My first year in South Africa

The RMS Athlone Castle

 

      

14 Feb 1952 Cape Town Continued

Later in Rondebosch:

Once through customs we caught a taxi and dropped our bags off at the railway station. John’s cousin Arthur has already booked a coupe on the train for us and we leave at 8 tonight.
Called in and met cousin Arthur who works in an office in central Cape Town.  The part of the city we walked through to get there showed its colonial past - white buildings surrounded by railings, wide streets, and parks. Then went back with him to his house in Rondebosch for lunch and met his family - Pat, Janet and Elizabeth.
Their house is huge and airy, so different to those I am accustomed to in England. Massive garden, filled with lawns, shrubs and trees. Luxuriously furnished house with polished parquet floors and dark wood furniture. Their dining room is large enough to have taken the entire floor space of the flat at 2 Hollar.
A Cape Coloured maid served us lunch. It will not be easy getting used to the way people look down on their servants here. I felt completely tongue tied during the meal while everyone else chatted about the family and John told them about our voyage. Their daughters are so self confident, relaxed and in command making me more aware of my own social inadequacies and so completely out of place. I sat like a little mouse and listened to the conversation which passed good humouredly around the table, while praying no-one would draw attention or try to draw me into the conversation.

After lunch: The family have all left for work and we are now sitting in the shade of tall trees, surrounded by exotic shrubs, in the walled garden, which appears to me to be as big as a small park!

Cape Town Railway Station at about 6.30pm:

Before leaving Rondebosch, in the coolness under the trees and in a comfortable garden chair, I managed to doze the rest of the afternoon away.

Am now in our coupe waiting for John to return. He has gone to check that our luggage etc. is safely on board and to buy magazines and newspapers for the journey.
The coupe is  a small narrow 'carriage'. The bunks (there are 3) on one wall fold down at night and are closed up during the day to provide seating. A  small table pulls out from the wall for meals but we shall probably eat in the dining room. There are blinds at the window and in one corner a small metal wash basin with running hot and cold water pulls down for use. 

Journey from Rondebosch to the railway station:

It was raining when we left Rondebosch at 5 o'clock for Cape Town station to catch the boat train which is due to leave at about 6.30. Instead of taking a taxi, which would have been extravagant and and expense we are unable to afford, we caught the bus into Cape Town which left from a nearby bus stop.
The upper deck of the bus was crowded with people of mixed race  all dressed in very shabby clothes - far worse than I have ever seen in England where war time restrictions and clothing coupons had reduced us to a neat but dark drabness.
Through cleared patches in the steamed upo windowd of the bus I could see we were passing tree lined roads on either side of which stood big houses in their own grounds, some even more luxurious than the one we had just left. The journey took about 30 minutes and  as the bus gradually emptied and I was able to find a window seat.
By then the windows were again steamed up so I cleared the mist from the window and found we were travelling now through a very poor area. Far worse than anything I had experienced in London despite the terrible bomb damage. Paint was peeling from doors many of which hung off their hinges, plaster-work was broken and peeling away, paint-work around filthy windows and doors was badly chipped, while piles of rubbish lay on the pavements and in the gutters. My heart sank as I wondered what sort of place I had been brought to. It was with some relief to arrive at Cape Town. station.
Inside we found the train was not ready for boarding so,  with an hour or so to spare, we decided to take a walk along Adderley Street to the Company's Garden which was founded by the Dutch East India Company in 1652. The glare of the sun and reflection off the white buildings and road had started my head aching again and it was a relief to find a little shade and to rest in the gardens.
On our return to the station we found the train  was waiting on the platform and we were allowed to board by which time it was due to leave in 30 minutes - however we’ve been here a good hour and a half and it now appears it will not be leaving for a while yet.

Bedtime: John returned with a huge basket of fruit for the journey. Apples, oranges,  peaches, nartjies (like tangerines), plums, nectarines, paw paws (a fruit almost as large as a water melon and which I haven’t tried before), black and white grapes, pears, melon, pineapple.  He said we would need it on the journey. Seems and awful lot of fruit to me - I’ve never seen so much  in one place before except in the greengrocers. He also bought magazines and a map of SA for me to study during the journey.

791 miles to Johannesburg.

15 February

Morning: The steward came around while we were at dinner (in the dining car) last night and made up two bunks in our coupe and by the time we returned from breakfast this morning everything had been stowed away again.
By the time we left Cape Town last night and were going through the suburbs it had started getting dark so I had little chance of seeing much of the suburbs let alone the countryside which I had been told were market gardens and orchards - so I was looking forward to seeing it  this morning. What a dissappointment on waking and pulling the blind to one side and peeking out - we have passed through the beautiful area overnight and now everything is dry and drab, a wasteland in my eyes. John says this will continue on tomorrow. How boring. He said he drove from Cape Town to Johannesburg when he was out here and it was very uninteresting - just mile after mile of road and the Karroo apparently.
It’s very hot now.

16 February

Awful uncomfortable night. Couldn’t sleep because it just gets hotter and hotter. When we close the compartment windows it is too hot and when we open them black engine smoke blows in and cover us and everything else in the coupe is covered in black smurs so cannot touch anything before wiping it clean.
Woke again this morning still in the desolate Karoo. There is little to see for mile upon mile except dry sandstone and shale with an occasional bush battling to survive in the harsh conditions.
After lunch: For the whole of yesterday and today the scenery has been virtually  unchanging. Already I miss England  for everything here is scorched and yellow. Off on the horizon we sometimes see an electric storm or rain falling from isolated clouds whilst everywhere else is bathed in sunshine. This does help enliven the journey because the thunder and lightning are quite outstanding, almost theatrical.
Occasionally we stop at a small dusty station, John called them dorps, where sheep and goats are being mustered however they never seem to be loaded on to the train despite the bustle.  Unsmiling locals wander up and down the dusty platforms,  with no apparent purpose, neither getting on nor getting off the train while glowering at the passengers.

Every so often, in the middle of nowhere, the train stops for up tp an hour at a time for unknown and unexplained reasons. No one comes and tells us what the delay is and while halted the sun beats down on the carriage roof, raising the temperature in the coupe to an uncomfortable level. Meanwhile I sit and dab my face and neck with the 4711 eau de cologne which Nan gave me for the journey. It gives some relief.

At these stops in the middle of nowhere the train passengers start talking loudly and show impatient at the delay. Windows are rolled down and heads crane out to see if there is anyone they can ask what the delay is. Very occasionally a railway employee will pass alongside the track. He ignores questions and plods on to whatever task he is employed on. We appear to be stranded in and abandoned in the middle of nowhere. After half an hour people begin to jump down from the train to stretch their legs, including John, and walk alongside the tracks on the shady side or stand and chat in small groups.
I stood at a corridor window watching them for a while but am now back in the coupe looking out of the window at the boring landscape.
Once in a while the engine jerks all the carriages and all those who have alighted, panic and  leap back on board and then, after ten minutes, sheepishly climb down again when it appears the train is still not  on its way.
Looking at the map of SA I am amazed at the number of places with familiar names. Balmoral, Bedford, York, Newcastle.

Bedtime: The fruit John bought is quickly disappearing and has proved  thirst quenching and most welcome.

I am nervous about meeting John’s mother and step father for the first time tomorrow. John has said he does not get on with her because she is a snob and a social climber so I’m not looking forward to our meeting. I am sure she will not approve of a little Cockney like me.

He has told me lots of ‘tales’ about her since we left England. When he was a child he was a great disappointment to her because she had wanted a daughter and had been unable to have more children. Then instead of being the nicely behaved little boy she wanted him to be he had been rebellious and she felt he always was always letting her down. From what he told it appears that he enjoys embarrassing her and does it quite deliberately.
At a birthday party when he was 5 he was behaving badly and a mother who didn’t know her turned to her and said ‘Imagine having such a little horror like that for a son’.
She used to teach English in France to the children of a French family and John had gone with her. He behaved badly after they had gone for ride and she beat him with her horse-whip.
John says she is unstable at times due to a car accident she had during the war. She was employed as a driver to aid war work. At that time drivers  were needed so badly that she was taken on without a driving licence and only a basic test. One day while driving in London by mistake she put her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake and drove the car into a basement and was almost killed.
I doubt she is going to approve of me. It is an ordeal I am not looking forward to. They will be at the station to meet us.

 17 February (Late)

We woke at 7.30, much later than we had wanted. The train had arrived at six at Johannesburg station and we would have preferred to have been woken then and had asked the steward to do so and this would have given us plenty of time to dress and have breakfast.
So we had little time to wash and dress because people were already waiting for the passengers to alight. We hastily dressed and missed breakfast. Having few maternity clothes I had little choice of what to wear so decided on my white broderie anglais wedding dress.
John's parents were already waiting on the platform for passengers to alight, along with a couple of Walter’s relations. I had hoped that it would be a quiet event (not being the sort to invite attention)  but  as I stepped on to the platform I was immediately startled. A short, tubby woman rushed up to me and thrust a sheaf of flowers into my arms as a camera flash flared in my face several times almost blinding me. People turned and stared as though I was someone famous and I felt most uncomfortable and embarrassed at the attention being drawn to me, and heartily wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Everyone seemed to be staring at me as though I was someone special. The bouquet giver was John’s mother. Strange woman, she never stops chattering and does sound a little hysterical when she laughs, and gushes and fusses all the time.