[This blog is a follow on from blogs 75. Dead Ducklings, War Canoes, Steel Works and a Leper Settlement (17th November 2013) and 92. Tiddlywinks, Happy Families and Christmas "Down the Creeks" (16th February 2014). For the origin of these letters see blog 30. Love, Death and Letters from My Mother's Hut (4th February 2012). The protocol followed in editing these letters is as before: mine are in the present typeface (Times) and Elizabeth's in Courier. Any present glossary on the events reported, or reflection on the memories that they trigger, is in italics.]
I want to clarify what I was doing in Akure beginning in 1972 - I was employed by the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) to teach at Vining Christian Leadership Centre (VCLC) which was originally founded as the Akure Training Centre in 1918 to train the wives of Christian teachers and church workers. In the 1970s it had become a training centre for catechists in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The men students did a 2 year course and were encouraged to bring their wife and youngest child to be with them, living on the compound for their 2nd year. So it was a small outfit with about 60 men who had not been to Secondary School and maybe a dozen women, who might have been to Primary School, with babies or toddlers. The Principal was Rev Cornelius Olowomeye. He lived with his wife and family in the bungalow opposite mine. The Men’s Warden was Rev Matthew Owadayo (who later became a Bishop) and I was the Women’s Warden. I shared the women’s classes with Mama Ademoye, the Matron.
This was completely new work for me because I was for 7 years previously the graduate geography teacher and the Vice Principal in St Monica’s Girl’s Grammar School in Ondo about 30 miles away. There were 2 Anglican secondary schools in Akure: Oyemekan G.Sch for boys and Fiwasaiye G.Sch headed by Jane Pelly and staffed with other expat teachers like Ann who came with me to Oporoma.
My letters at the beginning of 1973 are written when I returned to Akure after spending Christmas in the creeks (see blog 92).
31st December 1972
I want to clarify what I was doing in Akure beginning in 1972 - I was employed by the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.) to teach at Vining Christian Leadership Centre (VCLC) which was originally founded as the Akure Training Centre in 1918 to train the wives of Christian teachers and church workers. In the 1970s it had become a training centre for catechists in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. The men students did a 2 year course and were encouraged to bring their wife and youngest child to be with them, living on the compound for their 2nd year. So it was a small outfit with about 60 men who had not been to Secondary School and maybe a dozen women, who might have been to Primary School, with babies or toddlers. The Principal was Rev Cornelius Olowomeye. He lived with his wife and family in the bungalow opposite mine. The Men’s Warden was Rev Matthew Owadayo (who later became a Bishop) and I was the Women’s Warden. I shared the women’s classes with Mama Ademoye, the Matron.
This was completely new work for me because I was for 7 years previously the graduate geography teacher and the Vice Principal in St Monica’s Girl’s Grammar School in Ondo about 30 miles away. There were 2 Anglican secondary schools in Akure: Oyemekan G.Sch for boys and Fiwasaiye G.Sch headed by Jane Pelly and staffed with other expat teachers like Ann who came with me to Oporoma.
My letters at the beginning of 1973 are written when I returned to Akure after spending Christmas in the creeks (see blog 92).
31st December 1972
Dear Ma and Daddy,
The whole time between Christmas and New Year seems to be holiday and the shortage of petrol is getting worse. Here in Akure petrol has gone onto the black market as far as I can see. You have to pay more per gallon and also pay the Manager of the Petrol Station before he will give you any. So transport costs are rising very quckly. It now costs £1.5.0 to go to Ibadan whereas before it cost 12/6p.
On the road back from the creeks Ann and I visited the girl's grammar school in Asaba and the Principal there told us that Archdeacon Echenin has been 'demoted' from being Archdeacon by the Bishop. It seems to me that the Bishop of Benin is a bit round the bend for he has been acting very strangely - excommunicating the archdeacon at Ekpoma, and also a number of keen Christians in Benin who were accused of 'forming their own church' with Pentecostal leanings. The case of Arch. Echenin is a great tragedy. The incredible thing is that it was based on the fact that the Asaba G.G.S. girls didn't have a certain booklet, that the Bishop has written, at their confirmation service. So the bishop refused to confirm them - and sent them out in the middle of the service! Arch. Echenin protested and the Bishop turned on him and shouted at him - also in the middle of the Church. The next day the Bishop wrote a letter to say that Charles Ethenin was to be demoted - to be the Superintendent of the District with a drop in salary etc... and that all the furniture that belonged to the Archdeacon of Asaba would be removed from his house!!
Today I was supposed to be going to Rev. Owadayo's father's memorial service - but I decided at the last moment not to go. It was going to be a 3 hours journey in the college van to get there - and 3 hours back again. I have had enough of driving in the last few days... anyway I don't enjoy these long services and great gatherings of expensively dressed people getting themselves in debt...just to keep up with the Jones's. So I went back to bed and slept till 10am. My ducks are laying eggs again! Happy New Year! We have decided to wait up till 11pm. and see the British new year in!! With love, Elizabeth
7th January 1973
...it has been very hot this week. I haven't any gas yet - so food has not been very inspired with just a Kerosene stove - and now
today, Sunday, when Tokunbo is off duty they have turned off the water!! However, we are managing.
January 13th 1973
This weekend the Anglican Youth Fellowship of Nigeria have their National Conference here in Akure. All their plans and organisation for it have been put a bit out of joint because they had hoped to use Oyemekan School in the absence of the pupils - but all the students are there - and so they are having to distribute their 400 or so delegates all round town and arrange cooking of food outside the school - and then bringing it in for each meal. General chaos ensues and the few stalwart helpers are running round in circles. We have some delegates in our dormitories - and Mama Ademoye and our 2 cooks are making breakfast each morning. I find it a bit miserable in that for such an event men do all the organising - and a European woman is not much use in a Yoruba kitchen. Anyway I am not a 'member' and only a visitor - but they could save themselves a lot of panic stricken running to and fro if they did a bit more advanced planning in detail it seems to me. Term starts on Friday. I hope that you are all well. With much love, Elizabeth.
20th January 1973
Dear Mum and Dad.
Now we are six! The latest addition is a ten-week old kitten called Blackie who we took over this week from some neighbours. Their cat is having more kittens and lost interest in the earlier litter. So we have taken one – already house-trained and quite placid.
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| Lewis and Blackie |
Thank you too for looking in at Lower Tail. We understand from our friend who is handling the sale that everything is under control. He has a buyer and contracts should be exchanged early in February, the agreed price being £16,750. Provided this all goes through fairly smoothly we should have no difficulty in settling our purchase here on time.
The weather has been marvellous so far in January with only two rainy days and temperatures around 75 degrees most days. Today, Saturday, we are going to the North Shore Mardi Gras which is a show and includes sheepdog trials and wood-cutting competitions as well as the usual sort of carnival cum fair activities. There is a pleasant breeze so it shouldn’t be too hot. Next weekend is Anniversary Weekend so the Monday is a bank holiday – it is the big yachting/boating/regatta weekend of the year, Auckland apparently having the biggest small boat harbour in the world.
All the normal English summer activities are going on here with the same personnel – Yvonne Goolagong won the NZ Open Tennis last week, Tony Jacklin has been here playing golf, the NZ Grand Prix was held a fortnight ago, the Pakistan cricketers have just arrived and Vera Lynn is here to sing in two concerts! Next month the Rolling Stones have a big concert in Auckland and two weeks ago there was a big open-air pop festival like the Isle of Wight ones. It all seems very familiar.
I have now joined the local cricket club and hope to have a game in a week or two. The season ends about April 1st.
Lots of love from us all,
Pat, John and family.
Jan.20th 1973
Dear Ma and Daddy,
Thankyou for your letter of Jan 7th received last Wednesday. Our Post Office is still slow to sort - I think that it is a combination of a lack of petrol and a multitude of public holidays. Every weekend since Christmas has had a public holiday on the Monday - first the New Year, then a Moslem Festival and now tomorrow there is a special holiday to celebrate Nigeria coming second to Eqypt in the All-Africa Games!!
There is not a lot to report this week - I won at scrabble on Tuesday night - have made progress with my knitting - our clerk is sick - and the Driver has been given his holiday now just when we all need him! Our staff meeting took 3 hours. Cornelius is very slow... and nothing is planned before the event. It can be very annoying. Sheila and Ann are coming for lunch - I am going to fry chicken... and make blackberry mousse... I hope!!
Jan 29th '73
This week we had a bit of a 'do'. The women always go out to Women's Guild meetings on Tuesdays and usually the driver drives them in the van, but this week he is on holiday. There is a student who drives the bus often called Asojo. So I asked him to drive and then I went to Cornelius to ask if that would be O.K and at first he was asleep and then he was out - so I found the key and gave it to the student. He took the women and Mama Ademoye to the Leper Settlement and returned after Cornelius, Owadayo and I were in Chapel. Cornelius went out of chapel and without consulting any of us he told Asojo that he was suspended for 2 weeks for using the bus without permission. Then in a great rage he went off to tell the Archdeacon what he had done. You can imagine that when we came out of chapel and found the student saying he was to be suspended - I was upset because I had asked him to go and Owadayo was furious because he is the 'Men's Warden' and felt strongly that Cornelius had no business to suspend the man without consulting him. And really Cornelius was very stupid to suspend like that when he never checked up the circumstances. Anyway when he had cooled down and I explained that I had sent Asojo and Owadayo had been to the Archdeacon and the Archdeacon had phoned Cornelius he decided to climb down and the student was pardoned.
Today I was woken at 5.30 a.m by an Urhobo student and his wife, who has just come here, "My wife has pain in her stomach." "What sort of pain?" says I. "She always has this type of pain before she sees her 'time'" (ie period). At 5.30 a.m!! I gave her a bit of my mind - and then 2 aspirin. Really, they are the limit.
Our latest difficulty here is that there is no water. There has been no rain for a good long time so suddenly all the water is finished. I have some in my bath, and it seems to run in the taps in the night some days. We have a couple of rain water tanks on the compound so we can use these but if 'no water' continues for long we shall be in a pickle - and so will the schools - and even more so the hospital.
Feb. 4th 1973
Cornelius is still busy taking decisions on his own without consulting Owadayo, the Men's Warden. This week he sent all the 2nd year students away to bring some money which they owed on some jerseys. So Owadayo discovers that all his 2nd yr students have gone away without his knowledge!!
Our greatest trouble this week is lack of water. Suddenly Akure is completely without water in the taps. No previous instructions were given about economy so everyone is taken by surprise. So now we send people to the hospital and the doctor prescribes 'Mist Aspirin' or something - but the Dispensary can't supply - No water! If you go to the lab for a test you are asked to bring a bucket of water! In fact we are quite fortunate here because there is water in a large water tank on the compound, and yesterday we had a tanker which filled 2 other smaller tanks. But others are not so well off. Jane Pelly has very little water on her school compound - and the tanker hasn't reached her yet. It seems that they only have one tanker for the whole town! And if it stops in the street then there is a fight for the water.
They say that this is the first time that the River Owena has failed to supply Ondo and Akure. Part of the reason is a very long time since we had rain - but also they have now started a new water scheme at Igbara-Oke and taken the water from the same River Owena - further up! So the water doesn't get to the water-works!
On Monday night I had a hospital adventure because Tokunbo (my cook) brought his baby to me at 10.30pm breathing like a steam engine - obviously with bronchial-pneumonia. So we took her to the hospital and she was admitted with her mother. They all said it was 'serious' - she was put onto crystalline penicillin - but there is none in the hospital. So Tokunbo and I had to drive up and down the streets of Akure looking for a Chemist shop which was open. There was none - obviously at 11pm. So we returned to the hospital - and they arranged a swap whereby we used someone else's medicine and then promised to go and buy our own in the morning. Anyway by the next day Toyin the baby had responded well and the breathing was much better, She was kept in 3 days and is now home again.
4th February 1973
Dear Mum and Dad,
Thank you for your letter of Jan 29th. We were glad to hear everyone is wintering well - we heard from Elizabeth a little while back and she sounded in good form. We hadn't seen anything in the papers here about any flu epidemic in Britain - most of the news has been about the Vietnam cease fire (NZ had troops in Vietnam earlier in the war), about opposition to the French Bomb tests in the Pacific and to the possibility of a Springbok rugby tour during the coming winter. There has also been coverage of Mr Heath's latest measures to combat inflation and of the continued opposition of the T.U.C. (Trades Union Congress) to his policies.
The children are all very well at the moment - Lewis' skin has cleared up fine. Yesterday Pat took them to the beach while I was playing cricket. It was a beautiful day at the sea with the temperature at c.75 degrees and a pleasant sea breeze but it was too hot for cricket! The weather has been really lovely most of January and the children look very fit. Stuart and Sacha go back to school on Tuesday February 6th so holidays are finished. Last weekend was the big Anniversary Day yachting regatta on Auckland Harbour, the Monday being the Bank Holiday and the unofficial end to the Christmas holiday period.
We have been having 'bug' trouble since we last wrote. First the kitten got fleas and had to be powdered. And then we found some sort of maggot in the corner of the carpet which it transpired stemmed from the fleas getting onto food scraps and other garbage in the kitchen. They are all cleared up now but there is quite a variety of insect life - all of it harmless; there are cicadas which look like fat locusts, crickets which the kitten chases and then eats, plenty of moths and an odd looking black beetle which can jump!
The university has come to life again since Anniversary Day and we have been busy dealing with applications and enrolments for our courses and with preparing lecture material. Term starts in three weeks time. The government here has recently announced its decision to postpone the building of a new university at Albany (about 8-10 miles north of Auckland) for at least a year so if it does eventually get built it will not be finished before 1977. Auckland University already has a student intake of 10,000 and is overcrowded and the city itself (present pop. 750,000) is expected to be over the 1million mark within 5 years; as you can imagine the government's decision is not approved of in university circles.
If you do go to NZ house you can buy a street-map of Auckland in Whitcombe and Tombs, the bookshop in Royal Opera Arcade at the back of NZ house. Love from us all, John, Pat, Stuart, Sacha and Lewis.
Feb.11th.'73
Dear Ma and Daddy,...
Our main news here is still lack of water and lack of rain.. The student men are going out each morning and head loading water in buckets. There is a well in the Army barracks next door. It is all a game. Some people are up all night getting water from springs or streams because there are such crowds and queues in the day time.
We have the Magic Flute blaring here - gorgeous. Sue is drying her hair in the bedroom with the hair dryer. Miss Browning is sitting outside in a basket chair. The women students are in the kitchen. The men are off at Sunday Schools and preaching engagements.
February 18th
Our main concern this week has still been water. We now send the bus out to a village 8 miles away where there is a tap. They go out withoil drums and other containers and bring back drinking water. Most of the washing water has to be head loaded from the local stream or from the army camp next door.
I escaped off the compound on Saturday morning and went with Inga and Susanne to the hot springs at Ikogosi. There is plenty of water there - the swimming pool is full and the river is running as usual. We had a great time - swimming then washing ourselves, our hair and our cars in the river below the pool. We stayed the night in one of the 'Cabins' at the Baptist Camp.
Feb.19th. 8.15pm
Dear All,
It certainly did rain!! I went to Chapel at 6pm and the sky was black. It was obviously brewing, but I have never experienced such a storm. Perhaps we have been praying too hard!
We were in the Chapel, which has a wide overhang of the roof but no windows on the sides. The rain drove right in - and the students kept shifting their places. The lights went out. The bush lamps were lit, but the wind blew them out. So we ended fairly promptly and all stood together in the only dry place - up beside the altar. The wind was terrific - and the lashing rain combined with lightning and thunder was awe-inspiring.
Thump! and a tree was down over the drive - uprooted.
Then the rain ceased and we went out to discover the electricity wires down all over the compound - several trees and branches scattered all over the place.. but no damage to buildings mercifully. The telephone was off so I went to ask E.C.N (Electric Company of Nigeria)to disconnect our electricity. There was chaos in the town with trees and wires down and in one place I saw some roofing pan hanging on the telephone wire like washing on a line.
In my house Tokunbo had shut the windows - louvre type - but despite that the rain had got in and flooded all over the floor in the living room and in the spare bedroom. That's how your letter got so speckled with rain.
Incredible business. But good in that the temperature has promptly dropped by 10 degrees at least and is now a cool 76 degrees Fahrenheit. And the water tank at the back of Ruth's house is 3/4 full of water. Our drought has ended with a bang!
With love, Elizabeth
Feb.25th '73
After our storm last Monday everyone on the compound became very concerned about cutting down trees that were near the houses in case we should have another storm. So on Tuesday we employed a woodcutter with an electric saw who said that he knew the job perfectly! We all stood and watched while he cut a tree near my house. Lo and behold it fell toward the house a with a great thump and the top branches hit the roof and broke some of the asbestos sheets and the timbers at the end!!! So we all decided to try a different woodcutter for cutting the other trees on the compound. Mercifully he knew the job and about 6 trees are now sprawled around the place without any further mishap.
Temperatures here are still well in the 90s by day and don't fall much below 80 at night - so I was very happy yesterday to receive a gift of a super fan from the Herringtons. It was very kind of them - and came at just the right time. So now I can sit happily with the air blowing about. I even went to bed with it on last night.
3rd March 1973.
... We see a lot in the papers here about strikes in Britain - the civil servants, the train drivers, the gasmen etc - and about rising prices. I don't suppose things are as bad as the press paints them.
Stuart and Sacha have settled down very well at Sunnybrae School. It is an infants and juniors school and takes children up to the age of 11. After that they do two years of intermediate schooling before entering secondary schools a the age of 13. The infants are called primers and the juniors are called standards. Sacha is in Primer 2 class and Stuart is Primer 4/Standard1. Sunnybrae is a 'normal' school which means it is specially designed for training of student teachers - some days there seems to be one student teacher for every child. The school has a swimming pool (paid for by loans from the parents) and they both go swimming 3 times a week which is just as well since this has been the driest February since 1909 and it has been lovely and sunny just about every day for over a month, but not too hot.
Lewis started playgroup yesterday. The play centres here are controlled by a Play Centre Association and they are remarkably well equipped and efficiently run on a voluntary basis. All the parents have to take an active part in the financing and organising of the Centre so it is a good way to get to know other people around with small children. Three different groups of children use the centre each week. Lewis goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and Friday afternoons. He seems very happy with it although he has had a tummy upset this week and has been off his food.
At the moment I have a very light teaching load at the university (evenings only) but there will be more concentrated sessions during the winter. Both Pat and I have also enrolled for some evening classes at Northcote College - Pat to do Maori Arts and Crafts and me to do Woodcarving! So between us we are out every evening of the week except Fridays.
Our financial affairs have still not sorted themselves out as the original buyer of 17 Lower Tail did not go through with it and so most of our money is still tied up in England. When it is all settled, which could be some months yet, we will get round to sorting out some arrangements for birthday presents etc.
Glad to hear Liz would be home this year.
Love to all. Pat John and the children.
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