This week my Aunt posted a picture of Jacaranda trees from Salisbury, Rhodesia. They apparently bloom before leaving their leaves and this is an example of what they look like in October - November.
My friend Bill has been posting scenes from fall in Massachusetts, U.S.A. and I realised that the one thing I do miss about living in the Dallas area of Texas is the fall. I miss the loud crunching of leaves under feet as one walks along the old pavements of England. I miss the browns, reds, ambers and various shades of purple as one waits for the bus. Fall doesn't last long here in Texas but it sure did back home.
I think that sights such as the one shown above are part of what cause my Dad and his family to miss Rhodesia, they bring with them so many memories of what used to be. This reminded me of a book we read for English class when I was a student in High School. It was called "Oleander Jacaranda" and was a memoir by Penelope Lively, detailing much of the life she lived in Egypt during the early to mid 1900's. At the same I hated the book. It seemed like a bunch of pictures an old woman had put together along with brief memories of her own life that were so unimportant and disconnected from my own.
Now, at age 30, I appreciate it much more.
Oleander Jacaranda. I can see the trees and flowers. I understand why the title meant so much to the writer.
Here's to the memories!
In the course of interviewing people for the blog series I am writing on "The Grandfather I Never Knew," I have ended up with many pages of interview notes. One person I queried was my second cousin Roy. He was able to answer a few questions but then asked me if I knew any of the details about Idris traveling to Africa. The totality of this information will be forthcoming in the next blog I write in the series but I told Roy I would take a look at my interview notes. I discovered that my Uncle Glyn had remembered the names of the cruise ships which his family have traveled upon.
I sent the information to Roy; lo and behold he was able to find the following on the website findmypast.co.uk:
The pertinent information reads:
Name of Ship: Carnarvon Castle
Date of Departure: 22/7/47
Port of Departure: Southampton
Port at which passengers have contracted to land: Capetown
Name of Passenger: I. Davies
Age: 32
Last Address: 318 Longton Road, Stoke on Trent
Country of intended permanent residence: S.Rhodesia
Occupation: Mech Ex
Roy had been looking for my grandfathers information before but he had never known the exact date or the name of the ship. Thanks to Uncle Glyn we were able to discover this. I was also able to let Roy know he traveled alone since the rest of the family departed at a later date so Idris could set up home for them.
The "Castle" line of ships were all former war ships in the British Navy which were decommissioned and became cruise ships after WW2. The last known address mentioned here is the home of Harold and Anne Griffiths where my Great Aunt Ruth lived until she was married. Idris moved his family in with them during the months of his departure.
As for Idris occupation. This is still somewhat of a mystery. We think he wrote "Mech Ex" though it may have been "Mech En". This might stand for Mechanical Engineer or perhaps Mechanical Experience? We're not too sure. He definitely did not have a degree although he was quite mechanical minded. In some of the interview notes with my Aunt Wendy she mentioned that at some point she believed Idris to have worked mechanically on airplanes during WW2. We also know he was a munitions inspector.
When he arrived in Southern Rhodesia, Wendy is sure that he worked on farm machines for a while, perhaps he put this down as his occupation because mechanical skills were something he felt confident with.
Iris, Wendy and Glyn all traveled on the Warwick Castle. The relevant pages that have been scanned onto the findmypast.co.uk site are all black and obviously were not scanned correctly. Roy has requested for this information to be updated but it may take several months.
In the mean time I now have this information to add to the story of "The Grandfather I Never Knew."
