I don't know his name - she would never tell me, apart from from saying that he was an officer returning to his regiment in India. Stay on board, he said to her. Don't marry Samuel, marry me! And by the time your family in Ireland hears, we'll be safely settled in India and it won't matter at all.

But she was a well-brought up young lady. She knew the meaning of duty. After all, poor Sam had been hanging on in Cradock for 5 years, waiting for her. But even so, she murmured, with a glint in her eye, the army chap was awfully good-looking..

So what did you do, I asked her, while she was teaching me the piano many years later. Surely you didn't just get off the boat and tamely get married and forget about him?

Can you imagine being engaged for 5 years - and separated by at least 5000 miles all that time?

That's what happened to my grandparents in the early 1900s. She in Ireland, he in Cradock, South Africa. Eventually my grandmother was allowed to take a Union Castle liner to South Africa to marry him. She was closely chaperoned, of course, and had to be ready to get off the boat in Cape Town and get married on the same day.
Voets toets! Presumably it wasn't considered wise to allow a young woman the chance to change her mind once she'd disembarked into the wilds of Africa!

So.. there she was, on the boat, with her wedding dress, and her marching orders.
Only problem was, she met someone else on board..

Now there's no turning back! Last week I went to see my publisher, this week I signed on the dotted line, and in a few months time I'll be the proud owner of 1000 copies of my novel Karoo Plainsong. The book's set in the Karoo (see special sunset above), in central South Africa, and features a pioneering black woman who fights to survive apartheid - and to protect her coloured child.
But it's not complete fiction, and I'll tell you why next time..