84) 3 Nuffield St.
When Jonny started with South African Coal Estates he was sent to RLT (the Rapid Loading Terminal) to work. The RTL was the rail head where most of the surrounding coal mines delivered their coal for it to be loaded on to trains to be transported to Richards Bay in Natal for export all over the world. I don’t remember the figures now but the amount of coal that was handled by the RTL was enormous and the trains were very long. Part of Jonny’s job was the maintenance of and repairs to the loading equipment. The coal made it a very dirty job and although he was not going underground he would come home from work just as dirty as any miner. I remember how the boys laughed when after their Dad had kissed me ‘hello’ on returning from work I would have a black spot on the end of my nose. Thankfully the Coal Estates would launder the work overalls, but the clothing he wore under his overall was all pretty black and not very easy to get clean. Still we were grateful for the employment and not complaining too much.
One of the other advantages of working for the mines was that we now had medical insurance and could get all our medical, dental and optical treatment at a very reduced rate. This was a big help when I hurt my back. I was typing with the typewriter on a table that was too low and so I had been sitting in an awkward and uncomfortable position for quite a while. I ended up with a very painful back that no painkillers seemed to help. I went to the doctor and he could not find the cause of my problem so he recommended that I have some tests done. I had x-rays and some other tests done and it was diagnosed that I had osteo-arthritis in my spine. The doctor told me that it was due to the aging process and he sent me to a physiotherapist for treatment. When I spoke to the physio about my spine she told me that she found that all the women who came to her for treatment had problems because “of ageing” but for some strange reason all the men’s problems were caused by “sports injuries”. Maybe they are right when they say that men and women are from different planets. She gave me some exercises to do to strengthen my muscles and told me that I needed to do them regularly. One of the exercises entailed kneeling on the floor next to a low table, bending my body over the table, stretching my arms out and lifting a couple of large heavy tins of food up and down. I couldn’t do this very well as the boys had seen me doing it and asked if I was pretending to be an aeroplane or a big bird trying to take off. I tried locking myself in my bedroom but they teased me through the closed door and we all laughed so much that it was not very beneficial. One thing the physiotherapist was very sure of was that I needed to keep moving, that if I gave in to the pain it would get worse. I was hoping that she would prescribe that I went to bed and had a glass of red wine and a chocolate bar each day. I am still looking for a doctor that will prescribe this as the cure for all ailments, if you know of one please send me his name. After trying a few different pain killers the doctor was able to give me one that took away the pain but there is no reversal of old age so if I am not careful I do get trouble with my back but know what to do now so it is not a big problem.
While I was in the middle of all this problem with my back South African Coal Estates told Jonny that there were now houses available in Tassbet Park and they gave us the keys of a few for us to go and choose the one we wanted. One of them was 3 Nuffield St., the house that I was so interested in because we could not see into it. Once inside I decided that this was the house for us. The road side of the house only had windows in the dining room and the kitchen, the windows in all the other rooms faced the other way, they all faced north which made it a lovely warm house in the winter but nice and cool in the summer. It was a three bed roomed one bath roomed house with a bedroom and shower room for a domestic servant off a small courtyard beyond the kitchen. As we did not employ a servant it meant that we had four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Jonathan used the outside room first and then Dominic later. There was good cupboard space throughout the house and the kitchen was spacious and well designed. There was carpeting throughout and a lovely sunny patio at the back. The yard was not big but there was five foot walling around the back of the yard and three foot walling around the front yard so we did not feel that our neighbours were looking in on us even when we were in the garden. But best of all, the cherry on top of the cake, it did not leak, what a pleasure.
We borrowed a van from a friend and planned to move ourselves, young Richard Phillips offered to help so with the four men it should not have been a problem. My job was to do the packing before hand and just tell them where everything was supposed to go. Unfortunately I was having a lot of pain at the time so I did not do my side of things and when moving day came had not done much packing, but the men did not complain. They took the boxes that had been packed, moved them to the new house tipped them out on the lounge floor and came back for another load. They filled the boxes once again and repeated the process so you can imagine what the lounge looked like when I got there, just a huge pile of belongings all jumbled up. I managed to find the kettle and the teacups, always the most important things to keep at hand on moving day and I think we sent out for takeaways so all was well. It did take me a long time to get myself sorted out and everything packed away in the cupboards when the men went back to work the next week.
We realised that Rocky would just step over the wall at the front of the house so we had to put up fencing to restrict him to the back yard. Normally the door to the back yard stood open so Rocky had the run of the house the courtyard and the yard but his favourite place was the dinning room window. It was a long window that went right down to floor level and he loved to sit there and watch the people walk up and down the street. He would bark at anyone who came into the yard. Our neighbours thought that he was a great watch dog as he sat there watching over us but I think it was more nosiness, he liked to see what was going on. He was not a vicious dog but made a lot of noise when a stranger came to the door. Once we had let the person in he was quite happy, he figured that if we were happy with them so was he. I do remember not long after we moved onto Nuffield St a repair man came from the Coal Estate to do some work on the curtain rail over the window in the dining room. I let him in and Rocky was fine but then the repair man got between me and Rocky and for some reason Rocky did not like that. He barked and lunged at the man. Fortunately the dinning room table was in the dog’s way and he could not reach the poor man, who got a huge fright. It taught me that Rocky was far more protective of us than I had realised, so from then on I was more careful when there were strangers around.
One of the other advantages of working for the mines was that we now had medical insurance and could get all our medical, dental and optical treatment at a very reduced rate. This was a big help when I hurt my back. I was typing with the typewriter on a table that was too low and so I had been sitting in an awkward and uncomfortable position for quite a while. I ended up with a very painful back that no painkillers seemed to help. I went to the doctor and he could not find the cause of my problem so he recommended that I have some tests done. I had x-rays and some other tests done and it was diagnosed that I had osteo-arthritis in my spine. The doctor told me that it was due to the aging process and he sent me to a physiotherapist for treatment. When I spoke to the physio about my spine she told me that she found that all the women who came to her for treatment had problems because “of ageing” but for some strange reason all the men’s problems were caused by “sports injuries”. Maybe they are right when they say that men and women are from different planets. She gave me some exercises to do to strengthen my muscles and told me that I needed to do them regularly. One of the exercises entailed kneeling on the floor next to a low table, bending my body over the table, stretching my arms out and lifting a couple of large heavy tins of food up and down. I couldn’t do this very well as the boys had seen me doing it and asked if I was pretending to be an aeroplane or a big bird trying to take off. I tried locking myself in my bedroom but they teased me through the closed door and we all laughed so much that it was not very beneficial. One thing the physiotherapist was very sure of was that I needed to keep moving, that if I gave in to the pain it would get worse. I was hoping that she would prescribe that I went to bed and had a glass of red wine and a chocolate bar each day. I am still looking for a doctor that will prescribe this as the cure for all ailments, if you know of one please send me his name. After trying a few different pain killers the doctor was able to give me one that took away the pain but there is no reversal of old age so if I am not careful I do get trouble with my back but know what to do now so it is not a big problem.
While I was in the middle of all this problem with my back South African Coal Estates told Jonny that there were now houses available in Tassbet Park and they gave us the keys of a few for us to go and choose the one we wanted. One of them was 3 Nuffield St., the house that I was so interested in because we could not see into it. Once inside I decided that this was the house for us. The road side of the house only had windows in the dining room and the kitchen, the windows in all the other rooms faced the other way, they all faced north which made it a lovely warm house in the winter but nice and cool in the summer. It was a three bed roomed one bath roomed house with a bedroom and shower room for a domestic servant off a small courtyard beyond the kitchen. As we did not employ a servant it meant that we had four bedrooms and two bathrooms. Jonathan used the outside room first and then Dominic later. There was good cupboard space throughout the house and the kitchen was spacious and well designed. There was carpeting throughout and a lovely sunny patio at the back. The yard was not big but there was five foot walling around the back of the yard and three foot walling around the front yard so we did not feel that our neighbours were looking in on us even when we were in the garden. But best of all, the cherry on top of the cake, it did not leak, what a pleasure.
We borrowed a van from a friend and planned to move ourselves, young Richard Phillips offered to help so with the four men it should not have been a problem. My job was to do the packing before hand and just tell them where everything was supposed to go. Unfortunately I was having a lot of pain at the time so I did not do my side of things and when moving day came had not done much packing, but the men did not complain. They took the boxes that had been packed, moved them to the new house tipped them out on the lounge floor and came back for another load. They filled the boxes once again and repeated the process so you can imagine what the lounge looked like when I got there, just a huge pile of belongings all jumbled up. I managed to find the kettle and the teacups, always the most important things to keep at hand on moving day and I think we sent out for takeaways so all was well. It did take me a long time to get myself sorted out and everything packed away in the cupboards when the men went back to work the next week.
We realised that Rocky would just step over the wall at the front of the house so we had to put up fencing to restrict him to the back yard. Normally the door to the back yard stood open so Rocky had the run of the house the courtyard and the yard but his favourite place was the dinning room window. It was a long window that went right down to floor level and he loved to sit there and watch the people walk up and down the street. He would bark at anyone who came into the yard. Our neighbours thought that he was a great watch dog as he sat there watching over us but I think it was more nosiness, he liked to see what was going on. He was not a vicious dog but made a lot of noise when a stranger came to the door. Once we had let the person in he was quite happy, he figured that if we were happy with them so was he. I do remember not long after we moved onto Nuffield St a repair man came from the Coal Estate to do some work on the curtain rail over the window in the dining room. I let him in and Rocky was fine but then the repair man got between me and Rocky and for some reason Rocky did not like that. He barked and lunged at the man. Fortunately the dinning room table was in the dog’s way and he could not reach the poor man, who got a huge fright. It taught me that Rocky was far more protective of us than I had realised, so from then on I was more careful when there were strangers around.
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