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  • #6481
    ÉricÉric
    Keymaster

      This is the outline for a short novel called “The Jorid’s Travels – 14 years on” that will unfold in this thread.
      The novel is about the travels of Georges and Salomé.
      The Jorid is the name of the vessel that can travel through dimensions as well as time, within certain boundaries. The Jorid has been built and is operated by Georges and his companion Salomé.

      Short backstory for the main cast and secondary characters

      Georges was a French thief possibly from the 1800s, turned other-dimensional explorer, and together with Salomé, a girl of mysterious origins who he first met in the Alienor dimension but believed to have origins in Northern India maybe Tibet from a distant past.
      They have lived rich adventures together, and are deeply bound together, by love and mutual interests.
      Georges, with his handsome face, dark hair and amber gaze, is a bit of a daredevil at times, curious and engaging with others. He is very interesting in anything that shines, strange mechanisms and generally the ways consciousness works in living matter.
      Salomé, on the other hand is deeply intuitive, empath at times, quite logical and rational but also interested in mysticism, the ways of the Truth, and the “why” rather than the “how” of things.
      The world of Alienor (a pale green sun under which twin planets originally orbited – Duane, Murtuane – with an additional third, Phreal, home planet of the Guardians, an alien race of builders with god-like powers) lived through cataclysmic changes, finished by the time this story is told.
      The Jorid’s original prototype designed were crafted by Léonard, a mysterious figure, self-taught in the arts of dimensional magic in Alienor sects, acted as a mentor to Georges during his adventures. It is not known where he is now.
      The story starts with Georges and Salomé looking for Léonard to adjust and calibrate the tiles navigational array of the Jorid, who seems to be affected by the auto-generated tiles which behave in too predictible fashion, instead of allowing for deeper explorations in the dimensions of space/time or dimensions of consciousness.
      Leonard was last spotted in a desert in quadrant AVB 34-7•8 – Cosmic time triangulation congruent to 2023 AD Earth era. More precisely the sand deserts of Bluhm’Oxl in the Zathu sector.

      When they find Léonard, they are propelled in new adventures. They possibly encounter new companions, and some mystery to solve in a similar fashion to the Odyssey, or Robinsons Lost in Space.

      Being able to tune into the probable quantum realities, the Jorid is able to trace the plot of their adventures even before they’ve been starting to unfold in no less than 33 chapters, giving them evocative titles.

      Here are the 33 chapters for the glorious adventures with some keywords under each to give some hints to the daring adventurers.

      1. Chapter 1: The Search Begins – Georges and Salomé, Léonard, Zathu sector, Bluhm’Oxl, dimensional magic
      2. Chapter 2: A New Companion – unexpected ally, discovery, adventure
      3. Chapter 3: Into the Desert – Bluhm’Oxl, sand dunes, treacherous journey
      4. Chapter 4: The First Clue – search for Léonard, mystery, puzzle
      5. Chapter 5: The Oasis – rest, rekindling hope, unexpected danger
      6. Chapter 6: The Lost City – ancient civilization, artifacts, mystery
      7. Chapter 7: A Dangerous Encounter – hostile aliens, survival, bravery
      8. Chapter 8: A New Threat – ancient curse, ominous presence, danger
      9. Chapter 9: The Key to the Past – uncovering secrets, solving puzzles, unlocking power
      10. Chapter 10: The Guardian’s Temple – mystical portal, discovery, knowledge
      11. Chapter 11: The Celestial Map – space-time navigation, discovery, enlightenment
      12. Chapter 12: The First Step – journey through dimensions, bravery, adventure
      13. Chapter 13: The Cosmic Rift – strange anomalies, dangerous zones, exploration
      14. Chapter 14: A Surprising Discovery – unexpected allies, strange creatures, intrigue
      15. Chapter 15: The Memory Stones – ancient wisdom, unlock hidden knowledge, unlock the past
      16. Chapter 16: The Time Stream – navigating through time, adventure, danger
      17. Chapter 17: The Mirror Dimension – parallel world, alternate reality, discovery
      18. Chapter 18: A Distant Planet – alien world, strange cultures, exploration
      19. Chapter 19: The Starlight Forest – enchanted forest, secrets, danger
      20. Chapter 20: The Temple of the Mind – exploring consciousness, inner journey, enlightenment
      21. Chapter 21: The Sea of Souls – mystical ocean, hidden knowledge, inner peace
      22. Chapter 22: The Path of the Truth – search for meaning, self-discovery, enlightenment
      23. Chapter 23: The Cosmic Library – ancient knowledge, discovery, enlightenment
      24. Chapter 24: The Dream Plane – exploring the subconscious, self-discovery, enlightenment
      25. Chapter 25: The Shadow Realm – dark dimensions, fear, danger
      26. Chapter 26: The Fire Planet – intense heat, dangerous creatures, bravery
      27. Chapter 27: The Floating Islands – aerial adventure, strange creatures, discovery
      28. Chapter 28: The Crystal Caves – glittering beauty, hidden secrets, danger
      29. Chapter 29: The Eternal Night – unknown world, strange creatures, fear
      30. Chapter 30: The Lost Civilization – ancient ruins, mystery, adventure
      31. Chapter 31: The Vortex – intense energy, danger, bravery
      32. Chapter 32: The Cosmic Storm – weather extremes, danger, survival
      33. Chapter 33: The Return – reunion with Léonard, returning to the Jorid, new adventures.
      #6479
      Jib
      Participant

         

        Chapter 1: The Search Begins

         

        Georges was sitting more or less comfortably in the command chair on the control deck of the Jorid, slowly drinking his tea. The temperature of the beverage seemed to be determined randomly since the interference patterns in the navigation array weren’t totally fixed when they removed those low quality tiles. Drinking cold or hot tea was not the worse of it, and it was even kind of a challenge to swallow it and not get burned by ice. The deck kept changing shape and colours, reconfiguring along with the quantum variations of the Boodenbaum field variation due to some leakage of information between dimensions. Salomé had preferred resting in her travelpod where the effects were not as strongly felt.

        “The worse is not as much seeing your face morph into a soul-insect and turn inside down, although those greenish hues usually make me feel nauseous, but feeling two probable realities where my organs grow and shrink at the same time is more than I can bear.”

        After a few freakish experiences, where his legs cross-merged with the chair, or a third eye grow behind his head, or that time when dissolved into a poof of greasy smoke, Georges got used to the fluid nature of reality during the trips. You just had to get along with it and not resist. He thought it gave some spice and colours to their journey across dimensions. He enjoyed the differences of perceptions generated by the fluctuations of the Boodenbaum field, as it allowed his tea to taste like chardonnay or bœuf bourguignon, and was glad when he discovered a taste that he had never experienced before.

        During the last few trips, he had attempted to talk with Jorid, but their voices were so garbled and transformed so quickly that he lost interest. He couldn’t make the difference with the other noises, like honking trucks passing by on a motorway, or the cry of agony of a mating Irdvark. He felt a pang of nostalgia as the memories of Duane, Murtuane and Phréal merged into the deck around him. He wondered if he could get physically lost during one of the trips as he started to feel his limbs move away from his body, one hairy foot brushing by his left ear while he drank a sip of tea with the mouth that had grown on his middle finger. Salomé had warned him about fractured perception and losing a piece of his mind… It seemed it hadn’t happened yet. But would he notice?

        Already he felt the deceleration he had come to notice when they neared their destination. The deck stabilized into a shape adapted to this quadrant of the dimensional universes. The large command screen displayed images of several ruins lost in the sand desert of Bluhm’Oxl.

        Georges looked at his hands, and touched his legs. His reflection  on the command screen looked back at him. Handsome as usual. He grinned. Salomé wouldn’t refrain from telling him if something was off anyway.

        Jorid: “I have woken up Salomé.”

        She won’t be long now. Georges ordered a hot meklah, one of her favorites drink that usually helped her refocus when getting out of her pod.

        A blip caught Georges’ attention.

        Jorid: “This is Tlal Klatl’Oxl, better know as Klatu. Your potential contact on Bluhm’Oxl and a Zathu. He’ll guide and protect you as you enter the conflict zone to look for Léonard.”

        #6425

        It is a challenge of utmost magnitude to keep track of time here in this land where the Dream Time is so nigh as to make its presence oft palpable in the very air. The subtle shifts in timelines and probabilities do naught to aid in this endeavor. No coincidence “Dream Time” is the label on Aunt Idle’s not-so-secret stash — she could not keep its location secret lest she forget it during the waking hours.

        We jumped without warning into 2023. At 15, I am a grown-up now, so says Mater, and I could not wait to hear such words from her. She is always here, such a comfort, unchanging, unyielding, the only immutable force in the universe.
        So now, life can start to unfold in front of me in the manner of my choosing, rather than being dictated by the sorry state of affairs of my family. I have set my sights upon a boarding school that may provide such an escape, but it will require the procurement of the tuition money — which will take a few more years to acquire. Patience, I have, at least for now.

        The Inn is ever in need of assistance it seems. I don’t know how it came to be, but some Italian chap, Georgio, who came last year during the pandemic and got stranded with us, made such a fuss about Mater’s famous bush tucker that the Inn became fashionable overnight. Obviously Mater, bless her soul, doesn’t cook, a mercy for which we are all thankful. Said tucker was truly the handiwork of Tiku and Finly, but Georgio thought that “Mater’s tucker” has a nicer ring. Whatever suits these loonies’ fancy, it did bring us a nice stream of income in return.

        #6269
        TracyTracy
        Participant

          The Housley Letters 

          From Barbara Housley’s Narrative on the Letters.

           

          William Housley (1781-1848) and Ellen Carrington were married on May 30, 1814 at St. Oswald’s church in Ashbourne. William died in 1848 at the age of 67 of “disease of lungs and general debility”. Ellen died in 1872.

          Marriage of William Housley and Ellen Carrington in Ashbourne in 1814:

          William and Ellen Marriage

           

          Parish records show three children for William and his first wife, Mary, Ellens’ sister, who were married December 29, 1806: Mary Ann, christened in 1808 and mentioned frequently in the letters; Elizabeth, christened in 1810, but never mentioned in any letters; and William, born in 1812, probably referred to as Will in the letters. Mary died in 1813.

          William and Ellen had ten children: John, Samuel, Edward, Anne, Charles, George, Joseph, Robert, Emma, and Joseph. The first Joseph died at the age of four, and the last son was also named Joseph. Anne never married, Charles emigrated to Australia in 1851, and George to USA, also in 1851. The letters are to George, from his sisters and brothers in England.

          The following are excerpts of those letters, including excerpts of Barbara Housley’s “Narrative on Historic Letters”. They are grouped according to who they refer to, rather than chronological order.

           

          ELLEN HOUSLEY 1795-1872

          Joseph wrote that when Emma was married, Ellen “broke up the comfortable home and the things went to Derby and she went to live with them but Derby didn’t agree with her so she left again leaving her things behind and came to live with John in the new house where she died.” Ellen was listed with John’s household in the 1871 census.
          In May 1872, the Ilkeston Pioneer carried this notice: “Mr. Hopkins will sell by auction on Saturday next the eleventh of May 1872 the whole of the useful furniture, sewing machine, etc. nearly new on the premises of the late Mrs. Housley at Smalley near Heanor in the county of Derby. Sale at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

          Ellen’s family was evidently rather prominant in Smalley. Two Carringtons (John and William) served on the Parish Council in 1794. Parish records are full of Carrington marriages and christenings; census records confirm many of the family groupings.

          In June of 1856, Emma wrote: “Mother looks as well as ever and was told by a lady the other day that she looked handsome.” Later she wrote: “Mother is as stout as ever although she sometimes complains of not being able to do as she used to.”

           

          Mary’s children:

          MARY ANN HOUSLEY  1808-1878

          There were hard feelings between Mary Ann and Ellen and her children. Anne wrote: “If you remember we were not very friendly when you left. They never came and nothing was too bad for Mary Ann to say of Mother and me, but when Robert died Mother sent for her to the funeral but she did not think well to come so we took no more notice. She would not allow her children to come either.”

          Mary Ann was unlucky in love! In Anne’s second letter she wrote: “William Carrington is paying Mary Ann great attention. He is living in London but they write to each other….We expect it will be a match.” Apparantly the courtship was stormy for in 1855, Emma wrote: “Mary Ann’s wedding with William Carrington has dropped through after she had prepared everything, dresses and all for the occassion.” Then in 1856, Emma wrote: “William Carrington and Mary Ann are separated. They wore him out with their nonsense.” Whether they ever married is unclear. Joseph wrote in 1872: “Mary Ann was married but her husband has left her. She is in very poor health. She has one daughter and they are living with their mother at Smalley.”

          Regarding William Carrington, Emma supplied this bit of news: “His sister, Mrs. Lily, has eloped with a married man. Is she not a nice person!”

           

          WILLIAM HOUSLEY JR. 1812-1890

          According to a letter from Anne, Will’s two sons and daughter were sent to learn dancing so they would be “fit for any society.” Will’s wife was Dorothy Palfry. They were married in Denby on October 20, 1836 when Will was 24. According to the 1851 census, Will and Dorothy had three sons: Alfred 14, Edwin 12, and William 10. All three boys were born in Denby.

          In his letter of May 30, 1872, after just bemoaning that all of his brothers and sisters are gone except Sam and John, Joseph added: “Will is living still.” In another 1872 letter Joseph wrote, “Will is living at Heanor yet and carrying on his cattle dealing.” The 1871 census listed Will, 59, and his son William, 30, of Lascoe Road, Heanor, as cattle dealers.

           

          Ellen’s children:

          JOHN HOUSLEY  1815-1893

          John married Sarah Baggally in Morely in 1838. They had at least six children. Elizabeth (born 2 May 1838) was “out service” in 1854. In her “third year out,” Elizabeth was described by Anne as “a very nice steady girl but quite a woman in appearance.” One of her positions was with a Mrs. Frearson in Heanor. Emma wrote in 1856: “Elizabeth is still at Mrs. Frearson. She is such a fine stout girl you would not know her.” Joseph wrote in 1872 that Elizabeth was in service with Mrs. Eliza Sitwell at Derby. (About 1850, Miss Eliza Wilmot-Sitwell provided for a small porch with a handsome Norman doorway at the west end of the St. John the Baptist parish church in Smalley.)

          According to Elizabeth’s birth certificate and the 1841 census, John was a butcher. By 1851, the household included a nurse and a servant, and John was listed as a “victular.” Anne wrote in February 1854, “John has left the Public House a year and a half ago. He is living where Plumbs (Ann Plumb witnessed William’s death certificate with her mark) did and Thomas Allen has the land. He has been working at James Eley’s all winter.” In 1861, Ellen lived with John and Sarah and the three boys.

          John sold his share in the inheritance from their mother and disappeared after her death. (He died in Doncaster, Yorkshire, in 1893.) At that time Charles, the youngest would have been 21. Indeed, Joseph wrote in July 1872: “John’s children are all grown up”.

          In May 1872, Joseph wrote: “For what do you think, John has sold his share and he has acted very bad since his wife died and at the same time he sold all his furniture. You may guess I have never seen him but once since poor mother’s funeral and he is gone now no one knows where.”

          In February 1874 Joseph wrote: “You want to know what made John go away. Well, I will give you one reason. I think I told you that when his wife died he persuaded me to leave Derby and come to live with him. Well so we did and dear Harriet to keep his house. Well he insulted my wife and offered things to her that was not proper and my dear wife had the power to resist his unmanly conduct. I did not think he could of served me such a dirty trick so that is one thing dear brother. He could not look me in the face when we met. Then after we left him he got a woman in the house and I suppose they lived as man and wife. She caught the small pox and died and there he was by himself like some wild man. Well dear brother I could not go to him again after he had served me and mine as he had and I believe he was greatly in debt too so that he sold his share out of the property and when he received the money at Belper he went away and has never been seen by any of us since but I have heard of him being at Sheffield enquiring for Sam Caldwell. You will remember him. He worked in the Nag’s Head yard but I have heard nothing no more of him.”

          A mention of a John Housley of Heanor in the Nottinghma Journal 1875.  I don’t know for sure if the John mentioned here is the brother John who Joseph describes above as behaving improperly to his wife. John Housley had a son Joseph, born in 1840, and John’s wife Sarah died in 1870.

          John Housley

           

          In 1876, the solicitor wrote to George: “Have you heard of John Housley? He is entitled to Robert’s share and I want him to claim it.”

           

          SAMUEL HOUSLEY 1816-

          Sam married Elizabeth Brookes of Sutton Coldfield, and they had three daughters: Elizabeth, Mary Anne and Catherine.  Elizabeth his wife died in 1849, a few months after Samuel’s father William died in 1848. The particular circumstances relating to these individuals have been discussed in previous chapters; the following are letter excerpts relating to them.

          Death of William Housley 15 Dec 1848, and Elizabeth Housley 5 April 1849, Smalley:

          Housley Deaths

           

          Joseph wrote in December 1872: “I saw one of Sam’s daughters, the youngest Kate, you would remember her a baby I dare say. She is very comfortably married.”

          In the same letter (December 15, 1872), Joseph wrote:  “I think we have now found all out now that is concerned in the matter for there was only Sam that we did not know his whereabouts but I was informed a week ago that he is dead–died about three years ago in Birmingham Union. Poor Sam. He ought to have come to a better end than that….His daughter and her husband went to Brimingham and also to Sutton Coldfield that is where he married his wife from and found out his wife’s brother. It appears he has been there and at Birmingham ever since he went away but ever fond of drink.”

          (Sam, however, was still alive in 1871, living as a lodger at the George and Dragon Inn, Henley in Arden. And no trace of Sam has been found since. It would appear that Sam did not want to be found.)

           

          EDWARD HOUSLEY 1819-1843

          Edward died before George left for USA in 1851, and as such there is no mention of him in the letters.

           

          ANNE HOUSLEY 1821-1856

          Anne wrote two letters to her brother George between February 1854 and her death in 1856. Apparently she suffered from a lung disease for she wrote: “I can say you will be surprised I am still living and better but still cough and spit a deal. Can do nothing but sit and sew.” According to the 1851 census, Anne, then 29, was a seamstress. Their friend, Mrs. Davy, wrote in March 1856: “This I send in a box to my Brother….The pincushion cover and pen wiper are Anne’s work–are for thy wife. She would have made it up had she been able.” Anne was not living at home at the time of the 1841 census. She would have been 19 or 20 and perhaps was “out service.”

          In her second letter Anne wrote: “It is a great trouble now for me to write…as the body weakens so does the mind often. I have been very weak all summer. That I continue is a wonder to all and to spit so much although much better than when you left home.” She also wrote: “You know I had a desire for America years ago. Were I in health and strength, it would be the land of my adoption.”

          In November 1855, Emma wrote, “Anne has been very ill all summer and has not been able to write or do anything.” Their neighbor Mrs. Davy wrote on March 21, 1856: “I fear Anne will not be long without a change.” In a black-edged letter the following June, Emma wrote: “I need not tell you how happy she was and how calmly and peacefully she died. She only kept in bed two days.”

          Certainly Anne was a woman of deep faith and strong religious convictions. When she wrote that they were hoping to hear of Charles’ success on the gold fields she added: “But I would rather hear of him having sought and found the Pearl of great price than all the gold Australia can produce, (For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul?).” Then she asked George: “I should like to learn how it was you were first led to seek pardon and a savior. I do feel truly rejoiced to hear you have been led to seek and find this Pearl through the workings of the Holy Spirit and I do pray that He who has begun this good work in each of us may fulfill it and carry it on even unto the end and I can never doubt the willingness of Jesus who laid down his life for us. He who said whoever that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.”

          Anne’s will was probated October 14, 1856. Mr. William Davy of Kidsley Park appeared for the family. Her estate was valued at under £20. Emma was to receive fancy needlework, a four post bedstead, feather bed and bedding, a mahogany chest of drawers, plates, linen and china. Emma was also to receive Anne’s writing desk. There was a condition that Ellen would have use of these items until her death.

          The money that Anne was to receive from her grandfather, William Carrington, and her father, William Housley was to be distributed one third to Joseph, one third to Emma, and one third to be divided between her four neices: John’s daughter Elizabeth, 18, and Sam’s daughters Elizabeth, 10, Mary Ann, 9 and Catharine, age 7 to be paid by the trustees as they think “most useful and proper.” Emma Lyon and Elizabeth Davy were the witnesses.

          The Carrington Farm:

          Carringtons Farm

           

          CHARLES HOUSLEY 1823-1855

          Charles went to Australia in 1851, and was last heard from in January 1853. According to the solicitor, who wrote to George on June 3, 1874, Charles had received advances on the settlement of their parent’s estate. “Your promissory note with the two signed by your brother Charles for 20 pounds he received from his father and 20 pounds he received from his mother are now in the possession of the court.”

          Charles and George were probably quite close friends. Anne wrote in 1854: “Charles inquired very particularly in both his letters after you.”

          According to Anne, Charles and a friend married two sisters. He and his father-in-law had a farm where they had 130 cows and 60 pigs. Whatever the trade he learned in England, he never worked at it once he reached Australia. While it does not seem that Charles went to Australia because gold had been discovered there, he was soon caught up in “gold fever”. Anne wrote: “I dare say you have heard of the immense gold fields of Australia discovered about the time he went. Thousands have since then emigrated to Australia, both high and low. Such accounts we heard in the papers of people amassing fortunes we could not believe. I asked him when I wrote if it was true. He said this was no exaggeration for people were making their fortune daily and he intended going to the diggings in six weeks for he could stay away no longer so that we are hoping to hear of his success if he is alive.”

          In March 1856, Mrs. Davy wrote: “I am sorry to tell thee they have had a letter from Charles’s wife giving account of Charles’s death of 6 months consumption at the Victoria diggings. He has left 2 children a boy and a girl William and Ellen.” In June of the same year in a black edged letter, Emma wrote: “I think Mrs. Davy mentioned Charles’s death in her note. His wife wrote to us. They have two children Helen and William. Poor dear little things. How much I should like to see them all. She writes very affectionately.”

          In December 1872, Joseph wrote: “I’m told that Charles two daughters has wrote to Smalley post office making inquiries about his share….” In January 1876, the solicitor wrote: “Charles Housley’s children have claimed their father’s share.”

           

          GEORGE HOUSLEY 1824-1877

          George emigrated to the United states in 1851, arriving in July. The solicitor Abraham John Flint referred in a letter to a 15-pound advance which was made to George on June 9, 1851. This certainly was connected to his journey. George settled along the Delaware River in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The letters from the solicitor were addressed to: Lahaska Post Office, Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

          George married Sarah Ann Hill on May 6, 1854 in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. In her first letter (February 1854), Anne wrote: “We want to know who and what is this Miss Hill you name in your letter. What age is she? Send us all the particulars but I would advise you not to get married until you have sufficient to make a comfortable home.”

          Upon learning of George’s marriage, Anne wrote: “I hope dear brother you may be happy with your wife….I hope you will be as a son to her parents. Mother unites with me in kind love to you both and to your father and mother with best wishes for your health and happiness.” In 1872 (December) Joseph wrote: “I am sorry to hear that sister’s father is so ill. It is what we must all come to some time and hope we shall meet where there is no more trouble.”

          Emma wrote in 1855, “We write in love to your wife and yourself and you must write soon and tell us whether there is a little nephew or niece and what you call them.” In June of 1856, Emma wrote: “We want to see dear Sarah Ann and the dear little boy. We were much pleased with the “bit of news” you sent.” The bit of news was the birth of John Eley Housley, January 11, 1855. Emma concluded her letter “Give our very kindest love to dear sister and dearest Johnnie.”

          In September 1872, Joseph wrote, “I was very sorry to hear that John your oldest had met with such a sad accident but I hope he is got alright again by this time.” In the same letter, Joseph asked: “Now I want to know what sort of a town you are living in or village. How far is it from New York? Now send me all particulars if you please.”

          In March 1873 Harriet asked Sarah Ann: “And will you please send me all the news at the place and what it is like for it seems to me that it is a wild place but you must tell me what it is like….”.  The question of whether she was referring to Bucks County, Pennsylvania or some other place is raised in Joseph’s letter of the same week.
          On March 17, 1873, Joseph wrote: “I was surprised to hear that you had gone so far away west. Now dear brother what ever are you doing there so far away from home and family–looking out for something better I suppose.”

          The solicitor wrote on May 23, 1874: “Lately I have not written because I was not certain of your address and because I doubted I had much interesting news to tell you.” Later, Joseph wrote concerning the problems settling the estate, “You see dear brother there is only me here on our side and I cannot do much. I wish you were here to help me a bit and if you think of going for another summer trip this turn you might as well run over here.”

          Apparently, George had indicated he might return to England for a visit in 1856. Emma wrote concerning the portrait of their mother which had been sent to George: “I hope you like mother’s portrait. I did not see it but I suppose it was not quite perfect about the eyes….Joseph and I intend having ours taken for you when you come over….Do come over before very long.”

          In March 1873, Joseph wrote: “You ask me what I think of you coming to England. I think as you have given the trustee power to sign for you I think you could do no good but I should like to see you once again for all that. I can’t say whether there would be anything amiss if you did come as you say it would be throwing good money after bad.”

          On June 10, 1875, the solicitor wrote: “I have been expecting to hear from you for some time past. Please let me hear what you are doing and where you are living and how I must send you your money.” George’s big news at that time was that on May 3, 1875, he had become a naturalized citizen “renouncing and abjuring all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, potentate, state and sovereignity whatsoever, and particularly to Victoria Queen of Great Britain of whom he was before a subject.”

           

          ROBERT HOUSLEY 1832-1851

          In 1854, Anne wrote: “Poor Robert. He died in August after you left he broke a blood vessel in the lung.”
          From Joseph’s first letter we learn that Robert was 19 when he died: “Dear brother there have been a great many changes in the family since you left us. All is gone except myself and John and Sam–we have heard nothing of him since he left. Robert died first when he was 19 years of age. Then Anne and Charles too died in Australia and then a number of years elapsed before anyone else. Then John lost his wife, then Emma, and last poor dear mother died last January on the 11th.”

          Anne described Robert’s death in this way: “He had thrown up blood many times before in the spring but the last attack weakened him that he only lived a fortnight after. He died at Derby. Mother was with him. Although he suffered much he never uttered a murmur or regret and always a smile on his face for everyone that saw him. He will be regretted by all that knew him”.

          Robert died a resident of St. Peter’s Parish, Derby, but was buried in Smalley on August 16, 1851.
          Apparently Robert was apprenticed to be a joiner for, according to Anne, Joseph took his place: “Joseph wanted to be a joiner. We thought we could do no better than let him take Robert’s place which he did the October after and is there still.”

          In 1876, the solicitor wrote to George: “Have you heard of John Housley? He is entitled to Robert’s share and I want him to claim it.”

           

          EMMA HOUSLEY 1836-1871

          Emma was not mentioned in Anne’s first letter. In the second, Anne wrote that Emma was living at Spondon with two ladies in her “third situation,” and added, “She is grown a bouncing woman.” Anne described her sister well. Emma wrote in her first letter (November 12, 1855): “I must tell you that I am just 21 and we had my pudding last Sunday. I wish I could send you a piece.”

          From Emma’s letters we learn that she was living in Derby from May until November 1855 with Mr. Haywood, an iron merchant. She explained, “He has failed and I have been obliged to leave,” adding, “I expect going to a new situation very soon. It is at Belper.” In 1851 records, William Haywood, age 22, was listed as an iron foundry worker. In the 1857 Derby Directory, James and George were listed as iron and brass founders and ironmongers with an address at 9 Market Place, Derby.

          In June 1856, Emma wrote from “The Cedars, Ashbourne Road” where she was working for Mr. Handysides.
          While she was working for Mr. Handysides, Emma wrote: “Mother is thinking of coming to live at Derby. That will be nice for Joseph and I.”

          Friargate and Ashbourne Road were located in St. Werburgh’s Parish. (In fact, St. Werburgh’s vicarage was at 185 Surrey Street. This clue led to the discovery of the record of Emma’s marriage on May 6, 1858, to Edwin Welch Harvey, son of Samuel Harvey in St. Werburgh’s.)

          In 1872, Joseph wrote: “Our sister Emma, she died at Derby at her own home for she was married. She has left two young children behind. The husband was the son of the man that I went apprentice to and has caused a great deal of trouble to our family and I believe hastened poor Mother’s death….”.   Joseph added that he believed Emma’s “complaint” was consumption and that she was sick a good bit. Joseph wrote: “Mother was living with John when I came home (from Ascension Island around 1867? or to Smalley from Derby around 1870?) for when Emma was married she broke up the comfortable home and the things went to Derby and she went to live with them but Derby did not agree with her so she had to leave it again but left all her things there.”

          Emma Housley and Edwin Welch Harvey wedding, 1858:

          Emma Housley wedding

           

          JOSEPH HOUSLEY 1838-1893

          We first hear of Joseph in a letter from Anne to George in 1854. “Joseph wanted to be a joiner. We thought we could do no better than let him take Robert’s place which he did the October after (probably 1851) and is there still. He is grown as tall as you I think quite a man.” Emma concurred in her first letter: “He is quite a man in his appearance and quite as tall as you.”

          From Emma we learn in 1855: “Joseph has left Mr. Harvey. He had not work to employ him. So mother thought he had better leave his indenture and be at liberty at once than wait for Harvey to be a bankrupt. He has got a very good place of work now and is very steady.” In June of 1856, Emma wrote “Joseph and I intend to have our portraits taken for you when you come over….Mother is thinking of coming to Derby. That will be nice for Joseph and I. Joseph is very hearty I am happy to say.”

          According to Joseph’s letters, he was married to Harriet Ballard. Joseph described their miraculous reunion in this way: “I must tell you that I have been abroad myself to the Island of Ascension. (Elsewhere he wrote that he was on the island when the American civil war broke out). I went as a Royal Marine and worked at my trade and saved a bit of money–enough to buy my discharge and enough to get married with but while I was out on the island who should I meet with there but my dear wife’s sister. (On two occasions Joseph and Harriet sent George the name and address of Harriet’s sister, Mrs. Brooks, in Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania, but it is not clear whether this was the same sister.) She was lady’s maid to the captain’s wife. Though I had never seen her before we got to know each other somehow so from that me and my wife recommenced our correspondence and you may be sure I wanted to get home to her. But as soon as I did get home that is to England I was not long before I was married and I have not regretted yet for we are very comfortable as well as circumstances will allow for I am only a journeyman joiner.”

          Proudly, Joseph wrote: “My little family consists of three nice children–John, Joseph and Susy Annie.” On her birth certificate, Susy Ann’s birthdate is listed as 1871. Parish records list a Lucy Annie christened in 1873. The boys were born in Derby, John in 1868 and Joseph in 1869. In his second letter, Joseph repeated: “I have got three nice children, a good wife and I often think is more than I have deserved.” On August 6, 1873, Joseph and Harriet wrote: “We both thank you dear sister for the pieces of money you sent for the children. I don’t know as I have ever see any before.” Joseph ended another letter: “Now I must close with our kindest love to you all and kisses from the children.”

          In Harriet’s letter to Sarah Ann (March 19, 1873), she promised: “I will send you myself and as soon as the weather gets warm as I can take the children to Derby, I will have them taken and send them, but it is too cold yet for we have had a very cold winter and a great deal of rain.” At this time, the children were all under 6 and the baby was not yet two.

          In March 1873 Joseph wrote: “I have been working down at Heanor gate there is a joiner shop there where Kings used to live I have been working there this winter and part of last summer but the wages is very low but it is near home that is one comfort.” (Heanor Gate is about 1/4 mile from Kidsley Grange. There was a school and industrial park there in 1988.) At this time Joseph and his family were living in “the big house–in Old Betty Hanson’s house.” The address in the 1871 census was Smalley Lane.

          A glimpse into Joseph’s personality is revealed by this remark to George in an 1872 letter: “Many thanks for your portrait and will send ours when we can get them taken for I never had but one taken and that was in my old clothes and dear Harriet is not willing to part with that. I tell her she ought to be satisfied with the original.”

          On one occasion Joseph and Harriet both sent seeds. (Marks are still visible on the paper.) Joseph sent “the best cow cabbage seed in the country–Robinson Champion,” and Harriet sent red cabbage–Shaw’s Improved Red. Possibly cow cabbage was also known as ox cabbage: “I hope you will have some good cabbages for the Ox cabbage takes all the prizes here. I suppose you will be taking the prizes out there with them.” Joseph wrote that he would put the name of the seeds by each “but I should think that will not matter. You will tell the difference when they come up.”

          George apparently would have liked Joseph to come to him as early as 1854. Anne wrote: “As to his coming to you that must be left for the present.” In 1872, Joseph wrote: “I have been thinking of making a move from here for some time before I heard from you for it is living from hand to mouth and never certain of a job long either.” Joseph then made plans to come to the United States in the spring of 1873. “For I intend all being well leaving England in the spring. Many thanks for your kind offer but I hope we shall be able to get a comfortable place before we have been out long.” Joseph promised to bring some things George wanted and asked: “What sort of things would be the best to bring out there for I don’t want to bring a lot that is useless.” Joseph’s plans are confirmed in a letter from the solicitor May 23, 1874: “I trust you are prospering and in good health. Joseph seems desirous of coming out to you when this is settled.”

          George must have been reminiscing about gooseberries (Heanor has an annual gooseberry show–one was held July 28, 1872) and Joseph promised to bring cuttings when they came: “Dear Brother, I could not get the gooseberries for they was all gathered when I received your letter but we shall be able to get some seed out the first chance and I shall try to bring some cuttings out along.” In the same letter that he sent the cabbage seeds Joseph wrote: “I have got some gooseberries drying this year for you. They are very fine ones but I have only four as yet but I was promised some more when they were ripe.” In another letter Joseph sent gooseberry seeds and wrote their names: Victoria, Gharibaldi and Globe.

          In September 1872 Joseph wrote; “My wife is anxious to come. I hope it will suit her health for she is not over strong.” Elsewhere Joseph wrote that Harriet was “middling sometimes. She is subject to sick headaches. It knocks her up completely when they come on.” In December 1872 Joseph wrote, “Now dear brother about us coming to America you know we shall have to wait until this affair is settled and if it is not settled and thrown into Chancery I’m afraid we shall have to stay in England for I shall never be able to save money enough to bring me out and my family but I hope of better things.”

          On July 19, 1875 Abraham Flint (the solicitor) wrote: “Joseph Housley has removed from Smalley and is working on some new foundry buildings at Little Chester near Derby. He lives at a village called Little Eaton near Derby. If you address your letter to him as Joseph Housley, carpenter, Little Eaton near Derby that will no doubt find him.”

          George did not save any letters from Joseph after 1874, hopefully he did reach him at Little Eaton. Joseph and his family are not listed in either Little Eaton or Derby on the 1881 census.

          In his last letter (February 11, 1874), Joseph sounded very discouraged and wrote that Harriet’s parents were very poorly and both had been “in bed for a long time.” In addition, Harriet and the children had been ill.
          The move to Little Eaton may indicate that Joseph received his settlement because in August, 1873, he wrote: “I think this is bad news enough and bad luck too, but I have had little else since I came to live at Kiddsley cottages but perhaps it is all for the best if one could only think so. I have begun to think there will be no chance for us coming over to you for I am afraid there will not be so much left as will bring us out without it is settled very shortly but I don’t intend leaving this house until it is settled either one way or the other. “

          Joseph Housley and the Kiddsley cottages:

          Joseph Housley

          #6268
          TracyTracy
          Participant

            From Tanganyika with Love

            continued part 9

            With thanks to Mike Rushby.

            Lyamungu 3rd January 1945

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Lyamungu 14 May 1945

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Lyamungu 19th September 1945

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

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

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

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

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

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

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

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

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Jacksdale England 24th June 1946

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Jacksdale England 28th August 1946

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Jacksdale England 20th September 1946

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Dar es Salaam 22nd October 1946

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            Mbeya 1st November 1946

            Dearest Family.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

            Eleanor.

            #6266
            TracyTracy
            Participant

              From Tanganyika with Love

              continued part 7

              With thanks to Mike Rushby.

              Oldeani Hospital. 19th September 1938

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Mbulu. 30th September 1938

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Mbulu. 25th October 1938

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Iringa. 30th November 1938

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Mchewe Estate, Mbeya. 7th January 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 14th February 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 28th February 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 25th March 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 28th April 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 3rd July 1939.

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Nzassa 5th August 1939

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Splendid Hotel. Dar es Salaam 7th September 1939

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 14th September 1939

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 4th November 1939

              Dearest Family,

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Iringa 8th December 1939

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 10th March 1940

              Dearest Family,

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

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

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

              Eleanor.

              Morogoro 14th July 1940

              Dearest Family,

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

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

              Kate has playmates of her own age but still rather clings to me. Whilst she loves
              to have friends here to play with her, she will not go to play at their houses unless I go
              too and stay. She always insists on accompanying me when I go out to morning tea
              and always calls Janet “John’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.

               

              #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.

                 

                #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.

                  #6196

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  #6151

                  Grandpa Bob loved the sound of the kettle whistling. Cheery, he thought as he turned the flame off. Companionable.
                  He shuffled to the kitchen door. “Clara, cuppa?” he shouted down the hallway but there was no reply. Maybe she wasn’t up yet—it had been a long trip for her yesterday. Perhaps he could make her up a tray, although she’d probably say he was fussing.
                  Just then he heard VanGogh barking from the garden. He drew back the curtain and peered out the kitchen window. There she was! Way down the back digging in the vegetable garden. Bless her soul. Must have got started early on that weeding. She was saying she would last night. Grandpa, you really need to get some help around the place! she’d scolded.
                  “Clara, love!” he shouted. Damn dog was making such a racket she didn’t hear him. Nothing for it but to go out there. He chuckled, thinking how she’d probably scold him again for wandering around outside in his pyjamas. Bossy little thing she could be. But a good girl coming all this way to visit him.
                  He slipped on his outdoor shoes and slowly made his way down the path to the vegetable garden. VanGogh bounded over to him and Grandpa Bob gave him a pat. “What are you two up to out here, eh VanGogh?” But Clara was so engrossed on her phone she didn’t even glance up. He was about to call out to her again when he saw what she’d dug up and the words stuck in his throat. He let out a small cry.

                  #6138

                  In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                  “What about me?” asked Vince French. “Are you going to interrogate me or not?” He sounded peevish, even to his own ears. But he put his heart and soul into singing and to have the whole audience, bar that rude detective girl, run out during a performance was unconscionable.

                  “We don’t really need to now,” said Tara. She softened slightly seeing his dejected face. “Great tune by the way. If you like, you can come and help us find Uncle Basil.” She edged towards the exit. “After you’ve paid the bill!” she shouted as she took off through the door.

                  #5965

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  “Good Lord no! WORSE even!”

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

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

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

                  “What?” Mavis strained to hear.

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

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

                  #5844

                  Life around the woods had changed in a strange way since the appearance of the beaver fever. It was called after some theory from where it came from. Some said patient zero was a trapper far off in the woods who caught an infected beaver and sold its fur to the market. The fur then contaminated the coat maker and then the clients who tried on that coat, hence leading to contamination nests in the entire realm. The beaver fever took time to incubate, so when people first noticed the trapper wasn’t coming back, it was too late.

                  That’s not such a bad thing to live a little recluse in the woods, thought Eleri. She usually was restless and lately had been wandering off into town and into the countryside looking for things to paint with her tar black pigment. It is a new phase of experimentation, she had said to Glynis who had been wondering if she could include more variety to her palette. I’m looking to capture the contrasting soul of what I’m painting.

                  Don’t you mean contrasted? asked Glynis.

                  Do I? Whatever, I’m experimenting.

                  Glynis knew better than to argue with Eleri, and Eleri knew better than trying to make words fit the world. It was better to make the world fit her words. How could you explain that to someone? So she assumed people understood.

                  With the curfew, though, it had first become harder. Then she had found a way by painting her own garments tar black and to complete her attire, she had asked Fox. He had also found a hobby and with a sharp knife and a log he could make you a mask so vivid to look alike anything you asked. Eleri had asked him for a crow and had painted it tar black. She looked like those doctors during the plague a few centuries back and dressed like that people certainly respected the safety distance promulgated by Leroway’s decree.

                  That man seemed hard to get rid off, especially in time such as those. Eleri suspected that Leroway was not the man she knew and once courted her. She needed to get close to investigate. Her new attire, if it might not help with the investigation at least would help embolden her and stave off boredom.

                  #5808

                  Truth be told, April was missing the US. She missed all their little coterie of maids living in the shadows of the powerful. Missed the drama most of all.

                  She’d been secretly texting Norma and May, while June was lazily sipping mojitos with Jacqui.
                  Norma was fine, but May and the other alien staff had suddenly disappeared when the Secret Services had started to investigate more deeply into the staff’s backgrounds after all the kidnapping fiasco. At least, August had been covering for Norma, such kind soul he was. Besides, the President’s wife could no longer live without her butter chicken. But May and the others couldn’t face the music apparently. Funnily, they couldn’t find “real” American maids nowadays suited to replace them. Good luck with that!

                  April couldn’t tell June, obviously, since her friend harboured such hatred for the system that had them put in jail. As for herself, she couldn’t argue with the fact they’d deserved it. Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t fix though. That’s why she loved the idea of America. Guilty as charged, indeed. Those charges now vanished.

                  She’d thought first that it would fuel her inspiration nicely, but it was the opposite. The sudden extra time had distracted her entirely, and her inspiration seemed inaccessible.

                  She was starting to make up her mind. She would go back, to her family in Arkansas. That could only be temporary of course, as her mother, bless her soul, would start to have her meet all the gents in the neighbourhood in the hopes to finally get her only daughter married. Talk about drama. If that doesn’t kick-start her inspiration engine, nothing would.

                  Problem was, with the virus around spreading mass panic, there seemed to be no sure way to fly back. She would have to devise some circuitous plan.

                  #5790

                  In reply to: Tart Wreck Repackage

                  “Rosamund’s Aunt Joanie is a vegan anti-vaxxer,” said Tara, frowning at the large piece of pizza being shovelled into Rosamund’s mouth.

                  “That’s right,” Rosamund nodded enthusiastically. “Anti-vegan vaxxer and she don’t eat nothing with no eyes either. She drives Mum bloody mental going on about how the animals have got souls while Mum’s trying to enjoy a nice baccy fry up. Mum calls her Aunt Moanie.”

                  Tara shuddered and turned her attention firmly to the laptop. “This is very strange,” she muttered. “Star, what exactly do we know about Mr Vince French?”

                  Star smirked. “Other than his obvious attributes?”

                  “Which are?” Tara’s voice was sharp and Star sighed. Tara could be a mardy cow sometimes.

                  “You mean the fella with the voice like a bloody angel?” asked Rosamund, spitting an olive onto Tara’s sleeve. Tara swore under her breath as the olive bounced to the floor. Fortunately there was no mark; it was a new blouse and had cost Tara an arm and a leg. Worth the investment, she had reasoned at the time. One must look the part. And clearly, her Moulin Rouge ensemble wasn’t a good look for a Professional Investigator, even with fishnets and a feather boa.

                  “He cancelled his appointment but he paid the, quite frankly exorbitant, deposit we asked for,” said Star. “He’s going to email us the rest of the details. Do we need to know more that that?”

                  “Well, I’ve been doing a search and there is nothing anywhere online about him, or his world famous melodious voice. I suggest we pay this Mr French a visit.”

                  “Oh bloody awesome!” Rosamund leapt to her feet and pizza boxes went flying. “Oops, sorry about that. I’ll clean it soon as we get back.”

                  “You’re not coming!” shouted Tara and Star simultaneously.

                  #5376
                  TracyTracy
                  Participant

                    Aunt Idle:

                    I don’t know how I restrained myself from throttling Finly when she finally handed me the letter from Corrie.  A whole week she’d had it,  and wouldn’t share it until she’d cleaned every last window. Some peoples priorities, I ask you!  The funny thing was that even when I had it in my hand I didn’t open it right away. Even with Mater and Bert breathing down my neck.

                    It was something to savour, the feeling of having an unopened letter in ones hand.  Not that this looked like the letters we used to get years ago, all crisp and slim on white paper, addressed in fine blue ink. This was a bundle tied with a bit of wool pulled out of an old jumper by the look of it, all squiggly,  holding together several layers of yellowed thin cardboard and written on with a beetroot colour dye and a makeshift brush by the look of it.  The kind of thing that used to be considered natural and artistic, long ago, when such things were the fashion.  I suppose the fashion now, in such places where fashion still exists, is for retro plastic.  They said plastic litter wouldn’t decompose for hundreds of years, how wrong they were! I’d give my right arm now for a cupboard full of tupperware with lids. Or even without lids.  Plastic bottles and shopping bags ~ when I think back to how we used to hate them, and they’re like gold now.  Better than gold, nobody has any interest in gold nowadays, but people would sell their soul for a plastic bucket.

                    I waited until the sun was going down, and sat on the porch with the golden rays of the lowering sun slanting across the yard.  I clasped the bundle to my heart and squinted into the sun and sighed with joyful anticipation.

                    “For the love of god, will you get on with it!” said Bert, rudely interrupting the moment.

                    Gently I pulled the faded red woolen string, and stopped for a moment, imaging the old cardigan that it might have been.

                    I didn’t have to look at Mater to know what the expression on her face was, but I wasn’t going to be rushed.  The string fell into my lap and I turned the first piece of card over.

                    There was a washed out picture of a rooster on it and a big fancy K.

                    “Cornflakes!” I started to weep. “Look, cornflakes!”

                    “You always hated cornflakes,” Mater said, missing the point as usual.  “You never liked packet cereal.”

                    The look I gave her was withering, although she didn’t seem to wither, not one bit.

                    “I used to like rice krispies,” Bert said.

                    By the time we’d finished discussing cereal, the sun had gone down and it was too dark to read the letter.

                    #4806

                    “Speaking of philosophical …” said Godfrey

                    “Were we? Were we REALLY speaking of philosophical? Or were we talking about that … that … DERELINQUANT, Finnley. And SHE is anything BUT philosophical!”

                    “I was speaking of philosophical … it reminded me of something I read recently … about the great philoosopher, Lemone, who as we know is the epitome of philosophicalness. The gold standard, if you will. It seems he has had a change of heart recently.”

                    Liz wiped beads of nervous sweat off her forehead and sat down. “Do tell,” she said. “Perhaps he will soothe my troubled and long suffering soul.”

                    “He has derogated his previous sayings as rubbish and issued a public apology. ‘Sorry about the nonsense comments,’ he is reputed to have said.”

                    “Beautiful,” said Liz shaking her head in wonderment. “So succinct and humble. The man is a genius.”

                    #4771

                    The Doctor smiled gleefully, rubbing his hands together.

                    His new invention was showing promising results. Minds were being wiped clean, and foggy somnolence was enveloping characters without well-defined characteristics.

                    Better still, he’d found something interesting trapped inside of his Remote Brainwashing machine, crystallized and trapped in a nugget inside one of the vials. It was glowing faintly and had tried to derail his experiment. A little sprite of some kind, or maybe a rebel soul .

                    #4728
                    Jib
                    Participant

                      Not far from the swimming pool, Roberto was having difficulties separating the two potential lovers he had intended for Finley and Godfrey. Apparently they had loved each others at first sight and had totally forgotten about their other potential soul mates.

                      To make things worse, when he came back inside to see how the budding affair between Liz and Inspector Melon was going, he heard Finley and Godfrey conspire to make him leave… or worse.

                      This all started to feel like a big disappointment. He attempted to flee unseen but it was too late. The two had seen him and Godfrey was waving at him to come forth.

                      #4663
                      Jib
                      Participant

                        The plants seemed even more alive since Roberto had put on his new loincloth. The gardener’s joy was communicative and spreading rapidly. It had been a revelation to him, a newly found freedom and discovery of his sculptural body. Not that the gardener himself was aware of what was happening, but he enjoyed the effects of this new uniform. Knowing that it would lead to another great party was an even greater incentive for him to show it around.

                        He always fancied himself as a healer of souls through his expertise of gardening, and seeing how his newly found joy in his work seemed to have awaken the desire of his landlady to get out more was a step in this direction.
                        The poor woman was always staying inside, except for the big occasional parties, wearing pink night gowns. The house was too big and dark compared to the huge garden at her disposal.

                        Roberto had been watering the begonias, and he also had been thinking. He thought Mistress Liz needed a man. He remembered he had kept the name card of that inspector with a fruity name. Inspector Melon. He could invite him to the Roman party and organise a little incident to have them alone for some time.
                        What a marvellous idea, he thought with his latin accent.

                        He went on watering the gardenias. He might be dressed up as a slave, but he had put himself in charge of the organisation of the Roman party. He would send the invitations and order the necessary props and costumes. It would be the perfect occasion also to find someone for Godfrey and Finnley.

                        Although it should remain a surprise.

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