Philip Bruce ~ Founder of the Newsletter!

[Michael Alexander]

Here's an interesting piece of Oranjemund History, Philip Bruce. the founder of the Oranjemund Newsletter, way back in November 1956,

[mavis(smith)]

It is Robert Bruce (Dad)

[Michael Alexander]

Thanks Mavis, I was wondering about that.....

[Robert Bruce]

This is my dad's brother Philip.

My parents were the first Bruce's to arrive at OM.

They were then followed to Oranjemund by my dad's elder brother Philip and his wife Betty Bruce and then by my mother's brother and his wife, John and Doreen Wright.

My dad wishes he could have nurtured a moustache like Uncle Phil's. It was a beauty! Dad's was a trifling diminutive RAF handlebar job!   

[Robert Bruce]

11/2/2019

Just read my reply immediately above and it got me thinking that I do not recall knowing of any other families related to both the man and wife of the first family to settle in OM and remain there for x or xx years before moving on.

We had my dad's elder brother and my mother's younger brother and their respective wives.

Were there others? Would be interesting to learn if there were.

24February 2019

Uncle Phil went on to become Director of PR for De Beers at the London head office. He did well and am p.eased he broke with family tradition of all sons of a Bruce become Employees of Lloyds Bank. I think he initially started at Lloyds but my dad's adventure to Southern Africa following a great Aunt' s wooing  of her niece (my mother) to get to Cape Town where the sun shone at night, guavas were the size of a football etc etc met with success. Minna had fallen in love with a South African soldier during WW1 and he became my Uncle Frank. Wow, what a fantastic human being he was.

Frank and Minna lived in Green Point and I loved going there whenever we holidayed at Cape Town.

Aside from two other brothers who remained in U.K., the entire Bruce/Wright clan departed UK to settle in South Africa. In a previous post I have mentioned mum's two brothers Jim and John.

Some of you will recall John and Doreen Wright from their days at Oranjemund. The other brother Jim settled in Cape Town.

I should mention here that millions of Castle Lager and Lion Ale fans down the ages owe the constant availability of their favoured beer to Uncle Jim! He made sure the electrics worked day and night at that place in Newlands that hat overlooks the best cricket ground in the world - Newlands! And you know who sponsors the cricket teams.....jawelnofine, CASTLE by Ohllsons Brewery makers of the finest lager in the universe!

Nod thanks to Uncle Jim.

[toonfandangl]

Hi Bruce your last post (over a year ago) here was about being the first family in Oranjemund. I spent a few years there and would have spent more but for the fact that my eldest son went to school there and would have to be boarded out to Cape Town. My wife Margaret pulled the plug and so returned to the UK, I would have liked to stay longer but a marriage is a two way give and take and I have been giving for 56 years and suppose will keep on and No I don't do FACEBook.   





 

[Robert Bruce]

Thanks for the response above.

I regret that my parents elected to return to UK after so many years at CDM. By the time I was in Std 7 at Littlewood House, Wynberg Boys High in Cape Town and really, really loving it despite the rigors of discipline etc., the news that I was to leave WBHS hit me hard. I'd be saying goodbye to my little world in which I lived and grew up. I was not a happy chappie.

I'd just become used to my knew teachers at WBHS and the curriculum and importantly how to study and would now have to go through the whole process again in a cold, wet, cramped, continuously overcast, completely green, no desert to go explore or search for tiger-eye and agate stones avoid snakes etc etc.

Most important of all, the sense of freedom Mother Nature provided us OM kids in the form of the Namib desert and knowing our parents knew we were safe was snapped away from me. No more would I be free to go out and wander around without being aware of the danger around the corner.

It was vital to learn/adapt to a new form of independence and was a very steep learning curve BUT I think all of us kids who were schooled at OPS already learned discipline and to be more independent and to a degree than most kids our age.

Yes we were naughty as all kids tend to be BUT we had the oldest and best and biggest after-school playground any child could wish for - The Namib. And we had the swimming-pool, the park, the old quarry, the Pink Pan, tennis courts, the best maintained rugby, cricket and soccer fields, squash courts, etc etc etc

All we could wish for as kids was right their within easy walking distance from our front doors.

I wish I could say that now!

[Michael Alexander]

Nice words Robert, strange how we can all relate the the same youthful antics in Oranjemund even though we are from different era's...