Alcoholic Angel II.

Part two.

Moments later, while we were still sitting in that bleak kitchen, around the battered table, there was the sound of a powerful truck engine. Then the flash of bright headlights on the kitchen window as a pickup truck pulled into the back yard and the red glow of brake lights as it came to a stop. The engine was switched off, a bang as the truck’s door was slammed shut. Without a knock the back door opened and there stood one of my mother’s younger brothers, Basil.

Uncle Basil was in the building and construction business, he was an alcoholic and the black sheep of the family. In spite of that, he had done very well for himself. Apart from the building and construction business, he also owned a farm outside the town of Tzaneen, in what was then northern Transvaal. All my mother’s family called my father Punter. (That was their nickname for him. What it means I don’t know, but I never heard any of them ever call him by his given name, Andries). Uncle Basil had a very bad stammer  very, very, bad. He stood there in the door trying to speak, his face contorted and twitching with the effort, “P P P P, Punter, w w w w, we’ve ccc come t t t to sp sp sp spend ChChCh Christmas w w w with y y y you”. Then he walked in shook hands with my father and kissed my mother.

My parents stood there stunned.  Guests for Christmas! What now? There was absolutely nothing in the house, not a teaspoon of sugar, no tea or coffee, no milk, nothing. Out in the yard the truck disgorged the rest of its passengers, my uncle’s wife and several cousins. They were on their way to the Natal south coast on a camping holiday. The night before, they had decided on the spur of the moment, to stop over with us for Christmas. It was actually way out of their way and far off the direct route to their destination. Communication was not as easy as it is today.  We had no phone so there was no way that they could let us know that they were coming.

Without another word my uncle walked out and started to unload the truck, while my parents greeted my aunt and cousins, putting on a brave face, pretending they were so happy to have guests. Meanwhile my uncle was carrying in piles of stuff, not just any old stuff. Bags of vegetables, onions, potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins and sweet potatoes. Fruit, mangoes, bananas, guavas, and grenadillas (passion fruit), all from his farm. Next came a half a sheep, a turkey and several chickens, all slaughtered the day before, and dozens of eggs. The goodies just kept coming, home baked bread, a Christmas cake, cookies, sweets. Bags of sugar and rice, flour, dried fruit and nuts, it seemed like a never ending stream, a virtual cornucopia, then at last their luggage. In the mean time my father, myself and my brother had got over our shock helped to unload the truck.

When everything was off the truck, my uncle sat down at the table, asked for a glass, opened a bottle of brandy poured a stiff shot, and said to my mother, ... face again contorted and twitching with the effort of trying to speak....“Nnnn now DD Daphne, I i i i w w w want y y you t t t to c c c cook Ch Ch Ch Christmas l l l lunch, j j j just l l l like m m m mom u u u used t t t to c c c cook". My late grandmother was of German decent and knew how to cook a Christmas lunch, and my mother had inherited that talent.

The really strange part is that they decided to visit us at all. In seventeen years we had visited them once in Tzaneen, on our way to Rhodesia, (now Zimbabwe). How they knew where to find us is also a mystery as I don't think there was much communication in any form between our families.

God’s angels don’t often appear in all their power and glory most times they appear as ordinary human beings, even as an alcoholic uncle.

Uncle Basil has long gone to his rest. After the Christmas visit we sort of lost touch. Things started to go bad for him as drink took over more and more of his life. I pray that God remembers that he was the angel who brought hope and joy to a family who had run out of both.


I often wondered how much his severe speech defect contributed to his alcoholism.

Alcoholic Angel I.

Part one.

I remember many Christmases from when I was a kid. All of them had something that made an impression on my memory that just can’t be erased. But the Christmas of 1964 is etched so deep that it stands out in sharp relief to all the others.

The year of 1964 had not been a good year for our family. To improve our financial situation my father moved us to a small village about 30 miles from the large city we were living in. This move offered more money, 50 cents an hour as compared to the 45 cents an hour that my father earned at his previous place of employment. With the position went a company house, free lights and water.  The work was exactly the same as in the previous position, and for eight hours   hard, back breaking and exhausting  work, in a noisy dirty factory, he earned the princely sum of four Rand, (R4) a day or about R120 a month.

The previous three years had been hard and very difficult. Serious illness in the family had added to the debt burden and any spare money earned in the new job was spent in paying off these debts. From July 1964, the month we moved to the new place, our main meal of the day consisted of samp, (crushed white maize) and cabbage curry. Samp  took hours to cook, but it was cheap, and we had a wood burning stove and as much wood as we needed. Cabbage we grew in the garden with a few other vegetables, such as onions and tomatoes. There were absolutely no luxuries, we were down to almost less than the minimum.

Christmas eve, 24^th December 1964, and all the cupboards were bare, open the fridge and all you found was the light that came on and empty shelves. My mother always cooked up a storm for Christmas, but this year there was nothing. She went through the motions though, cooking a pot of small onions in a sweet and sour sauce, but that was all there was. After putting the onions and the sauce in a small glass dish into the fridge, she sat down at the table and wept, defeated, no sounds just large tears running down her face.

The whole family was in the kitchen, my mother, my father, me about to turn seventeen in six days, my brother Boyce, fifteen, and my two sisters, Rosemary about eight, and Jo-Anne about nine years old. That kitchen scene is also embedded in my memory, a bare light bulb hanging on some flex from the ceiling. The battered old table and six chairs, everything spotlessly clean, but bare, the very image of poverty. Then my father sat down next to my mother and took her hands in his and wept silently with her.

Seeing my parents weeping left me shattered, until that moment I was sure they would be able to make a plan and our Christmas would turn out as good as all the others. Children cry, not grownups, not your parents, they have the answer to all of life’s problems.

Then my father took out his handkerchief, blew his nose, cleared his throat and said, “Let’s pray.” We all sat around the table while my father prayed a simple prayer, with very few words, asking God to help us, that’s all nothing more.

At seventeen I was already a budding cynic. My thoughts were, “God help us, how?”  Here we were sitting in this bleak kitchen with nothing! Where was anything going to come from. Angels from heaven? Ha! Pull my other leg.

But the Angels were close, they were closer than I knew.