Rita was my favourite aunt. Why? I saw more of her than any other aunt; she was only about 8 years older than I (a lot at age 10, but not much really);
and she was good looking (it never occured to me to think of other aunts' looks). The pic was taken around 1950. She was also a really nice person.
What follows is mainly reminiscence, with some hard fact.
Early Contact
I do not recall my first contact with her (thank God). I was the first grandchild of that family and so a bit of a curiosity. When she was about 8 she was given the infant me to hold and nearly dropped me. It seems I flopped over backwards; whether my head got banged I don't know. Rita didn't dare tell Muriel about this. Muriel was apt to aim for such impossibly high standards of motherhood and morality that her younger sisters came to call her secretly 'The Mother Superior'.
Rita worried about this incident and kept as close an eye on me as she could for a while to assure herself I was developing normally. Whether I did is not for me to judge. (Duh!). I saw Rita from time to time on holidays.
Next Things
Rita came to stay with us for a few weeks in Jo'burg, maybe after her mother had died, about 1949. Pat de Fine called round (I think to deliver eggs. He had a chicken farm in Ferndale about ten miles out in the country, as well as a job in the city.)
Next thing he rang up to ask Rita out to dinner. Our mother knew his mother, a rather nice old girl with bad eyes, being treated for cataracts and occasionally sporting some pretty weird eye-glasses. Think Muriel knew her through the Church.
Next thing, that summer Pat decided to drive his late '30s Plymouth to Cape Town. He'd recruited a co-driver and petrol sharer through a newspaper ad, an Afrikaner called du Toit (or was it du Plessis?). For some reason I was to be included in the 1000 mile trip.
The Trip
Going to Cape Town by car was something new. I'd kind of assumed that the only way to get there was by train. In parts the National Road was dead straight for miles and miles of nothing, over the hill and over the next one. I now saw the sense of the story about a local being asked where the next town was who replied 'Net twee myl oor die bult.' (Just 2 miles over the hill). Two miles later another was asked and gave the same reply, and so on and on.
One thing that sticks in my mind from this journey is a loud clonk from the engine compartment 
and a sharp rise on the temperature guage. The fan-belt had gone. This was replaced and we went on. My first lesson in motor mechanics (remember my folks didn't have a car).
The other thing I recall vividly was when we had to cross a 'drift' (as in Rourke's Drift in the film Zulu). A drift is a ford, a place where it's possible to cross a stream getting only your own or your horse's feet wet, or your Ford's tyres. Such stroompies could dry up for months on end, but if there was a thunder storm upstream, watch out.
That's what happened. Halfway across, water started coming up through the floor of the car, rising rapidly. The engine stalled and wouldn't restart and we were about to be swept away in this flash flood. Then a farmer on a tractor appeared from nowhere, attached a rope to the car and pulled us clear. Otherwise neither I nor Pat nor du Toit might be around to tell the tale. (I wonder whether du Toit is still around).
And Then
A couple of weeks later a convivial party was held at Patsy and Piet's place in Constantia on the outskirts of Cape Town where they'd just bought a vineyard. The engagement of Rita and Pat was announced. One of the less responsible relatives gave Graeme and me half a glass of beer. It was delicious.
Back at the farm
After the marriage they lived on Pat's chicken farm. The place lacked many of the comforts we now take for granted. With Pat at work in the town all day, Rita had only a couple of African farmhands and hundreds and hundreds of chickens and turkeys for company. I think she was lonely and bored.
I remember her pitching up at our house one day, pregnant with Hilary, having walked the 10 miles (16Km) or so from Ferndale. I also recall her borrowing a pile of fat Dickens novels from us (including 'Little Dorritt') and devouring them in a few days. This impressed me even more than her marathon walk.
Civilisation
About the time Hilary was born Pat got rid of the farm and they moved to Parkhurst within walking distance of our house 
(see map). (If you want a map of your own you can get one by clicking the Mapquest logo).
In the 12 or so years that the family lived there, most if not all, of the eight children were born.
Then Pat once more succumbed to the call of open spaces and the family moved to a smallholding near Bryanston about 10 Km off the map to the North. As far as I know all of Rita's girls were educated at Rosebank Convent adjacent the Church on the map, and the boys (or some of them) attended the same school as Us Brothers about a mile NNE off the map.
I don't think the Bryanston plot was very productive, lacking ground water and suffering from regular droughts. But I understand that right into this century Pat still had a smallholding on which he had a flock of hundreds of what his daughter Susan described as 'pet ducks'.
A few more things about Pat.
- He was shot in the leg in WW2, either in North Africa or Italy, but certainly in the leg. Rita told me.
- He once lent me his Transvaal Scottish regimental kilt which I wore in a Wits University Rag procession (with a whitewash brush in place of a sporran).
- He gave me his blue tuxedo and black trousers in which I appeared at numerous dances.
- He was a musician. Served as choirmaster for years at Rosebank Church (see map above). Also played a hot trumpet in a dance band. Hiring his band for some school function gave me great credibility among my peers at the time.
Pat died in January 2004 at the age of 92, having become frail in his later years. With him passed an epoch in the history of the family.
Back to Rita
This is the sad bit. Rita died, back in 1965, of a heart attack when only 35. She smoked a lot. I don't think she took much exercise, and she'd put on a lot of weight. Whether these factors had contributed to her untimely end is anybody's guess. But it was a great loss.
Rita left behind a large clan of descendants. When she died their Aunt Stella moved in for a time to care for them. The de Fine family tree has helpfully been summarized by one of Rita's younger daughters, Susan, who can't clearly remember her. The picture (1979) stands in symbolically for the first three generations, showing Pat, Catherine and Shelley.
The state of play as of mid 2002 is shown below. I rely on the family for updates.