The Gravel Road

By Ann O'Donnell

This family saga starts with a young South African woman searching for her family origins and history in Britain.

While starting work on compiling notes on The Gravel Road, I earnestly began to want to bring back to life those long-forgotten beginnings of an ancestral family, hoping to capture their experiences of surviving under extreme circumstances in their daily lives. At this time, men of different colors and creeds could put aside their grievances, uniting in the determination and will to succeed.

I listened to the many stories told by my grandfather Sanderson, which became an integral part in my research. These stretched across old Prussia in Eastern Germany to the old cotton mills in the north of England.

The Gravel Road covers 140 years of old and modern history where two exceptional, courageous families, though ethically disparate and living worlds apart, were drawn together and united in peace. In doing so, they paved the way for the next generation.

I gathered many hours of notes to write this book in order to write true-to-life characters. My goal was that, in time, it would become a source of wonder and pride for all those who came to befriend them as I did.

While reliving those lives, I tried to get an understanding of how some feared the unknown, while others ventured far in the last century, ultimately changing attitudes along the pathways to life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Mar 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546290186

Ann O'Donnell

Ann ODonnell was born in Hampstead, London, but educated in South Africa. Now retired, she now lives on the Isle of Wight.

Book preview

© 2018 Ann O’Donnell. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  06/22/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9019-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9020-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9018-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903084

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Prologue

Preface

Chapter 1:     1881

Chapter 2:     A Journey of Discovery

Chapter 3:     Winds of Parity Gather Momentum

Chapter 4:     The Manor House Road to Discontent

Chapter 5:     Gustav Returns to Leipzig

Chapter 6:     Gustav in West Africa

Chapter 7:     All Eyes Set on Africa

Chapter 8:     James Dispatch Rider Goes to Africa

Chapter 9:     Isle of Wight

Chapter 10:   James Gets His Commission

Chapter 11:   Gustav’s Destiny in South-West Africa

Chapter 12:   Elizabeth Nurses in Africa

Chapter 13:   Amongst the Best of Them

Chapter 14:   No Turning Back

Chapter 15:   Gustav Travels Down

Chapter 16:   Savannah Encounters

Chapter 17:   Christmas at Itombi Hospital Camp

Chapter 18:   The Rainbow after the Storm

Chapter 19:   Looking Back

In memory of a devoted friend and husband

24 June 1943–18 February 2018

PROLOGUE

Situated at the foothill of the Pennines range of mountains and at the estuary of the Ribble River, which flows in from the Irish Sea, is the ancient town of Preston. This west county of Lancashire in the north grew from its muddy flats by taking advantage of the steep-banked tidal river flowing through Preston on its way down south, allowing merchants’ vessels from all parts of the globe to sail upriver for trading with the Preston merchants.

A royal charter came into being in 1179, giving Preston royal borough status, enabling traders to travel the country without payments of tolls or duties. The town thrived as guild merchants prevented other traders from entering Preston. Many bloody attacks on the town took place during the fourteenth century, and an outbreak of plague set the county back. Under Cromwell’s army, major battles were fought and won at Preston in the year 1648. A hundred years later, Bonny Prince Charles had his army occupy the town until they were defeated trying to head up north. It was said that in the first half of the eighteenth century, Preston had no manufacturing industry, only attorneys, proctors, and notaries, and as it was a Duchy that they practiced a different process of law from the rest of the country. A fine and affluent exultant society was bred among the elite town folk. Moreover, while the first textile mills was built along the river Ribble, another kind of people arrived, workers of a different kind to operate the machinery of the rapidly expanding cotton factories along the river.

In 1861, at the onset of the American Civil War, President Lincoln ordered the federal navy to blockade all southern ports; this played a critical role in the events leading to the Lancashire cotton feminine. By stopping the raw cotton leaving the shores of America that was destined for the mills at Preston warehouses, the old stock that remained was waiting on the merchants who were busy gambling on further price rises. As a result, mass unemployment was devastating—331,000 men and women were out of work, and families began to go hungry.

Deprived of the essential raw materials, spinning mills and weaving sheds closed down or shortened working time. Attempting to find other suppliers of raw cotton, merchants turned to India and Egypt only discover that the short-stapled Surat cotton proved not to be a substitute for the medium-stapled American variety.

It seemed things could not get any worse, until 1865, when the civil war ended; only then did the steady din of the machines start up again and people went back to work. Nevertheless, the damage had already been done, and the cotton industry never regained the dominancy it once held in the British economy.

Scarcely a day goes by that those words do not echo back from a distant past, encouraging those along the way: You either can or cannot. I now recollected those long-forgotten haunting words. I would continue to focus on those families, trying to be those individuals. My motivation to succeed would be for the pleasure the story would give many people, and the lessons it would teach.

These characters are all gone. Now the story must be told to those who came after, as they too are all part of that link, a chain of events that stretches across two continents, from East Germany to the turmoil below the equator at the most southerly tip of Africa.

A noble family, after fighting off Napoleon’s army near Leipzig in Prussia, in the services of Otto von Bismark and the young Kaiser Wilheim the second, set out to establish new routes in West Africa by extending the railroads. Circumstances led the young noble Baron towards the southern borders of Africa into the Great Boer War. Helped by a young Preston dispatch rider, subsequently the Prussian stayed on in Africa and married a local farmer’s girl.

The story unfolds in England in 1966 during a visit from a granddaughter. The ageing grandfather, now in his eighty-fifth year, begins to relive his past.

PREFACE

Sanderson in 1999, with Lucy-Ellen

Airport terminals are such impersonal places—people milling around like ants in a flurry. When one lot goes, another arrives, finding us in just such a queue, with my daughter Lucy-Ellen, still hanging onto Sam, her cotton shaggy brown Basset hound complaining that she needed the bathroom in a hurry and that she was hungry.

Once through customs, we can do all that.

I kept telling her calmly so as not to alarm her, having become somewhat anxious myself. Now, my girl, do be patient for a while, will you? I said whilst inching forward along with the rest of those weary people towards several official-looking desks.

Welcome to England, ma’am, and where might you be heading? A stern, but polite voice smiled out a greeting.

Oh, the Isle of Wight, I said gingerly, as the reality of the situation jolted me back to the present.

So here I was again, having spent a gap year some thirty-three years earlier visiting grandparents up north and cousins down south, whom I hardly knew. There I was, having divided my time between Preston and London, getting acquainted. How enthralled I had become of my Grandpa James Sanderson, spellbound by that elderly gent who sported a wonderful handle bar mustachio while puffing away at his well seasoned Zulu pipe, recalling those experiences of the great Boer War as he rode across South Africa. He who would always claim, No matter if your clothes look well worn, never have scuffed shoes. Let no man scuff a good pair of polished ones. There was always some hidden meaning behind those words.

I handed over my fifteen-year-old daughter’s documents, together with my passport, to the perky brunette. In that moment, the situation suddenly kicked in. England had now become our new home. Quickly she scanned the pages of both passports and document.

Enjoy your day, she said. Then in a slightly raised voice, Next, please.

Now can I go to the bathroom then get something to eat, Mummy.

I parked myself on sentry duty at the toilet’s entrance.

Be quick, will you, I said, seeing the first of the luggage appearing on the rolling carousel. We had our trolley laden with Samuel, the hound dog, peeping out from under layers of raincoats. There it is. Approaching the conveyer belt, I leant forward to gain hold of the case as it slowly passed by.

Here, let me help you. I recognised the man’s voice immediately. It was that of the German fellow who sat next to Lucy-Ellen and me during the flight from Johannesburg’s O.R. Tambo Airport.

After he rescued our last case, he stood awhile, mentioning that he spent his time between Germany and England. On this trip, having returned from his family’s sheep farm in the Southern Kroo, he said that it would be his pleasure if we would let him know, perhaps over coffee, how we were getting on with our new life on the Isle of Wight. Saying that, he pulled out a business card from his wallet. Thanking him, we said our goodbyes and wheeled our overloaded trolley out to the awaiting buss, which would take us to Southampton ferry terminal.

The crossing would take an hour, but as we got closer to the terminal, the weather turned, clouds banking up. Oh, Mummy, we won’t see the chalk cliffs on the island, she said excitedly but disapprovingly all the same.

Sweetheart, we shall have all the time in the world to explore the island, I uttered as Lucy-Ellen lugged her wheelie suitcase behind her with Sam slung across both shoulders. I knew that a storm was about to break and that crossing was not going to be a smooth ride. A breeze began blowing rain against the big square portholes while we sailed through the Southampton estuary, headed towards the Solent open waters; it became evident that the storm had worsened, creating a squall. Choppy waves began crashing down, breaking against the bow with loud bangs. Alarms from trucks and cars were going off one after another, while the pilot steered his ferry right and headed into the Solent waters towards Cowes on the tiny island. Lucy-Ellen loved the rough experience, an unforgettable first-time ferry crossing for her.

For me, as the rocking ferry took to the swell head on, I had become anxious at the whole experience, noticing as we passed by old warehouses, all sandwiched together along an old wharf, no longer serving a purpose. Sadly, they made me think of those majestic full sail ships heavily loaded, sailing up this estuary to offload their raw materials, which would be sent to weavers up in the north to Preston. Just as those funnel steamers would have been a lifeline to the outside world, trade had long ceased around those canals and inlets.

As those angry waves lapped up the jetty, I looked across at the line of rotting terracotta brickwork, lost and forgotten, as were the old overhead rusty winches of a bygone year, where timeless weather had washed off the remnants of the painted lettering that had once adorned those high brick walls. I thought of the once proud merchant’s warehouse, which had shipped goods to all parts of the world, now left abandoned too. This had once been the greatest empire in the modern world.

I had been so preoccupied I did not have any thoughts of that traveller’s business card tucked deep inside my jacket’s pocket. It now looked rather dog tagged. I began to read out loud from a rather upmarket printed card.

Carl Von Beutenburg

Civil Engineer Works Proprietor

Leipzig, East Saxony

A cold shiver came across me. There was something about that name that seemed to have been etched in my distant memory. However, at this moment, I just could not place it. Certainly I had heard of the old medieval town in Saxony, that mountain of silver on the Erzgebirge range bordering Czechoslovakia, and the fairytale state of Thuringia, with its gothic villages and forests, which in times past had nurtured the poet Johan Wolfgang Goethe and composers including none other than Wagner. A city that came to be known for its culture and learning, where the first autumn and spring, a trade fair came into being.

To think that once that majestic landscape fell under the watchful eye of the black Prussian falcon flag, which flew high above the many flagpole turrets across East Germany.

Mummy, that man, who was he? You seemed to know him.

My thoughts wandered back to my past, while I tried as best I could to give her a reasonable reply.

I am not quite sure, my girl, I said to her. All I know darling, is that name. I heard it mentioned somewhere, but I really cannot remember where now.

As the coldness gripped me, I began moving my shoulders around in hopes of warming up, intrigued by my thoughts, knowing that things always happen for a reason, just as the rocking ferry slipped into her moorings. It was then, just a few paces behind, that her high-pitched voice spoke with such amazement, coming from my daughter at seeing the uniqueness scene for the first time. We had just stepped into a postcard. The buildings were miniature in size, each with a high-sloped shingled roof, with the most decorative wooden carvings and doors painted in bright enamel colours

Quite amazing, Mummy.

Right, we need to grab a taxi, I said, while most of the other passengers read my mind and demanded the same as each car in turn went by. Then, by luck, an empty one pulled up. Newport, I said, and I settled back into the seat as the car pulled away.

CHAPTER 1

1881

43619.png

Around the maze of cobbled streets, a noisy clamour echoed from within the institutional terracotta-bricked, high-slated houses accommodating the textile workers. Early-morning kitchen fires began to billow out smoke, blackening the red-brick chimney stacks next to terraced homes in Deepdale. It was on such a morning that James Albert Sanderson first made his appearance in this world.

In 1881, merchant and mill owners lived in larger and more comfortable houses in leafy suburbs while the less fortunate crowded the narrow streets around Preston’s seventy-two spinning and cotton mills operating along the Ribble River. As the population grew, so too did small, terraced houses continue to be built to accommodate the migrant families seeking a living. Life was not easy down the rows of cobbled streets amidst the constant din of machines and the ringing of bells in the morning, midday, and again in the afternoon—not a happy sound calling people to prayer but calling poor wretches to work.

While the bells rang out Plover Street that morning, the pungent smoke began drifting up through the sleeting rain beating against the sash windows in the birthing room on the first-floor landing. This was not to be a typical start in the Sandersons’ household. Helen, having just stoked up her fires for the day, with water just on the boil, called out for her husband as her belly gave an abrupt tremble, gripping her whole being in much discomfort. Slowly she ascended each narrow step towards the upper room.

It’s time, dearest, for this baby to come.

Word soon made its way among the neighbours for the midwife to hurry.

James Albert Sanderson made his entrance hurriedly into this world, with Helen’s proud constable husband at her side. Four sons you have given me. I am overwhelmed with joy, he said, just as a rather portly, out-of-breath midwife barged her way into the front room and marched up to the high, dark wood-framed bed.

Mr Sanderson said to her, The Sandersons are always in a hurry. This one was totally unexpected to Helen and me, as she is into her midlife change.

These stairs will be the death of me, and what have we here? the midwife said, looking at Helen while uncovering the baby. A strapping boy, I see. Another mouth to feed.

Just as humans feel the pain of birth, in 1881, so too was a continent striving to be born south of the equator. Across a vast, rugged expanse of unmarked territories, settlers were struggling with violence and pain during those impetuous times. It took people with ox wagons or on horseback days of trekking away from the most southerly regions of British self-governing colonies of the Cape and Natal to reach the eastern coastline of South Africa. These travellers followed the way the hawk flies north, winging their way towards the high bush veldt, crossing the crocodile-infested waters of the Orange River, and heading west towards the Atlantic Ocean.

While disputes continued, this group of hardy white people, all with a common cause, gathered to form what came to be known as the wandering Thirst Land Trekkers. Dissatisfied as they were with the liberal views of the president who now headed the small republic, called the Transvaal, these kinfolk, courageous in their desire, continued tirelessly in search of that promised land. This search led some families to settle deep within the heartland of the Namib Desert along the western coastline amongst the nomadic Khoisan bushmen of the click languages, whilst others carried on inland towards the Etosha Pan and onto the Okavango River to the more fertile lands of Angola. Forever following these people came columns of explorers, missionaries, and traders, all in the name of civilization.

The road to rightness travelled

Is like the sunrise getting brighter

And brighter until daylight has come.

Where the road of the wicked

Is as dark as night, they fall but cannot

See what they have stumbled over.

Helen Sanderson’s four boys would rush home from the little corner church’s hall after a couple of hours at Sunday school. A fight for supremacy always broke out regarding who would be the first to get to the long-drop lavatory out in backyard. Most times, young, white-haired, blue-eyed James lost, and as usual, he was the last in line, holding onto his desperate situation. He sat with his knees pressing hard against his chest and clutched hands tightly tucked around his skinny legs while his older brothers would hold their age preference over him and, in jest, refer to him as their little spurt. James, trying desperately to hold back the two hot cocoa drinks he’d had at Sunday school, gradually bent farther and farther over.

The Who goes next? Sunday scuffle among the Sanderson boys could be heard over in the neighbour’s backyard. James was now just third in line. Could he last this time, another two pees? Somehow, he had not yet disgraced himself.

Then came the pushing and shoving as they all raced inside to make their claim at seating arrangements, until their mother intervened to give them all a turn at sitting closest to the head of table. Then, sleeves rolled up and hands scrubbed squeaky clean, all leant full torso onto the heavily floured surface of the family’s table. Four boys with great interest in being part of the Sunday routine waited with bated breath.

The eight eager hands began dipping into the biscuit barrel, grabbing hold of their fill of raisins. Then, as each boy tightly clenched his raisin-filled fists, they waited for the right opportunity to send a hail of raisin bullets into an unsuspecting victim. James was the constant victim to be fired upon. He suddenly retaliated with all his might, only to realise how few raisins he had left. He popped them into his mouth, leaving none for the big roll-up.

Helen would then roll out yards of the spicy pastry on the Partridge wooden table, finishing off her biscuits in turn with each of the boys. Ruby-stained hands would scatter their share of crushed raisins over the surface of the flattened dough. Then, together, with all-out effort, ten hands rolled the raisin dough into a long, spotted snake, scattering flour around the room.

Helen was different in many ways from her next door neighbours. She kept strictly to herself behind closed doors, where she could be herself, away from the coal smog and prying eyes and the rough surroundings of the weaving mills. Discipline ruled the Sandersons’ household. Believe in yourselves, boys, she would constantly remind her sons as they went about their nightly chores. They cleaned the mud from their clogs and recited their arithmetic tables while polishing up their boots, finishing by counting the days towards their Sunday treat. All this always led to a major event, sending the Sanderson household into happy chaos. Never enter into idle chatter. Bad for the soul, she used to say to her boys.

Helen was a pretty woman by the standards of those times. Her round, intelligent face was enhanced by a glowing smile, supported by a strong cleaved chin. Her pride and joy had always been her long brown wavy hair. Only Helen knew how to coiffure those endless curls. After continuous brushing, she would coil her hair around her head, securing it in place with large, metal, zigzag pins, which only were removed by her husband at the end of each day. She knew he would lovingly catch those thick chocolate tresses as they tumbled down over her figurine shoulders. Even though she was large of stature, she managed him him off this style proudly and in the most gracious fashion.

Helen placed her well-used copper kettle onto an overly polished, blackened coal-burning stove. Do stay, won’t you? And have that cup of tea while you’re here, Helen said to James’s Uncle Harry, taking hold of his arm and snugly guiding him into the front-room parlour. She enjoyed the opportunity to use her family heirlooms, which were finer than her present lifestyle. As Helen was about to hand over, in poised formality, a cup of her best Indian tea poured from her best porcelain teapot, she said, We need to keep our James useful, Harry dear. When around, he’s nothing to do. He’s getting himself into all sorts of mischief these days. I’ve presently been told by others that he has been lurking round the old smithy’s shop at the bottom of North End Hill.

Harry was about to reach across to help himself to another fly cake Sunday special. Now suspended off his chair, he