Sonnie Cloete Remembers the Characters of the Old Plateau

An overview of a set of memories by Sonnie Cloete published in Habari 1984, the newsletter of the Friends of East Africa. The original is in Afrikaans. This is a summary for readers of this archive, not a translation.

In Habari 1984 Sonnie Cloete of Concordia wrote a long, cheerful piece about the characters of the old Plateau and the Vergenoeg congregation. It is a collection of anecdotes rather than a history, and some of them are clearly told for a laugh, but it also records place names and people that appear nowhere else.

The naming party

Sonnie gives his own version of the day Sixty Four was named. Eldoret stood on Farm No. 64, about 64 miles from Londiani, the nearest station. A stream called the Eldora flowed into the Sosiani. The governor, he says, called the Uasin Gishu "the Eldorado of the North", and since the Nandi and Elgeyo liked names ending in "et", proposed Eldoret. After the meeting nearly the whole community went to Eddy's Bar, then sat down to lunch in the Central School hall, which stood on poles against termites. Mrs Ortlepp, who had not been invited, crawled under the floor and knocked on it with a stick as the governor began his speech, and when she was removed she threw stones on the roof. At the table, Steyn Pohl, who was completely bald and plagued by flies, turned his soup plate over his head, and the governor nearly choked with laughter.

Characters of the Plateau

Many of his stories are about drink and its consequences, which Sonnie tells with gentle humour: Oom Jan who decided he was a bulldog on the traffic island between the Standard and Barclays banks; old Barker, an English "remittance man" whose horse came home without him every month and whom Steyn Pohl finally cured with castor oil from Juma Hajee's shop at Haji's Drift; and Rooi Piet Kruger, who rode his horse into the Central Lounge after the Friday cattle sales and was once taken home by Ds Loubser himself. He also remembers the first bank and Eddy's Bar sharing one corrugated iron building, with J.C. Shaw, "the fattest man in Sixty Four", as bank manager.

He describes the Von Maltitz brothers. Piet farmed at the foot of Mount Elgon, where Turkana, Bukusu, Pokot and Sabei met, and was trusted by all of them to settle their disputes, listening for days under the trees before giving judgement. Bokkie taught at Broederstroom and was an elder for many years. Loet was so quiet that people said he had never used a bad word, until, stuck in the Rooi Hel mud on the Londiani road, he looked at a stubborn ox for the fourth time and called it a pig.

He notes that the Van Breda brothers were the first surveyors on the Uasin Gishu, with Piet van Breda measuring farms as early as 1903, followed by Kolbe and Ortlepp. He records, in his words, that Bon van Breda was killed by Elgeyo while living beside the Elgeyo forest.

Church days

The Dutch Reformed church in Eldoret had about ten acres of grounds, where families camped with their ox wagons at communion and for the fourteen days of catechism classes, when 46 young people gathered, first taught by the elders Gert van Rensburg, Bokkie von Maltitz and Danie Bornman. Sonnie tells how he and Nickolas van Deventer swapped an oribi leg in Tant Mynie's cooking pot for a round stone while the minister sat chatting, and swapped it back just in time.

Place names

Some of his notes explain names around Sergoit. The area about eight miles north of Eldoret was first called Wheeler's Drift, because Dick Wheeler lived above the drift, and later Patatadraai, because Frans van Deventer said that in the Depression years there was nothing to eat there but sweet potatoes. West of Eldoret lay Biesiefontein, a valley among hills where many members of the strict "Dopper" church lived, so it became known as Dopperslaagte. Leopards were common there, and three men fought with them in one month.

He ends by remembering Tant Freda van Heerden at the church organ, with Jaap Heine working the bellows before there was electricity, Tant Manie le Roux of Broederstroom making sausage for the bazaars, Micky Ywas at the Nandi Hall Butchery, Mrs Milne at the post office, and Stoffel Roets, who fetched the governor from Plateau station with his ox wagon to open the Plateau hall.

Source: Sonnie Cloete, memories in Habari 1984, pages 4 to 7 of the PDF, Friends of East Africa. Read the original issue (Afrikaans). See also the archive's posts Sonnie Cloete's Tales: The Rooi Hel, the Plateau Sport Klub and the Belfield Scouts and How Sixty Four Became Eldoret, and the guide to settler stories in Habari.