83) Another New Job

Also while we were still in Jackaroo Park we got a visit from our neighbours from Hatfield, Mervyn and Beryl Shaw with their family. We were expecting them to call in as we knew they were on holiday in the area but we had thought that they would ring us first as they did not have our physical address, only a post office box number. We waited and waited for a phone call but none came and then one evening there was the Shaw family at our front door. It turned out that they had forgotten to bring their address book with them so they did not even have our telephone number and had no idea how to get in touch with us. They decided that as they remembered that we had a post office box they would go to the post office and ask for our address. While Beryl sat in the car with the children Mervyn went into the post office to try and trace us. The people in the post office were not at all cooperative, they said that they were not allowed to reveal that information and so they could not help. Mervyn went back to the car and told Beryl that it was hopeless. Beryl was not going to take no for an answer. She told us that she told her family all to say a little pray that she would be more successful than Mervyn and off she went to do battle with the officials. She said that she just went up to the counter told the lady her tale of woe and was immediately give our address. Maybe she looked more trustworthy than Mervyn. It was good to see them. To hear all their news and to hear how other friends from Hatfield were doing.

Mervyn and Beryl with Craig and Gregory when they visited us in Witbank

Their three boys, Kevin, Gregory and Craig are all married and still living in Zimbabwe with their families. Their daughter Karen is also married but she and her husband are living in England. Mervyn and Beryl are living in Scotland now and seem to have settled there very well. We keep in touch via the email and they send lovely photos of the surrounding countryside but it all looks too cold for me.

Mervyn and Beryl on their 44th Wedding Anniversary in Scotland

Our business was not growing the way we had hoped so Jonny began to look for a job to support us all. He was 48 at the time and it was getting harder and harder to obtain employment, no one wanted to take on such an old man. This was a large mining area and after talking to other people that worked for the mines we thought that it would be good to get that kind of job, with medical aid and pension and also company housing. He started applying to all the mines in the area and went for many interviews. I usually went with him and after each interview we would have a look at the mine village where the employees were housed. Most of them were new modern houses in bright shiny villages and others were older but they were all well maintained and pleasant to live in. The older villages like Douglas or Landau Mines had much bigger gardens and although the houses were old they had large rooms and big trees in the gardens. The more modern ones like Duvha, had smaller houses and smaller gardens and many of them had not had time for the gardens to mature. Some of the houses were in a separate village while others were part of the main town of Witbank. I remember that I particularly liked the village of Douglas which was one of those that was separate. The houses were old but the village was well set out and the well-treed gardens encircled the playing fields in the centre. There was a clubhouse, a swimming pool, a junior school, a library, a clinic and a small shop. I thought it would be very pleasant to live there but it was not to be, as they did not have work for Jonny.
We knew that a man who was an engineer on the mine in Chingola, Zambia when Jonny was employed there was now working for the South African Coal Estates. His name was Chimpy Stein but we did not like the idea of presuming on old friendships to get a job so at first we made no attempt to contact him. But as the time went by and we could see that Jonny’s age was proving to be a negative factor in his hunt for a job we decided to pocket our pride and call on Chimpy. He proved to be very friendly and willing to help and in no time at all Jonny got a job with the Coal Estates. We were told that there was no housing available at the time but that we would be put on the waiting list. That was fine with us as we had a place to live in the meanwhile. We were told that the housing was in a suburb of Witbank called Tassbet Park and so we went and had a look around to see what it was like. I was very impressed with them as they were modern and attractively designed. There were about eight or ten different designs but by mirroring them or placing them at different angles on the land they did not have the uniform look of a mining village. Who ever had planed them had given some thought to the privacy of the occupants and so although the yards were rather small each house was well positioned. There were a few empty houses that were waiting to be painted and for repairs to be done before they were offered to new employees and we were able to have a better look at them. There was one house that I was particularly interested in because it was so hard to see what it was like inside. There were only two windows on the road side of the house so it was hard to see what it was like but that was what appealed to me, it made it a very private house. We were looking forward to moving and wondered which house we would be allocated.