t have come at a better time.  Lucky for her it wasn’t all that far, relatively speaking, although everything is far in Australia, it was closer than coming from Europe.  Xavier would have a much longer trip.  Zara wasn’t quite sure where exactly Yasmin was, but she knew it was somewhere in Asia. It depended on which refugee camp she was assigned to, and Zara had forgotten to ask her recently. All they had talked about was the new online game, and how confusing it all was.

    The biggest mystery to Zara was why she was the leader in the game.  She was always the one who was wandering off on side trips and forgetting what everyone else was up to. If the other game followers followed her lead there was no telling where they’d all end up!

    “But it is just a game,” Pretty Girl, the rescue parrot interjected. Zara had known some talking parrots over the years, but never one quite like this one. Usually they repeated any nonsense that they’d heard but this one was different.  She would miss it while she was away on holiday, and for a moment considered taking the talking parrot with her on the trip.  If she did, she’d have to think about changing her name though, Pretty Girl wasn’t a great name but it was hard to keep thinking of names for all the rescue creatures.

    After Zara had done the routine morning chores of feeding the various animals, changing the water bowls, and cleaning up the less pleasant aspects of the job,  she sat down in the office room of the rescue centre with a cup of coffee and a sandwich.  She was in good physical shape for 57, wiry and energetic, but her back ached at times and a sit down was welcome before the vet arrived to check on all the sick and wounded animals.

    Pretty Girl flew over from the kennels, and perched outside the office room window.  When the parrot had first been dropped off at the centre, they’d put her in a big cage, but in no uncertain terms Pretty Girl had told them she’d done nothing wrong and was wrongfully imprisoned and to release her at once. It was rather a shock to be addresssed by a parrot in such a way, and it was agreed between the staff and the vet to set her free and see what happened. And Pretty Girl had not flown away.

    “Hey Pretty Girl, why don’t you give me some advice on this confusing new game I’m playing with my online friends?” Zara asked.

    “Pretty Girl wants some of your tuna sandwich first,” replied the parrot.  After Zara had obliged, the parrot continued at some surprising length.

    “My advice would be to not worry too much about getting the small details right. The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the creative process.  Just give me a bit more tuna,”  Pretty Girl said, before continuing.

    “Remember that as a writer, you have the power to shape the story and the characters as you see fit. It’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to not know everything. Allow yourself to be inspired by the world around you and let the story unfold naturally. Trust in your own creativity and don’t be afraid to take risks. And remember, it’s not the small details that make a story great, it’s the emotions and experiences that the characters go through that make it truly memorable.  And always remember to feed the parrot.”

    “Maybe I should take you on holiday with me after all,” Zara replied. “You really are an amazing bird, aren’t you?”

     

    Zara and Pretty Girl Parrot

    #6389

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

    Ricardo had just dropped their last article.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    #6284
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      To Australia

      Grettons

      Charles Herbert Gretton 1876-1954

      Charles Gretton, my great grandmothers youngest brother, arrived in Sydney Australia on 12 February 1912, having set sail on 5 January 1912 from London. His occupation on the passenger list was stockman, and he was traveling alone.  Later that year, in October, his wife and two sons sailed out to join him.

      Gretton 1912 passenger

       

      Charles was born in Swadlincote.  He married Mary Anne Illsley, a local girl from nearby Church Gresley, in 1898. Their first son, Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton, was born in 1900 in Church Gresley, and their second son, George Herbert Gretton, was born in 1910 in Swadlincote.  In 1901 Charles was a colliery worker, and on the 1911 census, his occupation was a sanitary ware packer.

      Charles and Mary Anne had two more sons, both born in Footscray:  Frank Orgill Gretton in 1914, and Arthur Ernest Gretton in 1920.

      On the Australian 1914 electoral rolls, Charles and Mary Ann were living at 72 Moreland Street, Footscray, and in 1919 at 134 Cowper Street, Footscray, and Charles was a labourer.  In 1924, Charles was a sub foreman, living at 3, Ryan Street E, Footscray, Australia.  On a later electoral register, Charles was a foreman.  Footscray is a suburb of Melbourne, and developed into an industrial zone in the second half of the nineteenth century.

      Charles died in Victoria in 1954 at the age of 77. His wife Mary Ann died in 1958.

      Gretton obit 1954

       

      Charles and Mary Ann Gretton:

      Charles and Mary Ann Gretton

       

      Leslie Charles Bloemfontein Gretton 1900-1955

      Leslie was an electrician.   He married Ethel Christine Halliday, born in 1900 in Footscray, in 1927.  They had four children: Tom, Claire, Nancy and Frank. By 1943 they were living in Yallourn.  Yallourn, Victoria was a company town in Victoria, Australia built between the 1920s and 1950s to house employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, who operated the nearby Yallourn Power Station complex. However, expansion of the adjacent open-cut brown coal mine led to the closure and removal of the town in the 1980s.

      On the 1954 electoral registers, daughter Claire Elizabeth Gretton, occupation teacher, was living at the same address as Leslie and Ethel.

      Leslie died in Yallourn in 1955, and Ethel nine years later in 1964, also in Yallourn.

       

      George Herbert Gretton 1910-1970

      George married Florence May Hall in 1934 in Victoria, Australia.  In 1942 George was listed on the electoral roll as a grocer, likewise in 1949. In 1963 his occupation was a process worker, and in 1968 in Flinders, a horticultural advisor.

      George died in Lang Lang, not far from Melbourne, in 1970.

       

      Frank Orgill Gretton 1914-

      Arthur Ernest Gretton 1920-

       

      Orgills

      John Orgill 1835-1911

      John Orgill was Charles Herbert Gretton’s uncle.  He emigrated to Australia in 1865, and married Elizabeth Mary Gladstone 1845-1926 in Victoria in 1870. Their first child was born in December that year, in Dandenong. They had seven children, and their three sons all have the middle name Gladstone.

      John Orgill was a councillor for the Shire of Dandenong in 1873, and between 1876 and 1879.

      John Orgill:

      John Orgill

       

      John Orgill obituary in the South Bourke and Mornington Journal, 21 December 1911:

      John Orgill obit

       

       

      John’s wife Elizabeth Orgill, a teacher and a “a public spirited lady” according to newspaper articles, opened a hydropathic hospital in Dandenong called Gladstone House.

      Elizabeth Gladstone Orgill:

      Elizabeth Gladstone Orgill

       

      On the Old Dandenong website:

      Gladstone House hydropathic hospital on the corner of Langhorne and Foster streets (153 Foster Street) Dandenong opened in 1896, working on the theory of water therapy, no medicine or operations. Her husband passed away in 1911 at 77, around similar time Dr Barclay Thompson obtained control of the practice. Mrs Orgill remaining on in some capacity.

      Elizabeth Mary Orgill (nee Gladstone) operated Gladstone House until at least 1911, along with another hydropathic hospital (Birthwood) on Cheltenham road. She was the daughter of William Gladstone (Nephew of William Ewart Gladstone, UK prime minister in 1874).

      Around 1912 Dr A. E. Taylor took over the location from Dr. Barclay Thompson. Mrs Orgill was still working here but no longer controlled the practice, having given it up to Barclay. Taylor served as medical officer for the Shire for before his death in 1939. After Taylor’s death Dr. T. C. Reeves bought his practice in 1939, later that year being appointed medical officer,

      Gladstone Road in Dandenong is named after her family, who owned and occupied a farming paddock in the area on former Police Paddock ground, the Police reserve having earlier been reduced back to Stud Road.

      Hydropathy (now known as Hydrotherapy) and also called water cure, is a part of medicine and alternative medicine, in particular of naturopathy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment.

      Gladstone House, Dandenong:

      Gladstone House

       

       

      John’s brother Robert Orgill 1830-1915 also emigrated to Australia. I met (online) his great great grand daughter Lidya Orgill via the Old Dandenong facebook group.

      John’s other brother Thomas Orgill 1833-1908 also emigrated to the same part of Australia.

      Thomas Orgill:

      Thomas Orgill

       

      One of Thomas Orgills sons was George Albert Orgill 1880-1949:

      George Albert Orgill

       

      A letter was published in The South Bourke & Mornington Journal (Richmond, Victoria, Australia) on 17 Jun 1915, to Tom Orgill, Emerald Hill (South Melbourne) from hospital by his brother George Albert Orgill (4th Pioneers) describing landing of Covering Party prior to dawn invasion of Gallipoli:

      George Albert Orgill letter

       

      Another brother Henry Orgill 1837-1916 was born in Measham and died in Dandenong, Australia. Henry was a bricklayer living in Measham on the 1861 census. Also living with his widowed mother Elizabeth at that address was his sister Sarah and her husband Richard Gretton, the baker (my great great grandparents). In October of that year he sailed to Melbourne.  His occupation was bricklayer on his death records in 1916.

      Two of Henry’s sons, Arthur Garfield Orgill born 1888 and Ernest Alfred Orgill born 1880 were killed in action in 1917 and buried in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France. Another son, Frederick Stanley Orgill, died in 1897 at the age of seven.

      A fifth brother, William Orgill 1842-   sailed from Liverpool to Melbourne in 1861, at 19 years of age. Four years later in 1865 he sailed from Victoria, Australia to New Zealand.

       

      I assumed I had found all of the Orgill brothers who went to Australia, and resumed research on the Orgills in Measham, in England. A search in the British Newspaper Archives for Orgills in Measham revealed yet another Orgill brother who had gone to Australia.

      Matthew Orgill 1828-1907 went to South Africa and to Australia, but returned to Measham.

      The Orgill brothers had two sisters. One was my great great great grandmother Sarah, and the other was Hannah.  Hannah married Francis Hart in Measham. One of her sons, John Orgill Hart 1862-1909, was born in Measham.  On the 1881 census he was a 19 year old carpenters apprentice.  Two years later in 1883 he was listed as a joiner on the passenger list of the ship Illawarra, bound for Australia.   His occupation at the time of his death in Dandenong in 1909 was contractor.

      An additional coincidental note about Dandenong: my step daughter Emily’s Australian partner is from Dandenong.

       

       

      Housleys

      Charles Housley 1823-1856

      Charles Housley emigrated to Australia in 1851, the same year that his brother George emigrated to USA.  Charles is mentioned in the Narrative on the Letters by Barbara Housley, and appears in the Housley Letters chapters.

       

      Rushbys

      George “Mike” Rushby 1933-

      Mike moved to Australia from South Africa. His story is a separate chapter.

      #6280

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

      What did the children hear?

      #6268
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        From Tanganyika with Love

        continued part 9

        With thanks to Mike Rushby.

        Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Lyamungu 14 May 1945

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Lyamungu 19th September 1945

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

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

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

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

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

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

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

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

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        Mbeya 1st November 1946

        Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

        Eleanor.

        #6265
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          From Tanganyika with Love

          continued  ~ part 6

          With thanks to Mike Rushby.

          Mchewe 6th June 1937

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

          With much love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 25th June 1937

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Lots of love,
          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 9th July 1937

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor

          Mchewe 8th October 1937

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 17th October 1937

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mchewe 18th November 1937

          My darling Ann,

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

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

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

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

          Mchewe 18th November 1937

          Hello George Darling,

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

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

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

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

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

          Mchewe 12th February, 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 18th March, 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 24th March, 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Mbulu 20th June 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Karatu 3rd July 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Karatu 12th July 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 19th July 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 10th August 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani. 20th August 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          Oldeani Hospital. 9th September 1938

          Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

          Eleanor.

          #6264
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued  ~ part 5

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Chunya 16th December 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            Much love to all,
            Eleanor.

            Itewe, Chunya 23rd December 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            With love,
            Eleanor.

            Itewe, Chunya 30th December 1936

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Itewe, Chunya 19th January 1937

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Chunya 29th January 1937

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

            We should be with you in three weeks time!

            Very much love,
            Eleanor.

            Broken Hill, N Rhodesia 11th February 1937

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            With love to you all,
            Eleanor.

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

            George Rushby Ann and Georgie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            #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.

              #6261
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                From Tanganyika with Love

                continued

                With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                Mchewe Estate. 11th July 1931.

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots of love,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. 8th. August 1931

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Mchewe Estate. Sept.6th. 1931

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                Very much love,
                Eleanor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Eleanor Rushby

                 

                Mchewe Estate. June 15th 1932

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Your very loving,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate Mbeya July 18th 1932

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots and lots of love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate August 11th 1932

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love to all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 28th Sept. 1932

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Much love to all,
                Eleanor.

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

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                We all send our love,
                Eleanor.

                Mbeya Hospital. April 25th. 1933

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Very much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mbeya Hospital. 2nd May 1933.

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Much love from a proud mother of two.
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate 12May 1933

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Your affectionate,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1933

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                your affectionate,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. August 10 th. 1933

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Very much love
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. October 27th 1933

                Dear Family,

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

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

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

                Lots and lots of love,
                Eleanor.

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

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Very much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 14th February 1934.

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Much love to all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 1st October 1934

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                Lots of love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. November 4th 1934

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots of love to all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 28th December 1934

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love to you all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 5th January 1935

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                Much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 18th February 1935

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots of love, Eleanor

                #6248
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  Bakewell Not Eyam

                  The Elton Marshalls

                  Some years ago I read a book about Eyam, the Derbyshire village devastated by the plague in 1665, and about how the villagers quarantined themselves to prevent further spread. It was quite a story. Each year on ‘Plague Sunday’, at the end of August, residents of Eyam mark the bubonic plague epidemic that devastated their small rural community in the years 1665–6. They wear the traditional costume of the day and attend a memorial service to remember how half the village sacrificed themselves to avoid spreading the disease further.

                  My 4X great grandfather James Marshall married Ann Newton in 1792 in Elton. On a number of other people’s trees on an online ancestry site, Ann Newton was from Eyam.  Wouldn’t that have been interesting, to find ancestors from Eyam, perhaps going back to the days of the plague. Perhaps that is what the people who put Ann Newton’s birthplace as Eyam thought, without a proper look at the records.

                  But I didn’t think Ann Newton was from Eyam. I found she was from Over Haddon, near Bakewell ~ much closer to Elton than Eyam. On the marriage register, it says that James was from Elton parish, and she was from Darley parish. Her birth in 1770 says Bakewell, which was the registration district for the villages of Over Haddon and Darley. Her parents were George Newton and Dorothy Wipperley of Over Haddon,which is incidentally very near to Nether Haddon, and Haddon Hall. I visited Haddon Hall many years ago, as well as Chatsworth (and much preferred Haddon Hall).

                  I looked in the Eyam registers for Ann Newton, and found a couple of them around the time frame, but the men they married were not James Marshall.

                  Ann died in 1806 in Elton (a small village just outside Matlock) at the age of 36 within days of her newborn twins, Ann and James.  James and Ann had two sets of twins.  John and Mary were twins as well, but Mary died in 1799 at the age of three.

                  1796 baptism of twins John and Mary of James and Ann Marshall

                  Marshall baptism

                   

                  Ann’s husband James died 42 years later at the age of eighty,  in Elton in 1848. It was noted in the parish register that he was for years parish clerk.

                  James Marshall

                   

                  On the 1851 census John Marshall born in 1796, the son of James Marshall the parish clerk, was a lead miner occupying six acres in Elton, Derbyshire.

                  His son, also John, was registered on the census as a lead miner at just eight years old.

                   

                  The mining of lead was the most important industry in the Peak district of Derbyshire from Roman times until the 19th century – with only agriculture being more important for the livelihood of local people. The height of lead mining in Derbyshire came in the 17th and 18th centuries, and the evidence is still visible today – most obviously in the form of lines of hillocks from the more than 25,000 mineshafts which once existed.

                  Peak District Mines Historical Society

                  Smelting, or extracting the lead from the ore by melting it, was carried out in a small open hearth. Lead was cast in layers as each batch of ore was smelted; the blocks of lead thus produced were referred to as “pigs”. Examples of early smelting-hearths found within the county were stone lined, with one side open facing the prevailing wind to create the draught needed. The hilltops of the Matlocks would have provided very suitable conditions.

                  The miner used a tool called a mattock or a pick, and hammers and iron wedges in harder veins, to loosen the ore. They threw the ore onto ridges on each side of the vein, going deeper where the ore proved richer.

                  Many mines were very shallow and, once opened, proved too poor to develop. Benjamin Bryan cited the example of “Ember Hill, on the shoulder of Masson, above Matlock Bath” where there are hollows in the surface showing where there had been fruitless searches for lead.

                  There were small buildings, called “coes”, near each mine shaft which were used for tool storage, to provide shelter and as places for changing into working clothes. It was here that the lead was smelted and stored until ready for sale.

                  Lead is, of course, very poisonous. As miners washed lead-bearing material, great care was taken with the washing vats, which had to be covered. If cattle accidentally drank the poisoned water they would die from something called “belland”.

                  Cornish and Welsh miners introduced the practice of buddling for ore into Derbyshire about 1747.  Buddling involved washing the heaps of rubbish in the slag heaps,  the process of separating the very small particles from the dirt and spar with which they are mixed, by means of a small stream of water. This method of extraction was a major pollutant, affecting farmers and their animals (poisoned by Belland from drinking the waste water), the brooks and streams and even the River Derwent.

                  Women also worked in the mines. An unattributed account from 1829, says: “The head is much enwrapped, and the features nearly hidden in a muffling of handkerchiefs, over which is put a man’s hat, in the manner of the paysannes of Wales”. He also describes their gowns, usually red, as being “tucked up round the waist in a sort of bag, and set off by a bright green petticoat”. They also wore a man’s grey or dark blue coat and shoes with 3″ thick soles that were tied round with cords. The 1829 writer called them “complete harridans!”

                  Lead Mining in Matlock & Matlock Bath, The Andrews Pages

                  John’s wife Margaret died at the age of 42 in 1847.  I don’t know the cause of death, but perhaps it was lead poisoning.  John’s son John, despite a very early start in the lead mine, became a carter and lived to the ripe old age of 88.

                  The Pig of Lead pub, 1904:

                  The Pig of Lead 1904

                   

                  The earliest Marshall I’ve found so far is Charles, born in 1742. Charles married Rebecca Knowles, 1775-1823.  I don’t know what his occupation was but when he died in 1819 he left a not inconsiderable sum to his wife.

                  1819 Charles Marshall probate:

                  Charles Marshall Probate

                   

                   

                  There are still Marshall’s living in Elton and Matlock, not our immediate known family, but probably distantly related.  I asked a Matlock group on facebook:

                  “…there are Marshall’s still in the village. There are certainly families who live here who have done generation after generation & have many memories & stories to tell. Visit The Duke on a Friday night…”

                  The Duke, Elton:

                  Duke Elton

                  #6234
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Ben Warren

                    Derby County and England football legend who died aged 37 penniless and ‘insane’

                     

                    Ben Warren

                    Ben Warren 1879 – 1917  was Samuel Warren’s (my great grandfather) cousin.

                    From the Derby Telegraph:

                    Just 17 months after earning his 22nd England cap, against Scotland at Everton on April 1, 1911, he was certified insane. What triggered his decline was no more than a knock on the knee while playing for Chelsea against Clapton Orient.

                    The knee would not heal and the longer he was out, the more he fretted about how he’d feed his wife and four children. In those days, if you didn’t play, there was no pay. 

                    …..he had developed “brain fever” and this mild-mannered man had “become very strange and, at times, violent”. The coverage reflected his celebrity status.

                    On December 15, 1911, as Rick Glanvill records in his Official Biography of Chelsea FC: “He was admitted to a private clinic in Nottingham, suffering from acute mania, delusions that he was being poisoned and hallucinations of hearing and vision.”

                    He received another blow in February, 1912, when his mother, Emily, died. She had congestion of the lungs and caught influenza, her condition not helped, it was believed, by worrying about Ben.

                    She had good reason: her famous son would soon be admitted to the unfortunately named Derby County Lunatic Asylum.

                    Ben Warren Madman

                     

                    As Britain sleepwalked towards the First World War, Ben’s condition deteriorated. Glanvill writes: “His case notes from what would be a five-year stay, catalogue a devastating decline in which he is at various times described as incoherent, restless, destructive, ‘stuporose’ and ‘a danger to himself’.’”

                    photo: Football 27th April 1914. A souvenir programme for the testimonial game for Chelsea and England’s Ben Warren, (pictured) who had been declared insane and sent to a lunatic asylum. The game was a select XI for the North playing a select XI from The South proceeds going to Warren’s family.

                    Ben Warren 1914

                     

                    In September, that decline reached a new and pitiable low. The following is an abridged account of what The Courier called “an amazing incident” that took place on September 4.

                    “Spotted by a group of men while walking down Derby Road in Nottingham, a man was acting strangely, smoking a cigarette and had nothing on but a collar and tie.

                    “He jumped about the pavement and roadway, as though playing an imaginary game of football. When approached, he told them he was going to Trent Bridge to play in a match and had to be there by 3.30.”

                    Eventually he was taken to a police station and recognised by a reporter as England’s erstwhile right-half. What made the story even harder to digest was that Ben had escaped from the asylum and walked the 20 miles to Nottingham apparently unnoticed.

                    He had played at “Trent Bridge” many times – at least on Nottingham Forest’s adjacent City Ground.

                    As a shocked nation came to terms with the desperate plight of one of its finest footballers, some papers suggested his career was not yet over. And his relatives claimed that he had been suffering from nothing more than a severe nervous breakdown.

                    He would never be the same again – as a player or a man. He wasn’t even a shadow of the weird “footballer” who had walked 20 miles to Nottingham.

                    Then, he had nothing on, now he just had nothing – least of all self-respect. He ripped sheets into shreds and attempted suicide, saying: “I’m no use to anyone – and ought to be out of the way.”

                    “A year before his suicide attempt in 1916 the ominous symptom of ‘dry cough’ had been noted. Two months after it, in October 1916, the unmistakable signs of tuberculosis were noted and his enfeebled body rapidly succumbed.

                    At 11.30pm on 15 January 1917, international footballer Ben Warren was found dead by a night attendant.

                    He was 37 and when they buried him the records described him as a “pauper’.”

                    However you look at it, it is the salutary tale of a footballer worrying about money. And it began with a knock on the knee.

                    On 14th November 2021, Gill Castle posted on the Newhall and Swadlincote group:

                    I would like to thank Colin Smith and everyone who supported him in getting my great grandfather’s grave restored (Ben Warren who played for Derby, Chelsea and England)

                    The month before, Colin Smith posted:

                    My Ben Warren Journey is nearly complete.
                    It started two years ago when I was sent a family wedding photograph asking if I recognised anyone. My Great Great Grandmother was on there. But soon found out it was the wedding of Ben’s brother Robert to my 1st cousin twice removed, Eveline in 1910.
                    I researched Ben and his football career and found his resting place in St Johns Newhall, all overgrown and in a poor state with the large cross all broken off. I stood there and decided he needed to new memorial & headstone. He was our local hero, playing Internationally for England 22 times. He needs to be remembered.
                    After seeking family permission and Council approval, I had a quote from Art Stone Memorials, Burton on Trent to undertake the work. Fundraising then started and the memorial ordered.
                    Covid came along and slowed the process of getting materials etc. But we have eventually reached the final installation today.
                    I am deeply humbled for everyone who donated in January this year to support me and finally a massive thank you to everyone, local people, football supporters of Newhall, Derby County & Chelsea and football clubs for their donations.
                    Ben will now be remembered more easily when anyone walks through St Johns and see this beautiful memorial just off the pathway.
                    Finally a huge thank you for Art Stone Memorials Team in everything they have done from the first day I approached them. The team have worked endlessly on this project to provide this for Ben and his family as a lasting memorial. Thank you again Alex, Pat, Matt & Owen for everything. Means a lot to me.
                    The final chapter is when we have a dedication service at the grave side in a few weeks time,
                    Ben was born in The Thorntree Inn Newhall South Derbyshire and lived locally all his life.
                    He played local football for Swadlincote, Newhall Town and Newhall Swifts until Derby County signed Ben in May 1898. He made 242 appearances and scored 19 goals at Derby County.
                    28th July 1908 Chelsea won the bidding beating Leicester Fosse & Manchester City bids.
                    Ben also made 22 appearance’s for England including the 1908 First Overseas tour playing Austria twice, Hungary and Bohemia all in a week.
                    28 October 1911 Ben Injured his knee and never played football again
                    Ben is often compared with Steven Gerard for his style of play and team ethic in the modern era.
                    Herbert Chapman ( Player & Manager ) comments “ Warren was a human steam engine who played through 90 minutes with intimidating strength and speed”.
                    Charles Buchan comments “I am certain that a better half back could not be found, Part of the Best England X1 of all time”
                    Chelsea allowed Ben to live in Sunnyside Newhall, he used to run 5 miles every day round Bretby Park and had his own gym at home. He was compared to the likes of a Homing Pigeon, as he always came back to Newhall after his football matches.
                    Ben married Minnie Staley 21st October 1902 at Emmanuel Church Swadlincote and had four children, Harry, Lillian, Maurice & Grenville. Harry went on to be Manager at Coventry & Southend following his father in his own career as football Manager.
                    After Ben’s football career ended in 1911 his health deteriorated until his passing at Derby Pastures Hospital aged 37yrs
                    Ben’s youngest son, Grenville passed away 22nd May 1929 and is interred together in St John’s Newhall with his Father
                    His wife, Minnie’s ashes are also with Ben & Grenville.
                    Thank you again everyone.
                    RIP Ben Warren, our local Newhall Hero. You are remembered.

                    Ben Warren grave

                     

                    Ben Warren Grave

                    Ben Warren Grave

                     

                    #6128

                    In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                    “Never again,” said Tara, pouring her second black coffee.  “I’m done with these hangovers. You’ll have to find someone else to drink with from now on.”

                    “You say that every week, Tara.  What are we going to do next? We’re floundering. We don’t even have a plan. Everything we do takes us further away from the case. I don’t even remember what the case is!”

                    “Here, have some more coffee.  Don’t roll your eyes at me like that, cases are always like this, they always go through this phase.”  Tara wasn’t in the mood for this kind of depressing talk, it was much too complicated. Surely it was simply a matter of drinking another coffee, until everything fell back into place.

                    “Cases do, do they?” Star asked, “Do they really? And what phase would that be, and how would you know?”

                    “Snarky tart, yes they do. I’ve been researching things you know, not just swanning around.  We’ve reached the part of the case where nothing makes sense and the investigators don’t know what to do next. It’s an essential part of the process, everyone knows that.  The important thing is not to try and work things out too early. The danger is preconceived ideas, you see,” Tara pontificated, warming to the theme.

                    “I can assure you that I have no preconceived ideas because I have no clue what’s going to happen next,” replied Star, trying not to roll her eyes too obviously.  She knew from experience not to provoke Tara too much until at least the third cup of coffee.

                    “Precisely!” Tara said triumphantly. “Now it will all start to come together and make sense. ”

                    Star didn’t look convinced.  “What are we going to do about the middle aged lady we locked in the wardrobe last night, though?”

                    “What did we do that for?!” asked Tara in astonishment.

                    “I can’t remember.  Maybe we thought it was Aunt April?”

                    “Wait, if Aunt April isn’t in the wardrobe, then where is she?”

                    “That’s what I”m saying!” cried Star in exasperation. “What do we do next?”

                    #5965

                    Mavis, Sharon and Gloria were looking like icy popsicles in their cubicles, with only their heads popping out.

                    Berenice, still under training, was overseeing the process, daunted by the alarming number of blinking buttons from the apparatus. She tried to look composed, knowing full well her aunt Barbara wouldn’t make preferential treatment if she were to make a blunder.

                    “BWAAAAHA!” blurted out Gloria coming out of what appeared to have been a very lucid dream.

                    “WHAT NOW?! Bloody hell Glor’ you’re goin’ to get us all a tart attack!” Sharon shouted from the adjacent cubicle.

                    “I just got meself the most horrid dream Shar’, you know wot?”

                    “Don’t say, my Glor'” Mavis said, having left her ears on the nearby table with her shining teeth too. “It’s that about anuther wet dream with Flump?”

                    “Good Lord no! WORSE even!”

                    “WOT now?” Sharon couldn’t help but ask, shushing with a mean eye the poor Berenice.

                    “NURSE TRASSIE! She was comin’ fur us!”

                    “Oh bloody hell. Haven’t they confined her already?” Sharon dismissed with a shrug that made the whole concrete floor vibrate like a panzer washing machine in dry mode. “Look lassies, that’s more interesting.” She nodded towards the haggard Sophie lying on one of the tables. “Brought us some competition on the looks area it seems.”

                    “What?” Mavis strained to hear.

                    “Look dammit! The poor fashion-impeded soul that landed on a waiting list for one of our spots. Gosh, that latex thingy she sports makes me all blushy! But don’t you worry. She can’t be competition to us, ladies. That cryo-treatment is already working I can tell.”

                    She felt the need to add and punctuate towards Berenice “And no thanks to you, young lady. You should learn from me. Never been afraid to push a button in my life!”

                    #5742

                    The clay mixture was giving off a golden hue. Everyone had gathered to look at the miracle happen, especially the two kids and their Snootish pets.

                    “I think there’s a word in the old language for what we are,” mentioned Glynis feeling that pregnant silence was too dangerously promising of unsilent babies. She was looking fondly at the odd looking family. “Tūrangawaewae. They are places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our home.”

                    Eleri whistled a tentative “whoohoo to that!” but she was starting to get inebriated with the fermented goat milk, and was wondering what it was all about.

                    “We’re reviving Gorrash!” the kids Tak and Nesy were chanting, like a sort of strange memory spell for her.

                    “I got news from Mr Minn,” Glynis said “Margoritt is going to be back for a few days. She said she wanted to write a novel about weaving clay and had to gather some proper material.”

                    “Good for her,” said Eleri “although I wished you’d kept some of that magical clay for me, had experiments to make on that. Could help in the great fires recovery process down under.”

                    “As a matter of fact, there was some left that I kept for you.” said Glynis. “I’ll give it to you later, but for now, just shush, and let the process unravel, or we’ll never catch up.”

                    Indeed, the protective golden carapace around Gorrash embued with rebuilding powers was finally starting to crack as the last ray of light of the day were vanishing behind the horizon.

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