Selling Rickety Bridge

The McNaughts leave. In the end, age caught up with Nigel's father and he had to give up doctoring to run the agricultural side of the farm. Not a difficult decision because he had become disillusioned with how medicine had become a money making business but a decision that reduced the family income.

The McNaughts struggled on for some time but by 1995 it had become obvious the only solution to the heavy drain of their overdraft was to sell up and move.

Visiting them at Stoney Brook farm, which has proved a good move and is now a successful wine farm and winery, busy with tourists.

One of Joy’s recollections is of Mina, who saw Paulina's ghost at Rickety Bridge, making tea and forcing her to sit and eat when things were getting out of control. Like anyone who has come in contact with Mina, Joy can not praise her enough.

The McNaughts sold the renamed Rickety Bridge to Robin Singer, whom Mina described as a Scotsman and a nice man. Is that so unusual?

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books

Rickety Bridge and Stoney Brook

What income they did have, and any money they could scrape together, the McNaughts spent on improving the farm’s production capability. Their first step being to uproot the pear trees and plant vines.

Joy, with her three children, moved onto the farm, leaving Nigel doctoring to pay the bills, and started to learn to make wine. Her experiences are recorded in the book she has written – Headlong into the Red. She tells of how she called Nigel in tears to say she was resigning . Nigel’s reply was that she wasn’t allowed to resign, that he had a consulting room full of patients and she’d better just get on with things.

Having met Nigel in Joy’s company, this repost is a reflection of the financial strain rather than their close relationship. 

Heesom had for some time been at Zorgvleit and the Sanddrift manor house – now renamed Rickety Bridge, had again fallen into less than perfect condition. Joy tells of lying in bed one night and wakening to find she could see the stars through a hole where the roof thatch had blown off.

Some of the McNaught’s hard earned money was spent on improving the labourer’s cottages, unfortunately not to a standard Joy would have considered acceptable but to the absolute limit of what money was available.

www.ricketybridge.com

Farming lessons at Rickety Bridge

I'm dipping into the my old files of Rickety Bridge history and they include one or two interviews. One I particularly enjoyed was the McNaughts who were then at Stoney Brook farm and doing rather well after their Rickety Bridge experience. When they bought Rickety Bridge, they were living and working in Grahamstown; Nigel as a doctor and Joy teaching at St Andrew's school.

They were both from Cape Town and on a visit to the Cape, Nigel found that Sanddrift/Rickety Bridge was for sale at an attractive price.

When Joy asked if they could afford it, Nigel told her that if they sold everything they had, borrowed from all their friends and took a mortgage they could just manage.

At first, Nigel’s father and mother moved on to the farm, Nigel’s father harvesting the fruit and sending it off to market. Unbeknown to them, pear sizes were critical and the price of grade 3, the smallest, didn’t cover the cost of sorting and instead of the expected cheque the McNaughts got a bill.
Undeterred, they stuck to the plan and learned more lessons about farming.

www.stonybrook.co.za