From Bonnington Farm to Lingalibalele Street

* PHILLIP SEGADIKA | Friday September 24, 2010 00:00

In Mogoditshane, immediately opposite Grand Palm hotel entrance and the Bonnington shopping mall stands two sets of silo quadrants and a ruined farm house. These were built by Dan Le Cordeur Sr. and his wife Rene a few years after purchasing the farm in 1944. Dan Le Cordeur Sr. was formerly from Capetown but his father was of French Huguenot descent.

Le Cordeur Sr. was a farmer, cattle baron and businessman who at one time owned the entire land from Broadhurst to the foot of Kgale Hill, at least 3 shops in Kgale, Gabane and what is now the Bonnington shopping mall. The site was listed as a National Monument in 2006 and the silos recently restored through the Adopt a Monument Strategy of the National Museum in a collaboration started with Plascon Freeworld, PG Timbers and BMB.

While clearing the area for monument restoration in 2006, a team from the National Museum led by Victor Mokobi and yours truly discovered a time capsule hidden in rubble. In that old and broken bottle, about the size of a 500ml mayonnaise container, was a letter written 57 years ago by Dan Le Cordeur Sr. On closer analysis, the letter reveals the fears and hope of white settlers in Bechuanaland, the who is who of 'Gaberones' in the 1950s, Le Cordeur Sr.'s personal family wishes and provides insight into his mental map of the place we now call Gaborone.

When the ever fervent Museum Director, Gaogakwe Phorano, agreed to the idea of Bonnington Farm Monument as an appropriate locale and launching pad to tell the history of Mogoditshane and Gaborone, the journey had begun. We surmised that since the time capsule was written in 1953 when, as the letter said, his five children were between the ages of four and 13, then surely, one or some of the children would be alive. Thanks to Google and Facebook, within a couple of days of searching, we were in contact with all four of the surviving children, including Dan Le Cordeur... Sometimes I am the emotional type and my co-researcher Victor Mokobi - our man for old buildings is not any better, that is despite his huge structure and university days as a politician and Minister of Refectory. When we successfully traced the Le Cordeurs, we shed tears of fulfillment, similar to those we had shed when we accidentally discovered the time capsule in 2006. We were now in contact with Dan Le Cordeur Jr and three of his sisters. Dan lived in Pietermaritzburg while the three Le Cordeur sisters live in Johannesburg, Victoria Falls and the USA respectively.

The best was to happen in May 2010 when Dan Le Cordeur Jr finally managed to heed our invitation to come over for a chat on his memories of the Farm as we brainstormed on the conceptualisation of the Bonnington Farm Open Air Site Museum.

A tall, broad shouldered gentleman, with the face and beard of a biblical character, he was clad in jeans and a black leather jacket when he rested his BMW motorbike on the Museum car park.

He had brought a short hazy DVD showing clips of life in Bonnington which was his family home from birth in Lobatse in 1949 until he was 16. Yes, except he had to attend a South African boarding school in between. 

A team of museum professionals including an ethnologist, an architect, historic buildings specialist, two archaeologists and a photographer spent two hours on site with a man who answered questions from personal memories to farm house division, relations with the people of Mogoditshane, the size and worth of the farm then, the Bonnington General Store, the meaning of isolated structures within the site, the types of animals reared, the variety of farm products and relations with his father - as the only son. He made sense to many aspects of the farm house and was able to distinguish the Le Cordeur constructions with those of the latter occupants such as the Saunders and Gaborone Stables. He reminisced  on one gentleman, Mac Molato (his rendition) whose descendants I am busy looking for. We frantically took notes, pictures and drafted maps of the farm house and the site as he poured on us personal reflections of life on The Bonnington farm.

He was to come for the official launch of the first phase of the Bonnington Project and stay longer for more discussions on his family involvement in the project. However, an email from Jean Du Plessis about Dan's tragic train accident and death was a shock. I had to attend his funeral. Yet,  even in the days of Systemic Thinking I knew that it would be impossible to justify a foreign trip, especially within two days, to attend the funeral mass of a dead informant. It would also be difficult to justify it on the grounds that we would then interview Dan's three surviving sisters mentioned in the time capsule: You can't be seen to be keen on interviews while folks are still mourning the loss of a husband, a father and brother !.

Yet I was troubled, not by the ghost of Dan Le Cordeur Jr, but by the words of his father as written in the time capsule that we discovered by chance: if anyone of you is better placed and my children are in need please lend them a hand'.

I am not any better placed, but we all sacrifice to attend funerals. My better half gave in to my sentimental pastoral side to get a plane ticket for the funeral in Pietermaritzburg. Perhaps she guessed I was double broken and needed a little break because we had just learnt of another death of a very close spiritual daughter, Dolly Masimolole of Mogoditshane, who at 17 was diagnosed with cancer, had her leg amputated at 18 and succumbed to cancer at 21 years. And this is no digression because in heritage philosophy and symbolism I know that Dan Le Cordeur Jr and Dolly Masimolole are not unrelated.

As Dolly's grandmother has confirmed, when she was a little girl growing up in Mogoditshane in the 1950s Bonnington farm was an employment resource for the residents, a critical general store and commercial centre for the residents of Mogoditshane and Gaborone...So when the small ATR landed at Pietermaritzburg airport, I felt greatly fulfilled that I could come to lend a hand of comfort in honour of the writings of Dan Le Corduer Sr and the professional contact and vision I had enjoyed briefly with his son.Dan Le Cordeur Jr was more than just an informant in the Bonnington project. He had vowed total commitment as a participant and partner. His life and death and somewhat his facial appearance and humility, reminds one of the late Braam Le Roux of the Kuru family of Organisations.  Despite his training and work as a marine engineer, Dan was more at peace with contributing to structural change in South Africa. He had devoted his life to numerous community development projects including one for several years in confronting the perils of HIV/AIDS. Of relevance to his envisaged contribution to the Bonnington Farm project was his experience in the Oral Traditions Project, dubbed Sinamlandu.

The project sought to restore oral history and heritage traditions to underprivileged communities whose older generations were affected by the HIVAIDS pandemic in the outskirts of Pietermaritzburg. Dan had also trained for the Anglican Priesthood, worked as a chaplain but preferred some kind of bi-vocational engagement.  He was restoring his retirement home on the shores of Capetown, next to a rail line when he met his death.

The funeral mass for Dan Le Cordeur Jr was held at the Anglican church on a street named after Lingalibalele, the Legendary Lhubi Chief who listened to his conscience and staged a successful revolt against the British in the 1870s. When Dan came to Gaborone in May, he too listened to his conscience, declined our hotel bookings and tied his hammock between a tree and the pillar of his former farm house.  He slept outside, watching the same stars he used to behold while most of Gaborone was still bushes and farms. There in the open, he took a snooze at the mellowing of the lullaby competition from the frogs of the grandpalm pond and the Segoditshane River.

Incidentally, as Dan Le Cordeur Jr testified, that pond at the Grandpalm was part of a Bonnington farm weir on which as children they used to canoe - and he had pictures to prove it. So he slept peacefully at home - only to be disturbed by the police at the crack of dawn, ironically decrying trespass and dangerous camping. He was Dan enough to tell them he was raised here.

I attended the family and friends 'wake' party, and told them I had come all the way from 'Gaberones' to invite them to do their part in the proposed Bonnington museum project. I was preaching to the converted, Dan had been a good evangelist about his recent expedition into Botswana. Sometimes we make appointments thinking the best is yet to happen.

However, despite the frustration at his demise, in retrospect, we realise that Dan's short notice visit to Gaborone was timely in the divine plan. He is survived by his wife Trish, and Sons Mathew, William and James. With Dan now departed our research focus rests on his three surviving sisters Vyvyan (Le Cordeur Moroney), Myfanwy (Mullinder) and Diedre (Le Cordeur Griffioen) who lived at Bonnington as children.  As the plane lifted from Pietermaritzburg airport for Gaborone via Johannesburg, I remembered I had to draft notes for the sermon I should deliver at Dolly's funeral, and for moderation at the official launch of the Bonnington Silos project.

* Phillip Segadika is Principal Curator of Archaeology at the Botswana National Museum and Monuments and a local pastor at the Airport Road Church, Block 8 Gaborone. He writes in his personal capacity. (A tribute to Dan Le Cordeur Jr 1949 to 2010)