BRING AND TELL AT GENEALOGY some lessons my late dad taught me

 

My yellow-wood plate I turned many years ago.

Bring and tell us about your past.

The things you make.

The things you look at.

The things you have acquired, no matter from whom or when.

If you cannot remember from whom, that does not matter either.

Perhaps you made some of these things yourself. Bring them and tell us about them, because they are part of who you are and where you are going.

My interaction with tools comes a long way of many years. My late father was right-handed. I left-handed. And that in itself caused stresses between us. He couldn’t teach me. And me was an unwanted observer – so it seemed to me. Later years, he apologised to me about it; my reaction was immediate and truthful: the best lesson I learned from being in your presence was to observe: tools are made for a purpose: USE IT. And so I did.

Bring it.

Tell the story.

That was at our June 2026 gathering.

One person spoke about the medals and awards he received during his army days. He brought his own medals, as well as those of his late father, and we looked at them. Everything was beautifully framed and exceptionally well cared for.

Another chap displayed a few very old Bibles and, with nostalgia in his voice, told us about them. One Bible had, in those days, been sent to South Africa from the North, where WWII was raging; its two outer covers were made of olive wood. Once again, these items had been exceptionally well preserved.

Another brought along his mother's opera glasses. I was amazed at the way he took them out of their case — gently, almost as if his mother were watching him.

One of my friends has an old, dusty lathe that has been well used and that he still uses regularly. It had previously belonged to someone else; he bought it somewhere for fairly little money. An old, well-used lathe in new, eager hands can work wonders. To him, it is a beloved working tool.

For one of his granddaughters' weddings, he turned a whole lot of candleholders from offcuts of pine. It was a special request that Grandpa should make them for her. There was even one specifically earmarked for the main table: Grandpa's handiwork.

What did I bring?

I brought some of my tools.

Today I have very few tools because I sold most of them when I moved from Morningside to Rivonia.

Geelhout houtskyf 13 December 1998

Before I tell you about the little bit of tooling I still have, I want to tell you about my Knysna yellowwood platter.

I completed it on 13 December 1998. Since then, it has stood in a place of honour in our home, on our sideboard.

The years have been kind to this platter.

The patina has developed into such a deep yellow — the outstanding characteristic of yellowwood. When it first came off the lathe all those years ago, it was very light and looked more white than yellow. Oxidation from exposure to the air, together with all the hands that have dusted it over the years, has turned it a deep yellow.

My kitchen knife with the shortened blade

A knife — a kitchen knife: the kind you use every day in the kitchen, the kind you use at the table when you sit down for dinner. That old-fashioned knife with a handle made of that light yellow-white-beige sort of material.

You find them at flea markets and in other shops that sell off old odds and ends.

But this knife is a kitchen knife with a difference.

Somewhere along its life's journey in a kitchen, the original knife suffered a blow: the blade cracked. And so it migrated to my garage.

I needed something like an all-purpose utility item in the garage, and this old fellow looked like a very suitable candidate. You know the utility-kind of philosophy: that everything, should be usable.

Then the tip broke off. I filed it roughly round with my electric grinder.

It is the most versatile piece of equipment in my garage: scraping dirt from under fingernails, tightening little screws, scraping clean empty plastic yoghurt containers, scraping dried paint off screwdrivers — man, think of something and you can probably use this tool for it.

My contraption from my friend

When I displayed it at our genealogists' Bring and Tell gathering, the men's tongues really got going, and there was quite a buzz around it.

Why did he give it to me? I don't know exactly why he gave it to me.

I had given him a gift: a plaster cast of the front end of a pair of pliers. He gave me a contraption.

Here another story is beginning to emerge.

When we moved house about four or five years ago, I saw these pliers lying around. And I wondered where they had come from. The more I looked at the thing, the less I liked it.

Until one day I picked it up and examined it properly.

Now there is a competition between these pliers and that knife: which of the two is the most versatile and useful?

My wood chisel

This wood chisel, too, developed a life of its own in my hands.

Somewhere — I think I remember buying it in a second-hand pawn shop — I came across it. The handle was missing.

Well, that was not a problem.

The handle was gone, and it didn't matter.

At home I took a piece of scrap oak and turned a handle.

The oak, in turn, came from a scrap piece that had come out of a factory making oak furniture.

I also fitted two bronze metal ferrules over the ends for protection.

Almost as versatile as that knife and my pliers.

Next, I will write something about the pieces of equipment I cast in plaster.

What do you have?

Somewhere, there is something in your house or in your garage that has a story.

Write that story for me and send it to me at neelscoertse@wirelessza.co.za.

Send some photographs along as well.