The Kerk in Sleepy Hollow
Joey never made us forget that we had Maritz blood
The first motorcar I can recall my dad owning was a Valiant. It was a big car and was partnered with my dad's Bedford truck at our farm located between Pietermaritzburg and Greytown. Pietermaritzburg is known as Sleepy Hollow. It is a dull place with not much happening in the town, except the yearly world famous ultra marathon known as The Comrades. Then there was the time it came to world prominence for looting. Not much of a feather in the town's cap.
The Bedford was a solid workhorse and was built with curves unlike any modern day equivalent cybertruck. The Valiant was replaced by a string of Mercedes-Benz cars, a 280 SE, a 280E, a 300D, and a 200. The latter two would take me to Grey College at least eight times a year if not more. In my last two years of high school my dad would allow me to take the wheel and drive. My dad would always register the cars as NH 3000, and in the mail would receive a magazine, called “In Alle Welt” from Mercedes-Benz. Mail has exited from our lives but that was one of the primary means of communication and doing business. The other being a Bakerlite phone.
The dirt road to our farm had a perfect hump near the fake castle of the neighbours, the Seeles, which when taken at speed would churn your stomach. The kids would all set on the back seat and we would watch as the speedo climbed to 200km/h. My mom would be an enthusiastic participant in the escapade and for my friends from school it would be the highlight of the trip to the farm.
After the Bedford and a Chevrolet El Camino, my dad started buying a string of Datsun/Nissan 1200/1400 bakkies. I even borrowed that to go on our matric holiday after graduating from Grey College. Notably it was used to cart many inebriated friends from the Wild Coast Hotel where we went a strip show. In those years, South Africa was still suppressed and heavily censured. Strip shows were illegal, and magazines were not allowed to publish any pictures of naked woman. The most popular magazine of the time was the Scope, where the centrefolds had white stars over their boobs. The Wild Coast Hotel was in the Bantustan of Transkei which allowed those strip shows as well as gambling. As South Africans we were meant to be pious Calvinists. The next day after this escapade, I was in the back of Grant’s (our host) beach buggy which crashed head on into a mate’s Ford Cortina bakkie. I slammed my head into the rollover bar. Grant and I went to repair the buggy in Margate without his dad being aware of it. But he knew as the next time he saw me he casually mentioned it. Grant snitched on me even though I was the aggrieved party. The Matric holiday was indeed wild. I recall us be bounced from the Palm Grove after the whole placed erupted into a brawl and I was forced to dodge flying beer bottles.
My parents and the neighbours together owned a yellow VW Combi. My siblings would use this to go to school for both primary and high schools at Wartburg-Kirchdorf. I would ride the Combi to primary school only as I went later to Grey for High School. I would always try and sit in the dog box at the back. This allowed me to read books without being disturbed by the rest of my fellow unruly passengers. My best memories of those trips are drinking Coca-Cola from a glass bottle which we bought from the New Hanover Tearoom. There is nothing better than finding a glass bottle of coke in a shop and buying it as it triggers those pleasant and carefree days.
There is another tearoom in which my family was involved. My mom’s family on her maternal side were part of the Gert Maritz trek party. Joey, my Ouma, make certain we knew about this. On a fateful day, a fellow trek leader, Piet Retief, decided to strike a deal with Dingane, Shaka’s brother. Maritz had heard via the grapevine that meeting Dingane would be unwise. However, Retief rode up to Maritz’s tent, called him a coward and proceeded to walk into an ambush in Dingane’s kraal. Joey, would make sure that we would never forgive that insult to our clan by Retief.
The Boers extracted revenge from Dingane in the Battle of Bloedrivier. At this battle the Boers concluded a covenant, Gelofte, whereby they agreed as part of the Gelofte to build a Kerk to honour God if they won the battle. This was duly done, and a Kerk was built in Kerk Straat in Pietermaritzburg. Before the Anglo Boer War, the Kerk was sold by the NG Kerk and would be used in various commercial iterations including that of a Tearoom. In the year before South Africa became a Union, my mom’s grandmother would contribute the single biggest portion to the funds to repurchase back the Kerk which would eventually become the Voortrekker Museum. The Kerk was donated back to the NG Kerk and a new modern larger Kerk build next to it where my parents were married in early 1961. Joey invited all the important people in the town and the reception was in the Maritzburg town hall, a beautiful red brick building, a stones throw from the Kerk.
Most Afrikaners are unaware of this part of their history, have never visited the Kerk or are even aware of its existence. Ironic as it means the Covenant that was made was broken. Most believe that the Covenant was the marking of the day of the Battle of Bloedrivier as a day of worship. This is also the narrative in James A. Mitchener’s book The Covenant. The Kerk a forgotten side artifact of a history rewritten with a superficial reading of the Covenant.
One day my brother in law who lives in America told us in a trip to visit the cousins who lived in Pretoria that the Voortrekker Monument, which we were passing was build as a result of the Covenant. I tried to tell him about the Gelofte Kerk in Maritzburg but he dismissed it. I never will, Joey, Johanna Maria Magdalena ,made certain of that.
Reference: Voortrekker Kerk Pietermaritzburg https://onafhanklik.com/2018/12/16/voortrekker-kerk-pietermaritzburg/
