Transcription of an MP3 Audio Diary, kept between Friday January 11th

and Saturday March 15th 2008. Part Eight.

Sunday, 17th February 08

It was a lively conversation that woke me up this morning. A conversation
between two young, virile voices; that's to say that the two voices fluted
towards each other, a couple in the prime of life. But when I came out of the
bedroom to meet the visitors, I found my 95½ yr-old father and his 85½ yr-old
wife in animated conversation.
No visitors...
I think I heard on the outside what was going on on the inside! I understand
the dichotomy and don't see why it should be any different for them. I often
feel 18 on the inside and a teenager keeps wanting to come out. And I know
it's the same with a lot of my friends, so why shouldn't it be the same with
someone 1 or 2 generations older? Whatever they had been talking about had
temporarily sponged away the pain that they both suffer, leaving two young
virile voices exchanging early-morning pleasantries. Yes, there's an 18yr-old
inside Wynne, and another inside Charles. And he bubbles out every so often...
and he's great to be with. It's really funny. And fun. I think that's enough for
this little bit (recording)!

I've just checked my Email and I've had one from a Mr Pieter Botha in Cape
Town at King & Son, confirming that the Grey Fox is due in Cape Town on the
afternoon of 25th. So that means she's picked up a day somewhere on her
travels up to Richards Bay and Maputo.
I hope I can talk to Captain Böckmann tomorrow or the next day to find out
what the situation is on board: IF I could go aboard in Durban it would be
magnificent. But if I have to be back down (to Cape Town) a day early, to go
aboard on 25th, then I have to look at the different possibilities of trains, buses
or whatever; I don't really want to go down on an overnight bus, but everybody
says that it's still the best -and safest- way to go. But even for that, I think I
have to go into Pietermaritzburg.
However...
...well, I don't want my time... for going to the loo, for example... to be
regulated by a bus driver, or by other people in a restricted coach. I much
prefer trains and boats... either by Grey Fox from Durban, or by train from
somewhere... we shall see what happens.

I'm standing here looking at grasshoppers... and a HUGE black -or perhaps
very, very dark purple- butterfly, which is really magnificent. It's on one of the
avocado pear trees in 'our' garden. 'We' have about 1, 2, 3, 4... about 7
avocado trees, of different kinds. Some of the pears grow to the size of a small
melon, or a very large mango, while others are more the size we get in Europe.
There are crinkly ones, smooth-skinned ones... I think that those that will ripen
first will probably be ripe 2 or 3 days after I've left here, but it's nice to see
them growing here in such abundance. And of course I've been able to eat my
fill from those we bought in the supermarket, as they ripen earlier elsewhere at
lower altitudes.

I bought myself some biltong before I left Cape Town... one of those very
particular smell/taste/flavour memories from 60 years ago. I gave my last
packet to Stuart and Charmaine as a present when I visited their apartment in
Jo'burg, so yesterday it was about time I treated myself to some more.
But when I put it on the table today, Charles turned his nose up. He really
doesn't like it: “flies all over it, drying in the air. But other people seem to like
it” he said. Well certainly other people do... I do; for me, it's an absolute
memory of 1948 and being in South Africa. Biltong...
That and buttered meelies -corn on the cob- from street vendors.

1948. My life was all arse over tit, but I think I was aware of the turmoil around
me, as the government changed and introduced the restrictive pass laws and
the crackdown on interracial contact. I have the personal story of the
unfortunate knife wound in my stomach and people diving to the ground
because they thought that I'd been shot, which I'll write up later on...
(27/02/09 I've said that I refuse to start editing before I have finished the
transcription, but that last little cliff-hanger needs some explanation.
While we were waiting to come back to the UK, my mother and l lived in
Harmony House Hotel in Kloof Street. As my father wasn't around, my mother
was a relatively young, lively woman who was suddenly on the market. But
there was a fly in the ointment: me. So anyone who wanted to get close to my
mother had to go through me, find a way around me, or at least include me in
their forward planning...
There were several bees round the honey pot, one of whom eventually became
a regular. He used to sing in the Waldorf, a cafe-restaurant at the bottom of
Long Street not far from Woolworths and his name was Oswald. Ossie. Ossie
Diaga (that was how I imagined his name, never having seen it written. He
was olive-skinned and reminded me of Franco's policemen that chased us in
Las Palmas on the trip down... so I presumed he was Spanish or Italian. But
Wynne told me last night that he was, in fact, an Afrikaner and his name was
de Jaeger(?) which, in South Africa, is pronounced more or less the way I wrote
it in simple phonetics.
He used to take us out for walks, made me a bow & arrow, used to race me up
the side of Signal Hill... And he bought me a scout knife. A real, big, sheath-
knife. Which was great. But then he blotted more than his copybook. Silly
man that he was, he showed me how stunt artists might have pretended to
stab themselves, turning the knife over at the last moment, driving the handle
into your stomach rather than the blade. I thought this was great and of
course I wanted to imitate him. And my mother, immediately, as usual, got
very, very angry... and when she told me to stop, naturally enough I carried on
provoking her, doing it faster and faster. She was getting angrier and angrier
and shouting at me and at Ossie. Then she hit out and slapped my hand.
Which is why I have a scar in my stomach.
In the panic which ensued, Ossie was chased away when he tried to hold a
towel against the wound to stop the bleeding... I don't think he ever came
visiting again, but I could be wrong. Knowing my mother, she certainly didn't
blame herself, or really blame me, it was this man Oswald de Jaeger's fault.
That might have been why they split up, I don't know.
The wound must have healed quite quickly -the scar is over an inch long, but it
probably grew with me- and I was soon out playing, running and jumping with
complete abandon.
Some time after this, in Kloof St, near the 2nd school that I attended, there was
a barrier of parallel aluminium safety bars - like a 5-barred gate without the
diagonal bar across; they had them in England at bus stops and outside
schools to stop kids running straight into the traffic - and these were great for
improvised gymnastics. We used to do gate vaults and somersaults on and
over them and I was obviously well enough and healed enough to take up
where I had left off. But it so happened that on this particular day, as I was
going backwards over the top bar, a car backfired and at the same moment,
my wound popped open, squirting a large splodge of red onto the front of my
white shirt. And hanging upside-down from the bars I remember very clearly
one woman and two men, white... half bending... one of the guys down on his
knees, with his arms wrapped around his head... and there was real smell of
fear and panic in this all-white bus queue. This was in 1948 and there was no
real violence from blacks to whites as far as I was aware, but I suppose there
must have been something in the air.
18/03/09 Yet, oddly enough, it was one of the very few times in my life that I
did not feel immediately guilty AND responsible for something unpleasant that
effected other people around me.)

Wynne's friend Shirley says that the maxim now in South Africa is: “Hurry up!...
And Wait!”
Her telephone went on the blink and she has no idea when they'll get round to
repairing it. Of course, it's not very easy, because: all of these houses have
guard dogs, people won't come chancing into their gardens, most of the gates
around here have 'Chubb: Armed Reaction' emblazoned on the gateposts... all
of the shops around here say that no-one has a key to the till or to the safe,
money goes in and can't come out again, which really cannot be true when
they have to give people change... But there are watchdogs, alarms and
'armed reaction' notices on the front gates of just about every house. So how
the people from the telephone company, ELCOM I think it's called, can come
while she's out at work... well they can't really... and she's only free on Tuesday
afternoons; so if the complaint is that she won't be able to get any service for 3
weeks, well, you know, it's really only 3 half days that she's free. If she were
there or available a little more often, then perhaps things might be a bit
different. It's difficult to get people to...

Wynne got up early this morning and... we had a beautiful mango breakfast, I
had mine and she had hers... she's coming now, so I have to be very quick...
and she reached down to try to pick up my empty plate from my lap and then
tried to straighten up again with both arms full... we really have to think about
what's best, or more beneficial... to totter round as a servant-cum-nanny at the
age of 85, or realise that other people are quite capable of clearing up their
own mess they've made.
The world can probably be divided into those who are aware and adapt, and
those (like me) who presume they can carry on as they always have, and get
very angry with the personal effrontery of the ravages of time...

Charles is a confused man, as far as his second son is concerned. Very strange.
The article about Stuart (29/11/08 an article in a Jo'burg paper)... his first
reaction was: “What a pity he (Stuart) didn't talk about Alaric having done
such-and-such” thereby denying or negating the whole thing that Stuart has
managed to achieve. And yet, when Alaric telephoned, twice, he replied with:
“Oh yes. How are you? Hmmn. Here's your mother” and chopped him off.
Something very strange. I don't know what I can do about it here, but I'll try to
get him to open up to me... And I need to talk to Alaric as well. It's a very
strange situation.

I must try and find out more from Charles about Oswald de Jaeger. Wynne
remembers Ossie at the time, and remembers him being with my mother. She
says she saw them at the swimming pool in Sea Point, but didn't see me; I was
probably where I spent most of my time: in the water. She says that they
(Wynne & Charles) were hoping that the relationship would develop into
something special. How much this had to do with me... their NOT getting
together... I don't know. I have a photograph of my mother, Ossie, me and the
Rowbotham family at the Rowbothams' house. But when I spoke to my mother
about it, she refused to remember the man, he 'hadn't existed'... therefore we
couldn't even discuss it.
(18/03/09 Here I went into detail of what happened with the knife and the
reopening of the wound sometime later; the recording that I transcribed earlier.
As I said before, Malan came to power in 1948 and the new battle lines were
quickly drawn up. After talking to Wynne about my memories of that particular
experience, Wynne told me about an incident where the new laws and the
introduction of what became 'apartheid' could have had quite an impact on the
South African Worrod family:) Wynne and Charles had a baby-sitter (for Alaric)
who was the niece of the woman who came to clean for them. But, with the
new laws, there was no way Charles could take the girl home in the car after
she finished work, because they would both have been arrested and the car
impounded. People of the opposite sex and colour were not allowed to be in
public together.
...which is one reason why South-West Africa became a refuge and so important
to South African families of mixed race, because the South African government
turned a blind eye towards its western border so that mixed marriages who
refused to separate -and who could have become a threat to the new regime-
were 'allowed' to go and live in the southern part of South-West Africa, in what
is now Namibia, and to carry on living as they had been, quite happily.

Then I brought up Oswald de Jaeger again.

Wynne remembers Charles saying that perhaps Ossie and mum would get
together so I would stay in South Africa. But Charles now says he didn't know
the man... couldn't remember him !
Why did both of my parents remove Ossie from their memories ? I reminded
Charles of the knife wound in my stomach, but he didn't remember that either.
But he did remember my mother's lesson about hot stoves and his and
grandma Worrod's horror and inaction when my mother forced my hand onto a
lighted hot gas ring and...
...I remember 'teaching' my cats by holding them NEAR the heat...
...with the same aim, I suppose.
Charles talked about my mother's temper but didn't talk about his own, which,
like mine, is particularly near the surface when suffering pain, physical or
mental.

Today was grandma Worrod's birthday, but, although Charles talked about her
and my blistered hand, the date obviously means nothing to him now.
It was also Dad's birthday. Dad. My step-father...

Monday18th February 08
It's the morning of Monday 18th, so this afternoon I shall be telephoning Captain
Böckmann to find out the possibility of my rejoining the ship in Durban, So, all
the powers that be, please keep your fingers crossed for me.

I few things to jot down:

Charles was talking to me about something that happened during the war, long
before he came to South Africa in 1947, when things were obviously not going
well with my mother. Every month, because he was doing heavy shift work, he
had several days or sometimes even a week off... but he didn't come home...
and this is what I remember: I remember home without my father. He went to
his sister's, my Auntie Maud's, in Warwick. To a house that I remember,
because, when we came back from South Africa, I used to cycle over there on
the bike that granddad Worrod bought me for getting a scholarship into
Bablake. I used to cycle over to Warwick, which was about 10 miles away, to
this house on the canal where Auntie Maud, Uncle Les and my cousin June
lived.
Auntie Maud, in Charles' autobiography, becomes 'Great Aunt Maud'... a kind of
'she-who-must-be-obeyed' character. Which is... quite interesting... that's
another part of the story... perhaps to follow up... but it's not part of my story,
so I won't go very much further, apart from the fact that Charles said this
morning that he didn't think his sister particularly cared for my mother... and
she certainly didn't like Wynne at all.
Wynne told me that she thought it was because she had caused the break up
between my father and my mother, but, listening to what Charles said, that
break up had been very much on the cards long before he met Wynne. As he
said last Thursday night, if I hadn't been there, they would have separated far
earlier.
I suppose it's a particularity of their generation, just the same as it's one of the
particularities of mine, that... maybe if you change places, move to another
town or country when things are on the rocks... well, perhaps you might be
able to save the relationship. But, pretty obviously, you won't save it if you're
considering breaking up and you meet somebody who you fall in love with on
the trip. Two weeks aboard a liner to South Africa after a debilitating war was a
romantic situation anyway. And that's how and when Charles met Wynne.

Yesterday, she said that it's still very difficult for her... she still doesn't feel
comfortable talking about those early days in Cape Town. She still feels guilty.
I tried to put her mind at rest, and told her that as far as I'm concerned, the
need for that guilt -if she EVER had any need for guilt- (which is a personal
thing, although most people try to provoke guilt in others, some time or
another), that was long past and, as far as I'm concerned, I don't have any
negative thoughts about her; I like her very much, I really do.

I spoke to Jenetta on the phone again last night.

I first met my baby sister when she was 6 in 1964. We didn't meet again until
she visited me in Florence when she was 19. Now we've met again 30 years
later and she has a son, Stuart, who's 2½ years older than our son David. Let's
hope that her children, my children, she, Rahel and I can all meet up again
without excess baggage weighing us down. Almost certainly it will be in
Europe, rather than in South or East Africa. Although I've been invited next
year for Netta's 50th birthday bash in Mombassa. I don't think there's very
much chance, I don't think that I'd be able to afford it, but it would be nice, it
would be interesting.
From what all of them have said, Kenya was the key, happy part of their lives
together, not South Africa. But Kenya, yes. And the sadness that they weren't
able to stay... the kids weren't Kenyan citizens and after the change of régime
and people forcibly buying Charles out...
...as he said the other night, in reality, if he got the royalties that he believes
are due to him, he'd be worth millions; even in Rand, it would be a tidy sum.
But that's unlikely to happen in his lifetime... Alaric has sent a copy of 'Hulule-
Hulule' by Brian Poole and the Tremeloes who, in spite of the fact that the
copyright is held by my father, insist that they had gone into a shop and heard
the 'booloboolo' music, after which they composed their own version which
went into the Top Twenty. I have a copy of the original African recordings at
Equator Sound Studios, which predate Brian Poole and the Tremeloes by quite a
long time! Charles' reaction to what they had done meant that what might
have turned out to be an interesting, lucrative arrangement and contract, went
down the drain after Charles broke the story to the press and the Tremeloes
were forced to react, saying that they were not going to record anything else
from his studio. I found out yesterday that he still gets partial royalties for
'Malaika', which is nice... but even then, Miriam Makeba, at some point in her
life claimed that she had written 'Malaika', just to confuse the issue even
further.
Still, we shall see.

Time for a siesta after lunch. The hottest day so far. The dogs and Wynne
were flaked out, falling asleep where they lay. Charles, as ever, needs his small
heater switched on near his feet. He has so little flesh on his bones, there's
nowhere to store energy ! His various pains are compounded by a constant
pain wherever he sits: the bones in his bottom are like stone age weapons and
he needs more layers of soft tissue than the princess with her pea.

I called Captain Böckmann while everyone was asleep (even Charles managed
more than two hours in his straight-backed chair in front of the telly). I won't
be able to go aboard in Durban, because of 'displacement insurance'. I am
insured from Europe to Cape Town and from Cape Town back to Europe: if
anything happens to me en route, the insurance that I paid will cover all
emergency transfers for me and any loss by MACS if Grey Fox has to change
route, put into port etc. But I'm not covered for travel up the South African
coast as far as Moçambique, so, if anything were to happen to me,
'displacement' would cost ME €25,000 a day. So, I have to make my way back
to Cape Town.

Shirley and I will accompany Wynne up-state to go through all the rigmarole of
re-applying for her driving licence. Then, if we can find somewhere 'safe' for
them to wait for me, we'll come home via Pietermaritzburg, so I can buy my
ticket back to Cape Town. I really don't want to go by long-distance bus, so I
have to find a way of reaching PMB railway station...

Tuesday, 19th February 08

This morning, Wynne, Shirley and I went to Moi River, for Wynne to apply for
the renewal of her driving licence. She's already had her eyes tested, so... we
got there and were sent round to the back entrance where Wynne had to
present the papers for her eye test... Fine... this particular lady turned out to be
very, very kind.
Then Wynne had to have her thumb prints taken.
And then we went round to the other side of the building and queued up in
order to pay.
Unfortunately, it was the same lady who had to come from the other office and,
as there were more and more people arriving who wanted renewed licences
and therefore had to have their fingerprints taken, the ridiculously overworked
lady had to keep nipping out, from one place to the other. At the desk in the
front office, there were 2 other people: one was sitting eating her lunch,
another one was walking backwards and forwards with a wad of money
between two fingers in one hand and two slices of mango between two other
fingers of the same hand... but neither of them helping any of us who were
waiting, in fact giving a very good performance of ignoring our existence...
The first lady eventually came back and we sorted the whole thing out,
except... Wynne's thumbprints were apparently not very good, looking as if she
had burned her fingertips away to avoid detection, so she had to be
fingerprinted again: this time they insisted on her two index fingers.

So, we ended up hanging around until about midday... we'd been there... well,
it wasn't too bad, considering bureaucracy... we'd been there about an hour...

Then we drove down to Pietermaritzburg and... this should have been the
difficult part, but the ladies decided: “No, we ARE going to do it” !
So we ended up by driving to the 'Dove Funeral Parlour'. The two ladies sat in
the car park there, quite happily, and perfectly safely, while I walked to
Pietermaritzburg Station to buy my ticket.

When I asked how I could pay for my ticket, the guy said: “Good afternoon. I'm
very sorry, but if you want to pay with your credit card, you can't, so you
should go out and get some cash”. This was, in fact, before I had said exactly
what I wanted, so it was very nice of him to tell me immediately, rather than
perhaps waste my time. But I had cash. And now I have a sleeper. I leave on
Friday night, arriving in Cape Town on Sunday morning.

When we got home, I telephoned the Formula 1 Hotel. Not the one I stayed in
before, in Milnerton, but one which is much closer to the docks on the
'Foreshore'. So depending on what happens and what news I get on Friday
from the people in Cape Town, as to when the Grey Fox actually leaves... I
arrive on the 24th, I certainly spend the night of the 24th in Formula 1, perhaps
I'll spend the night of the 25th in the hotel as well... if the boat arrives in Cape
Town on the 26th. If she arrives in Cape Town on the 25th, I arrive there early
enough on the 24th to cancel the second night of my booking. So it should all
work out quite nicely. And I shall see Cape Town again. I might even be able to
go up Table Mountain again, this time, if there's not too much wind. That would
be nice.

I had another long talk with Charles today. He told me he was proud of me... of
what I've made of myself... what I've done... 'in spite of things', rather than
'because of'...

I have a copy of his autobiography on my computer and also a long story... of

the history of the Worrods... I think that's what it is... and he's also given me a
printed older copy with some of the photographs in it... so what I think I'll do is
to print the thing out again when I get home and take the photographs from
the one that he's given me and make another book, because the text is
supposed to be the definitive version, the one that I have on my Mac.

Tomorrow Wynne has to get up early... last night she only slept for an hour,
which was difficult for her, obviously... I've set my alarm to wake her up at
7:30, so she's ready for Eric the gardener who comes tomorrow. Then she
drives a friend to have her false teeth done... it's a kind of a taxi job she does,
to earn a few pennies; reasonable taxi rates, and her friend is happy.
I'm sure I shall spend more time alone with Charles tomorrow and on
Thursday... so hopefully I'll be ready to... feel ready to... leave on Friday
evening...

It'll be too dark for me to take many photographs at the station, but I still
intend to take some photos in the dark, because flash would probably turn all
the plaques and photos into mirrors... I THINK it was during the daytime when
Gandhi was thrown off the train there, but nevertheless, it's the idea's that
counts...

While I was watching the Champions' League match with Charles this evening,
Wynne phoned one of her MOTH friends, who has arranged that we will have a
police escort to PMB station on Friday !
MOTHS is/are an association of people who served during WWII (TH=Tin Hats),
which includes Wynne.
The general fear of something unpleasant but unnamed that might happen
'around PMB station' has been gently put to rest; with a police escort, Wynne
and Charles should both be able to see me off safely...

Wednesday, 20th February

When I was small, like a lot of little boys... and a lot of big boys, I suppose... I
used to pin butterflies. I think we didn't know any better... and that was the
way things were done in those days. But in this garden here... I'm looking, for
example, just at this moment (although I have just been looking at two
others...) there's a beautiful, four-and-a-half inches across... butterfly... brown,
with cream and white... it looks like a Kaiser moustache across the back of its
wings... and then dots all around the extremities... I was just looking at a... a
magenta... butterfly which flew close to my shoulder and then away, and I
realised... all right, this brown and cream one is still in front of me, but the
others I've only seen for a few seconds... ah... she's gone away now... a few
seconds... moments... or whatever... and that's what it should be... these
instant moments of incredible beauty of these...
...the same as the birds that are here, flipping around... ummm... it's a moment
of joy, a moment of beauty, a moment of being with nature, I think... and then
they go away. And that's enough. I can't even take photographs of them and
the photographs which were taken when I was small, of course, were almost
invariably photographs of butterflies, birds or whatever, which had been
caught, killed, stuffed, pinned or whatever... because, with photography as it
was in those days, it was very difficult to get hold of pictures of that kind of
animal when they were in flight, when they were in movement...
But seeing the movement, flipping in and out of these avocado trees, in and
out and over the top of the bower down by the corner there...
The birds around here... the only ones which make a big impression are... I
forget the local name for them, but they're ibis. It's very strange to see them
here on the lawn and then right up in the tops of the trees... Charles was
telling me earlier that there used to be a tree down at the far end of the garden
which was dead and... the ibis used to roost there. So it was a dead tree, full of
very alive, very large, very noisy squawking birds. Squawking... I thought,
when I saw them at the bottom of the garden, without my glasses on, I thought
perhaps they were turkeys which were... bobbling around... because turkeys
can fly... not the ones that you keep in a garden, in the farmyard, but certainly
the wild ones... they have turkey-shoots in America... and it was a bit like that;
the noise they make is a bit like... not a gobble-gobble, but the screech-
screech, thump-thump, screech-screech... the compound noises of turkeys
being done to death...

Eric the gardener has just finished this bottom end of the garden. I was playing
around with the electrical cables, trying to work out how much extra cabling we
need to buy to make them autonomous here, because, unfortunately, there
have been a few fly-by-night gardeners who've made off with people's
equipment. Wynne and Charles have had one of their lawnmowers taken away
- somebody must have been just outside the front gate with a truck of some
kind to take it away from the house... I worked out that we're 20 metres short
in cabling, to really be able to mow the whole garden. So that's something
which has to be bought, with a three-pin plug on one end and a socket on the
other... and a 15 amp fuse, to make sure that nobody gets killed.
Eric's out at the front of the house, still mowing. It's really quite hot today, 34-
35”C, so he has his hat on, but he's stripped down to shorts and he's reeeeeally
dripping. He had his lunch, he had two or three drinks... the arrangement they
have with him seems to be fine: he chooses, rather than eating his lunch, he
chooses to take his lunch back to his family, which he's entitled to do, of
course. Wages, payments, things like this... it's difficult to assess, especially
coming from Switzerland, with the price of things as they are back home. But
then when I look at Wynne, and her friend Shirley who has a very nice house
across the road, I see they're very very conscious of small coins... you know, of
money where one is really thinking about pennies rather than pounds. Their
pension from the UK every three months is about £12, not really something you
can live on. The royalties that come in from some of Charles' music is
obviously keeping them going, but it's certainly not living the life of a lord.

The ibis look as if they should be walking or waddling birds. Huge, oval-shaped
bodies... I couldn't really see what their legs were like, from the way they
walked. They have this sort of stooping penguin effect. But then when they
take off, they fly straight up into the top of the trees. It's quite impressive,
together with the incredible noise. Then there's the extra noise they make,
battering through the branches. You get the impression with most birds that
they have an ability to move in, to wind around the branches and leaves and
not hit anything and land where they want to land. But these ibis sort of seem
to say: “Righ'... Oim goin' more-or-less to that branch there and bugger anyfin
thas in the weigh”. And off they go.

I see the battery's almost gone on this recorder, so I'll have to change it quite
soon.
This morning's conversation between Charles and myself was probable THE
reason, the main reason... for this whole voyage.
We talked about his relationship with my mother, before I was born, after I was
born and during my childhood. During the war. And up until the voyage to
South Africa... and when they definitively broke up...
He was very upset. It was a bit like drawing teeth. We talked about the
breakdown he had when I was very small... and... the reasons behind it...
which I won't talk about now, but which are very clear... I don't think I'll put that
down on paper. It's not for general consumption until all the people involved
are long gone. But it makes a lot of things clear to me. About me, about my
life, about my reactions to things, to people, to love, to lack of love... to my
distrust and mistrust of people as well... So I'm really very, very glad that I
came to Hilton.

After these conversations with Charles, perhaps the little boy buried deep
inside me can finally really start to believe that it WASN'T his fault that his
daddy stayed away so much and finally went away all together and that his
mummy and daddy broke up. Perhaps I can finally understand why I felt so
abandoned for so long.

Wynne's and Charles' house was already built when they bought it, but it was
probably the only one in the whole block. I think Shirley's was being built at
the time, otherwise it was all sort of forest here. Their garden had been
mapped out, but there were no walls, no fences, no nothing.

At the back of the garage, there's the servants quarters. Which they've never
used. It's just one room... a little self-contained one room flat, if you like. One
room and a bathroom and a little cooking corner. Really rather nice. But
they've never used it for any of the servants. It's mostly Jenetta's stuff that's in
there at the moment...
But looking at how the servants were provided for here, and when I think back
to the servants working in the hotel in Harmony House Hotel in Kloof Street in
1948, where they had tin huts out in the compound at the back of the hotel,
and where I often watched the rats running in and out... In fact, I think I used
to go and try to play with them... the rats I mean. The hotel 'boys' played with
me, talked to me and asked me to read some of my books to them... a big, big
difference in the kind of attitude there and then, here and now, nevertheless...

More Champions League this evening, then we had a conversation about

tonsils: his and mine. In Charles' autobiography, there's a reference to his
tonsillectomy, which strangely resonates with mine! But when I talked about
my memory of having my tonsils out in Evesham during the war, Charles
assured me that I never went to Evesham, that it was one of the postings that
he had where mum and I stayed in Coventry or Kenilworth. I remember being
on a hospital gurney, terrified and unable to breath, while a masked man was
trying to persuade me to “blow the mask off” my mouth and nose. I couldn't
blow it off, but I did get my fingers under it and threw it away. Then, somehow,
I must have got down from the hospital trolley, because Charles remembers
walking away from the front of the hospital with mum, when I came running
after them. Then they took me back inside and handed me over to the medics.
But he doesn't remember which hospital this was. And I don't remember
anything except struggling with the masked men and women standing around
me...

Thursday, 21st February

Last night we were talking about the war years, as we were again today. But...
...I wish that dog would stop barking...
...we were talking about an incredible noise that came from down the road from
us in Cheylesmore... in St Christian's Rd... during the war, when this intense
whine-whistle noise went on for hours. And this famous man, this famous
Coventry man, who's going to be on the 'Coventry Walk of Fame', I think... who
had designed this particular jet engine...
...and I came into my room and picked up some of the stuff I'd brought for
travelling: sudoku and Guardian & Telegraph crosswords that I'd cut out of the
papers at least 20 years ago... and I started doing one, just to pass the time...
and to get back into a thinking mode, rather than gnawing away at the edges
of feelings. Because Charles is waiting for his PC virus update to download, and
we're both waiting for lunch because Wynne wouldn't let me help with that...
so I grabbed this crossword and I found '17 Down: He designed planes to shape
wood'... The answer's 'whittle'... the Frank Whittle, who we were talking about
yesterday. The man who built that jet engine. That's a coincidence.

Bobbies on the Beat. 'Bobbies on Bicycles, Two by Two'. Here in Hilton. I must
find out more about our police escort for tomorrow!

The old Hilton Road Station is also a Railway Museum, although the way the
engines and tenders are painted in prime colours and left out on the lines to
rust away, the museum appears to be home to Thomas the Tank Engine and
Friends. There's no Fat Controller, but there is a Wild Man of the Woods who
runs the Black Hawk Archery store out of the old ticket office. What would you
hunt with a bow and arrow around here? I squinted off into the distance,
remembering Cornel Wilde in his under-rated film 'The Naked Prey', but the
heat was shimmering up from the old permanent way running away through
the lush greenery, rather than from yellowed rocks in an orange desert...
Wynne drove me down here and, after buying food at the other supermarket,
we crossed the road to visit the station because: “...I don't think I've been in
here since it closed, years ago...”.

Wynne's inability to find a comfortable position to sit or stand is very worrying.

For her, of course, but also for me; our daughter Hannah has a real problem in
sitting down. The slight irritation of our little girl being a 'fidget-bum' has long
turned into a major preoccupation. She has to change position every few
minutes; writing at a table is hardly possible and the only position where she
seems to be a little comfortable with a pencil or a computer is lying on her
stomach, which is not really practical in class with 20 other people. Watching
Wynne's painful movement, I just cross my fingers that I'm not looking at my
daughter 20 years down the line.
Here at the station, Wynne has sat down in at least three very unlikely places,
but she's not at all worried about other people's reactions. And as she coils
and bends into her sitting position, it's so graceful and -for a few minutes- she
looks so at peace with the world, that you might imagine that these are some
of her favourite places to sit and relax for a few minutes during an afternoon
stroll.
I've bought them a cordless phone with two hand-sets. It's difficult to break
habits, but their old phone was in such an uncomfortable position for both of
them ! Charles couldn't reach it without getting up and zimmer-framing across
to the sideboard, by which time the phone had either stopped ringing, or
Wynne had come from the other end of the house to find herself blocked and
unable to reach round him. Now they can have a hand-set beside each of
them... but they must remember to charge them overnight.

After supper this evening I phoned the Formula 1 on the Foreshore in Cape
Town. I've booked for 24th and 25th but can prolong or cancel, depending on the
news I get from King & Son. I wonder why the driver thought of the Formula 1
in Milnerton when I was trying to find somewhere to stay on 4th January when I
arrived, rather than one right beside the docks... ?

Friday, 22nd February

It's the morning of the 22nd. I've stripped the bed off and got things ready for
the wash and will do my final packing sometime soon; not just yet, because I
have to put the computer away and all its accessories and I need to go onto my
computer to try to find out if there's any information, either from Edburgh,
which I doubt (10/04/09 A few days earlier I had received an Email from
Edburgh in the Netherlands, with whom I work as an EU Expert to evaluate
grant and funding applications. I had told them that the only way I could
perform evaluations before the end of March deadline would be to download all
the proposals and work on my evaluations on the trip back to Rotterdam. The
snag being, that evaluations have to be Emailed on a daily basis and I have no
regular internet access on the Grey Fox. I had told them that there was no
alternative to doing things my way i.e. storing up the evaluations until I was
able to upload them when going through the Canaries, in Vigo or in Rotterdam.
I made it clear that nothing else was possible, so I didn't really expect them to
accept)... or from King & Son in Cape Town, to give me an update on the ETA of
Grey Fox in Cape Town.
Charles is already on the PC, watching the green line of his anti-virus crawl
across his screen.

It's interesting the different attitudes to 'Spam' here compared to Europe.

Because of the fear of violence here in South Africa, there's a... well, for
example, he opened an Email just now which was: “Gunmen confront police at
checkpoint. Three killed”. And as they have their Bobbies on the Beat here in
Hilton, who protect the houses and go around on bicycles, and they have their
website with a weekly update on violence and so on... naturally enough he
opened the Email to find out what had been happening... but it's an advert for
Viagra and Cialis...

We finished washing up the lunch things long ago. Now we're into one of those
long silences, punctuated by the odd hiccup of nervous last-minute
communication.
It's mid-afternoon, but Wynne is already dressed up and ready to come down to
the station. Charles, bless him, has gone deep inside himself, his nose almost
touching the computer screen. I've walked around the house a couple of times,
round the garden with the dogs and under the avocado trees, looking for a little
boy's hide – a measure of land that would support a family and their
descendants... the ibis are silent, the wind has dropped and there's just the
murmur of traffic from the main road two streets away...

No news from Edburgh or King & Son, so everything is now packed away.
Except for my two mobile phones which are charging up for the day-and-a-half
trip.

As it started to get dark, the individual human dynamos in the house have
started to generate a febrile kind of energy. You would think that it was Wynne
and Charles who were preparing to leave on a long trip and each time they
come out of or go into another room, I look down for the suitcase ! I've pulled
out the crossword I started the other day, because I really had to pack my
iBook away, carefully protected by all my clean laundry. But I'll leave this MP3
recorder on its cord around my neck, so perhaps I'll be able to mutter into it
occasionally.

* * * * *
When it all came down to it, we were able to convince Wynne and Charles to
say good-bye in their kitchen and agree to stay at home, although Wynne was
all dressed up and ready to come to PMB station.
Chief Inspector Brad Lancaster and his wife, Inspector Louise Lancaster, arrived
at 7:30pm, told Wynne and Charles in no uncertain terms that Pietermaritzburg
Station was no place for them on a Friday night and, squeezing me between
them in the front seat of their 4x4, they took me down to the station, parked in
the station forecourt and waited for my train with me inside the station... and,
stern police attitudes forgotten, soon started to behave like two really excited
teenagers: “How much is it ? Wow ! It's only that much ! Really cheap ! We
could have a weekend away, we could go away for a week or so, how about
that ? Is the food any good on the train ?” And they was hopping around,
terribly keen and excited.
And they stayed with me until the train arrived, waited for it to leave... and
waved me good-bye.

The two inspectors Lancaster had obviously known PMB station more by
reputation than by actual presence.... If you look up 'The Man in Seat Sixty-
One' on the web (an excellent site for anyone who wants to travel by rail, road
or sea, rather than by air), you'll find his observation about train travel in South
Africa to be quite pertinent. Most (probably all) of the negative information
comes from people who have either never taken a South African train or, if they
have, then it was probably more than 20 years ago.
Brad knows Wynne because he's a member of the MOTHS. He's not a Tin Hat
member, he's much too young for that... he's of the generation who
remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when they
heard the news of Princess Diana's death, whereas older generations
remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy
was shot... the first post-MOTH generation. The Members Of the Tin Hats also
deal with the descendants of active service personnel. Perhaps his father or
mother, or both of his parents, wore tin hats during the 2nd World War.
Brad was born and bred in Pietermaritzburg, Louise was born in Jo'burg, but
was brought to PMB when she was five. They've been working together at the
police station in Hilton for the past 12 years.
I hope our long conversation last evening acted as a catalyst and not just a
temporary stimulus. Time spent on board South African trains is precious, to
be savoured, together with the good food & drink and stimulating company.
The TransSiberian, 3 years ago, was an experience of a lifetime – twice!!- but
I've met people here, tourists and native South Africans, who have added a
further dimension to the pleasure of train travel.

Now I have 3 new companions from 3 different backgrounds... and it's time to
listen, look and learn once again...