Roots - the true version

Missing things African in general and Afrikaans in particular... there is something particularly satisfying about swearing in the language and even in normal conversation it is wonderfully colourful. Which is strange because I grew up in a completely English-speaking household, and at school studied French and Latin. I suppose it is partly the enforced immersion in Afrikaans that results from a couple of years in the military there, and partly because, genetically at least, I am one quarter Afrikaans. My paternal grandmother was baptised Annie Jozina Isabella Swart - and the Swart name arrived in Africa from Germany in the first couple of years of the 18th century.

The other quarters are, as previously mentioned, all English. Norfolk, Yorkshire and Berkshire I think. How strange that I lived a few miles from Windsor for several years and am now less than 30 miles from Kelling in Norfolk, both towns figuring prominently in my ancestry. The Girdlestones, my mom's ancestors, all seem to come from the same small cluster of towns in North Norfolk - Kelling, Holt, Wells next the Sea and so on. I've actually been on a visit to Kelling and seen the gravestones of my forefathers dating back to the 1600's - the oldest one found was one Zurishaddai Girdlestone, Lord of the Manor in those parts and curiously buried some distance from the church itself.
My irreverent speculations about this, and about his Semitic name (Zurishaddai means "Rock of the Lord") were dismissed by Mom - rightly too, as subsequent investigation has pointed out. I am guessing that old Zurishaddai was a Puritan of sorts, perhaps an adherent of the Westminster Confession of 1646 and maybe named because his parents followed an earlier Confession. An unusual name anyway, and one that crops up every few generations in the Girdlestone line.














The church at Kelling is small and simple, around 900 years old I guess , and from around 1780 to 1880 a Girdlestone was the Rector. As Girdlestones held the "Right of Avowson" there in that time, they would have appointed one of their own younger sons as Rector. A strange gap between the last of them in 1881 and my grandad being born on the other side of the country (Formby, near Liverpool) in 1901 - and an even stranger hiatus before he popped up in Rhodesia in the 1920's. There to marry Violet Isabella Cary (daughter of an early Pioneer), become Mayor and Alderman, raise six daughters and eventually be buried in what is now a howling wasteland of vagrants and vandals in Masvingo. Strange how when he died (1978) it was decided by his widow that he should not have a conventional upright gravestone but a flat one so it would not be knocked over by the locals. It remains relatively intact where many of the others in that little cemetery have been smashed. In fact all the Girdlestone graves I have seen have been a single flat slab - perhaps it's the only way to be sure that the irrepressible and larger than life old rascals stay down...

Anyway it's 07h00 and time to get ready for work. Living a mere 15 minute amble from the office is one of the biggest pleasures in being here - and my new house is probably only 5 minutes further out and on the other side of the city centre. The "Golden Triangle" that suburb is called - and once the deal is concluded I'll tell you all. How the Hogga came to be living in a Victorian end-terrace house. Where I plan to store all my books. And how I survived the inevitable DIY work needed to prepare the place after years of being inhabited by a dear old lady and her equally dear (if somewhat incontinent) dog Ruffles.