THE EARTHRISE DIARY (April 2014)
Don Diespecker
(© text 2014 Don Diespecker)
Man is a
history-making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind.
WH Auden: The Dyer’s Hand, ‘D H Lawrence.’
Many years later, as
he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that
distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time
Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of
clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and
enormous, like prehistoric eggs.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez:
One Hundred Years Of Solitude
It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always
reminded him of the fate of unrequited love. Dr Juvenal Urbino noticed it as
soon as he entered the still darkened house where he had hurried on an urgent
call to attend a case that for him had lost all urgency many years before.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in
the Time of Cholera
The Discourse Monological
This year’s April has seemed to
me a lot like some of the old Februarys here: wonderful clear and softer light
and air at the end of summer. Much
of this month has also had its share of gloomy, wet rainy or showery days, so
April has also been a mixed month: two or three days in a row like summer, three
of four days at a time that were more like winter. I’ve no complaints because I
was quite often able to work outside. Hours spent in front of the computer are
all very well and perfectly satisfying when the right words fall into place at
the tips of my fingers, but the rest of me needs urgently to stagger away from
Story Central to The Outside where I can move stones, clear weeds, and rake
(raking being an old favourite ‘task’ of ordinary work because whatever else it
might be it’s surely a movement meditation as well as useful exercise). And
when the time and mood are right I can also sit and lazily watch the river run
and see leaves falling and occasional butterflies navigating. I’ve long been a
butterfly fan and admire their abilities to bob confidently through the gardens
and especially, to navigate while ascending through foliage without mishap or
any kind of collision. When recently asked what was most relaxing for me, my
answer was ‘to sit quietly to see butterflies flying.’ Sometimes my answer to the
question is ‘to sit quietly and see the river running by,’ but butterflies,
when they’re active here, often score the higher points—particularly when one
lands on me for seconds. Other wee flying beasties: the midges, mosquitoes and
critters of unknown lineage, are presently less attractive aviators and much
more riverside nuisances: it’s autumn, after all, and there’s competition to
sit reflectively in the warming air whilst it’s available.
Slowly, painstakingly I’ve been
recovering the flattened dahlia garden close to the road where it fell victim
to the flooding here in February 2013. Chicken wire ‘fencing’ and steel star
pickets were downed by the log-bearing torrent reaching over and submerging the
road from upstream. The wire and flotsam mix made the dahlia area a trap for
debris of all kinds when the river level eventually fell and these mixes of
debris mixed further as flooding from the downstream backflow (at the small
downstream bend in front of the house) continued… It takes weeks of part time deconstructing
to return debris to the river. Now that I’ve reclaimed about half of the area
and raked it, mowed it and removed most of the entanglements, the dahlias that
weren’t lifted (as they usually are each autumn) this most recent spring
struggled to make their way up through the longer grass and eventually bloom:
the blooms are smaller but I’ve just cut some flowers on the morning of Anzac
Day 2014 (April 25). The dahlias that were denied their flowering by two to
three metres of flooding river, remained snug until spring and summer this year
before pushing through the thick grass and have recently achieved what they
like best to do: there’s determination for you. Naturally, the dahlia garden,
having been an obstacle to the flood, has enabled itself to elevate a good
100-mm. Judicious clipping of long tangled grass, whilst avoiding the dahlias,
plus light trims with the mower and measured raking around and through the
tufted clumps of wild grasses (gifts of the flooding river) are gradually
levelling the area. There still remain logs jammed between the flooded gums and
white cedars along the adjacent riverbank: they partially remain as the unruly
summit of an old riverside garden. Logs and this debris have also trapped loam.
I recover some of the loam carefully with a spade and spread it on the lawn in
this area and then rake: lo, the lawn is nicely top-dressed. There is so much
flood loam covering these old riverside gardens that I’d forgotten having paved
parts close to the trees with flat river stones. The old stone pavement is
re-emerging, as are the stone surrounds made to look like a very short wall.
I’ve been toying with new visualizations of opening a trench along part of the
pavement and planting white tibouchina cuttings along it (Job Number 7650 or
thereabouts)…but it’s merely a fantasy at this time.
The other nearby garden job is the deconstruction of a wall-shaped
supply dump of river stones collected more than 25 years ago. Some of the base
stones are too big to lift; not only have they settled under loading from the
overburden ‘wall,’ they’ve been well covered by flood loam and must be
crow-barred from their burial places. Some are now stacked, drying, and will be
wheel-barrowed across Big Lawn to become parts of a new wall (as ‘decorative surround’)
to a big jacaranda, the base of which was part covered by a two-metres depth of
flood debris and logs. How to move these big ‘base’ or foundation stones with
or without a wheelbarrow? The mover may crawl behind on hands and knees,
pushing mightily, or s-he may take the barrow to the stone, turn the barrow on
it’s side, shove the stone into the barrow and after finding the right position
and the safest stance—kneeling, usually—lift the barrow side until it’s centre
of gravity is safe and settled and then wheel across the lawn to the new
location. Don’t try this unless sure of your ability (I always tell friends) to
do this alone: the too-heavy-to lift stones were initially collected by two of
us (Tom Jagtenberg and me) by rolling a stone on to a strong hessian sack, then
carrying and lifting the stone plus sack by the sack’s ends into the back of my
truck (or ute as we say here). Shoving stones solo can be achieved by other
methods, of course: a pole-made tripod and a block and tackle will get big stones
off the ground and into a barrow. Or a crowbar will lever a big stone onto a
sturdy piece of discarded floorboard that’s first been placed on pole off-cuts
that may then be used as rollers. And there’s the Easter Island ‘walking’ of really big stones weighing tonnes, but
the stone builder will need the assistance of many compliant helpers hauling on
guide ropes (be reasonable in your heaving of heavy stones and try the crowbar
recovery and shoving of cargo into a wheelbarrow). Inglorious-looking stones,
those not having good dimensions or their being unattractive, or lacking
character or stones not in some way being pretty stones, are barrowed from the
wall-dump to the wilderness of the nearby sloping bank in the area of the
riverside lawn and the belvedere. The purpose of these unloved stones is to
protect the much gouged riverbank during floods when grasses and weeds are
insufficient to prevent the undercutting of the riverbank and damage to the
belvedere’s front (riverside) wall. There, patient readers, you now can see how
I exercise, amuse myself in the great Outdoors and also achieve some of the
darker requirements of gardening: the anti undercutting of riverbanks, the
survival of big flooded gums that otherwise would lean riverward until
toppling, to say nothing of the sanity of the crazed scribbler/gardener
tenuously linked to earth, air, and water.
Charivari
For new Diary readers
especially, this section is an opportunity to share links, websites and sundry
other information without necessarily identifying shy informants or setting,
for example, the informal words of friends and colleagues in too rigid a
framework. Here there may often be found a slightly less formal or ‘secular’
section or a ‘framework’ containing anecdotes or Short Pieces by readers who
may have composed an email to a friend and have sent in an extract from a
private communication (or who have, one way or another, been encouraged to
share Stuff in this informal section of the Diary). More formal and perhaps
‘conventionally-framed’ writings are usually found in, e.g., ‘Creative
Writing.’
Guest Writers are those who have
been invited to offer an essay, memoir, or a short story (fiction): they retain
©. Diary readers offering to be a Guest Writer: please discuss this possibility
with me by email <don883@bigpond.com>
There used to be (may still be?)
a Charivari section in the old Punch
magazine: the word means hurly burly
and hurly burly means variously, (a) commotion; uproar; tumult; and (b) full of commotion. In a word; charivari means tumultuous (the phrase
is based on hurling in its now obsolete sense of uproar (via French from Latin
and prior to that, from the Greek, karebaria
= kare, head + baria heaviness). A little uproar or
tumult in the region of the head and mind rather than formality and precision
is acceptable here. Yesterday, when visiting the Thompson’s (see Peter
Thompson’s two pieces in the March Diary on (a) thongs and (b) scything) we
were sitting outside on a fine summery morning” and the word ‘erudite’ was
mentioned when we were chatting about certain words and their etymology. The
family Webster’s (well over 100-years old) was produced. Erudite, in the old days, was explained as, “Latin eruditus, pp of erudire, to free from rudeness…” Erudite these days (in my Random
House College Dictionary) simply means ‘characterized by erudition; learned or
scholarly.’ (The old Webster dictionary also hints at rude, as being something of an antonym for erudite. Might it also
be a synonym for charivari?
I recently received an email
from Kerry Smith: he and partner Susan Adams, have been touring in South
Australia. Below is an extract from their travel diary:
“We are sitting by the
Gunning Weir at what was our most favourite little "free camp" as yet
another van rolls in to join the throng. We are now eleven camps all gathered
in the area bounded by the weir and the swimming pool. It seems like every
retired person now has a caravan and like us are all seeking quiet little camp
spots to spend an evening in ... groan!
We left Huskisson at
about 9.30 after extricating ourselves from our very wet campsite. We were a
bit hemmed in so we had to use low range to crawl the van over a marker post
and back and fill a little to get turned around but eventually wound our way
through the park. Huskisson was looking beautiful as we drove out: the water
blue and the day clear and sunny. It’s always the way when you leave a place.
But just a day before we had ended a week of rain, some of it torrential with a
grand total of over 300-mm.
The road up the
mountain was great: some lovely stretches of bitumen interspersed with some
narrow old pavement and a little dirt. We had never been up this way previously
so it was nice to see something different. The road goes through a small town
called Nerriga and branches off the Braidwood road just after Nerriga. We were
a little troubled as we crawled across the bridge over the xxxx river as it had
a 5-tonnes limit on it and fully loaded we exceeded the limit by almost 1-tonne.
We felt a little sheepish as we wound the windows down so we could escape
should we crash through the rotten wood into the swollen river but the factor
of safety must have been higher than 6-tonnes.
The worst news came
this afternoon by way of text from the Huxleys telling us they have had to get
the car and van towed back to Canberra due to a transmission warning light
coming on when they were on their way to Temora: a strange déjà vu after our ill-fated trip last time. We were to meet them at
Chilton and continue on to the Fleurieu Peninsula then across the Nullarbor so
we are anxiously awaiting news of their plight: such rotten luck. We are still
a little anxious of the Toyota but it acquitted itself admirably today up the
mountain and cruised along the freeway at a steady 100-kph so we are gradually
learning to trust it. Lots of power and a comfortable ride on the blacktop. It
hops a bit on the corrugations but is solid and hopefully dependable.
It’s drinks time
(purely medicinal) as another train rumbles along just over the hill. It’s a
low rumble and not too intrusive. The loudest thing here is the water hens
patrolling up and down the weir. The occasional squawk will go on all night but
it's like being back at Korora with the water hens on the ponds there. Time to
start heating dinner. We have leftover slow-cooked lamb chops and vegetables
with lumps of bread to soak up the gravy: it makes the mouth water just writing
about it.
Hope everyone is well
and healthy. Stay well and take care.”
[For readers not
familiar with this part of the world: “The Fleurieu Peninsula is a peninsula located south of
Adelaide in South Australia, Australia. It was named
after Charles Pierre
Claret de Fleurieu, the French explorer and hydrographer, by the
French explorer Nicolas Baudin
as he mapped the south coast of Australia in 1802. The name came into official
use in 1911 in response to a recommendation made to the South Australian
Government by the Royal
Geographical Society of South Australia following a representation
from Count Alphonse de Fleurieu, a great-nephew of Charles de Fleurieu, that
unnamed places in South Australia first identified by Baudin's expedition be
given their French names”]. Information: courtesy of Wikipedia. Ed.
Gemma and Yaro Starak, who
recently visited Earthrise together with their son, Jorge, and their friend
Rein van de Ruit, sent me this link to a website describing the artistic use of
stones:
Aspiring
gravity wall builders may be interested in an unusual wall word, thanks also to
Bru Furner who earlier sent me information on the word smoot. Wall builders will appreciate that weep holes are important
in gravity wall construction: so too is a smoot,
being an ‘underpass’ or ‘tunnel-like’ aperture resembling a ground level
throughway at the base of a gravity or dry stonewall. The smoot enables small beasties like field mice and rabbits to cross
from one paddock to the next without having to claw mountainous ways up and
over the stones, particularly on long walls. There was some evidence suggesting
that the smoot may be a Scots word
and etymological fans will find many references Online by Googling ‘dry stone
walls’ or ‘gravity walls.’
Jill
Alexander (see below) has forwarded this video link showing her granddaughter,
Sasha Fergusson together with her Vancouver friends playing jazz at their gig
in New Orleans (on their first night there having just driven down from
Vancouver, BC recently):
Sharon
Snir, writing from Israel, mentions those known as ‘the lone soldier,’ a soldier who
has…“no family in Israel, so may be cared for by families who volunteer to
‘adopt’ a soldier for festivals, for Shabbat and for a place to chat and to do
laundry when time allows.” You may read about other phenomena of modern Israel
by visiting Sharon’s blog at http://speedoflightheartedness.com/?p=1680
I’ve
included below a biography of my late father, first drafted in 1997. Some
readers may be interested to know that he was born in Paul Kruger’s South African Republic (aka the Transvaal Republic) in 1896, the third
of Elizabeth and Rudolph’s five sons, that his brief schooling was at the Royal
Latin School in Buckingham, UK, and that he and his family lived in Victoria,
British Columbia for more than a decade prior to their returning to the Union of South Africa in 1937. When
Durbyn died in Pretoria in 1977, the country had (again) become,
post-Apartheid, the Republic of South
Africa (the South African Republic
and the Orange Free State were the
two Boer Republics that fought against the British in the Second Anglo-Boer
War, 1899-1902).
In my view
there are many reasons for drafting such a ‘memorial document.’ For example, a
family member’s biog is always a useful reference: it may also be the starting
point for further research: for me, intensive research has always been
necessary when writing drafts of both narrative non-fiction and of fiction. One
document will always lead to others. Fictions like The Agreement, Lourenço Marques and The Selati Line and non-fiction like The Special Intelligence Officer and The Annotated ‘Elizabeth’ are examples of some of my narratives
based on historical facts. Some historical facts lend themselves easily to
their becoming fictions; many narratives also may be the consequences of costly
searching for documents that have taken years to find (e.g., by paying
researchers in South Africa, the UK and Germany to find and copy archived
materials). (See a partial list of my eBooks, below). The story of The Agreement began when I accidentally
discovered in the State Library in Sydney (by chance, whilst waiting for books
to arrive from the Stacks, when I browsed a volume of history) to find an
incorrectly named treaty (the ‘Treaty of Windsor’) that led to the Secrete
Anglo Portuguese Agreement (1899). That once secret agreement, in turn, has
enabled me to collect and study a very large number of historical documents and
to learn some of the facts about my family that would otherwise have remained
hidden. Research, family and otherwise, is also an exciting part of writing
books of fiction and non-fiction. Being an incurable romantic helps, too.
DURBYN CHARLES
DIESPECKER (1896-1977)
Durbyn
(often ‘Jimmy’ in Pilgrim’s Rest) was born at Sabie, ZAR September 26 1896. He
died in his 81st year in Pretoria, November 12 1977. He was the third of five sons (no daughters) of Ann
Elizabeth Bradley Diespecker (b Grahamstown, CC, May 11 1867) and Rudolph Solon
Diespecker (RSD) (b Finsbury, London, July 5 1858). DCD was born at Sabie at a
time when his father, Rudolph (always known as Louis Rudolph Diespecker), was
employed as engineer and contractor at both Sabie and also by TGME at Pilgrim’s
Rest (qv). RSD also had an office in Pretoria (and possibly one in
Johannesburg). He and his young family had lived briefly in Lydenburg before
moving to Sabie in 1896 (they were accompanied by Elizabeth’s cousin Jenny
Luke, who helped look after the boys).
At some
time during the Diamond Jubilee year of 1897 when DCD was about eight months
old the family traveled to London, together with their three sons (Rudolph
{always ‘Denny’}, Edmund Atherden, 1892-1949, Louis Cyril, 1895-1969, and DCD)
and probably also with Jenny Luke.
The family returned to South Africa either in 1897 or 1898 and settled
at Willowmore, Cape Colony, where RSD had contracted to build a branch line of
railway. The fourth son, Eugene Jules (always ‘Jean’) was born at Willowmore on
December 5 1898 and both DCD and EJD were baptized at All Saints Church,
Willowmore, on December 31 1898.
Early in
1899 the family left Willowmore and moved to Fynnlands near Durban. [1]
DCD and his
brothers were taken to England by their mother early in the Anglo-Boer War (c
1900), where they stayed with London relatives and briefly with other members
of the family in Glasgow, before moving to Preshute, a house at Enfield (now a
northern suburb of London). Rudolph remained in South Africa where he worked
for the British Government in Natal and in Mozambique as an Intelligence
Officer; in 1901 he became Commandant, Willowmore, CC, and later, became
Commandant of Steytlerville, CC. (qv). Rudolph, as agent provocateur, was
identified in Cape newspapers as ‘The Special Intelligence Officer.’ DCDs
schooling was in England. At the end of the War Rudolph came to England from
South Africa; shortly thereafter he bought Adstock House, a large country home
with extensive gardens and ornamental ponds, in the village of Adstock (near
Winslow), Buckinghamshire. The boys attended St Johns Royal Latin School in
Buckingham until 1908 when the family, as penniless migrants, moved to British
Columbia, Canada. DCDs youngest brother, Dick (Richard Ernest Allan), was born
at Adstock in 1907.
DCD
received no further schooling and, at age twelve, began his first job, as
photographer’s assistant in Victoria, (Vancouver Island), British Columbia).
His father returned to South Africa late in 1909 hoping to win the delayed
final contract to complete the Selati Railway (but that did not eventuate and
RSD worked as a gold prospector and consultant) and DCDs mother, Elizabeth,
opened a small business (selling lace) in Victoria, B C. The two elder brothers
had commercial employment and the family supported itself. Elizabeth is thought
to have been partly responsible for the formation of Victoria’s first troop of
Boy Scouts and the first four sons were members. Later, DCD together with the older boys, served in the
militia. In 1914 when Rudolph’s health was failing, a decision was taken to
send one of the sons to the Transvaal to assist their father. Lots were drawn
between DCD and Louis and Durbyn traveled to South Africa via New Zealand and
Australia. He had sold his
collection of pigeons to raise money for the passage.
Rudolph had
obtained permission from the Transvaal Gold Mining Estates (TGME) to mine for
gold at Ross Hill (the Diespecker Gold Mining Company); DCD joined him there in
1914. After Denny, Louis, and Jean had enlisted in the Canadian forces,
Elizabeth and Dick then joined Rudolph and Durbyn at Ross Hill. DCDs first
period of employment with TGME dated from August 20 1914; his earnings helped
to support the family until he joined the South African Heavy Artillery (SAHA)
(October 26 1918); after his discharge from the Army DCD resumed his service
with TGME. He lived in the TGME Single Quarters when he was employed in the
Reduction Works and he visited his family at Ross Hill, when he had free time,
by following walking tracks over the mountains. He was often accompanied by his
dog, Yellow Dog, and occasionally rode a horse. Many of those mountain treks
were made at night. Rudolph’s health deteriorated and he was compelled to move
to the coast, together with Elizabeth and Dick (c 1918). Rudolph died at
Wynberg, Cape Province (formerly Cape Colony until Union in 1910) May 24
1920.
DCD had met
Grace Kerr Singer (b January 17 1898, Belfast, ZAR; d Durban July 17 1974) in
Pilgrim’s Rest (she was employed as a clerk/typist, I think, either in a
solicitor’s office, or, more probably, in the garage on the lower side of the
main street {not in Ahler’s Garage which was on the high side of the street
opposite}). She was one of four children born to Sarah McDonald Kerr Singer
(1867-1932) and Leslie Drummond Singer, mason and building contractor,
(1869-1942). DCD and Grace were
married in the English Church (‘St Mary’s’), Pilgrim’s Rest, on July 5
1920. Their daughter, Deirdre
June, was born at Pilgrim’s Rest on June 25 1921 (she died in Pretoria October
15 1994). DCDs first married home was a rondawel on the high side of the main
street through Pilgrim’s Rest. It was approximately opposite the path that led
to Keirnander’s house on the other side of Pilgrim’s Creek and a few metres
from a disused explosives magazine (which existed in 1942). I was shown the ruins of this small
dwelling by my father in 1937-8. DCD left the TGME on March 23 1925 (?); he,
Grace, and Deirdre traveled to British Columbia via Australia and New Zealand
on the Orangi (or Oranje) in 1925. They made their new home in Victoria where
DCDs mother and his brothers, Denny and Jean also lived (Louis had moved to
Shanghai, China, after WW1; Dick had completed school and college in Victoria
and trained as a journalist before moving to Vancouver).
DCD worked
as a salesman of stocks, bonds, and insurances in Victoria, and during the
Depression was additionally able to support his family (casual employment) from
bookkeeping and accountancy. He was occasionally paid in kind, rather than in
cash. When he did the bookkeeping for a particular sawmill he would sometimes
return home with a salmon--one large enough to feed the family for a week. DCD
was a keen rugby union player and represented his Victoria club for several
years. He was also a champion grower of dahlias and regularly exhibited
prize-winning blooms at agricultural and flower shows. Photography was a
life-long hobby; and trout fishing was a pastime in British Columbia (Cowichan,
Vancouver Island) and later on the Blyde at Pilgrim’s Rest, and later also on
rivers in Natal (e.g., the Mooi). EJD owned a log cabin in the woods on the
Cowichan River, Vancouver Island, and the families took their turns to enjoy
short vacations there. DCD was also an enthusiastic motorist; he regularly took
his family on trips in British Columbia and the adjoining United States. [2]
In 1937 DCD
and Grace decided to return to Pilgrim’s Rest. The family traveled from
Chemainus (Vancouver Island) to Lourenco Marques, Mozambique, on a cargo
steamer (SS Bencleugh) that carried lumber to South African/Mozambique ports:
each member of the family signed on as crew (DCD, Grace, and Deirdre as steward
and stewardesses; Donald as cabin boy). The Scottish vessel took about eight
weeks to complete the journey via the Panama Canal.
DCD was
able to renew his friendship with Frank Creese (then curator at Newlands
Cricket Ground, Cape Town), and at another intermediate port, Port Elizabeth he
met ‘Baas Bob’ Gardner (TGME, Pilgrim’s Rest) by chance in a city street. DCD
was also able to again meet his cousins, Harriett (always ‘Buntie’) Evard-Ray
(mother of Alex and Joan) and Buntie’s brother, Alex McGregor, in Durban. The
family disembarked in Delagoa Bay and spent some days as the guests of Gerard
and Ellen Bier (Grace’s elder sister) before continuing the journey from
Lourenco Marques by rail to Graskop and Pilgrim’s Rest via Nelspruit.
The family
returned to PR in the spring of 1937 during heavy rain and flooding of the
Blyde. They lived with Grace’s father, Leslie Singer, at his home near Joe and
Maggie Franck’s house (the other neighbours were the Viljoen family). [3] When
the family arrived, Leslie Singer was chiseling the inscriptions on
commemorative slate tablets which, when completed, were cemented in place on
the new Voortrekker Monument near the Joubert Bridge. [4]
DCD, after
exploring employment possibilities on the Witwatersrand, again became a shift
worker in the Central Reduction Works at Pilgrim’s Rest (December 1937). During
this time he and his family moved from LDSs house to temporary accommodation in
the Maeder house while the Maeder family was on overseas leave. The family then
moved across the street to a semi-detached house with a large garden (the
semi-detached neighbours were the Mowbrays and the more distant neighbours were
the Smallbones {Bill? and one of
the Gardner daughters?}). After one year DCD transferred to the Assay Office
where his colleagues were Messrs Skea (the Assayer) and Keirnander and later
the young Ivor White and the young ‘Boet’ Swart also became Assay Office
employees. During his four years of service in the TGME Assay Office DCD was
also responsible for taking meteorological readings, coding them, and
telephoning the data through to Pretoria.
The meteorological instruments were contained within a wired enclosure
outside the back gate of the Assay Office premises, close to the laboratory (I
forget the name of the chemist). DCD also made a modest collection of minerals
that he later donated to the TGME.
DCD and
family later moved to what had been the Woods family home (all the above houses
were TGME-owned, with the exception of LD Singer’s house). It was directly
below the premises of one of the Beretta families, and directly above the
Francks home (there was open ground between this house and the LDS house).
During the latter part of this five years residence in PR DCD reformed the
local Boy Scouts group. Permission was obtained from TGME to use the old Scout
premises at the Recreation Club, adjacent to the tennis courts. Regular
meetings were held; DCD handed over, as Scoutmaster, to a Mr Cass (TGME employee)
in 1942.
Between
1937 and 1942 DCD briefly acquired prospecting rights (Op De Berg area beyond
Vaalhoek and Bourkes Luck) but did not work the claims he had pegged. During
WW2 DCD was a member of the local militia (Volunteer Police Reserve/National
Volunteer Reserve?) and continued to serve as a part-time member of the Defence
Forces when the family moved to Durban (1942) where he joined a coastal defence
unit (artillery) on the Bluff for week-end duties.
In Durban
DCD worked primarily as an accountant (principally with the SA Meat Control
Board). After retirement he continued to work part-time for the local Receiver
of Revenue office in Durban. Grace died in Durban July 17 1974. Durbyn and
Deirdre traveled by sea to visit Australia in 1975; Don visited Durbyn and
Deirdre in SA the following year. In the last years of his life Durbyn moved to
Pretoria, to be near his widowed daughter (Deirdre was twice married; her first
marriage was to Alex Rose (two children, Julie and Christopher; a second
marriage was to onetime TGME employee, Barney Kieser {1905-1973}). [5]
DCD died in
Pretoria November 12 1977 and his ashes were scattered in the Garden of
Remembrance. Dad always enjoyed gardening and walking: he encouraged these
enthusiasms in his son who he also taught fly fishing and the pleasures of
adventurous rambles in the mountains and hills surrounding Pilgrim’s Rest. [6]
REFERENCES
1. A
baptismal certificate for DCD, copied from the Willowmore church register, was
dated February 8 1899. “She was not surprised when Rudolph told her they were
to move again. The railway was stopped; there was more important work to do,
government work, in Durban and Delagoa Bay. They were all to move to Durban,
“and it may not be for long,” he warned (from Dick Diespecker’s Elizabeth. Toronto: Dent, 1950, p 37).
Autobiographical descriptions of these early years are given in DCDs ‘Bear
Fat’, Vol 1 (unpublished MSS; DDD collection). The family settled in a house
“immediately behind Fynnlands station” in 1899 that still existed in the 1940s
when DCD and I visited.
2. The MS
first volume of DCDs ‘Bear Fat’ inaccurately subtitled “(1896-1908)” was
deposited in the Archives and Record Division of the City of Victoria, British
Columbia; this describes the period when DCD lived in Canada between 1925 and
1937. A typed transcript is in the collection of DDD. A second MS volume of
“Bear Fat”, together with typed transcripts is in DDDs collection (it describes
DCDs early childhood {Fynnlands, Preshute, Adstock, Buckingham and Victoria BC
to 1914}). A single-page TS, also
titled “Bear Fat” was presented by DCD to TGME at the time of his departure for
Durban in 1942; this single page predates other “Bear Fat” MSS and TSS.
3. LD
Singer’s house at Pilgrim’s Rest was directly below the school; it was
separated from both neighbours by open blocks of ground, and was directly above
the tramline behind a high overgrown evergreen hedge (cypress/macrocarpa). The existing road from the Joubert
Bridge, constructed for Albion trucks to haul ore from Vaalhoek to the Central
Reduction Works, was designed to pass close to (or perhaps through) LDSs
property (LDS died May 12 1942).
The house was subsequently demolished. After Deirdre’s birth in 1921 the
young family lived in a cottage near the junction of the Main Street and the
street that ran up to the school and on to the Mine Offices. When we left PR in
1942 the house still existed and there was then open ground between it and
Guest’s Butchery. By 1942 it may have been occupied by the Cass family (who
otherwise lived close by) and prior to 1942 may have been occupied by the
Bullough family.
4. I’m
uncertain about particular dates. I remember being part of the commemorative
ceremony that was probably during a school vacation in 1938. I’m certain my
grandfather Singer was working on the inscriptions when we arrived in Pilgrims
late in 1937.
5. DCD and
GKDs daughter, Deirdre, married Alex Rose in Durban c1943; Deirdre and Alex had
two children: Juliet Diana (b October 11 1946, now living in Johannesburg, RSA,
with her son, Ian Craig), and Christopher (b May 1951, now living in Perth, WA,
with his wife Kerry and their two children). Durbyn and Grace’s son, Donald Douglas (b May 14 1929)
married Pamela Murray at Kloof, Natal, in December 1952; the Australian
children of that marriage are Nicholas (b October 6 1960, now living in Ottawa,
Ont.,) and Carl Richard (b April 1 1964, now living in Newcastle, NSW). A daughter, Larissa (b August 16 1971),
was born to Donald and Julie Hollingdale; she now lives in Sydney, NSW with her
husband, Angelo Tilocca and their two children, Olivia and Alessandro.
6. During the
latter part of our time in PR, during WW2, my father and I used to fish for
trout along the Blyde with some of DCDs friends and colleagues. The Saturday
afternoon outings usually included Boysie Jones, sometimes the TGME Engineer
(whose name I forget--Campbell, perhaps--he had two daughters at school when I
was also a student: Pat and Fiona), and the aforementioned Woods (father of
Edgar and Gwen). DDD,
January 1997.
ZAR = Zuid
Afrikaansche Republiek (i.e., the Transvaal); CC = Cape Colony (later Cape
Province); TGME = Transvaal Gold Mining Estates Ltd.; SAHA = South African
Heavy Artillery.
Creative Writing
The Car That Ran Away
Jill Alexander
My husband and I
were enjoying a two-week holiday with good friends, John and Gill, who own a
house in Playa Car, a subdivision of Playa Del Carmen situated on the east
coast of Mexico on the Caribbean Ocean. We had made a plan for the day to drive
north, in the direction of Cancun, to a little village called Puerto Morales.
On arrival, we parked the car and headed for the outdoor market. The vendors
greeted us warmly and we walked about enjoying the varieties of their crafts.
We purchased two pieces of art in vibrant tropical colours to decorate our
newly renovated apartment in Vancouver. For our next stop we found a little
coffee bar and sat for a while enjoying the ambience and our iced cappuccinos.
Delicious! We all agreed! From there our wanderings took us to a used bookstore
where we spent a pleasant hour browsing. We ended by purchasing four books for
our holiday reading pleasure. Next, lunch at the beach: guacamole and mixed
seafood ceviche* with an ice-cold Corona beer. We sat at a table on the sand
and had the beautiful azure blue of the ocean and the white powdery sand as our
landscape. After lunch we set up our umbrellas and beach chairs near the water
and went for a wonderful swim in the gently rolling surf. Relaxing and reading from our
collection of recently purchased books was a perfect end to our afternoon. We
then packed up and headed back to the villa to prepare for our night on the
town.
Driving to the north
end of Playa Del Carmen, we parked our car on a side street and walked to a
restaurant that John and Gill highly recommended. The owner, an Italian named
David, ran the restaurant with his wife. David suggested that we choose an
expensive bottle of Italian wine. He then described this at great length as to
vintage and location in Italy where the grapes had been grown. The bonus was
two complimentary plates of tasty appetizers served together with the chosen
bottle of wine.
After leaving this
charming little bar, we strolled along the strip of Playa Del Carmen with all
its restaurants and shops. Before long we met up with another Italian friend
named Joe, who was sitting with two of his friends visiting from Montreal. He
insisted we join them for a glass of wine. The seating area extended to the
edge of the strip, and during the course of our stay, and more wine, we met
another couple strolling along, also known to Joe, who stopped and joined us in
a lively discussion about everything from hockey to politics.
Eventually we left
feeling mellow and happy and walked toward our car. When we arrived at our
street and the place where we had parked we were shocked to discover our car
was nowhere to be seen. We were convinced it must have been stolen. In a panic
we walked the short distance to the main strip and found
three young taxi drivers who were parked and waiting for customers. They spoke
very little English and we were equally lacking in Spanish. However, they
understood enough to call the police for us, as we were beginning to feel
frantic. The police arrived within minutes and we were able to interpret that
the car had not been stolen but had been towed to the police station. From what
we could gather, our car had rolled down a slight incline. We were not able to
determine from the conversation if it had hit another car or rolled into a
tree. By this time, a second police vehicle had arrived to take us to the
police station. As we drove to the far side of town and up to the gate leading
into the police compound, there was our car and it appeared to be intact. We
were instructed to follow a policeman who led us into the building through a
maze of rooms and doors. Eventually, we came to a counter where we once again
attempted to have a limited conversation in Spanish with a police officer that
knew very little English. He directed us to a TV monitor where all the
incidents of the past 24-hours were put up on the screen. Suddenly our car came
into view. It was sitting at an angle across the road with the front bumper
against a lamppost. After more limited conversation, we were informed that we
were to be charged a fine plus a towing fee. However, the office that dealt
with fines was closed for the day. We would have to come back in the morning to
retrieve our car. They offered to call a taxi for us and quoted a ridiculous
amount of money. We replied that we would get our own cab. We headed to the main
highway and were in luck. A cab stopped for us and took us home for $12.
When we finally
arrived back at our villa, we all agreed this had been a bizarre ending to an
otherwise perfect day.
Jill Diespecker Alexander is a retired nurse
and business owner and is presently writing her life story.
The Light, The Light!
DD
At “Earthrise” (in Local Sector 1655 of Midgeworld), the demure
yet forward-looking Hon Morgana Midge sits patiently on a seeding grass head
blessedly growing on the invisible boundary where Big Lawn ends and the wilder
riverbank begins. It has become one of her most recent favourite alighting
places. She is well aware that the planet is not only whole: it is of course
also a tiny part of the much greater whole that is undeniably the universe (aka
“The Big U” in Local Sector 1655). And she is fully aware that “Earthrise” is
the favoured and somewhat ill-disciplined human name that encompasses Local
Sector 1655, i.e., all the local midges, including Morgana, have addresses that
locate them in both worlds: their own and that of the gigantic two-legged
‘humans.’ This particular human has
(so far) been sufficiently observant to have discovered some of the many
abilities of midges and to have tolerated the little insects so positively that
all the members of Local Sector 1655 are themselves tolerant of and positive
toward the human. The human is, in Universal Midgespeak, best known as Agdor
(that playful name being an acronym of A Good Drop Of Red). Agdor and the
midges live companionably and thoughtfully and share the same land; none of the
resident beings are silly enough to regard this tiny speck of the whole as their
exclusive domain. The midges and Agdor also share concerns for the many other
resident species and appreciate the difficulties of raising awareness for all
beings. Importantly, the midges and the human continue as good friends that are
tolerant of each other’s foibles and whims. Scores of tiny flyers shine whitely
in the morning air like infinitesimal helicopters hovering on station.
*
It is a fine April morning at Earthrise (or, if you prefer,
the Local Sector 1655 of Midgeworld). The old man has welcomed the sunrise,
from inside his house, and admired the light shining through the Bleeding Heart
tree’s leaves outside the lounge room windows and further glimpsed the
downstream view of the Bellinger running away to Farewell Bend. He suspects he
might just know how remarkable good light may be for the soul: random silken
threads drift loosely and wondrously in the heavy air, sunlight glisters at the
rapids near the house and reflections of ‘river light’ dance along the back
wall pine boards in the kitchen. He ambles down to the belvedere grasping his
coffee mug. He positions a garden chair and sits where he can best keep an eye
on the sparkling downstream view. In the act of sitting he briefly remembers
having passed a litter of orange African Tulip Tree flowers on the green lawn
and having also noticed the wild violets there and the tiny white flowers with
three principal petals and two white ‘feelers’ that make the plants now
visualized look oddly like the Antoinette Racer, that very early monoplane he
wrote into The Selati Line and he
smiles at the associations in his overcrowded mind where, often, he suspects
that absolutely everything is interrelated, interconnected and interdependent.
There is still a little black coffee in the mug and he sips it appreciatively.
He will allow himself the indulgence of running through some of his Current
Dilemmas (the Top Five, perhaps) for no longer than a minute and he will then
open wide a window in his mind to enable both seeing and his appreciation of seeing.
Despite worriedly ruminating and his eyes being half closed
he is able to spot Morgana and she, even more adroitly spots him. For some odd
reason, Agdor is also aware of background music in his mind: he suspects he is
‘hearing,’ as it were, Marietta’s Song (though he can’t quite recall the
singer’s name) from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt. Each remains silent for long
seconds. Agdor transforms his half-veiled look into a squint to see that
Morgana’s antennae are twitching, so he’s aware of a coming change. Meanwhile,
Morgana’s brother, Sir Gawain, is descending from the west into the White
Begonia Flyway. The Hon Morgana knows very well that this is her brother’s
favourite landing approach because he is able to keep one eye on the glistening
Bellinger and the other on darting swallows casually snacking on winged
beasties along this part of the serpentine river. Gawain will of course see Morgana if only because her grass
stem also marks the overshoot end of the landing field.
Although Agdor’s review of his interior life doesn’t quite
end it is nudged aside now as Unfinished Business; he focuses instead on
Morgana anxiously studying her brother’s approach (although Agdor cannot see
Sir G; his vision is taken by the bobbing, of Red Cedar leaves oscillating in
opposite directions, the leaves and twigs now accommodating hundreds of
preschool midges bouncingly: he can only just hear their collective, thin happy
voices). Sir Gawain’s wings wobble slightly in the mix of humid air and a
cooling breeze from the river. He is also weary having flown directly from an
exhausting base-jumping practice session with members of his cohort and he
needs to rest. Sir G is going to land dangerously at speed in the glide path
unless he brakes, slows and then completes an additional circuit that will
effectively slow him to land at a safe and appropriate speed. His fatigue is
evident to observers and he only just manages to land without mishap and as a
consequence is bad-tempered when he quite violently comes to rest on his
sister’s grass stalk. He has necessarily to buzz upward to the seed head
summit. Morgana sighs resignedly and tightly hangs on until her perch comes
comfortably to rest again. Agdor sighs imperceptibly when he sees Sir Gawain
and the Hon Morgana swinging on the grass head. He leans forward a little and
discreetly placing the coffee mug on his right knee he subtly turns the handle
toward the seeding grass head and very gently allows several fillings in his
teeth to connect sufficiently for him to tune in to the sibling’s conversation
(nobody knows why this enables Agdor to hear the faint speech of midges,
including Agdor)…
‘Hi Sis, why are we here?’ Sir Gawain cheekily wants to
know.
‘Do you mean that in a spiritual way?’
‘No, no! You requested the meeting but didn’t say why!’
‘Hey, I’m your sister,
don’t forget, and not one of your minions! Besides, I’m seconds older than you
are!’
‘All right already! So what’s going on?’
‘Look around you Bro: can you see any of the colleagues? No?
What do you see? Take your time.’ It
is Gawain’s turn to sigh: he imagines his sister has asked him a trick question
and that Morgana has something going on and that he will need to proceed with
care. ‘Um,’ he annoyingly murmurs so as to gain time.
Sir Gawain Midge had called an early end to the Base Jumping
exercise because so many Members had also seemed unduly tired and an ignoble
few had even used the session for snatched dozes and several had fallen into distinctly
heavy slumbering. A few daredevils had even ventured into Sleeping Whilst Flying,
a dangerous feat at this time of year when there were so many marauding
predators in the area. For Sir G this meeting was to have included the Base
Jumping Autumn Pairings Draw on the lawn-edge-riverbank. The little fellow now
watches the arrival of several hundred of his cohort entourage and the growing
crowd of fliers and base jumpers is flanked by several hundred of the renowned
Humming Dipterenes accompanying the base jumpers (Midge Security has issued a
brief instruction warning citizens that Base Jumping and Memorizing Combined
Operations require all midge citizenry to keep their distance in case there are
procedures that require to be learned or memorized by the base jumpers). When
memorizing midges are off duty they are encouraged into recreational
appearances as backing groups in choirs. Today there are two gender-distinct
groups of backing midges bouncing alternately in the adjacent air on either
side of the minute knight. Sir Gawain is currently the de facto Midgeworld
Prime Minister as well as the Squadron Leader of the 99th Fighter
Squadron of the Royal Midgeworld Air Force, (“The RMAF”). This is normal
procedure for Sir Gawain when he is not harmonising, there being no Attack
Missions presently being flown by the 99th and, instead, only tedious
Plotting Room Exercises for him to avoid. Sir Gawain would have preferred
rhythmically bouncing and singing because he is also the part-time Midgeworld Dipterene
Backing Groups Choir Master and Music Producer (as well as a renowned local
composer of midge music).
Those who studiously follow the career of Sir G know him to
be always positive in outlook and generally cheery; today, however, he and his
entourage seem over-tired and few have eyes for their comrades now flying above
Agdor (these are quite large ROTS (Reading Over The Shoulder) squadrons of tertiary
Intel Students hovering on station, over and behind and to each side of the Old
Man at all times, their duty being the memorizing of writings and TV programs
read or watched by Agdor for the furthering of his education and also for his
entertainment. All such information is collectively known in the Midgeworld
Local Sector as The Source and Sir G is widely known as a celebrated Speed
Reader and the winner of many Midge Educational Awards. His equally busy
sister, the Hon Morgana, when not watching out for her impetuous brother,
considers herself to be (or almost to have become)
an aspiring creative writer. Her writings, including free verse poems intended
as songs and her stream of consciousness fictions are now the talk of Sector
1655. Morgana’s writing is eagerly discussed in nearby Left Bank cafés and bars
where there are always writers, artists and attendant Memorizing Dipterenes.
The Left Bank (aka Montparnasse), it may be noted, can easily be seen at most
times of the day: it is located on the shaded surface of the smaller of the two
white begonia gardens that mark the Flyway.
Agdor vaguely hears the ABC News through an earplug
connected to his portable radio. He suddenly gasps and sits up straight: the
death of GG Marquez is announced in a news bulletin. ‘Oh!’ says Agdor, ‘and at
eighty-seven, too! GG Marquez has died!’
Words almost fail Morgana. She turns from Sir G and bounces
to Agdor’s right thumbnail. ‘Marquez dead:
please say it’s not so!’
‘Alas, my dear Morgana, it is undoubtedly true: today in
Mexico City and he only two years older than I. I feel so suddenly sad: he
wrote so splendidly for all of us.’ Agdor looks more closely at Morgana. Gawain
arrives to land next to his sister on Agdor’s thumb. Morgana appears to be
weeping but the old man cannot see well enough to be certain. As he peers,
trying to refocus, he hears in his mind the unmistakable voice of Richard
Tauber as he begins to sing ‘Vilja’ from The Merry Widow. He lowers his head
and sighs at the music before contriving to attenuate the sounds in his mind.
Morgana looks up at Agdor. ‘His English prose was so
beautiful and he wrote so feelingly. And at such a great age, such an
unimaginable age!’
‘I’m only two years his junior,’ says Agdor helplessly.
‘Oh, yes, so you are,’ Morgana says. ‘I’d forgotten. I so
enjoy Ms genres and styles.’
‘GGM wrote mainly in Spanish and his publishers found very
able translators to turn that prose into English for us.’
‘Of course, yes, and Marquez made things up and used magical
realism to such great effect,’ Morgana said sadly.
A Special Forces group starts now to agitate grass heads by
revving their wing beats to announce the arrival of General Scarpia, the Local
Sector Police Chief. Scarpia, cleared for a Direct Approach landing, arrives
and bounces immediately to Sir G and his sister. He turns to include Agdor and
he makes an elaborate salute (the showy two-antennae salute is intended for all
who are present). ‘You’ve heard? GG Marquez has left us all!’ The collective
sigh of many hundreds of gathering midges now bends the grass heads and stirs
the fallen White Cedar leaves on the grass: the news is spreading like
wildfire.
Without offering any preamble, Scarpia turns from Agdor and
suggests to Sir G that a suitable memorial to GGM might be ‘a joint book.’
‘What’s a joint book?’ Sir G wants to know.
‘A joint book is a book of jointly written stories by us and
by Agdor.’
‘Oh! Is a joint story one written by a bunch of midges and by Agdor?’
‘Sure,’ Scarpia tells him.
‘What will we call it?’
‘We probably won’t know that until we get to the end,’
General Scarpia says. ‘Isn’t that so, Agdor?’
‘That’s a very good point, General,’ Agdor says nodding as
sagely as he can.
‘I know,’ says Sir
G, ‘let’s call it The Six Hundred after our 600 most elite chaps and that will
include all the writers.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not? Or call it “The Light Brigade.” Onward, onward
rode the six hundred. You know?’
General Scarpia ponders this unusual connection. ‘Oh, very well:
we can easily assemble 600 elite members, some to write stuff, or six thousand
for that matter. But there’s only one of Agdor, only one human.’
‘Oh, that’s OK: nobody will notice because it’s a joint book,’ Says Sir G.
‘It could be a
fitting memorial,’ says Scarpia seriously.
Without his having consciously changed the music in his mind
Agdor realises that he is now listening to excerpts from Rachmaninoff’s Second
Piano Concerto as well as the Second Symphony, something he has not previously
experienced. The mixed excerpts cause him to blink in surprise. He knows he must now speak to his many
friends. He picks up his almost empty porcelain coffee mug, rests it against
his right cheek and speaks carefully so that the fillings in his teeth will
transmit his voice, as if by magic, without entirely blowing the midges off the
belvedere. ‘Yes, well,’ Agdor says regretfully. ‘He did write such wonderful
stories and he certainly knew how to use magical realism.’
‘Remind me, please, somebody,’ squeaks Sir G (whose reading
seldom includes lyrical prose or literature other than the captions in comic
books and straightforward cartoons), ‘what exactly is magical realism?’
‘Magical realism,’
Morgana and Agdor murmur in unison, their voices trembling, ‘is a technique of
writing fiction and is used particularly by South American writers generally
writing in Spanish. There is a quotation in The Library of Great Authors that reads, “The most prominent characteristic of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s style is
his use of fantastic and absurd elements in an otherwise believable, realistic
story. And he does this by using hyperbole, or dramatic exaggeration.” He
and other South American writers frequently use allegory, too, in their
fictions. “Allegory is a technique in
which events or people represent something that is outside or beyond the
narrative.” That’s all in the book, too.’
The querulous Sir Gawain nods vigorously: he recalls some of
his past learning and times when he would patiently listen to Morgana reading
aloud from one of her stories, but being so fatigued he pretends ignorance.
‘For example?’ Sir G cantankerously wants to know.
Agdor, anxious and still busily reflecting, invites the
visitor on his thumbnail: ‘Honourable Morgana, would you explain, please?’
‘I’m too upset,’ squeaks Morgana. ‘You explain, please, dear Agdor.’
‘Um,’ says Agdor, musing and again struggling to attenuate
the concert excerpts in his mind whilst also returning to calmness. ‘Uh, well
I’ve used magic realism myself, having been inspired by GGM, in some of my own
stories that feature ghosts.’
‘Such as?’ Sir Gawain mischievously asks.
‘Such as The
Earthrise Visits: the narrative includes literary ghosts, and also in The Selati Line that contains dialogue
between the ghost of a South African President and a young schoolgirl, oh, and
conversations between a beautiful fado singer and her dead lover in Lourenço Marques. And the three
sections of Finding Drina are each
homage stories to famous writers: Marquez, Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell; each
was a joy to write and I dedicated that work to an old friend, the inspiration
for the character, Drina or should I say, Alexandrina. The more fantastic or
absurd parts of my stories have been inspired by the writings of Marquez. ’
‘I see, I see,’ cries Sir Gawain. ‘Of course, yes!’
‘What?’ Agdor asks.
Although Morgana and her brother have previously heard this
appreciation the mischievous Sir G wants to know who the real Drina is and
Agdor feels obliged to whisper sibilantly that, as a gentleman, even a rehabilitating
reprobate one, he could not possibly address such an ungentle question.
‘You write about us, so: do you consider we midges to be
both fantastic and absurd or possibly one or the other?’ Morgana asks.
‘What makes you ask that?’ Agdor replies slowly, stalling
for time. ‘Of course I see you all as fantastic but not of course as absurd…’
‘There is perhaps something that you’re not telling us, dear
Agdor.’
‘What might that be, my dear?’
‘That you, the writer, may only be pretending that we midges do what we do, say what we say, have our
Midgeworld experiences and that you, sir, are making it all up!’
‘O, I say, that’s a little harsh, don’t you think?’
‘We do not wish to be deceived, you see; we all want to be
respected for what we are, midges with our very own customs and values, our
beliefs and—‘
‘You are, you are respected and loved and admired,’
Agdor insists, his eyes searching wildly for a way out of the impasse.
Sir Gawain slowly turns and stares hard at Agdor. ‘I say,
Agador, ‘you haven’t been making us up
have you? When you write about us, the midges, are you or are you not inventing us, eh?’
There are now beads of sweat on the old gardener’s face and
he pulls several tissues from a shirt pocket to dab at his fevered brow. ‘I
write of you as educated and responsible and very often as gifted and lyrical,’
Agdor says slowly. ‘And if I were making you up you would all be magical,
anyway.’ By this time almost two thousand of the off duty Humming Dipterenes,
having been immediately joined by would-be memorizers and general hangers on,
are instantly Alert, Aware and Actioning. The old man has used the hitherto
unrecorded words, gifted and lyrical
and magical. ‘We might as well agree,
all of us, that all stories by anyone and everyone, whether true or fictitious,
depend hugely on our abilities to imagine. With our imaginations we make the
world that we know. And collectively I dare say you all know much more about me
than I know about myself: you, collectively, know much more than I know about
the world, particularly when you think together as a collective mind. Perhaps you have invented me! Now, if I may, I’ll tell you some of the story that I’m
particularly fond of, and you’ll be able to hear some of the original words of
GG Marquez.’
A great buzzing of mass interest rises noisily from the
growing crowd of midges on the lawn-edge-riverbank. Sir Gawain laughs happily.
‘Yes, by all means: I tell you what, some of our chaps can airlift the book
from its book rest near your favourite window and fly it down here just in case
you can’t remember it all and while we’re waiting we’ll show you our newest
ritual. The Raking Ritual Players will perform, as a concert spectacle, the
raking of the developing Zen garden in the bohemian area close by. You will see
the group formally demonstrating with a selection of rakes made from split bird
feathers, and the players will then start the Zen raking of Very Fine Silt
Particles in natural reflected river light. And you need only nod your
agreement. Thank you. You left a window or door open? Yes? Get to it raking
players!’
Morgana, dancing on his thumbnail, wants to tell Agdor
something important. Agdor bends to hear her. ‘I want also to spread the word
that in my favourite Marquez story,
the village of Macondo was …“built on the bank of a river of clear water that
ran along a bed of polished stones…” The name of our lovely river here, Bellinger, we have been told, means clear water. And we might suggest that this place here and that place, Macondo,
become sister towns.’
‘What a good idea,’ says Agdor heartily, ‘except that here isn’t quite yet a town.’
‘No matter,’ says Morgana, we can send a midge delegation to
the Macondo midges in South America. You can help by checking flight schedules
on your computer then out people can travel beneath the collars of giant human
passengers. It’s hardly rocket science, you know.’
‘It will be a
pleasure,’ says Agdor. ‘First things first.’ Together they watch the book
winging down to them from the house.
A Dipterene messenger lands next to Morgana who then says:
‘There are 697 members of the 99th flying as lifters, 1,267 Other
Citizens flying as pushers and 291 Midge Kids are a playful tail. Hold out your
hands carefully and receive the book, please.’
Agdor holds out his open hands and feels more relaxed yet
almost helpless in the face of this frenetic activity. The Zen garden is so
new, so fresh and as a ritual, completely surprising. Might it become
associated with Marquez? Should he read aloud from Page One? Would the midges
like the Zen area on the Left Bank to also
be dedicated perhaps to GG Marquez and possibly be called The Marquez
Garden of Light And Delight? Or: the Park Of The Evangels? I turn to the first
page of Love In The Time Of Cholera.
Who will announce the sister towns proposal? Will there be time for discussion?
Will this be a memorial or a time of celebration or possibly both? The book is
in his hands now; he opens it to the first lines of the story.
Morgana and Gawain stand precariously together on the edge
of Agdor’s thumbnail. Sir G manages to raise his forelegs in the sparkling
morning air. ‘Here comes the light!’
Sir Gawain shrieks. The assembled crowd turn to the river shining in the rising
sun: ‘The Light! The Light!’ they
shout in unison and their cheering blows fallen leaves high in the air where
they tumble, spin and whirl before falling to earth once more.
The old man laughs with delight and is obliged to sit down;
leaves blow about and some settle on him. Watching the bright scene he notices
several golden leaves alighting on his heart and he feels blessed.
Don’s eBooks:
For those readers
who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books. These
digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites. E.g., see
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Don+Diespecker
(a) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel
to my two print novels (not available as eBooks) published in one volume as The Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço Marques. Finding Drina is written in three parts and in three different
styles that also are intended homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway
and Lawrence Durrell); thus this little book is also meta-fiction (novella,
about 30-k words).
(b) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian
long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a
young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her too) before a
second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.
(c) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian
dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k
words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a
celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a
bloody assassination.
(d) The Selati Line is an early 20th
century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper and love story
sequel to The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, lightly written and
containing some magical realism. A
scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order (novel, about 150-k
words).
(e) The Summer River is a dystopian novel
(about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the
Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a
guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how
best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k
words).
(f) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine
and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and
verse novel in which his mother is the principal protagonist and I suggest why
the book Elizabeth (published by
Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir or history
(non-fiction, about 24-k words).
(g) The Overview is a short Australian
novel set at Earthrise (about 32.5-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River.
(h) Scribbles from Earthrise, is an
anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k
words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the
river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs.
(i) Here and There is a selection of Home
and Away essays (about 39-k words). (‘Away’ includes Cowichan (Vancouver
Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan
(meeting Sai Baba in India). ‘Home’ essays are set at Earthrise and include as
topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.
(j) The Agreement is a novel set in Mozambique
and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an espionage yarn
written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement. Louis Dorman
and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de Camoens who helps draft
the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British Intelligence Officers,
Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at the Estrela Café
(about 62-k words).
(k) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The
Agreement. Mozambique in September 1910. The Estrela café-bar is much
frequented and now provides music: Elvira Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and
is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and her companion return with a new member
of the family; Louis faints. Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American
journalist plans to film a fiesta and hundreds visit from the Transvaal. Drina
plays piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old business associate
(novel: about 75-k words).
(l) The Midge Toccata, a caprice about
talking insects (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories). This book has a
splendid new cover designed by my cousin, Katie Diespecker (fiction, caprice,
about 26-k words).
(m) Happiness is a short novel set at
Earthrise. The ‘narrator’ is again the very elderly ex-ATA flier who
unexpectedly meets and rescues a bridge engineer requiring urgent
hospitalisation: she gets him safely to hospital in his own plane. She also
‘imagines’ an extension to her own story, one about a small family living
partly in the forest and on the riverbank: the theme is happiness. Principal
protagonist is a 13-years old schoolgirl who seems a prodigy: she befriends a
wounded Army officer and encourages his plans. Her parents are a university
teacher and a retired concert pianist. The family pets can’t resist being
scene-stealers in this happy family (novel, about 65-k words).
(n) The Special Intelligence Officer is
part family history as well as a military history and describes the roles of my
late grandfather in the Guerrilla War (1901-1902). The Guerrilla War was the
last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The title of the book is
taken from Cape newspapers of the time: Capt Rudolph Diespecker was a District
Commandant and his responsibilities included intelligence gathering that led to
the capture, trial and execution of a Boer Commandant who was wrongly framed as
a ‘Cape rebel,’ when he was legally a POW (Gideon Scheepers was never a Cape
rebel, having been born in the Transvaal (the South African Republic,) one of
the two Boer Republics (non-fiction, about 33-k words).
(o) The Letters From Earthrise, an
anthology of my columns and other essays and articles written for the Australian Gestalt Journal between 1997
and 2005 (fiction and some non-fiction, about 70-k words).
(p) The Darkwood
is a dystopian novel set here in the not too distant future (about 80-k words).
Earthrise is again central to other themes.
Guest
Writers retain ©. Thank you to Guest Writer Jill Alexander.
Best wishes
to all Diary readers from Don.
Last word
to GG Marquez: Life is not what one
lived, but what one remembers and how one remembers it in order to recount it.
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