Parents, part 1.

This is the first of what will be at least a couple of entries about my parents, John and Patricia ("Tish").  This one is about before they were married.

(For some of the terminology it may be worth referring to the separate entry Background on schools and universities in South Africa (during the Apartheid era) posted on 1/20/18.)

Patricia

My mother, Patricia (though I never heard her called anything other than "Tish" or Mrs. Couper) was born in the small coastal town of Knysna.  I don't know where she attended primary school but for high school she was a boarder at the Collegiate School for Girls in Port Elizabeth http://www.collegiatehigh.co.za/ (the sister school of the school I later attended).  Both of my parents must have showed signs of leadership quite early (a trait that passed me by completely).  For instance, my mother was appointed Head Prefect in her final year of high school.  The only information I have about her from that time is this school report from her last quarter:  The date on it shows that World War II ended while she was still in high school.

After high school my mother went to the University of Cape Town (UCT) http://www.uct.ac.za/ where I think she majored in English and History.  She didn't do an honours year but instead jumped straight to doing an MA in history.  She later expressed regret about not doing an honours year (that is, more coursework) before starting on a thesis.  I believe my mother served on the House Committee of her residence hall and may even have been chair of the House Committee.  After finishing her MA she obtained a teaching post at a high school in Cape Town.  I think it was at St. Cyprian's School http://www.stcyprians.co.za/.  I don't know whether she started there before they were married.  Married women couldn't have a permanent teaching post at a public school (that was still true even in the mid 1980s) but that wouldn't have been an issue at a private school such as St. Cyprian's.

In this photo my mother is on the steps outside Jameson Hall at UCT.  (I don't have a date for this photo so don't know whether it was before or after meeting my father.)

John

My father, John, attended high school at Kearsney College, a private boarding school for boys near Durban https://www.kearsney.com/.  I must have inherited my pack-rat tendencies from my father - I have much more material that he saved than I have for my mother.  Like my mother, he was appointed to a leadership role quite early, though just as a House Prefect:

My father was in the marching band.  He is the one wearing the leopard-skin, fourth from the right in the front row.  That's the only evidence I have of any musical ability on either side of the family.  I seem to remember there being a piano in my maternal grandmother's old house, but don't recall anyone ever playing it.

This letter gives what I believe are my father's final high school grades.  I wish I'd known about these less-than-stellar grades when I was in high school!

After high school my father started medical school at the University of Cape Town.  World War II was still in progress at that stage.  In 1944 my father decided he wanted to serve in the war.  In those days one was not legally an adult until 21.  Prior to that age one had to get a parent's signature on any legal documents, including to sign up for the military.  My father sent his father a telegram saying "Want permission join up leave studies immediately stop.  Will make arrangement come home pending reply. Love John".  I don't have a copy of that telegram, just a scrap of paper on which my father had composed what he wanted to send.  I do have a couple of replies from his father though.  From the telegrams sent in reply, his father obviously didn't think much of the idea, though he seemed to be more concerned about finances than the dangers of going to war (despite having himself been wounded in World War I).

Permission must eventually have been given.  Even before I came across these documents after his death, I knew that my father served in North Africa and Italy.  I don't think he was in any actual combat and he never talked about his military service. 

After initial training, he was called up for active duty in 1945. 

My father kept a diary for at least some of the time he was in the military.  I haven't read all of it yet, partly because his handwriting is difficult to decipher.  The strangest entry is this one:

15th August (1945)  Victory over Japan was announced today - while we are in the Red Sea on our way to the East.  Have been very depressed today.  Everything seems to have gone wrong since I've joined up  [after that unreadable]

Everything seems to have gone wrong?  Victory in Europe?  Victory in Japan?  Gone wrong??

My father received a couple of service medals:

In September (1945) the troop ship arrived back in Durban.  There are a few more rather interesting entries among those before the last diary entry on October 3.

12th September:  Slept in late, about 10:30.  I awoke to find Aunty Mabel and Uncle Percy here.  God, if only they knew how I hate some of my relations.  I simply cannot stand Aunty Mabel.

The "hate some of my relations" may partly explain why we seldom saw anyone from my father's side of the family.  Another reason is that they were much further away than my mother's side.

18th September:  Seriously thinking of taking up Pelmanism.  Think it will do me a world of good.  Also today gave serious thought to going overseas to finish my studies.  Weak points are whether an overseas trained man will be as popular as a S.A. trained man in five or six years' time & finances.  Strong points - education, better tuition, away from home.

2nd October:  Bioscope with the family.  Quite an enjoyable picture - "Weekend at the Waldorf".  Had a fight with the family on our return.  I seem a proper misfit at home which I hate.  May I never get married & have children if the family's idea of "home life" is anything like it is at 38.  [The 38 was presumably the number of their house.]

Despite what he wrote on September 18, he did resume his medical school studies at the University of Cape Town.  I think that like my mother he was later elected chair of his residence hall's House Committee, which may have been how they met.  I don't know when exactly they met, but do have evidence that it was no later than 1950.  Below are the cover and the inside pages of the program from his residence hall's farewell dance at the end of the 1950 academic year, with my mother listed as his partner.  (Being in the southern hemisphere the academic year falls within a single calendar year.)  I also have his dance program from the previous year, with "Miss Thelma Loots" listed as his partner.  I wonder what became of Miss Loots.

What occasioned the photo below I don't know.  The only information with the photo is that it was taken in 1947, which would have been after my father resumed his studies.  It looks like it is at the University of Cape Town, in which case the large rectangular object behind my father is a memorial to those who died in the two world wars.

In this photo the war memorial is the large white object directly behind the statue of Cecil Rhodes (that has since been removed, as a result of the Rhodes Must Fall protests in 2015).  The first building on the left is what used to be called "Women's Residence" and the first one on the right used to be "Men's Residence" back when there was just one residence hall for women and one for me.  By the time I was a student there were several more and these had been renamed Fuller Hall and Smuts Hall, respectively.  The building in the middle with the columns is Jameson Hall (see a photo further up of my mother sitting on the steps outside it).  The mountain directly behind the university is Devil's Peak, with part of Table Mountain visible to the left.

At some time after this my father's medical studies were interrupted again when he had a serious motorcycle accident.  Apparently a motorist who hadn't seen him made a U-turn directly in front of him and he couldn't avoid crashing.  He lost a substantial amount of flesh and muscle tissue in the lower part of both legs.  He continued to receive medical treatment for many years after that - I remember that when I was about 5 I went with him by train to Johannesburg so he could consult a specialist about the wound.  His legs never fully recovered - he always walked with a limp and usually had to wear bandages on his legs.  When he died more than 40 years later the underlying cause of death on his death certificate was listed as infection from the leg wound.

This photo was from a year or so before their wedding.  It looks like it was taken in Knysna.

Below is the invitation to my parents' wedding.  Note that this was a winter wedding (June in the southern hemisphere).

To be scandalously continued … with me playing outside the church while my parents were inside getting married.  (Don't believe everything a toddler Couper tells you.)

Background on schools and universities in South Africa (during the Apartheid era)

A whole entry on background

Some background and terminology on the school and university system in South Africa for my American (and in some cases other) friends:


Apartheid

First some related comments about Apartheid, because all of this was before and during the Apartheid era.  Prior to the National Party coming to power in 1948, South African society was probably about as segregated as the US was at that time.  The National Party formalized segregation as Apartheid, which can be translated as "separateness".  Apartheid involved "aparte ontwikkeling" - separate development, with separate and supposedly equal facilities for all race groups.  The "separate" was attained in many areas, the "equal" not so much.  After 1948 the National Party enshrined more and more segregation into law.  While the US was struggling with breaking down various racial barriers in the 1960s and 1970s, South Africa was moving in the opposite direction.

Race in South Africa was not just divided into black and white.  There were so-called Coloureds (mixed race), Cape Malays (originating from Southeast Asia and usually legally regarded as being Coloureds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Malays), Indians (from India, not the African equivalent of American Indian), plus very small numbers of Chinese.  Although many of the Indians were brought to South Africa as laborers, to work in the sugar cane fields, there have also long been many doctors and other professionals.  The Coloureds faced discrimination from whites during Apartheid, but at least some of them were also concerned about discrimination from blacks and were worried about being just as much of a minority under a black government.  During the later years of Apartheid the Coloureds and Indians were given their own political systems and some control over their own affairs.  Blacks, on the other hand, were all supposed to belong to "independent" self-governing countries (usually referred to in English as "homelands").  The only countries that recognized the independence of these homelands were South Africa and each other.  How much of a sham this was is illustrated by the fact that as soon as Apartheid ended they all became part of South Africa again.

Schools were segregated on racial lines, though the segregation was probably more strict in terms of white versus other than between the others.  Different race groups were also confined to living in different areas.  A wealthy Indian doctor, for instance, could not buy a house in a white area.  What caused a great amount of bitterness was that in cities such as Cape Town and Port Elizabeth there had been Coloured/Cape Malay/Indian communities quite close to the city centers but during Apartheid they were relocated to much more remote and less convenient areas.  District Six in Cape Town is probably the best known example of such forced removal.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_Six  As noted in Wikipedia "Over 60,000 of its inhabitants were forcibly removed during the 1970s by the apartheid regime.  …   By 1982, more than 60,000 people had been relocated to the sandy, bleak Cape Flats township complex some 25 kilometres away. The old houses were bulldozed. The only buildings left standing were places of worship.  International and local pressure made redevelopment difficult for the government, however."  What had been a vibrant and cohesive community was destroyed.  The area remained essentially undeveloped until the end of Apartheid.

At university level there was a little more mixing (at least by the '70s when I was a student).  There were some Coloured and Indian students at "white" universities, though they were not allowed to live in "white" residence halls.  Black students could study at a white university only if they could prove that there wasn't a reasonably equivalent option at any black university.

The small Chinese community lived in a rather strange twilight zone.  For some purposes they were accepted as whites.  They had their own residential areas and schools.  On the other hand, they could not only study at white universities but even live in white residence halls at these universities.  I met a bunch of Chinese undergraduates on the long train journey when I went off to college for the first time.  The Chinese students were allowed to reserve a sleeping compartment in a white carriage on the train, but were not allowed to eat meals in the white dining car!

South Africa was not only divided alone race lines, it was divided along language lines too.  There was probably less animosity between whites and blacks than there was between some English- and Afrikaans-speaking whites.  The two language groups went to (mostly) separate schools, with each group being taught in its own language (apart from also having to study the other language).  Rugby, which is stylized war even at the best of times, provided a wonderful opportunity for the two groups to get stuck into one another.  One of my college friends, who used to play rugby at an advanced level, used to come back from matches against the police (predominantly Afrikaners at that stage) with bite marks on his back and elsewhere.


Schools

In South Africa there are two levels of school - primary (or junior) school encompasses grades 1 through 7 (back in my day called sub A and sub B followed by standards 1 through 5) and high (or senior) school, encompassing grades 8 through 12 (back then called standards 6 through 10).  One could earn a school-leaving certificate at the end of grade 10 ("junior certificate") or at the end of grade 12 ("senior certificate" or "matric certificate"; with grade 12 also being referred to as "matric") by passing national or provincial exams (depending on one's school).

What are called private schools in the US and in South Africa are, strangely, called public schools (or independent schools) in Britain.  What in the US are called public schools are sometimes called government schools in South Africa (because they are funded by either the central or the relevant provincial government).  Unlike in the US, government schools can charge fees.  The level of the fees varies, so high-quality government schools may charge fairly hefty fees whereas schools in deprived areas may be free.  The better government schools can also be more selective about who they admit, rather than having strict zoning such as in the US.

Many of the better private and public schools in South Africa are partly boarding schools, attracting students from rural areas and smaller towns, as well as legacy students (that is, who parents went to those schools but now live in other cities).  Most of the better schools have a "house" system, like in the Harry Potter books, with not just boarders but also each day student assigned to a specific house, with intra-mural competitions between the houses.

My old school even has an entry in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_High_School.  You may be shocked to see that I am NOT listed under the "Notable alumni".  Also, how can something be a "tradition" if it dates to AFTER when I was there ("Quad Races")?  😃

This (very recent) article about a cricket player from a disadvantaged background ("His mother and father toiled in other people's grand homes, a legacy of the apartheid system that was officially dismantled in 1994 but affects people's lives to this very day.") touches on some of the background above.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/story/_/id/22151406/firdose-moonda-lungi-ngidi-journey-international-stage

Passing grades at high school level are A, B, C, etc., based on percentage scores, with A = 80-100, B = 70-79, C = 60-69, D = 50-59, E = 40-49.  I think F = 33-39 and is still a pass, with below 33 being a fail.  If I recall correctly, below 40 was a fail for English and Afrikaans.  Back then when these were the (only) official languages, students had to take both through high school.  I have no idea what the language requirements are now that there are 11 official languages.  What Americans call a grade point average (GPA) was called an aggregate and was a (weighted) average of the scores of the individual subjects and was also a symbol using the same conversion from percentages as above.  The weighting gave extra weight to one's first language.

Prefects (edited version of a Wikipedia entry):  In some British and Commonwealth schools, prefects, usually students in their final year of that level of school (primary or high school), have considerable power; in some cases they effectively run the school outside the classroom.  They were once allowed to administer school corporal punishment in some schools.  They usually answer to a senior prefect known as the Head of School, Head Prefect, or Head Boy or Head Girl.  In schools with boarding houses, there may be house prefects within each boarding house.  House prefects typically have authority only over the students in their house rather than over students more generally.


Universities

At university level a standard bachelor of arts (BA) or bachelor of science (BSc) degree takes 3 years.  One can spend an extra year after the BA or BSc to obtain an honours degree (a second degree) in a particular discipline, usually one in which one has majored.  Unlike at American universities, there is no "general education" requirement forcing one to take classes in a wide variety of disciplines - I could have done my undergraduate degree taking only classes in mathematical fields.  Most coursework is restricted to undergraduate level, with masters and doctoral degrees typically (though not always) requiring just a thesis rather than additional coursework.  Medicine is (or was back then) a 6-year undergraduate degree, with the first-year classes being physics, chemistry and biology, second-year being anatomy and physiology and then 4 years of more clinical training.

Grades at university level are first class (75-100%), upper second class (70-74%), lower second class (60-69%), third class (50-59%) and fail (below 50%).  There is no equivalent of a GPA at university level.  The degree is awarded with distinction in one's major (or majors) if one gets a first class pass at the end of the major and the degree as a whole is awarded with distinction if one gets a distinction for each major (including if one has just one major).

Residence halls (res., or what in America are often called dorms) typically elect a House Committee for self-government, organization of social events, etc.  A faculty member serves as the Warden of the res., often living in a house adjacent to the res.  A few senior students may be appointed as sub-wardens, to act as advisors to other students.  (Sub-wardens are generally appointed by the Warden whereas House Committee members are elected by the students in the res.)

Grandparents

Our son Steven put in a request for me to write something about my family.  First up, an entry on my grandparents.

As far as I have been able to ascertain, all four of my grandparents were born in South Africa but all eight of my great-grandparents emigrated from various parts of the British Isles.  The Couper branch came from Scotland.  The image shows the postcodes where the last name Couper is currently most common in the UK - around Glasgow and in some islands off to the north-east.  The map was produced using http://named.publicprofiler.org/.  

Three of my four grandparents lived to an older age than either of my parents (or either of Riëtta's parents).  The only one who didn't was my maternal grandfather Patrick Cuthbert, who died of cancer (of the stomach, I think) when he was 62 and I was just 5.  He was older than my mother, but not than my father or Riëtta's parents.

Maternal grandparents

Patrick and Iona Cuthbert lived in Knysna, a coastal resort where Patrick had the local Ford dealership and the Shell petrol / gas franchise.  (In South Africa, particularly in small towns, new car dealerships and gas stations were usually co-located, much like gas stations and convenience stores in the US.)  Their house, called "Patriona" was at the edge of the Knysna lagoon, about where the upward-pointing arrow is in the aerial photo.  The image was clearly taken at low tide - at high tide water would cover most of where that arrow is placed as well as most of the downward-facing arrow.  Patrick and Iona had two children, my mother and a younger brother, David.

The photo below shows Patrick and Iona with my parents (and me).

After Patrick passed away Iona continued to live at Patriona for several more years.  She was still there when we lived with her when I was in the second half of 5th grade, which I spent at Knysna Primary School.  I think David was in college when his father passed away and abandoned his studies to take over the family business.  David later married Isabel and they in turn had two children, my cousins Paul and Patrick.  (After having lost contact with them for a number of years, I was pleased to be able to re-connect with Paul through Facebook.  When Steven and Stephany visited South Africa in 2016 they met Paul and his family, plus various other relatives.)  Some time later Iona sold out to a developer and moved to a new house in the Hunters Home area, just above the golf course.  The rightward-pointing arrow shows the approximate location.  We had several other relatives in the Knsyna area, including some who lived in a rather gloomy old house at The Heads (the downward-pointing arrow).  David and Isabel initially had a house at Hunters Home but then bought the house at The Heads from the elderly relatives.  They remodeled and turned what had been such a gloomy house into a wonderful bright, sunny home.  (I was not just sad but also a little annoyed when David, my favorite uncle, died of colon cancer.  The reason for the annoyance is that after my mother - his sister - died of colon cancer he should have been screened frequently.)

This photo is from the (previously gloomy) house at The Heads.

Iona was a feisty old lady.  We (or at least I presume my brothers felt likewise) enjoyed staying with her because she always fed us so well, including buying wonderful cakes from the local bakery.  Because Knysna is relatively close to Port Elizabeth, we often spent summer vacations there and I have good memories of the area.  Iona not only fed us well, she ate (and drank) well too and later in life became quite rotund.  It is ironic that my mother was much more careful about what she ate and watched her weight yet passed away just a year or so after her mother.  (I presume Iona was in her late '70s or early '80s when she died but don't know either her actual age or exactly when she passed away.)

Paternal grandparents

I have fewer memories though more printed material about my paternal grandparents, particularly my grandfather.  John and Grace Couper lived in Gillitts, a small town near Durban.  Partly because Durban is much further from Port Elizabeth, we seldom saw those grandparents.  I think we visited Gillitts just twice when I was young.  Grace was ill for several years before she passed away in 1971, aged 78.  According to her death certificate, she had a stroke (which is also what later killed my father) and bronchopneumonia, as well as coronary sclerosis.  (I should add that from my line of work I know that death certificates are notoriously inaccurate about the exact cause of death.)

This photo of John and Grace was probably taken at their house in Gillitts.

My grandfather and my father used to write to one another quite frequently, with my grandfather always typing his.  I think this was the last letter from my grandfather, when he was 99.

John and Grace had four children, first two girls, Elizabeth ("Beth") and Ruth, then my father John and his brother Derrick.  Beth and her husband lived in what was then Rhodesia.  They had two children, Lesley and Rory, who I last saw in 1971 or 1972 when I was still in high school.  Our family visited them in Rhodesia.  While we were there I accompanied Lesley when she drove Rory back to his boarding school, quite some distance away.  On the return journey (in the dark), we were travelling at around 70 miles/hr when Lesley tried to change the channel on the car radio, went off the road, over-corrected and flipped the car multiple times.  I am reasonably sure we weren't wearing seatbelts (most cars probably didn't even have them then).  The rolling of the car felt like being caught in a big wave at the beach.  I managed to crawl out of the car unscathed.  People in a car ahead of us had noticed our headlights making strange movements and came back to see what had happened.  Lesley was in a lot of pain (it turned out she had broken some vertebrae, though fortunately without damaging the spinal cord).  The people who had stopped to help drove us home.  Lesley was in too much pain to provide directions yet somehow even though I'd been on that road just once before, in daylight and going the other way, I managed to guide them.  That was obviously long before smartphones with maps and GPS.  (The trip was the first time I'd been outside South Africa and also the first time I saw TV - South Africa didn't get TV until a few years later.) 

Ruth and her husband didn't have children.  Several years after her husband died, Ruth married Bill Cochrane, who had won the Comrades (ultra) Marathon in 1935 and 1946 (the race was not held in 1941-45 because of World War II).  Bill's running days were many years behind him when he became part of the family rather late in his life (at age 63).  

Derrick and his first wife had a son Blair, who I am not sure I have ever met.  Derrick married at least three times - as far as I know he is the only one on either side of my family to have been through a divorce.  I think Blair is his only child though.

John lived to be 99.  One of his brothers reached 100 and John had hoped to do so too but apparently lost interest in life rather suddenly somewhere in his 100th year.  He'd been doing well until shortly before that - see the article at the end of this piece about him still playing bridge at 99.  The article has some interesting historical notes such as this one about headlamps on cars:"… he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919.  It had no self starter, only a crank.  There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps."

As the article about John playing bridge at 99 notes, in the First World War he was wounded at Delville Wood, a historic battle in which South African troops performed heroically despite a very high casualty rate   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Delville_Wood.  

[I have just a very poor copy of the clipping of the newspaper article from which the transcription below was taken.  One of our relatives transcribed the article.]

Highway Mail April 26, 1986

John is still playing bridge at age 99

by Liz Gower-Jackson

Wounded at the battle of Delville Wood in 1916, living in Durban at the turn of the century and filled with intriguing memories of those early days, John Couper of Hillcrest turned 99 on April 17.

He rises at 5.00am each day, polishes his own shoes and dresses neatly to face the day.  He is charming and dapper, and has a memory better than many half his age.  He told me of taking up playing bridge seriously when he was 92  because he broke his leg and could no longer play bowls.  His twice weekly bridge afternoons add interest and a social fullness to his life.

Always bright and cheerful, John is grateful for his long and happy life.  He has given much time to his fellow man through those years.  Well over 50 years as an elder of the Presbyterian Church and 25 years as Sunday School Superintendent  at the Berea Presbyterian Church, are indicative of his quiet service.  When that church celebrated its centenary recently John Couper seemed surprised at the fuss everyone made of him.  When asked for an interview he said "But a 99th birthday is not special.  I am not 100."

John lives at Hillcrest with his daughter Ruth and her husband Bill Cochrane.  He has shared a home with Ruth since his wife died in 1972.  They had married in 1917 and Ruth is one of four children.  John is a professor of Anaestheology at the Medical University of South Africa in Pretoria.  Elizabeth is a nurse who is married to a man who was in the Indian Army, and Derrick has recently opened a typesetting business in Westville.  Ruth is well known in the bowling world, having been president of the Southern Natal Bowling Association.  She and Bill are keen bowlers at Hillcrest bowling club.

John started playing bowls in 1918 at the Maritzburg Bowling Club when he returned to civilian life after being wounded at Delville Wood and found he could not return to tennis, which was his first love.

In 1923, returning to live in Durban, John joined the Silverton Bowling Club, just over the road from where he had lived as a child.  He can remember riding to church each Sunday with his mother in a carriage and pair, and having to pay toll at Tollgate.  The toll keeper was a Mr. Hulyone (?) who kept a small store to supplement his meagre income.  

All the discussion of the new toll road on the N3 reminded John of that other toll gate all those years ago.  The Coupers had to pay toll when they went to Durban because they lived on the upper side of Ridge Road but many folk slipped through the property  of David Don who lived on the corner, to avoid the tollgate and save precious pennies.  

John Couper drove a car until he was 95 but he can still remember his first car.  He had ridden a motor cycle from 1912, but after World War I, as a married man, he bought a second hand Ford Tin Lizzie for 25 pounds in 1919.  It had no self starter, only a crank.  There were no headlamps, one had to stop when darkness fell, to light the gas carbide lamps.

That car lasted for 10 years before John replaced it with a second hand Buick, and then he had a Chevrolet, and a Zephyr the English Ford was his next car.

In all his years of driving he had only one minor accident, when a motor cycle ran into him.

Looking back over the span of his 99 years, John Couper can remember when there was no electricity, no radios, no motor cars, no movies, no aeroplanes and, of course, no television.  He watches the news on television, but otherwise he loathes its interrupting influence on our lives. 

He says the first electric lights came to Durban about 1900 when progressive and proud householders had just a single electric light, usually in the parlour of their homes.

In another tie with contemporary news John tells of how he came to do duty on the border of what is now Libya.  He left with the South African Brigade for France in World War I.  Arriving in England many of the colonial troops suffered from pulmonary complaints so the South Africans were sent to Egypt where they served on that border, and John's friend, Bob Jones from Durban, was killed.

After being wounded at Delville Wood in July 1916 John ended up convalescing in Ireland for three months.  He says his military service afforded him a veritable Cook's tour.

Career-wise John had to fend for himself from an early age.  He joined a general merchant's business as an office boy at R5 a month, and was earning R10 a month by 1902.  When his employer Arthur George May went into milling in 1905 John went over to the new project which was to become the Union Flour Mills and eventually it was taken over by Premier Milling.  Mr. May was killed in his late 30s when he was thrown from a horse while riding in New Forest, England, where he was holidaying.  Mr. Couper stayed with the firm until he retired at 70. 

Always one to keep up with the times, John has applied for a military pension, feeling that he should qualify under the new rulings announced recently by the Government.