Chapter 6 - The City of Gold

We glided gently down into Palmietfontein Aerodrome, outside Johannesburg, in the sunny afternoon, our ears still numb. For a week we had been travelling in a world of cotton wool, sound muted in ourselves caused by the altitude and the deep droning of the plane. We would like to have been able to shake ourselves as a dog does, and hear clearly again. It was too much like a dream in any case, for here we were in our new land, and behind the barrier were the cheering smiles of two long missed relatives. My youngest daughter was the same age as when my uncle last saw me, and was hailed by name. Twenty long years were swept away in his mind. We could hardly wait to get through the customs when we were enveloped in loving arms, and the same precise, gentle voice asked us how we had fared.

We were taken in charge, and one friend lent his station wagon for the luggage and another took half our company in his car. They had chosen for us a little hotel 30 miles out of town and we were enchanted with it's position beside the river where feathery willows drifted down to meet the gentle flow of water. The roads to it were red and dusty, the houses white and one storied. At first sight, South Africa looked as I had imagined it. Our hotel was typical of what we have met ever since; in the country districts and bush, from Johannesburg through South Africa, Southern and Northern Rhodesia on to Tanganyika; red polished floors, white walls, grass or skin mats, mosquito nets mosquito gauze on the windows, washstands, bathrooms with either porcelain baths or zinc tubs, and bare foot servants in white or khaki belted tunics.

Henly-on-Klip! I wonder who first named it - some nostalgic Londoner perhaps, who had idled some Sunday afternoons away from the stir of the city. The impression of England did not entirely stop with the name; there was a tranquillity about the scene familiar to many smooth flowing, willow draped rivers and the boat we were able to use was what we were used to - a boat with oars, and not the swaying, hollowed out tree trunk with short paddles that we were later to experience.

My Aunt's friends who had met us and helped to settle us at Henly-on-Klip were our first introduction to the Afrikaaner people, but I did not know it then - this gracious lady had a queenly air, a dignity and poise and a most unusual accent, clipped in it's consonants but with a wistful drag on some vowels. I wondered from what country she came, a charming foreigner! It was we who were the foreigners, she the real South African. She affected a mass of silver bracelets and ear-rings also of silver, a hobby I later heard she had started many years before, and it added a touch of the barbaric which was quite becoming with her poise. I have never since met an Afrikaaner lady of this kind, but it was a good first impression to get.

Like many Britons who have not been abroad, I thought of South Africa at that time as being almost wholly British and had never been quite sure if Afrikaaner people were white or coloured. Now I was to learn a little of the history of the country and it seemed quite clear to me that equality of position between British and Afrikaaners was right and proper at the present day. Each had contributed much to the Union and their children were the present South Africans, neither British or Afrikaaner.
Alas! it is not so simple. Old grudges die hard, and tactlessness is like a careless splash of acid on the skin of grievance. The Boer flushes and holds his peace, but in the bosom of his family and friends, how old injuries are probed, and resentment flares!

The strength of the Afrikaaner lies in his family life. I have often thought that if each family gave the best that was in it back into the family, that each was for all and all for each, there would be no wars or tragic hardship. In a good family there is incentive, ambition unselfishness, consideration and love. With these ingredients who could fail? I have watched family parties of Afrikaaners, in perhaps for the day from outlying farms and having an hour or two to pass, watching a group of isolated Britons drinking and smoking and making the small talk of clubs. These are the Britons they cannot understand or condone. I wish they could see our country people with their healthy, happy families, their simple way of life and their neighbourliness; they would understand such people, and I am sure, be prepared to be their friends. The average Afrikaaner is scrupulously clean, good hausfraus, strictly religious and contemptuous of drink and smoking. The modern Afrikaaner is pulling away from this and when all ties to the old way of life have gone, it is to be hoped something deep and sound may remain to take its place.

Johannesburg is a wonderful city, and still growing. It's wide, clean streets and high, modern buildings, it's buses, restaurants, shops and places of entertainment as up to date as any city but in my opinion there is still the air of the mining town it was fifty years ago. Of course the honey coloured dumps thrown up on it's circumference testify to it's origin but as well as that there is a toughness and swagger that a mellowed city has lost. The shops are temptation and our travellers cheques dwindled fast. The children cannot remember such plenty, windows heaped with sweets and fruit. We had forgotten a day when money was the only limit! Fortunately, ours was limited or we may have thrown our bonnets over the windmill and bought half a dozen models.

Johannesburg however, was not our destination, so one day a week later we entered the high vaulted station hall to make our way to the train for Bulawayo.