6. And then came the children

 The British Syrian Mission used to be a mission run by English ladies, but changed names and had some men in it. Dad was one of the first men to work with that mission and having families was a new experience for everyone. Especially such rapidly growing families! Later it was called the Lebanon Evangelical Mission.

I was born on the first of July 1948 in the northern Lebanese port of Tripoli at the American Hospital. We continued in Shemlan for the next few months, but moved to Hasbeya in September for language acquisition school.

                              

     

     

Hasbeya is one of the oldest towns on the slopes of Mount Hermon, inhabited by the Druze, with some Christians. Australian missionary, Doug Anderson met Mom and Dad there and wrote, “The de Smidts then settled into the old Mission house in Hasbeya and on my arrival in Lebanon in 1948, I quickly had the joy of meeting Les, and, although Shemlan he was older and with a greater breadth of experience, we immediately found a oneness of spirit and outlook that deepened and grew richer over the years. In Hasbeya, Les studied Arabic and visited with the pastor, Reverend Ibrahim Daghir, and entered into the life of Lebanon’s people. It was a joy to visit in the district with him and see his easy way of making friends, his readiness to enjoy the people, his ability to laugh with them at his own mistakes and to see the effect on the people of his Christian testimony.”

Dad once told me that he was invited to meet some of the Druze Elders, as a mark of honour. He knew how to show respect and get along with people.

My sister, Brenda was due in February 1950, but since snow was plentiful, we had to get through to Tripoli well before the time of her birth, so went through Beirut, along the coast to Tripoli on Monday 11^th February. Brenda Anne was born on 15^th February 1950 and was also delivered by Dr. Boyes. We all returned to Hasbeya and I was slowly becoming fluent in Arabic, although English was spoken at home. Mom told me that I dropped a cake tin on Brenda and poured sand in her face once. I seemed to have found it difficult to initially accept this new intrusion into our lives, but soon adjusted to her as pa

  

   

In September 1950, Mom was changing Brenda’s nappy and she noticed her legs were very limp. She had contracted polio at seven months of age. Dad and Mom were shattered by this, and often expressed distress about it all. I remember, when I was a bit older, exercising Brenda’s feet and falling asleep while doing it, until Mom woke me up again.

Wanting to get medical help for Brenda as soon as possible, Mom and Dad decided to bring forward their ‘furlough’ plans and head to South Africa in early 1951. We flew to Cairo, intending to get a boat to South Africa from there, but a dock strike in England delayed our departure. Dad borrowed money from the Egypt Bible Society. An attempt to abduct me was made at Port Said one day. From her stall, a lady vendor saw a man take my hand and walk down the road with me. She asked him, “Where are you taking that child?” “His parents asked me to take him,” the man answered. Thankfully, she stopped the man, told him to leave me with her and she safely delivered me to my parents.

Eventually, the strike was over, and we sailed from Port Said to South Africa. Dad mentions an experience at Port Sudan when a party from the ship went on a glass-bottomed boat to visit the reef not far from the harbor. “As attendants gently poled the boat along the reef, we looked down on a marine rockery, where tropical fish of all sizes and colour disported themselves. Here was a large orange coloured fellow, who, half hidden by a greenish bunch of seaweed, watched us dispassionately, gently fanning himself with his side-finds. There a convoy of tiny little round striped youngsters flashed in vigorous pursuit of one another in and out of the spongy rock, forming the reef.”

We stopped off in Zanzibar en route and bought some cherry cough medicine for Brenda. In Durban, we stayed with Dad’s sister, Yvonne and Glynn Tudor for six weeks. Glynn was a pastor at the Bulwer Rd Baptist Church. We then moved to Jolly St in Johannesburg and stayed with Dad’s brother, Ernie and Gwen for six months. I often heard the story of Mom’s mother Hannah Mathew coming to visit. Ernie criticized her custard and this apparently caused a memorable rift.

During this year, Dad went on deputation to mobilise prayer and finances for the mission. Mom was busy with Brenda (one year old) and me (three years old) and she was also pregnant again, so she could not join him. He decided to take his mother, Serena with him for the four-month trip. Before his overseas trip, we moved down to Cape Town in August and initially stayed with some relations, the Flemings. We then moved to her cousin, Ada Durstan’s house in preparation for the arrival of Graham on the 28th October. Dad returned from his tour when Graham was already a couple of months old. The story goes that Brenda tried to smother Graham at one point.

  

   

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

              

In January, Dad left for another deputation tour, this time to Canada. Mom’s brother, Jim Mathew married Jess Mills on the 29^th March 1952 at the Claremont Baptist Church in Grove Avenue. I was the ring bearer, and Jess’ niece; Mary Hofmeyr was the flower girl. Mary tried in vain to prevent me from throwing the pillow in the air, and Jim had to keep the rings in his pocket. But still, I managed to keep my white satin outfit miraculously clean for the pictures. After the wedding, Mom and the three of us children sailed for England and were joined by new missionary Stephanie Green, plus Mom’s cousin Rene (nee Lanz) and Ernst Ellenberger. For many years afterwards, Rene told me that I caused her much grief on the voyage. Jess, no doubt knowing me well, had given Mom a gift of ‘reins’ to keep me in check. Rene tried to help Mom by keeping an eye on me, but it was no simple task. At Madeira, I was tied to the gangway with the reins safely around me. When they came back they found the reigns still tied to the gangway, quite free of their occupant. Frantic searching ensued, and I was found watching the first class passengers in the swimming pool. On the ship, Mom thought I might fall off the top bunk, so she put me in the middle bunk and took the top berth herself. During the night, she got up and, forgetting she was on the top bunk, fell heavily to the floor. We joked that the bump we heard was when we crossed the equator.

In England, we stayed with Mom’s close cousin Edel and Vin O’Neal. Graham had had measles when he was two months old, and his eyes were treated in England, from the effects of that. Dad joined us there on his return from Canada, and in May, we sailed for Lebanon by cargo boat. We arrived back in Beirut in June 1952, and made our way back to Shemlan. The Lebanon Bible Institute was re-opened with Dad as Principal, Mom as Matron, Molly Harries as lecturer, and Toufic Khayat as translator (and later, lecturer). 

Some months later, Brenda and I went to the school in the next village, at Souk el Gharab and pictures reveal we both wore the same blue tunic with a big white collar. In October 1953, I was sent to the British Community School (BCS) in Beirut, near Hamra. I spent the weeknights with Joyce Napper, alias ‘Aunty Snap,’ who was a teacher at the Lebanon Evangelical School for Girls (LESG), and she had a room nearby. I came home to Shemlan for the weekends.

Howard was born on 10^th August 1954, in Tripoli, Lebanon, in the same hospital where most of us were born. We were still living in Shemlan. On the 21^st August, Doug and Dulcie Anderson, Australian missionaries and close friends of the family, were married. I also remember this year as the one when I first went ‘up the river’ with Dad, and he built a dolls house for Brenda.

 

  

 

 

A few years later, Joan was born on12th April 1957 in Tripoli. It was orange blossom time, and our household in Shemlan was a busy one. 

  

  

This was also the year there was a lot of fighting and our village was where the forces clashed and were repulsed. One of the students at the Bible Institute, Fuad Melki, was a scout and volunteered as a First Aider to help those who were wounded on the top road. I was old enough to be able to, unknown to Mom and Dad, climb up on the roof of our house to listen to the whining and whooshing of the guns and bazookas that were exchanging fire on the top road. I felt safe, since I had my pellet gun with me. We were evacuated from Shemlan and went to stay at the mission school in Beirut.

Used to wandering around, I found a strange tube-like object one day. It had a tar-like substance at each end and a wick with a match tied to it. I played with it for a while, then lost interest and left it by the back door. Later a gendarme questioned me interminably about where I had found it and so on. I then understood it was actually an unexploded bomb. The fighting grew worse, and when it looked like civil war was impending, around the time of Operation Blue Bats, we were evacuated further to South Africa by plane in July 1958. The Comet flight stopped at Cairo, Khartoum, Nairobi, Salisbury and then Johannesburg. I have a few random memories: sleeping overnight in Khartoum and the fans did not cool us at all; in Nairobi there were flying ants; some of us did weaving on the flight to keep our hands busy.

  

 

Once in South Africa, we settled down in Cape Town at 60 Cook Rd, Claremont at the home of Fred and Ada Durstan. I entered Standard 3 at Wynberg Boys Junior School, little realizing that the rest of my school years would be spent at Wynberg Boys School, with only one more visit to Lebanon in the following seven years, until I returned to university. I used to go by trolley bus to Wynberg and then walked down Aliwal Road to the school. Brenda and Graham went to Claremont Public School and Howard went to St. Stephens pre school, some of the way by tricycle, and he wore a little bowtie.

In September 1959, the family returned to Lebanon, and moved to Beirut. I stayed behind with Jim and Jess Mathew at 12 Bonair Rd, Rondebosch. By this time they had three children, Jim, Bruce and baby Sheila, and they had agreed to look after me. I waved goodbye to the family at Cape Town railway station and even remember it was Platform 14. As I saw the train disappear, I had the settled conviction that I was on my own and would have to work things out for myself.