McClelands Archives - Page 6 of 7

The Spoon Rest: Lost in Translation

By Blaine McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands 28 April 2015 0 Comment

One day when I was in about standard 4 Mom decided that she needed a spoon rest while she was cooking. I asked her what it was and I said that I would make her one, in fact I would make her a double one. She described it as having a concave part where the bowl of the spoon could lie and a raised bit at the back for the handle. With these scanty design specifications, I went to work. I incorporated the technical features and added some customisation of my own. After a few days of cutting, filing and sanding pieces of fruit case wood, I produced my masterpiece piece

Main picture: Lost in Translation

Arachnophobia: Spiderman I Ain’t

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 28 April 2015 0 Comment

They say that much of what we are, we learn at the knee of our parents. Well, I learnt my fear of spiders from Mom. Maybe she learnt that from her mom but, then again, Granny Dix looked so stern that she would have scared away the spiders. Mom was terrified of them to the point of irrationality. Unfortunately for her, the rain spider is endemic in Southern Africa and, I must admit, they are big, hairy and scary. To her they were not the gentle rain spider, they were the worst thing she could think of – tarantulas.

Main picture: One of at least 6 rain spiders that inhabited our bedroom

God: Losing my Religion

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands, Religion 23 April 2015 1 Comment

Coming from a pretty religious family, Dad must have been a disappointment. My great, great grandfather, Rev Francis McCleland, was the first Rector of the St Mary’s Church. Our family actually owns a square foot of the historical parsonage house at 7 Castle Hill, P.E.

Main picture: As dad was an atheist and mom was religious, the church which we were supposed to attend as children was the Newton Park Methodist Church

Moon Landing: A Small Step for Man, A Large Leap For Boykind

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 20 April 2015 0 Comment

1969 was a momentous year. It was my senior year in primary school and I was doing well at school. My brain had been awakened and was like blotting paper to this fascinating world. My interests rampaged across the sciences of aeronautics, electronics, chemistry, physics, astronomy and quite naturally space travel. I stalked the main public library for interesting books. I discovered the separate Reference section and photostated pages from the various Janes[1] so that Dean and I could discuss the latest weapon systems at home. They were carefully selected because of economic strictures.

Home was No. 57 Mowbray Street, Newton Park, Port Elizabeth

By Dean McCleland in McClelands, Other Personal 19 April 2015 3 Comments

Everybody has a special place; a place that one calls home. For the McCleland’s it was 57 Mowbray Street, Newton Park, Port Elizabeth. It was nothing special; just a normal middle class rectangular house without any pretensions of greatness, grandiosity or style. But what it did possess was not character but some unique features which will forever be remembered by the family and associated with our home.

Main picture: The diamond shaped window panels of the patio

Christmas: The Grinch Who Nearly Stole Christmas

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 18 April 2015 0 Comment

Christmas is probably one of the most exciting times for a kid. In South Africa we were doubly blessed by it coming in the middle of the long summer holidays. Just when you were getting bored of doing nothing, there came Christmas, slap bang in the middle. It couldn’t have been planned better.

Rev Francis McCleland: From Passage West to the Cape – 1820

By Dean McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands 12 April 2015 4 Comments

This is the third episode in the life and times of the Reverend Francis McCleland [1793-1853]. It chronicles the period from his arrival in Passage West in early 1820 aboard the East Indian from London. Francis had visited the British capital in order to expedite his acceptance as a Settler. Furthermore, William Parker had assigned him the task of escorting the English settlers in his party to Ireland. On his arrival in Passage West, Francis’ spontaneous disposition takes precedence. He engages in a whirlwind romance and marriage to a native of Passage West by the name of Elizabeth Clark. A week later, the couple sailed off into the blue yonder – the Cape of Good Hope.

Main picture: View of current day Passage West

Radiogram: New Adventures in Hi-Fi

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 29 March 2015 0 Comment

Vignettes on Youth Series

We had a big valve radio. At some stage it sat in the dining room on a side table. We must have listened to it many times as a family as Dad and radios were a single organism. However, I only remember one occasion.

Picture idyllic the scene: It’s a cold winter’s night with Dad and Mom sitting in chairs on either side of the table and a single bar heater in the front. Dean and Cheryl are on the carpet reading and drawing and I am also drawing – copying a picture from a Noddy book. It’s the one on the inside cover that shows Noddy and Big Ears in his car with Toyland in the background. I consider myself to be an excellent artist and this is my best work yet, in fact it’s a perfect facsimile. I rush over to my parents to show them and it slips out of my hand and onto the element. Spoof. My masterpiece is bursts into flames without the world, as least my parents, having seen what I’m capable of.

The Hedge: Fort B

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 28 March 2015 0 Comment

Boys love forts. Give them a few planks and a barrel and, voila, they make a fort and proceed to declare war on the world. Bush must have been big on forts but this story is about a hedge and not a bush.

Elizabeth Daisy McCleland: Overcoming Adversity

By Dean McCleland in McClelands, Port Elizabeth of Yore 27 March 2015 1 Comment

Granny Mac was more than our grandmother, she was the matriarch of the family. Adversity came in many forms, all steeling her for the next calamity. But she endured, persevered and overcame all these trials and trubulations. First the family lost its farm on the Gamtoos due to floods, then the cattle herd at De Stades due to rinderpest, but the cherry on the top was the death of her husband, Harry William, due to Black Water Fever in 1925. Despite all this misfortune and adversity, she survived and prospered. With her tiny frame and diminutive size, she was the epitome of the fighter that she was.

This is the story of that amazing woman.

Main picture: Schoenmakerskop and Daisy’s Tea Room with its famous home-made buns became a popular destination due to the convergence of a number of simultaneous events namely the invention of the motor car and the opening of the coastal road to Schoenies in 1922.

The Opinion Pieces are an eclectic bunch on current affairs & history often with a human interest aspect. The Movie/DVDs reviews are mainly on documentaries with a smattering of movie reviews.

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