Blackberry Fall

We did not have a car for a while during our stay in Castlemaine Avenue in Southbourne. So to get around and do the shopping, we bought a bicycle trailer and this enabled us to go on rides and see places we had not visited before.

One day, I took Joshua (3.5 years old)and Jessica (2 years old) out in the trailer to go and pick some blackberries. The best blackberries used to grow along the railway line just off a playing field close to the river Stour.

We cycled down the hill and found a good spot. I climbed into the ditch to pick the blackberries and passed them back to Joshua and Jessica who were in charge of holding the bags.

Picking blackberries is a hazardous affair. It always seems that the sweetest, biggest berries are always out of reach or in a spot where your hands will be ripped by the sharpest thorns. And it also seems that the blackberries' best friends are the stinging nettles. The tactic still I use is the "pick and palm" method. I aim for a good looking bunch and pick with the tips of my fingers and drop the berries into my palm. Only when I can�t hold any more in my palm do I then retract my hand to drop the cache into the bag. This way I hope to reduce the scratches and stings down to a bare minimum.

It was lovely and sunny this day, and while I was standing and picking in the ditch, a train came thundering past. Just a quick red herring while I am thinking about it.... have you noticed that the fashion here with the spoken English is to use "was stood" and sometimes "was sat" instead of "was standing" or "was sitting". Where did this come from?

Anyway, Jessica got such a fright and dived right into the ditch towards me. I tried to catch her and to stop her falling into the thorny brambles but she was too quick. Her poor face was so scratched and she was screaming from the pain. I gently picked the thorns out of her face and tried to pacify her and we then packed up and went back home.

Sarah had a big fright when she saw the state of Jessica's face.

Only later, we realised that I lost my wedding ring in the effort to try and catch Jessica. I've been back to the spot about twice and tried to find the wedding ring without any success. I can see a lucky person with a metal detector finding it one day and wondering how the ring managed to get into the ditch.

Old Man Jefferson

In 1991, we came back from South Africa to England. I managed to get my old job back working at Chase Manahattan Bank in Bournemouth and after living with close friends for a month or so, we managed to find a flat in an area of Bournemouth called Southbourne. The flat was the lower back half of a house which had been split into four flats and we rented it off Janet who was a nurse and did contract nursing in Saudi Arabia.

The neighbour opposite us was Claire, a single girl who had a boyfriend with a noisy red TVR sports car, until she changed him for Ben, a black retriever puppy.

The neighbours to the front and above Claire were Charlie and Geraldine with their three children. Geraldine was some type of teacher or head teacher at a school in London and Charlie drove an ambulance for one of the Bournemouth Hospitals. They moved out while we were staying there and rented their flat out to a hippy type lady called Julie, her two daughters and boyfriend Derek, who had a strong Irish accent. She had a lot of plants in her flat and seemed to know a herbal cure for every ailment. When she heard that we had a child called Jemima, she taught us this song.

I remember it clearly, the he words of the song are:

Oh Jemima
look at your uncle Jim
He�s in the bathtub
learning how to swim
first he does the breaststroke
then he does the dive
now he�s under the water
swimming against the tide!


The neighbour above us was Mr Jefferson. This story is actually about him.

Think of the most unfriendly, cantankerous old man you have ever seen or met. Well, he probably was tutored by Mr Jefferson. Mr Jefferson had a dog and when we moved in, we tried to be nice to him. When passing him on the way to our front door, he would just grunt or completely ignore us.

His health deteriorated while we were living there and he had his groceries delivered. That was, if you could call 12 bottles of something groceries. Yes, he drank. But the problem was he fell asleep too. And not just anywhere, but in front of his TV. And he was deaf, so he had his TV on real loud.

We would both be lying in bed after a long day with the young children and at work and clearly hear the 10 o� clock news on TV. Sometimes it would be soaps or some documentary.

We tried calling him and the telephone would ring forever before he would pick I up and yell back down the line.

I tried storming upstairs and knocking on his door hoping to wake him so he would switch it off and go to bed but all to no avail.

We then called the council and they asked us to start filling in forms to keep record of the dates and times of the noise. We were going to make a formal complaint, take him to court for noise pollution. We must have filled these forms in for three months or more before we sent it to the council.

Some months passed and then we had a letter from the council asking us whether the position had improved. We could hardly believe it, we had not thought about the noise for a while and we thought they had sorted the problem out. It is strange how this happens, we noticed the noise for months but when it disappeared, we did not notice at all.

Only later on, we found out the reason for the sudden peace.

The quiet was because the old man had passed away.

Chopper Bicycle

We were living in the town of Bothasig near Cape Town in a small wooden house called Pamandus. This was a name that Mom and Dad thought up and they had a special sign made showing the whole family holding hands and the dog on the end. Pa, Ma, Sheyne, Kirsten and the dog, Pa, Ma and us. Bothasig was then quite a new town, and when we first moved there from a flat in Cape Town Gardens, many of the roads were still sand and there were plenty Port-Jackson trees imported from Australia. These trees were grown to settle the sand and stop the place from turning into a complete desert.

It must have been some time in the early seventies when the Choppers first appeared. I can remember thinking about how cool the purple and yellow Choppers looked. There might have been other colours but these are the two colours that must have impressed me the most.

A proud friend came to visit and show off his Chopper and I asked for a ride. I can remember taking the bicycle for a spin to the other side of the town. The bicycle was great, and the feeling of speed and freedom and wind was like being in a different world.

I can remember being chased by a dog and going up through the three gears (yes, three gears!) to try and get away. I also remember falling off the bicycle as the front was quite unstable due to the smaller wheel.

Half an hour later, still elated from the freedom and with tired legs from the close encounter with the dog, I brought the bicycle back to my gloomy friend.

Even though I thought it was the best ride ever, I don’t think he was too happy about me taking so long on his brand new bicycle.

Travel at 94

Photo of Oupa and Miekietien

Story written 28/2/2003.

Oupa (English = Grandfather)

Who says you can't travel when you're 94. I won't be surprised if you do, and coming knocking on my door.

In a way you have already done just that, by jumping into my thoughts and saying hello.

So come with me and bring your jacket. It can still be a little cold here this time of year. Let me show you places where the Romans walked, down hidden passages with names like Prudence Passage. Places where Kings and Poets walked. Where bishops brewed beer and grew strawberries and lions were found a long time ago.

Maybe one day I can come and visit you too. Any you can take me through your thoughts. Your thoughts of life when you dreamed and hoped while you worked.... and tell me... what would you still like to do?

Who makes the rules anyway? Who's to say you can't still have dreams, can't still look forward to seasons and think of the flowers, the mountains and of past and future. Of course you can!

You can think of the cool morning air, friends, of family no longer there, of far away places and of tiny growing faces. Your faces. You can think of what they are doing... of how they are playing and wonder if they ever think of you.

You may wonder if they are asking the same questions you faced so long ago. The questions about who you are and where you came from. Well, let me tell you. They might not think like that at the moment but they will. I'll tell them as much as I can.

So remember and dream and visit in thought and we will do the same from here.