More memories

I can remember when I was little Ma and Pop went to Durban for a holiday, leaving the entire brood alone. Probably Mom, Dad, Aunty Maureen and Uncle Bill kept the home fires burning.

The excitement when they got back was immense. I presume that everyone got a gift but self centred little brute that I was I only remember mine. I was given Cinderella and her prince. They were in a ballroom hold. There were little wheels on the bottom and when you wound it up, they circled the floor. I was entranced with it. My imagination (which was always very vivid) says there was music but I don't really think so!

I think it may have been on that holiday of theirs that Ma had fallen in love with a clock. Pop had bought it for her. It was a fairly large electric clock to stand on the dresser or mantelpiece. I hope I can describe it well enough for you to get a picture of it. The clock face had an inset, like a window, above it. Inside this inset was an old style sailing boat complete with sails sitting on waves. There was a switch which operated it. 

When this was set in motion, the boat rocked up and down on the waves and the sky behind it changed from dawn through to daylight to dusk to night. It was an extremely fascinating item. Ma and I would sometimes switch the lights off and watch the boat in motion as the boat's day progressed. (Please remember TV had not arrived in South Africa yet!) I Googled old time electric clocks and could not find one anything like it. I thought a picture would be worth a thousand words! You will just have to let your imagination draw the picture of the clock from my (maybe paltry) description. That clock went with them on all their moves and was always placed in a prime position.

Ma and Pop moved to Durban for a while. While in Durban I think Pop worked for Wareings. They had a flat close to the beachfront. This flat then became the Durban headquarters for the family. I don't think they stayed long, maybe for a year. I think their next move was to live with Joan and Johnny. (My family can set me right here.) They stayed there for the rest of their lives. By this time I was married and had a family of my own. The last picture I have of Ma was of her holding my oldest child, Della, as a baby. Money was tight so Jo'burg visits were out of our budget once my family grew larger. I look back with small regrets that Ma and Pop meant the world to me when I was growing up and I wasn't part of their twilight years.