Family Fussel book

Family
FUSSELL
Memoirs of Bob Fussel

BIRTH
Almost the first thing that happened to me in my life was being pronounced dead.
It was, I learned later, a Tuesday in early autumn when on March 7, 1939, I arrived in the world at the
Kimberley House nursing home in Springs. The reason I was born there was largely because my grandmother,
Ethel (Dolly) Radford, owned the home and was its matron. Obviously, I survived.
Springs, east of Johannesburg on the East Rand, had been founded as long ago as 1904 as a coal and gold mining
town but its history can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century.
From about 1840 farmers moved there and declared farms for themselves, especially after the Zuid-Afrikaansche
Republiek (South African Republic, later Transvaal) became independent with the signing of the Sand River
Convention in 1852.
The early farms were large, but measurements of the borders were inaccurate. Later, when correct borders had to
be documented, several extra or odd bits of land were not part of any farm and became state property.
One of them, between three neighbouring farms on the Witwatersrand - Geduld (meaning 'patience'),
De Rietfontein ('the reed fountain') and Brakpan ('small, brackish lake') - was named 'The Springs' probably
because of all the fountains on the land.
Another story is that the land surveyor, James Brooks, wanted to name it after himself, but because his name
sound much like the Afrikaans word 'broek' (trousers), he feared Afrikaans farmers would mock it.
As mining activity developed - the coal was good quality - the settlement grew, but when gold was discovered in
1899 on Geduld farm and a main reef was found in 1902, proclamation of The Springs as a town called
Springs, soon followed.
Gold mining began in 1908. Springs was granted municipal
status in 1912. By late 1930s, there were eight gold mines near
Springs, making it the largest single gold-producing area in the
world.
By 1962, Springs produced 10% of the country's gold and 9%
of its uranium. However, by the end of the 1960s the last mine
in town, the Daggafonteinmyn, (literally: Marijuana fountain
mine) was emptied. The town became an industrial centre.
Of course, I remember nothing at all about my first day in
Springs or indeed in the world, but it was no surprise that Gran
attended my birth.
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I was born a ‘blue baby’. Low levels of oxygen in
the blood, caused by either reduced blood flow to
the lungs or mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated
blood, caused a bluish discoloration of my skin,
called cyanosis.
Normally, oxygenated blood appears red and
deoxygenated blood has more of a blue appearance.
In babies with low levels of oxygen or a mix of
oxygenated and deoxygenated blood, the blood
can have a blue or purple colour. Hence its name:
blue baby syndrome.
For reasons unclear, the doctor in attendance gave
me no hope of surviving this, pronounced the time
of my death and walked out of the room.
It was not something a grandmother with vast
experience of nursing wanted to hear. Undaunted,
she immediately administered a teaspoonful of
brandy to me. Lo and behold, I survived, with (in
my view anyway) no lasting mental or physical effects.
Later in life my Gran always boasted that she had
taught me to drink. Conversely, she was often
reminded that she was also the cause of my
enjoyment of alcohol drinks, and my often
excessive consumption thereof.
My memory of Gran when I was a boy is of a woman
the opposite of the archetypal buxom, bossy
matron. She was a strong woman, kind and caring,
and strikingly good looking.
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As far as I am aware, Gran gave up the nursing home
several years later. She came to live with my family
and me when I was about nine years old.

EARLY YEARS
I was born Arthur Lionel Fussell.
I don’t really know how I became
Bob. Maybe it was because my
older brother, Basil, called me
‘baba’, which became shortened.
Perhaps, it was influenced by my
uncle Bob. I was always just Bob.
I arrived in a troubled world.
History books confirm I was not yet six months old when, in September 1939,
the German Chancellor, Adolf Hitler, met the Czechoslovakian president, Emil
Hácha, in the Reich Chancellery after midnight and announced that he had
ordered the German army to invade Czechoslovakia at 6 am. Unless Hácha
ordered the Czechoslovakian military to refrain from offering any resistance,
the country would face massive destruction.
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Hácha collapsed during the harangue but recovered enough to sign a document
claiming he had ‘confidently placed the fate of the Czech people
and country in the hands of the Führer and German Reich’.
At 4:30 am Hácha broadcast a radio message to his people urging them
to remain calm. The Nazis marched unopposed into Czechoslovakia. That
evening, Hitler and other Nazi leaders entered Prague.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain made a speech in Birmingham
warning that Britain would resist any further territorial expansion by
Germany. The United States withdrew its ambassador to Germany. In response
to Hitler’s later invasion of Poland, both Britain and France,
allies of the overrun nation, declared war on Germany.
South Africa’s Prime Minister, J. B. M. (Barry) Hertzog put his case to
the National Assembly for South Africa to remain neutral, against Jan
Smuts who supported a British Commonwealth alliance.
Two days later Smuts became the fourth Prime Minister of South Africa, for
the second time. The next day, Smuts won by 13 votes
a motion to join the conflict and the Union of South Africa declared
war on Germany.
By the time the conflagration ended and celebrations erupted around the
world on what became known as Victory in Europe Day (VE Day),
I was six years old.

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FAMILY
My great, great grandfather, Abraham, was a
wheelwright. He helped George Stephenson,
the English engineer regarded as the father of
railway travel and the principal inventor of the
rail locomotive, build the Rocket, the steam
loco that in 1829 won a race on the Liverpool-
Manchester line with a speed of 36 miles (58
km) per hour. The crude tools he used became
the treasured possessions of JH Fussell of
Kempton Park, great grandson of Abraham and
grandson of Joseph.
Abraham lived to the age of 91 in spite of losing his
leg in an accident with a circular saw when he was
79. He finally died of tetanus after an accident with
a chisel.
His wife, Harriett, whose own father was killed in
the Crimean War, lived beyond 100 years. It was
reported at the time that several members of the
Fussell family living in Swansea in Wales had been
centenarians, one being 108.
Their son, my great grandfather, Joseph Henry
Fussell, was born on February 19, 1849 at
Kenysham, just outside Bristol, England.
Like his father, he was an engineer and one of his
jobs was connected with the first railway engine to
be sent to South Africa. Unfortunately, the ship
carrying the engine was wrecked in a storm in
Mossel Bay and the engine went to the bottom of
the ocean.
For many years after this, he worked with an old
friend in Swansea who manufactured oxalic acid,
a reducing agent for metal oxides to remove
tarnish, rust or ink stains. He married at the age of
21 and had a large family. His wife, Alice, died in
1896; three years later, he married Louisa
Stephens; and all in all, he fathered nine children:
Gladstone, George, Samuel, Joseph, Alice, Albert,
Lilian, Charles and Jack.
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He migrated to South Africa in 1921, following his
son, Samuel William - more about Samuel later -
and died just before his 103rd birthday.
My father believed the old man used to bluff his
age by taking five years off it, but a letter received
from Somerset House in England proved
conclusively that he had been born in 1849. The
Queen of England also sent Joseph a telegram for
his 100th birthday, as did the Governor General of
South Africa. So when he died three years later,
after we had celebrated his 102nd birthday, we
had sufficient proof that he was nearly 103.
On his 102nd birthday, The Star had reported:
“Yes, I’m a hundred and two years old today, and I’ve
always believed we should try to help one another,” said
Mr JH Fussell from his bed in the Edenvale Hospital, to
the Mayor and Mayoress of Johannesburg, Mr and Mrs
CF Beckett, and a group of relatives and friends.
“I have always tried to live like that with everyone I have
come into contact, and I hope every one of you will live
a peaceful and happy life.”
The Mayor presented him with a walking stick,
which he used as he moved about the ward.
He joked that he would have to take more exercise
and said he felt fit enough to do stunt on a trapeze.
“The trouble with the word,” he said, “is that
nobody knows how to live. It is time we all got
together. I welcome my children and grandchildren,
and you all.”
Messages of congratulation were received from
the King and Queen, the Swansea Masonic Lodges
in Wales, and many of his descendants in England
and South Africa. It was a strange coincidence that
his descendants numbered exactly 102 on his
hundred and second birthday.
I remember being aware, when I was pretty young,
that Grandpa would often go for long walks and
disappear for hours on end.
Joseph always showed a fondness of horses and
when well into his 90s, he would on race days take
a tram from his home in Norwood, north of
Johannesburg, to Turffontein Race course in the
south. It was reported that on his hundredth
birthday went alone to a meet at Benoni
Racecourse about 30 kilometres away, and backed
the winners of the first five races.
He also used to have a tot of brandy with his
breakfast every morning and was never without
his beloved pipe. He always had peppermints for
us, but because they were ‘extra strong’, we only
pretended to eat them.

FAMILY
The family were stalwart members of the Sons of
England and Masonic Lodges.
membership. From a few of these lodges
developed modern symbolic Freemasonry, which
in the 17th and 18th centuries adopted the rites
and trappings of ancient religious orders and of
chivalric brotherhoods.
Grandpa was initiated into Masonry at the Clifton
Lodge, my grandfather was master of the
Jeppestown Lodge and my father was master at
Clifton. So it came about that son and grandson
performed Grandpa’s initiation rites, a situation
unknown before.
Freemasonry, the teachings and practices of a
secret men-only order of Free and Accepted
Masons, was, and is still, the largest worldwide
secret society. Spread by the growth of the British
Empire, it remains most popular in the British
Isles and in other countries originally within the
empire. Estimates of worldwide membership in
the early 21st century ranged from two million to
more than six million.
Freemasonry evolved from the guilds of
stonemasons and cathedral builders of the Middle
Ages. With the decline of cathedral building, some
lodges of working masons began to accept
honorary members to bolster their declining
Even in his hundredth year, Grandpa regularly
attended lodge meetings and made a point of
sending apologies if for any reason he was unable
to be there. Towards the end of his working life he
was caretaker of the Sons of England Hall in
Orange Grove in Johannesburg.
My own grandfather – Samuel William, known to
us as Pops – was born in March 1879 in Glamorgan
in Wales and came to South Africa during the
Anglo Boer War in October 1899, as a private in the
Welsh Regiment.
When peace came, he joined the South African
Constabulary in Potchefstroom, then in 1911
joined Johannesburg’s Criminal Investigation
Department (CID).
A newspaper report at the time relates that among
the cases in which he was involved was the

capture of the culprit in what was known as the
‘safe robbery’ of the South African Garrison
Institute (SAGI).
Two robberies occurred in quick succession at the
old SAGI. In one of them, the thieves showed
particular daring, carrying the heavy steel safe
being from the canteen building to the open veld,
where it was found rifled.
He was also associated with a number of
notorious cases as a detective in Johannesburg.
The most thrilling was probably the theft of a silent
revolver in 1915.
A certain George Robey was producing a play in
which a feature was the use of a silent revolver,
specially imported from England. A man named de
Bruyn, who had been released from the Cape
Town breakwater, was offered ?200 to steal the
revolver. He broke into the Standard His Majesty’s
and the Empire Theatres and eventually found the
revolver. Detective Sergeant Fussell arrested him.
On the way to police headquarters at Marshall
Square in downtown Johannesburg, the thief
managed to grab the revolver and fire it at
point blank range at my grandfather. Luckily,
probably because it was to be used on stage, it was
loaded with a blank cartridge.
In another case, Pops surprised two jewel thieves in
the act of lifting a ring valued at ?250 in a pawnbroker’s
shop. They knocked him
out, but two hours later he was again on
their tracks and eventually they were arrested.
What really won him celebrity was his leadership
of a contingent of police officers to a cave in the
hills of the Johannesburg suburb of Kensington,
where they cornered the notorious Foster Gang
in 1914.

Weeks later, they robbed the Roodepoort Post
Office and then the post office at Vredendorp. On
Sunday 13 September, at a Big Bottle Store
in Doornfontein, a sequence of events ultimately
lead to nine deaths and the most intensive
manhunt the South African Police had ever
conducted.
A local woman informed the police she believed
that the gang were living in a small cottage near
her house, and three plain-clothes officers went to
investigate. A Detective Mynott approached the
backyard and spotted the gang working on a car.
Instead of calling for back-up, he decided to arrest
the gang himself. Foster shot him dead.
The gang, a group of criminals who operated
around Johannesburg and the Rand, committed
various acts of robbery and murder. William
Foster, his wife Peggy, John Maxim and Carl Mezar
formed the gang in 1914, a few months after
William had escaped from Pretoria Prison, where
he was serving 12 years hard labour for robbing
a shop.
The gang were robbing the National Bank in
Boksburg when they were startled by a clerk on
the premises. Mezar attacked the man and a brawl
began. The clerk managed to escape and ran
towards a nearby hotel shouting for help. A
barman named to intervene, but was shot in the
chest and later died. The gang got away.
The manhunt was intensified. While road blocks
were being set up to stop the gang, they
had already taken refuge in a cave that Foster
had known as a boy. Eventually, police sniffer dogs
led them to the cave where just the three men
were hiding.
Soon the cave was surrounded by police, but
before they would surrender William asked to
speak to his wife Peggy and his child. Once his wife
had arrived, William told her that he and
the others intended to commit suicide. She agreed
to do the same. A few minutes late, three shots
were heard and the Foster Gang saga had ended.
Relics found in the cave were given to Basil and
me, but have since been lost.

offload it. I am tone deaf and the family eventually
banned my melodic efforts.
Gran also read palms. What she predicted for me
turned out to be pretty accurate: that I would make
a lot of mistakes in life, and I have. I also had some
successes, though.
Gran would often take care of us when we were
children. She would play rummy with us, and give
us the odd taste of sherry.
My grandmother, Hester, married three times: first
a Robert Germany, who changed his name during
World War 1 to Germaine; then Lionel Browne-
Vowler; and finally a man named Duncan, whose
surname I don’t recall.
Gran was a woman of many talents. She was also
a music teacher and tried hard to teach me
to play almost every musical instrument known
to music.
She failed miserably. She then set about coaching
me to sing and also gave up on that, too.
She did, however, perhaps instil in me a love of
singing. I used to sing whenever I could. In later
years, I would sing at every opportunity and any
function. While apparently I have a good voice, but
as someone once said: I carry a tune but I can’t
Gran and Lionel had three children, Robert, Maude
and my mother, Gwenith Edwardine, who took
the name Browne-Vowler, and also became a
nurse.
I never met Lionel, Mom’s father, and never knew
of his departure or death, evidently in Springs.
Mostly I called my mother Dobbie, but others
referred to her as anything from Gwenith
Edwardine, and Trixie, Fairface, Perden-de-Lacey,
Montgomery, Swanson, Dobbie to Tooshy.
Her brother, my uncle Bob, grew up on the gold
mines and when World War 11 broke out, he
volunteered for the army. He was seriously under
age but somehow wangled his way in.
Unfortunately he was required to carry heavy
cannon shells on his back and as a result spent the
rest of his life with an obviously hunched back. He
was a wonderful man.

FAMILY
Like my great, great grandfather, my father was
Joseph Henry Fussell. He born in 1906 but I have
no idea where. Because he died a relatively young
man in 1954, when I was only 15, I have very few
recollections of him.
He went to school at King
Edward V11 High School in
Johannesburg, the first of
four generations of Fussell to
do so, was the cadet drum
major for the school at a 1922
Jamboree in Britain and later
became drum major in the
Transvaal Scottish Regiment.
time with him was otherwise limited.
I remember sometimes visiting his office and
giving make-believe rugby commentaries into his
dictaphone. He had a horse named Frankie and
he taught my brother and me ride. He never took
any real interest in our farm. That was left to
my mother.
He was a big, burly man, immensely
strong and became a Transvaal wrestler. I
don’t know how well he did at it. He was
also accomplished at tennis.
Because he suffered from a slight heart
ailment, however, he was deemed unfit for
service in the armed forces during World
War 11, and built a career in insurance
becoming what they called Transvaal agency
manager, for Norwich Union, and then branch
manager. I was born in 1939 so I knew little about
those times.
He was at work during the day and, though he
drove Basil and me to and from school daily, our
Every morning and evening, he would detour from
the route to work to visit his parents living with
his sister in Sunnyside Road in Orchards in
Johannesburg, even if only just to pop in and say
hello. I admired him for that. To me, he was a great
guy. I got on very well with him.
He never smoked that I know of, but he drank
heavily.

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