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  • #7356

    “Would you be looking for me?”

    Cedric jumped. Where on earth had she come from? It was the blond witch from the cafe, but what was she doing sneaking up behind him when he’d seen her rushing off down the street not a minute before! And yet here she was, smirking at him like butter wouldn’t melt!

    He studied her. She wasn’t conventionally pretty he decided, with her thin, sharp features. And she had no meat on her bones. Cedric liked women who were soft and had a bit of something he could squeeze. And she was so … white … almost like one of those albinos … still, there was something he found strangely compelling about her.

    She’s a witch, he reminded himself. “What on earth gave you the idea I was following you?” He twisted his mouth into an amused sneer, hoping it showed the contempt she surely deserved.

    “You’re not then?” Her gaze was unswerving and Cedric had to look away, pretending to take a great interest in a black poodle peeing on a nearby lamp post. Cedric liked dogs and up until six months ago had a miniature schnauzer called Mitzy. Thinking of Mitzy, he felt the familiar little squeeze in his chest.

    “I’m Frigella O’Green,” she said, still studying him intently.

    Reluctantly he pulled his gaze back towards her. “Oh, ah … Cedric … just Cedric.” He’d nearly told her his surname which didn’t seem a good idea, all things considered.  Out of habit, he raised his hand to take hers, then remembering, thrust it awkwardly in his jacket pocket.

    “Well, just Cedric, if you’re not looking for me, I’ll be off … I’m in a bit of a hurry.” Then she smiled at him, properly this time, and Cedric wondered why he hadn’t thought she was pretty a moment ago. “Nice hat by the way, Cedric. Stylish.” She turned then and Cedric watched her stride down the street until she was no longer visible. Distractedly he brushed the wool tweed of his cap.

    Frigella O’Green is a witch, Cedric, he told himself sternly.

    #7353

    Cedric peered through the peephole in his newspaper. He’d have recognised that bogwitch anywhere. Drat that blonde one grabbing her arm, he’d have been able to catch her red handed and arrest her.

    Cedric was ambitious.  He’d been working for MAMA for thirty years as an agent and wanted a promotion, a nice cushy office job where he could sit in comfort dishing out orders.  He’d had enough of traipsing round the countryside and sitting in draughty pubs in the back of beyond and felt it was high time that the Ministry for the Abolition of the Magical Arts recognised his potential as a leader.

    Who was that blonde one anyway? Another bogwitch no doubt, covens springing up everywhere these days, defying proper law and order, it was an outrage.  She hadn’t seemed too happy to see that old tart Aggie, though. Maybe there was a rift between covens that he could exploit for his own ends.  Cedric decided to keep an eye on her, perhaps mislead her into thinking he was on her side.  It gave him a frisson of pleasure to think how clever he would look when he made his report.

    Frigella her name was, Cedric heard Aggie ask her why she was rushing off.

    “Gottta run, I’m babysitting. And just you behave yourself Aggie, I told you, we don’t do things like that around here. It’s witches like you that give us all a bad name.”

    Cedric rolled his newspaper up and pulled his deerstalker hat low over his eyes and followed Frigella out onto the street.

    #7326

    Jeezel pushed open the door of her favourite florist The Enchanted Garden. The clear sound of wind chimes welcomed her. An ever changing melody atuned to earth and water. Flucinda was at the counter serving another client.  She might not be of the flamboyant kind but she knew her way with flowers. Her shop was a botanical wonderland, a cornucopia of color and fragrance that would make Mother Nature herself green with envy. The witch took a moment to breath in. It helped her relax a little.

    Jeezel! How are you dear?” asked Flucinda as the client left with his arms full of red roses. “You’re glowing as always.”

    The witch blushed just a little at the compliment. Flucinda’s dark brown eyes were as sharp as those of a silent observation assassin. They darted swiflty over Jeezel’s silhouette, taking mental notes, absorbing the energy, the secrets, the silent dialogues.

    “What do you need today?” she asked.

    “Petals of a white rose, lavender buds and mint. And a few other things.” She said, handing the florist a list.

    “Why don’t you wait in the heart of the Enchanted Garden while I’m preparing all that for you. Water is boiled, I’ll bring you some freshly brewed herbal tea.”

    Jeezel felt grateful to her friend. She sat on an ornate stone bench and enjoyed the soft serenade of trickling water from a sparkling fountain and the symphony of scents — delicate jasmine, heady rose, spicy carnation and a hint of sweet lily. It helped sooth her anxiety. She had received a request on Sponsoreons by one of her fans and loyal customer. Apparently the last full moon had pulled the thread on the tightly knit sweater of camaraderie at this poor soul’s job. There appeared to be more drama in that workplace than at at drag queen bingo night when the last sequin-studded handbag is on the line, and the usual symphony of productivity has turned into a cacophony of cattiness and pettiness. Even the smallest of issues were being blown up like a lip injection gone rogue!

    She had the perfect spell for it: Concordia. Used to bring harmony and peace, smoothing over the ruffled feathers and frayed edges. It was the divine choice for that case. However, such a potent spell was not to be taken lightly. If it was not crafted with precision, intent and a touch of flair, things could go haywire faster than a wig snatch in a lip-synch battle.

    “Here you go,” said Flucinda as she put the silver tray on a smooth rock at the edge of the fountain.

    “Wow! It’s fabulous,” said Jeezel.

    The teapot was a glamour, as opulent as a bejewelled crown. The steam rising from its beak carried whispers of secrets and spells, bringing out memories of rumours swirling around a backstage pageant. It was in another life.

    “Do I smell chamomile, lavender and valerian root?”

    “Yes.”

    Flucinda poured generously the yellow brew into an intricately carved white porcelain cup. Then added in a smidgeon of honey.

    “I know you like it sweet,” she said to the witch before adding a sprinkle of edible silver stars. “Take the time you need. Everything will be at the counter when you’re ready to go.”

    “Thanks Flucinda,” said Jeezel with a smile.

    She took a first sip. It felt like a warm hug in a cup from a dear friend who knows just what you need. And she noticed  a secret ingredient: a twist of lemon balm that gave the brew a citrusy zing. With every following sip, Jeezel felt the anxiety melting away like last season’s contour, leaving her ready to face the spellcasting with vigor and vim.

    #7301

    After the first of the four Rites of the Annual Incense Making was done, and the Coven disbanded for the day, Frigella was pulled by the sleeve by the weird one Truella.

    “Psstt. Come to the Faded Cabbage in 30 min. Have something to tell you.”

    Frigella rolled her eyes. She was not one for secrecies, cloaks and ladle, all that sort of mischiefs. But Truella seemed intent, if her electric hair had to tell the story for her. “Alright, I’ll be there.” she finally said, surprising Truella who’d thought she’d have to do more coaxing.

    The Fadded Cabbage was hidden around a darker corner a stone’s throw away from the headquarters of the Quadrivium, some place the city council and gentrification had not yet touched for some reason, probably a strong ghosting spell.

    Frigella sighed. She had been as usual too punctual, and of course, Truella was nowhere in sight. Unless…

    She put a light spell on her round glasses which turned a subtle tint of violet. There she was. Under a cloaking spell, in a shady corner, slurping on a macchiatto lagger with cinnamon. Or some odd brewage of the sort she knew the secret.

    “The old hare’s clearly lost the plot.” She spent no time engaging the discussion.

    “I’ll have to stop you there, Tru.” said Frigella, “I don’t care about the politics. Much less if you’re trying to make a power move.”

    Truella spluttered her offensive brewage all over Frigella’s neat starched apron. “You got it all wrong, Frig’. I don’t care about the power, I only care about my craft and freedom. It’s been too long we’ve been called to arms, like every bloody year. And my interest have grown since.”

    Frigella chuckled. “You mean, you’ve been all over the place, haven’t you. From Energetic History, you’ve moved to Concrete Plasticity, Telluric Archaelogy, Familial Arborestry, I must say… It’s been hard to keep up.”

    “You’re one to tell. All that mystery, and not much to show for. You’re barely doing the minimum to keep our flagship household Incense ‘Liz n°5’ afloat.” Truella sighed.

    “So what’s your plan?” Frigella wondered?

    #7163
    TracyTracy
    Participant

      Aunt Idle

      Contention 

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

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

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

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

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

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

      #6661

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      The black BMW pulled up outside the Flying Fish Inn.  Sister Finli pulled a baseball cap low over her big sunglasses before she got out of the car. Yasmin was still in the bar with her friends and Finli hoped to check in and retreat to her room before they got back to the inn.

      She rang the bell on the reception desk several times before an elderly lady in a red cardigan appeared.

      “Ah yes, Liana Parker,” Mater said, checking the register.    Liana managed to get a look at the register and noted that Yasmin was in room 2. “Room 4. Did you have a good trip down? Smart car you’ve got there,”   Mater glanced over Liana’s shoulder, “Don’t see many like that in these parts.”

      “Yes, yes,” Finli snapped impatiently (henceforth referred to to as Liana). She didn’t have time for small talk. The others might arrive back at any time. As long as she kept out of Yasmin’s way, she knew nobody would recognize her ~ after all she had been abandoned at birth. Even if Yasmin did find her out, she only knew her as a nun at the orphanage and Liana would just have to make up some excuse about why a nun was on holiday in the outback in a BMW.  She’d cross that bridge when she came to it.

      Mater looked over her glasses at the new guest. “I’ll show you to your room.”  Either she was rude or tired, but Mater gave her the benefit of the doubt.  “I expect you’re tired.”

      Liana softened and smiled at the old lady, remembering that she’d have to speak to everyone in due course in order to find anything out, and it wouldn’t do to start off on the wrong foot.

      “I’m writing a book,” Liana explained as she followed Mater down the hall. “Hoping a bit of peace and quiet here will help, and my book is set in the outback in a place a bit like this.”

      “How lovely dear, well if there’s anything we can help you with, please don’t hesitate to ask.  Old Bert’s a mine of information,”   Mater suppressed a chuckle, “Well as long as you don’t mention mines.  Here we are,” Mater opened the door to room 4 and handed the key to Liana.  “Just ask if there’s anything you need.”

      Liana put her bags down and then listened at the door to Mater’s retreating steps.  Inching the door open, she looked up and down the hallway, but there was nobody about.  Quickly she went to room 2 and tried the door, hoping it was open and she didn’t have to resort to other means. It was open.  What a stroke of luck! Liana was encouraged. Within moments Liana found the parcel, unopened.  Carefully opening the door,  she looked around to make sure nobody was around, leaving the room with the parcel under her arm and closing the  door quietly, she hastened back to room 4.   She nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice piped up behind her.

      “What’s that parcel and where are you going with it?” Prune asked.

      “None of your business you….”  Liana was just about to say nosy brat, and then remebered that she would catch more flies with honey than vinegar. It was going to be hard for her to remember that, but she must try!  She smiled at the teenager and said, “A dreamtime gift for my gran, got it in Alice. Is there a post office in town?”

      Prune narrowed her eyes. There was something fishy about this and it didn’t take her more than a second to reach the conclusion that she wanted to see what was in the parcel.  But how?

      “Yes,” she replied, quick as a flash grabbing the parcel from Liana. “I’ll post it for you!” she called over her shoulder as she raced off down the hall and disappeared.

      “FUCK!” Liana muttered under her breath, running after her, but she was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully nobody else was about in the reception area to question why she was running around like a madwoman.  Fuck! she muttered again, going back to her room and closing the door. Now what? What a disaster after such an encouraging start!

      Prune collided with Idle on the steps of the verandah, nearly knocking her off her feet. Idle grabbed Prune to steady herself.  Her grip on the girls arm tightened when she saw the suspicious look on face.   Always up to no good, that one. “What have you got there? Where did you get that? Give me that parcel!”

      Idle grabbed the parcel and Prune fled. Idle, holding onto the verandah railing, watched Prune running off between the eucalyptus trees.  She’s always trying to  make a drama out of everything, Idle thought with a sigh. Hardly any wonder I suppose, it must be boring here for a teenager with nothing much going on.

      She heard a loud snorting laugh, and turned to see the four guests returning from the bar in town, laughing and joking.  She put the parcel down on the hall table and waved hello, asking if they’d had a good time.  “I bet you’re ready for a bite to eat, I’ll go and see what Mater’s got on the menu.” and off she went to the kitchen, leaving the parcel on the table.

      The four friends agreed to meet back on the verandah for drinks before dinner after freshening up.   Yasmin kept glancing back at the BMW.  “That woman must be staying here!” she snorted.  Zara grabbed her elbow and pulled her along. “Then we’ll find out who she is later, come on.”

      Youssef followed Idle into the kitchen to ask for some snacks before dinner (much to Idle’s delight), leaving Xavier on the verandah.  He looked as if he was admiring the view, such as it was, but he was preoccupied thinking about work again. Enough! he reminded himself to relax and enjoy the holiday. He saw the parcel on the table and picked it up, absentmindedly thinking the black notebook he ordered had arrived in the post, and took it back to his room. He tossed it on the bed and went to freshen up for dinner.

      #6559

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      Why do I always pick the cart with the wonky wheel, Zara thought, but she wasn’t going to go back and get another one and keep Sergio and Yasmin waiting outside. She zigzagged up and down the aisles until she came to the wine.  What was it the old dear back at the Inn was saying about the alcohol laws in Alice?  Well, surely that didn’t apply to tourists.  There were two men chatting in the middle of the aisle and Zara deftly skirted around them without the unpredictable cart crashing.  While she was perusing the wines hoping to find a nice Rioja, she couldn’t help but overhear the clear ringing tones of one of the men saying “True love never dies!” and a few other things which she later forgot, which she thought was quite an odd topic for two men to be discussing in the Piggly supermarket in the outback of all places.  The man with the poetic voice went on his way, leaving the other man with the little girl in the child seat of the cart ready to move on, but Zara’s cart was straddled across the aisle so she quickly moved it out of the way and continued scanning the wine selection.  A clear sweet voice rang out behind her. “Thank you.”  She turned, and her eyes met those of the girl (afterwards Zara could have sworn the child was 10 or 11, and surely too big to be sitting in the baby seat, but yet felt sure the child had indeed been sitting in the cart).  They exchanged a deep meaningful smile of magical proportions that defied explaining in mere words.  Later when Zara told Yasmin about it, she said it was “one of those moments, you know?” and Yasmin understood what she meant.  The child seemed somehow familiar, and there was that shimmery timeless oddness to the encounter which made Zara feel a bemused lightness.

      child in supermarket

       

      Zara was still gazing at the rows of wine bottles when Yasmin caught up with her. “What’s taking you so long, you haven’t even got anything in your cart yet!”

      Snapping her attention back, Zara asked Yasmin to help her choose the wine, asking her, “Do you ever feel like you can’t tell the difference between the game and real life?  Like sometimes a scene in real life isn’t quite real?”

      “I dunno about the game but real life seems strange enough. That woman outside with the BMW hire car that was in the loo before me, there was something familiar about her, something creepy.  And look what I found in the cubicle,”  Yasmin looked around quickly to make sure they were alone and pulled something out of her pocket.

      crucifix

       

      “Looks like the chain broke, is it gold? Might be worth something,” Zara was missing the point.

      “It’s a crucifix.”

      “If it’s gold it can be melted down and made into something else,” said Zara missing the point again.

      “It’s the same as the ones the nuns at the orphanage wear,” Yasmins whisper turned into a nervous snort.

      “I wonder who dropped it and what they were doing here.  That tart in the BMW didn’t look like a nun to me.”  Zara almost snorted too (was it contagious?) and then wondered why tart and nun sounded vaguely familiar and why yellow cabs had popped into her mind.  “Come on, we’ve kept Sergio waiting long enough already.”

      After all the deliberation over which wine to choose, they grabbed a half dozen bottles each without further ado and went to the checkout.

      #6547

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      On her way back to her room Zara picked up a leaflet off the hall table about the upcoming lager and cart race. Before starting the game she had a look through it.

      The leaflet also mentioned the competition  held annually each January in Port Lincoln. The Tunarama Festival was a competition to determine just how far a person could chuck a frozen tuna. A full-fledged celebration was centered around the event, complete with a wide array of arts and cultural displays, other participation events, local market stalls, and some of the freshest seafood in the world.

      There was unlikely to be any fresh seafood at the local lager and cart races, but judging from the photos of previous events, it looked colourful and well worth sticking around for, just for the photo opportunities.

      cart race 1

       

      Apparently the lager and cart races had started during the early days of the settler mining, and most of the carts used were relics from that era.  Competitors dressed up in costumes and colourful wigs, many of which were found in the abandoned houses of the local area.

      “The miners were a strange breed of men, but not all cut from the same cloth ~ they were daring outsiders, game for anything, adventurous rule breakers and outlaws with a penchant for extreme experience. Thus, outlandish and adventurous women ~ and men who were not interested in mining for gold in the usual sense ~ were magnetically drawn to the isolated outpost.  After a long dark day of restriction and confinement in the mines, the evenings were a time of colour and wild abandon; bright, garish, bizarre Burlesque events were popular. Strange though it may seem, the town had one of the most extensive wig and corset emporiums in the country, although it was discretely tucked away in the barn behind a mundane haberdashery shop.”

      The idea was to fill as many different receptacles with lager as possible, piling them onto the gaily decorated carts pulled by the costume clad participants.  As the carts were raced along the track, onlookers ran alongside to catch any jars or bottles that fell off the carts before they hit the ground. Many crashed to the ground and were broken, but if anyone caught one, they were obliged to drink the contents there and then before running after the carts to catch another one.

      Members of the public were encouraged to attend in fancy dress costumes and wigs.  There were plenty of stationary food vendors carts at the lager and cart races as well, and stalls and tents set up to sell trinkets.

      #6492

      In reply to: Orbs of Madjourneys

      With a determined glint in his eye, Xavier set his sights on the slot machines. He scanned the rows of blinking lights and flashing screens until one caught his attention. He approached the machine and inserted a coin, feeling a rush of excitement as he pulled the lever.

      With a satisfying whir, the reels began to spin, and before he knew it, the golden banana appeared on the screen, lining up perfectly. The machine erupted in flashing lights and loud noises, and a ticket spilled out onto the floor.

      🎰 · 💰
      🍌🍌🍌

      Xavier picked it up, reading aloud the inscriptions on the ticket, “Congratulations on completing your quest. You may enjoy your trip until the next stage of your journey. Look for the cook on the pirate boat, she will give you directions to regroup with your friends. And don’t forget to confirm your bookings.”

      Glimmer let out a whoop of trepidation, “Let’s go find that cook, Xav! I can’t wait to see what’s next in store for us!”

      But Xavier, feeling a bit worn out, replied with a smile, “Hold on a minute, love. All I need at the moment is just some R&R after all that brouhaha.”

      Glimmer nodded in understanding and they both made their way to the deck, taking in the fresh air and the breathtaking scenery as the boat sailed towards its next destination.

      As the boat continued its journey, sailing and gliding on the river in the air filled with moist, they could start to see across the mist opening like a heavy curtain a colourful floating market in the distance, and the sounds of haggling and laughter filled the air.

      They couldn’t wait to explore and see what treasures and surprises awaited them. The journey was far from over, but for now, they were content to simply enjoy the ride.

      :fleuron2:

      Xavier closed his laptop while his friends were still sending messages on the chatroom. He’d had long days of work before leaving to take his flights to Australia, during which he hoped he could rest enough during the flights.

      Most of the flights he’d checked had a minimum of 3 layovers, and a unbelievably long durations (not to count the astronomic amount of carbon emissions). Against all common sense, he’d taken one of the longest flight duration. It was 57h, but only 3 layovers. From Berlin, to Stockholm, then Dubai and Sydney. He could probably catch up with Youssef there as apparently he sent a message before boarding. They could go to Alice Spring and the Frying Mush Inn together. He’d try to find the reviews, but they were only listed on boutiquehotelsdownunder.com and didn’t have the rave reviews of the prestigious Kookynie Grand Hotel franchise. God knows what Zara had in mind while booking this place, it’d better be good. Reminded him of the time they all went to that improbably ghastly hotel in Spain (at the time Yasmin was still volunteering in a mission and couldn’t join) for a seminar with other game loonies and cosplayers. Those were the early days of the game, and the technology frankly left a lot to be desired at the time. They’d ended up eating raspberry jam with disposable toothbrushes, and get drunk on laughter.

      When Brytta had seen the time it took to go there, she’d reconsidered coming. She couldn’t afford taking that much time off, and spending the equivalent of 4 full days of her hard-won vacation as a nurse into a plane simply for the round-trip —there was simply no way.
      Xavier had proposed to shorten his stay, but she’d laughed and said, “you go there, I’ll enjoy some girl time with my friends, and I’ll work on my painting” —it was more convenient when he was gone for business trips, she would be able to put all the materials out, and not care to keep the apartment neat and tidy.

      The backpack was ready with the essentials; Xavier liked to travel light.

      #6333
      TracyTracy
      Participant

        The Grattidge Family

         

        The first Grattidge to appear in our tree was Emma Grattidge (1853-1911) who married Charles Tomlinson (1847-1907) in 1872.

        Charles Tomlinson (1873-1929) was their son and he married my great grandmother Nellie Fisher. Their daughter Margaret (later Peggy Edwards) was my grandmother on my fathers side.

        Emma Grattidge was born in Wolverhampton, the daughter and youngest child of William Grattidge (1820-1887) born in Foston, Derbyshire, and Mary Stubbs, born in Burton on Trent, daughter of Solomon Stubbs, a land carrier. William and Mary married at St Modwens church, Burton on Trent, in 1839. It’s unclear why they moved to Wolverhampton. On the 1841 census William was employed as an agent, and their first son William was nine months old. Thereafter, William was a licensed victuallar or innkeeper.

        William Grattidge was born in Foston, Derbyshire in 1820. His parents were Thomas Grattidge, farmer (1779-1843) and Ann Gerrard (1789-1822) from Ellastone. Thomas and Ann married in 1813 in Ellastone. They had five children before Ann died at the age of 25:

        Bessy was born in 1815, Thomas in 1818, William in 1820, and Daniel Augustus and Frederick were twins born in 1822. They were all born in Foston. (records say Foston, Foston and Scropton, or Scropton)

        On the 1841 census Thomas had nine people additional to family living at the farm in Foston, presumably agricultural labourers and help.

        After Ann died, Thomas had three children with Kezia Gibbs (30 years his junior) before marrying her in 1836, then had a further four with her before dying in 1843. Then Kezia married Thomas’s nephew Frederick Augustus Grattidge (born in 1816 in Stafford) in London in 1847 and had two more!

         

        The siblings of William Grattidge (my 3x great grandfather):

         

        Frederick Grattidge (1822-1872) was a schoolmaster and never married. He died at the age of 49 in Tamworth at his twin brother Daniels address.

        Daniel Augustus Grattidge (1822-1903) was a grocer at Gungate in Tamworth.

        Thomas Grattidge (1818-1871) married in Derby, and then emigrated to Illinois, USA.

        Bessy Grattidge  (1815-1840) married John Buxton, farmer, in Ellastone in January 1838. They had three children before Bessy died in December 1840 at the age of 25: Henry in 1838, John in 1839, and Bessy Buxton in 1840. Bessy was baptised in January 1841. Presumably the birth of Bessy caused the death of Bessy the mother.

        Bessy Buxton’s gravestone:

        “Sacred to the memory of Bessy Buxton, the affectionate wife of John Buxton of Stanton She departed this life December 20th 1840, aged 25 years. “Husband, Farewell my life is Past, I loved you while life did last. Think on my children for my sake, And ever of them with I take.”

        20 Dec 1840, Ellastone, Staffordshire

        Bessy Buxton

         

        In the 1843 will of Thomas Grattidge, farmer of Foston, he leaves fifth shares of his estate, including freehold real estate at Findern,  to his wife Kezia, and sons William, Daniel, Frederick and Thomas. He mentions that the children of his late daughter Bessy, wife of John Buxton, will be taken care of by their father.  He leaves the farm to Keziah in confidence that she will maintain, support and educate his children with her.

        An excerpt from the will:

        I give and bequeath unto my dear wife Keziah Grattidge all my household goods and furniture, wearing apparel and plate and plated articles, linen, books, china, glass, and other household effects whatsoever, and also all my implements of husbandry, horses, cattle, hay, corn, crops and live and dead stock whatsoever, and also all the ready money that may be about my person or in my dwelling house at the time of my decease, …I also give my said wife the tenant right and possession of the farm in my occupation….

        A page from the 1843 will of Thomas Grattidge:

        1843 Thomas Grattidge

         

        William Grattidges half siblings (the offspring of Thomas Grattidge and Kezia Gibbs):

         

        Albert Grattidge (1842-1914) was a railway engine driver in Derby. In 1884 he was driving the train when an unfortunate accident occured outside Ambergate. Three children were blackberrying and crossed the rails in front of the train, and one little girl died.

        Albert Grattidge:

        Albert Grattidge

         

        George Grattidge (1826-1876) was baptised Gibbs as this was before Thomas married Kezia. He was a police inspector in Derby.

        George Grattidge:

        George Grattidge

         

        Edwin Grattidge (1837-1852) died at just 15 years old.

        Ann Grattidge (1835-) married Charles Fletcher, stone mason, and lived in Derby.

        Louisa Victoria Grattidge (1840-1869) was sadly another Grattidge woman who died young. Louisa married Emmanuel Brunt Cheesborough in 1860 in Derby. In 1861 Louisa and Emmanuel were living with her mother Kezia in Derby, with their two children Frederick and Ann Louisa. Emmanuel’s occupation was sawyer. (Kezia Gibbs second husband Frederick Augustus Grattidge was a timber merchant in Derby)

        At the time of her death in 1869, Emmanuel was the landlord of the White Hart public house at Bridgegate in Derby.

        The Derby Mercury of 17th November 1869:

        “On Wednesday morning Mr Coroner Vallack held an inquest in the Grand
        Jury-room, Town-hall, on the body of Louisa Victoria Cheeseborough, aged
        33, the wife of the landlord of the White Hart, Bridge-gate, who committed
        suicide by poisoning at an early hour on Sunday morning. The following
        evidence was taken:

        Mr Frederick Borough, surgeon, practising in Derby, deposed that he was
        called in to see the deceased about four o’clock on Sunday morning last. He
        accordingly examined the deceased and found the body quite warm, but dead.
        He afterwards made enquiries of the husband, who said that he was afraid
        that his wife had taken poison, also giving him at the same time the
        remains of some blue material in a cup. The aunt of the deceased’s husband
        told him that she had seen Mrs Cheeseborough put down a cup in the
        club-room, as though she had just taken it from her mouth. The witness took
        the liquid home with him, and informed them that an inquest would
        necessarily have to be held on Monday. He had made a post mortem
        examination of the body, and found that in the stomach there was a great
        deal of congestion. There were remains of food in the stomach and, having
        put the contents into a bottle, he took the stomach away. He also examined
        the heart and found it very pale and flabby. All the other organs were
        comparatively healthy; the liver was friable.

        Hannah Stone, aunt of the deceased’s husband, said she acted as a servant
        in the house. On Saturday evening, while they were going to bed and whilst
        witness was undressing, the deceased came into the room, went up to the
        bedside, awoke her daughter, and whispered to her. but what she said the
        witness did not know. The child jumped out of bed, but the deceased closed
        the door and went away. The child followed her mother, and she also
        followed them to the deceased’s bed-room, but the door being closed, they
        then went to the club-room door and opening it they saw the deceased
        standing with a candle in one hand. The daughter stayed with her in the
        room whilst the witness went downstairs to fetch a candle for herself, and
        as she was returning up again she saw the deceased put a teacup on the
        table. The little girl began to scream, saying “Oh aunt, my mother is
        going, but don’t let her go”. The deceased then walked into her bed-room,
        and they went and stood at the door whilst the deceased undressed herself.
        The daughter and the witness then returned to their bed-room. Presently
        they went to see if the deceased was in bed, but she was sitting on the
        floor her arms on the bedside. Her husband was sitting in a chair fast
        asleep. The witness pulled her on the bed as well as she could.
        Ann Louisa Cheesborough, a little girl, said that the deceased was her
        mother. On Saturday evening last, about twenty minutes before eleven
        o’clock, she went to bed, leaving her mother and aunt downstairs. Her aunt
        came to bed as usual. By and bye, her mother came into her room – before
        the aunt had retired to rest – and awoke her. She told the witness, in a
        low voice, ‘that she should have all that she had got, adding that she
        should also leave her her watch, as she was going to die’. She did not tell
        her aunt what her mother had said, but followed her directly into the
        club-room, where she saw her drink something from a cup, which she
        afterwards placed on the table. Her mother then went into her own room and
        shut the door. She screamed and called her father, who was downstairs. He
        came up and went into her room. The witness then went to bed and fell
        asleep. She did not hear any noise or quarrelling in the house after going
        to bed.

        Police-constable Webster was on duty in Bridge-gate on Saturday evening
        last, about twenty minutes to one o’clock. He knew the White Hart
        public-house in Bridge-gate, and as he was approaching that place, he heard
        a woman scream as though at the back side of the house. The witness went to
        the door and heard the deceased keep saying ‘Will you be quiet and go to
        bed’. The reply was most disgusting, and the language which the
        police-constable said was uttered by the husband of the deceased, was
        immoral in the extreme. He heard the poor woman keep pressing her husband
        to go to bed quietly, and eventually he saw him through the keyhole of the
        door pass and go upstairs. his wife having gone up a minute or so before.
        Inspector Fearn deposed that on Sunday morning last, after he had heard of
        the deceased’s death from supposed poisoning, he went to Cheeseborough’s
        public house, and found in the club-room two nearly empty packets of
        Battie’s Lincoln Vermin Killer – each labelled poison.

        Several of the Jury here intimated that they had seen some marks on the
        deceased’s neck, as of blows, and expressing a desire that the surgeon
        should return, and re-examine the body. This was accordingly done, after
        which the following evidence was taken:

        Mr Borough said that he had examined the body of the deceased and observed
        a mark on the left side of the neck, which he considered had come on since
        death. He thought it was the commencement of decomposition.
        This was the evidence, after which the jury returned a verdict “that the
        deceased took poison whilst of unsound mind” and requested the Coroner to
        censure the deceased’s husband.

        The Coroner told Cheeseborough that he was a disgusting brute and that the
        jury only regretted that the law could not reach his brutal conduct.
        However he had had a narrow escape. It was their belief that his poor
        wife, who was driven to her own destruction by his brutal treatment, would
        have been a living woman that day except for his cowardly conduct towards
        her.

        The inquiry, which had lasted a considerable time, then closed.”

         

        In this article it says:

        “it was the “fourth or fifth remarkable and tragical event – some of which were of the worst description – that has taken place within the last twelve years at the White Hart and in the very room in which the unfortunate Louisa Cheesborough drew her last breath.”

        Sheffield Independent – Friday 12 November 1869:

        Louisa Cheesborough

        #6313

        In reply to: The Sexy Wooden Leg

        Egbert Gofindlevsky rapped on the door of room number 22.  The letter flapped against his pin striped trouser leg as his hand shook uncontrollably, his habitual tremor exacerbated with the shock.  Remembering that Obadiah Sproutwinklov was deaf, he banged loudly on the door with the flat of his hand.  Eventually the door creaked open.

        Egbert flapped the letter in from of Obadiah’s face.  “Have you had one of these?” he asked.

        “If you’d stop flapping it about I might be able to see what it is,” Obadiah replied.  “Oh that!  As a matter of fact I’ve had one just like it. The devils work, I tell you!  A practical joke, and in very poor taste!”

        Egbert was starting to wish he’d gone to see Olga Herringbonevsky first.  “Can I come in?” he hissed, “So we can discuss it in private?”

        Reluctantly Obadiah pulled the door open and ushered him inside the room.  Egbert looked around for a place to sit, but upon noticing a distinct odour of urine decided to remain standing.

        “Ursula is booting us out, where are we to go?”

        “Eh?” replied Obadiah, cupping his ear. “Speak up, man!”

        Egbert repeated his question.

        “No need to shout!”

        The two old men endeavoured to conduct a conversation on this unexepected turn of events, the upshot being that Obadiah had no intention of leaving his room at all henceforth, come what may, and would happily starve to death in his room rather than take to the streets.

        Egbert considered this form of action unhelpful, as he himself had no wish to starve to death in his room, so he removed himself from room 22 with a disgruntled sigh and made his way to Olga’s room on the third floor.

        #6273
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          The Housley Letters
          THE NEIGHBORHOOD

           

          From Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters:

          In July 1872, Joseph wrote to George who had been gone for 21 years: “You would not know Heanor now. It has got such a large place. They have got a town hall built where Charles’ stone yard was.”

          Then Joseph took George on a tour from Smalley to Heanor pointing out all the changes:

          Smalley Map

          Smalley Farms

           

          “Now we commence at Firby Brook. There is no public house there. It is turned into a market gardener’s place. Morley smithy stands as it did. You would know Chris Shepperd that used to keep the farm opposite. He is dead and the farm is got into other hands.”  (In 1851, Chris Shepherd, age 39, and his widowed mother, Mary, had a farm of 114 acres. Charles Carrington, age 14, worked for them as a “cow boy.” In 1851 Hollingsworths also lived at Morely smithy.) “The Rose and Crown stands and Antony Kerry keeps that yet.”  (In 1851, the census listed Kerry as a mason, builder, victicular, and farmer. He lived with his wife and four sons and numerous servants.) “They have pulled down Samuel Kerry’s farm house down and built him one in another place. Now we come to the Bell that was but they have pulled the old one down and made Isaac Potters House into the new Bell.” (In 1851, The Bell was run by Ann Weston, a widow.)

          Smalley Roundhouse:

          Smalley Roundhouse

           

          “The old Round House is standing yet but they have took the machine away. The Public House at the top end is kept by Mrs. Turton. I don’t know who she was before she married. Now we get to old Tom Oldknow. The old house is pulled down and a new one is put up but it is gone out of the family altogether. Now Jack is living at Stanley. He married Ann that used to live at Barbers at Smalley. That finishes Smalley. Now for Taghill. The old Jolly Collier is standing yet and a man of the name of Remmington keeps the new one opposite. Jack Foulkes son Jack used to keep that but has left just lately. There is the Nottingham House, Nags Head, Cross Keys and then the Red Lion but houses built on both sides all the way down Taghill. Then we get to the town hall that is built on the ground that Charles’ Stone Yard used to be. There is Joseph Watson’s shop standing yet in the old place. The King of Prussia, the White Lion and Hanks that is the Public House. You see there are more than there used to be. The Magistrate sits at the Town Hall and tries cases there every fortnight.”

          .

          #6266
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued part 7

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Mbulu. 30th September 1938

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Mbulu. 25th October 1938

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Iringa. 30th November 1938

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 14th February 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 28th February 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 25th March 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 28th April 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Nzassa 5th August 1939

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Morogoro 14th September 1939

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Morogoro 4th November 1939

            Dearest Family,

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Iringa 8th December 1939

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Morogoro 10th March 1940

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Morogoro 14th July 1940

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Morogoro 16th November 1940

            Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

             

            #6264
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              continued  ~ part 5

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              Chunya 16th December 1936

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

              Much love to all,
              Eleanor.

              Itewe, Chunya 23rd December 1936

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              With love,
              Eleanor.

              Itewe, Chunya 30th December 1936

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Itewe, Chunya 19th January 1937

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Chunya 29th January 1937

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              We should be with you in three weeks time!

              Very much love,
              Eleanor.

              Broken Hill, N Rhodesia 11th February 1937

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              With love to you all,
              Eleanor.

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

              George Rushby Ann and Georgie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              #6263
              TracyTracy
              Participant

                From Tanganyika with Love

                continued  ~ part 4

                With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                Mchewe Estate. 31st January 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                With much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 9th February 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Heaps of love to all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 27th February 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots of love,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. 12th March 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                With heaps of love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 24th March 1936

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Heaps of love from a sadder but wiser,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. 3rd April 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                The wet season is definitely the time to stay home.

                Lots and lots of love,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. 30th April 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                Your very affectionate,
                Eleanor

                Mchewe Estate. 17th September 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

                With love to you all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 2nd October 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love to you all,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe Estate. 10th October 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

                Your worried but affectionate,
                Eleanor.

                Tukuyu. 23rd October 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

                Much love,
                Eleanor.

                Mchewe. 12th November 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Lots and lots of love to all,
                Eleanor.

                Chunya 27th November 1936

                Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                Much love to all,
                Eleanor.

                 

                #6262
                TracyTracy
                Participant

                  From Tanganyika with Love

                  continued  ~ part 3

                  With thanks to Mike Rushby.

                  Mchewe Estate. 22nd March 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Very much love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 14th June 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Just hold thumbs that all goes well.

                  your loving but anxious,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 28th June 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Very much love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 3rd August 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Lots and lots of love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 20th August 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                  Who would be a mother!
                  Eleanor

                  Mchewe Estate. 20th September 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                  Mchewe Estate. 11th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 17th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  Lots and lots of love,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 25th October 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  Very much love from us all, Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 8th November 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 21st November 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 6th December 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Eleanor

                  Mchewe Estate. 22nd December 1935

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  Your very loving,
                  Eleanor.

                  Mchewe Estate. 2nd January 1936

                  Dearest Family,

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

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

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

                  With love to all,
                  Eleanor.

                  #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

                    #6260
                    TracyTracy
                    Participant

                      From Tanganyika with Love

                      With thanks to Mike Rushby.

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

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

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

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

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

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

                       

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Much love my dear,
                      your jubilant
                      Eleanor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Bless you all,
                      Eleanor.

                      S.S.Timavo. 6th. November 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Eleanor Leslie.

                      Eleanor and George Rushby:

                      Eleanor and George Rushby

                      Splendid Hotel, Dar es Salaam 11th November 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Your cave woman
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. P.O. Mbeya 22 November 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Much love to you all,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate 29th. November 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Your loving
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. Mbeya. 8th December 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Very much love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mbeya 23rd December 1930

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

                      26th December 1930

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

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

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

                      Lots and lots of love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate 8th Jan 1931

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Your loving,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 1st April 1931

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                      Very much love,
                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate 20th April 1931

                      Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

                      Eleanor.

                      Mchewe Estate. 20th May 1931

                      Dear Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Eleanor.

                      #6253
                      TracyTracy
                      Participant

                        My Grandparents Kitchen

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                        #6123

                        In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                        “Did someone say drinks are on the house?” asked Rosamund, pushing past the burly bouncer as she entered the pub.  “What’s your name, handsome?”

                        “Percival,” the bouncer replied with a wry grin.  “Yeah I know, doesn’t fit the image.”

                        Rosamund looked him up and down while simultaneously flicking a bit of food from between her teeth with a credit card.  “I keep forgetting to buy dental floss,” she said.

                        “Is that really necessary?” hissed Tara. “Is that moving the plot forward?”

                        “Careful now,” Star said, “Your Liz is showing.”

                        “I’ll be away for a while on an important mission,” Rosamund said to Percival, “But give me your number and I’ll call you when I get back.”

                        “The trip is cancelled, you’re not going anywhere,” Star told her, “Except to the shop to buy dental floss.”

                        “Will someone please tell me why we’re talking about dental floss when we have this serious case to solve?” Tara sounded exasperated, and glared at Rosamund.  What a brazen hussy she was!

                        “I’m glad you mentioned it!” piped up a middle aged lady sitting at the corner table. “I have run out of dental floss too.”

                        “See?” said Rosamund.  “You never can tell how helpful you are when you just act yourself and let it flow.  Now tell me why I’m not going to New Zealand? I already packed my suitcase!”

                        “Because it seems that New Zealand has come to us,” replied Star, “Or should I say, the signs of the cult are everywhere.  It’s not so much a case of finding the cult as a case of, well finding somewhere the cult hasn’t already infected.  And as for April,” she continued, “She changes her story every five minutes, I think we should ignore everything she says from now on. Nothing but a distraction.”

                        “That’s it!” exclaimed Tara. “Exactly! Distraction tactics!  A well known ruse, tried and tested.  She has been sent to us to distract us from the case. She isn’t a new client. She’s a red herring for the old clients enemies.”

                        “Oh, good one, Tara,” Star was impressed. Tara could be an abusive drunk, but some of the things she blurted out were pure gold.  Or had a grain of gold in them, it would be more accurate to say. A certain perspicacity shone through at times when she was well lubricated.  “Perhaps we should lock her back in the wardrobe for the time being until we’ve worked out what to do with her.”

                        “You’re right, Star, we must restrain her….oy! oy!  Percival, catch that fleeing aunt at once!”  April had made a dash for it out of the pub door.  The burly bouncer missed his chance. April legged it up the road and disappeared round the corner.

                        “That’s entirely your fault, Rosamund,” Tara spat, “Distracting the man from his duties, you rancid little strumpet!”

                        “Oh I say, that’s going a bit far,” interjected the middle aged lady sitting at the corner table.

                        “What’s it got to do with you?” Tara turned on her.

                        “This,” the woman replied with a smugly Trumpish smile. She pulled her trouser leg up to reveal a bell bird tattoo.

                        “Oh my fucking god,” Tara was close to tears again.

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