CHAPTER 1

The Building of a Happy Family

 

Gold was discovered in Johannesburg during the month of March 1886 and coalitions, corporations and conglomerates were hastily formed, consolidating the mining industry and employing many settlers who were lured to the region by promises of high earnings and great riches. Johannesburg soon developed into a booming city which was mostly populated by miners in search of elusive fortunes.

During 1925 world trade slumped and many members of the agricultural industry fell victim to loss of trade and were soon unable to meet their financial responsibilities. Most were unable to repay their mortgages on their overcapitalised farms and were soon among the long rows of jobseekers that held great and rowdy demonstrations through the streets of Johannesburg in demand of employment.

Additionally, the worsening political upheaval which led to white labourers in the thriving gold industry being replaced by lower-paid black workers ignited a slow-burning fuse of racial hatred and eventual segregation.

Despite the severe difficulties caused by the great depression and the slow economic recovery afterwards, people with certain critical skills were nevertheless required to continue the vigorous construction of mushrooming business-administration and governmental buildings. Artisans in all fields of construction were therefore among the most eligible contenders for employment.

 

A young carpenter by the name of George Panaino who although having just recently completed his apprenticeship, was gradually becoming a master in the art of French polishing and his craft was soon highly sought after by dignitaries of the time and thus he became a member of a team which had secured a lucrative contract for all of the woodwork for the Johannesburg Magistrates’ Courts. The contract was to last until July of 1941.

At his age, he was earning a considerably higher wage than many of his colleagues and living thriftily, he was saving most of his earnings.

For four years he had been deeply in love with and courting Edith, a vivacious late-teen nurse who, because of the high demands for professional health staff was also excelling in her career at her workplace, the Johannesburg Hospital.

She was a dedicated professional nurse who was well loved by all of the patients under her care.  Her sparkling blue eyes would brighten even further when she approached elderly patients because her compassion for them was unlimited and her greater knowledge of their true condition made her even more sympathetic toward them.  Her emotional attachment to them was exacerbated by the presence of their families.

Edith understood that the economic situation of the time did not allow for the commitment between her and George to proceed to any greater level since neither were able to afford a home of any reasonable status, but her love for the wonderful man that she had met and been with ever since their meeting would not wane and she was prepared to wait.

Every evening she would board the late tram on her return from the hospital and as it passed the great church in Beelaerts Street in Troyeville, she would wistfully stare up at its bell-tower longing for the day that George and she would be joined in matrimonial sanctity.

 

At last they were married during 1936 and then with their combined savings and a little assistance from their parents, bought a small house in the quiet Johannesburg suburb of Bez (uidenhout’s) Valley.

The suburb in which many immigrants settled consisted of a grid of jacaranda-lined avenues and oak-lined streets. To capture the ambience of the suburb, one would need to better understand our circumstances and the people who had resided there.

The topographic features of the valley were two high rock-faced and densely vegetated hills bordering either side of the valley, one in the north on which stood the Observatory dome and one in the south on which stood the Marymount Maternity Hospital, which we referred to as ‘The Castle’. The ridges were known to the locals as koppies.

The southern perimeter road was Kitchener Avenue, which was the main road separating Bez Valley from the more affluent suburb of Kensington. The road, along which the tram tracks ran, branched off into Kensington and the tracks continued on Broadway, which became Airport Road at Bedfordview. It was part of the major thoroughfare from Johannesburg city to Jan Smuts Airport.

The suburb was growing fast and consisted of a grid of jacaranda-lined avenues and oak-lined streets, the Avenues running from First Avenue in the north to Eighth Avenue in the south and the Streets running from First Street in the west and Tenth Street in the east.

In the poorer areas, each of the blocks were made up of two rows of houses separated by a night lane, so called because most toilets were no more than buckets placed beneath a crude wooden box that served as a commode seat. The buckets were only accessible through a hatch in the wall bordering the night lane.

Late every night, a tractor and trailer drove up and down each lane and the municipal labourers exchanged the used bucket with an empty one, because at that time, flushing toilets were a convenience meant only for the richest people.

The main road from west to east was Kitchener Avenue, which branched off to Kensington, whilst the tram route from the city through to Bez Valley, continued straight along what became Broadway at the split.

The west-to-east avenues parallel to Kitchener Avenue started at Eighth Avenue and went through to First Avenue, which was the northern perimeter road in Bez Valley North, separating Bez Valley from Observatory and becoming The Curve, which led to Yeoville.

The Western perimeter road was First Street, separating Bez Valley from Judith’s Paarl, Bertrams and Doornfontein. The parallel streets went through to Tenth Street which was the eastern perimeter road separating Bez Valley from Bedfordview.

Fifth Street was the bus route for the green Putco buses, which the black people used from their homes in the locations to reach their distant places of employ in the white suburbs which, because of the socio-political conditions at the time were far from the locations. More often than not, much of the black people’s meagre income was spent on transport to and from their workplaces.

Separating Bez Valley south and Bez Valley north and cutting through the lowest part of the valley, was the Braamfontein Spruit, which was straddled by the Hofland Park and bordered by the vegetable farm of Tony da Silva, the Portuguese greengrocer in Sixth Avenue. The Spruit occasionally flooded his vegetable fields.

Other landmarks were the Catholic Church and convent at the corner of Kitchener Avenue and First Street. In front of the church stood two magnificent date palms, and huge karee, pine and eucalyptus trees surrounded the gardens fronting the convent. The local priest was Father O’Connor Ferreira, a young but compassionate man who was keenly aware of the needy people in his congregation.

On the corner of Second Avenue and First Street stood the Catholic convent school, run by nuns of the Cathedral of Christ the King, the archdiocese in Doornfontein, which was still under construction.

Bez Valley was a reasonably inexpensive area, where property was affordable and labour was also within the means of the average working-class family.

It became a local community essentially divided into one of stable, salt-of-the-earth, no-nonsense, poor but decent folk on the one hand and an element of drifting, excessive, desperate and unstable individuals and fragile households on the other.

 

By 1953, our parents had completed their family and had six children.

Eileen at sixteen was the oldest daughter, Cecil at fourteen, was the oldest brother, Georgie was ten, Trixie was eight, I was six and Barrie was three.

Directly across the road from our home lived a kindly old widow, Mrs Kelley. She alone raised her son Ginger, who was fifteen and two daughters, Linda at six and Tammy at eight, after being widowed some five years earlier.

The children were well cared-for and always neatly dressed, well mannered, friendly and stable. Their mother had raised them strictly and she had become known as a fierce protector of all children in the community but her own in particular.

A quiet, middle-aged, Italian couple, Mr and Mrs Petroncelli, lived in the house beside Mrs Kelley.

Living in the home beside us, were Mr and Mrs van Vuuren and their six-year old daughter, Margaret. They owned a small clothing factory in Jeppestown (Jeppe) and were a fine and generous family.

Living only six houses away from ours, was my mother’s sister, Kitty. She was the concubine of Timmy Thompsen, a World War II veteran whose wife had run off to Germany with her German lover, leaving him to care for Valencia, their daughter of nine.

Kitty, with her two sons, Paul at fourteen and Michael at nineteen, had moved into his three-bed roomed cottage.

On the corner of Fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, lived Kitty’s daughter Ellen, with her husband Gert and their daughter, Cathy. Her other daughter, Maria, lived on the corner of Fourth Street and Kitchener Avenue, with her husband Tony and their two children, six year-old Isaac and twelve-year-old Tammy.

Every morning, all of the parents gathered and walked to the tram stop on the corner of Kitchener Avenue and Fourth Street, for their journey to their various places of work in the city, whilst the older children would walk down to the Bez Valley Junior School in Fifth Avenue.

Almost every afternoon, when the bigger children arrived from school, we joined them in the local Hofland Park, in Fourth Street.

Understandably, the three-metre-high slide seemed huge to us then and the merry-go-round much bigger, but the main attraction was of course the swimming pool, where children from every street in Bez Valley gathered and so came to know each other.

When we were at play, adults rarely needed to pay us any attention, because there was little traffic on the quiet streets of the suburb and the sound of a car would easily attract our attention.

Any driver, seeing the children in the street, would start sounding his horn from a block away and the speed limit was only 30mph, so there was little risk of an accident.

We would play in the street and the surrounding yards until dusk, which indicated that it was almost five o’ clock and then we would scamper along to the corner of Fourth Street, where our parents were just rounding the corner, having all returned on the same scheduled tram, returning from their various places of work.

Life during those days was generally uncomplicated and carefree and so it seemed that the joyous times would last forever, but unfortunately, it would not be so.

 

It had been during the 1939 conscription campaign for WWII which had erupted in Europe that George was diagnosed with Diabetes and was therefore excused.

Until then he’d had no idea that the illness had already started affecting his vision and was gradually making his work more difficult. Characteristically, he did not divulge his condition to anyone and continued working thoroughly.

One afternoon in October 1953 we all ran to the corner but encountered a sombre group of parents.

Our mother was guiding our by then completely blind father with what seemed a greater than usual care and they were both crying softly among the other adults. A dismal mood prevailed among them and their uncharacteristic silence, indicated that they were concealing an event of great importance. We didn’t understand what the reason for the gravity was, but we certainly knew that the problem was serious.

At home, George and Edith held onto each other, keeping their voices subdued.

“Edie” said George, “I am not sure how we are to survive without my regular income and I would never be satisfied that you are to be the only breadwinner, but I feel helpless now and I curse my blindness. Being blind and without a job, I have failed you and the kids.”

Burying her head in the fold of his neck and allowing her hair to cover her face so that we would not see her tears, she quietly said, “My dear, dear George, you may not despair now because the situation requires that we think clearly. The factory has considered only your condition, but your art has not left your wonderful hands. We will pull through this thing together.”

We had thus finally overheard that our father had lost his job because of his disability.

After that, his income decreased considerably and he had to come to terms with receiving a small pension and occasionally earning small gratuities for infrequent odd jobs. As days and weeks went by, he gradually descended into a predicament of self-pitying depression. One from which he would never recover.

Whilst he was by habit used to one or two whiskeys each day, he was seldom irate and never abusive. He was a responsible father and a gentle, proud husband but it was after losing his job, that he started drinking heavily, often becoming completely drunk and it was then that he changed.

The changes in him were as rapid as they were uncharacteristic, alarming him and causing him to lose his self-esteem within a very short time. His blindness became an unbearable burden on him and it frustrated him enormously.

 

It was during the time that the situation between George and Edith was deteriorating fast, that Eileen absconded, taking our eldest brother Cecil with her. She had arranged lodgings with a man by the name of Johnny Seward, whom we later learned was a particularly depraved individual who made a small fortune selling stealthily obtained pornographic photographs depicting adult and child sex to paedophiles in the wealthier neighbourhoods of the city.

The dubious benefactor housed several youthful people, who were unaware that his ‘concern’ for homeless children, also fed his personal bisexual paedophilia and provided him with an income, part of which he used to offer his lodgers a reasonably lavish livelihood.

Eileen was fully aware of Johnny’s activities and had frequently made use of his financial favours, engaging in provocative activities with people whom she had met only minutes before. For allowing him to film or photograph the activities, he would pay her generous amounts of money.

She developed into an avaricious and sexually insatiable individual and became a child prostitute, with Johnny acting as her pimp.

It was Cecil on the other hand, who showed great integrity. He was an alert, moral and ambitious young man, who soon discovered the debauchery in Johnny’s house and, enraged by the blatant decadence, left within a very short time. He had quickly realised that remaining in any relationship with Eileen would be his downfall and so he summarily severed all ties to her.

Having escaped the looming destruction of our parents’ marriage, he started building an honest income by hard work and was able to take residence in a local boarding house.

 

The deteriorating circumstances at home were clearly having a great effect upon Edith too and she gradually started using sedative drugs to keep herself relatively calm.

The changes in her demeanour very soon became apparent to us, but nobody else enquired about the cause. At the hospital where worked she had access to drugs and having sunk into a quagmire of depression, she started injecting pharmaceutical morphine directly into her veins and soon she was addicted to it. Becoming reckless, she even started injecting herself publicly with the drug which she stole at the hospital.

During those days, drug addiction was considered to be something like alcoholism and was not generally understood. Inevitably the hospital’s matron one day discovered her injecting and summarily dismissed her.

One evening, our father George returned from a place where he had been working, but he had clearly first visited a local pub and was staggering down the passage, bumping heavily into the walls on either side but keeping both of his open hands lifted and slightly outward, as was typical of a blind person to do. He had been accompanied home by another drunken man who was sitting in the kitchen, drinking white Malmsey wine and making suggestive remarks to Edith, my mother, who was washing the dishes.

I was sitting on the kitchen floor rolling marbles to my brother Georgie. My older sister, Trixie, was nervously standing behind the open door leading to the back yard. Her feet were crossed and she was jumping up and down a little. We were somehow aware that some sort of trouble was brewing.

“Pat … Georgie … Frankie … come and help me,” slurred George as he waited to hear which of us would respond. His bloodshot eyes moved right and left but they were directed higher than the height of any person. Although he could not see, his eyes made him look scary.

Georgie jumped to his feet and took George’s arm, guiding him to a chair beside the table, opposite the visitor.

“Coffee,” ordered George. “I want coffee and so does my friend here.” He waved his hand in the general direction of the visitor. “What you say my friend?” he asked into the void above the grinning man.

“Jaah,” said the stranger, grinning even wider and looking at each of us in turn before returning his stare to Edith’s shapely behind. “She can also give us each a kiss,” he leered.

Edith tensed visibly as she hastily poured steaming black coffee into two yellow enamelled mugs. After replacing the large kettle back on the coal stove, she carried them to the table, setting them down in front of the two men.

As George put his hand flat on the table and moved it slowly across to locate his mug, the stranger reached out and grabbed Edith’s arm, dragging her onto his lap. He forcefully turned her head, kissing her on the mouth despite her struggle to escape.

Being unable to see what was taking place, George turned his head this way and that, trying to use his other heightened senses to form a picture of what was happening but could only determine that having brought the stranger into our home, he had endangered his family.

Trying to control the developing situation he said, “Aagh, he’s only playing with you Edith.” His voice indicated that he was becoming agitated and alarmed but fortunately his blindness spared him witnessing the unusual obscenity that was taking place in his own home. It may have been some helpless, jealous rage that had caused him to do so but then he stood up, felt around in the air, unexpectedly grabbed our mother’s hair and smacked her face hard.

Frightened, Georgie, Trixie and I ran to the lounge screaming because we were afraid that a further physical attack on our mother was developing. Fortunately, our little brother Barry was asleep in the back room and did not witness the events.

We were not familiar with our father assaulting our mother and we hid until the tirade was over. Our fear for our mother’s safety and for our own was overwhelming, and we sobbed desperately.

Beyond our sight we heard scuffling and our mother screamed, then for a while there was a deathly silence. She suddenly burst into the lounge. Her hair was dishevelled, her bloodied dress shred from top to bottom, and she had no shoes on her feet. “Georgie,” she said with her bleeding, swollen mouth, “get Barry an’ you kids run. I’ll meet you outside.” She turned and ran back towards the kitchen.

The three of us ran to fetch Barry and together we rushed around the house to the kitchen door. The stranger had run from the house and our mother was kneeling in front of our father who was leaning on the table and was uneasily smoking a cigarette.

“George,” she cried pitifully. “How could you do that? You brought someone into the house, who raped me in front of our kids. You can rot here but I’m leaving with the kids,” she spat, rising to her feet with difficulty.

“Edie” said George, “I feel embarrassed and as hurt as you do, but I have no excuse to make because everything became beyond my control and I can only apologise but you will not know how sad I am and how useless I feel because I am unable to protect you and my family. I am truly sorry.” Tears were running down his cheeks and he embarrassedly wiped them away but it was his distress that none of us had ever recognised in him before.

Limping towards us, holding her tattered dress against her body, she gathered us against her and together we walked towards the front gate. “Come now, my babies,” she said, trying to comfort us, “Don’t worry, we’ll sleep at Aunt Kitty’s tonight.”

 

On the few occasions when Edith needed to bring us away from George, or when his frustration caused him to lose control, Kitty would grudgingly allow us to sleep in their bathroom, which was in the back yard about twenty metres from the main house, but she never offered us anything to eat or drink.

We were accustomed to the unhygienic bathroom floor, which was always wet with water from a leaking pipe under the bath and from which fungus grew up the cracked walls. The pit toilet emanated an unending stench which permeated the ramshackle building.

Wearing only the barest necessities, we all lay down on the dirty and cold concrete floor, cuddling close to each other, shivering, as the evening temperature dropped.

After sunrise the next morning, Timmy roused us so that he could get ready for work and looking at us sympathetically, he asked our mother, “Are you certain that it is the best thing for you and George to give up Edith? If Kitty wants, we could put the kids up for a while,” he offered.

“Timmy, I can’t lose my kids, but I have to make painful decisions. I’m sick an’ tired of living the way we do and George and I need to stop destroying each other. I have no other options available and whether I’m doing right or wrong, I need to see if things can work out in a different way,” she said.

Abruptly ending the conversation, she jostled us out of the bathroom and took us home, where she proceeded to dress Barry, whilst Georgie, Trixie and I dressed ourselves. She made Maltabela porridge for us and then while we ate, she went to the bedroom. When she reappeared at the doorway, she was wheezing heavily and leaning against the jamb.

To us, it was a sure indication that she had injected morphine, because we were familiar with her misuse of the dangerous fluid.

Later, although she was still slightly drugged, she came up behind our father and gently put her arms around him, holding him like that for a long time and then, in a voice strained by deep, almost inconsolable sorrow, she said to him quietly, “George, our circumstances for which we are both responsible have destroyed us and as much as we love each other, we will have to rebuild our lives separately. The kids are beginning to suffer and I need you to leave me with them.”

Our parents had infrequent arguments without showing anger or raising their voices, but this time, they became engaged in a discussion which somehow seemed more serious and seemed to encompass more severe elements. It was the first time that they were discussing separation and even divorce. Even more alarming was that they were doing so in front of us.

“George, my love,” she said, “Our divorce is necessary because of love and not because of hatred. The children and I need you and we will always be there for you.”

She was a forgiving individual and did not blame him solely for his occasional frustration and shared the blame in equal measure for the disintegration of their marriage, but the existing circumstances in the family at that time, had deteriorated to the point where no lasting reconciliation would be possible. They made a mutual decision to part and therefore nothing would prevent her from suing for divorce.

There was no animosity between them but his reaction was one of frustration and despair because he knew that he could do nothing to correct the events of the previous evening and he had to accept that their marriage was finally over. His love for Edith was as strong as ever and therefore, he was unprepared for the speedy collapse of the family bonds. He looked very sad and he did not speak while he and Edith packed his meagre belongings in preparation of his departure, for he was afraid that his voice would expose his emotion.

We were all well aware that he was characteristically a wonderful husband and father, but his blindness and losing the ability to support and protect his family, was the exclusive reason for his mood swings of late.

The emotional moments that we witnessed were overwhelming and we did not understand why our parents’ severance was necessary so we could not contain our grief as they slowly walked arm-in arm, each carrying a suitcase to the door. Even as children, we knew that we were observing true love.

Holding her dress against her body and then gathering us against her, she looked at him with a gentle and compassionate smile. “I wish you well and my love for you will never stop. Goodbye my man,” she said as they tenderly embraced and then we all walked towards the front gate together.

As the tears rolled down his cheeks, he sobbed once in a moment of uncontrollable sorrow and then, regaining his composure he walked westward along Eighth Avenue alone, holding his two suitcases in one hand and characteristically tapping and swaying his white cane with the other, he was crying unashamedly, as we all did.

Clinging to Edith, we remained on the sidewalk until George went around the corner into Fourth Street and was beyond our view.