Edmeades, Mortimer, Knipe
and du Preez

2.3.3 Growing up in Oudtshoorn, Knysna and Lydenburg

The family seemed never to have lived in any one house for long enough for it to be called the family home. In Lydenburg Gardie recalls several moves of home.

The one dwelling which provided some stability and a sense of home for Lizzie’s children was the Rectory at Knysna in which always lived Grandfather and Grandmother Mortimer. It certainly evoked happy memories for some of the youngsters. Murie said they were the happiest years of her youth.

Although the town of Oudtshoorn itself was an important part of their lives there was no permanent family home there. Their aunts [and presumably their grandmother until she died in 1911] moved house from rented accommodation to rented accommodation until finally Oom Willie van der Riet bought the house in Rudds Lane for them, possibly only in the 1930s or 1940s. Gardie, for instance, recalls them living in a house in St Saviours Street, the road parallel to Rudds Lane. It seems likely that in Oudtshoorn Lizzie and her brood rented their own accommodation at times [hence the story of Gwenda as a baby being passed through the fence to her grandmother, when her mother was teaching].

What does seem to have been constant was that in each of these three towns there were other family members, as well as the opportunity to build up close friendships, many of which were life long.

Life outside the home seemed relatively simple and pleasant. The lack of money was not unusual. As Gardie said ‘ no one had a lot of money, and there was no vying for clothing as far as children were concerned, as long as you were clean and neat And if we had a little homemade frock as long as it looked quite pretty you were quite pleased with yourself. Its queer to see shops these days cater mainly for the young.  Because in the early days children didn’t seem to matter.  We didn’t have to paint our faces.  We didn’t have to do funny things to our hair, we were just natural.’ And there was fun and entertainment and excursions, even if at home there were tensions, and an alcoholic father. Oudtshoorn was a place which Gardie had many fond memories of although she only lived there until she was eight, but visited later.

‘My clearest recollection of Oudtshoorn is of pepper trees and tortoises, which abounded.  I spent many hours making mud walls to enclose my tortoises. And could never understand how they simply climbed over walls. Another recollection was of Murie and Milly playing in the garden and I think Milly put the garden fork through Murie’s foot and there was a little express wagon [to pull round]. Murie couldn’t walk so she was pulled to school in the wagon and of course I envied her greatly and wished somebody would put something through my foot so that I could ride to school in this wagon’

‘I know I had a doll which was a great treasure of mine and it disappeared and the children across the road [I think he was a shoemaker or something] had gone sneaking off with it.  It was got back again but there was terrible upset’.

She also remembered another upset when Ted as a little child swallowed something large.

She remembered Granny Edmeades and the aunts all living in the same house up St Saviour street.  ‘Granny was a very tiny little person and she had something radically the matter with her, and had to have the doctor come and tap something out of her  She was very delicate and the doctor perpetually calling’

Also she remembered ‘Uncle Willy who married Auntie Grace at a late stage.  He always kept little baby ostriches to go down to the riverbank and he had land down there.  And he lived in van der Riet street.  He’d go down to the bottom of the river on his lands and he would collect these babies and he’d say’coolly coolly coolly’ all the way up.  And they would follow him all the way up van der Riet street after him.  And they would be locked up for the night in a room he kept for them.  I think that was a subsequent recollection probably when I was at boarding school and went down on holiday.’

‘Our granny Edmeades in the days of her youth had a great big preserving copper pan with a great black handle in which she made all her jams.  You did your own jam making and preserving of fruit.  You had to have a pantry because in the fruit season every housewife was very busy making jam and canning fruit to see the family through.  It was extremely important.. it had a great black handle. I believe our granny Mortimer in Knysna used to  use used four gallon paraffin tins and fill them.’

‘The year that we left [Oudtshoorn], I think it was all in that year, which was 1910 two things happened.  I can remember standing out in the main road with a crowd around and some proclamation being read out from the magistrate’s office steps.  I imagine that may have been the declaration of the union of SA but that I am not sure of.  The other thing was enormous jollification where they had enormous games and sports down at the sports ground and we kids had to perform in a maypole much to my irritation and disgust. I was a difficult brat anyway.  It didn’t please me at all.  I don’t know whether that was when King Edward VII, Teddy finally came to the throne for such a short time.  But there was enormous jollification.’

Another memory was ‘when Ted Gwenda and I were sharing a bedroom at Oudtshoorn  and the little lamp that had been left in our bedroom had smoked and the whole room was black and so were we.  We must have looked very funny.  I learned that lamps were things were things you watched with care otherwise you suffered.’

‘I know people went to the Cango caves but I never went because in those days as far as I know they climbed down a ladder, and they took magnesium flares and then they were told to light their flares to see what they could see.  I do know that people used to chip pieces off because I remember seeing whole 2” or 3” stalagtites or mites on peoples mantle pieces.  And they were very proud of themselves without realising that what they had destroyed had taken thousands and thousands of years to make.  It is quite incredible the destruction that man will do.’

But Murie did have an expedition by cart and horses to the Cango Caves which took from 4 am to 8 pm. ‘There was no electricity and the guide burnt magnesium flares to give brief views of the marvels. We children were left in the pitch dark at the top of a hanging ladder whilst the adults went on.’

Grandmother Edmeades died before Gwenda and possibly Ted, would have remembered her. But Gwenda was brought up on story that she was French in origin [which was actually true, but a long time back when her du Preez Huguenot ancestors came to SA]. The story seemed to help add status to the members of the family, which in the previous generation had ‘come down in the world.’ Being French was apparently more desirable than being Afrikaans.

In Knysna Grandfather [Benjamin Clapham] Mortimer was such a large character, that he seemed to have eclipsed Granny, of whom there are few stories.

Murie remembered her having one of the earliest sewing machines with which she made them several dresses

But Grandfather was the dominant force. Murie remembers them all hiding in the bushes in the Rectory when the calls came through the day of ‘anyone for church’. He was remembered with fondness by Gwenda and other youngsters. But he could also be an intimidating character.  Gwenda remembered being with him one day when he stopped a parishioner in the street and boomed at her “Mrs Marais!  I do not recall seeing you at church last Sunday’. Similar stories were recounted by others.

And Milly remembered the first car. It was when ‘the Bishop came to visit (I think Bishop Sidwell) and looked at my music and asked me which the most difficult piece was, one called Alice and he said I must play it for him’.

There was no electricity in the streets or homes, only lamps and candles

Milly and Murie were complicit in fabricating [or just possibly being told] stories of their Mortimer grandparents which added to their possibly mundane seeming existence. Some of Milly’s recollections may however have been based on fact. These were that ‘The Anglican church was mainly built of all the £200 my grandfather used to donate anonymously. … I heard that through the diocesan Magazine.’

Also that ‘he was paid a double salary – paid by the British Christian Bible Society and also by the South African clergy, paid to look after the mission schools, and kept books which he donated out to the schools from the London Missionary Society’

However, the next part of her story does not tie up with the facts later discovered. But according to her ‘he was ostracized from his family because they had cotton mills and wanted him to become head of the cotton mills and instead he became a clergyman, so they ostracised him and the Society took him over and often when he was hungry he would go into the chemist shop and buy a tablespoon of cod liver and this would help a little.’

Murie’s story was somewhat different, but has the mill owning aspect in common. She said that she and Milly created a scenario based on two occurrences.

1] every year grandfather sent out a large Christmas mailing, with which they helped him. They noticed that in this there was never any mail to family in England, or that anyone in the family was spoken of.

2] Granny Edmeades sister [known as Polly?] came to visit from England. Not only did she dress funnily, but she also spoke funnily in the eyes of the two little girls.

From these two they constructed the story [possibly aided by some exaggerations from grandfather?] that grandfather the mill owner’s son had fallen in love with grandmother, a mill girl and so had been cut off by his family.

The truth was that their great grandfather had indeed been involved in the wool trade in Yorkshire, but as someone who bought and sold offcuts from the mills [there is/was a name for this occupation]. And grandfather had siblings who were so much older than him that they had probably quite easily lost contact. And Grandmother, so Jane has discovered from the archives was an educated woman, and a teacher before she came out to South Africa to join Grandfather.

As to Grandmother’s sister’s oddities [seen by young class conscious minds as denoting inferiority], for her to have found the fare to travel at the beginning of the 20^th century from England to the Cape, did not suggest humble origins. And her clothing may either have been the height of fashion in Britain, or simply clothing more suitable for Yorkshire than the Cape.

Milly commented on the snobbery that went on in Knysna. If you worked in a shop you were taboo, only clergy, bank people, auditors, accountants, lawyers and so forth were alright and on one occasion there was a big birthday party given for us kids and there was a great argument as to one of the lads to be invited or not and they decided against it because he was the butcher’s son. This boy ended up marrying the English Professor’s daughter from Stellenbosch and became a leading lawyer in Pretoria.

Murie recalled venturing into the Knysna forest which was possibly rather hazardous because there were elephants there. One looked out for signs of fresh droppings, and fled if one saw them. There were happy expeditions from Knysna. Murie recalled ‘short holidays at Uncle Ernest’s farm ‘Eastford’ on the coast probably where we learnt to swim’; visits to the Heads; ‘accompanying Grandfather in a little trap when he went to Belvedere and Plettenberg Bay to take services.’

Lydenburg was where the younger children moved in 1910 with their mother, presumably by train which that year reached Lydenburg. They were followed two years later by Milly and Murie.

Lydenburg stories were many, mainly from Gardie. Although she said she hated Lydenburg from the start she provides many positive vivid memories. Murie’s stories of her mother’s life in Lydenburg are in the previous chapter.

Gardie said ‘we three arrived in Lydenburg.  Through the years we never owned our own home.  We always seemed to be moving from pillar to post.  I suppose it was as often as I say.  I can remember at least 3 houses.  My earliest recollection is of a house we arrived to which was on the outskirts, on the furthest streets.  All the roads were dirt, there was no electricity. All the water was pumped from the garden.  Lydenburg had rivers all round it – 3? And there was never a shortage of water, and underground water just a few feet  down so you had wells.  And lamps and candles and I never saw electricity until I went to boarding school in Pretoria at the beginning of World War I.

We lived in that little house for some time and then we moved into what I remember as Dick Hyatts/Hides? house, presumably he was the owner.  It was a complete sin [?] and we climbed up into the loft and found it full of papers and we said to our dad what should we do with them.  He said just burn them, and Bertram Cairncross [who throughout my life I have encountered here there and everywhere finally into George and an old age home].  He was always a collector and even as a schoolboy he looked through these papers and kept one or two of them.  Some of them signed by Paul Kruger, letters of transfer and properties.  So we must have destroyed a lot of history and my dad didn’t even look at them and just said get on with it. 

And the well in the yard was I think only a few feet deep, and there was always this pumping of water. We all had to be bathed. By this time I think Milly and Murie were with us, and Murie was I think going to the normal college in Pretoria and so the whole family needed to bath.  The water was heated in paraffin tins on the coal stove and then carried into the bath and we bathed in turn.  I think our mother had a hip bath in her bedroom.

I don’t think she ever had a bath in the ordinary bathroom.

Dick Hyatt’s house was on the other side of Lydenburg and much nearer the swimming pool which was a great joy to me because in any of my spare time I went swimming. 

We had a funny little horse and trap.  Ultimately it was a mule, but at the stage I remember it was a horse, and we kids had no special riding equipment.  We just put on our ordinary clothes and went riding.  It must have been some sort of a spectacle really.  I couldn’t bear our old moke of a horse, it was so slow and Connie Jennings had a spirited horse called Musep? And she was petrified of it so we swopped horses.  He didn’t like anything behind him.  He used to kick out madly with his hooves and I loved him.  We used to go riding all over the countryside and I remember climbing a tree and getting all full of birds nests and all the creepy crawlies you find in birds nests.  So we really enjoyed ourselves from that point of view.

Lydenburg had dirt roads but down every street ran these lovely furrows of water which were full of tadpoles and lovely things exciting for children to play with.  We used to catch the tadpoles and play with them. 

There was tennis amongst the young – Jan and Rolf Schurink and we used to play on their tennis courts. 

Every Xmas holiday all the mothers would get together and hire a donkey wagon, and this would be the great thing.  There would be on the back of the wagon a large box with the food for the picnic, and all the kids were crowded onto it.  I doubt that it was six miles out to a spruit, and just puddles of water and stones, no water for swimming, but half the fun was the donkey wagon and you walked and played the fool and climbed on and off along a dusty road.   I never remember any difficulties.  I don’t know whether all or other of the mothers come, there must have been adults but I don’t remember.

Money may have been lacking, but social life and fun were still to be had especially those involving getting away from home. Excursions away were fondly remembered.

Murie recalled childhood and later excursions going ‘on horseback with Dad to Winslows mining at Vaalhoek: going to Pilgrims Rest to put on a play there. Also going for Allon to play in a cricket match; picnics up the Kloof behind the station; by train to Middelburg with Allon’s Cricket team; to Graskop to look down “the edge of the berg”; to Steenkampsberg [beautiful mountains] with Dad in a little one horse trap.

Milly recalled hunting excursions from Lydenburg. ‘ all night as soon as we got to the camp an enormous camp was made. A fire was built and two natives would stay awake all night because of the lions and to keep the wild animals away. The native beaters used to drive the buck into quarters so they could be shot.

I was away in the bushveld for 3 weeks and it was the most wonderful holiday of my life. They used to shoot the buck and cut it into biltong. We only ate venison and vetkoek.  I suppose there were farmers and we had potatoes and carrots.’

Gardie remembered that ‘the men went out shooting periodically.  Every household kept a pointer dog even the Mets on the mine.  Even Pop Met in the early days went out periodically.  In Lydenburg they must have gone out to the mountain towards the Kruger National Park, perhaps once a year great excitement about the shooting party and they would come back with perhaps one buck or some trophy, always buck of some sort’

She also remembered clearly ‘In Lydenburg in a very smart house up the rise a bit, a nice area, nice garden, real affluence, lived Mrs Macintyre with her daughter.  There had been 3, 2 of whom were married.  But Effie the youngest lived at home.  She ultimately died of a tumour on the brain.  My dad was responsible for collecting church sustentation fund from various people and of course he did nothing of the sort.  He sent poor miserable brat which was me to do the collecting.  And I was anything but brave when it came to asking money of people.  The Sustentation fund consisted of 2/6.  Time to collect from the Mcintyres along a dusty road.  Half the time I would be told they weren’t at home, half that they didn’t have 2/6 at the moment.  These were the wealthy people. She [Effie] was very friendly with Milly and Murie.  She talked about ‘papure’ never papa. So we always talked about papure and manure, who was mother.  That was our joke.  They had a proper carriage, with a step.  When Mrs Mc went calling she went in the carriage and 2 horses, very smart.

In those days everyone had an at home day on the first Monday of the month and you would move in droves from one tea party to the next.

We three children had lived at the Cape where a penny would buy you a little twist of sweets.  So we arrive in Lydenburg and the first thing I remember was going to a funny little corner shop and asking for a pennyworth of sweets to be greeted with an absolute shriek of mirth from the  proprietor who said obviously you come from the Cape.  We don’t sell anything for pennies here.  The least you can spend is a tickey.  A tickey did such wonders for you.

I became very friendly with a girl called Connie Jennings who was younger than I and we instituted a signalling system from the roof of our outhouse, a white flag.  And the one said ‘can you come and play with me’ ‘no I can’t’ This was a great game with us.  Down below us was one of the rivers and as you know with most SA streams with no rain have little water if it is running at all.  And this was one of those very innocuous ones which we used to run down to and play in the water.  at some stage our grannies sister, I only remember her as aunt Polly arrived in SA and was doing the rounds everywhere and she arrived to stay with us.  And we children said ‘come on down to the river with us’ and she came down and these terrifying stories of rivers flooding, she was watching this river all the time in case it came swooping down on us and we thought this extremely amusing as there had been no rain and no possibility of it coming down. 

Then on the far side of Lydenburg where the river really ran swiftly they built a weir with a sluice gate for flood times, and made an effort to put a stone wall because the bottom was all mud, and steps and some sort of rough bathing changing place for everyone in Lydenburg and of course it became a great joy. 

A nostalgic memory I have is of grinding and roasting the coffee.

In Lydenburg we got huge catalogues which came from England from stores which dealt with everything, from clothing to household linen to toys, to everything you can think of.  We ordered, and we were part of the empire so there were no taxes or anything.  And my shoes were 12/6 a pair.  When a man is earning £25 or £27 a month and he has five children and a wife to feed and to clothe, you think of 12/6 being a tremendous amount of money. And if we had a little homemade frock as long as it looked quite pretty you were quite pleased with yourself

During their teenage years Milly and Murie with Bertram Cairncross were having really a good time.  There were dances.  I never experienced anything like that.  In the whole of my time in Lydenburg I never went to a party or a dance or that sort.  You went home to Lydenburg just to play some tennis or swim.  That was that.

The town hall was a corrugated iron contraption and they had dances there and the flower shows and the bioscopes. Muriel played the piano and someone would sit next to her and tell her if they were dead yet or dying and she would have to play the most mournful song. It was really funny we used to have many a laugh about that and then it would liven up with cheerful music again. Pictures were just black and white, if you ever saw one, and there was no sound, just captions.  But you always had someone playing the piano.  Murie earned extra money by playing the piano once a week or once a month in some funny hall.  So when Allon arrived on the scene he proceeded to add to the music, and between them they kept the music going the whole evening.’

But Gardie also recalls the dark side of life at home with their father, ‘Not that he drank all day but he certainly drank too much at night.  And it was pretty grim sitting at night waiting for him to come home.  It doesn’t bear relating so we won’t talk ‘

She recalls what happened when their mother died. ‘Into this came Aunt Ethel who arrived from Oudtshoorn, and spent six months with us and took over the running of the house.  She was a most excellent housekeeper and looked after everyone.  And she stayed until after that first Xmas without mother, and really was quite wonderful. When it was all over and Xmas was over, then I think, it was decided, we all went down to Oudtshoorn for a holiday.  And then they kept Gwenda because it was quite impossible for her to be at home’

Gardie recalled other happenings in Lydenburg ‘Funny things that happened – being on the railway station waiting to go back to school.  And at the far end were police guarding two terrible looking  men who were gaol birds obviously being sent down to the central gaol in Pretoria.  I don’t think Lydenburg boasted a gaol.  And the background to this was that a young attorney had these 2 come to him offering a bar of gold.  They induced him to buy this bar at some price, and of course it was just a lump of lead or something.  He didn’t hold his tongue and admitted trying to buy gold which was illegal.  But on the same railway station there was a man.  Suddenly I saw them laughing and being most jovial and they were laughing at their friend who had the money because it was never returned. From Pilgrims Rest they used to send over their gold every now and then they would be hijacked and robbed and you would think they would put armed policemen with them, this was before I arrived in Lydenburg. On one occasion it was silver not gold and a few days afterwards an old man went round Pilgrims Rest with a bucket of silver and he paid off all his account with the bucket. The next thing there was a Garage that he bought and called it Highwayman’s Garage’

‘In the very early days I remember going up the street and seeing a Zeederburg coach draw up [from Pilgrims Rest].  It was taken off later.  To go to Pilgrims Rest you went down a terrifically steep hill, so to come up no motor car could get up the hill, so at the foot of the hill they had a span of oxen.  It was kept there permanently for pulling the motor cars up to the top of the hill.  In Pilgrims Rest was a man called John Macintyre running the pub, not so young and always spoken of as honest John’

Lydenburg had developed after gold was discovered in 1873 and had attracted many newcomers. Murie recalled her younger cousins Wilford and Daphne who lived nearby, and who they saw a lot of, leading to a lifetime relationship. She told a little anecdote about Daphne, who invited to stay for dinner, anxiously enquired ‘None pumpkin?’ before accepting the invitation.

Other reminiscences of the late nineteen hundreds, and early twenties.

Gardie  recalled her school days in Pretoria, including this account of the Spanish flu.. ‘…[I]n 1919 while she [Aunt Ethel] was with us, and I was finishing matric this terrible spanish flu broke out and people were dying like flies and the boarders were literally incarcerated.  We were not allowed to see or hear from anyone.  We were not allowed to read a newspaper, we were literally cut off from all the background of living because this was Pretoria.  My uncle Abie my father’s brother who was a lawyer died, people were dying all over. 

It was really terrible and our staff were out helping.  Some didn’t live in.  But those staff who lived in literally had a disinfectant bath before they were allowed in much less in contact with we girls. With the result that not a single girl either in North Lodge or School House went down with flu.  But finally the Xmas holidays were approaching and so they said it was safe and we were put on the train.  And on the train I picked up the bug so when I got to Lydenburg I went down with flu in no uncertain way.  And Aunt Ethel was petrified. It was really quite funny.  I couldn’t bear people coming through the door because my head was so bad.  I remember Ethel standing in the doorway, she never came any nearer.  If no one had been there to nurse me I think I would have been left to die because she really was frightened.  I survived and no one else went down with it.’

So according to this account they lost one uncle on the Mortimer side to the Spanish flu. But the flu probably also claimed an uncle on their mother’s side, their eldest uncle Secundus.

Gardie also talked about her young adulthood. ‘I went teaching when I was 19 and with exactly 3 tobralco frocks – the one was pink the other mauve and the other blue.  They were not floral, little checky things and the tobralco had cost 2/6 a yard.  I didn’t even have a winter coat and I landed in Ermelo which has a bitter winter.  But at least in Lydenburg there was no vying about clothing, or going on diet to get thin.  You weren’t worried about figure, painting your face or anything else but having a bathing costume and cap and some clothing to put on.’ 

‘So I met the Metelerkamps and heard about this wonderful brother but I never met him’.

I also remember odd bits and pieces from those days.  SA didn’t make any shoes.  They made veldskoens. And that sort of thing.  But I remember buying the very first pair of SA made ladies shoes, and by that time Aubrey and I had moved to the OFS and were in Brandfort, the large city of Brandfort and I bought a very pretty pair of pale blue shoes and I was very proud of.  And I also remember they burned my feet off, the soles did.’

Gwenda was the youngest of the Mortimer children and as such was treated her whole life as the baby of the family.  In fact, her nickname was Baby and this was used by her aunts and siblings until Gwenda was well into her 80s. But she was incredibly efficient and capable as she was widowed, with very little money when she had 4 young children, the youngest only a baby.  But there was always anxiety about ‘poor Gwenda’ which conveyed to others the image of a pathetic youngster who had to be sheltered.

Gwenda had a different experience from the others, having grown up in Oudtshoorn with the Aunts, and being educated in the Cape. But when she started work she spent all her holidays with her sister Milly and her husband Jim Yates, who were presumably living in Pretoria.  Gwenda loved Jim and was thought to have been upset years later when Jim walked out on Milly and their young children.   At the time that Gwenda was staying with them, Jim seems to have been a very exciting person for a young woman to be around.  He would take her for rides on his motorbike, apparently sometimes depositing her and her bags in the dust as he roared off, only discovering her absence miles later and needing to return to pick her up again.  He bet her a gramophone player that she would not dare to cut her hair into the short bob which was fashionable (but very daring) at the time.

However, he underestimated Gwenda because she immediately cut her hair.  He was so horrified at this that he promised her a set of gramophone records if she would grow it again.  The short hair proved useful when Gwenda and a friend attended a fair.  Demonstration flights on a light aeroplane were on offer, but only to men.  So Gwenda and her friend put on trousers, stuffed their hair into caps and enjoyed the flight.  (One presumes the operators were in fact charmed rather than fooled by this ploy)

This seems to have been a happy time for Gwenda, although she must have had a financial struggle because she remembered that she owned only two dresses, one mauve, which she had made herself.  At this time, she was boarding with a Mrs Grimes and became engaged to his son.  To the horror of the Aunts, Gwenda broke off the engagement when she met Heinrich who they disapproved of because he was German.