CHAPTER #16

Canada: Mum and friends.

Starting in 1973 and continuing, with few exceptions, until the start of the new century, my mother visited us every other year and I tried to travel to South Africa on alternate years so that I could see the rest of my family - although sometimes I didn't make it.

It is difficult to keep all those visits tied to specific years so forgive me if I run them all together into one long enjoyable visit. There was a lot of repetition, of course; Mum fitted in seamlessly with our daily lives and was always game to go anywhere. She also didn't mind just being left alone which was good, too, because there have been times when my volunteer activities have taken up much of the time I would rather have spent with her.

One year, because I knew my mother enjoyed playing lawn bowls (in fact she was really very good at it) I decided to get a membership for her in the Agincourt Lawn Bowling Club. This turned out to be a great success: she showed up with a Germiston badge on her blazer and club pins in her hat and was immediately embraced by the resident bowlers who were an extremely friendly group.

Before long my mother was playing in tournaments, sometimes several times a week, then she got involved with three other ladies, playing bridge. So, aside from the busy social life she enjoyed, she was also getting lots of exercise and having fun at the same time. The lawn bowling took place during several visits until her leg started acting up and she had to stop.

One of my mother's greatest joys in coming to Canada has been to play bridge with my long-time buddies: June James, Anne Mugford, Kathy Pitt, Gwen Daffern, Edith Halls, Mona Ernst, Jeanette Buffet and Edna Wolfe. I have been a part of this group for fourteen or fifteen years now and they are some of my dearest friends.

Every fortnight throughout the year we meet for lunch, bridge, laughter....and sometimes even tears. These friends are especially dear to me because they took my mother into their hearts and have always made her feel extra special. Unfortunately there is no-one to play bridge with Mum in South Africa, which is a shame because she certainly is a whiz at the game. However, Anne introduced us to Skip-Bo and whenever we are together my mother and I play at least five games of it every day.

Several times we've travelled with the bridge group to Stratford to see musicals. It's a long drive so, ideally, it is best to stay overnight.

This we did on one happy occasion when my niece Ray came over with Mum. After dinner and the show (Music Man, I think) we climbed a steep set of stairs for a comfortable night's sleep and a delicious breakfast in the morning. Then Ray and I put Mum in a wheelchair and toured the quaint stores and boutiques up and down Main Street. Afterwards we idled away an hour watching a string of ducklings picking gnats off the surface of the river while swans scooped up all the crusts floating by. It was really quite idyllic.

Of course a highlight of many of Mum's frequent visits to Canada was always a trip to the James' cottage on Lake Kawagama. The drive up through lake country was an experience in itself: roads winding around tree-swathed hills, over bridges, alongside brilliant blue lakes and through small villages. Because it was a three hour drive, we'd stop half way there for coffee and muffins before arriving around lunchtime. The road in to the cottage is hard on cars: corrugated gravel roads and one or two hills so steep and narrow one has to shift into low gear for safety; but once there it is all peace, serenity and hugs all round.... not to mention good food and wonderful games of bridge at night, then waking up to utter stillness, broken only by the eerie call of loons in the early morning.

I believe there are around 240,000 lakes in Ontario alone and many of them are connected by the Trent Canal System with locks which allow boaters to travel easily from one lake to another. Eels Lake still evokes wonderful memories of happy days spent boating, fishing, eating and sleeping in total relaxation. The exception to the relaxing part always happened on the way up to the cottage and on the drive home. There is so much traffic congestion on the highway each summer weekend that cars often have to creep along at a snail's pace for miles, sometimes even stopping altogether. But for most people the stress of travel is well worth the benefits derived at the end of the journey.

Of course, Toronto itself has many attractions of its own. One doesn't have to travel great distances to enjoy boating: the great Lake Ontario stretches for hundreds of miles east and west and all the way across to Buffalo. It's like a vast inland sea with beaches and bluffs and, when the wind blows wild, even waves. A network of ravines connects rural and urban areas and allows wildlife to roam freely into backyards and streets, including our own. We had a fox den out back which was continually occupied until the fox population developed mange and they all died last year. I have seen an occasional healthy fox since then but I'm afraid it was only visiting.

We fed a feral cat for eighteen months four or five years ago and called it Edward, after my brother. Edward would come each morning and wait for me to put a bowl of food outside. We even had a doghouse donated to us and placed at the back door, but Edward would only sit on the roof and didn't like going inside. Eventually he stopped coming around and we figured he had been killed. However, one Sunday morning about two years later, there he was, sitting calmly on the windowsill downstairs. As soon as I got up, he jumped down and waited by the back door. I put out some food, which was eaten quickly, then he left and was never seen again. We assumed that someone had adopted him but had gone away for the weekend, leaving him behind. At least he knew where to get a good square meal.

In addition to the luncheon bridge group, my mother played with the neighbourhood one as well: Maureen, Audrey, Eleanor, Eileen, June, Mum, Lee and Edna. Eleanor died about a year ago and our friend Gwen stepped in to take her place. This group meets only once a month and at the end of the season goes out for a celebratory dinner. That's not to say we don't eat a lot of decadent desserts in between.

Sanctions and route changes.

When Canada imposed sanctions on South Africa before the dissolution of apartheid, it was impossible for South Africans to get visas to visit Canada without going to a foreign capital like Rome or London to do so.

At the time I wrote a very grumpy letter to the then Prime Minister, Joe Clark, and told him I was not going to vote for the Tories ever again and I doubted that the thirty or forty thousand other former South Africans in this country would vote for them either, grizzle-grumble, yours sincerely... and I sent a copy of it to our local MP. Soon afterwards I received a very polite letter back from JC explaining the government's position and urging me to understand it, signed "Joe"! Maybe our local MP told him I might be Trouble if he didn't calm me down.... I must admit I was slightly mollified.

There was an up-side to the visa situation, however. Mum and I got to spend a week in London, England, on two separate occasions. I often look at photos of Mum hoofing it past Tower Bridge on the way to the Tower of London (those ancient Brits were so cruel!) , pausing on the way to Covent Gardens for lunch and surrounded by pigeons in Trafalgar Square.

It was wonderful for us to be together in a city so steeped in tradition and to be able to see, for the first time, places we had only heard about or seen on TV. We did all the tours, of course: Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, the Cotswolds, Blenheim Castle (Churchill's ancestral home), the fabulous museums, and Piccadilly Circus which isn't a circus at all. Those two trips were unforgettable and were made even more so because I was able to share them with my little mother.

From time to time we visited Don's first wife, Kay McKeever, in Vineland and Mum was fascinated by the many owls that populate the premises of the Owl Foundation which was founded and operated by Kay. One year Ray, Terry and their son Mike also visited the Owl Foundation while they were in Canada. Kay had a dwarf rabbit at that time and when Michael touched the rabbit's carrot, it growled and bit him on the sneaker.

I have a group of friends called Les Girls who meet once a month to paint and make creative "things". My mother always went along to knit or crochet and have a good lunch because she knew there wouldn't be much of a supper when we got home. Below you can see them: Judy, Beryl, Norma, Christine, Joan, Tina and Mum, standing around in Christine's vegetable garden. Christine always refers to my mother as Grandma Gigi since Mum's great-grandchildren in South Africa always refer to her as G-G (for Great Gran) and Christine considers herself to be my surrogate daughter.... so that makes Mum her surrogate grandma, right? At home we mostly call Mum OG, which is an acronym for Old Girl.

Trains and Trips.

Christine suggested that I should take Mum on an historic train journey from Stouffville to Uxbridge to see the fall colours, so that's what we did one Saturday morning last September. The train was ancient and somewhat rickety but the passing scenery was lovely: floods of bright orange and yellow leaves on trees set against rolling hills of still-green grass.

During the trip we were treated to a running commentary about the passing landscape. The commentator also invited all visitors to Canada to sign a guest book in the control car. We promptly made our way back several carriages, swaying from side to side, with my mother moving along so quickly that I had to grab onto the back of her jacket to make sure she didn't fall.

The staff in the control car were excited because Mum was the first visitor they had had from South Africa so, apart from travelling free because of her age, she was given a certificate and two lapel pins from each of the towns we were visiting. On the way back a wedding party came aboard, minister in attendance, and we watched him marry the bride and groom through a window in the door. The bride had on a strange floppy bonnet and chewed gum. Hmmm.

Mum's visits to Canada always ended soon after her birthdays and with at least two parties each time: one would be celebrated by our luncheon bridge group (Anne usually vying with June to see who would have it) and the other would be a dinner-bridge game at home with the Holwells and the James'.

South Africa.

When I go to South Africa all I really want to do is to be with my family. Eddie and Joan live in a house that is as familiar to me as my own is here in Canada.

Mum has her own private apartment in the back garden and she always seems to be cleaning it or doing the washing or something. From a window inside she can see the swimming pool (up those steps at right) and a pergola covered with honeysuckle vines. It is a big garden with fruit you can pick off the trees in season: cherries, loquats, figs. The fruit in South Africa is wonderful, especially the tender juicy paw-paws and golden Cape gooseberries. Makes my mouth water just thinking of them.

Eddie has his workshop on the other side of Mum's cottage, right beside the garage, and sometimes early in the morning you can hear him working away at his lathe, turning bits of ordinary wood into elegant works of art. Some of his carvings are so real you're almost afraid they will fly down and "get" you.

Ed is now a master carver and wood-turner and is frequently called upon to judge at shows. At times we worry about the fact that, despite taking adequate precautions, he inhales enough sawdust to cause occasional respiratory problems....which is not good. However, Ed loves working with wood so it's not likely that he will ever stop for long - even if he does sometimes feel a little poorly. Besides he was born stubborn, so what can we do?

Eddie and Joan have three good-looking offspring who now have children of their own. How quickly the years pass. It seemed only yesterday when they were picture postcard babies.
The first child born was Cheryl: the fairy child who was always dancing. When she grew up she did, in fact, become a dancer and taught ballet lessons for a number of years. Then in 1981 she married Robert.

Robert was sent to the U.S. on a job assignment and Cheryl went with him. They socialized with a crowd experimenting with drugs. Robert succumbed to temptation and it ultimately led to his death by suicide shortly after they returned to South Africa. It's tough to get over a tragedy like that in the family. I know Cheryl has been struggling ever since that fateful day - in one way or another. A second marriage failed but produced one daughter, Sarah. She already has a mind of her own and who knows what the future will hold for her.

Next on the marriage-go-round was Geoffrey: my neffie Geoffie. He was (and probably still is) the little devil in the family. I remember when he was a very small boy watching him go around kicking the tires of somebody's car in a parking lot. I told him not to do it. So he did it again. I repeated my demand sternly. He looked at me daringly and, without taking his eyes off mine, gave the nearest tire a whacking good kick and went on to do it to the next one. Furious, I started to chase him: round and round the car we went until I suddenly stopped and went the other way. This boy is going to be trouble, I thought. But I was wrong.... he turned out to be a really good guy.

Geoff married his sporty Beverly in '88 and they have two fine children, Garrad and Suzanne. Garrad is an avid all-round sportsman, now working in his father's business and dainty Suzanne is still at school. When my brother's second daughter, Ray, married Terrence three years later I was of two minds whether to be happy or mad. My dream had been for Ray to marry Rod and come to live in Canada with Aunt Joy. But noooo. She had to fall for her eagle-eyed pilot and never gave a thought as to how her Aunt would feel. Oh, I know she kept Terry guessing for a while, telling him there were other suitors waiting in the wings, but there never ever was anyone else but Terry. Now, of course, I realize the advantage of being married to a pilot: reduced airfares to visit her aunt in Canada! Nice going, Ray, you made the right choice, kiddo: Terry is tops.

Both Terry and Ray had a son in due course and Michael turned into a sportsman just like his dad. A champion rower, Mike has travelled to Boston several times to compete for his school team against international crews. Too bad Boston isn't that close to Toronto: if he came over here maybe I could find a nice young Canadian girl for him.... Let's be realistic, though: Michael is driving a car now so it's only a matter of time before some young South African girl gets her hooks into him. Perhaps I'll give up matchmaking and just do my knitting instead.

All of the holidays I've had in South Africa have been memorable ones: I can smell the sea and almost feel the sand between my toes whenever I go through the photographs I took on every occasion.

About five years ago we had an exciting excursion, first to the legendary Sun City casino with it's manufactured ruins, giant leopards carved in stone and elephants guarding a bridge. We stayed overnight in the super de luxe hotel (Michael Jackson was there at the time and people were lining up in the lobby waiting to see him arrive) where I took this photo of the largest elephant ever to have been seen in the Kruger National Park. It must have taken an awful lot of bronze to cast it.

Of course Mum, Ed and Joan had to go gambling in the casino and lose their allotted amount of money. Since I am immune to the vice, I spent my time trying to gather them all together like a hen herding chickens under her wing. When they were ready, and not before, we left for the
Hluhluwe Game Reserve where we stayed in luxurious rondavels with panoramic views of a large section of the park. The next day we sighted giraffe, buck, water buffalo, zebras, a huge troop of apes - two of which were having hot and heavy sex right in front of our car - guinea fowl and hundreds of deer and antelope. All the while we were there it drizzled a light rain but that only seemed to make the green of the trees all the more intense.

From there we travelled to the Wild Coast and Shelly Beach. Ed went fishing and in between we had a great time touring small villages along the coast. On the way home we had one more adventure.

In mid-afternoon the sky darkened ominously as we drove into the centre of a storm which enveloped us in sheets of rain and hailstones the size of golf balls. The noise of the hailstones battering the car was unbearable. Eddie, barely able to see to drive, had to open his window and Mum and I in the back seat were getting soaked. So out came my umbrella to shelter Mum from the onslaught. Hailstones dimpled the car in dozens of places after that storm and the ground was white as snow. It was a spectacular ending to a really spectacular holiday.

Perhaps this is a good place to end this voyage of mine into the past. It hasn't been easy to cram seventy years of living into these pages but I did my best. That's what my little brother always says on parting: "Do your best!" and I think it is good advice.

Our Mum has certainly led a full and eventful life: from her girlhood in Rhodesia, hunting with her brothers, riding motor cycles, getting married, having children, hardship, good times, family, friends, bridge, tennis, lawn bowls, travels.... I think she's had a ball. She has laughed till she's cried, loved with all her heart and been greatly loved in return. Can you ask more than that at ninety-two and counting?

These memories were written for you, Mum, dearest. Happy Birthday - and may you have many more. Much love, hugs and kisses as always from your ever loving, Joy.