HOUSE IN MARAISBURG

"Today is my birthday. I am going to write a diry a diray a diery book. Pop told me I could. He gave me this fat book. It was a government book, but it is mine now. I shall write here in the loft and hide my book in the old box with straw where no one can see it."

Iris Vaughan was born in Kenhardt on 16 July 1890. She started her diary on her seventh birthday, when the family was living in Maraisburg (now Hofmeyr). 'Pop' was her father, Cecil Rodger Vaughan, a magistrate in the Cape Civil Service. An educated and cultured man, he encouraged Iris to write down her thoughts rather than to blurt them out at inappropriate times!

I have traced the house the Vaughan family owned and lived in in Maraisburg, but it is much changed in 100+ years. The 'loft' would probably have been in one of the outbuildings depicted, and would probably just have been a ledge against the wall for hay with a wooden ladder for access. But big enough for a small girl to climb up and write her thoughts in secret. The 'loft' itself is no longer there.