103) Another Move
Our landlady rang us and told us that they had a buyer for the house. We were amazed and rather concerned, as we knew that rental accommodation was not easy to find at a reasonable price in the area. We were given about 6 weeks notice of the new owners intended occupation and so we started looking for a place to move to. Getting up early every morning and rushing out to get the paper to try and find something before anyone else was up but all to no avail we just could not find anything. I am usually a very good sleeper and not much keeps me awake but I do remember not being able to sleep at that time, as I was so worried. Jonny told me not to worry something would turn up and of course he was right. We heard that the textile factories in a place called Mpumalanga that was not far from where we were living was closing down. The companies supplied houses for their workers and we thought that if there was no work they might have empty houses and might be prepared to rent one of them to us. We went and had a look at the company village and found that the houses were very nice and that there were a number of empty ones. We rang one of the companies, a firm called Hebox, but we were told that the houses could only be rented to their employees. Then someone gave us the name of a lady who worked in the department dealing with the houses and so we rang her. She was quite certain that she could only let an employee live in any of the houses but Jonny convinced her that it was better to have someone living in the house and looking after it. As there were many empty houses and the company was laying off workers and not employing new ones it was very unlikely that a situation would arise when they did not have a house to offer to a new employee. We asked her if she would approach her boss on our behalf and tell him that we would like to rent off them and we would understand that if their circumstances changed and they needed the house we would move out. We had a few anxious days awaiting the answer but eventually we got a positive reply and were told to collect the keys for 11 Hulletts Rd. Mpumalanga. The house had been empty for a little while so it needed a good clean out and there were a few repairs to be done. We rang the lady in the office, thanked her and said we were happy with the house. To make sure that we would not be blamed for any of the things that were broken in the house we listed the faults but we did not expect that they would do anything about them. In fact they did all the repairs and gave the place a bit of a clean out before we moved in. The rent that they were asking was about half the rent that we were paying in our present house so we were in a win, win situation.
The people who were buying the Sunbird Road house came back and for a couple of times before they moved in. They wanted to measure for curtains and carpets and that sort of thing. The lady told me that she was going to have all new fitted carpets and had got permission from our landlady to pull up all the existing carpets ready for the new ones to be laid. They brought some of their belongings and asked if they could leave them there. As they would not be in our way we agreed. Jonny also asked if they would let us leave some spare steel there with them until we had the chance to move it later on. They also agreed to this.
Then we had to organise the transfer to our electricity and water accounts to the new house. When I went to do this I was told that I had to give them a months notice but as we only had about 10 days I had to plead with them to waive the rules and get everything done in time. They were a bit like Hebox, they started out very negative and not wanting to help us in any way but once they changed their minds they were very good and could not do enough for us.
Dominic moved from Witbank and came to stay with us. He was looking for a job but it was not easy and he went for dozens of interviews. It was good to have him with us while we moved, he was a great help. Ken Thompson agreed to lend us one of the trucks from the hardware business and a couple of his staff also helped with the move.
Before the date of our move we received another letter from my mother to tell us that she had made more inquires about sending us the money for the house and that her bank manager had said that it could be done. I think the only problem would be if she were to die within five years. Then we would be liable for some sort of inheritance tax but as she had no intention of dying she thought it was quite safe to send us the money. So once again we got in touch with Margaret Crawford and told her that we were in the market for a house once again. By this time most of the houses we had looked at before were sold so it meant we had to start house hunting again.
11 Hulletts Road was a rather unusual house. It was built on the side of a steep slope so the front part of the house was on two levels and the back part was only one level. The main door was in the back of the house and when you came in the main door you then had to go down a short flight of stairs to the lounge, dining room and kitchen. On the same level as the main door were the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. With the two other bedrooms up another few steps. As we knew that we were looking for a house to buy we just unpacked the things that we needed to be comfortable and left quite a lot of our boxes just piled up in the third bedroom.
Over the previous couple of weeks we had been in touch with Wendy and Stuart Hall, our friends in King Williams Town. Their son Robbie was planning to run the Comrades Marathon and we had invited him to come and stay with us before and after the race. We had hoped that all the family would come up for the race but in the end just Robbie, Stuart and Robbie’s wife came to stay. They arrived the day before the race and we arranged to have pasta for supper. I remember the local newspapers would always be full of advice about race preparation and what to eat to keep up your stamina. Everyone was eating as much pasta or pizza as possible, it was called “carbo-loading” and it was the in thing for runners.
Rob, his wife and Stuart left the house in the very early hours of the morning, as they had to be in Pietermaritzburg for a 6 am start. The Comrades is a very popular race, it is an Ultra Marathon and is approximately 90 kms long. There are about thirteen thousand runners assembled at the starting point before dawn to hear the “cock crow” that tells them that it is time to go. In 1948 one of the 44 entrants of that year, a man called Max Trimborn while waiting at the start line cupped his hands together and issued a rooster crow. The other runners so enjoyed it that they demanded that he repeat it each year. He did so for many years and even wore feathers sometimes. The “cock crow” has become very much part of the tradition of the race and although Max died in 1985 his crowing had been recoded for many years and so he still presides at the start of the race and it would not be the same without him.
The race is a big event in South Africa and many people take a picnic or a braai and camp along the route to cheer the runners on. We did not do that; we just watched the race on television. The race is televised live every year and many people watch it all day, even when they say that “this year we are not going to waste the whole day watching that race” I suppose the fact that there are so many runners and everyone knows a couple of people who are running made us want to see if we would recognise any one we knew. I remember when we first arrived in South Africa and did not have a television a friend asked if we would be watching the Comrades the next day. We said, “No, we don’t even have a TV”. The friend was so shocked, “You have to watch the Comrades, we will lend you our old black and white TV set”. We said that we weren’t really worried about not seeing the race but she was very insistent. No amount of refusing would convince her and she arranged for her husband to deliver the TV that evening so that we would not miss “the race”. Race day was a public holiday so most people did not have to go to work. I never got up to see the start and hear the “cock crow”, but once I did get up I turned it on to see how it was going. Usually by the time I got up the first runners were about half way as the best runners do it in about five and a half hours. Being so close to the race route we would hear the television helicopters flying low overhead all day. The coverage of the race was very good, and once the gold medallists had finished the cameras would be turned on all the “also rans”. Many of them very dedicated athletes who knew that they could not compete with the front runners but who wanted to better their personal best times and finish the race well. There were others who only entered for fun, they would wear funny costumes, or do silly things to get themselves noticed by the cameras so that their friends and family would see them on the telly. As everyone had to qualify for the race, they had to do a standard marathon within a certain time, they were good runners but not quite so dedicated as the others. One has to take ones hat off to them no matter what; to run almost 100 kilometres in the cut off time of eleven hours is not bad at all.
We did not know what time to expect the Hall family back as Robbie had not run the Comrades before so we had no idea how long he would take or if he would even finished. All day we kept popping back to the television set in the hope of seeing him amongst the thousands of other runners. Robbie was wearing a large ugly green hat, which he said was his lucky running hat. He told us that his mum Wendy hated the hat and did not want him to wear it but it was distinctive and was something to look for in the crowd. We didn’t see him, although in a subsequent year when he ran we did manage to pick him out by the ‘lucky hat’, At about six o’clock they came in, so excited that not only had Robbie finished but he also won a bronze medal, which meant he had finished within eleven hours. I think he had done it in just over ten hours. He was so excited and did not seem any the worst for his ordeal. We all sat down around the fire for our braai and to hear what it was like. Robbie told us all about it and then tried to get up out of his chair and found he could not move. He was so stiff that he was hobbling around after that and had to sleep on the floor in the lounge, as he could not get up the steps. But he had finished the race and got a bronze medal so he was happy.
The people who were buying the Sunbird Road house came back and for a couple of times before they moved in. They wanted to measure for curtains and carpets and that sort of thing. The lady told me that she was going to have all new fitted carpets and had got permission from our landlady to pull up all the existing carpets ready for the new ones to be laid. They brought some of their belongings and asked if they could leave them there. As they would not be in our way we agreed. Jonny also asked if they would let us leave some spare steel there with them until we had the chance to move it later on. They also agreed to this.
Then we had to organise the transfer to our electricity and water accounts to the new house. When I went to do this I was told that I had to give them a months notice but as we only had about 10 days I had to plead with them to waive the rules and get everything done in time. They were a bit like Hebox, they started out very negative and not wanting to help us in any way but once they changed their minds they were very good and could not do enough for us.
Dominic moved from Witbank and came to stay with us. He was looking for a job but it was not easy and he went for dozens of interviews. It was good to have him with us while we moved, he was a great help. Ken Thompson agreed to lend us one of the trucks from the hardware business and a couple of his staff also helped with the move.
Before the date of our move we received another letter from my mother to tell us that she had made more inquires about sending us the money for the house and that her bank manager had said that it could be done. I think the only problem would be if she were to die within five years. Then we would be liable for some sort of inheritance tax but as she had no intention of dying she thought it was quite safe to send us the money. So once again we got in touch with Margaret Crawford and told her that we were in the market for a house once again. By this time most of the houses we had looked at before were sold so it meant we had to start house hunting again.
11 Hulletts Road was a rather unusual house. It was built on the side of a steep slope so the front part of the house was on two levels and the back part was only one level. The main door was in the back of the house and when you came in the main door you then had to go down a short flight of stairs to the lounge, dining room and kitchen. On the same level as the main door were the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. With the two other bedrooms up another few steps. As we knew that we were looking for a house to buy we just unpacked the things that we needed to be comfortable and left quite a lot of our boxes just piled up in the third bedroom.
11 Hulletts Road
Over the previous couple of weeks we had been in touch with Wendy and Stuart Hall, our friends in King Williams Town. Their son Robbie was planning to run the Comrades Marathon and we had invited him to come and stay with us before and after the race. We had hoped that all the family would come up for the race but in the end just Robbie, Stuart and Robbie’s wife came to stay. They arrived the day before the race and we arranged to have pasta for supper. I remember the local newspapers would always be full of advice about race preparation and what to eat to keep up your stamina. Everyone was eating as much pasta or pizza as possible, it was called “carbo-loading” and it was the in thing for runners.
Rob, his wife and Stuart left the house in the very early hours of the morning, as they had to be in Pietermaritzburg for a 6 am start. The Comrades is a very popular race, it is an Ultra Marathon and is approximately 90 kms long. There are about thirteen thousand runners assembled at the starting point before dawn to hear the “cock crow” that tells them that it is time to go. In 1948 one of the 44 entrants of that year, a man called Max Trimborn while waiting at the start line cupped his hands together and issued a rooster crow. The other runners so enjoyed it that they demanded that he repeat it each year. He did so for many years and even wore feathers sometimes. The “cock crow” has become very much part of the tradition of the race and although Max died in 1985 his crowing had been recoded for many years and so he still presides at the start of the race and it would not be the same without him.
The race is a big event in South Africa and many people take a picnic or a braai and camp along the route to cheer the runners on. We did not do that; we just watched the race on television. The race is televised live every year and many people watch it all day, even when they say that “this year we are not going to waste the whole day watching that race” I suppose the fact that there are so many runners and everyone knows a couple of people who are running made us want to see if we would recognise any one we knew. I remember when we first arrived in South Africa and did not have a television a friend asked if we would be watching the Comrades the next day. We said, “No, we don’t even have a TV”. The friend was so shocked, “You have to watch the Comrades, we will lend you our old black and white TV set”. We said that we weren’t really worried about not seeing the race but she was very insistent. No amount of refusing would convince her and she arranged for her husband to deliver the TV that evening so that we would not miss “the race”. Race day was a public holiday so most people did not have to go to work. I never got up to see the start and hear the “cock crow”, but once I did get up I turned it on to see how it was going. Usually by the time I got up the first runners were about half way as the best runners do it in about five and a half hours. Being so close to the race route we would hear the television helicopters flying low overhead all day. The coverage of the race was very good, and once the gold medallists had finished the cameras would be turned on all the “also rans”. Many of them very dedicated athletes who knew that they could not compete with the front runners but who wanted to better their personal best times and finish the race well. There were others who only entered for fun, they would wear funny costumes, or do silly things to get themselves noticed by the cameras so that their friends and family would see them on the telly. As everyone had to qualify for the race, they had to do a standard marathon within a certain time, they were good runners but not quite so dedicated as the others. One has to take ones hat off to them no matter what; to run almost 100 kilometres in the cut off time of eleven hours is not bad at all.
We did not know what time to expect the Hall family back as Robbie had not run the Comrades before so we had no idea how long he would take or if he would even finished. All day we kept popping back to the television set in the hope of seeing him amongst the thousands of other runners. Robbie was wearing a large ugly green hat, which he said was his lucky running hat. He told us that his mum Wendy hated the hat and did not want him to wear it but it was distinctive and was something to look for in the crowd. We didn’t see him, although in a subsequent year when he ran we did manage to pick him out by the ‘lucky hat’, At about six o’clock they came in, so excited that not only had Robbie finished but he also won a bronze medal, which meant he had finished within eleven hours. I think he had done it in just over ten hours. He was so excited and did not seem any the worst for his ordeal. We all sat down around the fire for our braai and to hear what it was like. Robbie told us all about it and then tried to get up out of his chair and found he could not move. He was so stiff that he was hobbling around after that and had to sleep on the floor in the lounge, as he could not get up the steps. But he had finished the race and got a bronze medal so he was happy.
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