Memories of Britstown
My sister, Gladys, married Benny when I was about 6 years old. That summer my mother and I went by train to Britstown where I first met my beloved veld. We never went again in summer. It was too hot. After that we always went in June in the winter holidays.
I went outside and was sitting on an old car in the yard watching a bunch of children in the next year at play. The eldest Mona saw me and asked if I want to join them and ran into the kitchen to ask Gladys and Ma if I could do so. I remember she spoke in Afrikaans and I in English and for many years that was how we spoke. I can still remember running through our gate and opening theirs ...a yard full of children, Mona, Boy (Willem) and Meisie (Elsabe) , their twin cousins, goats and chickens. It was a friendship which lasted all through the years and only lately I realise I have heard nothing from Meisie who eventually was my closest friend there.
We would go into the veld with an Oros bottle of water and bread which the Tannie had made and spend the day there going to all sort of areas for which we had names. Towards nightfall we would look at the koppie opposite the house to see if the first white appeared of the goats coming back from grazing and then run to the kraal where Boy would milk them. After that the village would be full of sheep and goats finding their own way home to wait patiently at the gate to be allowed in.
And then there was Brakdam. For years it was unoccupied until Bennie took a foreman who dafke married Meisie's mother and I remember the big earth jar at the entrance with its skepper and the cold water. Those were wonderful holidays.