Reading and exploring with Hugh in 2024, part 1

A very HAPPY NEW YEAR to all Dragoneers! May it be better in every way than 2023 -- in many ways this should not be difficult.

Inspired by jillmwo at the end of the previous thread, I offer a view of the whole of Lion Mountain from Bloubergstrand. Not the clearest possible view, but enough if one looks closely.



The base of the lion is marked by a dark strip of forest behind the seafront suburb. His rump is to the left.

Happy new thread, Hugh!

Happy New Thread!

>2 hfglen: Okay, now I can see the Lion. So already, you've opened up 2024 on an educational, informational basis. Excellent. Happy new thread!

Happy New Year and happy new thread!

>6 Bookmarque: Thank you, Bookmarque! Much appreciated!

Happy New Year! Always enjoy visiting here with you.

Happy New Year!

>2 hfglen: What a stunning view. Happy reading in 2024!

May you have the Happiest New Year, and Happy New Thread.

Thank you, all -- much appreciated!

Over the last couple of days I've been reading C. Pama's (1979) Wine Estates of South Africa together with the 2013 Platter's Guide to get a sense of how the scene has changed since I was a student and Tassies* was 25c a bottle. Short answer: beyond all recognition. Mostly because the dead hand of the previous government's obsession with Control is now a thing of the past, and the KWV has morphed from an unimaginative, stifling control board to the marketing body they were originally (in 1918!) designed to be.

Pama gives a double-page spread (occasionally a bit more) to each of the 40 estates that had jumped through the hoops to be legally certified as estates and not forced to sell their product to co-operatives (and still if they managed to make more than a bureaucratically-imposed quota, they had to sell the surplus to the KWV at a giveaway price). About half of those estates sold their own-label wines only through one of the two large companies in Stellenbosch. In 2012, free-standing estates and garagiste winemakers number in the hundreds (the 2012 Platter runs to some 600 pages of bare-bones listings, as opposed to Pama's 102 pages with lots of pictures), and few do not sell at the cellar door.

A 1977 Guide to South African Wines by Graham Etherington devotes a whole chapter to the then-new and unique Stellenbosch Wine Route, which had all of ten members. Platter has several pages of maps from which one can plan one's own tours in all regions, not only the Western Cape but also in the Orange River Valley, Griqualand West and KZN. Wine routes are now "a dime a dozen".

ETA: Forgot to add the note!
*"Tassies", or more correctly Tassenberg, is a cheap-'n-cheerful red blend composed mainly of Cinsaut.

That sounds fascinating. Amazing what weird laws grow up around any kind of alcohol production. Governments don't seem to know what's good for them anytime or place.

Happy New Year! I hope it brings you great books and adventures! Looking forward to more of your photos.

Best wishes for the new year, and happy new thread.

>11 Narilka: Thank you, but I can't help thinking that this classic view looks better if less drastically cropped.



Table Mountain from Bloubergstrand, September 2014.

Beautiful. I have several former colleagues who worked in South Africa and often talked about Table Mountain. That is a great picture. Thank you!

>18 hfglen: I like them both photos. In this one I focus more on the relaxing waves in the foreground.

What a beautiful photo! I can hear the waves...

>18 hfglen: Lovely. The color of the water is inviting.

>22 clamairy: Thank you. The absence of swimmers might alert you to the fact that the water is the cold Benguela Current, and so rarely tops 15°C (60°F) -- icy by our standards, and a good 4 or 5 degrees colder than the waters of False Bay, but still warmer than further up the west coast, surprisingly.

>23 hfglen: Brrr!

>18 hfglen: That's a classic shot! Really shows how the mountain got its name!

Just for those who feel they have a shortage of snow right now ...



Drakensberg behind Underberg, KZN, 11 June 2010.

>26 hfglen: Now there's a view that is breathtaking! I suspect you have finely honed photographic skills, Hugh!

>27 jillmwo: Thank you, kind lady! I aim to please.

>26 hfglen:
Beautiful.

>26 hfglen: Wow! Breathtaking, truly...

>26 hfglen: gorgeous!!

>26 hfglen: Majestic comes to mind.

>26 hfglen: Absolutely beautiful!

>26 hfglen: Fantastic picture!

No shortage of snow right now!

>29 pgmcc: - >34 Karlstar: Thank you, all; all comments much appreciated.

It helps that I live in a beautiful place.

Stray thought while I'm here:

Yesterday's Sunday Tribune had a "health" story in its Lifestyle section (why am I not surprised?). This was memorable not for the usual guff but for its first recommendation.

"Buy a cookbook and use it". Turns out the writer didn't mind what cookbook as long as the recipes differed from what the reader made every day. Hear, hear, say I!

>26 hfglen: That's stunning! We had snow this morning, but only a few flakes.

>26 hfglen: Stunning!

>26 hfglen:
By coincidence, the "Geomorphology Rules" Facebook page posted another photograph of the Drackensberg Mountains less than 40 minutes ago.

Continuing from MrsLee's comments on Scheele's Green in Bookmarque's thread ...

Some years ago I had reason to study an almost totally unknown botanical artist who lived in the Eastern Cape in the early 19th century. Like Groat the postman in Going Postal he used "pure, natural" pigments. Like vermilion and orpiment -- toxic compounds of mercury and arsenic, respectively. I had cause to examine a volume of the artist's originals in the Library of Parliament in Cape Town. Now that library is a bit higher in altitude than the old harbour. Just high enough to catch the pollution from the municipal power station (in the '50s to early '70s) next to what is now the Victoria and Albert Waterfront. The smoke was known to dissolve nylon pantihose in the apartments behind the gardens next to Parliament, but I hadn't properly anticipated what I found. The vermilion in pictures of red flowers had reacted in damp weather with the sulphur in the power station's pollution. The reaction is well known, turns the paint black and chars the substrate. What the librarian didn't know is that I'd had a six-month running argument with a Durban botany prof about the artist's source of pigments. So what I saw was proof positive that I was right and the prof wrong, and the artist used pigments donated by a kindly apothecary, and not berry juice. The whoop of joy took some explaining!

>40 hfglen:
"Smug" is such a pleasant feeling.

>40 hfglen: Just what I would expect of our resident botanist. :D

Some more possibilities: For Sale: A Poisoner’s Lab Secreted in a Beautiful Book
and How a Library Handles a Rare and Deadly Book of Wallpaper Samples.

I've been thinking about haydninvienna's love of poetry any the loathing of the form inculcated in me at school. And it occurred to me that I would nominate two items, nonetheless, as memorable (all right, three, but Tolkien's Three rings... came along later). Neither formed part of any school syllabus, and neither is in English. Why am I not surprised?

Re-reading A Traveller in Rome by H.V. Morton last night, I was reminded of the Emperor Hadrian's epitaph he composed for himself. It's wonderfully concise (unlike Cicero, who seldom used one word when ten would do) and clear (unlike Virgil, who seems to have made a habit of diabolical word order):

Animula vagula blandula
Hospes comesque corporis
Quae nunc abibis in loca
Pallidula rigida nudula
Nec ut soles dabis jocos

Morton mentions no less than 116 English translations, and I recall seeing the plaque with the original on a wall in Castel Sant'Angelo long ago.

Soul of mine, pretty one, flitting one,
Guest and partner of my clay,
Whither wilt thou hie away,
Pallid one, rigid one, naked one,
Never to play again, never to play?

(tr. Charles Merivale)

>44 hfglen: I have the feeling (can’t check at the moment) that this epitaph is mentioned in F L Lucas’s book Style, precisely for its brevity and clarity.

I've been meaning for a few days now to say ...

There's a retired couple who live at Strand, on False Bay (Western Cape), who have recently posted a series of a dozen or more YouTube videos of a recent trip they made to the Kruger Park. Although the photography and commentary aren't anywhere near up to Bookmarque's standard, they do give a good idea of what it feels like to be there. They start at Punda Maria and go southwards through the reserve. Those suffering from snow and ice storms may find themselves drooling with envy at the heat (40+°C) and cloudless skies. Each episode is ¾--1 hour long, and the end should point you to the next one.

>44 hfglen: I love that.

In #44 above I mentioned a re-read of a book by H.V. Morton. This has morphed into a more general re-read of his books, the oldest of which are now almost 100 years old and so give an eyewitness account of a stage in the history of England in general and London in particular. Even the youngest book of his in my collection is over 50 years old, and so more historic than current.

So I was delighted to find this quote in I saw two Englands, published 1941, about two journeys he made in 1939.

... Above all, perhaps, humour, the best of humour, has its home in the English inn. It deflates the pretentious, it corrects the erroneous, and it deflects the dangerous. The qualities of laughter are nowhere more noticeable than in the true Parliament of England, which goes by the name of the Green Dragon or the King's Arms.

So now our esteemed pub is a prototype world parliament? I like it!

>48 hfglen: WooHoo!

>48 hfglen:
LOL!
Excellent.

>48 hfglen: Hmm, a parliament without politics? It could work! I like to think of us as a parliament of owls.

May I please ask the Brains Trust for enlightenment again?

It's in a piece by H.V. Morton; this time in his A London Year (1926, reprinted 1933, so not exactly current), reporting on a polo match between an American and a British team:

And also on the air is borne the toneless twang of some one's lovely daughter, now and then a nice New England purr, and occasionally a 'Why, it's just dandy!'and a genuine F.F.V. laugh.

What do the initials mean?

I have found that F.F.V. in the 1930s could stand for "First Families of Virginia," and there was a biscuits or wafer then with the brand name F.F.V. as for the laugh, I don't know, unless there is a particular way "first families" laugh, or if the radio ads for the cookies had a particular laugh in them.

>53 MrsLee: That makes sort-of sense. The English have a particular aristocratic laugh, so if it's combined with an American accent, I could well imagine it being described as "first families of Virginia". Many thanks.

More H.V. Morton. I've now progressed to his In Search of London (1951), and spent much of my bedside-reading time last night enjoying his sense of humour, which hasn't aged, nor has it been visited by the suck fairy.

For example, he reports on the House of Commons, then newly rebuilt and newly air-conditioned after bomb damage sustained in the Blitz:

Hot air, which was formerly provided by the Members themselves, will now be readily available on the turning of a switch. Cold air, as chilling maybe as any post-war Chancellor's Budget speech, will be as easily obtainable.

One Saturday morning he went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace:

Europe's greatest free show was about to begin. All the provincial and foreign visitors to London had brought their cameras to it and were busily taking pictures of railings, people's backs, the helmets of policemen and the legs of police horses, in the hope that somewhere in the far distance a drum major might have been captured as well.

I'm sure we could all match that scene of crowd behaviour near our homes, both in place and time.

Mind you, how's this for a description of feminine "pulchritude"?
"... whose charms were such that Charles II considered that she must have been bestowed on his brother by his confessor as a penance." Ouch!

>57 hfglen: Funny, we should suggest that during the winter they turn off the heat in such government buildings here to save the planet.

>57 hfglen: Thank you for those quotes. Quite amusing, and they give a good description of the subject while they are about it.

With regard to a First Family of Virginia, I felt you might enjoy some of the information contained in this 2009 pop quiz from The Washingtonian magazine: https://www.washingtonian.com/2009/05/27/can-a-carpetbagger-pass-this-virginia-p.... Not all of it is authoritative, but Virginians can be a bit funny about their heritage. I mean, I had an art history professor who always referred to Jefferson as St. Thomas of Monticello. (She felt architectural copies of Monticello in the state were too frequent and generally over-done.)

Edited to add a quote from a different web site: If you have a nostalgic First Family of Virginia (FFV) perspective, you can say there's Northern Virginia and then there's "real Virginia." Typically, folks drawing this line are long-term residents who make humorous references to Northern Virginia as an alien entity, occupied Virginia filled with Northerners and people with no long-term family ties to Virginia.. It's true that Northern Virginia was frequently denigrated by other regions of the state.

>60 jillmwo: Muchly ta! :D
Somehow I'm reminded of the "Insular Peninsula" (Cape Town), for too many of whose residents the world, if not the universe, is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean (on their doorstep) and the mountains at the far end of the Cape Flats, 30 miles away.

Finished re-reading the H. V. Mortons I have, and have moved on to a long list of books by Lawrence G. Green (1900-1973), so again old enough to be more history than merely out-of-date. Green's father was editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser at about the time of the Anglo-Boer War, and so the son could write well. The books are of historical / topographical interest, and mostly about southern Africa, particularly the south-western Cape. The comment in #61 above definitely applies to In the land of Afternoon, though he does describe some toothsome traditional Cape dishes. No recipes -- for those you'll need (for example) the works of Hildagonda Duckitt or Hilda Gerber.

As an aside, I was pleasantly surprised recently when working out Better Half's aunts, uncles and obscurer cousins for the family tree, when a brother (nephew? great-nephew?) of Ms Duckitt popped up a marriage away from BH's uncle.

>62 hfglen: How long is the list?

>63 Karlstar: 24, as near as I recall.

In the Land of Afternoon (1949) is one of Lawrence G. Green's early books -- his fifth, I think. It is a collection of stories and essays from the history of the South-Western Cape, between Saldanha Bay and Knysna. Some of the atmosphere I can just remember from a holiday in Cape Town when I was seven, and some was still there for a return visit when I was 15. His story of Maria Koopman-de Wet and the Koopmans-de Wet house rang true and brought back happy memories. There was a dear old lady who had been a schools inspector in the Cape, and was arguably a better historian than her brother (Leo Fouché, prof. of history at Wits and Pretoria); in her younger days she had known Mrs Koopmans-de Wet, and she remained on good terms with the museum curator. And so it came to pass that Mother had a special viewing of the silverware collection (which I would now characterise as "to die for"), and a certain small boy got a ride for a few yards in Mrs. Koopmans-de Wet's sedan chair! On the other hand, I gather the chapter on George Rex of Knysna has been shown in the last few years to be almost entirely mistaken, and there are quaint old errors in other chapters, too.

Did it inspire me to do anything? If I ever get back to the area around Cape Town, I want to see Paarl Museum and some of the other sights of that town -- it's only 30 miles from the centre of Cape Town!

Under a Sky like Flame. We move forwards to 1957, and an account of several visits (evidently) that Lawrence G. Green made to the West African coast starting between the Wars, up to just before writing the book. It is therefore a historical document, and unfortunately replete with the attitudes of the time. the area covered stretches from Lobito in Angola to Dakar in Senegal.

ETA: This one was 1954, not 1957!

On Wings of Fire (1967). On the West Coast, flamingoes may be seen from Swakopmund (Namibia) in the north to Cape Columbine (near Saldanha Bay) in the south. In this book Lawrence G. Green records stories from this stretch of coast in his usual pleasant style -- that of a raconteur sharing a host of memories. As the Wikipedia article says, his books are non-fiction presented informally, but with meticulously researched detail not readily (or indeed, at all) found elsewhere. And so it is small wonder that he is cited as an authority in more academically pretentious works. And so here, in addition to accounts of the early narrow-gauge railway inland from Swakopmund and Cape Fur Seals, you will find a memory of the Flamingo pub in Swakopmund -- this last surely a unique literaary farewell. There is an account, surely drawn from first-hand observation, of the activities of the great Afrikaans poet, medic, botanist and Cordon Bleu chef C. Louis Leipoldt in the kitchen, and a menu for what Leipoldt considered to be the ideal Christmas dinner. There is an account of the Heerenlogementsberg cave, a historical monument (now), a few miles north of the road from Leipoldt country at Clanwilliam to the flamingo-and-gannet country of Lambert's Bay. There are several other accounts of the cave, but none with the interesting details of who carved the graffiti on the walls, and why they are important. And so on.

Does the book inspire me to do anything? Not much, other than, in the words of a much-missed "honorary Aunt" who lived in Edinburgh, to "take out a memory and enjoy it all over again".

And so here is one of the memories.



This is Leipoldt House in Wuppertal, a village in the mountains behind Clanwilliam. The village was founded by a Rhenish missionary (hence the name) by the name of Leipoldt, who was the grandfather of the great Afrikaans author C. Louis Leipoldt.

Beyond the City Lights (1957). Lawrence G. Green on the area he loved best, the south-western Cape. Once again, it is a pleasant and arguably important read for anyone planning to drive around one of the most scenically attractive parts of South Africa, and a delightfully nostalgic read afterwards -- if you aren't too badly annoyed by the thought of all the good bits you missed! I can just remember some of the atmosphere -- this is not a new book, and the Cape has, unfortunately in many ways, prospered since it was written.

Would I recommend this book? -- Yes, if you can find a copy.

To whom? -- History buffs, any one needing a story or three as bedside reading, and especially anyone planning or recently returned from a holiday in the Western Cape.

What does it inspire me to do? -- Dig out pictures of past visits to the Cape (see #67 above). Wish to see Paarl, old Cape houses and more, paying proper attention. Sample Cape food and wines, again paying due attention.

>68 hfglen:
I had a client with a plant in Wuppertal, Germany. It is a place-name once heard never forgotten. That must have been thirty years ago.

>70 pgmcc: By no coincidence at all, Grandpa Leipoldt and his colleagues came from Wuppertal, Germany (in the early1800s).

Tavern of the Seas (1947). A collection of stories of old Cape Town, told in Lawrence G. Green's eminently readable style. For me, one of the best bits was the chapter on Cape food. Why? Because I was mildly surprised recently when the ultimate authority on late-Victorian Cape cuisine, Hildagonda J. Duckitt appeared way off to one side, so to speak (via three marriages and two generations up).

A decent Fellow doesn't work (1963). Evidently Green liked few things more than travelling (especially in reasonable comfort) and seeing new and interesting things (especially if they were free). This is a collection of reminiscences of his travels; high points for me being the narrow-gauge* lines of South Africa, and sleeper trains.

*Here "standard gauge" is 3 ft 6 in., narrow by most countries' standards. So I mean lines of mostly 2 ft., rarely 2 ft. 6 in. gauge. AFAIK these are now all defunct, but I treasure the memory of an excursion on the "Banana Express" inland from Port Shepstone. It took all morning to do a journey that normally took about half an hour in a car.

>73 hfglen: Wow, that's narrow gauge.

>74 Karlstar: It is, but not uncommon. At least one ex-South African narrow-gauge loco is still doing yeoman work for the Great Little Trains of Wales. The South African Railways NG lines were generally in otherwise inaccessible mountainous territory, but the KZN sugar estates used the same narrow gauge, apparently because cane is more profitable than railway-reserve. Incidentally, what is known here as "Cape Gauge" was chosen over standard gauge because any journey inland from the coast involves the steep gradients and sharp curves of a mountain pass.

Where Men still Dream (1945). The date is significant, as the last two or three chapters are Lawrence G. Green's reminiscences of the South African Air Force in WW2, or as much of them as weren't hidden by the Official Secrets Act at the time. Other chapters include an account of a journey from Cape Town to London circa 1927 "by the longest and most circuitous route I could afford". Train from Cape Town to a couple of hundred km beyond Elisabethville (Congo), then mostly river steamer down the Congo (rail around various rapids) to Matadi, then (a French) ocean steamer with many calls at West African ports to Bordeaux. There are chapters on his adventures in remote parts of Namibia that to this day are almost unexplored. All in all, a fascinating read.

PS to above. Green makes the aggrieved observation that the successes of the South African forces in the Western Desert were frequently claimed by the British in their media, and South African photos doctored and deliberately mis-captioned "to keep home morale up", until his superior officers complained to sufficiently high quarters and the practice was stopped. Unfortunately I have seen soi-disant "reputable" histories published after the War making the same "error". Springbok Record (1946) by Harry Klein is a well researched, lavishly (for the time) illustrated antidote, if you can find a copy.

Takeaway message from that one: the ladies in the SA forces were called "springdoes" at the time.

>75 hfglen: Still a few narrow gauge sugarcane railways in Queensland too, so I believe. The “standard” rail gauge in Queensland is also three foot six, dating from the mid-19th century. It took mote than 100 years to eliminate the need to change trains at the borders of New South Wales (“proper” standard gauge, 4 feet 81/2 inches) with Victoria (5 feet 3 inches) and Queensland (3 feet 6 inches).

I've recently been playing with the Glen family tree, and believe I can explain the curious spelling of Magrat Garlick's name in the Discworld Witches sub-series. At least half the 17th-18th-century Margarets among my Scottish ancestors (and there were many) are spelt Margrat in contemporary records. Could it be that the clerk who recorded Magrat's birth was, or was channeling, a semi-literate Scot?

>79 hfglen: Ha! Perhaps it was the phonetic spelling...

#There_is_always_an_elephant department:

We've just been re-watching an episode of Dust Bugs. Just less than 15 minutes in there's a story of a lady who was heading to the loo at Pafuri picnic site, came round the corner of the building and found herself eyeball-to-eyeball with an elephant. Both sides beat a hasty retreat.

And I'm reminded that one of our largest cement factories has an elephant as a logo.

So here's an elephant for Peter



Addo Elephant National Park, night drive, January 2009.

>81 hfglen:
Thank you, Hugh. Your Elephant Awareness is awesome.

#thereisalwaysanelephant

PS to #81: a few minutes after the elephant story, they stop at a spot overlooking the Luvuvhu River. And film a herd of elephants coming down the bank to drink. I think pgmcc may find that impressive.

>83 hfglen:
I think he would.

The re-read of Lawrence G. Green's books continues. I found a quote in A Taste of South-Easter that I think Dragoneers and Cookbookers would enjoy and identify with:

Jessie Conrad, wife of the great sea novelist, declared that the object of a cookery book could only be to increase the happiness of mankind.

He then goes on to demonstrate how this applies to South African cookery books.

I am now inspired to read the family copy of 650 Recipes: from Hilda's Where Is It and Hilda's Diary of a Cape Housekeeper. However, tonight the family will be subjected to meatloaf from a recipe in an old (1950s) copy of the Rhodesia Railways Magazine.

Another quote from the book referred to above (#85), particularly relevant this year when, we are told, halft the world is going to the polls. He is talking about cigarette cards of the first decade of the 20th century.

Members of the Legislative Assembly came later but these were never in such demand as the animals and silent cinema stars also found in "Officers Mess" packets. Quite right too.

>85 hfglen: That quote should be taught to every would be TV chef and other popular chef in the world. So many of them seem to want to make cooking an elite and complicated procedure that intimidates the home cook. Maybe their goal is to make people afraid to cook so that they will go out and eat at restaurants. Hmm. I love meatloaf. One of my comfort foods, but I never make it the same way twice.

>87 MrsLee:
My wife tends to cook by instinct and consequently never makes things the same way twice. I try to keep relatively close to the recipes I have. Our son keeps exactly to his recipes, that is why his caramel squares turn out perfect every time. He measures and times everything with high orecision.

>85 hfglen: >87 MrsLee: >88 pgmcc:. In our house, the rule was that the first time you made something, you followed the recipe exactly. Only after you tasted it, could you then work out what tweaks you would need to make. So slavish reliability on the recipe the first time, but then one could become more flexible (a bit more garlic here, it might need more than a splash of worcestershire there, etc.). I used to get quite liberal with the sherry until one of my children complained.

>89 jillmwo:
I used to get quite liberal with the sherry until one of my children complained.

It is very brave of you to admit this in an open forum.

>87 MrsLee: The meatloaf resonated. Last night I made maetloaf, approximately following a recipe found in, of all places, a 1956 number of the Rhodesia Railways Magazine. Family liked it well. But >89 jillmwo:, please allow me a few quotes from recipes in Traditional Cookery of the Cape Malays:

"... and then add the washed meat. If you have lots of meat you can use lots. ..." (Thinks: that's a precise measurement?!) The recipe after that includes not a single measurement: no quantities, nor time nor temperature ... just like most historical recipes.
Then there are two consecutive recipes for carrot bredie:
1. "Make a wortelbredie just like a koolrapebredie, only flavour it with nutmeg, cloves and a little sugar. Add a little butter to it as well, unless your meat is very fat. You must put quite a few chillies in it to make it strong, otherwise it will be too sweet and not tasty enough. Serve it with rice."
2. Ïf you are not making wortelbredie for a funeral feast, then add about 4 lb. of shelled peas to it. Use enough chillies to make it strong." (This presumably refers back to the funeral bredie recipe, which involves 10 lb of meat.)

My point being that if the recipe is interesting enough that one might want to try it, you will probably need to use your imagination to make it practicable. The old ones simply cannot be followed slavishly.

#There_is_always_an_elephant department:

May I ask Peter to watch this youtube episode, and in particular to take a look at the exhibits in the Goldfields Environmental Centre, which are lovingly shown in here. I'll say no more for now.

>91 hfglen: That applies to many of my grandmothers' recipes in our family cookbook. One of the cookie recipes has for the flour amount, "enough." Another one which I made this week, didn't list flour as an ingredient at all. No idea what the cookies are supposed to be, because the only name is "Nora's Cookies." After adding 5 cups of flour I quit. The cookies are very unexceptional and I can't recommend that recipe!

>93 MrsLee: Sounds familiar!

Full Many a Glorious Morning (1968) is described on the title page as "a recent journey by rail and road in four countries of Southern Africa with the traveller going back on old tracks, striking out in new directions and moving along the highways and byways of memory". The first time Lawrence G. Green visited what was then Rhodesia was in 1922, in a 1916-model car (thinks: suitably loved and restored, that would be worth a fortune today!) powered by a fuel derived, he doesn't say how, from prickly-pear juice. The fuel was not a success; the journey was. This time around, he went by train -- in the late 1960s the railways still worked well, and it is fascinating to read an account of what must have been a thoroughly enjoyable expedition, from Cape Town to the Victoria Falls (with a memory of Livingstone in Zambia) and eastwards to Salisbury (now Harare). On the return journey he recalls an expedition westwards from Palapye (Botswana) across the Kalahari to Ghanzi. He then leaves the railway in the Northern Cape and heads to the lower Orange River, talking accurately about the (re-)discovery of the Kakamas peach, the finest canning variety there is, and the irrigation settlements downstream of Upington and the characters he found there. Mr Green's books are made by the vivid characters he unearthed in the places he went, and this one is no exception. Which makes it an entertaining re-read.

A Taste of South-Easter (1971). The title refers, of course, to the trade wind that is both curse and blessing to Cape Town in summer. Curse because when it blows everything (including people) not nailed down is in danger of being blown away; blessing because when it doesn't the heat is (at least) most unpleasant. The book is a collection of stories illustrating aspects of old Cape Town -- mostly Victorian, but bot earlier and later where appropriate -- you won't find elsewhere, told in Lawrence G. Green's eminently readable style. His research is impeccable, even when he doesn't cite sources in the academically approved manner.

Almost Forgotten, Never Told (1965). The familiar style, applied to stories of (mostly) the South African coastline. Includes an interesting chapter on Tristan da Cunha, written from personal experience of a visit there, and interviews with Tristanians evacuated to Cape Town because of the 1963 eruption.

There's a Secret Hid Away (1956) is one of relatively few of Lawrence G. Green's works to achieve a posthumous reprint. Some decidedly "woo-woo" chapters, redeemed by four chapters detailing the history of the island of St. Helena. Yes Virginia, they have lives and a community that don't depend on Napoleon's exile.

>95 hfglen: >96 hfglen: Very interesting stuff, thank you for the summaries.

Further to the discussion in fuzzi's thread, here is a close-up of a seed-head of Clematis brachiata, Traveller's Joy.



In case it looks aged, it is. Taken at Suikerbosrand, Gauteng, 25 June 1967 -- shortly before the nature reserve now protecting the area was proclaimed.

>99 Karlstar: You're welcome. And thank you for the evidence that somebody actually reads those posts.

>100 hfglen: This is a really cool photo!

>101 hfglen: Be sure that I always do!

And for fuzzi's benefit



Bush Clematis, Clematis villosa, Melville Koppies Nature Reserve, right in the heart of Johannesburg, 19 January 1969.

>100 hfglen: I always read, I just don't always have something to say. But that is one very cool plant!

>100 hfglen: I read them. I read everything in the GD (and some other groups too), but don't always comment.

>100 hfglen: >104 hfglen: love the pictures, thanks for sharing!

>101 hfglen: I know the feeling, but rest assured, you have readers. I only comment when I can say something intelligent, or really foolish. ;)

Beautiful plant photos! I especially love >100 hfglen:

>74 Karlstar: If you want to see a really weird narrow-gauge system, take a look at this article and its sequel, which you should be able to navigate to quite easily from the link. Truly, a system that couldn't make up its mind what it wanted to be!

I am mildly amused to find that I evidently have a 10th-great-grandmother by the name of Margaret CHEESE, who evidently lived near Maidstone, Kent, from 1580 to 1636. (So she was eight when the Spanish Armada sailed by.) I cannot help thinking that her surname was highly appropriate to this group.

>111 hfglen: I think we should all now try to trace our ancestry back to someone named Cheese! I can't think of any in my line so far, I'm sure I would remember it.

>111 hfglen: How awesome is that!!??

>112 MrsLee: Margaret is only a few generations from statistical certainty that she's in the family tree of each of us. She appears not to have had father, uncles or brothers with known names, but a few seconds' research reveals a plentiful family of Cheeses (lovely image there!) living in or near Maidstone, Kent (England) in the 17th century. Needless to say, all Margaret's own offspring were called Maytum, which is much less interesting.

Grow Lovely, growing old (1951). Much of this Lawrence G. Green justifies its title. Many South Africans will see the significance of the publication date: it is in time for the Christmas (indeed, "Green's latest" was often a popular Christmas present, and indeed a significant part of my collection is inscribed to various relatives no longer with us) immediately before the tercentenary of the founding of Cape Town, the "Mother City". So naturally this is a collection of stories of Green's favourite city. Not exclusively, as he touches on the Birkenhead disaster, and spends a few pages on Gansbaai, some 170 km from Table Bay where Cape Town was founded. For personal reasons, I could have wished that he went on another 23 km or so to Pearly beach, but only because Brother-in-law lives there. However I don't think the settlement existed in 1951.

>110 hfglen: Thank you, that was quite interesting. I have not read the sequel yet.

Thunder on the Blaauwberg (1966). Another collection of Lawrence G. Green's stories told with great accuracy in his very readable, conversational style. He says this collection was inspired by a thunderstorm (not as common an occurrence here as where I grew up) at Blaauwberg, on the west coast a few km north of Cape Town. And so we discover some people of (purported) royal descent, a British WW1 spy in German South-West Africa and more. There is the usual collection of unusual people -- Mr Green seems to have had an amazing talent for finding curious people, or those who had had curious experiences, and getting them to open up about their experiences. He was also excellent at finding key documents in libraries and archives.

I read many threads but rarely post replies.

I do love that clematis seed photo! What a cool, alien looking thing!

>102 Alexandra_book_life: >107 fuzzi: >109 Sakerfalcon: >118 catzteach: Many thanks to all. I am inspired to post a picture of how our wild Travellers Joy is seen from further than point-blank range.

Here it is.



This is Clematis oweniae, which is so similar to C. brachiata seen in #100 that some authorities consider it to belong to the same species. Its range is throughout southern and south-tropical Africa except, oddly, Kwazulu-Natal. The picture was taken on a Tree Society outing to Hartebeesthoek Tracking Station in the Magaliesberg in 1972.

When somebody -- I think it was jillmwo -- had difficulty in seeing a lion in a picture of Lion's Head, Cape Town, a while back, I posted an unsatisfactory one of the whole mountain. My apoloogies, I had forgotten that I had this one, taken from a plane landing at Cape Town International Airport in October 2000. You should be able to see the resting lion clearly in this one.

>120 hfglen: It looks like something from a different planet :)

>121 hfglen: I can see the lion! I can see the lion! It's a great photo.

>120 hfglen: That looks enormous!

>124 clamairy: It's climbing into a tree, so maybe about 4 metres high.

>121 hfglen: Great photo!

Women of the Bible. Not one of H. V. Morton's best, as one may deduce from the relative infrequency with which one has encountered paper copies. Thumbnail biographies, a few pages each, of the more important ladies in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible. It helps that the author spent enough time in the Middle East to start (at least) to understand the ancient traditions of the region. However this book lacks the sparkle and interest of his "In Search of ..." books. Nevertheless, this was far from being a DNF, and I am not sorry to have readit.

Karoo (1955). Lawrence G. Green's collection of stories about the dry parts of South Africa, bounded by the Orange (Gariep) River, the Atlantic Ocean, the Berg River, the western and southern Escarpment and a vague transition zone where the rainfall changes from more-or-less regular summer rain that supports grassland (east) to erratic rains with droughts at any and all seasons that rarely supports grass, but more usually small shrublets and succulents. We are introduced to many places, colourful individuals, unusual events and more in the author's eminently readable style. And so one reads about the last of the San, the great springbok migrations of the 19th century, the coming of the railway, and James Logan of Matjiesfontein (a very popular resort in Victorian times, and again a five-star establishment), the historic town of Graaff Reinet, karoo botanists (no wonder I like this book!) and more.

>128 hfglen: You seem to have a lot of local/regional books with stories about the country. I like to read those about my part of the world as well, but they are not easily found.

I was telling my husband that in addition to the binoculars we carry in the car, we need to carry some maps and guidebooks about wildflowers, geography and birds. Maybe I should add a book of the local stories as well.

>129 MrsLee: Camera, binoculars, maps and a box of guidebooks to plants, animals, geology and more are standard items when we go away. The book of local stories may well feature as a "history guidebook", though one needs bedside reading.

This is Rome (1960). This is an account of a pilgrimage to Rome, presumably in 1959, led by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. The participants, in addition to the Bishop, were his 9-year-old great-nephew, Karsh of Ottawa, who made the photos illustrating the book, and the travel writer H.V. Morton. Although Bishop Sheen is only credited with the foreword, and Morton with the body of the text, it is often hard to tell the writers' voices apart. Hints of Morton's later books on Rome, though occasionally present, are few and far between. The pictures are memorable.

This is the Holy Land (1961). Another pilgrimage by the same participants (now with two of the Bishop's great-nephews). This time H.V. Morton's voice is clearer and more definitely distinguishable from the Bishop's. This may be because Morton's own (solo) books on the area were already published, and there are a few quotes from them. The historian in me is interested to note that the early Morton books were written when the states of Israel and Jordan did not yet exist: he went to the British mandated territory of Palestine. In this book the pilgrims necessarily start in Jordan, because at the time one could only cross the border once, from Jordan to Israel. It is painfully clear at several points in the story that this visit took place before the six-day war of 1967. Now one needs to find a modern account of a visit to these places, taking account present-day excavations, reconstructions, research and borders.

>129 MrsLee: When we lived in the Hudson Valley area, I saw a lot of books on the history and geography of the region at bookstores and the library used book sales. I think I picked up one or two over the years. They aren't as common here.

>131 hfglen: >132 hfglen: Those both sound very interesting.

>133 Karlstar: Thank you. I don't think either of them show Morton anywhere near his best -- A Traveller in Rome is infinitely preferable to the first, IMHO, and would recommend these two only to the most obsessively completist reader. If you're curious, I found both of them in Internet Archive (use the advanced search function to reduce the amount of irrelevant hay the ordinary search delivers).

>132 hfglen: and >134 hfglen: Morton's work sounds interesting; I like reading some of the more dated titles about a particular city because it offers insights into a cultural mindset. The info regarding their availability in Internet Archive is good to know!

>135 jillmwo: In that case may I suggest that you take a look at some of Morton's other books as well. He started with three small books of London in the 1920s, reprinted as an omnibus, H.V. Morton's London, and went on to start his In Search of series with books on England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (and South Africa after WW2). If you're interested in WW2 history, I'd recommend I saw two Englands (1942) and Atlantic Meeting (1943).

It's about time we had a picture again. I hop Pete likes this one.



#thereisalwaysanelephant, Kruger National Park, June 2012.

>137 hfglen: I like that one. :)

>137 hfglen: I love it :)

>137 hfglen:
I love it, Hugh. Thank you so much.
#thereisalwaysanelephant

>137 hfglen: Just lovely. Thank you for that.

Something Rich and Strange (1962). Lawrence G. Green's collection of tales of treasure hidden and found along the southern African coast. Gets a bit repetitive, unfortunately.

How about another picture?



Nyawutsi waterhole near where the Shingwedzi River finds its way through the Lebombo Mountains from the Kruger Park into Mozambique; September 2012.

>143 hfglen: You can't fool me. That entire caption (with the exception of the date) was lifted straight out of some bit of Kipling, wasn't it?

>144 jillmwo: Ah not so. Look on Google Maps, and you'll see that it's on a tributary of the big river, but still close to the border.

A friend sent us an assortment of "ants". I pass this one on.

An ant with long legs .... is, of course, an elephANT.

Now I Remember. Described as "a holiday history of England", which is accurate. Each reign from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II gets a brief essay of one to four pages with a portrait and maybe one other picture of something significant from that reign. These are grouped into architectural periods rather than dynasties, which makes sense given the subtitle. I could visualise having made much use of this book if it had been available when I was posted there.

Something Rich and Strange (1962). A collection of stories of treasure lost and found along the coasts of South Africa and Namibia, with a few chapters on some inland treasures. I am convinced that the "Kruger Millions" are entirely mythical, but this hasn't stopped treasure hunters looking for them.

British Gastronomy: the Rise of great Restaurants (1975). An interesting account of top restaurants dating from the days when dining out at, well, at least some of these establishments was affordable or at least imaginable. I even remember one or two of the places lovingly described here.