GLORY DAYS

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Dear Diary,

Invited to visit with the residents of the home for the elderly, here in Port Alfred,  Eastern Cape, South Africa, I hastened forth in delight. To say that the visit was a delight, is too mild a phrase, it was the most joyful, yet sad? informative and enlightening experience of my journalistic/amateur writing career to-date..

Choosing a subject, in this case playthings or toys, brought such smiles on those wonderful creased faces.........these are some of the memories that we relived together. I must add that, given licence to use their stories, I have created a "salad?"  of the various bits and pieces and woven them together for you to enjoy.......Hope you do.

Nester, arched her back, giving a small groan as she did this, looking down at her now useless legs, "ayiee!" she silently protested, "useless bloody things." She moved the one wheel of the wheelchair, a sweat breaking out on her wrinkled upper lip, at the effort this task entailed. Her hands, crooked and bent, she managed to manoeuvre the chair into a position, where she could watch the children. Her great -grandchildren, all "rusty haired," skinny and noisy.

Just then, there came a screech from one of the children, they were playing under the old willow tree, it used to be on the banks on the river, but, that had all but dried up now. Her mind wondered back to her own childhood. Playtimes, toys, all the things that made growing up so memorable. She remembered the river, the huge gnarled willow trees, shading the group as they played in the late afternoon, when their chores were done.

Autumn had always been her best time of the year. She loved the "Indian summer," the still, warm days, the red earth shimmering, the sound of the herdsmen, calling to the oxen. as they ploughed the veldt. "Kom Landman!" "Maak gou! Ouboet!" and the huge red oxen, with their misshapen horns, pulling on the old wooden plough.

She looked down, and she could see, the "farm" she had fashioned for her three brothers and two sisters. She had "borrowed" an old knife from the kitchen, and made tiny oxen out of dried mealie cobs. For horns, she used the long White thorns from the trees in the veldt. "Nomlontsi," her darling nanny, had shown her how to built small mud huts, complete with their thatched roofs. The farm grew, over the years.

Every afternoon, she used to run down to the play-farm, and gradually, add, long mud walls, little areas that became their "lands." She used to plant seeds, from the flowers in her mothers garden as her "crop." The herdsmen, amused at this miniature farm, used to make tiny leather whips, complete with carved handle, to go with the carved wooden ox-carts, that pa made as his contribution.

One day, to her absolute delight, when she and her siblings arrived at the farm, they found the most exquisite red horses, made from clay, beautifully painted, designs in white, decorating the animals. The manes, had been made from dried grass, and a tiny wooden wagon, piled with replica bales of hay, standing alongside the group of horses.

"Aahhh", she sighed, "the times we had with this farm. "How different things are today." She remembered the endless hours, on rainy days, when her task had been to amuse her two younger sisters, her fumbling efforts to sew clothing for their "Black Bertha" dolls. The little bodies, made of cloth, and stuffed with corn. They used to cost a penny, in those days, and often the legs and arms came adrift.....even broke, if Anna, or Marie, were too rough with them.

Her favourite doll had been one that her "ouma" had made for her, a "baby-sized" cloth doll, its face stiffened with starch, long hair, saved from one of the girls, who had locks shorn. The face, beautifully embroidered, with huge blue eyes and a rosebud mouth. She'd named her "Sarie" and Nomlontsi, had contributed to the doll, in the form of an exquisitely made beaded necklace, an almost exact match of the wonderful African neckpiece that she wore. Even tiny brass bangles, twisted and beaten and shaped, with matching ear-rings........which had to be sewn on, as Sarie had no ears.

The boys, endlessly restless, were always a problem. Nagging pa, to whittle animal shaped whistles for them. Or their "clomping" as they walked along the stoep on the long wooden stilts. All they wanted to do was hunt, play in the bush with their cousins, or follow pa around as he rode or walked the farm "Doorenfontein." The countryside in 1905, was a paradise for energetic adventurous young boys.

Hendrik, she remembered, had been the most artistic of the boys, spending his time, when he wasn't following the others, sitting for hours, on the river bank, carving tiny ships, for which ma would make cotton sails. He had seen these in a picture book once, and longed to sail on the ocean. She had donated two of these to the Albany museum, in 1983. "Funny that," she mused. "Our toys becoming a part of history." Even her old "Sarie," was now part of the museum. Very threadbare, and worn. Sarie, now sat with other dolls in the museum in Grahamstown. "I wonder if all the dolls, chat and have tea parties? like we used to do?" she thought.

She chuckled as the memory of the first time pa had brought "wire" to the farm........she was a teenager then, and already had an "understanding" with Jan Scheepers and was to be married, as soon as he had worked off his debt, to his father, for the herds of cattle and sheep, that were going to be their start, on the farm "Langkloof"...........this new method of making fences, proved to be an untapped source of delight for the children of the farm folk. Overnight, the squeals of joy could be heard, as the children made replicas of the ox-wagons, complete with wheels that propelled them, to which the children would anchor and long piece of wire, a hoop handle, and they would race these up and down the clay pathways.

Nester had seen many of these wonderful wire toys over the years. It had become a tradition with the black children, and they now made motor cars, and even motor bikes! She still had in her bedroom, a beautifully made miniature windmill, the blades made of flattened tin, and in the breeze, these turned, and a tiny piston, pumped up and down.

"Ja, my Jan," she said to her husband, remember the dolls houses you had to build?" "All those nights, when we sat in front of the fire in the kitchen, me sewing tiny curtains and quilts, and you making that wonderful furniture?" "You spoiling the girls, with those incredible porcelain dolls?" She looked out at the garden, the shadows lengthening now, Paula, her grandaughter, had come out to fetched the children. "Hi gran!" she called, and gave a wave. "Bathtime!" The children, protesting loudly now, eventually followed their mother, and left behind, under the tree, where they had been playing , lay a pile of brightly coloured plastic toys. Discarded, uncared-for and some even broken.

Nester looked at them for a long while, and just then, she saw, she really saw, her nanny, darling Nomlontsi, baby strapped to her back with a colourful blanket, standing, looking down at the pile of abandonded toys, she was shaking her head. Looking up at Nester, she said, "your ma would have been very angry if you children had left your playthings like this." She glanced up at the huge old willow, shaking her head once again, and gathering her skirts, she stepped over the toys and walked away..........Hey! was that Frikkie and Marie with her??........ Ghosts tend to vanish at times, seldom without apology. "Yes" said Nester to herself, that tree used to shade my beloved play-farm. "Time to go inside? oh Jan, when are you coming for me?" .................

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