I have been reading a book by Justin Cartwright, an ex Cape Town boy now living in London, called The Song Before it is Sung, a fictionalized account of one of the plotters who planned to assassinate Hitler and, after it failed, his terrible end strangled and hanging from a meat hook in a cellar. In the book the main character, Axel von Gottberg, was modelled on the diplomat, Friedrich Adam von Trott zu Solz. On returning to the family property in Pleskow, his wife wrote:
“… I knew that he would enjoy the ride back from the station and a chat with Wicht, the chance to breathe in his beloved landscape, and revel in the sense of arriving back home … catching sight of the house just before the road dips and you are lost in the trees for the final run to the park gates. There are certain places and certain sights in a life that raise one’s spirits. For forty years I have thought of this place every day. And I know that never a day went by without your father dreaming about the lake and the house and the woods. He once said that as soon as he entered the avenue of oaks planted by your great-grandfather, he felt true peace. In fact, I think he felt at peace as soon as he plunged into the lake, which was the first thing he usually did …”
The underlined words rang a bell with me. Many, many years ago I remember being driven up into a part of Bankfontein Game Ranch called Waterbank, which I had never seen, by the man hoping to sell me the property. I looked back and down to the plains below from the slopes of Boesmanskop (Bushman’s Head), at 7 000 feet the highest mountain in the region, and felt this tremendous sense of peace and
