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A Mother Remembered

A Guest Post from My Sister, Margaret Jones

Birth and Early Years

Born Jean Alison Forbes Robb on 29th January 1927 to Gertie and Willlie Robb in Nakuru Hospital, Kenya, she was their only child and arrived rather later in their lives than was common in those days.  She was loved and cherished as a precious gift…though I have no doubt her father would have kept a firm hand of discipline on his headstrong daughter–for headstrong she was.  She was brave and adventurous, riding her horse like a man, completely fearlessly, but with always sensitive hands as she loved animals–probably more than she loved people.  Horseback was probably the most used form of transport she used as a young girl and woman.

The Kenya she grew up in was wild by anyone’s standards.  The roads, such as they were, were largely unpaved murram roads.  The railway from Mombasa through to Uganda was an arterial line and took days through heat shimmering savanna, and through the green softer highlands through the Great Rift Valley, and wheezing and blowing up the Timboroa Escarpment through Eldoret and on to Uganda. I won’t go on because this is about Mum, that’s just background.

Education and Young Adulthood

She was schooled mostly at Nakuru, boarding school as the family lived at Ol Joro Orok.  She was, like the majority of Kenyan children at the time, at boarding school from a very young age.   After leaving school, she worked for a while as a stenographer in Nairobi. I seem to remember she worked for the farming suppliers, Dalgety, Nairobi branch.   In due course she met, fell in love, and married my dad, Reginald Frank Holmes.  Theirs was a long, and as far as I know, a happy marriage.  Mum was feisty and Dad was calm and steady–a good combination.

Farming

Together, they built their rather unusual and adventurous lives. (We didn’t see our lives as adventurous until much later as quite mature adults, then we realised not everyone had enjoyed the freedoms and lifestyle we had.)  The first big venture was Ol Orien Farm, farming in conjunction with my grandparents, her parents.  Dad, meantime, worked mainly with the Soil Conservation Service in Thompson’s Falls.  He did a lot on the farm after work and on weekends, but Mum was the farmer.  It was a mixed farm.  The cash crop was pyrethrum grown for its insecticidal properties.  There was also dairy and maize, and a varying size of poultry flocks…and countless dogs and cats, the odd sheep or two and, of course, the horses.

Other Adventures

After the farm, which was sold just around the same time as Uhuru, independence from Britain, Mum and Dad began their life of living all round the world.  Previous to this, they had travelled a couple of times to Cape Town and back in the short-wheelbase Land Rover  KFT964.  (It was a Series 1, for readers who are interested in such details–and it certainly wasn’t a comfortable vehicle!)

So they lived on the Kenyan coast for a bit, then back in Nakuru.  Then they left Kenya and traveled south, stopping briefly in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.  Dad worked for a garage in Bulawayo for a brief period, but he was head hunted by Food and Agricultural Organisation and went to Iraq, which Mum loathed.  I think she found it interesting, but she hated the restrictions on women.  They were only there for a year and then went on to the copper and nickel mine in Selebi Pikwe, Botswana. They were there for a few years and thence to Swaziland, then South Africa, various parts of it,  and eventually stopped at Monteseel almost midway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg.  Dad built them a lovely house there.  Mum made the garden out of virgin bush.  Neither job was unusual for them as they had done this before, starting with their first house together on Ol Orien.

Over the years Mum rode horses less and learned to drive…well enough, but she was a bit erratic at times. But, hey, we are talking a pint-size person who thought nothing of hopping in the current Land Rover, loading it with a handful of dogs, and sometimes cats, too, and traipsing off to who knows where over who knows what kind of condition of road in order to fulfill the current mission, be it visit one of us, or move house, or even just to go on holiday.  So when I say her driving could be erratic, I have to say that the erratic nature was only evident when she hit built up areas and traffic; she was fine driving in the bush and on the open road.

Insights and Thoughts

There was always lots of laughter in our home when we were growing up.  Both my parents could see the funny side in most situations.  I think we learned not to take ourselves too seriously and to avoid being self righteous or stuck up.  The moment we showed any sign of that as kids, we were cut to size and made to laugh at ourselves again.

She brought us up with a fair amount of no-nonsense discipline.  I clearly remember telling some of my little classmates aged about eight, that my Mummy was fiercer than the dreaded Mrs. Holland at our primary school.  I wasn’t wrong either.  You crossed Mum at your own peril.

She was an avid reader and knitter.  She made beautiful clothes for all of us, and no project was too difficult to at least give it a go.  She had the greenest fingers of anyone I have ever known.  She could grow anything and eventually, when she did learn to cook, she was a great cook, too.  She always baked, but in Kenya left the cooking mostly up to the Pishi, Thomas (Cook), or my Granny–Mum was running a farm, remember.

Dementia

So this is what we, her children and to some degree her grandchildren, have inherited from her.  Each of us has put our own interpretation on it, but I think it is thanks to her, and to Dad, that we all have a Can-Do-Will-Do approach to life and we are not afraid to stand up to anyone, no matter how fiercely they present themselves.   She will be missed, but as she recently suffered with quite severe dementia, to be honest, we have missed the real her for some years now.

The last time I saw her, she had just come out of hospital, a frail little shadow of herself.  Nevertheless, when I went to see her she greeted me as if she knew who I was, but what touched me most was that I was with Dave, my son-in-law, and there was no way she knew who he was any more.  Nevertheless all her childhood training and manners rose above the dementia and her own very reduced personal situation and she said to him, “How do you do?  How very nice to meet you again, tell me...how are you?”

That was Mum: the discipline and training to do the right thing in any circumstances right at the fore.  And the rest of us had better not let her down…or else!

Funeral Matters

With regard to her funeral, Mum requested no flowers, please, but if you would like to make a donation to an animal charity of your choice, that would be lovely.  Thank you.

Janet and I would love to see you at the service but realise the difficulty this might present.  My brother, Jim, is recording a tribute to Mum which will be played at the service.  A fellow South African, Raymond Zulu, will be delivering the service, Mum knew him and he is a very warm person.  Shaun will be reading a Scripture text (Mum was a devout Christian).  Geraldine and Alec will be giving tributes.  Afterwards you are invited back for refreshments at Jan’s little house, so please bring an umbrella if the forecast is for rain.

With thanks to my sister, Margaret Jones, for her permission to use her writing with just a few editorial tweaks to help with flow and transition (her original piece, HERE, was written with family members in mind) and with the graphics arranged in a gallery rather than at intervals in the text.