Chris's first cute sayings - visiting friends by motorbike
2nd September 2009
My Dear Jeremy,
So January 1954 saw us back at Oribi still in the men’s residence. This time we were given a two bedroom flat in the middle of the second row. It had a verandah and a patch of grass dividing us from the flat in front where a lady lecturer called Dr Truter lived.
It was also time for Christopher to go to school. In Natal children started school at age 5 whereas in the rest of the country they did not go to school until they were 6 years old. The school was in Oribi village where ex-servicemen and their families were still housed.
This is what I wrote at the time of Christopher’s first week at school:
26th January – Tuesday: CJ goes to school (My father always called him CJ)
27th Wednesday: CJ re drawing of a baby in a bath – ‘I didn’t do it very good,But I did the best I can. But Gee! Some children!! They did more better than I did’.
‘You mustn’t give me anything nice for lunch’. (I am not sure why - Perhaps because others wanted it or it did not give him enough time to play)
There were 200 pupils in the school and 60 in his class and his teacher was Mrs. M. S McIntyre
I think CJ is a bit disappointed in school. His aim is to learn to read.
The first day he said: "It is just like Sunday School’.
The drawing and plasticine modelling which they did, had never interested CJ over much – and very tame are the nursery rhymes after ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Swiss Family Robinson’. He had dreams last night.
28th January Thursday: ‘School was very long this morning’.
29th January Friday ‘Think how tired I’ll be after all those years at school’ said CJ on Friday and he went off yawning.
‘Don’t give me so many sandwiches then I won’t have time to play’.
3rd February: ‘It is funny every morning whenever I get near to school I feel a sort of pain in my tummy’.
‘It must be excitement, dear’ ( I replied)
‘Not excitement – more like frightened’
‘But what are you frightened of?’
‘I don’t know perhaps it is the prefects’.
I did my best to reassure him.
‘I know what it is,’ he said ‘Must be nervousness’.
5th February ‘It is good that God made Saturdays’, (he commented).
The first people we contacted were Olga and Tony Wills with whom we had kept in contact. Tony was teaching at the boy’s school, Maritzburg College where he, himself, had attended school and stayed all his life – a regular Mr Chips. They lived in Carbis Road in Scottsville and we were always welcome there. They, too, had two children now, Kim and Trevor.
Olga’s father gave them a motor car so Tony sold his little red motor bike to Michael. Now we had some transport.
Michael would set off with Jill on the tank in front of him and Christopher on the pillion seat behind and I would start walking. He would drop the children at the Wills’s home and come back and pick me up. Tony would bring us home in the car.
They also visited us many times and we would go on picnics in the country together. I remember Olga always made a sausage and baked bean pie which was delicious.
Michael resumed his studies in the English Department. With him was Colin Gardiner the school boy who had lived alongside us 1948. His father had been promoted to professor, a post which Colin also occupied later with Betty Paterson as one of the lecturers.
So life once again settled down into a domestic pattern of school, university and social contact with other senior students with families who were continuing their studies.
I will tell you more about this next time.
Love you, Mum