CHAPTER #2

CHAPTER 2.

Dad's job and my first love.

Not too far from our home in Cottesloe was the place where my father earned his monthly pay packet - the Municipal Gas Works. From behind the huge iron gates could be seen gigantic tanks-within-tanks rising hundreds of feet into the air, with connecting ladders and inspection platforms encircling each tank.

Once, after much pleading, Ed and I were given a tour of "Dad's" Gas Works and allowed to climb up to the first level observation platform of one of the storage tanks. It was scary climbing that vertical ladder but, once the safety of the platform had been reached, we were able to peer into a 2 ft. wide, bottomless rim of pitch black liquid in a moat surrounding the tank (each level had one). This liquid probably allowed the volume of gas stored inside to expand and contract as needed.

Pervading the air all around was an odour like hot asphalt which, rumour had it, could cure children of whooping cough. Naturally, we were not allowed to see the nearby coke ovens because of danger and their intense heat. It must have been a very unhealthy place in which to work and probably contributed in large measure to the cancer which finally claimed my father's life in 1964.

But, back to happier thoughts for now. The reason I have interjected a paragraph about the Gas Works is because it relates, in part, to the "first love" segment of my recollections.

Even though I didn't start dating officially until I was about seventeen, I actually fell in love for the first time two years before that. Oh, I did have a couple of little sweethearts in primary school who, in time honored fashion, would carry my school books home for me but that could hardly be called dating. Going to an all girls high school didn't improve my social life either as there were few opportunities to meet male students of any size or shape.

It so happened that there was a family living nearby with whom we had always been friendly. Mr. Thompson had once worked at the Gas Works with my Dad but he had died some time ago. Mrs. Thompson was plagued by severe headaches and seemed to spend much of her time lying down. (It was subsequently discovered that she had a brain tumour which caused her death two years later.)

George Thompson, their older son, was also employed at the Gas Works and so was his friend, Bill Lakin, both of whom were in their early 20s. George had a fun-loving, vivacious girlfriend called Barbara but, as far as I could see, Bill was girl-friendless. Dum-de-dum-dum! Since I was now fifteen (going on 20), it was the most natural thing in the world for me to develop a crush on this blue-eyed Bill with the gorgeous white teeth.

The Thompsons also had a younger son, Robert, who was one of my brother's playmates and our two families socialized together frequently. Bill must have felt a reciprocal interest in the buxom young girl I was at that time because I soon began to be included regularly in separate group activities involving George, Barbara, Bill and another of their friends, Jack Sneddon.

A weekend camping trip was planned. Dad would agree to me going only if Mum went along as chaperone. This was fine with me and with Mum too as she was always ready for adventure. We left in a convoy of assorted vehicles, Eddie and Robert grinning broadly in the dickey seat of George's little sports car.

The campsite was in a distant, wild location called Olifant's Nek situated about 200 kms away from Johannesburg in the Magaliesberg mountain range. Arriving at the site, we chose to set up camp in an open area at the base of a steep hill which had water flowing down it from one deep rock pool into another. It was hot and dry as we pitched two large tents: one for boys and the other for girls.

Looking up into the hills I noted, with a little shiver of apprehension, that they were dotted with black apes. Many of these could be seen basking in the sun, high on the hilltops, their guttural barks occasionally echoing sharply in the still mountain air.

As soon as food supplies had been properly stored away we set off to climb our hill to the topmost pool. Bare feet gingerly stepping from one hot stone to another it must have taken us over an hour to reach the top, flushed, sticky and hardly able to wait to plunge into the blissfully cool water of the first sparkling pool. From the top of our hill the view was magnificent: mountains extending as far as our eyes could see and, stretching out below like a steel gray mirror, the Olifant Dam. I wondered if elephants had ever frequented this area in days gone by or if it was named for the pachyderm-like humps of the receding hills.

Retracing our steps back to the campsite, we continued to dabble in each of the thirteen rock pools along the way, taking lots of time to sunbathe, laugh, tease and flirt. Being so close to the object of my affection in those liberating circumstances meant that every moment, for me, was absolutely filled with romantic possibility.

At sunset, cold night air sent us scurrying for sweaters and blankets. Then, over the crackling flames of a huge campfire, we roasted spicey boerewors sausages on great long sticks, and consumed large quantities of food brought along to sustain us. Finally sated, with only the fire left to feed, we cuddled together under blankets, telling stories and singing songs until at last we were all ready for sleep.

By this time I had noticed that the occasional barking of apes appeared to be louder and a lot closer than it had been during the day. So, after retiring to our respective tents, I suggested that Mum should position her sleeping bag right beside the tent flap while I unrolled mine as far away from the opening as possible. Unfortunately, my reason for making this helpful suggestion was utterly base for I thought that, if we were to be attacked by vicious apes during the night, they would naturally be forced to eat my mother first!

There is no defense for my cowardice, of course, but, in defense of the apes, I now know that they would never have launched such an attack on us, although they certainly would have been interested in any food left lying around.

Mother, being the fearless woman that she still is, readily agreed to the suggested sleeping arrangement. In retrospect I think she must have considered this an ideal position from which to prevent any late-night incursions by hot-blooded young males from the other tent. While I do not think there would have been any such incursions, one has to assume that our Mummy was no dummy.

When my father finally became aware of the romance between (in his mind, at least) a not-to-be-trusted older man and his virginal young daughter, fur flew in all directions. I was flatly forbidden to go out with Bill again.

Unfortunately, Dad did not count on my hormones, nor on the strong strain of Pratt obstinacy which impelled me to continue to see Bill, secretly, at the Thompson home for many months thereafter. In time, after the shedding of many tears, Dad saw the futility of his ban and I was given permission to go out with Bill again, but only as long as there were others present.

Strangely enough, and possibly due to the fickleness of human nature, it was not long after all barriers were removed that my interest in Bill waned and I took up with a new, and even older, love.

World War II.

In 1939, when World War II was declared, I was seven years old. In those days, with no television to transport us directly to the scene of unfolding world events, the declaration of war was not as frightening to me as it was to the adults in our family. Newspapers, of course, were filled daily with large black headlines and dire predictions for the future.

Each evening after supper our family would gather around the radio to hear the latest news. This was always read in a crisp, portentous manner by a broadcaster from the BBC and my parents would listen gravely to reports of invasions and destruction in lands far away. Meanwhile Ed and I would be waiting for the exciting serial adventures of the villainous Dr. Fu Manchu to start.

The war became more real to us when Dad's younger brothers, Bernard and Sid, enlisted in the army and went away to fight. Needless to say we were greatly relieved to learn that our father was not eligible to do the same thing. As a young boy Dad had slipped on a rock at the beach, fallen on a broken glass bottle, and lacerated his right hand so severely that it never developed proper musculature or strength. It always remained only half the size of his much larger left hand. It took years of treatment and therapy for Dad's hand to heal and must have played havoc with his school work at the time.

For many years it was traditional for our family to go to the movies every Friday night - or "bioscope" as the cinema was then called. Dad would buy two boxes of Cadbury's Milk Tray chocolates, one for Mum and himself and the other for Ed and me.

Always busy with her hands, our mother would be knitting socks in the dark while we two children sat bolt upright in our seats, watching preliminary Pathe News reports on the progress of the war: black and white images of bombs being dropped, troops storming into war-torn towns and, most horrible of all, dreadful pictures of hollow-eyed Jews staring hopelessly out from the confines of Nazi concentration camps. We were frightened by those graphic visions of suffering and profoundly grateful to be so far removed from the actuality.

The war finally ended when I was thirteen years old. Joining in the general rejoicing, I couldn't possibly have known that in less than two decades a young Canadian airman, who had been dramatically involved in the conflict just ended, would completely change the course of my life.

End of school and new beginnings.

High school days blurred into a mix of constant study, reading, school activities, exams, friends and the perils of growing up. As usual my interest in singing had gained me membership in the school choir and this became for me a source of the greatest pleasure and satisfaction. We sang at all school concerts, at assembly each morning, and were always the core group belting out the school song to cheer on our teams at Swim Galas and other competitive sporting events.

Our choir was also once chosen to take part in a province-wide concert billed as the Thousand Voices Choir. Each participating school was given three or four songs to rehearse, on their own, before a full group rehearsal of the massed choirs took place. The concert itself was held on stage at the Johannesburg City Hall.

If you have never sung in a choir yourself, nor played an instrument in any orchestra, you will hardly be able to imagine how thrilling it was to feel sound vibrating out of a thousand young throats and to hear their voices blending in perfect harmony. To this day I cannot listen to the strains of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring without remembering those joyful days.

Eventually, when all exams were written and passed, I graduated from high school at the age of seventeen. However, I could not fully savour my freedom until one more year at Business College had been completed.

Business College, Working Girl.

Because of my consuming interest in reading books I had always thought to become a librarian. Unfortunately this also meant having to go on to university and I didn't feel that this was an expense my parents could, or should, have to bear. So I decided instead to enter the business world and become a secretary - the career of choice for so many girls in those days.

Business College was on the second floor of an old-fashioned building in downtown Johannesburg. It consisted of several large rooms containing desks arranged carefully in regimented rows. In one classroom each desk supported a typewriter while in others, with desks unburdened, we learned shorthand and bookkeeping. Fresh from the rigours of high school I absorbed lessons easily and time passed quickly and uneventfully.

At the end of the year I left proudly clutching certificates of proficiency in all three subjects: Pitman's shorthand, touch-typing and bookkeeping. I have certainly never regretted the training I received during that year for it gave me the means to become independent and stood me in good stead on many other occasions.

During the ‘50s it was customary for women to always wear hats and gloves with matching handbags whenever they went out and Mum and I did the same. Every Saturday morning we got spruced up to go into Johannesburg - first to a store called Thrupps where we would invariably order a half-pound of short-backed bacon, several pieces of smoked haddock, a chunk of blood sausage (ugh!) and sometimes even a couple of pig's trotters for my grandparents to eat. Our grandparents had strange tastes in food.... they even liked to eat tripe and onions!

Next we would head over to the Belfast Tearoom for grilled cheese sandwiches, with little gherkins on the side, or waffles with strawberries and cream, or perhaps one of dozens of deliciously decadent cakes from the pastry cart. Mum would often meet a woman there called Eileen DeRourke, a saleslady at the Belfast Department Store, who lusted after the beautiful sweaters and dresses that my mother was able to knit with such ease. Mum, who (at 92) has never lost her ability to do so, made many garments for Mrs. DeRourke over the years. It gave mother pleasure to make them and provided a little spending money for her into the bargain.

Having now achieved my freedom from further study, it was with much nervous excitement that I applied for, and got, my very first job at Thomas Cook & Son, Travel Agents. There I worked as secretary to two men in the Post Order Department, which was on the second floor of a venerable stone building in central Johannesburg. It was a job that gave me the utmost pleasure and I was soon made to feel like an indispensable member of an efficient team.

Mum always remembers that with my first pay cheque I brought home for her a gift of leather gloves and red roses. It was a small gesture of love and thanks for a mother who made many sacrifices along the way in raising my brother and this newly-become woman of independent means. Next goal on the road to independence: save enough to buy myself a car.

Back to the Beaux

My love affair with Bill Lakin had been over for some time by now and I guess I must have been ready for a new romance. It appeared one day in the person of Jack Sneddon. Jack, you may remember, was one of the members of the older group of friends I had been socializing with for the past several years.... he was in fact the eldest, being fourteen years older than me. (Poor Dad!) Jack informed me that he had only just discovered that I was a free agent and asked me if I would go out with him. "Okay," said I, and so began a new relationship.

I realize now how fortunate I was, at that stage of my life, to have been loved by two indulgent, mature men, both of whom treated me with respect and consideration. Of course this may have been partly due to my father's stern demeanour and the knowledge that he was guarding my virtue with the tenacity of a pit bull.

Unlike the young women of today, during the fifties nice young girls didn't go "all the way" until they were married and I'll be the first to admit that a healthy fear of my father's wrath certainly ensured that I was going to do likewise. It is actually a sad indictment of those times that, for many young girls, getting unexpectedly pregnant was so horrifying that suicide was often a better option than facing up to their families with the "awful truth".

Jack was a nice man with bright brown eyes and a rather cherubic face. He wasn't tall or even particularly handsome but he was kind, financially secure and had his own machine pattern making business. Safe.

It may have been as a consequence of knowing Jack, that my brother also chose to become a pattern maker when he left school. In fact, the skills Ed learned as a pattern maker allowed him to become a creative problem solver with an innate ability to see and design anything at all three-dimensionally. Perhaps it was this training, also, that would one day allow him to carve and turn wood into truly elegant works of art.

Jack lived with his old Scottish mother and two maiden aunts in a house that was kept so spotlessly clean and neat that even the coal stove in the kitchen glistened with a peacock-blue sheen. They were kind and welcoming to me and I began to visit them most Sunday afternoons for tea with homemade scones, strawberry jam and whipped cream.

Jack had a beautiful pedigree collie dog and entered her regularly in local and provincial dog shows. Occasionally I would be the one to walk her back and forth, in competition, sometimes running to show her off to best advantage. Later, when Jack himself became a Judge his collie was not eligible to compete anymore and I lost my job of showing her off.

It was at about this time that Dad got wind of a secondhand car which was reputed to be a very good buy - a little Morris Minor with manual transmission. Even though I did not yet know how to drive, we decided I should buy it. So, with a little financial boost from my father, I acquired Squeak, dark blue and dainty and the pride of my life.

Jack and Dad undertook to teach me to drive. Squeak, however, must have needed a bit of a tweak because whenever I stalled it, it refused to start again without my father having to get out and push. As Dad was suffering from angina at the time this put me under great stress to get my license as quickly as possible. Fortunately I was lucky on the first try and it wasn't long before I could be seen zipping around town as though born with my foot on the pedal.

Changing times

Life soon settled into a predictable pattern for me: work during the day, visits with Jack several times a week, tea at our house, tea at his house. Comfortable but unexciting.

One day Jack asked my father for permission to get engaged to me. Dad (remembering the kerfuffle with Bill) agreed, on condition that we wait two years until I turned 21. So we got engaged and for a while I could be seen delightedly wiggling the fingers of my left hand in order to admire the sparkle of my new diamond ring. Preparing a trousseau and planning for the big day began to occupy much of my time and weekends were spent driving around searching for just the right plot of land on which to build our eventual home.

At the office meanwhile, after two years at Thomas Cook & Son, work had become routine and rather boring so, somewhat sadly, I decided it was time to move on to more challenging employment with an organization called the Aircraft Operating Company of Africa (Pty) Ltd. Their offices were in a big plant outside of Johannesburg in a mostly industrial district.

AOC, was (and probably still is) an aerial survey company with a large staff of photogrammetrists, draftspeople, surveyors, pilots, ground crew and administrators. The work turned out to be both interesting and demanding. The company objective was to map the whole of South Africa and many other parts of the world as well.

Mapping was done by first sending out a fully crewed airplane with a camera mounted in a special bay. Photographs of the area were taken in predetermined grids. The film would then be sent back to base to be developed, while the crew was still in the area, so that it could be checked before a go-ahead was given for continuation or cessation of the job.

Once the photographs had been developed they were given to a photogrammetrist who placed them, one by one, in a huge machine with eyepieces that allowed him to see stereoscopically. The photogrammetrist could then trace contours of mountains and valleys by turning the handle of a long mechanical arm, with pencil attached, which transferred the contours onto a map sheet. Next, the resulting map sheet was passed to a draftsman who completed the finished product.

Of course there were also mosaicers who pieced together individual photographs to make enormous visual pictures of the commissioned areas, and surveyors who did the fieldwork, and ground crew who kept airplanes in flying order..... but I'll be merciful and not go into any more detail.

Being a friendly sort, I joined in all company sports activities: playing table-tennis and badminton and acting as score keeper for the cricket team. Because the staff was so large I also thought it would be a good idea to publish an in-house newsletter so I got permission to compile and produce one each month. This gave me opportunities to speak to everyone in the organization on a regular basis and to make many new friends.

Perhaps because I was born well-endowed I also began to receive appreciative attention from several of the young male employees. Naturally, being a properly engaged young lady at the time, I deflected these attentions summarily but I must admit that it did add a little spice to my already busy work days.

Wedding plans.

When Jack and I got engaged my parents presented me with a huge cedar chest designed to contain a trousseau. I diligently set about filling it up with all sorts of hand-embroidered mats, table cloths, towels, sheets, pillow cases and everything else a young bride would need to set up housekeeping.

Then, one sunny Sunday afternoon, we found the perfect property on which to build our dream house: two acres of land outside of the city with a small stream running through it, flanked by an enormous willow tree. Perfect. Jack arranged to purchase it and we set about designing our dream house aided by my father, a knowledgeable builder himself, who knew all about the structural requirements for building houses.

Dad and I spent many hours at the kitchen table designing, drawing and redrawing architectural plans until at last I felt we had achieved perfection. It was to be a functional, airy home with large rooms and a covered verandah.

I could already see us sitting on the verandah looking out over a flower-filled garden falling gently away towards the stream and the beautiful weeping willow tree. I could even see two small children splashing happily in the little stream, they would look up every once in a while to shout "Hi, Mummy, we love you". It was a compelling picture depicting everything I had always wanted: a loving husband, two healthy children and a beautiful home of my own.

With so much falling into place it was now generally accepted that the wedding would happen sooner rather than later. So we set a date and started making out the invitation list. My future appeared destined to play itself out in ever-widening ripples of predictability.

On the work front, meanwhile, a young man called Bill Howard had been paying court to me quite blatantly for many months. Apparently he felt that, until a wedding ring appeared on my finger, I was fair game. In actual fact I was more like a sitting duck.

With no previous experience to protect me from the advances of an aggressive and persuasive young male, and the date of my wedding approaching fast, I was obliged to seriously question the sincerity of my desire to spend the future living a staid and comfortable life with Jack.

Jack, aware that a rift had suddenly developed between us, began to get really anxious and sought the advice of my brother. Ed thought that perhaps I was missing the parties and dances that young people enjoyed and suggested that Jack should take up dancing lessons. So Jack started to learn ballroom dancing in secret. In the meantime, unaware of this attempt to heal the rift between us, I had almost convinced myself that the engagement was now doomed.

At the end of several months of agonized soul-searching I finally concluded that because I had not only allowed, but actually enjoyed, the attentions of Bill, I could not possibly be fully committed to married life with Jack. The wedding would have to be called off.

Plucking up courage I broke the news to Jack one evening and, as expected, he was devastated. Sadly, it was over.... and nothing Jack could say or do would change my mind.

Hurting someone like that is not something I ever want to do again but I knew instinctively that it was wiser to break off the engagement before our marriage than to go through a divorce after the event. So I returned my diamond ring, and all the presents he had ever given me, and became once again a working girl with no ties to bind me.