Margaret spent a month with us at Orange Grove, and was invaluable in teaching me how to handle the baby. It was a happy rewarding time, and she and I took it in turns to go round the farm with Pat, and I felt fully confident when she left.

Pat was tremendously busy getting the farming going on Orange Grove. He now had much fencing done and cattle into the paddocks, the dip tank built, the new phase of the house slowly being built, and a flock of Merino sheep to which he had just added two Corriedale rams imported from Australia.

He was very interested in improving ~pastures, and a regular visitor was Mr Timson the Government Plant Pathologist who encouraged him tremendously in this interest. He sent regular reports to Dr Ziervogel, who sometimes worried Pat in his replies as he seemed already to expect returns from his financial commitment before Pat had even been there for eighteen months and had started everything from scratch.

The blow fell early in May, when Harold and Mary Barber arrived in Melsetter with their Guy aged eight and David six, and Pat suddenly realised that Dr Ziervogel had offered the job as manager of Orange Grove to Harold, and he�d come to take over. (Later we learned that the Barbers had had no idea of the set-up.) I wrote to my parents on my birthday, weeping, telling them that they had been right when they had voiced their doubts earlier about the security of the job offered to Pat. (They tried to encourage us to move to the Cape, but we knew that we couldn�t possibly afford to buy a farm there, and we both loved Melsetter. Dr Ziervogel gave Pat three months� pay (�75!) in lieu of notice.

The Hanmers were the kindest possible friends and took us in as long as we needed to stay. From our Orange Grove p.k. Pat had admired the view of Albany and had dreamt of farming there on his own, and now he, after installing Jim and me and our few belongings at Fairview, set off to ride over Albany with Gielie. It was all he had hoped it would be so, after he had bought a secondhand International pickup for �65 from our wedding present money, he went to Salisbury to approach the Land Bank for the necessary loans. It was pointed out to him that nobody had ever been able to make a living on Albany, but Pat was adamant and persuaded them that he could, and eventually he was granted a loan to buy the farm from Captain Boshoff, and short-term loans for purchasing cattle and fencing.

For the next two months, while Jim and I stayed at Fairview, Pat was backwards and forwards getting the farm started, buying cattle, fixing the dip-tank, fencing, getting a road built and getting the house in some sort of order. In July we moved to our new home - another story.