It all started because my sister had a boyfriend that they didn’t like. There were constant arguments in the family on this topic. My father thought there was only one way in life - his way - and my mother had learned to go along with this, but my sister, recently demobbed from the Wrens, had lived an independent and dangerous life, installing RADAR on ships, and felt that she was old enough, and wise enough, to make her own choices.

Along came a solution, at least to temporarily let some of the steam out of the pressure cooker of family tensions, in the form of my father’s sister, Aunt Becky, who was living in South Africa. “Send Riva over to stay with me for a few weeks, it will be a lovely holiday for her, and my two sons have tons of friends, she will have a good time, and hopefully she will ‘get over’ this man,” she said. My sister was less than pleased but she eventually begrudgingly agreed to go, “But I will soon be back, and I will lead my own life.”

My mother always told me that Riva left without saying goodbye - but my sister denies this - anyway she did leave, destination Durban, in a flying-boat! This was in 1946, just after the armistice, and the austerity and deprivations were even more stringent than during wartime. This was a really difficult time in Britain as the spirit that had kept everyone buoyed up and patriotic in the war years had gone, and the reality was that food was even scarcer, people were trying to get jobs and attempting to find their place in this new society, and the families, confused and strangers to each other, were trying to settle down and learn to live together again. So this trip to a foreign country, one more or less untouched by conflict, sounded amazingly exciting to me, but I wasn’t really consulted in this drama - too young I suppose - so I was just an interested onlooker.

My sister’s journey was supposed to start in Southampton, but a large Victory Parade was going on in London at that time, and it was doubtful that she could have got down to the coast in time. So she was able to board a plane to Cairo, almost totally filled with young RAF men who were being sent to train as pilots in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe today). There was some delay with the plane so they were ‘billeted’ in the famous Shepherd’s Hotel in Cairo and she spent 3 days in unaccustomed luxury there, visiting the country clubs and generally being feted, before finally boarding the flying-boat. Many stopovers were necessary as the fuel tanks were small, and one day she landed on Lake Victoria. The plane had to fly very low so game-watching was a delightful pastime, and the contrast to the life left behind was overwhelming.

Over in South Africa my aunt was busy making plans, looking over all her sons’ friends and deciding which one would be most suitable to distract a young woman from her love, and perhaps offer her another choice. Many of these young men had volunteered and served in the forces, army, air force and navy, they, too, were recently demobbed and ready to begin a new life, presumably with a new wife! My cousins, Cyril and Leon, were both very popular and their small home was always packed with these handsome young men, full of life, good health and testosterone. A reluctant Cyril, being the elder son and one year older than my sister, was told that he had to travel to Durban by train to meet her and bring her back, and then his obligations would be over. He was not looking forward to the journey down, but he was even more displeased about having to spend several days staying with family friends and then travelling back with a stranger. (Well, not a complete stranger as they had played as children when we still lived in South Africa - I think Riva was 6 and Cyril 7 the last time they had seen each other. At that time they used to go to the bioscope, the cinema, to see cowboy and Indian serial films, and when reenacting these, Riva was always the heroine. Cyril made sure he was the handsome cowboy and therefore his younger brother Leon had to take the part of the villain. The perks of this arrangement were that the hero always saved the girl, and was rewarded with a thank-you kiss!) She was, Cyril decided on the way to Durban, obviously going to be grumpy and bad-tempered and longing for her boyfriend back in London, and worse, Cyril had to leave his current girlfriend behind whilst off on this family mission, so he was not very happy with this arrangement.

Back in London my parents and I were waiting anxiously to hear how things were going, my aunt telling us about a series of parties she was planning to throw to give Riva a good time, and to introduce her to Johannesburg’s finest young men. Well, it didn’t quite work out that way! Since I wasn’t there and don’t know what happened, I can only report that by the time that Cyril brought Riva back to his home, they had fallen madly in love, and he had no intention of letting anyone else even meet her!

Within a few days there was talk of marriage and my parents were bewildered and stunned - “Who would ever marry a first cousin? And how did this all happen, so fast?” Hurried talks were scheduled with doctors, who assured them that there was nothing wrong with first cousins marrying, as long as there wasn’t any major hereditary illness, and also it was safer if they weren’t sisters’ children. And then it seemed that everyone we knew had married their first cousin - our neighbours, my parents' friends - the list grew every day.

So now the wedding was scheduled for 10th November 1946, and, naturally, my parents and I were expected to be there. My father’s business was with Government surplus goods, e.g., coats, uniforms, boots and in fact anything that was no longer required. He had a factory that mended, remade and did whatever was necessary to these items, and they were then shipped out all over the world. It was very difficult to find any transport at that time, so my father had to use all his contacts and connections to find a way to convey us over to Johannesburg - but he was eventually successful, my mother and I would fly and he would follow, just before the wedding. There was a flurry of activity, my mother begging her siblings, or anyone she knew, for clothing coupons for me, as I had just left school and grown alarmingly tall, and literally had nothing to wear. Eventually she had enough to buy me two austerity dresses, and I thought I was a princess!

 The excitement grew - we were leaving cold, dark (we were always having power cuts), depressed London and we were off on this wonderful adventure. The plane we left on was a converted York bomber, seating 12, and as these planes could only fly during the day because they didn’t have landing equipment for night-time flying and they then had to refuel for the next leg of the flight, the journey was incredibly long, 5 days. We were scheduled to stop at Marseilles, Cairo, Khartoum, Salisbury and finally land at Palmietfontein airport, just outside Johannesburg.

The bomber wasn’t pressurised, had very hard seats, with no room for my long skinny legs, and a vent directed hot air onto my neck. So this wonderful trip to paradise turned to hell - I was horribly air-sick before we had even reached our first destination, and from then on everything was a blur. I remember beseeching my mother to leave me behind at every stop as I retched for the whole journey. There were no pills or remedies in those days, and I grew weaker and weaker. The nights were blessed relief, staying in hotels in these exotic stops, but it still felt as if we were flying and I was absolutely miserable (on reflection, it couldn’t have been much fun for my mother either!). In Cairo we were taken in open trucks, like the ones used for cattle, and there was such anti-British feeling at that time that everyone passing would spit at us and throw stones. I have vague memories of the pyramids and the Sphinkies (I remember that is how they referred to the Sphinx) and the red-fezzed men with their white long coats and red sashes - I think in Khartoum - but after what seemed like an eternity we arrived in South Africa into the arms of our waiting family.

All I wanted was to lie still, and did so for about 2 weeks, with my aunt trying to tempt my non-existent appetite with grapes, lichis, and various tropical delicacies that I had never heard of, and definitely never seen. When I finally mustered enough strength to look outside I was nearly blinded! The sky was the brightest blue I had ever seen, the sun was pouring down, the trees were covered in blossoms - the marvellous jacarandas with their huge purple/mauve flowers. My whole world was now in Techicolor and the contrast from the grey, dreary, sad world I had left just days ago to this paradise was almost too much for this sheltered teenager to comprehend. It had the same wonderment that happens when you paint those special colouring books with water, and all the different colours emerge.

And all these gorgeous young men . . . I had just spent 5 years in a private British girls' school, with no boys in our lives, other than the one that lived next door and used to gather his chums and they would cheekily stare into one of our three bathrooms - all, conveniently for them, facing onto his house. I had noticed them doing this one day, rallied all the 36 girls in our house, and on a count of 3 we all covered our 3 bathroom windows with screaming, annoyed and spirited faces - and that was the end of the boys' cheap thrills! But now I was fascinated by studying this species up close. They were so different from us and it was an incredible education for this naive schoolgirl.

The house next door was quite close to my aunt’s, and my cousin (not the engaged one, of course) and his buddies spent quite a lot of time looking out the window and admiring the beautiful girl next door. She had a stunning figure, wore very short shorts that showed off her perfect pair of legs, and seemed amazingly sexy. She lived there with her "mother and father and brother" - they were recent immigrants from England, the parents both hairdressers. The goddess had been left an orphan by a bombing raid and was taken into this family as their daughter - she was about 18, I think, and the boy of the family about 11. So they had opened a beauty salon nearby, and were re-establishing themselves. The mother was a typical British housewife, a little dumpy, very pleasant but ordinary, and the father was youthful looking and slim, and seemed several years his wife’s junior. The "boys" at my establishment marvelled that the husband seemed quite content with his wife, whilst living under the same roof with this object of their lust! Some weeks later my aunt saw this lady on the street, and while they were chatting about nothing in particular, she told my aunt, “Oh, by the way, my husband and I are getting divorced.” When Aunt Becky relayed this news to us all, no-one was surprised, and the ‘boys’ were vindicated in their evaluations! They assumed that the husband and the siren were finally going to team up. However, it was not quite like that - the charmer picked the frumpy mother as her partner! What a surprise and shock!

I realised then how innocent and unworldly I still was, and how much growing up was ahead of me.

(A short note: My sister married our cousin - they have 4 wonderful children, eight incredible grandchildren and recently welcomed their first great-grandson into the family. And on 10th November 2007, they celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary.)