The Lyndi Tree. JA Ginn Fourie
we never have an accident. As soon as he can, John joins Ian to attend Sedaven, a boarding school in the Transvaal Province, now Gauteng.
The next year with John gone I am sent to school in Ficksburg with my brother David, while Mommy teaches James and his Basotho pal named Tlapie - little fish! Granny Hartley takes care of us in a house that our parents own. Granny has a navy 1949 Chevrolet and takes us back to Beginsel for most weekends, a two-hour drive, except when it is Polo season all winter. Then Mommy and Daddy come to Ficksburg for the weekend so that Daddy can play polo on Sundays. He buys ‘also-rans’ from the race track and schools them for polo in the evenings after work.
One such horse, a 17-hand chestnut mare named Rastrum, is my favourite. Jack, the groom and garden-boy (another derogatory term I realise) saddles her up, and I ride her to the polo field and back each week, with Jack riding ahead and leading the other horses. When we get home one Sunday Daddy announces with some satisfaction,
“Billy Peacock has bought Rastrum, for £200 more than I paid for her. He will fetch her tomorrow.”
I run to my room and lie on my bed, crying. Mother comes in and says,
“What are you bawling about Ginny?” The numbness in my throat seems to press home and it is difficult to breathe let alone speak, by now I am banging my fists into my pillow,
“Why didn’t Daddy tell me he was going to sell Rastrum?” I yell.
“Hush! Daddy has every right to sell Rastrum. She belongs to him, and he can do as he pleases with her. You are very unladylike. Ladies do not get angry and behave like this. We live by what we know is right; feelings are not reliable guides for making decisions. Now dry your eyes and set the table for supper. Let’s have no more of this skittishness.”
I lie a minute longer, then go to the bathroom to wash my face. Mumbling to myself,
“Hell, life like this is so unfair.” Defeated, I help to put supper on the table.
I share a room with Granny Hartley, she is a tall, slender, very strict lady, she wears dresses and skirts down to below her grey stockinged calves, and long sleeves irrespective of the ambient temperature. Granny’s grey hair is plaited neatly and then wound around her head, secured with grey hairpins. As Joey Louise Sieg, she came to South Africa from Germany when she was a young girl and married my Grandpa, William James Hartley, known as Bunny. He was one of the grandsons of the 1820 settler Thomas Hartley. Unfortunately, Bunny was blinded in a cart-and-horse accident when their youngest daughter, Una, was a baby, so he never got to see their handsome children, Daphne, William (Daddy Bill), Edgar and Una, as they grew to adulthood.
Each evening before retiring Granny loosens her hair, bends forward and brushes a hundred strokes - that, she says prevents her from washing it too often, which dries it out. I am amazed that her hair is always beautifully shiny. Granny often chuckles as she is getting ready for bed, recounting the events of the day and seeing the funny side of whatever has happened. I love her for that, but I am also terrified of her. One afternoon David has gone to play with a friend and comes home after dark. When she hears the gate rattle, she stands behind the kitchen door, and as he comes through it, she ambushes him, whacking him, with a rolled-up newspaper, shouting,
“Naughty, naughty boy you know you must be home before dark. Now go to your room and do your home-work. No supper for you tonight.” I feel quite pleased that he has a beating because he teases me often, and he is too laughingly agile for me to catch and beat up. But it isn’t long before it is my turn for a slap!
One cold winter’s day, we are in the kitchen; Granny is listening to the radio while she prepares supper. She gasps with surprise as the newsreader recounts the events of the day: Thousands of women marched from the Paul Kruger Monument on Church Square in Pretoria to the Union Buildings today. The march was silent and determined; they are objecting to pass laws. Prime Minister JG Strydom was unavailable to receive their signed petitions,
“Oh dear!” says Granny. “Now there will more trouble in this country; I wonder what will happen next! And why they are protesting against pass laws.”
I wish Granny had known then why they were protesting and more details of the march! Because:
[Twenty thousand women of all races marched on 9 August 1956, to present a petition against the carrying of passes by women to the prime minister. After the petition was handed over to the secretary of the prime minister, the women sang a freedom song: Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika - Lord Bless Africa. The marchers also chanted; Wathint` abafazi, Strijdom! You Strike a Woman, Strydom!
Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika, a hymn originally composed in 1897 by Enoch Sontonga, a Xhosa clergyman at a Methodist mission school near Johannesburg. The song became a pan-African liberation song and versions of it were later adopted as the national anthems of five states in Africa including Zambia, Tanzania, Namibia and Zimbabwe after independence. Zimbabwe and Namibia have since taken new compositions for their national anthems. The song's melody is currently used as the national anthem of Tanzania and the national anthem of Zambia, and since 1997 a portion of the national anthem of South Africa.]3
Since then, the phrase 'wathint' abafazi, wathint' imbokodo' – ‘You Strike a Woman You Strike a Rock’ has come to represent the courage and strength of South African women. As a group women are marginalised, so they challenged the oppressive barriers that governed their lives and fought for their freedom and that of their families.
[Strydom was not at the Union Buildings to accept the petition, the women of South Africa sent a public message that they would not be intimidated and silenced by unjust laws.]4
Yes to Emily Pankhurst! I would discover the British women's similarly remarkable struggle later in High School. The implications in the pass laws included:
All people classified as non-white had to carry passbooks to show their workplace in the area; no pass – no work.
Black nurses were not allowed to nurse white patients.
Black couples were no longer allowed to live in white areas of a city.
Children had to stay in the homelands.
The Group areas act meant that land and businesses could be taken away from non-whites (forced removals) without compensation… and more.
One Friday afternoon, Granny is taking us back to the farm for the weekend, I am sitting in the front seat of her navy Chevrolet, and she chides me repeatedly for not doing my chores fast enough, so we have gotten a late start. I am irritated and mutter under my breath,
“Oh, shut up, you old bag.”
Granny hears and gives me a left back-hander across my face, without even taking her eye off the road. I burn with shame and resentment. It is never spoken of from that day until she dies. I don’t tell Mommy for fear of another beating on top of that one, for being impudent.
One day, Mommy is busy in her sewing room, wearing her usual shirt-waister dress and comfortable leather gardening shoes. She is crafting a new dress for me and casually says,
“Ginny, soon you will start your monthlies, bleeding from between your legs for a couple of days each month, so you need to be sure that you always have protection.” She shows me where the pads are kept in her wardrobe, and I stand horrified, eyes glued to the white fluffy looking things in a paper packet. I am too shocked to ask any questions and besides, there is a slab of chocolate on the same shelf, which I register as far more interesting for a later date when she has gone back to the farm. The next time she comes back to town, the chocolate is gone. It seems to be time for another beating,
“Hell, everything I do is wrong, you were not here to ask, so why can’t I eat some chocolate?”
“Go to the bathroom, so much chocolate is bad for you and to swear on top of it means you need to learn by having your mouth washed out with soap.”
What a performance, with me struggling to clench