Nov 10 2023 30 mins 3
Frances reads two letters, written by Aldwyn in Nyasaland in Feb and April of 1910.
Aldwyn drew a sketch map of the mission station at Kota Kota (now Nkhotakota), showing the church, school & hospital buildings. I found his sketch, including the many buildings. The kitchen is separate to the dining room building (due to the risk of fire), and Aldwyn even drew the mud huts where the teachers lived.
All Saints Cathedral is still there, running east-west, as in Aldwyn's sketch, with the vestry still on the south-eastern corner. St Anne's Mission hospital is also still sited on the former slave trading site, near the David Livingstone tree (which Aldwyn doesn't mention.)
Miss Thompson, one of the UMCA nurses, frets that Aldwyn may have another fever. Meanwhile Mr Manning tells stories of Winston Churchill at Ladysmith.
Aldwyn is off 'on ulendo' again, and if he doesn't take a tent the doctor tells him off, as he risks getting tick fever again.
And Katayeni is a small boy whose name means 'throw him away' (he was weak and sickly at birth). Katayeni is a word from the Chinyanja language, which Aldwyn could speak and write. It is now known as Nyanja or Chewa, and is one of the languages of the Bantu people of southern Africa
0:00 Intro
04:10 Aldwyn's letter, 20th February 1910
08:07 Notes on Aldwyn's letter
15:32 Aldwyn's letter, 24th April 1910
21:14 Notes on Aldwyn's letter
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All content is subject to copyright and belongs to Frances Thompson and the Bodleian Library.
