22) Haig Park
If you have never moved into a brand new house you will never appreciate how dirty they are. I had moved into quite a few houses that had been left dirty by the previous occupants and was looking forward to moving into a lovely clean house this time. I was very quickly disillusioned, it was like moving on to a building site, but at least it was what my mother would have called “clean dirt” It was sawdust and cement. Spots of paint all over the place, the yard littered with broken bricks and all sorts of rubbish, but at least it was all ours.
Our furniture was moved in early in the morning and we set to work cleaning the inside first. In the afternoon one of us flushed the toilet and discovered that the water was not draining away. We had only been in the house an hour or two, so the plumber was called back again. It turned out that when the back of the toilet was connected with cement whoever had done it had not cleared the excess cement out of the pipe so there was very little space for the waste water to flow into the sewerage. But that got fixed and all was well again. It was pretty hard work getting the place clean. I love the smell of a new house, paint and wood and sawdust and cement but I don’t think I would like to build another house.
One of the first things we did once we moved in was to apply for permission to build a workshop and outside laundry. The plans were passed and we employed a local contract builder to do the job for us. We had decided that it would be plastered so chose pretty cheap bricks, they were called clinkers. They were the ones that were nearest to the furnaces and were baked a bit too much so did not look quite as attractive as the others but we did not mind that as we knew that they would not show. But what we did not know was that being baked a bit too much also made the much harder and when we came to chase the walls to put in the conduit for the electrical cables it was an almost impossible job and we ended up having to put the conduit on the walls instead of set into them. Our friend Sonny Mathison with whom we had stayed when we first came to Salisbury was an electrical contractor and he did the job for us.
We wanted to put up a carport and do all sorts of work around the place so we decided to buy a welding machine for Jonny; we thought it would be a useful thing to have. That was in 1969 and now in 2006, 37 years later we still have that same welding machine, I think it must be the most useful thing we have ever bought in our lives. Jonny has made and mended hundreds of things round the house, he has used it in various businesses he has had and it has never given any trouble, it is marvellous.
One of the first jobs that he did with the new welding machine was to make us a letterbox. We had paid the extra cost to have five foot fencing as we knew that our dog Saint would just step over the normal four foot and we had it in the pig wire netting not chicken wire netting to make sure that he would not get out and be a nuisance to anyone. So there was no chance of his getting out except if the gate was left open which it never was but when the postman came (why do dogs always hate the postman?) Saint would get the netting in his teeth and shake the fence with all his might. I would go to the fence and take the letters from the poor frightened postman, who was never in any danger but he was very scared. Eventually we got a notice from the post office to tell us that if we did not put in a post box they would no longer deliver our mail
Besides the letterbox and the carport another early thing I remember Jonny making was a Jungle Jim for the boys. It was free standing and so could be moved to any part of the garden and they had wonderful fun with it. Not only could they climb on it and swing from it but being portable they could use it for all sorts of games and we could also use it as a scaffold or a ladder for various jobs around the place. I think Jonny made a few like that for other kids too.
We also had to make a garden out of the building site and with the help of an African labourer we levelled it all and planted lawn. We went to the nursery to buy plants; I remember we bought mostly fruit trees. We were telling the lady who was serving us that we were making a brand new garden and she gave us some good advice about what we should and should not plant. One thing I do remember her telling us was that planning was very important in a garden and that we should have some places that when one turned the corner and stepped into them you got a lovely surprise and “you just say ‘Oo’ “. If she could only have seen how small our garden was (it was pretty small by Salisbury standards) and how little space there was to have an “ OO” Corner! After that whenever we walked around our little garden to see how things were growing we would turn the corner at the back end of the house and say “OO”.
Although the houses on the other side of the road were established homes all the houses on our side were brand new. I don’t remember who lived in the very first one but a couple called Marty and Jenny Cotzee and their two daughters Sharon and Dawn owned the second one. In the next house was a couple called Smith, I don’t remember their first names, and they had a baby boy. The next house, the one next door to us was a couple called Bob and Sylvia Pateman and their daughter. Bob had built their house himself and had included a granny flat for his mother-in-law. I remember once Jonny and Bob were talking at the fence when the Smith girl drove up in her mini car, she bent to get the baby out of the car and as she was wearing a mini skirt showed considerable amount of leg. Our parrot Koos who was in his cage on our veranda let out a lovely wolf whistle. She gave Bob and Jonny a filthy look and marched off with her nose in the air. I had been watching from the lounge window and had to laugh at the flabbergasted look on both men’s faces.
We had not been in the house very long when Jonathan started getting nightmares, a thing that he had never had before. He would wake crying and say that the policeman was coming to get him. Apparently one of the other children in the street had told him some story about the policeman locking him up that had frightened him. We had always believed that one should never frighten children with policemen, doctors or dentists and that they should feel that they were all their friends but we found that just talking to Jonathan about it was not enough so I rang the local police station and told them my dilemma and asked if we could bring him to visit them at the station. Jonny took Jonathan around and they were so good to him, they chatted to him and made friends with him and they let him sit in one of the patrol cars and listen to the two-way radios. One of the very young policemen who rode a motorbike accepted an invitation to our house and he let the boys wear his helmet and sit on his motorbike. It was the answer; Jonathan never had any nightmares after that.
The position of our house was good as we were very close to the junior school that the boys would be attending later on, within walking distance of a good shopping centre and near the bus stop to take the bus into the city if we wanted to. Until then the boys had not been accustomed to riding on buses and so they thought that it was a real treat. We did not go into the city often though, we mostly just walked to the local shops. I remember once as we were walking home, Dominic in the pushchair and Jonathan walking beside me, Jonathan started singing, not real words just gibberish. He said, “I am singing in Afrikaans Mummy” I replied “That nice, what is the song about Jonathan?” He looked at me as if I was a little simple “You known I don’t understand Afrikaans Mummy”.
Jonny bought a small boat, but it was not in a very good state of repair and he was working on it, rubbing it down and getting it ready for a new coat of paint. He had taken it off the trailer, which was parked around the side of the house. One afternoon Mrs. Smith (I wish I could think of her first name) was having tea with me and all the children were playing outside. There was a mighty scream and we rushed out to see our gardener lifting Dominic off the trailer. They had been climbing on it and he had slipped and caught the inside of his upper leg on one of the hooks that normally held the boat in place. He had been impaled there unable to get up or down until the gardener had come to his rescue. There was blood everywhere, I did not have our car that day and so Mrs. Smith offered to take us up to the doctor. We wrapped a clean cloth around Dominic’s leg and rushed to the doctor’s surgery. We must have looked a sight when we went into the surgery full of blood but Dr. Knight attended to us quickly, put four stitches in the wound and gave Dominic and anti tetanus injection. I remember Dominic was screaming and Dr. Knight was rather abrupt with him and said “Keep quiet” I was about to say, “Don’t talk to him like that” when I realised it was just what Dominic needed to calm him down, he stopped screaming and just let the doctor do whatever he needed to without any more fuss. We both calmed down after that.
Our furniture was moved in early in the morning and we set to work cleaning the inside first. In the afternoon one of us flushed the toilet and discovered that the water was not draining away. We had only been in the house an hour or two, so the plumber was called back again. It turned out that when the back of the toilet was connected with cement whoever had done it had not cleared the excess cement out of the pipe so there was very little space for the waste water to flow into the sewerage. But that got fixed and all was well again. It was pretty hard work getting the place clean. I love the smell of a new house, paint and wood and sawdust and cement but I don’t think I would like to build another house.
One of the first things we did once we moved in was to apply for permission to build a workshop and outside laundry. The plans were passed and we employed a local contract builder to do the job for us. We had decided that it would be plastered so chose pretty cheap bricks, they were called clinkers. They were the ones that were nearest to the furnaces and were baked a bit too much so did not look quite as attractive as the others but we did not mind that as we knew that they would not show. But what we did not know was that being baked a bit too much also made the much harder and when we came to chase the walls to put in the conduit for the electrical cables it was an almost impossible job and we ended up having to put the conduit on the walls instead of set into them. Our friend Sonny Mathison with whom we had stayed when we first came to Salisbury was an electrical contractor and he did the job for us.
We wanted to put up a carport and do all sorts of work around the place so we decided to buy a welding machine for Jonny; we thought it would be a useful thing to have. That was in 1969 and now in 2006, 37 years later we still have that same welding machine, I think it must be the most useful thing we have ever bought in our lives. Jonny has made and mended hundreds of things round the house, he has used it in various businesses he has had and it has never given any trouble, it is marvellous.
One of the first jobs that he did with the new welding machine was to make us a letterbox. We had paid the extra cost to have five foot fencing as we knew that our dog Saint would just step over the normal four foot and we had it in the pig wire netting not chicken wire netting to make sure that he would not get out and be a nuisance to anyone. So there was no chance of his getting out except if the gate was left open which it never was but when the postman came (why do dogs always hate the postman?) Saint would get the netting in his teeth and shake the fence with all his might. I would go to the fence and take the letters from the poor frightened postman, who was never in any danger but he was very scared. Eventually we got a notice from the post office to tell us that if we did not put in a post box they would no longer deliver our mail
Besides the letterbox and the carport another early thing I remember Jonny making was a Jungle Jim for the boys. It was free standing and so could be moved to any part of the garden and they had wonderful fun with it. Not only could they climb on it and swing from it but being portable they could use it for all sorts of games and we could also use it as a scaffold or a ladder for various jobs around the place. I think Jonny made a few like that for other kids too.
We also had to make a garden out of the building site and with the help of an African labourer we levelled it all and planted lawn. We went to the nursery to buy plants; I remember we bought mostly fruit trees. We were telling the lady who was serving us that we were making a brand new garden and she gave us some good advice about what we should and should not plant. One thing I do remember her telling us was that planning was very important in a garden and that we should have some places that when one turned the corner and stepped into them you got a lovely surprise and “you just say ‘Oo’ “. If she could only have seen how small our garden was (it was pretty small by Salisbury standards) and how little space there was to have an “ OO” Corner! After that whenever we walked around our little garden to see how things were growing we would turn the corner at the back end of the house and say “OO”.
Although the houses on the other side of the road were established homes all the houses on our side were brand new. I don’t remember who lived in the very first one but a couple called Marty and Jenny Cotzee and their two daughters Sharon and Dawn owned the second one. In the next house was a couple called Smith, I don’t remember their first names, and they had a baby boy. The next house, the one next door to us was a couple called Bob and Sylvia Pateman and their daughter. Bob had built their house himself and had included a granny flat for his mother-in-law. I remember once Jonny and Bob were talking at the fence when the Smith girl drove up in her mini car, she bent to get the baby out of the car and as she was wearing a mini skirt showed considerable amount of leg. Our parrot Koos who was in his cage on our veranda let out a lovely wolf whistle. She gave Bob and Jonny a filthy look and marched off with her nose in the air. I had been watching from the lounge window and had to laugh at the flabbergasted look on both men’s faces.
We had not been in the house very long when Jonathan started getting nightmares, a thing that he had never had before. He would wake crying and say that the policeman was coming to get him. Apparently one of the other children in the street had told him some story about the policeman locking him up that had frightened him. We had always believed that one should never frighten children with policemen, doctors or dentists and that they should feel that they were all their friends but we found that just talking to Jonathan about it was not enough so I rang the local police station and told them my dilemma and asked if we could bring him to visit them at the station. Jonny took Jonathan around and they were so good to him, they chatted to him and made friends with him and they let him sit in one of the patrol cars and listen to the two-way radios. One of the very young policemen who rode a motorbike accepted an invitation to our house and he let the boys wear his helmet and sit on his motorbike. It was the answer; Jonathan never had any nightmares after that.
The position of our house was good as we were very close to the junior school that the boys would be attending later on, within walking distance of a good shopping centre and near the bus stop to take the bus into the city if we wanted to. Until then the boys had not been accustomed to riding on buses and so they thought that it was a real treat. We did not go into the city often though, we mostly just walked to the local shops. I remember once as we were walking home, Dominic in the pushchair and Jonathan walking beside me, Jonathan started singing, not real words just gibberish. He said, “I am singing in Afrikaans Mummy” I replied “That nice, what is the song about Jonathan?” He looked at me as if I was a little simple “You known I don’t understand Afrikaans Mummy”.
Jonny bought a small boat, but it was not in a very good state of repair and he was working on it, rubbing it down and getting it ready for a new coat of paint. He had taken it off the trailer, which was parked around the side of the house. One afternoon Mrs. Smith (I wish I could think of her first name) was having tea with me and all the children were playing outside. There was a mighty scream and we rushed out to see our gardener lifting Dominic off the trailer. They had been climbing on it and he had slipped and caught the inside of his upper leg on one of the hooks that normally held the boat in place. He had been impaled there unable to get up or down until the gardener had come to his rescue. There was blood everywhere, I did not have our car that day and so Mrs. Smith offered to take us up to the doctor. We wrapped a clean cloth around Dominic’s leg and rushed to the doctor’s surgery. We must have looked a sight when we went into the surgery full of blood but Dr. Knight attended to us quickly, put four stitches in the wound and gave Dominic and anti tetanus injection. I remember Dominic was screaming and Dr. Knight was rather abrupt with him and said “Keep quiet” I was about to say, “Don’t talk to him like that” when I realised it was just what Dominic needed to calm him down, he stopped screaming and just let the doctor do whatever he needed to without any more fuss. We both calmed down after that.
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