Chapter 3 - The Blacksmith’s Daughter by Fay Berry 2013 © - 1962 - Fay Berry

Chapter 3 – The Blacksmith’s Daughter Chapter 3 – 1962

In 1962, around about July when our daughter Debbie was one year old, Jeff’s Auntie Eileen, his biological mother’s sister, rang me at home. She asked me to visit her because she had a box of old family photographs taken of Jeff and his family, that she wanted to give me. They were photos of when he was a baby and up until the day his mother died when he was six years old.

I asked Auntie Eileen if she knew any details about Jeff’s mother’s death, because Jeff’s dad, Jim Berry, had been very reserved about it all. Auntie Eileen told me that Jeff’s mother was expecting another baby at the time and she had been unwell and was lying in bed resting. Auntie Eileen made a cup of tea for her and when she sat up in bed to take the cup of tea, a blood clot in her leg moved and traveled to her heart and she collapsed and died.

This changed everything for Jeff and Robbie. For the next four years the two boys were cared for by members of Jeff’s dad’s family and also on occasion by Auntie Eileen. When Jeff’s father married again when Jeff was 10 years old, the new “Olive,” (how strange that Jeff’s step-mother had the same name as his own mother), refused to let the two boys have anything more to do with their biological mother’s family.

Auntie Eileen and her family were devastated but there was nothing they could do about it. Auntie Eileen had the only family photos of those first six years of Jeff’s life and she wanted them to be in the hands of someone who she believed would look after them and keep them for her sister’s children and maybe grandchildren in the years to come. In order to receive these precious photos Auntie Eileen arranged for me to visit her at her daughter, Myrna’s home where she was currently staying.

I called in as requested at Myrna’s home which was on New Street, off Cross road (near the Marion Road end of Cross Road)and the street where the Vermont Uniting Church is situated. Auntie Eileen gave me the box of photos and I was so happy to have them,but I found the visit itself very disturbing because Aunty Eileen’s daughter Myrna was extremely ill that day and was apparently dying of cancer.

I asked Auntie Eileen why she had invited me to come to Myrna’s place when she was so very ill and could die at any time? She said that it was very important to her that I meet Myrna so that when she did die, as she certainly would, I would at least have met her and it would fill in the “gaps” of the history she so badly wanted me to know. I will never forget that day. Myrna was in dreadful pain and wanted her mother to massage her back and just talk to her. Her stomach was swollen up with the cancer and she looked as if she were nine months pregnant, but she wasn’t pregnant at all.

That was my first experience of cancer and I hated it so much. I had never seen anyone so ill. When I got home I thought a lot about Myrna and knew that I would never see her again and for that matter, would not see Aunty Eileen again I thought, because when Myrna did die, she would be going to Western Australia to live near her other daughter, Jeff’s cousin June. June was Jeff’s favorite cousin and they had spent considerable time together during the first six years of his life. June’s married name is Whitfield and I remember from the photos that she was a very pretty little girl.

When I got home, I went through the photos and felt very sad after I had looked at them all. They showed happy parents and happy children; two delightful little boys – so obviously well-cared for and loved. There were photos of Jeff’s parents’ wedding, the boys as they grew, right up to the age of six for Jeff and 18 months for Robbie, and then – almost nothing! There were just a handful of photos after the death of the first Olive. After the loss of their mother, the boys must surely have felt abandoned when their father moved to Sydney to work for GMH there and he did not return for four years.

Jeff remembers when his father returned home. He was 10 years old and Robbie around 8 years old when their father finally returned home. They were told they were going to the airport to meet someone and so Jeff and Robbie were driven to the Parafield airport at night. The car was parked beside the road with its headlights facing into the airport. Their lights were left on to provide light for the small plane to taxi toward them.

Jeff remembers the plane landing and then taxiing toward them and he saw two people climb out of the plane and walk towards them. Then a man opened the car door and looked in and said “Hello Jeff, I’m your father.” Then a second person stood in front of the door of the car and his father said, “And this is your new mother.” And that was that! They were driven back home separately from Jeff’s father and “new mother” and they did not see their father or their new “mother” for some time after that. Maybe his Dad got married and went on a honeymoon, but it was some considerable time before they saw either father or new step-mother again.

After that the only things I learned about that time came years later when Jeff told me that his new stepmother “didn’t like her two new sons” and when she was angry with them she used to whip them with elastic. His memories of his years up until he was six years old were very clear to him, because he loved his mother’s family and relatives and remembered holidays with them, whereas his memories after his mother died and his father remarried were not visited very often, because much of it was too painful to want to remember.

His step-mother looked after his and Robbie’s physical needs for food,clothing and schooling, but they were not really “included” in his parent’s life. He and Robbie came home from school and were given their dinner and then had to shower and go to their bedroom where they spent the rest of the evening before going to sleep. Jeff’s step-mother had a daughter with her previous husband and this little girl died at 18 months old. Jeff’s step-mother was devastated and begged Jim to have another baby, but Jeff’s Dad did not want any more children. This was a bone of contention between them until Jeff’s step mother died years later.

In 1963 I became pregnant with our second child. About six months into the pregnancy I realised that when my baby was born and with two children to look after and tote around, I would be pretty well trapped in my home and its near neighborhood unless I could drive. I already had my driver’s license which I had obtained some years earlier. In those days all you had to do to get a license was to pass a written exam, and this I had done but I had never actually driven a car.

When John and Verna Martin had purchased a new car they very kindly gave Jeff and I their old car which was an old Essex. This was the car that I would need to conquer in order to have some sort of freedom of movement. I decided that I must urgently learn to drive, and this I set about to do. When I say “learn to drive,” I never did actually “learn to drive,” because I could not seem to get anyone to teach me, so one day I decided I would drive that car, or die in the process………hmmmm!

That old Essex seemed to sit in the driveway taunting me. One day, I decided it was “D” day. I got my map book out and marked out a route across town to Beulah Park where John and Phyl Knowles lived. I decided I would go and visit them. I made up my mind that if it got too much for me I would simply turn the car around and go back home, but that turned out to be easier said than done.

I got in the car, started it up and proceeded to kangaroo hop my way across Adelaide towards John and Phyl’s place. I was terrified almost from the start, but it was easier to keep going on my planned pathway than to try to turn around and come back. I eventually arrived “safely” at Phyl’s and John’s place. Now the old Essex leaked oil and Jeff always backed it into our driveway so that the oil leaked oil in the one spot (furthest from view from the road I guess). I thought that was how everybody must park their cars.

When I arrived at Phyl’s place, the gate across their driveway was already opened, so I started to back into the driveway. All was going well, except that I had the door of the car open and was leaning out to see how I was going, whether I was too close to the fence or not. I reached the entrance to the driveway where there were two stone pillars and on one of these pillars, on the driver’s side of the car, the gate was hung.

If I had shut the door of the car all would have been well, but I forgot to do so, and there was a crash and a thud when my car door struck the pillar lifting half of the pillar and the gate off of its foundations and depositing both pillar and gate a few feet further down the driveway. Adrenaline pumped through my body and I quickly drove the car out of the driveway and parked it on the side of the road before rushing back in the driveway to see what damage had been done.

Without a second thought I PICKED UP the half pillar AND the gate and walked forward and deposited the pillar back onto its foundation. Then stood looking in amazement at what I had just done. “How,” I wondered “Did I DO that?” and at six month’s pregnant too! I walked up the driveway in a daze and as the adrenalin in my body gradually dispersed I felt weak as a kitten. I went through Phyl’s back door and found Phyl in the kitchen having a cup of tea with her mother.

This meant it must have been a Thursday, because Phyl’s Mum always visited her on a Thursday. “Hello,” said Phyl, “How did you get here? Did Jeff drop you off?” I shook my head weakly, “No.” “Did you catch a bus then?” I shook my head again, “No.” “What then,” said Phyl “Did you drive?” I nodded and said nothing. Phyl looked at me for a moment and then said, “O-oh! then I suppose I had better go and check the fences and the walls then?” I nodded. Phyl looked at me and then burst out laughing. “You didn’t?” she said. “I did,” I said. We all three went out and looked at the gate. “There’s nothing wrong with it?” said Phyl. “Yes there is,” I said, and showed her the crack mark halfway up the pillar. Phyl said nothing for a moment. “You knocked the pillar off? And then you picked it up? And you put it back on its base?” “Yes,” I said. Phyl laughed until she cried, and the pillar stayed just as it was until they eventually sold the house.

In 1963 when I was pregnant with my second child, we attended the Easter Camp and Jeff was leading the studies at that camp. John Martin loaned us his car to drive to the camp and we hired a caravan which we towed. Jeff had not finished his preparation for a play that he was writing for the camp so on the 2-3 hours drive to Waikerie I was sitting in the front seat with a typewriter on my lap and typing to Jeff’s dictation. Jeff produced some magnificent plays for a number of the Easter camps.

The caravan was not balanced very well and Jeff was having trouble with it. The car and caravan began veering from one side of the road to the other and finally jack-knifed and the caravan flipped over onto its side. We were very grateful that that there was no traffic on the road at the time and we were not hurt, but I was very shaken up nonetheless. We sent an urgent call for help via passing CDs on the way to the camp site. A couple of them drove us to the camp and Colin Hollamby and a two of the lads came and righted the caravan and drove the car and caravan to the camp site for us and set up the caravan on site, because Jeff was busy getting ready to lead the studies.

Jeff and I were sharing the caravan with Murray and Heather Franklin at this camp. I was pregnant with my second child and Heather was also pregnant, I think with her first child. I remember I had made identical maternity “pinafores” for us both to wear at the camp.

On the second night of the camp, Debbie got croup. She was very sick. Jeff rang the hospital at Waikerie asking if we should bring her to the hospital but they said to stay where we were because the air was so cold and the bull dust so fine that they felt that it would be more dangerous for us to try to bring her into the hospital. This we did, but then Debbie stopped breathing and Jeff had to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation. Then she wanted us to sing to her, so we took it in turns to sing. The only song she wanted was “How many miles to Babyland” so we took it in turns to sing it to her all through the night. It was such a difficult time, sharing one small caravan with another couple who were trying to sleep and we were trying to nurse a sick little girl. We survived.

A feature of at least three Easter Camps were Jeff’s plays. Jeff is very artistic and visual and all the young people wanted to be in “Jeff’s plays.” I remember in one of the plays about Elisha,where the children had just said the lines “Go up you baldhead, go up you baldhead” to Elisha”[2Ki 2:23].This was the point where in the bible story, 2 she-bears came out and killed 42 children.

At this point, out came Jeff, dressed in a magnificent bear costume he had hired from somewhere, and roared at all the children sitting in the front rows watching the play. There was pandemonium and all the kids were screaming and trying to get back to their mothers. Very effective and memorable and it was talked about for years after.

In another play about Elijah, it came to the point in the play [2Ki 2:11] where there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted Elijah and Elisha asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces.

What Jeff had arranged for this was to have the sides of the meeting hall removed so we could all see outside into the darkness of the night. Colin Hollamby had prepared a chariot, a cardboard cutout and attached a long tail like a kite to it and the chariot itself was attached to a pole. He had a bowl filled with kerosine into which he had dipped the tail of the kite and splashed the whole chariot in kerosine. At the appropriate time in the play with “suspensful” music being played in the hall, Colin lit the tail of the kite and immediately flames leapt up the kite to the chariot suspended up in the air on the pole and the whole thing flamed heavenwards. Everyone inside the hall had the best view of “Elijah” (Ray Edgecombe) standing framed in the light of the flaming chariot and horsemen. It was soooooo impressive. I personally have never forgotten it.

Then there was the radio program interjected into one prizegiving and playnight at Glenloch, about Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ. It was so well done that many brothers and sisters thought it was “actually happening,” and they nearly had heart attacks when some of the young people who were hiding outside ready for the task began throwing stones on the roof of the hall to add some extra sound effects. Orson Wells would have been proud of us. How we used to look forward to those plays. For me they always meant a lot of work and a lot of typing but the play practices were almost as much fun as the actual production itself.

I remember one play about Naboth’s Vineyard. Rob Thiele was Elijah and he was wearing an animal skin cloak and he looked so impressive. He had got the idea of keeping his script inside his cloak so he could refer to it if needed. He was halfway through the most dramatic scene in the play, the impressive meeting between Ahab and Elijah in Naboth’s vineyard.

But then he forgot his lines. He paused and then reached into his cloak, pulled out his notes, read them, and then carried on with the scene, but this “aside” completely destroyed the threatening atmosphere of the scene that had been so carefully built up, and the whole audience rocked with laughter. Then “Elijah” looked “sheepish” which made everyone laugh even more. How we loved producing all these magnificent plays. Jeff certainly had a talent, and when he finally stopped producing plays each year, the plays were never half so good. Our “Cecil B deMille” days were over.

We went to Easter Camp every year for years and years and years. In those early years, Brother Murray Lunn used to have his boat out on the water after the actual camp and we got him to teach us to water ski. I only got to ski every other year, because every second year, I would be pregnant!!!

In 1963 we used to correspond with a number of people from overseas who wanted help with preaching materials such as slides and charts that Jeff was so good at preparing. Two of these were Mack McPherson from Victoria British Columbia and Ian Leask from South Africa. Everyone wanted Jeff’s charts and slides on Bible subjects, all produced in our lounge room on our psychedelic walls.

Jeff used to prepare and send these charts for use in classes the various brethren were conducting. We had such a lot of people we used to correspond with, the most regular were Ted Spongberg from Sydney, Sheila Bailey from Queensland (one of the hosts at the Southport Youth Conference). Sheila’s husband Stan had now died of cancer, which was very sad. There were so many people who required help in their preaching efforts, and this meant many hours of work preparing charts and printed materials for our family in our little home at West Beach.

Our daughter Judith Alisa Berry was born on the 29th September 1963. She was placid and calm which was a good thing because with post-natal depression I was not doing so well. I will not easily forget Judith’s birth. I got a bad dose of the flu about a fortnight before she was born and at “birth-time” I had a terrible cough. Well, I don’t know if anyone else has experienced severe coughing whilst having contractions, but if you have, you will know it is not much fun.

When I was having my children, husbands were not included in the “birthing process.” They were expected to pace up and down somewhere and smoke a cigar when the baby was born. My doctor was an English doctor, so thankfully he was used to having the Husband included in the birthing process, but the nurse who was assigned me did not, would not believe that my husband needed to be at the birth. She was trying to administer gas to knock me out so that I would stop asking for my husband to be present. In the end I grabbed the plastic mask and threw it down on the floor where it broke into two pieces. Then my doctor came in and asked what was going on. I screamed out “I want my husband to be here and this stupid nurse says he has gone home and I know he hasn’t.”

To my delirious delight the doctor told the nurse to “Get Mr Berry and bring him back here immediately.” So she did! She was not happy. I was so grateful when Judy was born, but for some time I had post-natal depression which is not at all fun to have. I think it had something to do with having lost so much weight due to the ‘flu in the last two weeks of my pregnancy.

A week or so after Judy was born I took her around to Jeff’s parents place to show them their new granddaughter. I should have rung, but did not because I knew that Jeff’s Mum would almost certainly be home. I knocked on the door and Jeff’s mum came to the door but said it wasn’t convenient to see me and closed the door in my face. I was dumbfounded. I took a photo of Debbie sitting in a garden chair holding Judith, but there was obviously going to be no photo with Deb and Judith with their grandparents. Well, they hadn’t remembered Debbie’s first birthday either, so how could I expect anything more with their second grandchild.

Jeff’s Mum and Dad did not have a happy marriage. Jeff’s Mum also suffered from severe migraines and she also did not sleep very well. The doctor prescribed numerous drugs for her to take. She had sleeping pills to put her to sleep, pills to keep her asleep and pills to wake her up again. I remember for one bout of migraine the doctor put her “out” to it and she slept for 4 days.

I remember thinking at that time as I watched the deterioration in Jeff’s Mum’s health, that no matter what emotional problems I might have in my life I would NEVER take drugs of any kind to help me sleep or such. Before Jeff’s Mum married Jeff’s dad she had been married to a man whose surname was Rice (her maiden name was Woolcock). She had a little baby girl whom she absolutely adored. She was fastidious about her baby’s clothes and everything was folded and put into plastic bags and everything to do with the baby was pristine. Then her little girl at 18 months got a severe bout of diarrhea and became dehydrated and died. Jeff’s Mum was devastated.

When she married Jeff’s Dad she badly wanted to have a baby but Jeff’s Dad would not agree to it because he already had the two boys and did not want any more children. This was the cause of great bitterness between them. I felt it was very sad. In 1964-1965 Jeff’s Mother told Jeff that she planned to change her will and leave the house, which was in her name, to the Catholic Church so that she could make sure that her little baby girl (deceased) could get into heaven!! Before she could actually change her will, in 1965,Jeff’s step mother, Gladys Olive Berry died. Such a sad life and story!

In the early years of our marriage the young people flocked around Jeff and our house was always full of young people. My life was very busy. We attended all the classes and outings and events at Woodville and took all the children with us to everything. We were always the last to get to a meeting and the last to leave a meeting. Looking back I can see that my workload was immense.

Lots of visitors and lots of meals, lots of meetings, lots of typing. I soon realised too that there was never any money for me for personal things and things for the kids. I soon became convinced that to get these things I needed a job and I needed and education. If I wanted to go to University it was now necessary for me to matriculate. My Leaving Certificate would no longer get me into University.

Over the next 9 years I struggled to get my matriculation, part-time. I did English, Biology, Modern History, and tried to do Ancient Greek because in those days a language was necessary for matriculation. Thankfully, they finally changed this rule and I was able to do a different subject instead of a language.I sat for and passed Ancient History and so was eligible to go to University.

I was actually quite proud of myself with the Matriculation English that I passed. In those days you didn’t have to attend classes to matriculate in a subject, just pass the exam itself. I went to see my friend Dianne Schwerdt (Krygger) who was my little bridesmaid when I got married. She was a lecturer in English at the University of South Australia. It was a fortnight before the English exam and I had only just decided to enrol and try and pass this exam. I asked her how to achieve a pass without having studied all year.

She told me that for the poetry part of the exam I should choose a poet and then go and get all the prefaces of books about the poet and summarise them into one long essay including all the snippets of poems I would find in these prefaces. I was to learn them off by heart. Di told me that there would be at least one question about the theme or themes and methods of expression of this poet.

So I did what she said. When the exam time came, to my delight, I found I had answers prepared for all the various parts of the exam, including the “unseen” section. The book I had chosen to write about was the book “othello” and I had prepared on the theme of “black and white.” Well, after a fortnight’s hard work and not having read any of the prescribed books or poems I passed with a Credit in the English examination, and learned some excellent lessons about preparing for an examination.

In 1964 Andrew Hill invited Jeff and I to stay with him and and his brother Stephen at his parent’s place in Melbourne. Andrew and Stephen both adored their mother and had given me a verbal picture of her as a “paragon of all the virtues.” I remember when I met her that she seemed quite “ordinary.” Very pleasant, nice and kind, but they had told me so much about how wonderful she was that I had been expecting someone quite different to the small, quiet woman that they introduced to me.

The only reason that this thought of mine saw the light of day was that some years later, Andrew and Stephen’s mother was killed in a car accident, and I remembered these my first impressions of her and wondered at the way the “eyes of love” see people so differently. Andrew and Stephen knew their mother’s whole history and loved her deeply and dearly and so to them she was no “ordinary” woman at all. She was their mother! I have always remembered the love they had for her, expressed to me in those far off days.

Our son James Ian Berry was born on Monday June 6th 1965. When Jim was born I was absolutely delighted, a son! And Jeff was over the moon. I remember Jim’s birth so well. It was a Monday. He was a big baby, my largest at 9lb 14oz. He came out protesting loudly and what he was saying, I am sure, was “Feed me and feed me quick!” He drank and he drank and he drank. I could NEVER feed him unobtrusively and quietly at the back of a room, covering myself with a nappy. The noise he made was incredible. The sound was like a bottle filling up with water, and then he would choke and splutter because the milk would get up his nose and he wouldn’t be able to breathe properly and so he would spout milk everywhere.

I went home the day after he was born and on the third day after his birth I went to the local Caravan baby centre at Fulham and had him weighed. He had gained 4 oz in weight in the 3 days since his birth. He never lost any weight at all as babies usually do after their birth. The nurse asked me how old he was and I said “He is three days old.” “You mean 3 weeks old don’t you?” she asked. “No, I said, he is three DAYS old.” She could not believe that he was only three days old and I’m not sure that I did actually persuade her that this was the case. I had some photos taken of our three children when Jim was about three months old.

As well as their car, John and Verna Martin had given us a walker that they had used for their children. Judy used it and when Jim was old enough, he began to use it too. With Jim it became a deadly weapon. He used to chase Debbie and Judy at great speed up the passage and into the kitchen. He would charge into one of them hitting them in the back of the legs so that they would fall into the ring around the walker and he would proceed to grab handfuls of Debbie’s or Judy’s hair and pull hard and then laugh loudly as they yelled at him, “let me go.”

Around about this time we finally paid off the deposit on our house and now were able to take out a mortgage over the whole house, so at last our little “Housing Trust” home was ours. Further up Burbridge Road, Graham and Joan Mansfield had purchased a house too, opposite the shopping centre that was eventually built there. Graham and Joan had been good friends of my brother Charles and my sister-in-law Beth before they were married. I remember that Graham and Joan were most unhappy when Charles and Beth moved to Sydney to live. They wanted to keep up the contact and remain close, but Charles and Beth were not good at keeping up with answering letters I’m afraid.

I used to visit Joan on occasion during those early years. In fact there were quite a few Christadelphian families who all lived at West Beach. There were the Pitchers, the Mednyansky’s, and later, Michael and Barbara Jones, the Muggletons, the Steele’s lived near Largs, in fact there was quite a large Christadelphian community and they all attended the Woodville Ecclesia. I can remember at this time longing for a really close girlfriend but none of the wives actually felt that “close.” I remember making up my mind one day that from now on I would try to appreciate each individual person for what they COULD provide and not expect them to provide what they COULD NOT. That was actually a big lesson for me to learn.

DIARY ENTRIES AND LETTERS.

19631015 – Letter from Mack McPherson – 2395 Alpine Crescent, Victoria British Columbia.

Dear Jeff, Sincere greetings.

Here we are at last with the complete set of the notes on “Acts.1” It took us just over two years to complete them at our bible class. Then I went down to the Idyllwild Bible School and took a class each day a week on the same subject, also a class with the young people. The brethren and sisters cleaned me out of all the complete sets I took down and then I sent fifty more that were requested by various ones. So returning home I had to get another batch done and you have one of the remaining few of them. Let me know what you think about them and especially where improvements can be made on the next effort.

At the moment we are studying the book of Isaiah, but they have divided it up into sections and there appears to be no one interested in making study notes. I feel such study efforts lose there value if notes are not made. Our feeble minds can’t store everything we hear in one evening. Just a matter of each individual making his own notes at the moment. When we have finished Isaiah I shall, if the Lord wills, lead the study of another book. So far I have not decided on which one.

We had a wonderful time at the school. It was a joy to get away from the routine of every day activities and dwell, study and meditate with those of like precious faith. So busy with the young people and my own class with the brethren and sisters there, only other class I got to was Brother Mansfield’s. I need to sit and listen. Brother HP Mansfield was his usual vibrant self and everywhere he has been the brethren and sisters have thrilled to his voice and his command of the word of God. We thank God we have such brothers to visit us and “stir us up,” by way of remembrance of those things most dearly believed among us. Say, when are you going to make a trip this way?

Returning from the school we had my father from England with us for three weeks before he commenced his four week itinerary across Canada on the way home. All in all he spent three months in the States and Canada and returned home this week. For a man of 69 years old he sure does well. Some weeks he was speaking every day. Then we had brother and Sister Mitchell from England stay with us for a week.

He is the brother who writes in the “Testimony Magazine.” I was able to have one or two interesting talks with him. Plus our fraternal, visits from others from away, plus a little bit of sickness, life has been very busy. At the moment we are working on the programs for the Sunday School tea in January 1st but we are happy that things have slowed down to a trot. Happy to report the family is well. Debbie started grade one this year. Jennifer at kindergarten and Paul at home. The girls just love school. I only hop it stays that way!

Hoping this note finds you and all your family well. You will have to get your good wife busy on that typewriter so we can hear all the news from your end.

May the Lord be with you and your family and bless you even as you have need.

Bye for now.
Your brother in Christ,
Mack.
PS my family seeing father off to England.

19631029 – Letter to my Dad Maynard O’Connor from Ted Spongberg – 19631029 –

Maynard,

Loving Greetings in the Hope of Israel. Your letter arrived tonight and I hasten to reply.

Thank you for your words of commendation. One never knows whether one is reaching one’s audience as one would like to — and in the exalted theme we shared together, I felt inadequate and was deeply appreciative of solid support from friends — particularly knowing that those bonds of friendship that bind us have been forged in the fire and heat of adversity over many years.

It was a pleasure once more to be working among old friends — and if, as you say, my ministrations proved of help to you (by Yahweh’s grace), I can assure you that it was no one-sided benefit – for you helped me, both by your presence at times when the flesh’s frailty might have dictated another course and by some very timely remarks on the Saturday meeting when others were losing perspective and the sanctity of our subject considered was slipping away from them.

Thus we do our best work in the truth when we apply our hearts to the common object of seeking Yahweh’s Glory — and in a very small way, we prove the point that one brother on the platform and another in the audience can supplement each other’s work to that end. Hearts and minds in harmony with Deity’s laws will ever seek each other’s welfare. And that is a good thing, for burdened as we are with the flesh, there is a continuous need that we have for one another. We need each other — but towering above these needs is the one we have of Yahweh.

May Yahweh be with you in the coming days, Maynard, if you would like to write at any time if you have any problems, do not hesitate to do so, and we shall try to meet them together.With fond friendship, Your companion Zionwards, Ted.

19631212 – Xrays Fay Berry referred Dr Tom Turner Fay 24 years old.

19631212 – Xray for Jeff Berry

19640603 – Letter from Sheila Bailey-

My dear Fay,

Loving Greetings –

I had hoped that you would have had this letter before your Mum and Dad arrived back from their trip, but so often things do not turn out as we plan them. Just after they left I had to chance to work – quite unexpectedly and up until yesterday I have been very busy. However, I now have a few days off until Monday when I start again. So before then I have several letters to get away – including your very long overdue one.

I was so glad to see your people again Fay and appreciated their spending the time to come out for a short visit. They both looked very well. No doubt by now you have caught up on all the news and they have duly remarked the babies’ progress but then again all too short.

We certainly had a feast of fat things that week end (with HP Mansfield). It always seems to revitalise an ecclesia to have such a speaker, he can speak from personal experience (without being in the least superior) if so many things in the world he has seen that point to the near return of Christ. I think it must be a wonderful and yet a very humbling experience traveling for the truth as he has done. We have all followed his travels by way of the Logos with much interest so that to have him speak personally to us was most satisfying.

Judith and Lindsay have grown so much since you were here I doubt if you would know them. Lindsay is taller than both Judith and me and grows more like Stan in so many ways for which I am very glad. He is still at High School and his results in the Junior exam at the end of the year will decide whether he goes on to senior or starts work. Judith is very happy in her office work for a Wool Broking firm and to my great joy she was immersed in July of last year so that I feel that one part of the job Stan and I started together has been completed and I pray that if Christ tarries Lindsay will make that same decision.

They both lead rather busy lives with various classes and study groups and I find that with my own activities both ecclesial and otherwise there is no time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t say that there are not great moments of loneliness and longing for Stan but the only sane way to overcome grief and loneliness is to let the work of the truth fill my life and draw the greatest comfort and hope from that work and our wonderful believe.

Dear Fay, I hope this partly makes up for my long silence and if I delay rather long before answering the letter I hope you will understand that at the moment the typewriter is on one end of the table and Judith’s lovely new one is on the other end and I am able to use in her absence. Thank you for the photos of Debbie and Judith. They look lovely children and believe me I have first hand information that they are. Now if their grandparents think so highly of them, I wonder what their parents thing? Need I wonder? Etc. We have been very happy to have Brother Mansfield in our midst.

19640213 – Letter to Ian Leask South Africa about newspaper advertising.

19640220 Thursday – Letter to Jeff from Ian Leask
Dear Bro Jeff. Your long and detailed letter came as a surprise and a pleasure. Many thanks for your careful and detailed reply. I have done very little Scripture Study Circle work this week as I suddenly felt ill on Sunday afternoon last after exhorting in the morning. It hit me in the tummy and I think it is just a matter of exhaustion. I have had some extremely late nights for months now and it has caught up with me.

When I returned from a preaching tour early last October, I found I had been made a Director of my Company. The result has been that I have started earlier and worked later each day since that time, but I have not allowed it to encroach on the time I set aside for Scripture Study Circle work. That means I am on the “go” all day until late each night. Apart from an acid tummy, I feel exhausted but hope that it will wear off in time. I have had two early nights in a row and feel a little better.

I think I am well “clued up” in regard to newspaper advertising – choice of page and issue, and position on the page. The Cape Times has a special weekend issue which has an enormous cirrculation but it brings replies from hundreds of “colored people” who just want something for nothing and never get anywhere with the teaching we give them. Bro. Mansfield refers to “negroes” and “africans” as “colored people” so I suppose this must lead you to think I am speaking about Africans of a dark skin. I am not.

In this country we have the most insoluble racial problems in the world with Africans (who are NOT Negroes – negroes come from West Africa and have little resemblance to the aBantu people who inhabit South Africa). Then there are Indians of many religions – Hindus, Muslim, and so on. They are very caste conscious amongst themselves and still follow to a certain extent the practice of “untouchability.” There are also the “coloreds” whom I have mentioned.

They are a mixture of Malays who came to this country in the days of the old Dutch East India Company which was situated at Batavia – now Indonesia, and the indigenous Hottentot who has completely died out. They also have a small admixture of white blood in them. When a writer writes about “the colored people of South Africa,” he gives a broad impression to the rest of the world but a limited application to every South African. We think he refers to the Malay folk of the cape.

Teaching Plan. When I first started, Issued what I called the “SL” Group of lectures. These covered the Truth in all its aspects of Doctrine in 13 lectures and broke down established beliefs so quickly that it was too much for most people to take. I then wrote the Revised Lectures which you have been sent. …As the student advances in the course and comes back for more, we send them copies of the Herald of the Coming Age. When they are very advanced, they get the Logos too.

This is a very popular magazine, but I am afraid we shall have to suppress the issue of December, I think it is. In this number, Perce hammered me rather cruelly by misquoting me out of context and using it as an opportunity of slating our Government. He said my summons by the Special Branch was “an indictment against the Government of the country.” Everyone outside of South Africa will believe that but ALL South Africans, whether for or against the Government will know that Perce was quite wrong. It was an indictment against the Churches in South Africa which are riddled with Communism. All of them have been screened and the Christadelphians (and the Scripture Study Circle in particular) has come out best of all. Col Willers, the big man in charge, is now a very good friend of mine and has every confidence in Christadelphianism in South Africa.

I have been asked to become a Member of the Organising Committee of an anti-Communistic body recently formed but of course, I had to decline. God is quite capable of dealing with this menace and will use it for His purpose. God does no require my assistance. If we were to send out that copy of the Logos, it would be a tragedy for we would lose so many students after having brought them so far. Perce’s article also dealt at length with the integration problem of “colored people” (presumably negroes) in USA. It had a pro-integration bias although it admitted that segregation was causing terrific tension in USA.

All South Africans will know of this trouble in USA and they will also know that the only country in the world which practices “apartheid” is at peace and there is no racial tension (except what the Press falsely writes about). Having drilled my students NOT to bother about politics, it will do us harm to distribute Perce’s biased opinion on impressions gathered during a hasty visit. The general impression amongst Christadelphians in this country to that issue has been that Perce, having grown up in a country which is the most pro-apartheid country in the world and which will not permit any entry of Africans into their country, is hardly in a position to pass comment upon South Africa, or for that matter, America. It is a great pity because many students look forward to their copy and will write and ask where this issue is. How I can answer them is going to be a problem.

It is not the time to advertise now. I prefer to wait until UNO gets busy again with Africans banging tables every time a South African delegate speaks. Then, when Britain votes against her best customer and takes part in a censure of South African affairs while permitting no interference with her own internal affairs, South Africans become more united than ever to resist world pressure but at the same time, they begin to think in terms of Christ’s Coming. The Government is very alive to the dangers which lie ahead of this country since the rest of the world has no knowledge of our problems nor do they have the foggiest idea of solving them.

Funnily enough, the most worried people are the educated Africans who dread black rule here. The world cannot see the havoc black rule has caused in other African States but these Africans can and they don’t want a repetition here. They know of the thousands and thousands of African refugees who are fleeing from “freedom” in other African states, and news gets around amongst these people, because they are coming HERE.

I agree so much that the time is short. I am one of the few Christadelphians in South Africa who pays a great deal of attention to the writings of Dr Thomas. Furthermore, I never break down the visitor’s belief. I build up our own and leave him/her to ask the questions. I figure people have an “attention ratio” so change to a different theme or line every five minutes,” thus holding attention for a longer time.

Durban has grown because the brethren and sisters have worked and I think God gives the increase only when one works. With love to you and yours from my wife Agnes and me.

Your brother in the Lord Jesus,
Ian Leask.