Salusbury Lloyd Trevor (1909 - 1979)

Born 1 Oct 1909 in Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 3 Mar 1979 at age 69 in Cape Town, Cape Province, South Africa

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Buz Trevor [send private message]

Biography

Salusbury was born in 1909. He passed away in 1979. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Unsourced family tree handed down to Buz Trevor.

. . Author: Adam Trevor. MEALIE MEAL PORRIDGE.

Childhood memories of Salusbury Lloyd Trevor.   The story of how my Mother's people came to South Africa is very patchy because it is verbal. My Mother's Grandparents either came as very young children or else they must have been amongst the earliest of the children born in South Africa. My Grandfather's name was Lloyd and it is on the rolls of the 1820 settlers. In fact they came on the "Chapman". 1 The Lloyds must have been quite humble people brought out in one of the self-contained parties under the patronage of well to do people. Each party was a balanced organisation with capitalists, farmers and artisans. Coming to Africa was a good move for the Lloyds; they have gone up in the world since their arrival. My Grandfather, my mother's Father, died at Elim hospital near Louis Trichardt just before the end of the First World War. He was then 63 years old. My Grandmother, Margaret Dixon, was born in 1856. I remember this well for she kept in her trinket box one of the old thick red pennies of the same date as a memento. The Dixons originally came from Guildford. I have never heard anything more about them but Lloyd is still quite a common name in the Eastern Province. My Mother, Nellie Etha Lloyd, was born at Dordrecht in Cape Province in 1883. When she was seven, years old the family moved from Dordrecht to Barberton by ox wagon. The journey took six months and was well within her memory. The connection with Dordrecht was lost. Grandfather Lloyd was a lawyer, perhaps he had served articles. Anyway he had a bit of money. They had a house in Berea in Barberton in which they still lived when I was a child. There was a magnificent trumpet hibiscus at the front door which was always in bloom. Grandfather always had a bulldog bitch with him. He was very dressy; he always wore a bowler hat which he called a billycock and a boiled shirt. The gold links, which I have, inset with diamonds, belonged to him. His name was William Reuben Lloyd. When I was a boy the name in my home for a king-sized noggin was a W.R.L. He was said to be a good billiard player and was addicted to the racing novels of Nat Gould. For family reasons they always had either Bobbie or Bettie living with them and the little girls were always dressed the same, black velvet Alice bands, hair down the back and the most beautifully embroidered, highly starched pinafores standing out well beyond their shoulders.

Granny Lloyd was a wizard with the needle and much of the embroidered work we have was done by her about fifty years ago.

In my memory Grandfather was always in indifferent health. The story goes that he once backed a bill for someone called Downey. Downey let my Grandfather down and he had to make good the bill. After this the old Lloyds lived in rather reduced circumstances. This incident never ceased to rankle and I was never allowed to know the Downey Grandchildren who lived near us in Pretoria and were in fact schoolmates. I myself would be unlikely to trust anyone called Downey. My Mother used to relate how in her childhood her Father and a friend or two would charter a Cape cart and go off on a trip to Johannesburg. This was before the railway reached Barberton.

In her old age, my Grandmother was a very large woman. When she became a widow she lived either with us in Pretoria or with Aunt Maye in Louis Trichardt. These two daughters were good to their Mother and so were their husbands. My Grandmother also died at Elim Hospital in about 1923. Before leaving my Grandparents, I must tell about the time my G.F. arrived at Pietersburg on his last journey to Louis Trichardt. He was very trail. The train pulled up in the station but it was too long for the platform and the coach, in which G.F. travelled, was not opposite the platform. The old chap wanted to stretch his legs but could not manage the stops. No trouble at all when this was explained to the conductor. There was a great waving of flags and blowing of whistles and the train was moved so that G.F. could step down onto the platform.

I may, perhaps, include another on the journey to Pietersburg. It was an overnight journey from Pretoria. We woke up in the early morning with the train at a standstill. It was bitterly cold and the wheels would not grip on the frosty rails. Everyone got out and many tried pushing but no good. The sandboxes on the engine were soon exhausted so others tried shoveling earth from the sides of the way on to the lines to help the wheels but no good. The guard tried to stop the train running back by putting stones on the line behind the back wheels but this was no good either. In the end the train ran to the foot of the slope and was divided. The engine took some of the coaches off to Pietersburg. I was in the part of the train that got left behind and we waited some time for the engine to come back for us.

My mother had two real sisters and one adopted sister. The elder sister, Norah, married a policeman in Natal and passes out of this story. I never met here or any of her family. The other sister, Maye, was greatly beloved, my true Aunt. She married twice, first to a beacon Inspector, Duncan Stewart, in the Survey Department. By this marriage there were three daughters, Nina, Bobbie and Betty. These are my contemporaries and the nearest to me. As a boy, I knew them well.

This marriage did not last and in a few years Aunt Maye married George Gould, a recruiter for Wenela who was stationed at Louis Trichardt. The house in which they lived still stands on the main road through the town. To Duncan Stewart, Aunt Maye's first husband happened one of those ghastly accidents which must occur frequently in the bush. On his round of beacons, he used an Indian motorbike. One day it fell on him and he was pinned down by the hot cylinders. Fortunately he was rescued by passing Africans but in those pre-penicillin days it cost him his leg. With a peg-leg he lived to a ripe old age. Uncle George, the second husband was an uncouth old devil, I was always scared stiff of him. He had an old, old Hupmobile with a very tall radiator cap almost like a funnel. It had no starter but had to be swung to start* I was always pestering him to let me drive, but his answer was "If you can start it you can drive it". I never even managed to turn it, let alone swing it.

By Uncle George, Aunt Maye had three sons: Lloyd, who is now the big bwana on the Mine at Gravelotte, Dennis Winchester the Federal M.P. and Pat in Pietermaritzburg. To those three I was the big cousin who shot the hole in the roof (with an unloaded gun of course).

Aunt Maye lived to be very old. In fact, she died at Irene near Pretoria when we were taking Mark to school in 1962.

Father, Tudor Gryffydd Trevor came to the Reef in 1883.

He was a Mining Engineer. Before coming to South Africa, he had worked on the Van mines in North Wales in which he maintained an interest throughout his life. After that he worked for Rio Tinto at their original mines in Spain. I mention this for two reasons. Firstly, since then Rio Tinto has become a world power in Copper, and it was there that my Father met Arthur Busch, a lifelong friend and a legend in the Trevor family. Arthur Busch married Tudor’s sister Mary. The story of Arthur Busch, smoking cheroots whilst filling cartridges is too well known to be told here. He was always the champion of the exploited and the underdog. I knew him towards the end of his very long life. He was a diligent and conscientious reader of the newspapers but over the years he had become many months behind and as he read them strictly in rotation and never missed a line, he was always full of news and events that everyone else had forgotten. After the Kaisers war he published at his own expense a monograph advocating that the illegitimate children of soldiers should be legitimized and the stigma of bastardry removed. He got into big trouble and was prosecuted for publishing obscene literature. It cost him over £400. This sensible and humane reform took place in Hitler's war without any reaction at all. All Society is the better for having Arthur Busches amongst it.

On arrival at the Reef my Father worked for a short time on the Simmer and Jack as Manager but he did not settle down to Mining. In 1890, in Mafeking, he married Hetty Dunkley. Soon after this, as a reward for going on Commando against the Kaffirs, he got the grant of the farm Tocha just through Chenies Poort on the Marabastad side of Pietersburg. One of these Dunkley’s was working for Shell in Ndola but the farmer of the same name was not related. The one in Shell must have been a great-great nephew of my Father’s. By this marriage my father had four children, one of whom, Patricia, died an infant and was buried at Tocha. When I was a child this grave was always well kept. I have a lovely memory of Tocha, arriving in the evening by donkey wagon just as it was getting dark. We children, sitting on the wagon and the light from the hurricane lamp hanging below the wagon flashing through the spokes whilst the dogs played around. It was Easter and an Easter egg hunt was organised for us. It was quite lovely the bright fresh dewy Transvaal morning and the joy of finding Easter eggs hidden in the bushes round the camp. Vaughan was the eldest of this family. He was apprenticed to the Railway Workshops in Pretoria, He served in R.E. throughout the Kaiser’s war, firstly In S.W. Africa and then in France, only to die of the Spanish Influenza within a few days of victory. He is buried in the War Cemetery at Bordeaux. The second child, Cherry, lived until quite recently. She had a hardish sort of life. She married a soldier called Ralston and they tried to make a go of farming Tocha. It never prospered and the marriage went slowly on to the rocks whilst her family was still young. She had three boys whom she had to support and educate herself. For many years she was matron at Rissik House at Pretoria Boys' High. Her eldest son, Harry, is well known to us. He worked himself up from boy soldier to Major and is now an Instructor at Llewellin Barracks. The second son, Duncan, is in the South African Air force and has had an honourable flying career. The youngest, Ian, I have never met. He is a geologist for Anglo American and lives in Salisbury. They have all done very well. The third child was Tudor (who wrote the naval diaries). He was put in the Royal Navy as a child and had the horrible experience of being on H.M.S. Conway, a Victorian hell ship if ever there was one. He was only sixteen or so when he served at the Battle of Jutland. After the Kaiser’s war he left the Navy and cane out to join Cherry and her husband at Tocha. There was no living for him there so he sold his share, or, perhaps, just pulled out and started up a garage at Warmbaths. Until he fell ill, this seemed to be a living. My Father, who lived to be a very old man, attributed his good health that he soon got away from Gold Mining and explored the Transvaal instead. He said all his contemporaries on the Reef in the early days died of pthisis as young men. Hetty died in 1898. It was a tragic death. TGT was away somewhere on his rambles and she was alone at Tocha with her three children. All four of them fell ill with measles. In her anxiety and although she was ill herself, she cycled the twenty-odd miles to Pietersburg for help but in her weakened condition the exertion killed her. TGT went off to the South African War and served as a scout and in the relief of Mafeking. After the war, he joined the newly formed Mines Department and was appointed Inspector of Mines at Barberton for the de Kaap Goldfield which was then it its heyday. At that time, the Sheba gold mine was the richest gold mine in the world. Here, at Barberton, TGT met my Mother, Nellie Etha Lloyd, and they were married at Barberton on 29th October 1908.

This in where the boot began to pinch. TGT and his first wife were married in community of property which is the normal thing in South Africa. My father had a little patrimony and the farm which had enabled him to be economically free before the war. In community of property if the sur¬viving spouse remarries, the children of the first marriage can claim the estate and the second wife or husband, still less the children of the second marriage, have no claim.

For some reason or other, advice by evil counselors I should think, the children of Hetty Trevor did claim the estate. This blighted my Mother's life. She never forgave them. Although it is now old history I feel I could have made better use of it than they did. Both the brothers died as young men and the estate, about £15000 by to-day's values, passed to my stepsister, Cherry, yet she never seemed to get any happiness from it and it was just frittered away. What really rankled was they never did any good with it. They even had the £800 compensation when Tocha went back to the Government. Before I leave Tocha, one more incident. At Chenies Poort there was a wayside pub and store. This was kept by a Finaghty who was the Father of the Finaghty at Katima Mulilo and another who keeps Jones Hotel in Potgieter’s Rus. Just before my birth in 1909 my parents moved to Pretoria where I spent my boyhood and a very good place too. In a way, one of the nicest things that has happened to me, was going back in 1960 and seeing that the house in which I spent my boyhood, my old home, 926 Schoeman St., was still someone's treasure. In fact, it is now part of the office of the British High Commissioner. One of my earliest memories was the first big trouble on the Reef in 1913. In Church Street near Church Square there was a shop. I seem to remember it as a jeweler, not a gunsmith. It was guarded by two men with rifles and bandoliers over their shoulders, in true Commando fashion. Two men drove up in a cart, stopped and took out an armful of big brown Transvaal stones which they threw at the window. There is a squinch here, for the window did not break and the sentries did nothing. The men just got back in the cart and drove off. The next dramatic thing was at Waterval Boven on the way to Barberton just where one could see the fall, a fine one, from the Railway. There had been a landslide where the line is cut into the mountain. This not only blocked the line but it had caught a train, the wreckage of which stuck up through the earth. The line had not been cleared and the passengers had to scramble over the landslide to a train waiting on the other side. Once I went to a show at the Opera with my parents, which was attended by the Governor General in the Royal Box. Suddenly there was a lot of scuffling in the gallery and a small round object whizzed down and landed in the G.G's box. There was a near panic, everyone thinking it was a bomb, until the G.G. picked the object from the floor and held it up, orange thrown by a disgruntled soldier in the Gallery. What an anti-climax!. My next memory was the Spanish flu in Pretoria. Even to a child it was obvious that something was very, very wrong. The servants all left, no one had any. All day long there were natives straggling past the house to get on the Premier Mine Road. One day two unfortunates lay down on the vacant lot in front of the house, they could get no further. My Mother took them water and sent for help but when it arrived it was too late. Spanish flu and scarlet fever were raging in the houses all around us. My Mother went out every day to nurse and cook for people sick in their homes with no thought for her own safety. My Father was in one of the bands which worked in the poorer part of the town taking food and help, and at the height of the pestilence, separating the living from the dead. My parents acted in a way of which we should be proud. In 1922, I was hanging round the little shopping centre at Rissik Station in Arcadia when they came around posting the notice calling out the Pretoria Commandoes. It was the time of the big trouble in Johannesburg when the Bolsheviks tried to overthrow the Government. I was collecting Afrikaans words and that day I learnt a new one, not needed often but very dramatic. It was Kriegswet and was the superscription on the Commando Notices. Then there was the great hailstorm of Christmas day 1922. After tea, the clouds gathered and the most terrifying hailstorm developed. For¬tunately we lived in an old house with most of the windows protected and a corrugated iron roof. The noise was deafening. The lights in the street went out, the cables battered down by the huge stones, the house lights went out and the telephone wires were also out. Still we were the lucky ones. Tiled roofs with soft board ceilings were becoming fashionable. Tiles broke like plates under the impact of the heavy stones and soft board ceiling soon collapsed under the weight of hailstones and broken tiles. Many a houseful of furniture was ruined and these houses and furnishings were new. In this same year disaster overtook the family. My stepbrother, Tudor, who had the garage at Warmbaths, developed epilepsy from which he never recovered in the short period of his life which remained. My parents have been criticized for keeping him at home for fear of the results it might have had on me. Well, I was fourteen at the time and it was right that I should help the family in a time of great distress. It had been arranged that my Father would be in charge of the Mining Exhibit in the Union of South Africa stand at the Wembley Exhibition in 1924. Before this could take place, a safe place had to be found for Tudor. Mr Emery, the Manager of Messina Mine was an old friend of my Father's, so a position was found on the Mine where Tudor would be in good hands whilst my parents were overseas. Tudor died at Messina in 1924 and is buried there. As I have no doubt at all that this job was made for Tudor so that my parents could go to England, we should always be grateful to the management of Messina Mine and spare them a kind thought whenever we pass through the town. Not only miserable things happened to me, far from it. The first seaside place I ever went to was St. James'. There is only one trouble about St. James' as a seaside resort. It is the nicest in the world and wherever one goes later is a bit disappointing. It has everything, beach and waves, pools deep enough to swim in, lovely shells and intriguing rock pool life. It hasn't changed much either. There are a few more bathing huts and perhaps four rows of cottages on the mountain instead of two, but it is just as honorable as it was over forty years ago. The coarse portulaca still blooms on the beach. Simonstown is still a noble profile. I am glad to say I went to St.James, three or four times as a child. Then there was Aunt Maye's farm outside Louis Trichardt. One of the lands was given over to carnations and there were several acres of blooms and the sight and smell were out of this world. There was also old Garforth's farm some thirteen miles on the far side of Premier Mine. It was an excellent place given over to the cultivation of citrus. I suppose the orchards were pretty large but there was an awful lot of veld in between them. Sometimes they sent one of their many ponies to meet me at Premier Mine and at others I took my bike and cycled through the bush. The track was easy to follow but quite unmade up. The house had been built for someone with delusions of grandeur for the roof was castellated and there was a wall for pseudo defence around the garden. Although it had embrasures, flanking towers and so on, any savage could have stepped over it very easily. I must admit, however, that perhaps the castellations were just a way of holding the roof down so it did not blow off. Round the house the grass was kept slashed. The garden though simple was quite extensive and well kept. The house was only one room thick. It consisted of three or four rooms with no intercommunicating doors; to pass from one room to another you had to come out onto the unroofed terrace. There was no bathroom; in fact, I am sure there was not a single inch of piping of any sort anywhere on the farm. For that matter, there were no engines or mechanical contraptions either. In fact, the only thing they seemed to want was a citrus grading machine. Even then they would have been quite happy with a hand operated one, but it never eventuated. Just by the house there was a lovely big mushitu from which flowed several strong springs which irrigated some of the orchards. Part of the mushitu had been hollowed out to form a huge arbour. In this arbour most of the meals were eaten and it was used as a sitting room for most of the year. Needless to say, there was no electricity, no telephone, no motor car. There were several underworked ponies and a spider which was inspanned on the rare occasions the Garforths went into the Mine. I was encouraged to eat as many oranges as I liked, to wander where I liked. There were plenty of streams without bilharzia or crocs. These streams were full of unsophisticated fish and had many pools suitable for bathing and the sailing of boats. For the evenings, there were masses of very moral westerns by Ridgwell Cullum and Zane Gray, they were always ready for a game of rummy or Newmarket. I never had a pep talk. I was never checked for idle head or dirty neck. I liked them very much and I went there every short holiday for years. In fact, that is where I started riding. Besides this I used to go with my Father when he went around the small mines and mining prospects. Premier Mine itself was a diamond mine, a very big open cast mine. I should think the hole was comparable to the Big Hole itself. One descended into the pit by a sloping cableway very similar to the one up Table Mountain. Near Potgieter's Rus there were two small mines I always enjoyed visiting. Zaaiplaats is to the west of the town. Here one descended 3000 ft, into the earth by means of ladders and sloping paths. On the other side of the town was a smaller mine, Mutafides. It had a sloping shaft and a very simple winding gear which I well remember. The rope must have been exactly the same length as the shaft. At one end it had a short train of cocopans to bring the ore out of the mine and at the other a span of oxen. When the train was loaded the word was given and the oxen ware driven off into the bush until the cocopans arrived at the surface. I did not see such a simple device as this again until I got to India. On these occasions, we had one of Zeederberg's cars driven by a young chap called Piet. Sometimes whilst my Father was administering the mining law Piet would regale me with tales about the meisies; such an interesting subject as this very soon improved my Afrikaans. Once we were in one of the collieries at Witbank where my Father had to report on a rockfall which had killed several men. My rather and various members of the mine staff climbed to the top of the fallen rooks and sat discussing the accident and speculating on whether the roof was safe. This seemed very foolhardy to me and I sat nearby trembling. Another time I was in the Hupmobile with my parents returning from Pietersburg. Near Pienaar’s river we overtook a small wagon drawn by donkeys. On the wagon was a wicker chair and in the chair sat an old woman protecting herself from the hot sun with a brolly. The old man who was driving the wagon asked my Father to stop and we took the old lady to hospital in Pretoria. I could see that sitting in the hot sun was a poor way of travelling when one was ill. She recovered for I often used to see her especially when I went to the Zoo. She always had a kind word for me. This too was very good for my vocabulary. Two of the best trips that I did with my Father were the ones that follow. I was still a little boy at the time. We started from Gravelotte in the low country, I remember this well as the only time I have ever been near a dead lion. (No, it isn't, I was near the one Doyle shot at Abercorn). It had not been shot. It was killed by donkeys. There was a kraal of donkeys near the station and during the night an old lion had jumped in and grabbed one of them. The other donkeys had ganged up on the lion and kicked him to death. We had a fine equipage, a wagonette and eight mules. These were driven with long reins from the box. On the box sat the driver, Willem, who wielded the whip, the leader who held the reins and the Constable. Behind the box were two seats facing each other which could easily seat three each side. The seats were very hard and the backs quite upright. Underneath the seats were large lockers for food and by a re-arrangement of the seats, a large bed could be made. Pop thought this sissy and we slept on the ground. Such bathing as was done was done in streams. Chairs, tables, beds and lamps were just not on. We lived close to nature. There was a permanent tent over the vehicle, and at the back was a large open boot. It was a huge noble vehicle, supplied by Zederberg. TGT knew the country very well indeed and we were always stopping to see a remarkable outcrop or a fine baobab. He was infinitely patient in explaining it all to me. We called at the town of Leydsdorp which did not change much in the forty years from 1920 to 1960 when I called again. We then went down through the lowveld looking in at Phalabora where the vermiculite comes from. In those days, it was a new mica prospect and so much has the world changed that it was expected that the main market for the mica that was produced would be heatproof lamp glasses. We camped several times on the Olifants river where I saw a hippo out of the water. We heard lions roaring at night and saw quagga. Then up the Berg which was spangled with golden arum lilies. We were in what is now the Kruger National Park. In those days, it was called the Parfuri Game Reserve. There was no afforestation on the Berg, just the wild escarpment. Climbing the Berg was most exciting. When we came to a downhill the heavy wagonette would start to over-run the span and the leaders would have to be lashed into a gallop to avoid the wheelers who were galloping to avoid being over-run by the wagonette. What an exciting to do it was. Willem had an assortment of whips he could crack like thunder but touching a mule was another matter. The second time we joined the wagon at Messina. This time I went into the Mine. Several things struck me. The terrifying speed the cage dropped down the shaft. It is a matter of pride with the winding man to drop one as fast as possible. I swear at one time I was airborne. The cage was two-decked. Outside, a notice said only thirty two men on each deck. It just did not seem possible. There could not be enough room for thirty two men. I soon saw how it was done. The Boss boy had a cikoti and he just thrashed and thrashed until everyone was on board. Loading cattle into trucks was no more brutal. In the Mine in some places the ore was so beautiful. In the lamp light the blue green and yellow of the ores looked like the Robbers’ cave of the fairy tale. This time we went around the end of the Zoutpansberg by Murchison mines and back up the Berg to Louis Trichardt by Elim and Sibasa. The mules were often troubled by lions. On one occasion, they were stampeded but they were all rounded up again without loss. In camp, a long canvas manger was rigged up. The mules were picketed to the manger. It was lovely to go to sleep listening to the mules champing the hard mealies and re-assuring to wake up in the night and hear this comfy sound going on. The Olifants’ river was very attractive with reedy pools and often buck came down to drink. There was a wonderful collection of Kingfishers. On one occasion, we found a muzzle loader in a hollow baobab. The stock had been quite eaten away by white ants and replaced by mud. As we picked it up it crumbled away. Here is the funny thing: the gun was loaded and when the barrel was put in the fire it went off quite efficiently. I spent hours trying to make a new stock for it and in the end I made quite a good one. On another occasion, we crossed the river in a very primitive bark craft. These trips were the high spots of my childhood. On another occasion, we went to a farm on the borders of Bechuanaland. This trip was remarkable for two things: I could cope with the farmer in the other language; and on the way back to Rustenburg we ran into an exceptionally severe storm, mostly wind. It was blowing absolutely head-on along the dirt road and the model T Ford was quite unable to make any headway against it, even in bottom gear. The tent was up and the side curtains secured, and funnily enough these did not blow away. I suppose the wind could not get inside. In the morning, when the storm had passed, it was found that the plate glass windscreen had been so scoured by flying pebbles that it was impossible to see through it. This also applied to the glass in the headlights which also had to be replaced. By this time, I was becoming quite a widely travelled chap. On this trip, I had climbed through the fence on the border of the Transvaal and set foot in Bechuanaland, and on another occasion I had crossed the Limpopo almost dry-shod and set foot in Southern Rhodesia. Soon after this we went to England (1924). We went on the Arundel Castle which was the latest ship and had four funnels. This trip was and is one of the highlights of my memory. We arrived in England in June. It was a wonderful experience. All along the railway from Southampton to London the rhododendrons were in full bloom; quite lovely, and a real welcome to England. These were the mauve escapes. I had yet to see cultivated rhododendrons. In 1926, I was lucky enough to find my way to Crosswood. This was a small Georgian House in Montgomeryshire. Built in 1777 by Edward Hayward (it said so on the pediment), it was a house to be proud of. The roof did not leak, the windows did not rattle and the stairs did not creak. It was as sound as a nut. The bedrooms and kitchens contained good Welsh oak furniture which had been built in the house. I suppose at the time it was built in a remote Welsh shire it was very provincial but to me it seemed very elegant. The three reception rooms were quite delightful with elegant period furniture. Crosswood belonged to my Father's Sister, Aunt Mary Busch. It was just the place for me. Aunt Mary had that kind of Victorian culture which included knowing the name of every tree, flower and bird on the estate. This was just what I wanted. I had been mocked for not knowing the common English plants and birds but Aunt Mary took a pleasure in teaching me. Aunt Mary had just bought her first car so the tub and pony, Comely, which had been the previous method of transport, were relegated to me. Within reason I was allowed to go where I liked with the proviso that I walked downhill in case Comely fell and broke her knees and walked uphill in case the mare, a great strong half legged creature, strained her heart. Montgomeryshire is, to say the least of it, undulating, so I did a fair bit of walking. I may say that to be confronted with a tub, a pony and a set of driving harness and put them together so they make sense is quite a problem. I was considered too heavy for Comely so an even stronger mare called Lucy was obtained from Lane Farm. For a poor she was a nice ride. Crosswood was a splendid little estate, four big farms and two small ones. It had always and still does pay its way. There was no nonsense about absentee landlords and neglect. As far as I could make out none of the owners have ever left it for more than a few days at a time and all have always been familiar with every detail of crop, stock and upkeep. Aunt Mary had inherited the estate from Colonel Heyward who had no children. The Trevors and Heywards had been friends and neighbours for generations. Colonel Heyward used one of the farms, Henre Hen, as a training stable. In the 1880s he had done well with some of the important handicaps. His best win was the Chester Cup. On the landing was a large board with gilded shoes from all his best winners and in most of them was a photograph or miniature of the jockey. Mrs. Heyward's Brother, Commodore Jenkins, lived with them. He had been Commodore of the H.E I.C. (Honourable East India Company) fleet. In 1857, he was in charge of a convoy of troopships taking reinforcements to the Cape for one of the Kaffir Wars. At the Cape, he was met by the terrible news from India and on his own initiative he rerouted the convoy to Bombay where he was more than welcome. It was admitted freely that he had acted rightly but he had disobeyed the Directors' orders and he had to retire. His hobby was to change the colour of primroses by cross pollination. It might be considered impious to improve the primrose, but Commodore Jenkins had the touch. When I knew the locality more than half a century later there were still many coloured primroses in the hedgerows. My Parents came to England in 1928 and settled in London and I left my boyhood behind.

THE END.

LUSAKA January – July 1962.

Sources

1. ↑ Unsourced family tree handed down to Buz Trevor.

• Source: S1506068091 Ancestry Family Trees Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com. Original data: Family Tree files submitted by Ancestry members.Ancestry Family Tree Ancestry Family Tree 175599149