Talbot Elliott's Memories of Addo, Eastern Cape

This article was written for the May/June 1999 Trumpeting Elephant (local newsletter in Sundays River Valley). Talbot and Rosemary Elliott are presently (August 2015) in Valleihof Retirement Home, Kirkwood, Eastern Cape.

Talbot Elliott, another settler son of the Valley who has recently retired to Sunland, farmed at Hermiston, Addo, for many years, and took part in many Valley activities and sports with great enthusiasm. Talbot still plays bowls, does woodwork as a hobby, is a stalwart of St. Michaels, Summerville and is still enthusiastic about his life in this area. His memories of the early days at Addo make interesting and amusing reading.

Talbot Elliott’s Memories

Jack Elliott and Bill Dyke were South Africans and met during the First World War. Jack had a bad injury to his left elbow that left him partially disabled. He and Bill Dyke decided they would go into partnership and but a property in the recently advertised Sundays River Valley. Being born in South Africa they had a better idea of the soils and climate of the region and from the map in London, they selected a prime section of Commando Kraal. They found they had acquired land with 30 feet (about 8 metres) of alluvial soil. The price per morgen was five pounds!

            Bill Dyke farmed Bydand Farm                         Dorothy Dyke, Bill's Wife.

Bill playing the bagpipes on Bydand Farm, the name on the crest of his regiment, the Gordon Highlanders.

Bill & Dorothy Dyke, October 1920 

Ruth, Bill & Dorothy Dyke's daughter, wedding to Kenneth McDowell Woolley. 

While Jack was convalescing he met Alice Banks, who was then working as a land girl. He returned to South Africa and he and Bill began developing the land they had bought. Subsequently he sent Alice a photo of a pondocky and asked if she could live in it. She said yes, and so she came out to marry Jack.

They had 2 children, Mary and Talbot. When Talbot was 12 his father died. He was still attending St. Vincent’s school for the Deaf in Johannesburg. His mother employed Mr. von de Marwitz as a foreman for seven pounds a month wages! Talbot was about 17 when he came to take over the running of the farm in 1940.

By this time the Elliott’s and Dyke’s had divided the land they had started in partnership and acquired more property. Night water leading was extremely tiring. Four days and nights without let up, using paraffin lamps or later carbide lamps at nighttime. The Irrigation Board would try to ensure water leading was done during the full moon. The Farmer would get up twice in the night to take sandwiches and coffee to the men working through the night.

Things were incredibly difficult in those early days. There was still no dam, and crops were grown on the run-off from floodwaters! So settlers were always looking for ways to make a little extra money. In 1920, Barclay’s Bank asked for tenders to build the bank manager’s house. Bill Dyke and Jack Elliott won it! Alice Elliott, remembering those days said, “They didn’t know much about building, so they would work during the day and in the evening they would pour over their books on do-it-yourself building to see how the floor joists were set or the roof beams” (the house has been extensively altered since, but the original part still seems to be holding up O.K.)

Other ways to earn money were bee keeping and chickens. On one ghastly occasion the bees stung the Elliott’s chickens, killing them all. Sometimes success could be a problem too. One year the Dyke’s had a bumper crop of groundnuts (peanuts) and since there was nothing else to eat, they ate them until the sight of a peanut made them feel ill!

Oranges were picked into lug boxes (which had a multitude of other uses, like bed-side tables and shelving). Farmers paid 1d per lug for hiring them. 25 full lugs could be loaded on a wagon pulled by mules or horses. One day Talbot was loading 50 empty lugs onto the wagon, when the wind blew some of  the lugs onto the mules, which took off without Talbot at a flat gallop and arrived home unhurt and driverless!

Then just when things seemed to be going all right, in February came the plague of locusts. Everyone was mobilised and farmers, their staff and children were lined up with tins and pans banging them furiously to encourage the locusts to take off and hopefully move onto someone else’s farm. They spent the whole day walking backwards and forwards across the farm.

In the early days Jack and Alice drove to Port Elizabeth by horse and trap past the Old Addo Drift House. There were 12 gates on the road, and Alice counted at one time 24 tortoises on the road to Port Elizabeth. A trip to town was special; they would spend the night and luxuriate in a hot bath.

There were no fresh vegetables except what people grew. The Women’s Institute initiated the Women’s Market every Friday when people would take their surplus vegetables and buy someone else’s. Before long some people were making a small regular income from the weekly market. At first a bell would indicate that buying could commence, but the unseemly grabbing by the lady sellers, was felt to be undignified, especially when a bunch of carrots disintegrated with 2 irate ladies tugging it from different directions. Thereafter benches were put in front of the table and committee members would stand behind, ready to serve when the bell rang. If you were friends with the committee member near you, you could bespeak some of the things you wanted and get first chance. Otherwise you would be drowned out by the cacophony of shouts from the assembled ladies. Opinions differed if this was more or less dignified than straight grabbing.

The Pickels' now own Hermiston Farm and established Chrislin African Lodge B&B. Citrus is still on the farm and, like their predecessors, are entrepreneurial on the land!

  

Crisscross Adventures - quad biking starts on Hermiston Farm. So do the Addo Park safari's, river safari and more!