1933, A Year To Be Remembered.

I found the following article on the internet concerning this terrible drought:

            In 1932 and 1933 South Africa experienced severe drought.   Faced also by a worldwide depression, farmers were challenged like never before. Agricultural income dropped by half; wool farmers had to export four times as much wool as five years before to earn the same amount in foreign exchange.   By the mid-1930s the Depression and drought had reduced sheep flocks by fifteen million head.   The price of maize, the major agricultural product, dropped by half between 1929 and 1933.   Rising operating costs as a result of South Africa’s overvalued currency and lower prices drove numerous farmers into debt.   Some were threatening to repudiate their debts, and there was a real danger that commercial banks might be forced to close.

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            The year was slowly ending without any sign of rain.   The lands were still not ploughed with the animals searching among the mealie stubs for something to eat.   The veld was parched and dry with no edible plants at all.   The horses were pulling the thatch grass from the native huts and the cattle would pick up the horse dung and eat that.   There were no milk cows as their calves had died, so my folks would eat mealie porridge with pig fat and sugar.   Bread was spread with pig fat and sprinkled with salt and pepper.   It was black tea and coffee and I imagine dried rusks to fill their tummies.

            My poor mother was heavily pregnant in the scorching heat from which there was no relief.   Then on about December the 6^th storm clouds started building up, the wind chased dust devils swirling in the skies, the whirlwinds reaching up into the clouds.   Lightning and thunder was followed by huge rain drops and the water soaked the parched earth turning it into dirty water pools and mud.   Amidst all this my mother went into labour and the midwife was in Viljoenskroon and had to be fetched.   My dad had an old Dodge or Plymouth which was high off the ground; he picked up his brother Arthur and set off in the mud and slush.   When they got to Rendezvous Station near Viljoenskroon they found the road under water.    Uncle Arthur rolled his pants up and walked all the way in front of the car.

They found the midwife and took her to Maizefield.   Some time during the night of the 9^th of December, I was born on my mother’s bed with my dad in attendance.   Early the next morning my grandpa took me in his arms to show me to my sisters.   They wanted to know where I came from and he told them that he had caught a monkey, pulled all its teeth and shaved all it’s hair.   What about it’s tail, they wanted to know, and he told them to climb on to the house’s roof where they would find it.   The old man had chopped off a dead calf’s tail and threw it on to the roof for just this purpose.   The girls were enthralled and believed that their brother had been a monkey for a long time!!!          

For a while the problems of farming were forgotten as Bert and Lydia Whittal rejoiced at having a son!!!   In those days a woman had to stay in bed for ten days after giving birth, so we do not know who helped my mom, but my dad now had the job of preparing the lands to plant crops.   

The oxen were too thin to use for ploughing so the Government sent a tractor to the farms which ploughed a piece of land for planting.    Slowly life returned to normal, the fields were green again and the animals which had survived picked up weight.   Cows had calves, the sheep had lambs and there was a litter of piglets.   Guinea Fowls and Partridges were hatching their chicks in the orchard.   The Gum trees were tall and full of bird nests with the cooing of doves like music to the ears.   We welcomed the crowing of the roosters every morning proclaiming the coming of the day as no one wanted to sleep late.

I was named Vernon Rhodes Whittal and baptized in the Viljoenskroon Methodist Church on the 10^th June 1934 by the Reverend Thomas Stanton.   Vernon was a name that my mother liked and Rhodes was my dad’s second name.   My grandfather was an admirer of Cecil John Rhodes and named his one son Cecil and to another he gave the name Rhodes as a second name.   I do not know whether I should consider this as an honour but I am proud to have been named after my dad, Bertram Rhodes Whittal.

I will return to my childhood memories later but first I want to tell you about my two grandfathers.