Visit by elderly couple with a long history

Feeling like being home once again, 94-year-old Walter Stephen ‘Steve’ Herbert and 91-year-old wife Nora visited Ladysmith on Friday last week.

With them on their visit were eldest daughter Karin, youngest son Graham and part of Graham’s family, Elizabeth and son Emile. Returning to Ladysmith to visit with their family, they made a stop at the Ladysmith Siege Museum and other places where the elderly couple shared cherished memories with their family.

Both Steve and wife Nora (nee Hodson) have many old connections with Ladysmith.

Steve’s maternal grandfather is John Henry Shell (born March 28, 1863, in Manchester; died January 10, 1935, in Durban) who lived in Ladysmith for many years together with his family and served on the municipal council from 1923 to 1926. There was a plaque commemorating his service to the Ladysmith Town Council in the Ladysmith Town Hall.

(He was a much decorated military man – ex British cavalry – with a long service in the early days of India, Afghanistan, South Africa – Boer War, Rhodesia – Matabele Rebellion, South West Africa – First World War)

Some of John Henry Shell’s children were born in Ladysmith in the early 1900s (presumably while he was serving in the military based in Ladysmith) and many of his daughters were married in Ladysmith – including Steve Herbert’s own mother and father, Ethel May Shell and William ‘Bill’ Herbert, who were married in the All Saints Church in Ladysmith on March 15, 1922.

John Henry Shell was the Regimental Sergeant Major of the 2nd Natal Carbineers in Ladysmith from 1914 and then in charge of the Defence Force Office after the First World War in South West Africa. He retired in 1922 and went on to the reserve of officers. Although the Shell family had been in Ladysmith on and off since the early 1900s, John Henry Shell and the family (grandmother Isabella – nee Harrison – and their 10 children) lived more permanently in Ladysmith from about 1914.

The Shell family seem to have been first on the farm Diamana near Danskraal on the first train stop out of Ladysmith and then moved into the town of Ladysmith, where they managed Shell’s Tea Room (which was still extant as the Hotel Windsor Annexe in 1963).

This was a complex of function rooms, a boarding house and “restaurant”, and all the Shell family worked in and helped to run it (Dorothy Agnes Shell, or Dolly, called it the Shell Hotel). After a few years of this, they then moved to the second farm on the Umbulwane road, where they opened a trading store.

During the depression of the 1930s John Henry Shell, his wife Isabella (nee Harrison) and the family lived out on this farm along the Umbulwane road and also ran the store there.

The extended family in Natal (including Steve Herbert’s own immediate family- consisting of his mother Ethel May, father William ‘Bill’, Pam and Steve as children) all gathered there and helped each other to survive the depression. For example, Steve’s father, Bill Herbert, was a pharmacist / manufacturing chemist and he made medicine which was then exchanged for chickens in the community. Ladysmith connections continue into larger generations…

Steve Herbert first met Nora Hodson in Ladysmith after the Second World War when Steve was continuing service in the army as a trainer (Steve Herbert 2WW served first in North Africa – Egypt and Libya).

Then, after the fall of Tobruk, he, like many South Africans, was taken as a prisoner of war and spent many years in various POW work camps in Italy and then in Germany, with many interesting escapes and experiences.

This family has a long history in Ladysmith!

DID YOU KNOW?
Click on the words highlighted in red to read more on this and related topics.
If you are reading this on your cellphone and there are telephone numbers provided in the text, you can call these simply by clicking on them.
To receive news links via WhatsApp.

For the latest news, visit our webpage or follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Join us there!