Grandpa and Grandma Camp

 

Jess Robertson and Temple Camp on their wedding day

Grandpa and Grandma - as they were together in life, so too even in death. Grandpa was born on Holiday street in Pietermaritzburg,  and it was in Prince Alfred Street, directly opposite Holiday street, in the NCVV old-age home, this morning, that he took his departure from this good earth. 

When he was first placed in the home, though his mind would wander, so too would he, striding up and down the long corridors.  Finally he would come upon Grandma.  "Oh Jess!" he'd say, "There you are.  I've been looking for you everywhere". 

Bed-bound at the last, I believe his soul continued to wander after her. Grandma, although content to cater to Grandpa's needs and whims, was always the leader when it came to things to be done.  "Come on", she'd say to Grandpa, while he, laboriously tying his shoelaces over his large tummy, would grumble, "I'm coming, I'm coming".  So I believe it was at the last.  For all his toughness, Grandpa had an abiding fear of death, and I believe it was Grandma's soul that helped his cross the threshold into the after-life. 

The single event that blighted Grandpa's seven-year old and subsequent existence was the death of his much-loved, even idolised, gentle mother, and the resulting splitting up of his young family.  It was in Grandma that he found the security, serenity and strength he craved, and Grandma imbued upon his four younger brothers and even his father an ideal of girlhood and young womanhood they found hard to resist, and their wives even harder to live up to. 

Grandma loved to spoil Grandpa, to make up to him the childhood he lacked.  She never appeared to regret her decision, despite the labour it gave her, for she had a deep and abiding empathy for how tough, hard and entirely miserable his young life had been to him.

Brought up in a strict and unloving extended family, where children, as in the best families of the late Victorian era, were relegated to the servant's quarters, upon the death of his loving mother, the boys were despatched to Afrikaans boarding schools, where he, as eldest representative of the entire Engelser (English-speaking) family, had to be prepared to take on the entire school on their behalf.

 

He was sent away to the General Botha, a sailor training academy, at the tender age of thirteen because the teachers could not believe that a young man who mucked about collecting beetles and reptiles, bats, cats and much more besides, would ever amount to much academically.

Despite the toughness of those early years, his personality was never distorted, though it was undoubtedly hardened. Although he could be a tough old stick and a real fighter on occasion, he remained unstintingly generous, a great raconteur with a wonderful sense of humour, and one who always maintained a never-ceasing wonderment at the marvels of nature.

 A keen and incredibly observant man, he would bring to us stories and   anecdotes s to broaden our minds and inspire our vision.  Thanks to him, the family would engage in heated debates around the dining-room table and the fireplace at Lyn Avis.  No matter how heated the discussion, Grandpa could silence us all, for he learnt the uncanny knack of continuing his conversation above ours, and his loud booming voice would serve to silence all our lesser conversations. Despite his love of argument, he and Grandma would never allow personal disagreements in the home, and would always smooth over our ruffled feathers, if need be, by conversations alone in our rooms.

 A gifted story-teller, we remember him with his right leg swung over the wooden arm of the green chair, Lyn Avis red brick fire-place to his right, the fire glowing while the dull light of the paraffin lamp illuminated all six of his grandchildren jostling for space around the armchair, littering his lap and bitterly contesting that tiny area on the floor beside him.

 Grandpa was wealthy in friends, admirers, knowledge, information, stories and languages.  Thanks to these attributes, he had friends of all types, from every walk of life, and upon us all, alike, he bestowed the most spontaneous generosity.  Uncle Kelson remembers that once, in the early days of his marriage to Aunty Moira, they were desperately struggling for money, and unsure of what to do about it.  Out of the blue, Grandpa phoned to say he had accrued some interest on one of his investments, and was dividing it among his three children, and the Camps never looked back after that one incident of unstinting generosity.

He was the most exciting grandparent, discovering condensed milk-mines in the garden for us, though he buried the tins so far down only Piers had the perseverance to continue the dig, throwing non-poisonous snakes into the compost pit and then siccing the boy-children on to kill the rat he said was hidden there, and chasing us around Lyn Avis, engaging in real rough- and-tumbles only with those tough enough to withstand them.

He had an enduring love of condensed milk, and would naughtily sneak into the bushes or near his pigeon-loft, and there we would discover him once his absence had been noted, seated in the deck-chair, merrily sucking it back.  Grandma once came across him lying down in the front of the truck, quickly finishing off a small tin of the cream substance that he couldn't wait to get into the house before drinking.

 Grandpa was undoubtedly the patriarch of the family, proud of us, boastful about us - even beyond endurance - to his friends, though seldom in our very presence.  He loved each of us differently, as our different personalities warranted, but his pride in us as a family unit was unequalled.  Us he built up with chivvying, and teasing, and challenging; he laughed at our foibles, though never with malice, and he asked that we better ourselves through thinking and growing.  Only one part of a team effort, he relied on Grandma to support us and nurture us, to provide us with the love and consistency that would also serve to make us strong.  He knew we were in good hands with her, for he himself relied on hers, the stronger personality, for the love and security he always craved.

Grandma.

 Grandma did not go gentle into that good night; she raged, raged against the dying of the light.  And, most particularly, against her loss of health and strength.  A robust, vigorous woman, she expressed her love through work.  And how she did work!  Her whole life could possibly be characterised by her struggles against machineries and things, to wrest from them the goods, services, clothing and food with which she cared for the family she loved with a devotion almost akin to fanaticism.

We all can remember her titanic assaults on the grass with a lawn-mower that was held together by bits of wire and her tenacity; her fortnightly tussles and wrestles with the paraffin fridge and her beating to death of eggs in the creation of the airiest fairy cakes.  In trepidation, we would present her with gifts of tools to make her life easier, for once she had borne her will and strong hands upon them, they invariably broke.  At which she would note with a grim sense of satisfaction that "they just don 't make things like they used to anymore".

Grandma led a hard and valiant life; married in the Depression years, left to care alone for two small children for six long and lonely War years, during which she didn't hear from Grandpa for up to nine months at a time; and labouring on Lyn Avis without electricity or reticulated water for all those many years.

 Grandma adored beautiful things, but she made do with what she had, polishing and buffing her dining-room table on a weekly basis with brown shoe polish until the very depths shone back at you, subduing the carpets into cleanliness, polishing her brass until it had no option but to gleam gold.  And always you were made welcome into Lyn Avis with vases of pretty little flowers in your room.  Azaleas, sweet peas and roses were amongst her favourite flowers, and they are here today to bid her a sad adieu.

From her I not only learnt the value of hard work and perseverance, and the satisfaction of a task completed to perfection, but also that the utmost importance has to be attached to the final, pretty touches - for her, adding beauty was a deadly serious business.  Her MIL marmalade had not only to taste superb, but the light had to shine through the glass bottle so that the orange and lemon peel glowed when you held it up to the sun.  Invariably, she was not satisfied with her culinary effort, and would complain about her food, which was never up to scratch as far as she was concerned, but was always utterly delicious.  Since she took out most of her frustrations in hard labour, the only sure way you had of knowing when she was really annoyed was when she would exclaim, in an almost undertone, "Tcchh, dammit!"

 Two things could do no wrong in her eyes, her grandchildren and Natal sports teams.  Of the latter, she could be unforgiving, particularly in her mostly unspoken condemnation of any Natal sportsman who dared her censure by defecting to the Transvaal.  However, we her grandchildren grew up with the utmost security in the knowledge that while our parents may not necessarily be wrong, her grandchildren were always, always right.  I, who need reassurance more than most, never grew tired of teasing her by asking, "I am wonderful, am I not?" and hear her unhesitating refrain, "Of course you are wonderful my darling".  To which she would typically add, lest any one of us feel excluded, "All my grandchildren are wonderful".

 As she grew older, she would lie in her bed and stroke my hair with her knobbly hands grown hard and bony with unceasing labour, and increasingly she would talk to me of those happy, happy times of her late adolescence in Warner Beach.  She was a flapper, one of our first ever generation of working women, and every day she would catch the train to Durban, and every day she was late, because she would have a dip in the sea first.  So her long, strong legs would pound the platform, skirts flying, as she ran to catch up with the train, and once or twice she nearly did miss it.

 A great sportswoman, she was always a favourite with the guys, though she did once smack one across the face, "oh yes", because he had become too fresh with her.  Her male colleagues nicknamed her Robby after her maiden name Robertson , and awarded her the ultimate accolade by calling her a real sport.  They were great chums, she'd say, and always ask her to join in activities, "Ah Robby", they'd say, "come on".

Grandma had a great need to be included, to be welcomed into and join in activities, to do things together, with people and particularly the family.  She would lie there and remember those times when her parent's house was always filled with young people and laughter, entertaining themselves, with her mother playing the piano. "Oh, those were such happy times", she'd say.  These, together with her memories of Lyn Avis, and her bustling about the farm, preparing things, when we her grandchildren were little, seemed her fondest memories, but the latter she talked about more rarely, they were closer and more painful to her.

 We, who had to watch her suffer, with a singular lack of equanimity, the ultimate indignity of growing beyond her usefulness, can only wish her back in the days of her youth, replete with strength and vigour.

 I like to envisage her there, and my favourite image is that of her as seen through Grandpa's eyes for the first time.   He recalls this beautiful strong vision of girlhood, clad in a bathing costume, her thick, waist-length, auburn hair, poised to dive into a rock-pool.  That, he decided, is the girl for me, and indeed, she remained for ever, "my girl" to him.

Jessie Robertson as a young woman

Grandma was a most remarkable woman, blessed with a tough soul and a strong body, who poured her life's energies into loving us unconditionally, unhesitatingly, unrepentantly, vigorously and devotedly.

Grandpa was the most exciting, colourful and generous personality - filled with life, and a love of life, and an avid curiosity for all the strange things and creatures that inhabit this life. Our lives are the richer for knowing him.

 Together, they formed the most formidable and loving team.  We will all miss them very much indeed.

The Golden Wedding of Temple and Jess Camp, at Lyn Avis, Ixopo