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Lammie - Mother of Laurens van der Post
by Hélenè de Kok
A story of a remarkable woman (mother of Sir Laurens van der Post) who at the age of 80 goes to Bechuanaland and starts farming, keeps nine childeren at school and university at the same time.
Lammie was born in 1867 in the Free State in the early, turbulent days of that Republic. She had her education at a time when there were only ten government schools with 348 pupils in the small state. Lammie’s father was a wealthy man in his later years and she grew up luxuriously. At the age of 22 she married C W H van der Post, teacher, lawyer, M P, Dutch Consol and Commandant in the Anglo-Boer War. In spite of his Consulate (which imparted indemnity), he participated in the war, refused to take the oath of allegiance at the end of the war and was exiled by the British to Stellenbosch. Notwithstanding severe financial contraints after his death, Lammie declined to go bankrupt and managed to keep nine children at school and at university at the same time. When almost 80, she went to Bechuanaland to develop a tract of virgin country. There Lammie lived in a tent, bathed outside in a reservoir in the early morning and read by candle-light. Fences were put up, boreholes drilled and dams built. Although a refined lady, she was also a hardened pioneer to the end - ‘a little lady Napoleon’, Stuart de Kok called her.
A reading experience about the joys and sorrows of an influential family that cannot leave the reader untouched.
Hélenè de Kok, granddaughter of Lammie, lives in the faraway Kalahari in north-eastern Namibia, where she has practised medicine for 30 years. Her patients are mainly San and Herero from the surrounding countryside. She compiled this narrative to preserve these memories but also to tell the real story of ‘the truly remarkable Lammie’. She is married to Boetie Classens, a cattle and game farmer and they have two children.
This book is also available in Afrikaans “Lammie, moeder van Laurens van der Post” (2003)
Price: 110.00 N$ incl. VAT
Published by the author, Gobabis 2005
ISBN: 9991663355
210 x 148 x 10 mm
164 pages, with numerous black and white photos, softcover
Weight: 240 g |
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