from the desk of Glenda.
Hello! Below is the long version of my background. If you have a busy day ahead or, like me, you are not into speed reading, I'll keep this brief and hopefully lighten your day!
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Born and raised in Kokstad, South Africa, I have also lived in Australia, Jersey (Channel Islands) and now North Carolina, USA. I have loved living in all these places, but my heart will forever belong to my beloved South Africa!
I was born in Durban, South Africa, the youngest of four children. Our mother was of Swedish and South African heritage and met our Australian father in Durban. We moved to Kokstad, a prosperous farming town in East Griqualand (later to become part of Kwa-Zulu Natal) when I was just six months old, and spent many happy hours snuggled on the back of my beloved nanny Paulina, still a common sight in South Africa today, upon whom my character Ellen is based.
I had an idyllic childhood playing outside with friends in the glorious weather and climbing the plum trees in our backyard, as does Kristi. We grew up amongst the Xhosa tribe of South Africa and most townspeople spoke English, Afrikaans and Xhosa. My mother, being from Durban, also spoke Zulu.
The winters were cold, and the surrounding mountains would often show a dusting of snow and a deeper covering in harsher winters. Without TV until the mid-1970’s, our summer evenings were spent sitting on the outside balcony, chatting with family or friends around a braai (bbq). In the winter, we would huddle in front of the fireplace, listening to radio shows, reading, or chatting.
I attended junior school in Kokstad and enjoyed school sports and extracurricular activities far more than the drudgery of class lessons. I particularly loved the time I spent horse riding and show jumping.
For my senior school years I attended Wykeham Girls school in Pietermaritzburg, known then for the broad brimmed hats that were part of the uniform. I made wonderful, lifelong friends there and our year group, though scattered around the world, are still in contact and gather together as often as distance allows us.
After school and impatient to get on with my life, I passed on University and took a sales position travelling all over Natal in what was then a male dominated career, but quickly raised the funds I needed to fund my first trip to Europe. I was based in London but backpacked around Europe for several months staying in youth hostels embracing the culture, language and cuisine of so many different countries .
Traveling in pre-EU Europe, crossing multiple borders, especially on a South African passport, was not easy due to sanctions imposed on the apartheid government. Faced with criticism and sometimes open hostility from travellers of other nations, my apologies for the injustices apartheid inflicted on non-white South Africans seemed inconsequential and provoked a deep shame and sadness for my country.
I fell in love with Interlaken in Switzerland, a stunningly beautiful village at the base of the Eiger and Jungfrau mountains, working for three months in the Youth Hostel. I really wanted to visit my fathers country so I returned to London to board a flight for Australia and settled in Brisbane for a year, once again in sales, covering the South East corner of Queensland.
The following year the company asked me to lead the sales team in Perth, Western Australia. After a year there I went home for Christmas in Pietermaritzburg. Upon landing in Durban, the lush greenery and tropical aromas mixed with the sea air reminded me how much I missed my beloved South Africa.
My company happily relocated me to a new position in Durban. The following year I spent the winter in Neustift, a very small ski village on the Austria-Italy border and met my Australian husband Stephen. He shared my love of travel and talked me into joining him in Sydney, Australia where I worked for Ansett promoting Hayman Island, their new deluxe Barrier Reef resort and also completed my Interior Design qualification. Sadly my father passed away suddenly while I was in Sydney and I made a heartbroken trip to Pietermaritzburg for his funeral. Two years later we moved to and were married in Mudgee, a pretty town not unlike Kokstad, surrounded by farms and vineyards in country NSW, with our reception in Craigmoor Winery.
Two years later I gave birth to twin boys, James and Robert, and our wanderlust abated for a few years. We arranged for my darling mother Mignon to emigrate to Australia and live with us in Mudgee. She was a delight to have in our home and devoted herself to our boys who in turn adored her.
After seven special years in Mudgee we knew we wanted to continue our traveling adventure together and allow our children the opportunity to experience a European upbringing. Mignon was thrilled to join us on this new adventure and we moved to Jersey, a small island off the coast of France with a rich French and English history and lived there for twenty years.
Only two years after arriving we lost our darling, precious Mignon to cancer. We were all distraught and I was devastated, lost in the enormous hole she left in my life. I started to write a story, later to become Thembe’s Cloth, using Mignon as the template for Kristi’s mother, but the pain of her loss was still so raw, I stopped.
With our boys attending boarding school in England I discovered a passion for flying and gained my pilots licence. On my initial solo flight I was caught in a fog bank as conditions changed quickly around the island, and although petrified, managed to get back to the island and land safely. I immediately signed up and achieved my instrument and night ratings. I loved flying, the technical skills needed and the sense of freedom while flying over the islands and nearby French countryside.
In 2015 we embarked on our next adventure and moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, having enjoyed the beautiful Wrightsville beach on a previous visit. Here, encouraged by my husband and boys, I resumed writing Thembe’s Cloth. My family suggested a few illustrations to accompany my novel so I retrieved my artbox, sadly ignored for too many years, to paint the watercolors of my much loved Mount Currie, Ellen, Thembela, Gogo and Kristi used in Thembe’s Cloth and more recently, of my close friends grandchildren.
The map below shows my places of residence so far and with Thembe’s Cloth finally published, I eagerly await our next adventure!
questions I am often asked.
1) Are you Kristi?
Yes, I am! (Every reader gets really excited at getting this right!!). The early part of the story in the Graham household is absolutely based on the events of my childhood.
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2) Did Thembela exist as a child/adult?
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Yes, she did as a child. However, the adult Thembe is how I imagined life could have turned out for her and so many others, without the restrictions of apartheid.
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3) Did Thembela really sleep on the kitchen floor?
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Yes, she did. The winters were bitterly cold in Kokstad. Our kitchen had an esse stove (aga) which was the warmest spot in our home. We would make up a bed next to the warm stove and out of harm's way.
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4) Was Harrison real and was he really murdered?
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No, Harrison was just a part of the story.
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5) Did you know all your characters?
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No, most of them are fictitious. However, their characters represented so many black South Africans I knew growing up and whom I had interacted with.
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6) Was your family's relationship to Black South Africans rare or common?
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Yes, some treated them appallingly, but most families had a close relationship with them. Certainly, this was how I remember our friends in our neighborhood and surrounding farmlands treated their domestic staff. As I mentioned in my book, Nelson Mandela's peaceful transfer to power was his wisdom in understanding the inherent goodwill of most South African people of all races.
my photo album.
As the youngest child, I have gone through mounds of photos, and found lots of photos of my brothers, a few of my sister, and very few of me! My mum was wise not to photograph me. It was a well-known fact that I was not a good looking baby. At least I was a happy baby!
