1999 Newsletter from Walter Middelmann



10 December 1999

Dear friends and relatives,

Getting very near the end of my 90th year, and after a difficult 1998 I can truly say I have again been blessed and that I look forward to the Millennium with further expectations, old age difficulties notwithstanding. Essentially we are all well here, Robert, Marijke, Richard now working computers in Cape Town and Nick with a Financial Services Company in a good and interesting job in Johannesburg. Hans and Jessie will probably send you their family reports. Gertrud is well too, having been in Austria to her family twice this year.

My last year's report ended referring to the forthcoming four weeks in India. It was a great experience, not always easy and often aggravating. We were essentially a Group of South African Hindu Indians visiting where their forefathers came from, only four out of 30 not being of Indian descent. It was not really a properly conducted educational Tour and only local guides were provided, 15 cities visited, all major distances by air. Right down to India's Southernmost point but also to centre cities such as Mysore, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Finally on the West Coast it was Old Goa and Cochin where the former Portuguese influence is still strongly visible.

Overwhelming everywhere is the impression of the masses of people: every 7th person on this earth is now an Indian living in India. Hopeless pollution covers the skies in all the major centres. Fog in Delhi with resulting breakdown of air connections, meant wasting an enormous amount of time waiting in airports after in any case taking lots of time in slow moving traffic to get there. Our worst experience was that with the flight Delhi to Agra cancelled we were taken by the Delhi sightseeing bus - not a proper long-range Coach - to Varanasi, 25 hours, day and night, in slow-moving bumper-to-bumper truck traffic through never ending villages, never ending people, dirt, animals, kids, no proper rest stops. So we really lost the sightseeing day and boat ride on the Ganges planned for that holy town.

On the whole our hotels were good and non-Indian food available there for a person like myself. To me Jaipur with its castles and palaces of the Moghul time was a wonderful experience and so were the Taj Mahal and the Red Fort once more. Then Old Goa's big churches and the palaces of Mysore, not to forget the oldest part of Cochin with the ancient Synagogue.

Getting back I found 77 E-mail messages and mountains of mail as well as

Journals to catch up with. University Summer School offered courses on Art in

Rome, on the Impressionists, on Botanical Art in books as well as one on

musical instruments with little concerts demonstrating their application.

Among visitors during the year were Consul Adolf Mueller, now having changed from Ulan Bator, Mongolia, to Krakow. In March came RoIf's brother HansUlrich with some friends, Also Dedi, Paloma Middelmann/Werner's mother from Madrid. In April Wolf Middelmann, Goettingen came, sadly without Conner, and even stayed, as my so far only "house guest" for a couple of nights here in this flat, not really suitable for overnight visitors. I was able to move around with him a bit to show parts of Cape Town where visitors do not normally get. Another welcome visitor, just a few days ago, was Alan Parsley, good friend together with his late wife Renate over so many years, now resident for about 3 years in England, a loss to our local circles.

As to activities, a series of my slides taken in India was shown on a couple of evenings when some local Indian friends also attended. Our Bibliophiles Society arranged interesting visits to private and University Libraries as well as lectures. On the musical front the 120 strong Orchestre National de France was a highlight. So was a huge local orchestra and choir performance of Richard Strauss' Elektra, the soloists partly acting over a scenic arrangement of steps though not in costume. Enormous applause by a full house.

Some operas were enjoyed during the year, all well done in our big Opera House: Figaro, Barber of Seville, Madame Butterfly, Aida and even Hansel & Gretel. On the stage a repeat of the "Equus" play was very well done but most enjoyable was Pieter Uys in "Dekaffirnated", a spoof on our political situation, on our politicians and on what is, or is not regarded now as "politically correct".

Regularly attended Meetings at the Historical Society, Vernacular Architecture Soc., Inst. of International Affairs, Inst. of Race Relations and others offer me a wide range of continued interests. Over Easter, Eva Engel and I joined a Natural History Club bus Tour to Grahamstown, historical Eastern Cape University city, an "English Stellenbosch", with stops along the Garden Route.

A similar break took us to the Cedarberg area for the Clanwilliam Flower Show in August. It is years since, then with Ruth, I had been there.

Just after our second democratic Election 2 June I went, again with Eva, for 5 weeks to Europe, 3800km by car, seeing friends, relatives and places, ranging from Bodensee to the Riedels in Berlin, to Leipzig Juedische Woche, to Krakow where the Muellers kindly showed something of that old town, but also via San Bernardino Pass down to Maerli and Angelo Carlassare at Portogruaro/Lignano on the Adriatic Coast. Back to Kressbronn via the Dolomites.

Bigger photo: Walter proposes the official toast at the AIB Gala Dinner, 3 Oct 1999 Then in September came further travel, attending the biennial Conference of the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, this time in Japan. (1997 was in the Netherlands.) From a few days in Kyoto the Group (about 120) moved to Osaka and Nara, thereafter for main events to Tokyo but also touristically to Hakone. Taken from University to University, Library to Library by a particularly enthusiastic and helpful group of local AIB members we saw impressive collections, heard learned professors' lectures and enjoyed wonderful hospitality, too many strange things to eat. Just visualise over 120 people, male and female all uniformly attired in their Kimonos sitting flat on the floor, served by kneeling little ladies, with only the handicapped Middelmann-san somewhere in the back on a chair with table. However, as the oldest he was then hoisted up on to the stage to bring out the "Kampei" toast to the AIB with a square Sake bowl.

A three day Post-Conference Tour still took us North to Yamagata and Sendai, a rather different Japan from the never ending densely populated coastal area further South. We were showered with, partly specially printed, catalogues and handouts, an extra 15kg paper added to my baggage. While we Westerners cannot really appreciate woodcut printing in Chinese/Japanese characters dating back right to 700, we were certainly impressed with their collections of Western material, repeated in each institution. Anything from Gutenberg's Bible via Kant, Voltaire, Karl Marx, Adam Smith to James Joyce and Froebel. I cannot forget that in my first job 1936 in Cape Town I had to send English children's dresses to Japan to be copied there and quoted on the basis of 1000 dozen at ridiculous prices for the African market. Now they show us the Gutenberg Bible digitised in order to compare one volume with another in some overseas collection to see how some of the actual letters were replaced from one printing to the next... Quite apart from super fast trains, super highways and even convenience stores, mini supermarkets everywhere, with names like "Family Mart" or "Lawsons", open brightly lit even at midnight: some change compared with visiting 30 years ago!

Time to end. While after that very democratic, quiet election Mbeki's Government is firmly in the saddle and its largely former Communist cabinet ministers follow an essentially liberal policy our main problem has NOT thus far been solved, not even sufficiently attacked, and that is NOT the number of jobless but the prevalent crime, a breakdown of standards. It starts with the youth, with lack of respect, of discipline, all probably the outcome of the time when it was patriotic to destroy the State's institutions. Now that it is "our" Government many of those youths who through their actions helped to bring it to power, represent the main obstacle for getting things right, sadly. One must wish the Government strength to put their foot down. Then the entrepreneurs will come, risks will be taken and the jobs will follow.

Old people generally start off talking about their health problems. I should not pretend they are not there. I can only say that while movement is disgustingly slow, partly a bit painful, one gets used to it provided there are sufficient events to take part in and provided there is sufficiently interesting activity, work, which one can do. I think I can speak of luck that I still always feel I have too much to do. All the best to all of you for Christmas and the Year 2000, health and happiness and do let me hear from your side too how things are going.

Sincerely,

Walter

Walter Middelmann
Email:
middelma@mweb.co.za



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