Letter 008 - Leaving Home

My Dear Jeremy,

Now that I have emailed to you all that I wrote in 2007 I must begin again to stir up my memories.

What happened to 2008? I did not recall and write a thing. It was a year of visits from Jill and Howard and Pam and Gemma and a two weeks holiday at the Mill House in Hythe. Then in August I was away to Seattle to attend Jerry and Petrina’s wedding. Finally the year ended with Christopher’s 60^th birthday. Time was spent compiling letters and photos so I could present him with a portfolio of his life.

When I last wrote it was at the end of my school days and with the wonderful news that I would be going to Rhodes University to pursue my studies – a dream come true.

It was a good summer holiday too. I spent happy times meeting friends at the Orient Beach and entertaining a second cousin, Jean Henshilwood from Cape Town,

who spent part of the holiday with us.

It was the beginning of 1944 and we awaited with bated breath for our matriculation results. I had always done well at school, passing each year with a first class percentage so imagine how devastated I was when the results came – no first class for me. Jean got her first class pass. I was so disappointed but had to put on a brave face in front of my visitor. Gertrude Darroll, our English teacher, was very angry but most consoling and said we had been subjected to the ‘slide rule’. Our school, it seems, was only allowed two first class passes and she had expected five.

Anyway what did it matter? I was going to Rhodes University which had been beyond my wildest dreams.

I had applied and been appointed to the post of student librarian at Rhodes University. This meant working in the library which paid for my residential fee, the Parents Teacher Association of the school awarded their bursary and so did the East London municipality who paid for my fees and my parents paid the rest. I was very grateful. All this was actually possible because my friend Betty Paterson, whose sister was at Rhodes had told me about the librarian post, and it was because of all this that my life changed in so many ways.

Until University started I worked for Mr Patterson (no relation to Betty) as a secretary, taking down letters in shorthand and typing them, I also tidied his files, by turning down the dog ears. I didn't enjoy that !

With my first month’s salary, I think it was about £12, I bought a large black trunk which since has traveled many miles with me – I still have it. My Mother made more clothes for me and Iverna added to my wardrobe too. She was always very generous towards me. A second class train ticket was booked to Grahamstown on the same train as Mary and Betty Paterson. They traveled first class. It was an overnight train and in those days one took one’s own food (padkos) although there was a dining saloon. Mrs Jones, a friend of the family, brought me a tuck box and this is the letter she wrote to accompany it.

“Dear Little Eileen.

I hope you will enjoy the “tuck” I have had such great pleasure in making for you. It has been a labour of love!,

My very best wishes go with it all, and hearty congratulations on having made your dream come true. If only we could realise that it more often than not rests with ourselves whether our dreams come true. You are catching the tide on the flood and I hope it will take you just where you want it to.

Good luck, my dear, from

Auntie Jones”

It was so thrilling steaming into Grahamstown in the early morning and looking down on the ‘City of Saints’ from the surrounding hills. It was called the City of Saints because it had a Cathedral and many churches, not necessarily because the people were good, although I have no doubt most were. But once it was whispered to me that there was lots of sinning.

On the station were many students arriving. I think we took a taxi to the university which was on the other side of the town. Rhodes was organised on the Oxford system with Halls of Residence, separate ones for men and for women. I was allocated to Oriel Hall which had three houses called Beit and Jameson, called after colleagues of Cecil John Rhodes, and Oriel House. My room in Beit House was comfortable and the window opened on to a small lawn but it had bars on the window – to keep me in or prevent someone else getting in?

New students were called INKS and we had to wear a black ribbon and bow round our necks and our names pinned to our chests. I think we were supposed to be ‘less than nothing’.

Mary invited Betty and me to have tea in her room after we had unpacked. Mary had been the Senior Student of Oriel Hall the year before so friends kept popping in to greet her. Strange as it may seem that was when I heard your Father’s name mentioned. Averil Mildenhall, to whom he considered himself ‘privately engaged’, had been a friend of Mary’s and Vice President of Oriel Hall. Someone asked Mary if she had heard that Averil had married an RAF (member of the Royal Air force) Many RAF personnel trained in South Africa during the war. “What about Michael Sadler?” she asked. “He’s still a POW (Prisoner of War) in Austria”, was the reply.

Life was quite formal at Rhodes. All meals were served in the dining hall and we dressed for dinner and wore our undergraduate gowns. If we went into Grahamstown to shop we either wore our gowns or hat and gloves.

The next day we attended the Board of Professors to decide on our courses and choose our subjects. As I had pursued a commercial course at school it was decided I should follow a Bachelor of Commerce degree course.

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