The Diary of Iris Vaughan “The war is ended. Pop says now the military will leave him alone. The Pompom has gone off the church and sandbags it was a shame to put it on a church. At last we could go up, without telling. Some of the steps are broken it was not easy. we had to jump. When we came home Mom found out and rowed us. She said you could break your necks there.” So at last the children managed to sneak up to the top of the DRC tower (probably because now the door was no longer locked) even though the ‘pompom’ had been removed. Despite the fact that they thought they had done so undetected, Patty Vaughan’s trouble-radar immediately picked up that her offspring had once again ‘helped themselves to much trouble’! Most mothers uncannily know this. But Iris also reveals something of the damage done to the church when she refers to the state of the steps. Although by the end of 1902 the protection of the town was in the hands of the town guard, earlier in the War British forces had occupied Adelaide. The tower of the DRC was the highest structure for miles around at 30m high (picture 1), so they commandeered the church and used it as a fort. They lugged the ‘pompom’ Maxim machine gun that so fascinated Iris and Charles up the stairs to the top of the tower, and barricaded the church with sandbags. Many other churches suffered similar fates – Sutherland, Prince Albert (picture 2), Cradock – although in most cases their towers were just used as look-out points. In Adelaide the parsonage was used as stables and the church itself as barracks for the soldiers. The same fate befell the magistrate’s residency that the Vaughans moved into; you may remember from an earlier post how Patty Vaughan had to clean it because it was left in a filthy state after the military had left - probably to chase after Smuts once he had entered the Cape. Soldiers are not known for their sanitary habits, nor are they great respecters of church or heritage. We can only guess as to the state of the interior. And as you can imagine, none of this went down well with the local Dutch-speaking community. Once the War was over, they immediately wanted to restore their church. There were more than enough willing hands, but very little money to buy the materials necessary for the restoration. But then something amazing happened. I will let Roger Webster have the last word, as he tells the story so well in his ‘Fireside Chats’: One day two long-wheelbase transport wagons trundled into town and stopped outside the DRC. They were piled to the sky with fine cut timber and a handcrafted oak pulpit with a matching chair. Astounded, the congregants swallowed some of the nastier expressions they had reserved for British officers and soldiers, as they came to the conclusion that the English had a conscience after all and had sent the timber as an apology. Believing themselves thus to be blissfully blessed, they immediately set to work. Within a few months the church was fully restored; Ds Van Wyk (picture 3) was ensconced in his smart new pulpit (picture 4), and life settled down to its normal Sunday routine. A few years later the mayor of Adelaide received a letter from the mayor of Adelaide, Australia: “Dear Sir. It is with some trepidation that we enquire whether a consignment of oak wood, which we ordered from England about two years ago for our new church has not perhaps, by mistake, been delivered to your town in South Africa instead of ours?” Well, by that stage ‘die koeël was deur die kerk’ so to speak, so the congregation took a few photographs and dispatched them to Australia together with a letter explaining how their church had got damaged in the War and thanking them for their generous gesture! And here endeth the lesson for today!
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 21:27:01 +0000
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