The Lady in Pink

I've written quite a bit about Pniel. It's between Stellenbosch and Franschoek. Just be very careful of you go along that road in October. Linda warned me that a lady dressed in pink walks across the road during that month. According to Linda, she had already caused two deaths by drivers trying to avoid her. When the police arrived, both victims managed to whisper they had crashed because they tried to avoid the lady in pink. Who she is, where she came from and how she chooses her victims is a mystery.
Unfortunately, I don't have an image of the lady and one of me will have to do.

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The Spy in Cairndhu

In WW2, although we saw the glow of the fires burning in Clydebank, more than thirty miles away our village, being in the country, was little troubled beyond rationing and soldiers billeted in the castle grounds. That doesn't mean there was no excitement. Over to You is based on an actual sequence of events following the discovery of a spy or fifth columnist in our midst. The picture is of the plantation where the action took place and from that it will be appreciated the difficulty that faced the intelligence officers in the pursuance of their duties.

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/over-to-you/

Best in Show

One of the things that I remembered from visits to Pniel was the Flower Show in the village I grew up in, which in turn led to the book Best in Show. My father had been a keen chrysanthemum grower and, when I mentioned that, Linda insisted I meet with the local flower show competitors. We had a good chat about the tricks otherwise honest men tried when the prize of Best in show was at stake. It was the wrong time of the year for blooms or harvesting anything but I was shown pictures of some of the winning exhibits. The pumpkins were enormous and it reminded me of how much colour village life had added to my living. The close contact that is forced on people in a village leads to mixtures of such a variety of characters that is unnecessary on a city where one can pick and choose to socialise with. I suppose that's why I have enjoyed writing about villages and country folk. I can bring the most unlikely people together.

www.sullatoberdalton.com/books

A dogs life

Granny Clarke, who was a great character, appears here and there and in different guises in my books. The first one to be written included her dog, Ruff, an independent soul, and he too has slunk into a story now and then. My first real involvement with him taught me to be wary of his sense of humour. I suppose that should really be sense of honour because he had a highly developed code of behaviour.

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/ruff-times-in-a-dogs-life/

The village Apartheid forgot

I've mentioned the type of people in Pniel and explained their racial mixture was ambitious members of the Dutch East India company and uncooperative merchants in Indonesia, exiled for their opposition to the Dutch company. Because of that heritage, they were an economically active group and developed businesses buying fruit from farmers and selling it in the Cape Town market. When Apartheid was introduced they were, being non-white banned from the market place and had to found other markets. They turned to the country areas to the east and north, where fruit and fresh vegetable were treats, if not luxuries and made fortunes. With their profits, being community minded, they built their own reservoir and several other facilities.
The picture is a King Protea in the Pniel church garden.

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What the Butler Did

I enjoy doing a story about some minor character in the Bible, someone who plays a real part in the story,but about who there are few details. I relate more to them than to the kings and prophets. One is the butler in Joseph's story. Did he risk getting his head chopped off if Joseph couldn't interpret Pharaoh's dream? In the story linked to this, he's given it careful thought and decided to go to the chief administrator.

http://sullatoberdalton.com/pen-sullatober/short-stories/what-the-butler-did/

Over the hills and far away

One might be excused for thinking an village built by the slaves in 1830 would be a bit of a shanty town with inward looking people but the slave ancestors of Pniel were business rivals of the Dutch East India company, sent to the Cape as punishment for opposing the conditions the DEA company insisted upon. They were, in many cases, aristocratic successful business people in their own land of the Spice Islands. Far from being insular, one 'Auntie' had visited relations in Australia, another in New Zealand and even one in Tighnabruaich in the Western Highlands of Scotland. Whether the later's relationship started when the Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders went to the Cape during the Napoleonic War, or at some later date when the Seaforths were there, I never found out. The picture is looking over Pniel into the valley in which it rests, Boschendal is on the left beyond the fields.

www.sullatoberdalton.com