At times waking up in the morning, the heat was unbearable. We’d leave our bedroom doors and windows open hoping for cooling
breezes that used to whisper over the vineyards from the Atlantic Ocean in
Table Bay that we could see in the distance. Oftentimes the front door would be left open too.
Always the back door. In
fact, I don’t recall the back door even having a key. Anyway the dogs slept in the kitchen, so they needed to go in and
out.
The heat seemed to hang
silently, oppressively in the Norfolk Island Pines and Pittosporums that
surrounded the farmhouse and the sun glare off the gables almost blinding.
Birds sat open mouthed and
the dogs lay spread out on the back stoep in the shade. Only the cackling wing-flapping Cape Weavers under the leadership
of Solomon - named thus by my father as he had many wives - carried on
their frenzied nest building activities.
The
kitchen was always overly warm in summer as the Aga stove was still
riddled and filled up with anthracite twice daily by Dawid, our asthmatic
old retainer, whom my mother kept going with digitalis for his weak heart
and a regime of coloured aspirins for his various other ailments. So the south facing kitchen windows with their fly screens
stood open all summer too.
Christmas was a time when the
‘Christmas Beetles’ or cicadas made their scything-screaming almost
unbearably high-pitched sound in the trees outside. I would wake up to it in the morning.
The sound would stop sometimes and for a short while, the silence
would be deafening.
When
I was a really little boy (in the 1950’s since you ask) my Scottish
ancestored grandmother carried out the McPherson family tradition of
making the black fruity Christmas Puddings early in December. This was usually done in the morning and just before they were
steamed for the whole afternoon, each member of the family was made to
stir in some silver tickeys, sixpences or little silver charms. I remember climbing up onto a chair to do it as a small boy.
I think the only thing my grandfather stirred into it was a
generous slug of Bells Whisky, helping himself to a large noonday
pre-prandial tot at the same time.
Mince pies were made with short
pastry; lard was used to make it really crumbly. And they were folded over circles of pastry so that the
mince pies
were half-moon shaped and when cooled were doused thickly with icing
sugar. A large Christmas
fruitcake was baked, later to be covered in marzipan and stiff royal icing
which set like a rock.
Early
in the December holidays we were kitted out in our choirboy outfits for
the Christmas Carol Service. We
would be taken down the avenue of gum trees into the village of
Durbanville to the little Anglican Church of All Saints and into the
vestry where the red cassocks and white lace-edged surplices smelling of
mothballs awaited us for fitting, one size up from last year. They would be taken home, mended where needed, laundered and the
ruffles round the neck fixed with Robin Starch and ironed like circular
concertinas and rough against our skin during the service.
And then the rehearsals would begin...
Round the piano in the upstairs sitting room two nights a week we
would gather and sing. And
what a mixed crew we were. Girls
from the local reform school, known as The Girls Institute in their
uniforms and berets, happy to be let out for the night and to grab a quick
puff in the garden, elderly matrons whose chins wobbled as they sang
looking like they were eating marshmallows with no teeth, some of my
fathers boozy friends who had sung tenor in their school choir and now
sang bass in the back row and an aunt who had the voice of an angel who
could sing descant versions of all the carols. One of the bonuses was the tea served afterwards with its
shortbread and koeksusters with mince pies putting in a brief appearance
at the final rehearsal. I
still get emotional hearing those traditional Christmas Carols.
Another
ritual was the preparing of the front stoep for Christmas and putting up
the tree. All the furniture
was carried down onto the lawn, cushion covers removed and laundered,
cushions beaten to remove dust, springs cleaned and the rich oak and
mahogany chairs and couches painted with linseed oil. The floor was washed down with hot soapy water and red Cobra Stoep
Polish was applied and then allowed to dry before being buffed up by the
farmworkers with large strapped brushes and sheepskin squares for the
extra shine.
The smell of the polish seemed to hang around for days
and
grew in strength as the morning sun heated its gleaming redness. And the cricket batty smell of the linseed oil always present on
Christmas morning at present opening time. A huge Christmas tree was cut from the proliferation of pines on
the lands and erected in a large bucket filled with stones and sand in the
corner and we had the fun of covering the bucket with crinkly paper
decorating the tree with streamers and tinsel and delicate hand blown
glass balls.
Christmas
morning the kitchen was a hive of activity. We never had turkey or goose,
but our friends the wheezy muscovy ducks that used to suck and blow in the
mud round the dripping taps in the back yard, some plump young hens and a
couple of thyme scented legs of lamb landed up in the large roasting
dishes in the Aga oven with large floury potatoes, half onions, parsnips
and turnips sizzling to crispness in the fat around them.
The air was fragrant with mint
that was chopped and heated with
vinegar and apple jelly to serve with the lamb. With beef bones bubbling in a stock pot to make gravy.
With egg custard and vanilla for the sherry trifle and steaming
Christmas puddings and overbrandied butter. White fleshed peaches from the kitchen garden poached in syrup and
late season strawberries were hulled. Back then there was only a short three-month strawberry season from
mid-September.
Christmas
lunch was crackers and those awful hats whose colour ran on the brows of
our sweaty uncles and gently perspiring aunts. There was fun and laughter, loving grandparents, aunts, uncles and
cousins and feasting.
And how well I remember lying
satiated under the trees on leather rugs and plump cushions after
Christmas lunch, dogs gnawing on the discarded lamb roast bones, listening
to the Lessons and Carols from Kings College Cambridge while we built up
an appetite for the mince pies, shortbread and Christmas fruit cake that
came with afternoon tea...
