Hugh Baakens' Diary

Remembering long-drops and auntie’s binoculars

A YEAR or so ago, Hugh shared with you the watercolour of an outdoor privy, which he painted as a pupil of Dale Elliott at his splendid school of art on the edge of the Knysna lagoon.

Before the flush system and loos were built into houses, specialists would go to a lot of trouble to make those long-drops unique.

The one we used on our uncle and aunt’s farm near Kei Road was, we felt, infinitely preferable to the up-to-date flush loo in the house.

The garden kleinhuis was a three-holer with lids, though communal communing with nature was not done.

But it was good, after breakfast, to repair to the bee-loud wooden structure and to sit there, perhaps paging through an old Farmers Weekly, and having the door open so one could look out over the lands.

And, of course, the birdsong was a constant joy.

One of Hugh’s earliest memories is sitting in a similar kleinhuis at Schoenies and becoming aware, for the first time of the sweet rich burble of a Burchell’s coucal in a nearby bush.

Why this nostalgia for rustic simplicity? Well, Hugh has been reading My Bargain, a delightful book of country memoirs by retired farmer Geoffrey Winston Palmer, one of a large and distinguished Grahamstown farming family. And in it, Mr Palmer talks of happy holidays at Kasouga, that rather special place just north of Kenton on Sea, where a privileged group (including the Palmers) have holidayed for generations.

When his mother retired to a little house at Kenton, Geoff laid on a special privy for her, installing a seat of special design, set over what he believes to have been the deepest such pit in the Eastern Cape – 13 feet and six inches in the old measurement. A very long drop indeed. Let’s hope he measured the depth before it was put into use.

Nobody, as far as Hugh is aware, ever fell in.

But what holidays people must have had in those days when the Kenton-Kasouga area was so unspoilt.

Geoff records boyhood swims with his mates when no costumes were necessary – though there once was a little embarrassment when an aunt told the boys she’d seen them having a lovely swim.

“But Auntie, you couldn’t have seen us without binoculars,” said one dismayed little chap.

“Ah, yes. But we had very good binoculars,” said the aunt, with a twinkle in her eye.

Geoff’s book is light but brimful of anecdotes which will please his many friends in the Albany district.

Now 89, he’s clearly a remarkable man who took his turn farming the 1 800ha family property, now known as Strowan, which is not far from Grahamstown.

He had the misfortune to be struck by polio when he was only 19, but has not allowed this to interfere with his most useful life – not least as a Rotarian, serving his term as president of the Grahamstown Rotary Club (and earning the Paul Harris award) and receiving the Cape Times Centenary Medal for Conservation.

Proceeds of the sale of his book will be given to the Bathurst Agricultural Museum.

This is a gentle book about gentle people and one which will give great pleasure to those who know or remember the characters whose names come up.

Lovers of Kenton will especially enjoy the memories of Mullins Camp on the Kariega River, founded by the Rev Bob (Bollai) Mullins.

The camp became an institution and there all good catches – including crabs – were recorded with outlines drawn on the canvas of the tents.

The largest cob had a length equal to the height of an adult man.

What wonderful times Geoffrey Palmer has had.

An important section of the book is his record of the journey from the farm to Kasouga by ox-wagon.

Preparations began three weeks before – father checking the gear and mother making preparations in the culinary department.

Fourteen white-bellied oxen were inspanned with a small wagon attached to the back of the big wagon. The first night was spent at Southwell, with a jackal howling nearby. What times to remember.

Those who do, or who know Geoffrey Palmer, will surely enjoy this gentle book and the stories of those uncomplicated days so close to nature.

And there’s a little spice in some of the tailpieces quoted from the newsletters of the Bathurst Agricultural Museum, which he once edited – like this response from a speaker accused by a heckler of talking (to put it politely) nonsense at a meeting.

“Mr Chairman, I wish to tell my friend over there that if I was a dung beetle, I’d roll him out of this hall!”

And into grandma’s long-drop, no doubt.

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