Monday 26th September 2022
I woke up feeling really excited. A part of me questioned the craziness about the excitement of a book. On my sunny walk to the National Library of Scotland I thought about it all. I was about to meet the imagination of a person who has since died. Hidden in the words. In the pages I get to step into a world long gone. What a privilege to be able to read.
I first read about this book while doing a skit back in 2020. The entry on HB Marshall on the Heritage Portal mentioned it and it has taken me since then to find it. I was a little nervous in case it was 'off site' from the Library as one search had mentioned. But I almost skipped my way into the library. It took me about 35 minutes to get a day pass and transfer my bag into a locker and took my notebook and phones in a see-through plastic bag up to the Level 1 Reading room.
The chap behind the plastic covid screen was fortunately the chap who had helped me online and went off to find the book. He came back a little flustered and said that he couldn't find it and told me to wait in the room for 10 minutes. I pushed open the heavy doors and immediately felt like a student. Books, desks, laptops and silence. If I wasn't so fidgety I would consider becoming a professional student.
After ten long minutes, where I was preventing myself from thinking the worst, I went back to the friendly librarian who smiled and held up the book. I was delighted but surprised by how small it looked. My smile reached new dimensions as I gently took it out of his hands. I could feel myself sigh with relief. At last...
I went back to my desk and spent the day reading about life on ox wagons, houses in Heidelberg, transportation business, gold mine proclaiming, brewery creating, Melrose, politicking, war and finally the event that chased HB Marshall back to Scotland forever, the Jameson Raid.
I find stories about battles and wars dreary and gloomy and senseless so I've always avoided them. But this author was writing about his dad HB and his mother Anna, so it was far more personal and had more references to the feminine characters. Turns out she was right about a few things after all, lol. But she did support her husband and as soon as they were able, set sail to settle in Peebles in Scotland.
And that, my dear readers is what I was hoping for. More social background to the man that Marshalltown, Johannesburg is named after. A Scotsman who went to South Africa for better health and fell in love with the country and as his son wrote they settled in Peebles, "more peaceful but less exciting than the Transvaal Republic, always with the echoes of the past..."
Now to retell the story and add the modern day twist for my Tour in Marshalltown on the 12th November 2022. Want to come along?
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