A parcel arrived the other day from my cousin – my father’s sister’s child. It contained my grandfather Bokkie’s diary. Yellowed, 104 years old, disintegrating, coverless, the back attached with yarn. The parcel included some photos and postcards.
My father’s family history… their life at the diamond diggings in the Lichtenburg district packaged in a courier’s plastic bag.
The diary also tells the story behind the shiny stones of the 1920s diamond rush, which enriched many but also broke many hearts.
– Anonymous
In the bag was a photo of my father as a boy, a pupil at the Bakerville primary school. It took me back to the time in the 1980s when he drove me through the diggings at Lichtenburg in his olive-green Granada.
Elandsputte, Kameelkuil.
At Bakerville we stopped at his old school. Close by was a large weeping wattle, casting lovely shade. But my father didn’t want to park his Granada under the tree, because the tears that dripped from it were sticky, he said. His Granada was his pride and joy.
I walked about under the bluegums, foraging for sugarsweet lerps, while he was lost in his own thoughts
