Page 48 - Bulletin 15 2011

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tractor salesman who could speak their language! When the hostilities of World War II

commenced Elma was keen to get back home so they left for the USA in 1940, the year
George’s father died, and he was never to return. Later on in life George, who was then in

California, cultivated silver trees that are indigenous to the Western Cape. He died in Santa
Cruz, California in 2003, having reached the age of 100, still recalling what life was like in

Cape Town before World War I.

Gerald, the youngest of the family, born in 1905, was my father. He was extremely

mischievous and he and George were notorious for getting into trouble. As young boys the
brothers were expelled from the Star of the Sea Convent in St. James after a nun fainted when

she dipped her fingers into the convent’s holy water and found their grass snake swimming
around in the font! After school at Kingswood Gerald joined George Findlay & Co. Ltd. as a

salesman and was sent out into the country, often arriving by train at his destination in the
middle of the night. He eventually took over the management of the Parliament Street retail

operation.

While living with his parents at Villa Capri he met my mother Ruth Dyer who was staying

nearby at ‘The Ley’. (Fig. 1.50.) They married in 1936 and held their wedding reception in

the garden of ‘The Ley’. The newlyweds were one of the first tenants in the block of flats
‘Bellemer’ opposite the St. James pool. They built a house on the hillside above ‘Villa Capri’

that they named ‘Westwood’, 13 Capri Road, after the old Newlands home. (Fig. 1.51.)
Gerald joined up at the beginning of World War II and served in the crash-boats at Gordon’s

Bay in the air/sea rescue unit. He then served in Italy and Austria in the South African forces
in 1945.

After Edith Stuart-Findlay’s death, Gerald and Ruth sold ‘Westwood’ and bought ‘Villa
Capri’ from the family estate in 1952, (Fig. 1.52) selling off the vacant plot behind the house

to their neighbour Ken Beard who created a beautiful garden in front of his house.

Unfortunately, after living at Villa Capri for ten years, with the financial situation at George
Findlay & Co. Ltd. deteriorating rapidly, Gerald and Ruth had to sell the old family home in