41) House Guests
In 1974 our niece Bernice came to stay with us. Her father and mother (Jonny’s sister Cecilia) were not happy with the situation in the schools in Zambia but did not want her to go to boarding school. Cecilia enrolled her in Hatfield Girls High school that was not too far away from us. Shortly before the new term was to start they brought down most of her things. I remember they brought her bicycle. I had never learnt to ride a bicycle as a child but had seen my boys learning quickly enough so I thought I could learn too. I remember one Saturday afternoon Jonny and the boys gave me advice and I tried to ride, it was not as easy as it looked and I did not do very well. We had had quite a bit of rain and the ground was pretty muddy so I was rather a mess after I had fallen off a few times. Eventually Jonny and the boys went to pick up a friend whom we had invited to supper. He was a single guy called Bob who did not have any transport so he had to be collected from town. I was supposed to be getting cleaned up and getting the supper ready while they were gone but thought I would have just one more try with the bike after they had gone. For the first time I managed to stay upright for a few feet and was very pleased with myself so I had to have another try. This time I went a little further before falling off so I had to try again and again until I got it. Jonny, Bob and the kids came back to find my covered from head to toe in mud and no supper ready but I was very proud of my achievement and had to show them before I went for a shower and made them some food. The bike was a size 24 so it suited me with my short little legs. Not long after Bernice was upgraded to a size 26 and I got to use the old one. I used to ride it down to the shops and to the library but was always a very nervous rider and envied the way that all the children treated their bikes like an extra limb and were as agile on their bikes as they were on their feet. I would have liked to have been like that.
Also in 1974 our friends Ray and Jill Wain had the opportunity to go on a three month trip to America and asked us if their two youngest girls could come and stay with us. Toni had just started school so was about six years old and Diane was in collage. It meant that I would have to collect Toni from school every day so they said that they would leave one of their cars for us to use. We did not have a television set so they would lend us one of theirs. I don’t remember where their oldest girl Colleen stayed. From being a household of four we were suddenly a household of 7 and it was quite a squeeze. The three girls were in one bedroom and the boys in another and Jonny and I in the third one. Bathroom space was a bit of a problem as the girls liked to spend lots of time in the bathroom but we managed. I remember Bernice being the worst; she would fill the bath with lovely smelly bath salts, lie in the water until it had gone cold then jump out and dry herself, leaving a dirty mark around the bath and one around her neck. Yes she was a very typical 13 year old.
When Ray and Jill came home they brought us a vase made by the Red Indians that unfortunately got broken somehow and a small statuette of the “Three Graces” that they got when they were in Greece on their way home. We still have that. They took their girls and the car home but they left us with the television set. Then only having one house guest the house felt empty again.
Whenever they could Derrick and Cecilia would come and visit Bernice. One afternoon Derrick had gone to the airport to see about the flight plan for their return trip, Cecilia and I were in the house, the children were around somewhere and we heard a large plane going over our house. Our house was near to the airport so we were used to hearing the planes but this one was not on the usual flight path and so it caught my attention. I ran outside to see what was happening and saw a South African Airways commercial plane flying along with two Rhodesian Air Force jets one on either side. We wandered what it could mean but when Derrick came home he told us that he has not been able to sort out his flight plan as there had been a real life drama going on at the airport. A SAA plane had been hijacked, it had landed at Salisbury airport but the authorities had refused to give them some more fuel so they just took off again. The Air Force jets had been scrambled to see them out of our air space. The plane later landed in Blantyre in Malawi and if I remember correctly, the passengers were all taken off safely but I think the plane sat on the tarmac for a long time. It was reported that it was there so long it’s air worthy certificate had expired and it could not be flown back to South Africa but it could not get a new certificate in Malawi as they did not have the facilities for it to be done there. I wonder what happened to it in the end.
Another time that Cecilia and Derrick came to visit Bernice there was a gymkhana show on that Cecilia and Bernice wanted to see so we all went along for the afternoon. Cecilia and I were sitting together watching the horses being put through their dressage paces by the young riders. They were all smartly dressed in jodhpurs, riding jackets and hard riding hats. The girls had to have their long hair covered in a net and as at that time the boys were beginning to wear their hair long they too had to wear a net over it. One rider was very young and slim and I remarked to Cecilia “It’s hard to tell if they are male or female these days” and Cecilia who obviously was not thinking about what I was thinking about said “Oh they are all gelded for the dressage shows” I was horrified for a moment, I have heard of dedication to ones sport but I thought that that was taking things a little far. Then of course I realised that where I had been talking about the riders Cecilia had been talking about the horses, I was much relieved to know.
Cecilia had started a slimming business in Zambia and one time she came and stayed with us for a whole week so that she could attend a course on a new slimming product that she wished to offer her clients. She did the course and bought a stock of the product, which was a type of bandage that was soaked in a special liquid. Then the operator would wrap the client in the bandages and after a prescribed time the bandages would be removed and she would be measurably slimmer. At the end of her weeks course Cecilia took delivery of her boxes of her new product and the same evening Derrick arrived to take her home to Zambia. She was very eager to see how well the product worked so she persuaded me to have one of her slimming treatments. She wrapped me up in bandages from neck to toe and I was supposed to lay still on the bed for about half an hour but Derrick popped his head around the door saw me lying like a mummy and roared with laughter. That started me off and soon we were all in stitches. Maybe that was why the treatment was a failure and I was no slimmer when we had finished than I had been in the beginning, but we did have a jolly good laugh.
Also in 1974 our friends Ray and Jill Wain had the opportunity to go on a three month trip to America and asked us if their two youngest girls could come and stay with us. Toni had just started school so was about six years old and Diane was in collage. It meant that I would have to collect Toni from school every day so they said that they would leave one of their cars for us to use. We did not have a television set so they would lend us one of theirs. I don’t remember where their oldest girl Colleen stayed. From being a household of four we were suddenly a household of 7 and it was quite a squeeze. The three girls were in one bedroom and the boys in another and Jonny and I in the third one. Bathroom space was a bit of a problem as the girls liked to spend lots of time in the bathroom but we managed. I remember Bernice being the worst; she would fill the bath with lovely smelly bath salts, lie in the water until it had gone cold then jump out and dry herself, leaving a dirty mark around the bath and one around her neck. Yes she was a very typical 13 year old.
When Ray and Jill came home they brought us a vase made by the Red Indians that unfortunately got broken somehow and a small statuette of the “Three Graces” that they got when they were in Greece on their way home. We still have that. They took their girls and the car home but they left us with the television set. Then only having one house guest the house felt empty again.
Whenever they could Derrick and Cecilia would come and visit Bernice. One afternoon Derrick had gone to the airport to see about the flight plan for their return trip, Cecilia and I were in the house, the children were around somewhere and we heard a large plane going over our house. Our house was near to the airport so we were used to hearing the planes but this one was not on the usual flight path and so it caught my attention. I ran outside to see what was happening and saw a South African Airways commercial plane flying along with two Rhodesian Air Force jets one on either side. We wandered what it could mean but when Derrick came home he told us that he has not been able to sort out his flight plan as there had been a real life drama going on at the airport. A SAA plane had been hijacked, it had landed at Salisbury airport but the authorities had refused to give them some more fuel so they just took off again. The Air Force jets had been scrambled to see them out of our air space. The plane later landed in Blantyre in Malawi and if I remember correctly, the passengers were all taken off safely but I think the plane sat on the tarmac for a long time. It was reported that it was there so long it’s air worthy certificate had expired and it could not be flown back to South Africa but it could not get a new certificate in Malawi as they did not have the facilities for it to be done there. I wonder what happened to it in the end.
Another time that Cecilia and Derrick came to visit Bernice there was a gymkhana show on that Cecilia and Bernice wanted to see so we all went along for the afternoon. Cecilia and I were sitting together watching the horses being put through their dressage paces by the young riders. They were all smartly dressed in jodhpurs, riding jackets and hard riding hats. The girls had to have their long hair covered in a net and as at that time the boys were beginning to wear their hair long they too had to wear a net over it. One rider was very young and slim and I remarked to Cecilia “It’s hard to tell if they are male or female these days” and Cecilia who obviously was not thinking about what I was thinking about said “Oh they are all gelded for the dressage shows” I was horrified for a moment, I have heard of dedication to ones sport but I thought that that was taking things a little far. Then of course I realised that where I had been talking about the riders Cecilia had been talking about the horses, I was much relieved to know.
Cecilia had started a slimming business in Zambia and one time she came and stayed with us for a whole week so that she could attend a course on a new slimming product that she wished to offer her clients. She did the course and bought a stock of the product, which was a type of bandage that was soaked in a special liquid. Then the operator would wrap the client in the bandages and after a prescribed time the bandages would be removed and she would be measurably slimmer. At the end of her weeks course Cecilia took delivery of her boxes of her new product and the same evening Derrick arrived to take her home to Zambia. She was very eager to see how well the product worked so she persuaded me to have one of her slimming treatments. She wrapped me up in bandages from neck to toe and I was supposed to lay still on the bed for about half an hour but Derrick popped his head around the door saw me lying like a mummy and roared with laughter. That started me off and soon we were all in stitches. Maybe that was why the treatment was a failure and I was no slimmer when we had finished than I had been in the beginning, but we did have a jolly good laugh.
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