Emails from Evelyn to Mike, Evelyn's friend (and others)

Memories from our childhood in Africa by my sister Evelyn Pettersson Carra

2006..... Written all within the last year before she passed away from Lung Cancer

Dear Mike

Thank you for allowing me to join your group. I hope I will be able to contribute in a positive way by relating some of the stories I grew up with and some which were my life.

I too live in Australia (Brisbane). Which part are you? We have been here for 22 years now.

The internet really has made it a small world hasn't it? And I wonder why it took so long for me to get to talking to you. I guess I was caught up in visiting the GNR, a site for ex Zambians now in all the four corners of the world. However the site was becoming a bit tedious and generally not interesting for me so I made the effort to explore a little further and so here I am.

(Laugh) you are right it is some difference between Mike and Mike. By the way my real name is Evelyn and the long winded name I chose to join with is made up of a pseudonym I used when chatting some years ago. Erika was my elder sister (now dead since 2000) and Lucy is my granddaughter. So there you have it.

Now, hmmm, where to start? Well let's start from a point of reference, the book The Hunter is Death which is as you know about your father predominantly. Both your parents (and you, I might add) were in Mbeya at the same time as my father in the 1930's during the Lupa Gold Rush.

When I was 14 our family visited the Cape from Zambia and went to see who I thought was "Mike" Bulpin, author of the book. However his name was Tom really but the name Mike stuck in my head. So after reading some of your mother's lovely letters which are funny and articulate and an invaluable account of her life with Mike and with her children and of the time and place I am now somewhat confused. So did we visit Tom Bulpin, Mike Rushby or John Molteno? It was a beautiful piece of acreage with orchards of oranges, peaches and plums. The thing I remember most about that visit is that I absolutely stuffed myself with oranges and peaches. At that time children were to be seen and not heard so to speak, as you will know so that was how I amused myself. And when we went on our way back to the small village of Kleinmondstrand where we were holidaying we carried with us boxes and boxes of said fruit. Since that day I can honestly say that I can count on one hand when I could bear to eat another orange or peach. Plums were never my cup of tea, so I didn't over eat those, smile. Perhaps you can enlighten me who in fact did we visit.

I have re-found the photocopies of the chapter of the book Lupa Days which talks about the "Romance of the Goldfields" which was about my mother and father, who met there. In the early 1990's I had remembered the name of the book and found a copy in the library (all branches don't seem to have any copies any more according to my net research). I really tried to read the book from the beginning but I found the style of writing dry and too long winded to maintain my interest so I just skipped to Lupa Days and made some copies for the rest of my family. Tom Bulpin obviously did not remember my dad's name and in the book he is Pete Petersen although he was close in my dad's friend Torsten Piersson. My father, as was Torsten, was a boxer, not a wrestler as Tom has written. My father and stepmother were very amused by the name and called their cockatiel Pete Petersen. They had him for years until sadly one day he was frightened by the sound of the telephone, the door was open and he flew away. They never found him again and Inga (my stepmother) was devastated. My dad always went by the name of Alf, his original Swedish name being far too foreign to the English language, Ake (with a little circle on top of the A), Olaf Albin Pettersson. My mother's name was Eva and when she met my father on the Goldfields she was barely 17 and my father 30 or so, so of course my grandmother was concerned. My mother told me many years ago that my father had in fact received a blow to the head from that torch not as written by T V Bulpin. She also showed me a pillowcase lovingly embroidered by her with two little hearts and my father's initials.

According to stories from my father he went to the Goldfields from America where he had spent some ten years or so as he had a brother in America, apparently a possible contender against Jack Dempsey. His brother Eric and he had a terrible fight over his apparently flirting with girls. Elizabeth his wife managed to wheedle this out of my father in an innocent (so my father thought) question and answer session. He said Eric beat him within an inch of his life and left him bloodied and broken in the streets of New York. Some kind people in the Italian Quarter took him in and nursed him back to life. Some years later he went to watch his brother in a practice fight. Eric noted him in the stands and sent his manager to ask him to come to his dressing room. My father went and the first words he said to Eric were that he had a gun and if Eric tried to hurt him again he would shoot him. That is all I knew really of his years in America. He told me quite a few stories of the goldfield days. He said he kept a baboon as a guard, much better than a dog. Your mother mentions in her letters the viciousness of baboons. He spoke of Mike and John Molteno who seems to have been quite a character. He spoke of someone finding an enormous nugget and who then retired to his tent with umpteen bottles of whiskey. When no one had seen him for a week they decided to check up on him and found him dead. He had drunk himself to death. Dad told me that he had become a 'penny millionaire' with his gold findings with which he bought a second hand Rolls Royce and took off on a trip around the world. Ah, those were the days.

Your dad and my dad were contemporaries, big game hunters, travelers, adventurers, gold diggers etc. etc. As for Tanganyika, the Congo and Northern Rhodesia, well, you would have thought they had modern jets to travel around, instead by foot, train, small plane, rickety unreliable cars, and quite some arduous journeys. But they seemed to take it all in their stride.

When I see the photographs of your father in his later years he looks so terribly familiar. Then I pinpointed it, he looked so much like Betrand the Belgium, (Lupa Days) the moustache, the hair, the waistcoat, the way he stands. Betrand was my grandmother's second husband (I think). For all I know they might not even have been married after all. That is the trouble when you read something purporting to be true; you can then doubt what you thought you knew (as written in Lupa Days).

I have noticed something very interesting. When I found those photocopies I reread the chapter. Later that day I spent some time reading your mother's letters of the time. That was the time when you contracted typhoid (just in case you didn't know - laugh) and they sounded very familiar. It seems that Tom Bulpin has used whole paragraphs written by Ellinfor his book. Did he write the book in collaboration with your mother or her family using her letters from Tanganyika? I am very curious to know and was this acknowledged in the book? And, did Ellinor Mike benefit financially because of the information provided by the letters? If so, it really is a pity that the letters were not just used as they were, because as I said earlier they are funny and fascinating while I found the book not to be so.

Was Tom Bulpin in fact actually in Mbeya at that time? I am inclined to think so as your mother's letters do not mention my dad, Torsten or the 'love story'.

Well Mike, I will end for now (been composing this for some days) and look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Evelyn Carra (ne Pettersson)

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Dear Lorraine

Thank you for your Christmas greetings and I and mine wish of course the same for you. It was lovely to hear from you. Indeed Esther did send me copies of your emails and I meant to get back to you immediately but with one thing or another (including procrastination) I didn't. Sorry. It was wonderful hearing your reminiscences of that time and place, which seems so long ago now, another century in fact, smile.

Lately I have felt an urgent need to write down some of my memories and try to record everything I remember about how my life has been but the basic premise is to record my dad and mom's life which was never written down.

And if I don't do it, all will be forgotten. Esther I think told you had a car accident in her youth and lost big chunks of her memory of childhood (lucky for me in a way, I wasn't very nice to her a lot of the time, but I have told her, smile.) Errol was killed in a car accident in Swaziland in 1997 and Alfred and Charles lost my mother quite young and over the years have been caught up in their own families and my dad in his later years.

I want to record the earlier years when as you know most of the die is cast and affects all the years thereafter. So I am going about it in a roundabout way by directing my emails to Mike (son of the man Mike Snr. who became the subject of a book called The Hunter is Death by T V Bulpin, predominantly because he was part of the team that destroyed some 22 man-eating lions in Tanganyika in the early years after the 2nd World

War. There is a chapter in the book how my father and mother met on the Lupa Goldfields at Mbeya, my mother being the tender age of barely 17, if that. If you haven't heard about that book I wouldn't really bother to try and find it to buy, it is going at an unrealistically very high price having been decided by the booksellers they can make a good profit. I skimmed, years ago through said book, as the style is dry and longwinded and just made some photocopies of the specific chapter called Lupa Days. You might be able to find it in a library near you. I did those years ago but it seems not to be in the libraries around here anymore.

I loved your memories of Frederick Knapp and his old car. I am sure the GNR would be interested in that, even if just for 5 minutes. I have posted there intermittently but it seems a bit hard to get one's foot in the door and if no one shows any interest in my stories I really have lots of other things to do instead. So for you, my own memory of that enduring (old) man.

If you are interested to hear other stories of some of the teachers I wrote about please let me know and I will post them to you and also other memories of growing up and living in Zambia.

School Days in Kitwe, Zambia

Frederick Knapp late 1940's and 50's

I cannot quite remember how old I was, perhaps 8 or 9, when the occasion of our sad farewell to our headmaster took place. Mr. Knapp, I remember him as a very tall lean mountain of a man with a craggy face and a kind heart.

Morning assembly, his daily walks around the school, looking through the classroom windows to check all was well, (later peering in by Mr Hall was much feared. It was his heavy breathing I remember although the poor man probably had some terrible malady. But it reminded me, you know, of monsters breathing menacingly as they lurch towards you), impromptu visits to the classes, a knowing smile on his face. I liked and admired him so much, although I suppose some of the boys will remember some hairy visits to his office. For his farewell the whole school had gathered in the playing fields at the back of the school and as a present from us he was given a pair of binoculars. He was going to Australia. He urged us all to do well and go places and to not forget that he had his binoculars and he would be watching us from afar. I was crying freely as most of us were, I suspect.

A little aside, which I love:

We are the music makers

We are the dreamers of dreams

We are the movers and shakers

Forever and ever it seems (anon)

That would have been nice (smile).

Your memory of that visit to the Swedish missionaries. I remember that day well as I was wearing the first dress I had ever made for myself. I had asked my mother to make me a dress and she said that I was now old enough to make my own. I was furious and made myself an up and down sack with just holes for my arms and neck, a little back opening (putting in a zip was hopeless for me for I don't know how many years), so I could get it over my head. The pattern was a sort of mixed check with those little lumps of cotton standing out. Cannot remember what kind of material that was. I just turned in the neck and arms, no finesse at all and sewed without nape etc. In the heat of early afternoon I decided to go for a walk to reach what I thought was a nearby mountain top. It receded further and further as I walked. I got terribly sunburned on my exposed arms and face and the dust devils swirled around me. Who knows what wild animals might have been lurking and when the mother died of smallpox and that young woman too. Very sad. I remember the father parked in our driveway at Empire Drive with the coffin in the car. I was horrified.

Lorraine your memories of childhood were fascinating. I had no idea your mother was unwell and I always thought of your father as some big shot on the mine. I remember when you told Erika and me that your mother walked into the kitchen and caught the cook spitting in the food and how from then on she did all the cooking. I am glad your mother liked me, that's sweet.

My most enduring memory of you Lorraine was when you were getting ready for your high school dance. Erika had made herself a dress all by hand out of light blue taffeta with dark blue velvet trimmings. I don't remember your dress (or my own, years later, I might add) but I remember watching you in front of Erika's wall mirror and metamorphisising into a pretty butterfly having just had a bath and flushed and perspiring on that hot, hot evening, and admiring the transformation.

And of course the trips to Ndola to visit you in my dad's Wolseley. A party at which I wore a skin tight black outfit having dieted for a week on one mince pie and one coca cola a day for a week (ah those heady days of dieting and pills - I was a drug addict without even having known it.) That night at your party I quite literally collapsed with hunger and had to lie down for a while.

I have many things to tell you if you want, and please I would love to hear all about you and your life and how and why and when. All this writing to Mike Rushby and to you and having just recently composed a story for a local competition seems to have rolled back the years and melted the sands of time. I have some photographs of Erika in her heyday which I shall pass on to Esther to scan for you (when next I visit her as she lives on the Gold Coast and I am in Brisbane) as I do not have the facilities for that here.

When it comes to revisiting the past I sometimes have reservations, perhaps because like all memories, there are some pretty bad ones in the mix which one would rather forget. I express myself a lot in poetry. Not that I sit and think, today I will write a poem, but only when the inspiration comes to me and then I just have to write it down. This particular one is at least 15 years old.

Far flung friends were mentioned during that conversation Now and again interspersed with the name of some relation.

My son stood up merrily and filled with gleeful mirth took my friends and flung them to the far ends of the earth. We laughed but we were sad As we thought of friends that we have had.

Would we meet again in some unlikely places and would we be glad when we recognized their faces. Or because of all the water that has passed under the bridge Embarrassed greet each other and hum and hah and hedge. Then perhaps because this could happen it's better for you and me to rather keep them locked up in fondest memory.

I think now Lorraine I might have given you a shock at the length of this email so I'll end for now. I remember as a child talking, talking, talking and then suddenly observing to my weary listeners as my mouth became dry, "I've talked a lot haven't I?" And so with my writing, once I start hmmmm, smile.

With very fond regards

Evelyn

PS My little granddaughter is called Lucy Erika and she will be 3 in a few weeks. I call her Le Le . I think of Erika all the time and though we definitely had our moments she was my big sister. I am the big sister now, I have lived past my grandmother, my mother and my sister and that's a sobering thought. Maybe that's why I feel this urgency to get everything done now. And, by the way I am no longer the plump little girl you would remember I've ended up being rather slim, hmmmm. Anyway, that's it for now!

No, one more thing -

Do you remember by any chance Erika's famous poem that was passed on to others and always won a prize beginning with…

The sun is setting in the West

It's time for birds to go and rest ......

I asked Inga my stepmother to say these words at Erika's funeral service.

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Dear Mike,

Thanks for your email, it was great hearing from you again.

You mentioned in your previous email whether I had recorded my memories in some way. Not really, this is my attempt to do so. I decided the best way to even begin to start would be by directing my words to someone who might have a definite interest in them. Would you be willing to be that person?

Of course I won't regale you with all my reminiscences if you think, "Oh no, what have I let myself in for?" sort of thing, only those you might be interested in and keep the rest for the rest of my family.

I am the last one left alive who would be able to make some sort of coherent story about my parents in their youth because my surviving siblings are that bit younger than I and so far (touch wood) my memory is still pretty sharp.

Big chunks will be missing because I can only tell what I know and needless to say the story will touch on my own life too because I was around.

Smile, no Mike, I was not in Mbeya at that time, I only came on the scene of my parents lives when I was born in August 1942 in the then Northern Rhodesia. I only passed through Mbeya at about the age of 18 on my way to Dar es Salaam and Malindi on holiday. I had lunch at the Mbeya Hotel and remember thinking of the past days of that historic place. Kenneth Kaunda the Zambian President was there too at another table. Those were early days for him. I felt a bit sorry for him, he looked so lonely and wanted to go and talk to him. Believe me when we arrived at Dar es Salaam I was the lonely one as thousands stood at the airport waiting to greet him.

By the way, before I yet again forget to tell you, I am in Brisbane, I have a sister on the Gold Coast and two brothers in Newcastle.

We too were a family of six children but sadly my elder sister Erika (as I mentioned before) died in 2000 of cancer, my year younger than me brother Errol in 1997 in a road accident in Swaziland so now I am the oldest and the onus lies on me to tell my story as best I can. We were all brought up in Northern Rhodesia. We too had a penchant for bull terriers as our preferred dogs and my younger sister Esther went on to carry on that tradition but had such bad luck with them that she ended up with poodles and now Chihuahuas (laugh), quite a contrast. I have sent on to her all our correspondence to date and I am sure she would like to be accepted into your group, would that be okay? I am sure she will find Eleanor's letters (which indeed I read from the website) as fascinating as I did. I have read them all including the articles you downloaded that she wrote for the Argus. I feel through those letters that I have known you all, all my life, you, your sisters, your brothers, your father and Eleanor. I really feel those letters should be published just as they are. As I said before, the insight into those years are invaluable records. I have also looked through all the photographs. And it is like time has melted away and the present has become the past and vice versa.

But Mike, those letters seem to indicate that Ellin was at Mbeya for years rather than months and traveled there quite regularly over the years.

You also say that Tom went with your parents back to Tanganyika in about 1957 to research the book. Well in 1956 was when we visited John Molteno (thank you for putting me straight on that matter, memory can surely deceive, and that is why it is so important to remember that that which we believe is true, is not always so) and I thought that was when we first heard about the book.

So then was Tom never actually there? If so, he would have got the names of Torsten and my dad (albeit a bit wrong) from your parents. And so it would seem that they were friends. If my father were alive he would be gratified that someone else had remembered his baboon watchdog. I am so sorry about your terrible fever. It must have been dreadful. My father died in 1998 at the age of 91 having gone from the "man's man" figure I remembered him to be to a frail caricature of himself. I found it very sad to watch, very sad.

Ah, the problems of ageing, ever with us. I see from your family tree that your father died in 1969, a relatively young age. And Eleanor? It seems like (family tree) it wasn't long ago so she lived to be an old lady, bless her. I really would have loved to have known her, really.

A little aside here Mike. Some information which you probably know already.

The dreaded Blackwater Fever was actually brought about by an overuse of quinine washed down with gin and tonics as an extra boost. My Dad's good friends on the Copperbelt (Mr and Mrs Kennett) both died of it and left their two little orphaned girls, Madeline and Ellinto be brought up by Mrs Kennett's sister. My father used to say there was only one cure, drinking as much champagne or "K" beer as you could to de-crystallize the kidneys.

Tanzania continues to be a country of man-eating lions but this time with no White Bwanas to save the day. Also apparently lions in the Kruger National Park are eating Mozambicans trying to get into South Africa via the Park and following the power lines so as not to lose their way. The lions have figured this out.

Since starting out on lions there seem to be lions, lions everywhere I look.

From calendars to programmes to my own memories to an exhibition now currently on at the Brisbane Art Gallery about King Kong. Among the exhibits is a magnificent bronze of a lion brutally attacking a horse and now a Christmas Special The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I dunno, and then of course the BBC special on your Dad and even visited a site on the net where all they were discussing was that special. And I think it strange that they chose to show that special just as I started to get in touch with you as I believe it has been shown some years before. Another Christmas special I guess.

Also, did you know the Tsavo Lions were male and maneless and once I read in New Scientist and saw the photograph of a young female lion with a mane.

From about page 90 of your mother's second lot of letters it gets into and specifically mentions the Njombe lions and your father's beginning involvement with them and how many hundreds had died.

More lion stories to come Mike, stay tuned. My own experiences with them.

Malaria, I watched my father many times being wracked by attacks of the dreaded illness. Apparently is sort of runs a course of about 7 years and then goes. None of us kids ever had malaria or typhoid or polio, though every other illness there was around in the late 40's and into the 50's and beyond. The graveyards of Northern Rhodesia hold many little bodies.

Well Mike, is this enough for you at the moment. I can see you rolling your eyes, and who knows what you are thinking, laugh.

Thanks for the Christmas wishes and my very best to you and your wife too and of course to your brothers and sisters (cause I do know them now you know, smile).

And so for now, over and out. I eagerly anticipate your reply.

My very best regards

Evelyn

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Dear Mike,

Sorry it has taken this while to reply to your last email but the days pass and things to be done etc. Same for you I am sure. I hope the year is going well for you and your family. So it was not a Christmas Special about the Njombe Lions.

I must have just read a few little tidbits about it just as I was starting to correspond with you. Still, quite coincidental, I think. It was interesting that Laura said "the lions looked different". Did they? Or was this story being confused with the Tsavo Lions. Do you know perhaps?

(Smile) I am glad you liked my version about Blackwater Fever and gin and tonic. After all, I am scientific if nothing (laugh). But really I have seen that connection and definitely quinine exacerbated the problem.

About those photographs and the Africans working naked just in case they took some gold. I was absolutely astounded. That would never ever have crossed my mind. I'd like to see them enforcing that rule on say, my father, for instance. It really is abhorrent don't you think?

And not long ago I quickly skimmed through a story about a Brisbane politician of the twenties and thirties whose 'hobby' was big game hunting.

His name was Arnold Weinholdt and the author is Rosamund Siemens and it is called "The Eccentric Mr Weinholdt". It took my interest because this author, well into her sixties wrote a book called The Mayne Inheritance all about the beginnings of Brisbane and the Mayne Family. It was Brisbane's Book of the Year a little while ago. Very well written and easy to read.

The Mayne Family were and the estate still is the supporter of the Medical Facility of the University of Queensland. I was moved to revisit the family grave site and reflect on the life of James Mayne, a sad man caught in the family scandal.

But back to Arnold Weinholdt. He also shot elephant and lions and was quite badly mauled by one which was not well shot. Of course at the time big game hunting was "glamorous" and the white man had all the excuses in the world to justify the pastime. And of course there were strict "gentlemen's rules" in the "game", which Weinholdt strictly adhered to. They were helping the Africans who were gradually moving into the game areas. Apparently he had great contempt for the Portuguese who did not shoot the animals and were letting the Africans down as there were a lot of them killed by the animals. (This one can also associate with what is happening with the refugees from Mozambique taking a shortcut through the Kruger National Park.) He disappeared somewhere in Africa never to be seen again. Also, apparently, which one can associate with the naked African miners, the Africans were forbidden to kill the animals, so they certainly had no choice but to rely on the white hunters.

I am glad you reminded me about the glass eye story. I definitely heard about that from my father but it had long since slipped my mind. Today of course we would find I am sure hundreds of stories about the uses of a glass eye and I wonder how many are true and those which have become "Urban Legend".

Your mother Ellin would have been quite young to go into a nursing home.

Would you mind telling me how she died and how your father died? I feel it is important to know but of course if you would rather not, I understand.

My mother was 43 and she died in a parachuting accident in Zambia in 1964, a few years later my father remarried and he died in 1998 at 91. He had grown weary of life. He had an aneurysm of the abdomen which he knew about but kept anyway. His heart was too strong, it would seem like how would he be able to die. And so the aneurysm did it. Did I tell you that before?

Lions, baboons, and elephants - a few personal stories. Sometime in the early seventies the Lions Club (in their wisdom) decided to open up a Zoo in Kitwe Zambia, (my home town) and needless to say made a donation of two baby lions. There were also baboons, monkeys, snakes, birds etc. Thereafter they decided to abandon the whole project (as did most of the Europeans in town) which was left entirely in the hands of the Africans (who were pretty hungry too). I befriended the Head Keeper. He allowed me into the pen with the lions and I remember stroking them and noting the enormous size of their paws and deep growling that seemed to echo. Not long after that one of the young lions died and the other one was named Kitwe and kept in a miserably small cage for years and fed on chickens.

Years later a beautiful enclosure was finally built for him but too late, he died of long term starvation within a few days. So terribly sad.

I and another lady took over the duty of each day collecting the fruit and vegetables left over for the day from the supermarket and feeding the baboons, monkeys and giving the Africans a share. I used to put my head towards the baboon cage and they loved to sift through my curly hair and groom it. Years later when my son was a few years old he had a thick mop of hair and I said, "Put your head forward Robert and they will groom you."

As he did all hands came out and starting pulling his hair for all they were worth. I grabbed him away, poor little thing, feeling terribly guilty.

Forward some years later. I had been up and down to South Africa as we were in the process of moving there after we suffered a terrible loss in my family (my ex brother in law and his de facto wife and child brutally murdered in 1979) in a very dangerous time in Zambia. Heart in mouth I revisited the zoo. A sad and sorry sight. Everything just hanging on by a fine tooth comb. I went to the baboon enclosure and leaned kindly toward it to allow them to groom my hair. There began a terrible shrieking all round and seemingly dozens of hands reached out to grab me. I worried about my sunglasses and my earrings and managed to turn my back and they tore the shirt right off my back. I looked a sight I can tell you. A dozen little African kids stood there with their hands in front of their mouths trying not to laugh. Lucky enough I was living with a friend across the road and I sent Robert there to pick up another top for me and I changed in the small ticket office crouched on the ground.

On another occasion I was visiting a friend with my daughter and son.

As my daughter stepped out of the car a large baboon bounded over the wall next door, rushed at Katherine, and grabbed with long claws her leg. She screamed, I pulled her back inside and the baboon ran off and over the wall.

She has the scar to this day. Now I had an enormous problem. Rabies had never been eradicated in Zambia. I would now have to get the baboon and either observe him closely for at least a month or have him destroyed.

I went to my friend at the Zoo and with a large cage we made our way to the house. Jack (the baboon) belonged to an African family and I explained what had to be done. They agreed but refused to help in any way. Now from how he had approached Katherine, he seemed to be pretty dangerous. We entered the premises and there sad poor Jack on the wall. He had a deep indentation worn around his waist where he had been tied up who knows for how long, poor creature. But he came very dociley with us and caused no problem getting into the cage. We took him to the zoo where he had a private enclosure.

I visited every day and made sure he was fed and he had a lovely nature.

Of course I was told I should have him destroyed but I thought if he was sick he would not be so "nice", only word I can think of. But it was a worrying time. When I heard that the family wanted him back I promised the Zoo keeper I would bring him lots of things from South Africa if he promised not to return Jack to the family. Needless to say I don't know the end result of that story because eventually we returned to South Africa for good and I never saw him again.

Mike, I am inclined to go on forever so I think this will be it for today.

Again, as I asked before, please let me know if you would be interested to hear more and how my father and mother and I and the rest of my family went because I don't want you to be an unwilling recipient.

For now my very best to you and your wife. I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Evelyn..

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Dear Mike,

Thank you for your email and your answers to my questions. Re the African miners, yes, I do know that nakedness (as with the Aborigines) was not much of an issue once but still, the fact that they had no choice was my issue.

Having spent long hours in the sun I know what the African sun has done to my skin in those days when nobody even thought about it. My grandchildren today never leave the house without their sunscreen. I could write a whole book of some of the terrible sunburn I suffered over the years. And (smile) to add to my gin and tonic story, my flavoured drink whilst cavorting under the sun was lime juice, the very worst thing to drink as it apparently draws the sun to you.

Regarding malaria and other tropical diseases I would like to recommend some books written by a Robert Desowitz. He has an absolutely riveting style of writing about these things, more like an adventure story than science.

One of the books is called The Malaria Capers and I am sure you will find them fascinating.

I am glad that you think Ellin would have applauded my actions with the baboons, that really pleases me, thanks.

I have been doing some further research on the net, it seems the more you look, the more you find, and enlightening too. There is an article which specifically mentions the Njombe lions and it seems that a contributing factor was that the authorities had declared an area of land to be animal free as they were afraid of the spread of rinderpest. So, of course, if there was no prey to catch, the carnivores would have been forced to look elsewhere. Also in that same article it mentions the fact that the Africans who had long practiced cattle farming used to build effective bomas for their animals of thorn bushes and tunnels (as I have seen in the old movies) but were somehow dissuaded in so doing. So of course they and their animals became more vulnerable. Then of course the fact that dead bodies were usually left to rot or only buried in very shallow graves would have been a strong contributing factor too. Also drunken persons staggering off into the bush. I remember seeing a film called Mondo Carne (World of Flesh) many years ago where on one island the inhabitants were all missing a finger or foot or hand etc. as it was their policy to dispose of their dead in the shallow waters surrounding the island and then swimming in the same area thereby being an absolute carte blanche for sharks.

Another very interesting article is how Game Parks came into being in the first place. As the colonialists were carving up Africa for their own gain game parks were strategically placed on borders of countries and of course clearing that land of the inhabitants regardless of whether they liked it or not. Then of course if they encroached on that land they then automatically became poachers. Similar in fact to England where the rich landowners disallowed the peasants from their land creating rich hunting grounds for the elite. As in fact the Africans were still basically hunter gatherers and had lived for thousands of years in this way, this being taken away from them forced them into labour for the colonialists. Not only Africa of course.

Thank you for sending me the first chapter of your story. I eagerly look forward to many more. Really, each single person's life is most interesting if someone would just listen to it, I think.

Both my elder sister and I went to university in Cape Town so I feel I know the place somewhat although it was a long time ago. I also do believe my younger sister did a year's nursing at Groot Schuur some years later. I am glad you father was well looked after at the end but sad about the cancer, always a terrible thing to have. And of course pain killers were not what they are today. In the mid 70s I was living in Durban for a while and became good friends with a man called Danny. He had one arm amputated at the elbow but was extremely adept with the artificial limb he had. He told me that he had had a broken arm in his teens but something went terribly wrong and he developed gangrene. He said that Dr Barnard had done the amputation and had fitted the prosthesis for him.

Your grandfather - (seems like just the kind of thing my son would do), and he paid the ultimate price. So young too. Showing off your strength is fraught with danger as the story of Samson and Delilah testifies to.

Two others whose stories I have read. Houdini the great escapist. Apparently part of his secret was as he was being chained up he would flex his muscles and then of course later unflex them to loosen the chains sufficiently.

One day a young admirer asked him if he could punch him in the stomach to see how hard his muscles were. Houdini agreed but wasn't ready for the punch.

Peritonitis developed and so he died.

The other was Rudolph Valentino. Rumours had been rife that he was a homosexual and a "powder puff" which incensed him. He agreed to a boxing match to prove his manhood, was badly punched in the stomach and was found dead in his home the next morning. I think he was just around 30 himself.

Some more lion stories. When I got married we went on our honeymoon to Beira and while there we visited a game park. I had long forgotten the name so, of course, back to the net. The name is Gorongoza and once boasted more animals than the Kruger. We were told that there was a rest camp in the park which had had to be abandoned as a pride of lions had just taken it over. We drove out to it and sat in the closed car watching about a dozen lions lying inside and on the roof and I was very glad to be inside the car.

Then of course my husband being silly started to bark like a dog which immediately drew their attention. Very unnerving, all those golden eyes turned on you. I was terrified, closed car or not. They wandered over to the car and sniffed around it and one even nonchalantly walked across the bonnet of the car. I just could have died right there and then. Years ago I had seen the 3D movie about the Tsavo Lions and it was not to be forgotten. Needless to say my husband and I had a big fight about that (when it was safe, far away from those lions).

According to the net information Gorongoza has lost much of its fauna and grandeur including the lions (the civil war in Mozambique). However there is a current scheme of resurrecting it and combining it with the Kruger National Park. How effective a barrier that will be for future Mozambiqueans trying to flee into South Africa which itself is not a very safe country any more.

When I was about 10 my father opened a business and a few years later had built a block of townhouses for his more favoured employees. At the roof wetting of the block my grandfather (my mother's father who was Austrian) had invited the German lion tamer from the circus that was visiting at the time to the party. I had seen his show and part of the act was to put his head into the lion's mouth. He was an enormous man with a golden mane of hair just like a lion but I particularly remember the smell of lions on him.

It's hard to describe that smell. Very pungent and wild, even repulsive, but even so I was fascinated.

Then when I was 13 going on 14 I went on a "Youth Club Safari" with about 15 other teenagers who were 16, going on 17, together with the man who arranged it and a married couple as chaperons and a "mechanic". He had said he was a mechanic so he could go on that trip but he knew nothing about cars whatsoever and we suffered badly as a result. The plan was to go through the Congo and Tanganyika into Uganda and on to the Mountains of the Moon

(Ruwenzori) just past the Equator. After many setbacks and having completely run out of money and half the time starving we got as far as the Equator and just caught a glimpse of the Ruwenzori in the distance. Our chaperons had long since had nervous breakdowns and spent all their time at any local hotels on the way whilst we teenagers just had to buckle down.

But on this trip we saw many many animals. Buffalo literally in their thousands, large herds of elephants, pools full of hippos. I don't think it would be the same now. Having broken down yet again in the middle of the Queen Elizabeth game park in Uganda we pitched our tents in the middle of that park. The boys had been "too tired" to do a good job and there was an ample gap right around our tent in which any wild animal could crawl.

It was a sleepless night for me, what with the mosquitoes and the heat and peering at the gap and hearing the sounds of the African night including the distant roar of a lion. On the day of my 14th birthday I wandered off alone and although surrounded by the midday oppressive heat and silence I remember noting the bones of a kill and questioning myself as to what I was actually doing there. That evening I was feeling ill and as nobody had said a word about my birthday I sat on the step of the small shelter we had managed to secure sadly gazing down over the plain far below next to the lake, Lake Edward I think, filled with animals grazing. A fitful night as the man in charge used to delight in telling us horror stories every night. He had told us at this very place a leopard had once come in through the window.

Another story he told us as we sat round a campfire in the middle of the Congo (having broken down once again) that there were hyenas who would creep up on unsuspecting people round campfires and chew their brains out behind them. Now that I write this I think the man must have been a bit of a sadist. Anyway the next day everyone said why had I gone to bed so early as they were going to have a surprise party for me. Hmmm, too late.

Then there is the story by Rauld Dahl called Going Solo. When he was young he went to Tanzania for a while and worked for the Shell Company. He had been visiting a friend when the cook came shouting in that a lion had got his wife. They grabbed their rifles and ran outside. There was the lion running off with the woman in his mouth lying limply. They shouted out at him and Dahl said he hadn't realized he was being followed. When he turned around and saw them he dropped the woman and bounded off. They ran towards her and she opened her eyes, sat up and started laughing. She didn't have a scratch on her. They decided not to try and find that lion to kill him as a reward for his gentlemanly behaviour.

There is a very sad story too. I was living in Johannesburg in the early 80s. One woman where I worked had gone on a holiday to a game park (not Kruger) and she told me that a donkey had been tethered to a tree so the tourists could see lions kill and eat it. I was horrified and asked how could she not have protested and stopped such a barbaric act. She felt terrible she said but it was too late.

Over the years I visited quite a few game parks and so have seen many times lions lying comatose in the heat of the day. Besides of course all the zoos I have been to. I have only seen one leopard in the wild in the Kafue Game Park in Zambia. He was draped over a branch high in a tree. Talking about zoos if you ever get the chance Dubbo Zoo is amazing. Animals from all around the world kept in the best possible conditions. And of course

Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo right here in Queensland. The animals live very well indeed. Kudos to him and his family.

Elephants - I have had some memorable moments there. When my daughter was a year old we visited Chobe in Botswana. (Is that where the documentary was filmed?) We were told at the entrance that we had to be back by 6 as they would be closing the gate. We were in a Toyota Ute. The roads were very dry and dusty and it was recommended we keep up some speed so as not to get stuck. It was late; nearly closing time and we were on our way back when there in front of us stood a large elephant with his feet straddled on either side of the road. We had to stop and discussed what we should do. I could see through the brush to the side of us a large buffalo standing there. I suggested that my husband 'lightly' hoot to start. He did this but the elephant was not moving. Instead he started to raise his ears and trunk. What could we do? I said that we would just have to take a chance and dash towards him hooting and hope he would move. A heart stopping moment. So we made our dash and I remember vividly that enormous head at the window. Needless to say an occasion never to be forgotten. When we arrived back at the gate just in time we told them what had happened. Laughter ensued. Apparently that particular elephant seemed to take delight in scaring tourists in this way.

A year or so later we were at the Luangwa Valley game park and had spent the usual African evening, laughing drinking, eating round the barbeque and telling tales. The proprietor told us that one evening he had staggered back to his rondavel and had had to step over a sleeping lion outside his door. I and my daughter left my husband to carry on and returned to our rondavel. I had just lit a cigarette when I heard just the faintest rustle outside the window. Nonchalantly I pulled the curtain and peered out. There stood an elephant grazing. I wondered if my cigarette would annoy it and so quickly put it out. (I say this because in my youth I lived for a few years in the Bahamas and the beach cafe I favoured was guarded at night by a very vicious guard dog. Only one person could handle the animal, everyone else was fair game. I knew this man and as I was sitting in my little sports car before leaving the beach he wandered over to me for a chat. He had his dog with him and this dog and I were face to face, the car being so low. I had just lit a cigarette and the dog lurched at me. I hate to think what could have happened to me. I had a small scratch on my hand from his paw which I dismissed as nothing. No problem. I couldn't understand the undue attention that was afforded me as to my wellbeing from the secretary himself of the hotel to which the beach was attached.

This was the largest hotel on Grand Bahama, the Lucayan Beach owned by one of the richest men in the world. Until, of course, it dawned on me, some years later I would add, that they were afraid I would sue. Sueing even then was part of American culture. Drats, I could have been rich. However I am sure the dog, which was not his fault, would have had to pay the ultimate price. Not my style.) I alternately peeped through the curtain and around the room and realized this rondavel was flimsy indeed, big cracks in the walls, rickety roof, no match for an elephant who might became angry. I switched off the light and sat there thinking how could I warn my husband. The door was like a stable door so I opened the top and gazed out into the darkness. Not a soul in sight. Suddenly an African appeared quite a way away and I started urgently beckoning to him to come to the door. He finally saw me and cheerfully waved back and went on his way. And then I saw my husband coming back and needless to say we survived. I always think of this elephant when people say about someone "they sound like a baby elephant". Nothing further from the truth. That rustle outside the window was barely a whisper. More truthful would be "they sound like a possum on the roof".

Now that is a noise not to be ignored.

Another year later we were back in the Valley at another resort. There was an elephant there called Zambia of course. He or she would rummage through the garbage and she would wander past the main lodge every day and once my daughter even gave her a marie biscuit which she gently took from a very little hand. She was so 'tame' people often fed her by hand. It was a delight to watch her outside the guests' huts every day and once when Jack the proprietor staggered back home very drunk she mock charged him and it was very funny to see Jack lumbering away (he was a large man) towards his hut. I have photographs but no scanning facilities at the moment. One day maybe. She would stand outside the dining room and send an exploring trunk through the window. Sad to say, as is so often the story when wild creatures make the mistake of trusting humans too much, I heard later on the grapevine that she had been shot as she was becoming dangerous. Her

crime I believe was on one of her trunk's explorations an idiot put a lighted cigarette in it. She picked him up by the arm and broke it. Sighhhhhh.

Tusks - I have seen stockpiles of them both in Harare and Zanzibar. On that trip to Malindi I mentioned way back I stopped off in Zanzibar for a few days. As I walked the narrow streets I remember glancing into open warehouses stacked to the ceilings with thousands and thousands of tusks and I felt sad.

Smile, Mike, I think the above is more than enough for now. Perhaps next time I will finally get started on my original quest, the story of my parents.

Please email soon even if, to start, it is Chapter 2 of your story. You are my only contact on Yahoo as it is not my normal email address and I really look forward to seeing "an unread message" for me.

As usual, my best to you and your wife. Have you any children?

Regards

Evelyn

..............

Dear Mike

Thank you for your e-mails.  I did in fact eventually get the one about Paddy and Dubbo Zoo.  You jest, no?  Laugh.  Okay I will send this to you via my Hotmail account and hopefully it will read better.  When re-forwarding an email it seems it becomes somewhat distorted in the process anyway.

Re your sojourn at the University of Cape Town in 1965.  No, smile, I was there in 1959.  In 1965 I was in the Bahamas.

Gerald Durell of course was a favoured author for me too and I believe I read all of his books.  My family and other animals of course I could relate to my family and probably you did too.  Sad to think his last years were not very good.  My brother reminded me very much of Gerald Durell and he too became rotund as he grew older (beer of course).  I also read Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet which I found quite fascinating but other than that his other writings did not seem to appeal to me.  There is some interesting information on the net about him.  Stuff I hadn't known.

I think now I can procrastinate no more regarding beginning the story of my parents.  I have tried every which way to avoid it, from staring into space, doing nothing, idle chatter, movies, computer cards but the time has come. 

I guess I feel some trepidation, no, a lot actually, because exposing bare bones can be painful and it covers my life too.

Lupa Days and beyond - Alf and Eva.

Tom Bulpin wrote in the book The Hunter is Death that my father and mother eventually married and had a long and happy marriage.  Well it was a long marriage, some 27 years and then my mother died.  Happy is debatable. 

Tumultuous it was indeed, but I do believe my mother always loved my father as he did her although he was an incorrigible flirt and had several affairs (that I know of).

My grandmother Franziska Hunke did indeed send my mother away from the goldfields but she absconded from the ship at Mombasa or Dar es Salaam and my father drove there and picked her up.  My mother told me that her mother had to give in and said okay they could get married if my father found himself a proper job.  I cannot ever remember seeing a marriage certificate so I don't know when they actually married.  It must have been in 1937 sometime, so they would have just left the goldfields for Northern Rhodesia.

 As my mother was born early November 1920 she would have been barely 17. 

As far as I know my father was a rigger on the Nkana copper mine.  Their first child Ernest, my brother, was born in 1938 (I think), I have a photograph of his grave which says he died on 22 October 1941, aged 3. 

Erika came next born 13 August 1939 and died 18 May 2000.  I came next 21 August 1942.  My mother told me years later that Ernest was a 'blue' baby and died after an operation to remove his tonsils.  He died in East London where he is buried.  My father told me a poignant story about Ernest.

He said his little boy said to him as he was dying, "Please daddy look after my tank."  I remember seeing that tank.  Just recently my daughter was throwing away what she considered inappropriate toys for my grandson, one being a tank.  I could not allow this because of that memory and it stands on my computer hard drive.

I was told many years later by an old friend of my mother's (after my mother had died) that my father had just gone to pieces over the death of his son and it was my mother who had to stay strong.  And then of course I was the next one born, a girl, which probably was a disappointment.  I cannot remember very much loving as a small child but what could you expect with grieving parents.  My sister Erika assured me I did get my share of hugs, but I certainly don't remember any from my mother.

What kind of life was it growing up in Northern Rhodesia in the 1940's.

Well the Copperbelt of Northern Rhodesia comprised of about 5 small towns each revolving around the local mine.  Single men were assigned Single Quarters and married couples got a mine house.  Our first home was on Uchi Street, Nkana.  It was there I can recall my first memory.  I had fallen into a ditch and needed stitches in my head.  I don't remember those, my memory was of my own screams as my head was being stitched.

We then moved to 23 2nd Avenue where we lived until I was 10.

In that time and place it was a Man's World.  They would go to work and invariably end up at the local Club to have a drink (or 10) with their workmates in the Men Only Bar.  How many anxious wives and mothers sat outside in the car with their inevitable 2 to 3 kids waiting for their 'providers' to eschew drunkly from the Bar so they could be sure they would get home safely to provide for another day.  Certainly we were one family who did and it was not unheard of to send one of the kids in to hurry dad along.  My mother had very beautiful brilliant blue eyes which always seemed to be glistening with tears.  As the years passed she was forever borrowing one of her children's sunglasses to hide her eyes.  Deep down I always had a feeling of sorrow for my mother.

I liked my father when he was drunk.  He would give us money and make funny little remarks.  My mother nagged and nagged although my father tried to be nice and finally he would lose it and a big fight would ensue.  I hated those fights.  I don't believe my father ever actually hit my mother even when he was angry.  I remember his arms outstretched and hands on her shoulders fending off the frustrated blows she directed at him.  My father was nearly 6 ft and my mother about 5' 2".  I took this into account whenever in my life I was attracted to a man.  One of the most important criteria was being able to look him comfortably in the face.  I was never going to have somebody doing that to me.  I just wished my mother wouldn't nag and everything would be okay but she didn't stop.  And so our lives went.  A year after me my brother Errol was born.

Before we got our first car my father and mother had bicycles, both with carry seats in front and back on which us kids were transported to and fro, usually no further than the local club.  I remember our house servant bringing home large blocks of ice on his shoulders for our icebox and the smell of sawdust and ice. Everybody knew each other in these small towns and gossip and innuendo were the cement.

My father was into hunting and football and boxing was his passion with wrestling close behind.  I remember vividly sitting next to my father in a large smoke filled tent filled with men watching a boxing match or two (Heavyweight division).  As the fighters brutally went for each other I would get a terrible headache and try to block my ears from the sounds of "Kill him, kill him."  And the jeering and cheering.  I can never forget the smell of blood and sweat, cigarettes and beer.

Errol and I liked to go to the football with my dad merely for the icecream and chips.  One day as we sat at the very top of the stands Errol and I amused ourselves by spitting on the heads of the patrons below who were too preoccupied with the game to notice.  One eventually did of course (lucky we knew him and he didn't tell my dad as we would have been in big, big trouble.  My father was not averse to giving us a swipe.  Over the years when he did this he would then break down, usually in tears, and say, "Don't you know I am a boxer and my hands are lethal weapons and if I killed you I would go to jail and then what would happen to the rest of the family?"

I spent many night praying to God to forgive me for having hated my dad (and/or my mom) and please don't let him go to jail.

Enough today.

Best regards

Evelyn

…………………………………

Dear Mike

Franziska Hunke (my maternal grandmother)

I am glad you asked about my grandmother and, after all, I am the only one left on this earth to tell what I know of her story and I am so glad you are enjoying my Lupa Days story so far.

Before I go on Mike, yes, Esther is my younger sister and she lives on the Gold Coast.  I have sent her all that we have written to date.  She of course wants to know our family history and has been instrumental in getting my half sister and her brother together once more after a gap of 40 years. 

The net can be great that way.  Ingrid my half sister (Lily, Kurt’s wife’s and my father’s daughter) lives in Cape Town and Robert her brother in Germany (Kurt’s son).  He has just been back on his first trip to Africa since he left as a child.  He was born in Albertville.  That story is a whole new ball game.

Talking about very enjoyable stories.  Through Google or Yahoo search Northern Rhodesia GNR, go there and on the side you will see Northern Tales.

In that group of stories are two by a Bob Smith.  One about the Nysasa Police and the other about Bagpipes.  I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy them both.  Great sense of humour.

However, you have asked me not to circulate your story (which by the way is so, so interesting, love it) so I won’t unless you give me permission to do so.  Perhaps saving it onto a disc and when I visit my sister take it personally so she can read it, but only if you don’t mind.

I was led to believe that my grandmother was born in Berlin but I have no way of knowing for sure.  Her husband Erich (my much loved grandfather) was born in Trieste when it was still part of the Austrian Empire.  I believe he had two passports, Italian and Austrian.  The Italian name he had was Enrico.  When I visited Austria when I was 18 I was told by his sisters who were then quite elderly that he had had a first wife.  A Polish woman.  They told me that she was considered a great beauty and had the nickname The Star of Poland.  Apparently she lamented to my grandfather’s sisters that everyone thought she was so beautiful but her husband just thought she had big feet.  I do have a photograph of her somewhere.  And when they talked about my grandmother they called her Franzi.  I wish I had understood them better (they only spoke German) I might have learned a lot more.  I do believe though that they had traced back the family tree to around the 1600s and it had originated in Scandinavia.  How my grandmother and grandfather met and where I have no idea but apparently they settled in Graz, Austria where my mother was born in 1920 and her brother Kurt, I think he was just 2 or 3 years younger than her.  I believe my grandfather was a Captain of a Ship.  I have a photograph of him in his uniform and he was a handsome young man.

My mother told me sometime in my teens that her mother had been a very accomplished woman.  A fully qualified hospital matron, a tailor (furs) and an accomplished horsewoman.  She told me that her mother had been the first woman to ride in a steeplechase in Germany.  She also told me on many occasions that I reminded her of her mother in both looks and mannerisms. 

My uncle’s second wife showed me a long plait of golden blonde hair that was apparently my grandmother’s.  My uncle had given it to Maria.  Why to her and not to us, who knows.

Franzi and Erich somehow landed up in South West Africa.  From there my grandmother travelled north to Northern Rhodesia.  My grandfather was left behind with the children. (I thought) When she sent for them they traveled each with a suitcase of clothes and a suitcase of souvenirs.  My mother said they arrived sans any clothes which had been stolen bit by bit along the way but with their full cases of souvenirs.  I have in my possession a postcard addressed to their grandparents in Trieste.  Unfortunately I cannot read any date on it but the writing is very childish and it looks like perhaps my mother was about 9.  On the front is a photograph of some African women dressed in early 20th century western clothes outside a makeshift hut.  My mother wrote (in German of course), “Dear grandparents, thank you for the card.  We are travelling tomorrow with papa to Northern Rhodesia with mummy (to mummy???).  Many hugs and kisses your Eva.”

Kurt wrote, “The train goes at 7 in the morning, I write from unterwegs (don’t for the life of me know what that is) Many hugs, kisses and (something?) from Kurt.”

It must have been in Northern Rhodesia that Franzi met Guido Betrand the Belgium as the Congo was the next country and he could have been visiting. 

My mother told me that Franzi had said that Erich having been a ship’s Captain when he gave that up he was absolutely useless at anything else.  I do believe my mother went to the same school I did as a child.

Then news of the gold strike in Tanganyika must have arrived and Guido and Franzi (who were gold buyers) would have wanted to go there.  My mother said they were sent back to Europe in an Italian Banana Boat and Kurt spent his time playing cards and drinking wine with the sailors.  He must have been about 11 at the time.  Later came the news that all the youth of Germany and Austria were being compelled to join the Hitler Youth Movement and Franzi wasn’t having any of that.  So the children were sent back to Africa and that is probably why Franzi had my young mother with her on the goldfields, a difficult situation what with all those men.  My grandfather meanwhile must have returned to Namibia and Kurt went back there.   I am deducing this is Kurt told me he and his father spent some years there in a detention camp as enemy prisoners of war.  He told me years later that they were some of the best years of his life.  If you had enough money the Africans could get you anything you wanted.  Cigarettes, alcohol food etc.  My uncle told me that he had admired Hitler greatly and had read Mein Kampf.  I was shocked. 

My mother instead used to console herself about the German speaking people saying that the Japanese had been far, far worse whenever I brought the matter up.  Cheers to Franzi having brought them back to Africa.

Then, as mentioned in Chapter One of Lupa Days and Beyond, having consented to the marriage of my parents in Northern Rhodesia, Franzi and Betrand (we always called him that) went on to the Congo, Albertville, I think and started up a farm there.  I believe Franzi visited my parents now and again and once was deeply shocked.  My father and friend were babysitting us kids and had made a top on the cot which was bolted down and we were prisoners (laugh).  Franzi was extremely disapproving of my father and I never heard a good word about him from her.

I first remember Franzi when we went on an extended visit to the Congo.  I was about 5 years old.  It was a memorable time.  The very first day while everyone was inside the house at the farm having tea (I remember the smell of lemon and cream wafting through the open door) I was outside with Bertrand.  He had a German Shepherd dog and said I should sit on his back. 

I was a bit wary but I complied.  As I tried to get on his back I grabbed him by his ear and he yelped, lurched round and bit me in the crook of my elbow.  I screamed and remember hearing my grandmother saying, “One of the Pettersson children I suppose.”

Big palava then.  I felt a sick nausea as I looked at my wound and saw the layer of bared fat protruding from the largest hole.  I had to be rushed into town to the doctor, a hazardous journey over hardly roadworthy roads of quite some distance.  What I remember is how many people seemed to be there and I was embarrassed as the doctor gave me an injection in my bottom with everybody just watching.  It was a tetanus injection.  Lucky enough I did not have to start on a rabies injection course as the dog had been vaccinated (although I have had to endure this later on two occasions in my life).  Then the wound was washed and coated in that sickly smelling pink red solution (mercurochrome, I think) and wrapped up with Elastoplast.  Then as the wound would have to be dressed every day it was decided that I stay at my grandmother’s house in town for about a week and my father would go elephant hunting.  Every day having Elastoplast pulled off my arm was very distressing.  I had hair on my arms and it was very horrible, that’s all I can say.  Later on a bandage was substituted and what a relief.

I got into all sorts of trouble there and my grandmother came across to me as very stern, and a most disapproving look at all times.   Some of the things I remember.  I was sitting outside at a garden table and a bee came buzzing around my head.  I screamed and my grandmother’s pot plant which was balanced on the edge of the stairs leading up to the front door crashed to the ground broken into pieces.  It was a big pot too.  My grandmother used to bathe scenting her bath with generous splashes of 4711 eau de cologne. 

I splashed some over me and dropped the bottle (I think) because the room reeked of Cologne.  I hid in the cupboard, to no avail of course, and spent some hours locked in the bathroom which was dark and scary.  My grandmother had two little dachshunds which would eat just anything.  One evening I sat alone at the enormous dining room table trying to eat my dinner part of which consisted of button mushrooms which I didn’t like at all.  The dogs sat begging at my feet and I started to throw them some mushrooms.  They snubbed their noses at them and when I realized they were not going to eat them and was leaning down to pick them up in walked my grandmother and father and it seemed to me she had been telling him all the things I had done.  They fell silent and stared at the scene.  Me, the mushrooms and the dogs.  I saw a smile come to my father’s face and felt very relieved and smiled sheepishly back.

The full story of this trip to the Congo will be incorporated into Lupa Days and Beyond.

Some years later my grandmother was dead. She was about 54 years old.  She had died in the middle of the Congo without medical help.  Gall stones.  My mother was summoned to go and bury her mother.  She said to me I hope you never have to bury me as I did my mother, all alone in the middle of the jungle.  Instead I was on a skiing trip in Austria and did not hear of my mother’s death until she had been buried.  My first intimation came when I started to receive letters of sympathy.  I of course was devastated.  That story later.

Regards

Evelyn

…………………………………………………

Hello Mike

Thank you for your emails and the further chapters of your story.  You said that perhaps you shouldn’t ask any questions as you would divert me from my course.  Smile, but I would like it if you have any questions so then I can go off on a tangent which has always been part of my modus operandi.  I have spent my life going off on tangents and how I ever reached a given point is a miracle in itself.  I especially used this MO when I wanted to distract my teachers from actually teaching me anything.  And I too would like to make comments on parts of your story as I receive the chapters whereas on other parts my lips are sealed.

I am glad you visited the GNR and as you can see it is so much more than the track which you took to school.  There is a book by a man called Coetzee (I think) called In to Africa  or something like that (I haven’t yet verified it on the net but will keep trying) (as apposed to Out of Africa).  Much mention is made of The Great North Road.  It was quite some time ago I skimmed through it but if you are into reading I think you will find it quite enlightening.  And talking about reading if you have never read the book The Power of One by Bryce Courtney at least read the last chapter.  It is very exciting and set deep down in a Northern Rhodesian Mine.  The film’s ending was completely different.  My dad’s good friend Torsten Pearsson the Swedish boxer mentioned in Lupa Days died mysteriously in the mine.  He fell but rumour had it he was pushed by his African workers.  I will tell you more about Torsten later. I am sure you know that Courtney spent some of his youth in Northern Rhodesia and in fact probably was there and in the boxing fraternity at the same time as my father, although he would have been in the junior ranks.

Re your story.  Your grandmother’s Scottie terrier and your feelings that he wasn’t quite as well treated as you would have liked with the cold of winter but what could you do, you were only a child and at that time adults opinions were law.  I was moved by that part.  We too had a Scottie and her name was Chippen.  A much loved member of the family.  Practically everyone in town had one of her puppies and they all looked like nothing on earth (good mongrel stock).  Of course no one thought to give her a break from having so many puppies, not right.  Chippen was in our family it seemed forever and then in my early teens and she was really old my father thought it was time for her to be at peace.  He went to his office to get his rifle and when he came home Chippen was not to be seen.  He found her dead under the hedge as if she knew.  I was so glad my father never shot her as he had to do to several of our other dogs.  There was an Australian poet Philip Hodgkins (he died in 1995 at a young age) who wrote a poem called Shooting the Dogs.  So, so, so sad it made me cry.

Just one of  the coincidences of your life with our family.  I think it was Carl Jung who wrote about “Meaningful Coincidences”.  I choose to see coincidences like that rather than random happenings because after all we have all had experiences like that.  First of all your love of boxing although of course it wasn’t really unusual during that timeline.  Because of my father’s passion for it I went to see the movie Cinderella Man with Russell Crowe (although I really don’t like him as a person) and it was reminiscent indeed of my father’s time.  However it depicted Max Baer as some sort of a monster and I never heard bad things about him from my father.  So as usual I went net surfing and found out that he was grossly misinterpreted in the film.  I don’t think that is really fair because most people who saw the movie I am sure would not bother to try and find out more and in the film one duly disliked him.

Then there is your connection to parachuting.  As I told you in our earlier correspondence my mother died when her chute opened too late.  It was a tragic accident that could quite possibly have been avoided.  I will tell you later in our correspondence about her death.  9 February 1964, yesterday was the anniversary.

Then your bit parts in a movie with Alan Ladd.  Jessie our dear chimpanzee also starred in a film with him.  I am not sure if it was a Tarzan movie as she starred in quite a few.  Also a boy I went to school with had a brother who was a dead ringer for Alan Ladd and acted as his double on occasion. 

Again I will come to Jessie later.  She became part of our family on that Congo trip to see my grandmother Franzi.

I would now like to go off on a tangent and tell you a little story about my own life.  I think you might find it interesting.  I hope so.

During my travels to different parts of the world it has been my privilege to have met up with some very interesting and colourful characters.  This is a little story about one of them – Newton Skiboo, King of the Earth (that’s how he signed his name on his bills).

When I was living in the Bahamas in the 60s one of the jobs I had there was as secretary bookkeeper for the Caravel Inn a medium sized Motel.  It belonged to 5 directors, one who was a man called Pincourt who was associated with Bacardi Rum.  I remember seeing his name on a Bacardi label.

 Newton Skiboo was a force to be reckoned.  He was a giant black Bahamian at least 6’ 5’ and his constant companion (besides all the women) was an even taller Jamacian giant.  Together they terrorized the small town of Freeport.  They had been through all the luxury hotels, run up bills, ran amok if anyone dared to ask them to pay up and suddenly they started utilizing the Caravel Inn.  I would mention to the manager once in a while that their account was steadily growing.  This was just brushed aside. 

Well, you know, bookkeepers like their books to balance and I was not happy about that.  I kept sending Mr Skiboo reminders but to no avail.  One day at the reception his Majesty came in with a couple of his ladies draped on each arm together with Mr. Pincourt.  I seized the opportunity and politely reminded him that he owed us some money.  He smiled and looked surprised and turned to Pincourt who blanched, asked me how much it was and then paid what was owed from his own pocket.  Ah the power of some.  His brother who was a fire eater at a local nightclub took a fancy to me and would visit me at the office now and again.  He suggested that we should marry and then go off to his roots in Africa, for instance Kenya.  I convinced him that he was better off in the Bahamas as he would have to learn Swahili and life was not very easy in Africa.

Anyway because I like to search and maybe find I have been looking for some time  for something about him on the net as I knew he had been the bodyguard of the Governor of the Bahamas who everybody knew was some kind of crook. 

Just the other day I did and a quote from the article

“The American thugs had a Bahamian Negro partner in these enterprises, a big, muscular 27-year-old 'enforcer' named Gadvill Newton, who, interestingly enough, is the body guard and associate of Sir Stafford Sands.

Newton calls himself Skiboo, and the name is known throughout the Bahamas.

He wears sharp Miami Beach-type clothes, and he always carries a beautiful black-leather-and-silver riding crop. The riding crop is weighted with lead, and it serves effectively as a blackjack.

The Skiboo-Sidoruk alliance was finally broken up when the gentle and inexperienced local police found that they couldn't cope with the flagrantly open/ racketeering and they sent to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, for help. The Bahamas' toughest cop, Assistant Superintendent Paul Thompson, a native of Trinidad, was sent in and he soon developed cases justifying deportation orders for the Americans. But Skiboo escaped because of his political affiliations and is now a "security officer" at one of the big Grand Bahama hotels. Discussing Saunders, DiBernadino and Sidoruk, Superintendent Thompson, a shrewd realist, says sadly, "They are only the advance guard. And I only have six men and myself."

If you are interested in reading the whole article search Grand Bahama Island 1966 (or similar).  It is all about the Mafia in the Bahamas.  Again it was common knowledge about them but until now I didn’t know that those involved were some of the big players in Organized Crime, like Meyer Lansky.

 I remember boldly stating now and again of how the Mafia didn’t scare me and I was immediately hushed.

I then searched further because I wanted to find out what Skiboo meant. 

Quote below

“In addition to much of the background and writing style for Henry Penyard’s letter, the ditty that Henry related is taken from No Parachute, © 1968 by Sir Arthur Gould Lee, Air Vice Marshal, RAF; but Lee does not mention what I discovered during my research, that it was sung to the same tune as “Mademoiselle from Armentières.” An earlier British army song from India, where a skiboo is a hired assassin, was the parent of both”

So there you have it, parlez vous (laugh).

Oh thank you for the translation of Kurt’s word and for the tip on the translation site.  I thought it might have been that.  I guess I was confused by “the train leaves at 7”.

Well Mike I think I will leave it at that for now so I can get this off to you.

Once again with my very best regards

Evelyn

……………………………

Dear Mike

Thank you for your last two emails and the further chapters of your story. 

I am glad you found Mr Skiboo of interest.  Yes indeed I could have become a gangster's moll, laugh.  As for the Mesdemoiselles, as I said, Parlez vous, smile. I think Mr Courtney can find his own material (laugh) - my own 'best seller' to come (laugh again).  I have quite a few Balmy Bahamas Tales to tell, if you are interested.  I always meant to write a book called Balmy Bahamas Bye Bye but have never got round to it.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.  There were so many things I meant to do and perhaps will not ever get round to them now, but you never know.

Max Baer, thanks for the photographs both of he and you, the boxers.  So he was a bit of a comedian, perhaps that's why his son Jethro in The Beverley Hillbillies does it so well.  Max Baer I believe was only about 50 when he died so it was good he had some fun.

Chowdy the chimpanzee and Jessie, yes another coincidence.  When I left the Bahamas I went to London and lived and worked there for about six months before I thought I had better leave England (I thought it was too expensive) before I ran out of money and got stuck there.  After another skiing trip in Austria I then returned to Africa, this time Durban.  When in London I did visit London Zoo but it is curious I have very little memory of my trip there besides the size of the place. Perhaps I was too involved in my own problems at the time.  I just want to intercede a little here.  Some years later when we went to Johannesburg Zoo I remember seeing a very strange creature which was, I really thought, a Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger), I really don't know what else it might have been.  I know it wasn't a hyena. 

I remember distinctly stripes on its back.  Whatever the poor creature was he looked very mangy, desolate and old just lying there dejectedly. 

Needless to say have spent some time trying to find some confirmation of what I thought I saw but have found nothing.

Yes Mike there are plenty of ex Africans in Australia.  My doctor's receptionist even comes from the same town as I although I never knew her in Zambia as she is some years younger than me.

Boxing.  I believe my father's interest in boxing was very much a part of our lives and how we thought about things and how we grew up.  Strong we had to be that was my father's wish.  Through the GNR my elder sister Erika's best friend Lorraine (also now in Australia) contacted us again after, must be 40 years now.  She practically grew up with us as she was an only child and our large family seemed more interesting to her.  In her email she said that she thought Erika strived to be the son my parents had lost.  And so it was, Erika was strong in all sorts of ways, physically not least, well into her teens when suddenly she changed.  I will get to that later.  Dad's idea of exercise was sparring with the kids and pitting us against each other.  I always admired his skipping skills which I was never able to outdo. I remember the 'playful' slaps on the cheeks which finally reduced me to tears and he would say with a 'playful' tap on top of my head, "What's wrong, that doesn't hurt does it?"  It did.  The unfair part was pitting me against my brother Errol who was just a year younger but makes all the difference as small children.  Errol was a sensitive child and I always felt sorry for him.  My father's biggest mistake was his behaviour towards Errol in all sorts of ways.  Errol and I had our last physical fight when I was about 14.

 We had been going at each other hard and he picked me up and flung me to the ground.  I just lay there, catching my breath and thinking that was it, he had beaten me.  After a while I looked up at him and his face was as white as a sheet thinking he had really hurt me.  I felt a wave of compassion.  My father only began to temper his love of boxing when the game became predominantly the sport of the black boxers.  When I was in the Bahamas Mohammed Ali in his early days just before his Rumble in the Jungle came there to fight.  I wrote and asked my father whether he wanted me to go and see him.  He wrote back not to bother as he was a black man.

I was always disappointed that my father was such a racist.  Especially against the Africans and I couldn't understand this.  They who had had their lives turned upside down by the white colonialists and were a source of cheap labour who helped the whites live the Life of Riley so to speak.

In Africa to be white made you 'somebody' no matter who you were or how you lived.  A terrible shame that any thinking person today should be prepared to admit to and to bear and to try and make amends in any way they can.

But my father was also a bigot.  Maybe that's why I married an Italian (for my father there were only two professions for them, hairdresser or mechanic, conveniently not remembering their kindness in America when they saved his life after he was beaten up).  Again in the Bahamas the boy I fell in love with was Italian.  Every letter my father asked me what was his nationality and what did he do.  I never told him.  When I returned to South Africa I finally told him Franco was Italian and of course my father then asked was he a hairdresser or a mechanic.  I stated with some glee that no, he was a waiter.  Laugh.  Through the net I have found out that that waiter is doing very well thank you somewhere in Martha's Vineyard, USA, having owned several restaurants and now a restaurant manager at an exclusive Inn. 

According to the information on the net he also owns several large properties, one of which is rented out for some enormous figure of some $7,000 a week.  He always told me he was going to be rich.  Then Erika married a Jew.  My one brother married a girl with coloured blood.  My cousin married an Irishman and her sister married a Turk (black I think). 

So we had our ways of rebelling.  In your story you mention your father's idea of who was suitable.  That was the way it was and probably still is in a lot of cases.

I have found in my own life that I seem to get on better with practically anyone else rather than my own peers.  English speaking white middle class. 

Black people have always seemed to like me as well as Asians, people who cannot speak English well, the less educated (academically), the workers in the places I have visited rather than other guests etc. etc.  It seems I can be more myself with these people rather than being tried and judged and found wanting.  And of course a major point I comfort myself with is that I do not scare small children and animals and they seem to seek me out and want to be in my company.  Smile. So there you probably have the correlation of my feeling for the African people.  Naturally then of course I am attracted back to those who would like me.

I must say one thing that I really hate though and that is the seemingly unfeeling attitude to animals.  I know that it is all very well to feel for animals in a different way rather than a creature to be eaten when so many people are struggling just to live.  But I find it so disturbing.  Just the other day I saw a picture of the poor chickens in some Asian country (I think) being burned alive and one poor creature trying to escape.

Surely there would have been a more humane method.  It really is too horrible. And in Africa the chickens being unceremoniously carried upside down by their wings and crammed into minute wire cages, the bush babies sold at the side of the road, the starving dogs and so many, many things.  All these things continually come to mind and haunt me.  And now I see that in the next 60 Minutes programme it will be about the live export of cattle and what happens to them once they leave Australia.  I just will not be able to bear to watch having seen the preview.  I think that if humans treated other creatures with more care even though some of them would be eventually eaten we might be able to better live with ourselves and perhaps be more human and happier as a result.  Then of course there is the live sheep trade, the list goes on.  My daughter who lives next door to me has some chickens, 2 Rhode Island Reds and 4 Bantams.  We all really love them and Coco and Channey

(Chanel) the Reds are very tame and love just sitting with people and listening to them talking.  Not long ago I was here on the computer and they two were with me.  Channey decided she wasn't getting enough attention so jumped on my lap and onto the keyboard as that was where all the attention was going.  Things like that and many more.  They make me feel happy.  I haven't eaten chicken or any other bird for well on 20 years and I do not miss it at all.  As a child I remember screaming at the poor garden boy who had to kill a chicken that he was a murderer, murderer.  And my father every now and again would acquire a sheep which would quickly become a pet and the next thing it appeared on the table.  All our mouths were firmly shut and no coaxing or threats could make me eat that animal.  So a large part of my life has been spent getting into trouble over animals wherever I have been.  

My ex husband said once when I announced I had a new job, "Just don't bring animals into it and you might keep it!"  I know that you are a grazier, but I hope with a heart.  Incidentally I feel the same way about plants and trees.  Smile.  When a tree gets slaughtered anywhere near me and I have been powerless to stop it the chainsaws may as well be cutting me limb from limb too as I feel sick and my heart races and my stomach churns and the feeling is completely involuntary.  I do not however have any sympathy for mosquitoes, maggots and mites.  Smile.

Back to boxing.  A little story you may find amusing.  When my son Robert was about 6 (my daughter was in SA with her father at the time) we were returning to SA via Swaziland where we were meant to stay the weekend with my father's friends (Harry Simpson and his wife) who at that time I did not know from a bar of soap.  It was a small farm.  However I was having terrible trouble trying to obtain a SA entry visa (another longwinded story) so we ended up staying there a month.  In the small town, I think it was Mpabane, there was really absolutely nothing much to do but be a member of the local club where you could swim or play tennis and meet the locals. I too had to join when one woman took umbrage that I always seemed to be there without actually being a member.  One evening everyone was crowded around a small transistor radio listening to a fight between Gerry Coetzee the SA  heavyweight champion at the time who was vying for the World Title.  The excited announcer was saying "(H)Gerry is being beaten black and blue, what a fight!"  Words to that effect.  Perplexed Robert looked at me and said, "Mommy why is Uncle Herry being beaten up!"  I explained with a smile that it wasn't Harry.  I guess Gerry wasn't hungry enough, that good old boxing term.  Have heard it umpteen times.

Haven't yet found out anything further about that book about Africa, still trying.  Your sister Ann, yes when I was reading the Rushby Files I found out her involvement with African American affairs, good for her.  And that was quite an adventure, a royal carriage and 6 horses.  My only comparison to that would be when I was picked up on the beach in Malindi by a helicopter from the Ark Royal way out at sea and taken for a joy ride over the beach goers in my swimming costume, wearing one of the pilots headgear. 

He wore my giant Mexican straw hat.  My legs dangled out of the open door and I waved merrily at everyone.  I really like the truth it is so much stranger than fiction.

I'll end with a small joke told to me by Robert.  Normally his jokes bring a frown of disapproval from me but this one I think is rather sweet.

An old man had just arrived in heaven but he just sat there sadly. Jesus came along and said, "Hello old man, you look so sad but you are in heaven you should be happy".  The old man replied, "Ah well, on earth I was a carpenter and I was training my son to be a carpenter and then one day he just disappeared out of my life, whoosh."  Jesus' heart started beating fast and he said, "Father?"  The old man looked up at him intensely and said,

"Pinocchio?"

I guess you are going to get "my story" in a very convoluted way.  You too, please let me know if you lose interest.  I won't, I shall complete my mission come hell or high water.

I look forward to your next chapter.

Best regards

Evelyn

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041206

Dear Mike

Once more my apologies for the delay in replying to your last email but somehow there has been quite a lot of family/personal angst lately so have not been in the right frame of mind to write. I am sure though (smile) you will not have been waiting with baited breath to hear from me what with being busy with your own life. I don’t know how long or short this email will be, I will see where my mood takes me.

First of all thank you for your fill ins “Mother of the Year” the baby elephant and his caretaker and the Surfs Up video. Just two days before I received those wonderful images of the mother tiger we had visited Dreamworld which I have not been to in years. It is much more to my liking now. They have a beautiful area called Tiger Island and I was quite envious of their lovely home. No dry grass for them, no shortage of water. A swimming hole with waterfall, lush green grass, Indian jungle type ruins on which to lie and show how they can jump and a jungle background with high trees and swaying bamboo. There were 3 males, one of them white and the female was resting far from prying eyes and over zealous males. They each had their own keeper keeping the flies away from them and spraying them with cooling water. There was a short show and it was emphasized that the animals remained wild and all the things they did were quite natural to them. Apparently when the tiger on his hind legs leaned against his keeper towering above him the keeper was not being nearly crushed by the weight as the tiger was balancing on his legs and only about 30 percent of his weight was felt by the keeper. They also impressively could run quite far up a tree with ease and grace. Only one behaviour was taught to them that was not natural. They threw down squares of wood and a tiger would put his front paws on one of them and just stand there and not move. They told us how valuable this was for say veterinary examinations and vaccinations. No need for sedation or stress. So Mike in spite of our misgivings about these things I really believe certain animals are quite happy to be in captivity in such kind of surroundings especially most of the big cats lions and tigers, cheetahs. After all in the wild it can be a sharp brutish existence. The ticks, the flies, the heat, the hunt, then the exhaustion, the stealing from each other etc. etc. Those tigers apparently bring in big dollars for the conservation of those in the wild and anyone who sees the magnificence of the animals can only wonder and admire and never dream of wanting to kill one as a trophy or otherwise.

There is also a fine little farmyard animals area and the kangaroos and wallabies and big birds etc. section and an impressive roomy high and wide aviary for the smaller birds and they all seemed to be thriving. I think Australia Zoo is in the forefront of this trend. So for me Dreamworld is much better now. We made the mistake (without observing first) of taking one small ride through a volcano structure which started off tamely enough and then became faster and faster as we hurtled round and round. No (smile) I didn’t scream but I did grit my teeth. My stomach is not up to such churning any more. That was good enough for us. I could hardly even bare to watch those going up and screaming as they came down The Tower of Terror.

Just gave myself cold shivers just recalling it. There was a great area for the kids with a Wiggles Section (after Steve Irwin the kids heroes). I was just talking the other day about the Yellow Wiggles illness that has forced him to quit and how sad that was with Katherine and Lucy came close up to me leaned on my knees and looked me in the eyes and said, “You mean the Wiggles are real?” I said yes indeed and she spent the next five minutes jumping up and down for joy shouting Wiggles, Wiggles! On the other hand she asked me just yesterday whether Santa was real and sadly I lied and said yes. Katherine went to see the film about Global warming with Al Gore and it has all been taken on board by us all including the kids. I told Lucy how the polar bears and penguins lives were being threatened by the warming of the poles and she said, “Santa too!” On the invitations for her upcoming birthday party she wants it to be stated that we have to save Santa’s world and those others. So sweet, how could I not lie.

The weather has been quite strange lately. One day we had a short but vicious storm with hail. The next day that horrible S Westerly (I think that was what it was, I wouldn’t know North from South etc. and was astounded when we first came to Australia how everyone talked in those terms, going North or West or wherever, I need more than that to know where I am going (smile)) wind but it was icy cold. Poor Bruce/Brenda’s web was went asunder and he was sheltering under the roof. For the first time I realized that he/she was going to be hungry for a while. Of course diligently the web was woven again even bigger and better. Then a couple of days ago it was a searingly hot day and again Bruce had to shelter under the roof. Then yesterday we had a much needed downpour and today was mild and pleasant but according to the TV weather man, “The weather will turn ugly again.”

Well Mike, when I started this I didn’t know how many words I had to say but certainly more than enough as usual (smile). Sadly on the 3 November I had to have Miles euthanised as he was ailing rapidly and came out to seek my help. I was not going to let him suffer like Niles so I took him straight to the vet who confirmed he would only get worse. Believe it or not at the time of Niles death I really did not know that good vets now have a small gas chamber so small animals can be euthanised without distress. I had looked it up on the net and it was not mentioned. All that was mentioned was that if not done properly it could cause the animal even more pain (I guess trying to find a vein) otherwise I wouldn’t have hesitated. It was only when Thelma some months later had to be put down that I found out about this new painless way of death.

Much more to say of course (smile) but next time. Hope you are all well and happy. Hope to hear from you again soon.

Best regards
Evelyn
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070306
Dear Mike

One of my pet rats Niles is dying at the moment and it’s very sad for me. I took him to the vet on Friday and he had an injection and given some antibiotics but he is not rallying. I have another pet rat Miles who is still okay at the moment. My daughter and I have been keeping pet rats for some years now and they really are lovely pets but their lives are so short and the pain is always the same when they die. I have been looking up information on the net and it seems that euthanasia if not carried out properly can cause even more pain for the animal. I think he had a stroke but the vet could not confirm this and I asked what he thought about any pain Niles might be feeling. But of course how could either of us know one way or the other. So I have just made him as comfortable as I can and stroke him and talk to him and he sits in a big box next to me as I type.

Thank you for your explanation about farmers so I can see things from another perspective. It must have been very rewarding to be able to save that calf. Unfortunately I have personally experienced, seen, heard, read about too much on the negative side that my perspective is unlikely to change in any way. I will say that I do eat meat now and again as my body seems to need it but all my life I have had a conflict about eating anything involving animals. It has been and continues to be a real dilemma for me because I seem to have an aversion for fruit and nuts and not that fond of vegetables. If you haven’t heard about a woman called Dr Temple Grandin may I recommend you read about her, plenty on the net. I remembered the story I read about her in Oliver Sacks’ book An Anthropologist on Mars. She is autistic but has this amazing rapport with animals especially cattle. She has designed humane abattoirs and has travelled the world supervising their installations. She now works with McDonalds ensuring that their suppliers conform to humane standards. I hope that Bobbie ended his days in one of her abattoirs.

As I read my above words the tone seems quite melancholy and I am sorry about that so to change the mood a little two more balmy Bahamas tales both related to nightclubs.

One evening my underwater diving instructor Fred came unexpectedly to take me out. I have to say he looked like a million dollars. Fred was 20 years my senior. He had the chiseled good looks of a film star and had a fantastic tan enhanced by his thinning grey hair. So when he stood at the door in a red velvet waistcoat, black shirt and pants he quite literally nearly took my breath away. I had in fact arranged to meet a young admirer (not quite 18) who I was intent on dissuading from his foolish infatuation.

So he turned up too. Quite an uncomfortable situation but we all went traipsing off to the nightclub at The King’s Inn, then the biggest hotel in Freeport. We sat right in front of the stage at the piano bar which surrounded it. My admirer (I’ve forgotten his name but I remember he was English) sat the whole night sulking but Fred and I were fine. In fashion at the time were quite large handbags and mine was no exception. I had removed my cigarette case and lighter from this bag and the only thing left in it was a champagne cork from my recent birthday celebration. Then the comedy team of Morecombe and Wise began their routine and suddenly one of them lunged forward and grabbed my bag from the bar. In glee they stood there and as they started to open it Ernie Morecombe (I think) looked up at the audience and said, “And now we will finally see what a woman carries in her handbag!” They looked inside and dug deep and pulled out the champagne cork at the same time as tipping the then empty bag upside down. He then held up the cork to the audience and said, “Now this must really have a lot of uses!” Needless to say I had my head down on my arms in complete and utter embarrassment. You would think it was staged, as comedians they couldn’t have asked for a better situation. It has made a good story for me to tell over the years although I have never written it down before. It always brings a smile to my face when I think of it.

Fred Baldasare by the way is still strutting his stuff on Coco Beach Florida, into his early 80’s now. Again you will find quite a lot of stuff about him on the net. My young admirer was finally dissuaded by his elder sister who was not happy at all about his infatuation.

Another evening and Bob, also English came to fetch me. Bob had a weird but funny sense of humour and made me laugh so I enjoyed his company. He had a funny little nervous twitch in his nose which he said he had acquired by working as a chef. Apparently things often got really ‘hot’ in a kitchen and with all those knifes the workers were kind of anxious. I think I now know where that expression comes from, “If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen.” My first car was a second hand red MGB I had bought from my boss. You will remember the wooden framework of English cars at the time and the wooden piece on the top of the low door was missing on the driver’s side so there were a couple of protruding nails ready to snare whoever. We went in my car and Bob drove. We arrived at the front door of the hotel (hotel workers parked them) and Bob with a flourish jumped out of the seat and over the door loudly proclaiming “James Bond!” and ripped a large hole in the seat of his pants, one of those difficult square type rips. Here I will use an Australianism I just heard the other day which took my fancy as an alternative saying – I hit the floor laughing.

Months later when he was leaving the Bahamas he still had that rip. We had been to yet another nightclub (the night I first saw “that waiter” who funnily enough twitched his nose at me over the shoulder of the girl he was dancing with to get my attention) and at 3 o’clock in the morning at Bob’s place I was trying to repair that rip as it was his only pair of long trousers. He shook his head sadly and said, “Look at that, here I am Mr Big from the Bahamas arriving in Bermuda with a rip in my trousers, what will people think!” I caught a glimpse of Bob at least a year later in the

underground in London. His twitch confirmed my sighting. We went for a drink but didn’t meet again thereafter. We were both into the same thing as the Beetles at the time, vegetarianism, maharajahs etc. so there was no time for unaesthetic things. I remember him with fondness.

So as usual Mike (smile) I have not got back to my original story, sigh, but not in the right mood at the moment.

My daughter Katherine, my two grandchildren Jacob, 5 and Lucy, 3 and I will be going to Sydney for a week on Wednesday. It will be my first time on a large plane since I arrived here in June 1983 so I believe I can hardly be called a “frequent flyer”. When there we or I might well take a train to visit my brothers in Newcastle. That will also be a first. So if you don’t hear from me for a while you’ll know why. I hate to leave my little Niles in other hands (although very good hands) but I don’t think he will last another day.

That book on Africa I was talking about is the one about The Great North Road which I thought might have been written by Professor Coetzee, but I have got no further on that as well. Ah yes, one more thing, just on today’s GNR message board there is mention about another book by T V Bulpin about the life of a woman. If you are interested you might want to look there.

And so Mike, over to you. I look forward to hearing from you soon and the next chapter of your story. Oh and that novel you wrote and vanished in your move here, that must have been very disappointing.

I have dragged my writings, no matter what scraps everywhere I have been and it is amazing how some of them have survived. Somewhere on this computer lies buried (I still hope to find it one day) a screenplay I wrote which took me months, first by hand and then typed. Silly me, didn’t make a hard copy as a precaution.

I’ll just end this with a little poem I wrote about Freeport, Grand Bahama when I had only been there about a month. Every day the words got truer.

There were plans to turn it into a calypso of sorts by many musicians I met at the time but I just couldn’t seem to compose a suitable chorus.

Freeport one of the funniest places
Where they send all lost psychiatric cases
For a wonderful time you shouldn’t miss A crazy mixed up town like this.

Born in the ocean kissed by the sun
Nowhere else could you have more fun
The devil is a good friend to us all
Freeport’s his seaside rubber ball.

While some people may think that life has a reason Here it’s just the gambling season You gamble to live and gamble to die One has to laugh so as not to cry.

So come all you good people do come and see Funny lost souls like the devil and me Only one qualification you must with us share When someone asks why You drawl “Wha’do I care!”

.....MUCH MORE TO COME.....