Yes, he was a jolly good fellow and so said all of us – certainly all of us ‘newcomers’- German Jews like my family- newly arrived at a place we regarded as on the outer extremity of the earth – the country now called Zambia.

 Back in Germany it had been described to us as a place “wo die Welt mit Brettern vernagelt ist” – where the world is boarded up with nails.

 The Johannesburg Refugee Assistance Committee had taken out a lease on a farm at Lilayi, over 60 minutes’ drive from the capital, hoping to train us there to

become farmers. It did not happen. Of some 200 families who found refuge in the territory, no more than two or three ever took up farming. Most German Jews had long been town dwellers.

When we first arrived, Tubby offered to drive us out to Lilayi to see the place for ourselves. He drove an old jalopy.  It had a roofed cabin with seats for a driver and two passengers plus an open box protruding from the back, like a wardrobe drawer that someone had forgotten to close. We kids were allowed to sit in this box. The wind blew off my hat. We had, that very morning, been warned of the dangers of sunstroke in this subtropical region, so I banged on the roof of the cabin until Tubby stopped the car, then ran back to retrieve my hat.

Tubby had a son, Sam, another jolly good fellow. When I arrived, I had little English. Sam took time off to practise the language with me. He also taught me how to pinch kidney mangoes – a very superior kind of mango – from Mr. Desai’s garden when Mr D was away.

In his own family garden, he showed me I would find the ripest berries on the sunny side: delicious dark red berries.

Tubby ran what a competitor mockingly called an ‘everything business’. In the beginning, he had, I believe, sold only agricultural equipment but persuasive sales representatives from Johannesburg convinced him to take on motorbikes, water pumps and even pianos – to name only a few. Two upright pianos remained on display in his shop, unsold, for many years.

I know because, when I was a student on vacation, he always engaged me as a filing clerk, whether he really needed one or not. He knew I needed to earn some money … and he was a jolly good fellow.

There was, however, a dark shadow that hung over Tubby, though I only learnt about it later. He had once been mechulleh – a yiddish term meaning bankrupt. That was grounds for deep disgrace in that Jewish community, consisting mainly businessmen. Some suspicion would always linger that it could have been a contrived bankruptcy – a device to get his debts written off.

Having known Tubby over many years, I do not believe that his two (yes, two!) bankruptcies would have been planned and contrived, to get his debts written off. He was an honest man but, alas, not a competent businessman.

    When that second bankruptcy was looming, Tubby fell into depression.

   By then his son had become a skilled tractor mechanic. He was due to drive to Fort Jamieson – a two-day drive – to service several customers’ equipment.

Tubby begged Sidney to cancel the trip. Sidney said he could not. Tubby begged, repeatedly, but Sidney said he could not let down good customers. He simply had to go.

   An hour after Sidney’s departure, Tubby shot himself.

Sidney, called back, had a breakdown. If he had agreed to cancel that trip, would his father still be alive? It was a question nobody could have answered. Sidney was taken to a psychiatric hospital.  I visited him there several times. But though I struggled hard, I could never get a conversation going. He was in too deep a depression. My visits became less frequent, and this made me feel very guilty.

He’d been such a good fellow … and so had said everyone.