Tuesday 29 July: Amidst the many excuses for not writing sooner that Mary Moffat’s letters always seem to contain, in her letters to her daughter Janey there is the tucked away unfolding story of her eldest daughter, Janey’s considerably older sister Mary, who married David Livingstone. The Livingstones are elusive, always delayed in their arrival for visits, then Mary is grieved and upset when Livingstone goes walk-about alone, so she and a pile of their children go with him on his travels. They turn up at Kuruman, bedraggled, one child dead; Mary wants them to stay in Kuruman… Things are in the midst of unfolding, Mary’s troubles are well underway, but worse is to come. I know it, hindsight being what it is. Had Mary already scented the utter determination, the fixed will, of her husband? and how strange to know the future and want to pass notes through the whirls of time – Mary, Mary, don’t do it! stay in Kuruman! or, still to come, stay in Kendal with those Quaker folks who will befriend you!

We are in Port Elizabeth today for our third book-launch.

It takes place in Bayworld, not a bookshop but an aquarium and snake house. There is I’m certain a good reason…

Last updated: 30 July 2014