A rich memoir about exploring a family mystery, and how a search for truth can yield unexpected outcomes.
Eight years after the death of her mother, Judy reviews her family relics, including the antique tea service that belonged to her mother’s grandfather. Should she just sell the damn thing and buy new lounge furniture? It’s tempting.
But she stops to read the inscription etched into the solid silver tray. It honours this man around whom hangs a century-old mystery. Prickling with a strange resentment towards her widely loved mother, she embarks on a journey to uncover the truth behind the story of grandeur and ruin her mother had promised, but never wrote.
The author’s relentless research in dusty archives and neglected cemeteries across South Africa unravels an unexpected family history. The process draws her to revisit the darker corridors of her youth, and her sense of identity. She confronts the losses and complexities of her own life.
The Silver Tea Service is a thought-provoking memoir of loss, redemption and belonging, of political injustices and the inescapable nuances of history in South Africa.
Inhoudsopgave
Author’s Note
Prologue
THE SILVER TEA SERVICE
DOWNWARD
CHILDHOOD’S END
ONCE UPON A TIME
THE INSCRIPTION
BLIND SEARCHING
BURY IT
THE ARCHIVES DELIVER
THE PORTRAITS
HEILBRON
JOHAN
WHOSE STORY?
IN SERVICE OF FEAR
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
THE GIFT OF A MAJOR CHORD
THE DARK YEARS
SURVIVAL
FLIGHT
LANDING
A PLACE ON THE TREE
MARY ANN
THE WAR THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
FINDING ROSIE
ROSIE’S WAR
THE WAR ENDS
LIFE AND DEATH AFTER THE WAR
PRIME SUSPECT
THE BANK
SURRENDER TO THE FAMILY TREE
THE FALL
THE ROAD TO MASERU
MY NANNY, IDA
COUNTRY
DIFFERENT KINDS OF FAMILY
WHO DONE IT?
FINAL CHORDS
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Appendix 1: Chronicles of the early Luyt Family
Appendix 2: The Presidents who entered the Boer War
Appendix 3: The curious tale of ‘Captain’ Weilert
Bibliography
References
Notes
Over de auteur
Judy Campbell is an author, composer and lyricist. Her work has featured on recordings, in a new musical, and she has written many music related articles.
Judy was born in Cape Town, South Africa, to a family of musicians. Despite early musical promise – and contrary to family tradition – she began working as a computer programmer by the age of 17. She spent the next 25 years working in Information Technology, all whilst writing lyrics and singing in bands. Judy and her husband migrated to Australia in 1982.
In 1999, she left IT and turned her full attention to music, taking up the job of Choir Director at North Shore Temple Emanuel in Sydney.
In 2003, she founded the world jazz group MOSAIC, with whom she went on to compose three albums of original music and perform on six national and international tours spanning seven years. She is the founding director of the Australian Jewish Choral Festival, inaugurated in 2012.
In what began as a record of the rise and mysterious ruin of her great grandfather, The Silver Tea Service grew into a personal memoir about the ironies of history, the unexpected personal outcomes of her quest and the stories it uncovered.
Judy is currently working on her next book based on the story of a Bengali slave in the early days of the Cape Colony and how it unexpectedly found expression in the politics of the 20th century in South Africa.
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