FESTIVAL TIME AGAIN!
This year’s Prince Albert Town and Olive Festival is scheduled to take place on May 1 and 2. Organisers say the festival will have something for everyone – theatre, music, and other live entertainment, interesting and unusual things to buy, and fantastic food stalls. They are hoping to bring the South African National Circus School to town for two full shows. There will also be “brilliant street entertainment”, including mime artists, fire eaters and stilt walkers. The Muscle Cars will be a “must see” for motoring enthusiasts. The Jazz Art Dance Company has been booked and their programme will include most of the village’s popular music groups. Arrangements have been made to include many of the usual games and competitions, which over the years have made this festival so popular, in the programme. And, of course, there will be ghosts. Ghosts tours are scheduled, so are evenings filled with ghost stories and other tantalising tales. Come and enjoy the Prince Albert magic, but, say the organisers, book early because each year this festival just becomes more popular.
A LITTLE OLIVE MAGIC
Prince Albert has long been regarded as the home of olives in the Karoo. Over the years the village has done much to promote olives as oil, in cooking, for eating in a wide variety of dishes, and a range of other olive-based products like soaps and hand creams. It is interesting to note that the Ancient Egyptians cultivated olives as long ago as 1 200 BC. An inscription on a temple to the Sun God, Ra, praises the olive groves on Heliopolis The olive branch has always been a symbol of peace. Also proof of how ancient olives actually are is the fact that Noah’s dove brought back an olive branch to the ark indicating peace between Man and his Creator.
ON THE WAY TO GERMANY
Prince Albert’s Killibeentjies band, which over the past seven years has made a name for itself at the town’s Oktoberfest, will soon be on its way overseas. The group departs on June 30, at the invitation of the Hemslinger Brass Band, that visited the village last year. They were so impressed with the Killibeentjies repertoire that they invited the group to Germany. The Killibeentjies will travel through the Rhine Valley to the town of Hemslingen and there compete in a big brass band festival. Since the group was started in 2001 by Bodo Tolstede, especially to add atmosphere to the Oktoberfest, they have done extremely well. They have appeared at the Klein Karoo Kunstefees and toured to George, Paarl, Piketberg, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Their first appearance in Germany will be on July 5, in Hemslinger. After that they will entertain other German audiences with their playing and singing.
ABOUT THAT CHICKEN PIE
A gremlin crept into The Karoo Cookbook and keen cooks quickly discovered it. Fortunately, no one in their right minds would use 60 ml (4 Tbsp) of baking powder in anything, but some people called to find out what had gone wrong. I tried the chicken pie with the ingredients as they should have been, and it worked well. Several others have also tried it and reported that they are satisfied. So, anyone who wants to make the soft pastry for the chicken pie on page 75 should use 60ml (4 Tbsp) ordinary cake flour, 5ml (l teaspoon) baking powder; 2,5 ml (½ teaspoon) of salt, some freshly grated nutmeg to taste, 60ml (4 Tbsp) butter, l egg (beaten) and a little milk to make a really soft dough. Preheat the oven to 180° C. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, add the nutmeg. Rub in the butter until the mixture resembles mealie meal. Beat the egg, add a little milk and mix the dry ingredients to a really soft dough. Place small dots of this dough op top of any tasty chicken pie mix and bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown. The mixture spreads out and makes a tasty topping. Be sure, however, to dot the mixture very lightly and thinly over the whole chicken dish. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a dumpling-like topping. – Rose Willis
CANCER CURE – SOME HAD FAITH, OTHERS NOT
Dr Carel Albrecht, head of research at the South African Cancer Association, was most interested in Fourie’s Cancer Cure mentioned in Round-up No 64, January 2009. This led him to the archives and a search of old newspapers. In the Cape Times of December 4, 1886, he found a letter to the Editor saying:
Sir, – I have had brought to me recognisable specimens of the plant now recognised as a remedy for cancer. It is Sutherlandia frutescens, R. Br., a leguminous shrub with showy scarlet flowers and large swollen membranous pods. Many will remember the plant from childhood – children made playthings of these pods, plucking them with a piece of the footstalk adhering, and setting them upside down to float on water for toy “ducks.” The outline of the pod thus treated is not unlike that of a water bird afloat. The plant is figured tolerably well in the Botanical magazine, plate 181, under the older name of Colutea frutescens. It is certainly a surprise to find any medical virtue ascribed to Sutherlandia, and so many remedies for cancer have been pushed into notice, tried, and found wanting, that it would be well if our Medical Board would by experiment settle once and for all the reputed value of the application. From microscopic investigation of degenerated cancer tissue, I entertain little hope of a successful result, but it is something to ascertain the unknown even when the equation works out x=0. The plant used by the natives, and by them pointed out to the old Dutch colonists as a remedy or palliative, is quite different, and certainly has some powerful properties. It is Melianthus major, Linn., known as “kruidje. Roer mij niet,” that is, “Herb, touch me not”, from its heavy foetid smell, I believe it is only used externally, – I am, etc, P. MacOwan, FLS
A LONG WALK AS A GOOD NEIGHBOUR
Artist Vera Volsckenk, who once lived in the Aberdeen district on the farm Vaalvlei, truly was a good neighbour to Anna Pienaar. Vera was married to Willie Hayward and they were great friends with Alwyn Pienaar’s parents, William and Anna, who lived on the next-door farm, Bokvlei. “The farmhouses were just over 8km apart,” writes Joan Pienaar, who has been delving into the Pienaar family history. “There was a time when, shortly after one of Anna’s children was born, that she felt slightly poorly, so Vera walked from Vaalvlei to Bokvlei everyday to help her with the baby and to wash the nappies.” In those days, of course, there were no disposables. “Vera was also very good at refashioning Anna’s hats. In fact, she loved re-creating them and Anna valued this, particularly during the Depression. She was always able to appear in wonderful ‘stylish’ creations that no one had ever seen before when she went to town. Another of Vera’s strong points and one that also served her well during the Depression years, was that she was able to ‘re-fashion’ her husband’s suits. I think this was something pretty wonderful,” says Joan, “When her husband’s suits looked shabby and shiney, she would totally unpick the garment, turn it inside out and put it together again. How she did this I have no idea, because all the pockets came out right and Willie, according to all who knew him, always went out looking ‘like a new sixpence’, when other men of the day were going about in tired-looking clothes. I wonder whether anyone would try something like this in our present tight economic times. People who knew Vera all said she was one of the kindest people they ever knew.”
FROM TREK OXEN TO SOSATIES
Many men of the wagon route went to great trouble to obtain a good team of oxen matched in strength and colour. Normally these men preferred oxen that were deep, russet-red, in colour. To set them off the drovers would yell: “Kom nou, Rooies,” (Come along, Reds,) as they cracked long whips above the heads of the animals. Enormous wagons drawn by 20 oxen, made their way to the diamond fields, wrote Anderson in Twenty-five years in a wagon in 1887. These wagons contained sitting and bed rooms. Huge canvas covers were spread out as side tents to form the kitchen. These side tents at times also sheltered servants and horses. Teams of mismatched oxen were referred to as a “bont span” (colourful team). The term did not refer only to a team of oxen. It also referred to the way in which meat was threaded onto a skewer for braaiing over the coals. In Three Years War Christiaan de Wet writes: “a skilful man would so arrange the meat on his spit as to have alternative pieces of fat and lean and thus get what we used to call a bont span” Of course, this was done to ensure that the meat did not dry out on the fire. Early Cape housewives roasted thin slivers of meat on pointed sticks or forks over the coals and served this to their guests. “Many called this as an epicurean delight,” writes Charles Pettman in Africanderisms. Some referred to the slivers as carbonados, but others, such as Burchell, say the term carbonatjes refers to broiled mutton – chops or steaks.”
GROWING UP IN KLAARSTROOM – Christo Barrie Barnard reminisces
A recent stop in Klaarstroom after a most enjoyable drive through Meiringspoort brought back a flood of memories for Christo (Barrie) Barnard. “My earliest memory, of Klaarstroom is of me standing naked in a ‘sinkbad’ (iron bath) with my mother trying to scrub me clean for my first day of school. I screamed so much throughout the entire process, that she eventually gave me a good hiding. However, even I had to admit that I looked much better than I normally did next morning when she sent me on my way with my sister. Our teacher was Miss Betty Muller and we loved her. I also remember the Kleu’s, Ellis’, Koen’s and Groenewald’s who went to school with us in the little building next to the main road to the poort. In time it became a craft shop called Poort Pourri. Miss Muller drove a light green Ford Anglia Station wagon and all the children from ‘Die Aap’ and ‘Middelwater’ used to drive to school with her. When the big rains came, we wouldn’t go to school because the rivers would swell and flood and it wasn’t safe for Miss Muller to cross.
A SHOP TO BE PROUD OF
My father had a general dealer’s store. It was the first building on the righthand side of the road as you enter from Prince Albert side. A huge sign announced: J M Barnard, Algemene Handelaar (general dealer) and ‘Koffiehuis Koffie” – an ever-popular brand in the hinterland. The shop had long wooden counters on both sides. There was no till, only a drawer under one of the counters. It had strange with half round wooden holes to accommodate the money. There was also a big wooden ‘vaatjie’ barrel with a wooden tap. The vinegar was kept in this. Then there a big upright freezer that worked with paraffin. Cooldrinks were kept in a box type Coca-Cola freezer with big blocks of dry ice to keep them cold. We stocked brands like Coke, Pepsi, Hubbly Bubbly and Canada Dry. Countless pairs of shoes and boots with tyre-type soles hung from the ceiling. Behind the counter were big wooden crates with lids to store sugar, beans, mielie meal. Each had its own scoop for measuring the exact amount needed.
KEPT IN LINE WITH A GOOD SMACK
Every Wednesday morning my Father would leave for Prins Vincent in Oudtshoorn to purchase stock for the shop. Prince Vincent was the largest General Dealer at the time. They also had a branch in George. Both Prince Vincent buildings still stand, but they have different names today. Tannie Martha and Oom Dawid Kruger lived opposite the shop. She worked for my father as a shop assistant. My brother and I one day did something that truly upset Oom Dawid – I really can’t remember what it was – but what I do remember is that he grabbed us and cut off all the hair on our legs with manually operated hair clippers. My mother was furious! But, despite the indignity we had already suffered, she still gave us a hiding. A good disciplining smack was quickly and easily dealt out in those days and no one grew up the worse for them, nor felt unloved in any way. I well remember a hiding I got from my father after my brother and I had had an argument at a gate. I was furious with him, so I took a wheelbarrow and ran it into the gate, which smacked into him leaving a huge bruise on his head.
OF FISHES AND FUEL
We were lucky that we never to have been bitten by snakes. They seemed to be everywhere. When we went to steal the eggs out of birds’ nests, or just to peep in to see how the fledglings were doing, we’d see their evil eyes staring at us through the tree branches. We loved playing in the veld and at the fountains. There was a strong one down at the riverbank and this was one of our favourite spots. One day when we got home my mother was cleaning a big fish in the kitchen. It was the biggest we’d ever seen, so we asked her where it came. She said that someone caught it at the fountain. We wondered why we’d never seen such a huge fish there, but we believed the story for a long time, then we learned that the Railway bus driver had brought it all the way from Mossel Bay. Sometimes the Railway bus drivers were late delivering fuel – it also came from Mossel Bay – and my father would have to drive down to the coast himself to ensure that the town didn’t run out of fuel. He drove a VW panel van and into this loaded two big 44 gallon fuel drums. Once t hey had been filled, it was a slow ride back to the Karoo. One year, loaded with petrol, my father arrived at Meiringspoort to find a major veld fire raging. He decided to drive through and fortunately arrived safely at the other end. We dispensed petrol to the public from two red Caltex pumps at the front of the store. Each had a glass tank that took exactly one gallon of petrol and each had a manual lever that had to be manoeuvred back and forth to fill it. The number of gallons required was set on a gauge between the cylinders.
(More of Barrie’s reminiscences in the next issue)
A CAP BY ANY OTHER NAME
The little hamlet of Klapmuts on the way from the Western Cape to the Karoo is often said to have taken its name from the Dutch word for a sailor’s cap. Legend has it that way back locals felt one of the nearby mountains was shaped like such a cap, but the Reverend Charles Pettman in Africanderisms says the word could have Scottish connotations. He bases this on DeVere’s remark that the “peculiar dome-shaped mountain, which bears some a resemblance to a cap, takes its name for an old-fashioned article of female attire, a Scottish mutch (woman’s cap or bonnet).” “These quaint, though not unbecoming caps are often seen in Gerard Dow’s pictures and are still worn here and there in America by old-fashioned ladies of Scots or Dutch descent,” says Pettman. “The place has had this name for a long time as travellers passing along this route often mention passing Klapmuts. In Voyages, Stavorinus says: At half past six we came to Albertyn’s farm, lying at the foot of a mountain called Klapmuts. We stopped there to pass the night. In his Records, Moodie states that in the afternoon they passed the kloof between the Diamant and Paarl Bergh on the side of Clapmuts Bergh, which Jan van Riebeeck had reported passing on October 22, 1657.”
SAD LOSS FOR THE LAIRD
The Beaufort West Courier reported that on January 16, 1903, a goods train burst into flame at Fraserburg Road Station, present-day Leeu Gamka. It was loaded with catering equipment destined for Beaufort West station. Before anything could be done the freight trucks totally burned out leaving little more than ashes and buckled bits of iron. This was a great loss as most of the equipment was the property of James Douglas Logan, Laird of Matjiesfontein, who held the catering contracts at all the little railway stations on the route through the Karoo.
AN ‘ICE-MAN’ COMES TO KAROO FARM
P.W.F. Weyers, a former hawker, who lost cattle in an attack by the Boers during the Anglo-Boer War, was said to have started Darlington farm in the Somerset East district. “He always said that the Boers had shot his animals in the Bedrogsfontein Pass,” says Ross Turner, tourism promotional officer at Somerset East. Weyers settled on Darlington in the fertile Sundays River Valley in 1905 and planted fruit orchards and vineyards. Later a hotel, post office, shop, smithy, house and several outbuildings were established on the farm and later still they all disappeared under waters of Lake Mentz when it was established in 1922. This huge dam was created to supply citrus farmers further down in the Sundays River Valley with irrigation water for their trees. Weyers left the farm and it had some other owners among them Dr Reginald Koettlitz, who accompanied Captain Robert Falcon Scott on his first Antarctic expedition as senior medical officer Some say that the doctor was blamed when some of the men of the expedition contracted scurvy and that this led him to come to South Africa to settle in the Karoo. He set up a practice in Somerset East/Cradock area. He and his wife, who died within hours of each other, are buried in Cradock. But he was not the only famous man to have contact with this farm and dam. The first chairman of the irrigation board responsible for the building of the dam was none other than Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, author of Jock of the Bushveld. “And, even the name of the dam has a good story attached to it,” says Ross. “Piet van Niekerk, of Drive Out Magazine (August/September, 2007 issue) wrote: “According to local legend the then minister of land affairs, Colonel Hendrik Mentz, who had granted permission for the building of the dam, was not exactly popular a popular fellow, so when it was suggested that the dam be named after him, some irate person loudly exclaimed: ‘Oh, damn Mentz!’ To which he received a polite reply: ‘No, no, just Lake Mentz, will do!’” In the 1990s the ‘lake’ was renamed the Darlington Dam.
POET WITH ROOTS IN VICTORIA WEST
Sandile Dikeni, a respected South African writer and poet, was born in Victoria West in 1966. He went on to study at the University of the Western Cape where he served on the Students’ Representative Council. This led to him becoming an activist and to his arrest. He began writing seriously while in detention in 1986. In time he became a popular performer at political rallies and community cultural events. Since the coming of democracy, he has worked as a journalist and political commentator. He has published several anthologies, the latest of which is Planting Water. The previous two were Guava Juice (1992) and Telegraph to the Sky (2002). He has also published a collection of his articles, from the Cape Times, under the title Soul Fire: Writing the Transition (2002).
We build too many walls and not enough bridges. – Sir Isaac Newton
