Back to website - www.lilley.org.za Called by His Name - Made for His Glory Noreen Holmes 1 2 This edition published in 2021. Other Publications by this Author: The Fingerprint of God - March 2020 Front Cover: Painting by Neville Holmes 3 DEDICATION This is for my two children – Jeanette Nadia and Paul Mounier – and their families. Foreword This is my story as I remember it. This is not the full story. I have deliberately left out certain matters - either because I don’t choose to share them or because someone might be hurt. Some very personal parts of my life I have shared only because others may be helped by my experiences. I apologise for the fact that the word “I” occurs so frequently. It is hard to avoid it in a personal narrative. I am very conscious of God’s hand on my life and His faithfulness through everything. Isaiah 43:7 says it all – “Thus says the Lord …… Everyone who is called by My name, whom I have created for My glory; I have formed him, yes, I have made him/her”. To Him be the glory. 4 5 A South African Childhood It was after midnight on 16th July, 1938, that I was welcomed into the world. I was born in the City of Cape Town, in my Grandmother Lilley’s bedroom at No. 4, Gibson Road, Wynberg. My parents were married in July 1937. I was their only child and they named me Noreen Pamela. My father, George Francis Keenan, left Birmingham in England and immigrated to South Africa, with his parents, at the age of six. He was an only child and nearly fell overboard on the trip to Cape Town. My grandparents were working-class people and were both employed at factories in England, my grandfather as a radial driller. I still have the testimonials they received from “Alldays & Onions, Pneumatic Engineering Co., Ltd., Contractors to his Majesty’s Government”, “T. Harris & Co., Manufacturers of Mail Carts, Bassinets, Iron Chair Bedsteads, Chair Cushions & Perambulator Rugs” and “Wells Brothers Manufacturers of Fenders, Curb Suites, Fire Brasses and Brass, Iron and Wood Bedsteads”. My grandfather’s forebears came from County Claire in Ireland. He was a gentle, kind man and always generous to me as a child. I never went home without a half-crown in my hand. He worked as a timekeeper in a furniture factory in South Africa for many years. My grandmother had a stronger personality. Apart from her home, she got involved in working for the United Party of General Smuts. She served in the St John’s Ambulance and also joined the army to assist in the Second World War effort. She worked in the Old Supreme Court building and trained telephonists for the army. She had quite a caustic tongue and was not an easy mother-in-law to my mother. To me she was my grandmother and I loved her. While living in Gardens, Cape Town, my grandparents started the Hercules Athletics Club that continued for a number of years. I have a silver cup that my grandmother won. My father was a cross country runner before taking up long distance walking, when he was the South African and Western Province long distance (50 km) walking champion for a number of years running. He hoped to compete in the Olympic Games as he was the best in SA, but his time at the trials was not fast enough to qualify for the Games. The family were nominal Roman Catholics, although my grandparents were married in St Jude’s Parish Church, Birmingham - presumably my grandmother’s background. The only time I knew my grandparents to go to their church was when I expressed a desire to attend an Easter service. I was twelve and found it too long for my liking - and it was in Latin. 6 My father had been to school at Marist Brothers and served as a choirboy (or altar boy) in the church - probably St Mary’s Cathedral. He completed his schooling in Grade Ten (Std 8). I had a book he won as a prize at school so he must have done quite well, academically. Grade Ten was considered a good standard of education in those days. His mother took pride in him, being an only son, and he was always well dressed. On leaving school, he started work as a clerk at the City Hall. The one thing for which I am deeply grateful to my Keenan Grandparents was that they showed me a good marriage - although my grandmother was the stronger person. They celebrated their Diamond Wedding anniversary together. Every evening, my grandmother trekked a considerable distance to meet my grandfather halfway as he walked home from work. Sometimes I accompanied them to the hotel where they stopped for a drink. Against the law, they smuggled me into a lounge with the connivance of Tommy the waiter. I sat behind the door and it was presumably hoped no one would notice. I drank Lemonade, my grandmother gin and my grandfather Lion lager or ale. Sometimes I stayed home with Nana. Occasionally they got sentimental as we sat round the table in the big kitchen and they sang Irish songs to me, such as “When Irish eyes are smiling” and “The Rose of Tralee”. In their home I had my own beer mug. My mother would have had a fit. At the age of twelve, I went to a Temperance meeting at Rosebank Methodist Church and signed the pledge. So, I gave up alcohol at the age of twelve and, although my grandparents scoffed at it, I never went back on my pledge. My grandmother’s home was very well organized. I remember the many glass jars with cream-painted lids on the shelves in her scullery. They contained herbs and other ingredients used in cooking. She had some lovely white, blue and yellow china too. Out of the cups we drank Ceylon tea mixed with the indigenous “rooibos” (red bush) tea from the Cedarberg Mountains and sweetened with condensed milk. At the end of their fairly big garden was a fowl run. I enjoyed feeding the hens that they kept. A special treat was to go and collect the eggs in the henhouse, leaving behind the artificial one – supposed to encourage the hens to lay more eggs. I ate the strawberries that my grandmother grew. They were planted in long beds behind a fenced-in area entered by a gate. Overhead was a pergola with clusters of Dorothy Perkins pink roses climbing all over it. The toilet was outside in the garden as well. Municipal workers collected the bucket, containing “nightsoil”. Newspaper, cut into squares and threaded on a string, served as toilet paper. The approach to 7 the outhouse had a wooden trelliswork, covered with pink, climbing ivy geranium. My great-grandmother Clarke (Nana) lived with my grandparents. She knitted and crocheted socks and other clothing for me. She was small and thin and somewhat bent. She was also very kind to me, her only great- grandchild. She died of cancer in her eighties. Nana had been widowed at quite a young age as my great-grandfather was already deceased when my grandmother got married. Another member of the family was an Alsatian dog, called Duke. One day Duke ate my cake. I was unafraid and Duke was tolerant. So, no harm came to me when I put my hand in his mouth trying to get my cake back! One traumatic incident was when a butcher bird (Fiscal Shrike) killed the canary in its cage and the household was bereft of its musical member. My parents were divorced when I was five years old and my mother was not their favourite person. So, I did not mention her. My father was away with the army in Egypt and Italy. Part of the divorce settlement was that I was to spend half my holidays with my father (or his parents). Although quite young, I travelled on my own by train from Wynberg to Cape Town and met my grandmother at the ladies’ waiting room on the station. I felt nervous when I stayed alone with Nana in the evenings and sleeping alone in a big room. The house had an empty field next to it and seemed lonely and unsafe. I lay in bed and heard the sound of the steam trains some distance away. Although homesick for my mother I could not talk about it. In Duncan Road, Parow, where my grandparents lived, I stood on the rockery in the corner of the front garden and watched the neighbourhood children at play. My grandmother would not allow me to play with them. I was lonely by day and scared at night - and I could not share with my grandmother and grandfather without hurting their feelings. So, I kept my own counsel. Once at least, they must have sensed my distress because they put me in their bed, between the two of them to comfort me. I know that I felt very hot under their bedding. One remembers the strangest incidents - often apparently insignificant moments. They did all they could to make me happy by taking me to see children’s films, providing me with crayons and colouring-in books and papers on which to draw. I wanted to draw beautiful things, but the results were disappointing. They also took me to restaurants with white linen napkins and all kinds of silverware, and to the magical (for me) Del Monica Restaurant where “stars” shone in the dark ceiling.