Читать книгу The Lyndi Tree - JA Ginn Fourie - Страница 8

Are they cows or are they bulls?

Towards the end of the Second World War Viccie and Bill are praying for peace. Viccie is pregnant for the third time, and the prayer includes a plea; that this time it will be a girl to name Jeanette. Jeanette MacDonald is the famous voice that blends so well with Nelson Eddie’s to sing ‘Rose Marie I love you’ and other well-known ballads. Radio and occasional newspapers are the only media available to the rural areas of South Africa; Bill listens to the news at least twice a day to keep abreast of the war and any significant changes in the weather. While Viccie surreptitiously listens, whenever she is doing household chores which the Xhosa maid is not allowed to do. Bill has remarked that batteries have a limited life span and are now rationed so the radio should only be used for important stuff! Viccie plays the piano and manages to get the sheet music for some of the love songs of Jeanette and Eddie but hearing them on the radio is a temptation too lovely to resist, so it is worth the wrath of the gods. Bill is predictably in the trading store for most of the day managing the buying of sheep and goats’ wool and selling consumables, blankets and coffins to the natives living across the Kei River.

Viccie carefully separates the milk from their three cows, churns the cream into butter to sell with the eggs from her little Rhode Island Red hens.

‘Ah so lovely to have my own pocket money, ’ she thinks, as she totals up the amount at the end of the month. Perhaps next time we go to East London, there will be enough cash over, after buying laying mash for the hens, that I can get some more sheet music and a little something for our new baba.

My placenta is buried in Komga (the traditional African way of saying where one is born), a small rural town on the banks of the Great Kei River in the Eastern Cape, on 17^th day of April in 1945 (in isiXhosa the name is Qumra meaning red clay or ochre). The farm’s name is Dallas. There are 13 gates to open between Dallas and Komga. As Viccie and Bill leave for the clinic, Viccie opens the gates because, as she tells me later, labour had already started and it was more uncomfortable to sit behind the wheel, than to be in and out of the car opening gates. Although Viccie had phoned the doctor before they left, when they arrive, the clinic is all closed up, and I - Jeanette Ann Hartley - am almost born on the lawn. The midwife arrives just in time to open the clinic, and the doctor arrives during the delivery. Viccie spends the night and the next day in the clinic before Bill comes to fetch her home over the dusty 13 gate journey. This small respite gives her time to write to her parents Ellie and Harry Collet,

‘Jeanette is the cutest wee thing, with big brown eyes and the straightest brown hair, possible for a human being’.

Ian, Bill, John, Viccie, Ginny, and Rover

I am only three weeks old when Mommy races to the trading store, to tell Daddy that she has just heard on the radio, that the war has ended. After five years and eight months, with the unconditional surrender of the Germans on 8 May 1945, World War II comes to an end in Europe; although, it continues in Asia, that is far away. There is a wild celebration with what little food and drink are available because of rationing.

Apparently from the start, I show an unquenchable curiosity and once I start talking the questions bubble up incessantly,

“Why does my black toenail take so long to come off after I’ve kicked my toe? Why did my donkey drown in the dip tank? Why do my older brothers Ian and John fight so much?” And, I’m determined and willful,

“John, don’t argle with me – just go fetch my dolly outside by the chicken run!”

Our Hartley grandparents, Joey and Bunny, live on a farm, Peninsula, next door to Dallas. Later, after we move from Dallas, we often go back to visit them for holidays and ride our donkeys with our cousins. Granny would give us a bekile; a tin can with a lid of nkobes na mbontjie - dried maize seeds and sugar beans, cooked together forming a delicious sop¹. We would also spend days with our Xhosa friends riding donkeys and venturing away from the homestead.

Ian is four years old, and John is two when I am born. By the time I am four we have moved to a Trading Store in Basutoland - now called Lesotho. The nearest town is Wepener, in the Orange Free State, and our home and store are called Helspoort- the entrance to Hell. I have few memories of the place except that we have a tennis court and swimming pool – distant neighbours and friends from Wepener come to play tennis and swim on Sundays, which means we have playmates – such fun in our otherwise isolated life. Ian goes to the small school in Wepener as a weekly border with a friend of the family. Mother has taught him up to this point, and he tells us how awful it is to be away for a whole week at a time. A favourite memory is of Dad going on a business trip and bringing back a box of chocolates just for me. I feel elated and gobble them all up, without sharing a single one.

James, David, and Boxer

My brother David is born in Wepener when I am four – he sleeps in my parents’ room, while the rest of us share a bedroom, down a long passage from theirs. The bathroom is on a veranda outside their bedroom. There are no electric lights after everyone goes to bed because the generator is switched off. One night, John says he needs to pee; the bathroom is far and dark, so he asks me to accompany him,

“Are you scared?” I ask.

“No” he replies, “come with me, and you’ll see I’m not scared!”

Although baffled by his seeming logic I go with him anyway – my buddy.

We move again when I am about seven to a place called Mapoteng, also in Lesotho. It is two miles from Maluti Hospital, an Adventist mission which offers great help to the surrounding villages; this means that we are now able to go to Church and Sabbath School at Maluti which is rather dull. Every Saturday morning, we drive over there at about 9 am and after church spend the rest of the day there with our friends.

We learn to ride horses when we are very young. Daddy has horses wherever we live; they are a part of who he is as a polo player, so often after he has closed the trading store, he schools the ponies. Ian goes to a weekly boarding school in the nearest town of Ficksburg and John is homeschooled. John and I spend many hours riding on the bridle paths of the surrounding Maluti Mountains. Sometimes we are in search of our dog; Boxer is a dalmation who is drawn by pheromones, wafting on air currents from nearby villages into his twitching nostrils. The Sotho people we meet along the way are friendly – they generously share their food with us when we are hungry, and they can usually tell us which direction Boxer has taken. John speaks fluent Sotho, so I don’t bother to learn because he is an excellent translator for me, and secretly I enjoy relying on him - my Big brother.

In the summer months on Sundays, Mommy and Daddy take us to Leribe so they can play tennis, it’s about an hour’s drive. I love to play with the other children and take my dollies along, hoping there will be girls. Although at home my brothers play dolls with me, when there are boys at the tennis courts, I learn to leave my dollies in the car.

One hot, sunny day there are only boys at play when we arrive. We join in to play cars in the shade of the surrounding pine trees. Between watching our parents play tennis and our brr-brring on makeshift roads, John says to one of the boys;

“My Daddy plays better tennis than your Daddy!”

“My Daddy’s bigger and older than yours!” comes the retort.

“So, your Daddy will die before mine!” is Johns’ confident reply.

My chest swells with my big brother’s smarts. I don’t remember Ian being with us on this occasion. Sometimes I go to the Sunday school in the Catholic Church near the tennis courts, where the Nuns in their black habits give a sticker for being present and another for learning a scripture. I enjoy the rewards and can’t recall being given awards for anything before. It’s a brand-new feeling; in fact, up till now, my learning has all been over John’s shoulder, as Mommy teaches him. John doesn’t fancy going to the big stone church at all, once a week to Maluti is more than enough for him. On the way home I wonder out loud why it is so important to go to church on Saturdays as we do. Daddy responds,

“Because God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, on our calendar that is Saturday. God rested that day and set it aside for worship to celebrate creation. At the end of time, it will be a test of faithfulness to the true God, the creator to keep the Sabbath day holy!”

I question, “Oh, so why do other people go to church on Sunday?”

Mommy eagerly supplies the answer,

“Constantine the Great, whomever he was! made a law a long time ago, which changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and now the world is wandering after the Great Beast of Revelation. At the end of time the beast will persecute the remnant people, a small group who are left over, who keep God’s commandments, rather than mans’ and love Jesus. We are the remnant people and need to help others to see the truth.”

I am silent thinking Phew Hell! An expression I have just learned from our new friends. Am I supposed to tell our Nun that she is going to church on the wrong day and following after a ferocious beast which I have seen in pictures, on the Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly, with huge claws and monstrous teeth? Even when she gives me those pretty stamp stickers! I think not.

One time on the way home from Leribe, as the sun is setting, I am asleep in the back window, John on the floor and Ian on the back seat, David must have been on Mommies lap. I awake to the screech of brakes as the Studebaker swerves to a halt. Daddy’s voice sounds tense: “That car is out of control!” Then comes an almighty bang-crash as we land in a tangled mass of metal; leather; and our arms and legs in strange positions. The oncoming car has narrowly managed to cross the one-car culvert but is still going too fast to miss us parked on the side of the road. The vehicles are both damaged too much to drive, and I remember crying with pain in my head and neck, but the fear and sadness for Daddy and Ian seem far worse - they are so proud of the Studebaker. Besides, how will we get home? Some kind soul takes us back and that night before supper we kneel in a circle and Daddy reads from the scriptures about how the angels protect us, and he prays,

“Thank you, our Heavenly Father, for protecting us from injury or being killed today.”

And Mommy says,

“Yes, Lord!”

Daddy buys a brand-new grey Humber Super-Snipe with red leather upholstery, and we are all so proud of the new car! Somehow the sense of status is communicated, although I am no more than eight at the time, I know that we have arrived!

School is not in the picture for me yet. Education seems to be essential for boys though, as Mommy teaches John with a correspondence course. I am keener than he and relentlessly peer over his shoulder, making suggestions, much to his annoyance and my hurt from his rebuffs,

“Why don’t you go play with your silly dolls or cats”; “Push-off you little menace! Stop following me around,” and later, “I wish you were dead!”

But, I have no one else to play with, since I have been warned not to play with the Basotho children. One day Mommy gives me a devil-of-a-hiding when she finds me sharing the servants’ bounty out of their three-legged iron pot.

“Your father has told you time and again that you must not play with the kaffirs, they do not have toilets and baths as we do, and their food is not safe, they have no fridges.”

It is so humiliating to lift my skirt and have my bottom thwacked with a stick.

“Damn, damn, damn,” I mutter under my breath – these new words seem very useful under these circumstances.

The influence of the newly established Apartheid system in 1948 by the Nationalist Government, must have reinforced these ideas about Black culture and inferiority, which then became the norm for us, how sad is that! The laws imposed were oppressive and inhumane, and I will reflect how they affected us all later in the story

John and I steal ‘C to C’ cigarettes from the trading store. We have an elaborate game and the place to play it for hours on end, in the nearby forest. We pretend to be Mr and Mrs so-and-so. We visit the ‘pretend neighbours’ and smoke in their pretend lounge. One day I singe my fringe, and Mommy asks how it happened. I say that I have been playing with matches,

“Show me where they are,” she says.

In the background, John is gesticulating to me to keep quiet and threatening to hit me if I show her, but I show where our matches are stashed, and of course the cigarettes are there too. By this time, John is running away, and Mommy beats me for stealing and fibbing to boot and later John gives me a clip for telling our secret. I am very cross to have gotten two hidings! To this day I don’t know if John got any at all, he doesn’t remember and maybe that’s why he continued to smoke until recently?

When Ian comes back from boarding school, and we tell him the story, he reassures us,

“When you are older, you can get baptised, and all your sins will be forgiven.”

We are unsure of what sin and baptise mean, so he takes us to the dam nearby and demonstrates; putting one hand on my forehead and the other in the small of my back, he says,

“I now baptise you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost”. Then he says,

“Bend your knees” and dunks me over backwards, until I think I’m drowning! I struggle to get back on my feet, spluttering and gasping for breath, but at the same time, I feel so much better. I think this must be the way out of all the sinning and hopefully the hidings! John declines a further demonstration on himself and trusts my assessment with a chuckle.

James is born in Ficksburg when I am eight years old, soon after we had moved again. This time to a farm called Beginsel, on the banks of the Caledon River in the Orange Free State. Fouriesburg is the nearest town about 45 minutes away. John and I are constant companions - there are no others of interest in my life on this isolated, beautiful farm. By now, I know not to play with the kaffirs. Ian is far away at boarding school near Heidelberg, and David and James are too young to play with us. I must look after them sometimes to make sure that they don’t fall down the lavatory pit, or into the dip tank or drown in the river - what a nuisance they are.

We play by the willow-lined Caledon river with sprawling lucerne lands on its banks, we practise circus stunts on Daddy’s polo ponies and hike in the mountains. I recall no fear of anyone or anything. We eat fruit, nuts and of course all the other bounties of Mommy’s vegetable garden, kitchen and pantry. Our days are one long holiday and our nights' such sleepy bliss under the thatched roof of the cut-stone rondavels that group around to form our home. Often our lullaby is the Sotho ululations from across the river, beseeching the rain goddess to shower us with rain and I imagine other blessings.

On Saturdays, Mommy calls us all for Sabbath school, at about nine o’clock as there is no church nearby. The Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly, Bibles and Hymnals are passed around. The Lesson Quarterly has structured readings and bible verses to substantiate the theme for each day during the week. Mommy plays the piano, and we sit in a circle to sing our favourite hymns, open with prayer and then either Daddy or Mommy read from the Sunday to Friday lessons. Those of us who can read, look up the texts and read them out loud when it is our turn.

“I don’t feel like Sabbath School today,” I venture one day. “It is so boring I am going to play with the kittens.”

“Oh no - you are not,” says Mommy. “You can play with them all week, This day is the Sabbath Day, and God asks us to keep it holy. We keep it Holy by doing what he asks us to do.”

I idly wonder where in the Bible He asks us to sit through a boring read every Saturday. Later I discover that my friends at school in Fouriesburg go to the big cut-stone Dutch Reformed Church on Sundays and sing similar hymns and pray similar prayers only all in Afrikaans. They argue with me about why I have ‘church’ on Saturdays and ask their parents why they go to church on Sundays. I feel embarrassed because they giggle and say,

,,Julle is snaaks”- “You are funny.”

(Afrikaans quotation by convention uses the first quotation mark as above, and second quotation as English standard.)

We have neighbours who are Afrikaners, and I understand early in my life that they are not to be trusted although I don’t remember anyone saying so. They don’t have the same values as us English I hear from Mommy. We don’t get to see them very much, although we listen in to their telephone conversations on the shared telephone line after we learn to speak Afrikaans. I have little to do with the Basotho who come to buy mealie-meal and goods at Daddy’s trading store. They too are different. By now I know why we are not supposed to mix with them or eat their food without being told. There is one new reason though - I am a girl, and it is dangerous!

John, Ginny, Ian, Viccie, David (with Boxer), James, and Bill

On the other hand, when John and I ride into the Lesotho mountains, the Basotho are always friendly and willing to share conversation and their food with us, just like at Mapoteng and the amaXhosa had been long ago at Dallas.

When I am ten years old, in 1955, Daddy becomes very ill with kidney-stones. Mommy drives him and my younger brothers to Johannesburg, where Daddy is admitted to the hospital. Ian is at Sedaven, an Adventist boarding school in the Transvaal about an hour south of Johannesburg. John, Petro our cousin, and I have been booked into the local weekly boarding school in Fouriesburg; where y Afrikaans is the language spoken. Granny and Grandpa Hartley had moved to Beginsel at the same time we did and live in one of the Rondavels. Granny Hartley takes us to school on the first day and drops us at the school first, then drops our suitcases at the hostels. Everything is so strange and different, and I want to cry and go home to Mommy.

„Bly jy in die koshuis?“ - “Do you stay in the hostel?” is the first question asked by my teacher and classmates. I must learn Afrikaans fast! John is fortunate enough to have our cousin Petro Jonker, who is half Afrikaans, and an English-speaking classmate Arthur Macaskill as backstop, but Arthur doesn’t stay in the hostel, so doesn’t have to endure the taunts of, bleddie Rooinekke - bloody Rednecks², and the fights that are inevitable power struggles at the hostel.

John and Arthur remain lifelong friends.

I have never been to school before, but since I can read and write, I am placed into Standard three (Grade five) and John into Standard four. Although Daddy recovers and returns home, within a month, life has changed for me. I am shy and don’t quite fit in at school; ’n plaasjaap - a farm girl, that doesn’t know about the seemingly sophisticated life and scandals of a small town.

One day, during my first year at Fouriesburg school, my best friend Lynette gives me some yellow powder to throw at the boy who sits behind me, because he sometimes pulls my hair and calls me names. So, the next time he does it, I throw the powder at him. He sets up a huge fuss, screaming and crying. At first the teacher is puzzled and then angry when he tells his side of the story,

„Jy kon sy öe verniel het, vir die res van sy lewe!“- “You could have damaged his eyes for life!” she yells at me.

When I say that my friend had given me the powder and I didn’t know it was mustard, Lynette denies knowing anything about it and Teacher sends me to the principal.

How could my best friend do that to me? I am alone, betrayed and uncomfortable. A feeling that stays with me, although there are so many beautiful hours spent at Lynette’s home. I love her, her mother and sister Marie, who is in John’s class, but have no way of processing this hurt.

Reflecting on this incident highlights that it probably reinforced my sense that Afrikaners can not be trusted. I forgot all about it until recently, and now I wonder how these dear friends are doing? I also regret the childhood impressions that lingered so long.

We spend each week at school, and on Friday afternoons, the five-ton Magiris Deutz lorry comes to fetch us after loading up goods at the station. A Basotho man named Daniel drives, and we sit in the cab with him, bumping our way over the 24 miles to the farm. John has fluent conversations with Daniel in Sotho, to which Petro and I are not privy. We often tuck into a loaf of dry but fresh white bread meant for the store on our way home. Sometimes in the rainy season the Caledon river floods. John declares over the phone that he will not stay at the hostel over weekends under any circumstances! The drift is impassable, so Daddy sends the horses with their groom for us to ride over the mountains. In the dark and rain the sure-footed ponies take us over hazardous terrain. I would have been terrified if I had been able to see the sheer cliffs and deep valleys which we are traversing. Blinded, I hang on and pray to get home safely. Fortunately, we never have an accident. As soon as he can, John joins Ian to attend Sedaven, a boarding school in the Transvaal Province, now Gauteng.

The next year with John gone I am sent to school in Ficksburg with my brother David, while Mommy teaches James and his Basotho pal named Tlapie - little fish! Granny Hartley takes care of us in a house that our parents own. Granny has a navy 1949 Chevrolet and takes us back to Beginsel for most weekends, a two-hour drive, except when it is Polo season all winter. Then Mommy and Daddy come to Ficksburg for the weekend so that Daddy can play polo on Sundays. He buys ‘also-rans’ from the race track and schools them for polo in the evenings after work.

One such horse, a 17-hand chestnut mare named Rastrum, is my favourite. Jack, the groom and garden-boy (another derogatory term I realise) saddles her up, and I ride her to the polo field and back each week, with Jack riding ahead and leading the other horses. When we get home one Sunday Daddy announces with some satisfaction,

“Billy Peacock has bought Rastrum, for £200 more than I paid for her. He will fetch her tomorrow.”

I run to my room and lie on my bed, crying. Mother comes in and says,

“What are you bawling about Ginny?” The numbness in my throat seems to press home and it is difficult to breathe let alone speak, by now I am banging my fists into my pillow,

“Why didn’t Daddy tell me he was going to sell Rastrum?” I yell.

“Hush! Daddy has every right to sell Rastrum. She belongs to him, and he can do as he pleases with her. You are very unladylike. Ladies do not get angry and behave like this. We live by what we know is right; feelings are not reliable guides for making decisions. Now dry your eyes and set the table for supper. Let’s have no more of this skittishness.”

I lie a minute longer, then go to the bathroom to wash my face. Mumbling to myself,

“Hell, life like this is so unfair.” Defeated, I help to put supper on the table.

I share a room with Granny Hartley, she is a tall, slender, very strict lady, she wears dresses and skirts down to below her grey stockinged calves, and long sleeves irrespective of the ambient temperature. Granny’s grey hair is plaited neatly and then wound around her head, secured with grey hairpins. As Joey Louise Sieg, she came to South Africa from Germany when she was a young girl and married my Grandpa, William James Hartley, known as Bunny. He was one of the grandsons of the 1820 settler Thomas Hartley. Unfortunately, Bunny was blinded in a cart-and-horse accident when their youngest daughter, Una, was a baby, so he never got to see their handsome children, Daphne, William (Daddy Bill), Edgar and Una, as they grew to adulthood.

Each evening before retiring Granny loosens her hair, bends forward and brushes a hundred strokes - that, she says prevents her from washing it too often, which dries it out. I am amazed that her hair is always beautifully shiny. Granny often chuckles as she is getting ready for bed, recounting the events of the day and seeing the funny side of whatever has happened. I love her for that, but I am also terrified of her. One afternoon David has gone to play with a friend and comes home after dark. When she hears the gate rattle, she stands behind the kitchen door, and as he comes through it, she ambushes him, whacking him, with a rolled-up newspaper, shouting,

“Naughty, naughty boy you know you must be home before dark. Now go to your room and do your home-work. No supper for you tonight.” I feel quite pleased that he has a beating because he teases me often, and he is too laughingly agile for me to catch and beat up. But it isn’t long before it is my turn for a slap!

One cold winter’s day, we are in the kitchen; Granny is listening to the radio while she prepares supper. She gasps with surprise as the newsreader recounts the events of the day: Thousands of women marched from the Paul Kruger Monument on Church Square in Pretoria to the Union Buildings today. The march was silent and determined; they are objecting to pass laws. Prime Minister JG Strydom was unavailable to receive their signed petitions,

“Oh dear!” says Granny. “Now there will more trouble in this country; I wonder what will happen next! And why they are protesting against pass laws.”

I wish Granny had known then why they were protesting and more details of the march! Because:

[Twenty thousand women of all races marched on 9 August 1956, to present a petition against the carrying of passes by women to the prime minister. After the petition was handed over to the secretary of the prime minister, the women sang a freedom song: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - Lord Bless Africa. The marchers also chanted; Wathint` abafazi, Strijdom! You Strike a Woman, Strydom!

Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, a hymn originally composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa clergyman at a Methodist mission school near Johannesburg. The song became a pan-African liberation song and versions of it were later adopted as the national anthems of five states in Africa including Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe after independence. Zimbabwe and Namibia have since taken new compositions for their national anthems. The song's melody is currently used as the national anthem of Tanzania and the national anthem of Zambia, and since 1997 a portion of the national anthem of South Africa.]3

Since then, the phrase 'wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo' – ‘You Strike a Woman You Strike a Rock’ has come to represent the courage and strength of South African women. As a group women are marginalised, so they challenged the oppressive barriers that governed their lives and fought for their freedom and that of their families.

[Strydom was not at the Union Buildings to accept the petition, the women of South Africa sent a public message that they would not be intimidated and silenced by unjust laws.]4

Yes to Emily Pankhurst! I would discover the British women's similarly remarkable struggle later in High School. The implications in the pass laws included:

 All people classified as non-white had to carry passbooks to show their workplace in the area; no pass – no work.

 Black nurses were not allowed to nurse white patients.

 Black couples were no longer allowed to live in white areas of a city.

 Children had to stay in the homelands.

 The Group areas act meant that land and businesses could be taken away from non-whites (forced removals) without compensation… and more.

One Friday afternoon, Granny is taking us back to the farm for the weekend, I am sitting in the front seat of her navy Chevrolet, and she chides me repeatedly for not doing my chores fast enough, so we have gotten a late start. I am irritated and mutter under my breath,

“Oh, shut up, you old bag.”

Granny hears and gives me a left back-hander across my face, without even taking her eye off the road. I burn with shame and resentment. It is never spoken of from that day until she dies. I don’t tell Mommy for fear of another beating on top of that one, for being impudent.

One day, Mommy is busy in her sewing room, wearing her usual shirt-waister dress and comfortable leather gardening shoes. She is crafting a new dress for me and casually says,

“Ginny, soon you will start your monthlies, bleeding from between your legs for a couple of days each month, so you need to be sure that you always have protection.” She shows me where the pads are kept in her wardrobe, and I stand horrified, eyes glued to the white fluffy looking things in a paper packet. I am too shocked to ask any questions and besides, there is a slab of chocolate on the same shelf, which I register as far more interesting for a later date when she has gone back to the farm. The next time she comes back to town, the chocolate is gone. It seems to be time for another beating,

“Hell, everything I do is wrong, you were not here to ask, so why can’t I eat some chocolate?”

“Go to the bathroom, so much chocolate is bad for you and to swear on top of it means you need to learn by having your mouth washed out with soap.”

What a performance, with me struggling to clench my jaw, and then I start laughing, so the soap gets a generous lathering, and I spit it out as fast as I can with much cursing, but this time I make sure that it is really under my breath.

One night when I am in Junior High School, I overhear Mommy and Daddy talking,

“Ginny is becoming more and more rebellious,” Mommy says. “She swears and wants to play tennis on the Sabbath. She has also been invited to a boys’ hostel dance next Friday night, and now Mum (Granny) tells me that Kendrew visited her on his motorbike.”

“Oh! Perhaps we should think about sending her to Sedaven with the boys?”

I can hear the seriousness in Daddys’ voice mixed with a grin. We often visit with the Macaskills, where Kendrews’ Dad, Cyril and my Dad argue for hours about whether we need to keep the Sabbath day holy on Saturday. Cyril maintains that salvation is by grace alone, the law was done away with at the cross. Daddy insists that it is crucial to keep the Sabbath day holy, as the fourth commandment requires, because although salvation is by grace, the law informs the behaviour of grace! They never reach an agreement and must have eventually agreed to disagree on the topic. Kendrew is their youngest son, about four years my senior and while our fathers argue, and mothers make tea, generously mixed with their conversations, we have our fun outside at the cattle kraal or listening to music in Kendrew and his brother Albans’ rondavel.

Daddy now continues,

“Cyril tells me that Mum was rude to Kendrew, and he wanted to know from me if we don’t trust Kendrew? I was quite embarrassed.”

I feel myself blushing at the memory, even though no one can see me. Kendrew is a tease and like a big brother to me when John and Ian are away at boarding school. Why was Granny making a fuss? Was it because Kendrew came while I was playing the piano? She heard the playing stop and came to find us sitting outside chatting,

“Go home. It is not right to be visiting Jeanette she should be practising the piano. She is just a schoolgirl and make sure that you don’t come back again,” she barks at him. He must have told his parents. Why haven’t I shared with mine and complained about this unfairness I wonder? C’est la vie - whatever will be will be, rings in my ears.

One rainy, windswept afternoon we set off with the Macaskills to Emanual Mission in Basutoland (now called Lesotho), to a Seventh Day Adventist Mission and Leper Colony. Cyril has bought the latest in movie projectors and has a film about the life of Christ. He wants to show to the Adventists that salvation is by Grace alone and so worshipping on the Lord’s day (which is Sunday) is best. I think he particularly wants Daddy, of all Adventists, to understand that he is wrong to worship on Saturday! I sit in the back of the car with Kendrew and want to talk to him about the scene with Granny, months before. Somehow the words won’t come. He is teasing me. He had put clothes pegs on my skirt, and I didn’t even know until I nearly tripped. He seems so light-hearted and full of fun, but I also know he is now dating my friend Sylvia, and for some strange reason that hurts. Besides which, it is as though Granny is in the car with us, frowning about our seemingly casual friendship.

The Life of Christ is graphically portrayed in the movie. His betrayal and crucifixion are so violent and heartrending, with his Mother Mary watching and weeping. I feel as though my heart is swelling in my chest. The tears are streaming down my cheeks. The sadness and guilt; for swearing and stealing and telling lies is welling up to overflowing. Then Uncle Cyril and Aunty Olive sing a duet; their voices blend in serene harmony. Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. That saved a wretch like me. I am so moved by the singing that all the way home I am grateful for the darkness and pretend sleep to keep the spell unbroken. I remain deeply grateful to John Newton for penning these magnificent words and appreciate finding more about him after seeing the movie ‘Amazing Grace’ in which John Newton talks to William Wilberforce about his encounter with amazing grace.

Amazing Grace how sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me

I once was lost, but now I’m found, Was blind, but now I see.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved;

How precious did that grace appear? The hour I first believed!

The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures;

He will my shield and portion be. As long as life endures.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;

‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, And grace will lead me home.

When we’ve been there ten thousand years, Bright shining as the sun,

We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise. Than when we’d first begun.

[Newton was born in 1725 in London to a Puritan mother who died two weeks before his seventh birthday, and a stern sea-captain father who took him to sea at age 11. After many voyages and a reckless youth of drinking, Newton was pressed into the British navy. After attempting to desert, he received eight dozen lashes and was reduced to the rank of common seaman.

While later serving on the Pegasus, a slave ship, Newton did not get along with the crew who left him in West Africa with Amos Clowe, a slave trader. Clowe gave Newton to his wife Princess Peye, an African royal who treated him vilely as she did her other slaves. On stage, Newton’s African adventures and enslavement are a bit flashier with the ship going down, a thrilling underwater rescue of Newton by his loyal retainer Thomas, and an implied love affair between Newton and the Princess.

The stage version has John’s father leading a rescue party to save his son from the calculating Princess, but in actuality, the enterprise was undertaken by a sea captain asked by Newton senior to look for the missing John.

During the voyage home, the ship was caught in a horrendous storm off the coast of Ireland and almost sank. Newton prayed to God, and the cargo miraculously shifted to fill a hole in the ship’s hull, and the vessel drifted to safety. Newton took this as a sign from the Almighty and marked it as his conversion to Christianity. He did not radically change his ways at once; his total reformation was more gradual.

“I cannot consider myself to have been a believer in the full sense of the word, until a considerable time afterwards,” he later wrote. He did begin reading the Bible at this point and began to view his captives with a more sympathetic view.

In the musical, John abjures slavery immediately after his shipboard epiphany and sails to Barbados to search for and buy the freedom of Thomas. After returning to England, Newton and his sweetheart Mary Catlett dramatically confront the Prince of Wales and urge him to abolish the cruel practice. In real life, Newton continued to sell his fellow human beings, making three voyages as the captain of two different slave vessels, The Duke of Argyle and the African. He suffered a stroke in 1754 and retired but continued to invest in the business. In 1764, he was ordained as an Anglican priest and wrote 280 hymns to accompany his services. He wrote the words for “Amazing Grace” in 1772. In 1835, William Walker put the words to the popular tune “New Britain”.

It was not until 1788, 34 years after leaving it that he renounced his former slaving profession by publishing a blazing pamphlet called “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade.” The tract described the horrific conditions on slave ships, and Newton apologised for making a public statement so many years after participating in the trade: “It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that, I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” The pamphlet was reprinted several times and sent to every member of Parliament. Under the leadership of MP William Wilberforce, the English civil government outlawed slavery in Great Britain in 1807 and Newton lived to see it, dying in December of that year. The passage of the Slave Trade Act is depicted in the 2006 film, also called Amazing Grace, starring Albert Finney as Newton and Ioan Gruffud as Wilberforce.]⁵