Amateur dramatics, librarian again and floods
Wednesday 5th August, 2009.
My Dear Jeremy,
We soon become involved in the life of the community which included Alice town and Fort Hare the African university. We joined the Music Society, the Play Reading Society and the Dramatic Society. The first two met in people’s homes when each member took it in turns to share their records and arrange a programme and gave a talk on the composer or the music.
Michael produced a play but I do not remember what it was called. It was quite light. I was the innkeeper’s wife and recall talking in a fake Yorkshire accent in which Michael coached me because ‘my Father is a Yorkshireman’. I think I found it a bit nerve wracking so the next year I agreed to produce the that year's play called " Sit down a minute Adrian". I found it difficult watching Michael embracing and kissing another woman but he didn't seem to mind.
As well as being an education institution, Lovedale also had a Printing Press, a Post Office and a Bookstore. Christopher seldom passed the bookstore without getting another little book.
Dr Shepherd’s secretary, Miss Atkinson, went on leave and I took her place. I wrote down Dr Shepherd’s letters in shorthand and typed them for him in the office in the Bookstore. It was a very formal and serious time.
Ruth, the Librarian at Fort Hare University, also went on leave and I was asked to fill in for her. There I worked with Mrs Matthews, the wife of the Professor, I think of social Anthropology, Z.K. Matthews. We got on very well together. Professor Matthews was a member of the Xhosa tribe and very much respected in academic circles and he was active in African politics. I enjoyed working there and became friendly with Simon Radebe. He and his wife visited and came to dinner. Later I lost contact with him when he went to West Africa, Nigeria I think.
Dr Shepherd asked me to catalogue and classify the Lovedale Archives which were kept in the basement of the Printing Press. This I did and many years later, when I returned to Grahamstown , Dr van der Riet of the Rhodes Library said he thought he recognised my work and he was pleased with what I had done. The archives are now in the Cory Library at Rhodes University. I think I only worked in the afternoons when Michael was at home to look after Christopher. School was only in session during the mornings so teachers were free in the afternoons unless they were on sports duty.
We met teachers from the Methodist Mission Station ‘over the hills’ some miles away and discovered that Elaine and Hamish Dickie-Clark, whom we knew at Rhodes, were teaching there. They also had a little boy. We visited them and they visited us.
Later the Dickie-Clarks moved to Alice and had a house on the banks of the Tyumie River. They were visiting us one afternoon when heavy rains in the Amatola Mountains north-east of us brought the river down in flood. At the same time a cloud burst in the Juanasburg range to the north west turned the Gaga stream which ran through Lovedale into a raging torrent. Michael and Hamish dashed off to see if their house was threatened but by the time they got back to the causeway over the Gaga it was under water and impassable so there they were stuck. Neither of us had telephones so Elaine stayed with me and the men tried to rescue their possessions from the water which was already in the house. The Gaga met the Tyumie in Alice - so much water everywhere.
We spent the next day in our gumboots rescuing what we could and putting the carpets and furniture out in the sun to dry and sweeping out the mud in the house.
Alice hosted a Flood Ball to collect funds to help the African people in the surrounding villages. I think we attended in our gumboots if I remember rightly.
You could say we never had a dull moment. Love you, Mum