Listening to a game of cricket in the 'Cage'

The farmhouse, Kalkwal, Orange Free State.

A clear memory I have of our family holidays at Kalkwal in the Free State, is of my Grandpa Percy sitting in an upright chair, next to a table in the 'cage', listening to a cricket test on the radio.

The cage seemed to echo for hours with the voice of Charles Fortune (1906-1994), the voice of cricket on the radio, he would flow on for hours, sometimes about the cricket game but mostly about the sky, the birds and all sorts of minor details surrounding the game.

The cage was a half brick structure at the end of the veranda (or stoep as it was called) enclosed with mosquito netting.  It can be seen on the lefthand side on the old photo above. Nothing remains of the farmhouse so these old photos are gems.

Tea was served in the cage to keeps the flies off the teatime treats. The cage was also the place where my cousins, their friends and I played rounds of cards for hours on end.

In this letter dated Mar 21st '63, Grandpa Percy writing to Dad mentions the Cavaliers, an ad hoc cricket team made up of famous cricketers, both retires and up and coming, in order to encourage local cricket.
'...the news has just come through that they have just been heated by Natal, 8 wickets.'

Cage at Kalkwal, and the huge old pepper tree that I loved. Fragrant in the heat of summer.

A small matter of money

"A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day."

 Emily Dickinson

So, in tackling my letter project, I am going to take the lead from the fabulous Dickinson poem where she says that when a word is said, that is just the beginning of the whole story. I will not censor or edit, but sit with the comfort or discomfort of the content of the letters in my possession.

So, my father, Choeps to his Mom, has asked for money and his father has agreed to lend him R800. They can do this as they are busy sending mealies in and are expecting some 'geld in soon'.

I was bemused to read, further into the letter:

'By the way please don't mention to Bob that we are financing you otherwise he might feel like asking for something too. He is not too good a payer so am not interested in lending to them besides which he gets such a damned good screw. I fail to see what he does with it.  They were moaning much better when they were here last.'

'life in the letters' - Nanny Ina

An old photo that Mom has in her Wedderburn History Album

The calm voice of Nanny Ina imbues her letters between 1959 and 1962 with the sense of everyday life. Her garden, the weather, vehicle problems, progress of planting and harvesting on the farm.
 'The garden is coming along nicely I have planted out three boxes of plants and next week must do the dahlias, they were all watered yesterday. The wisteria climbing up the almond tree is full  of blossom and will be very pretty each year now.'

She updates my folks on family news -
Uncle Ralph's foot getting better in the September '59 letter and Ian having his birthday party;
Aunty Dolly taking her for a perm in the October '61 letter and a movie and how excited she is to have an outing (letter below);
Uncle Bobby's promotion to Transport Supervision and second in charge in South Africa in the November '61 ' the chap resigned and Bob got his job'; and in a later letter that they will be moving to Parkhurst, Johannesburg;
Shirley buying Dinkie Toys;
Aunty Dolly 'got the wool OK and is just dying to get stuck  in to the knitting, just can't wait for the weekend to come now';

And each letter is newsy about extended family, friends, births, weddings, the happy and the suffering that was happening around her during those years.

I feel her suffering in the letters.
Her concern for "Dad" or Pa as she sometimes called him, is evident in each letter. His health is failing, diabetes, insulin, weight loss.

She describes the pain in her legs and feet, the giddiness and shares a diagnosis with the folks that it is peripheral neuritis caused by the diabetes.
The last letter, 7 August 1962, she writes:
'I am still having such giddiness and they don't seem to get anything to clear it up. I'm sick of feeling under par, as for pills I've really had them.'

I will end not on her passing but that she was the beauty of our family and we continue to hold her in awe.

'I bought a pretty moss green hat and gloves to wear with my purple blue-green frock and the hat will also go well with the other dress, roses on the green, white background.'

In loving memory of our Grandmother, Nanny Ina.
Ina Moody Wedderburn.

Quick scan of the wallet letters and they start with congratulations and end in sadness.

A quick scan of the letters. 

They span a period from September 1959 to June 1966.

The oldest is dated 22 - 9 - 59 sent by Nanny Ina to my parents, from the family home in Bloemfontein, 12 Marquard Crescent.

And the final letter from Grandpa Percy dated 14 June 1966.

Tears are just behind my eyes and blurring the screen, I will came back to the detail in another blog. These are letters written in the last years of their lives.

 Nanny Ina (1898 - 1962) and Grandpa Percy ((1889 - 1966). 

I can see from the dates that Pa takes over letter writing from 1963 after Nanny Ina's death and drops the folks a couple of pages, in his bold, open handwriting. 

This set of letters starts with a congratulations.

My mother would have written of her pregnancy and Nanny Ina is 'pleased to hear your news - get busy now my dear there will be plenty to do I am sure'.

His letter of the 26 September '63 he shares 'with Ralph and I alone, there is not much fun, if one was fully occupied it would help to overcome the loneliness, a home without a Mrs is terrible.'

The final letter is a thank you letter for 'pyjamas, and good wishes for my birthday' that Grandpa Percy received from the folks.

It is tough for me to finish this post.

Deep breath.

My Grandfather shot himself soon after this letter. It was kept from me for many decades and it sits with me like a stone at the bottom of my heart.
It is a horror to me as he seems to have set a pattern for gun suicides in my family.

The Brown Wallet of Letters

I have two sisters, Inel and  Doreen. They have left me this wonderful project to document our family history through this letter project.

It's a cooler, grey spring morning here in Johannesburg and I am hoping for our first summer rains. I have put Mom's Bowersburn Princess box aside and have taken out a beautifully worn brown wallet to explore.

The lefthand side of the wallet has letters and in the right side are two carefully folded handkerchiefs. In the front pocket is a 1960 black and white photo of Nanny Ina (my paternal grandmother) holding my 4 month old brother Clive and myself age 5.

Along with a brief note from my father, John Ennis Wedderburn, dated January 1993.

An invitation to read what is in his wallet; to bring back the past.

These are letters from his mother and father. Ina and Percy Wedderburn of Bloemfontein.

A quote from my current book club read so resonates with me.... 'she saw the past everywhere she looked, as if it were a layer of reality just beneath the present.' 
The Garden of Burning Sand, Corban Addison.

I am loving my readiness to evoke the past, it feels just the right timing.

Dear Little Brown Mouse

This tiny envelope, 5cm  by 7cm, is tucked right at the bottom of the box of letters and addressed to Miss N Argyle. It contains an invitation card to Little Brown Mouse to a party to be held on Wednesday the 5 January 1921. It implores Nellie to come 'Even by aeroplane because it is 'Smuttys' Birthday'. He makes the party a day affair and underlines 'long time'.

The sender is in Ngqeleni, inland of Port St Johns' in the Eastern Cape.

Nellie was to be my maternal grandmother but the sender is unknown to me and I cannot connect any dots here, neither the place nor who is writing.

It does not alter the delight in reading the letter card.
'The envelopes remind me of you my dear they are so big!' 
My Nan was tiny.

He writes of a tinned plum pudding, the scorching heat, feeling well and wearing riding togs as his box from Pretoria has only just turned up.

He writes of finding the stationery and his longing for his little Brown Mouse and that if he could be with her he would be happy.

My assumption is that the writer is not my maternal grandfather, he was Afrikaans and the writer mentions Mater and Dad which does not ring true for an afrikaans speaking young man.

I wonder who he was.

A letter sent to the Standerton Hotel, Standerton, Transvaal.

The year would have been 1954. The postmark and date are indistinct on the envelop but this letter was sent to my newly married parents on their way down to Margate for their honeymoon.

The Wedding invite, Saturday the 13 March 1954

This gorgeous photo of Mom in her gossamer blue wedding dress with fabulous details and Dad looking so handsome, hangs in our bedroom here at the Loft in Amanzimtoti.

It came to me from Ryan Wedderburn who found it in his boxed things from the Kalkwal Farm in the Free State. It belonged to my paternal grandparents, Percy and Ina Wedderburn.

Written by a friend in Vanderbijlpark (unknown but assuming a girlfriend from the handwriting) to the Dear little Honeymooners, this letter would have been waiting for Dad and Mom when they arrived for their overnight stay at the Standerton Hotel, in Standerton.

The letter is lighthearted, familiar 'you two little lambie pies' and makes promises of more sabotage and batches of dirt.

Seems my folks were known for their pranks with their honeymooning friends.
The letter must have made them smile.