NIEU-BETHESDA NEWS — In 1998 Nieu-Bethesda was a very different little place from what it is today.
There were about 30 permanent residents in Nieu-Bethesda itself, 800 in Pienaarsig, no cell phone reception at all, electricity had only just been introduced to the village, and the road from the N9 was really bad gravel that proved treacherous at the slightest rain. (Which didn't happen much anyway - the Nqweba Dam was a pan with zero water in it.)
People had little to do for fun. There was no pub, the Village Inn was the only restaurant, and there was a little coffee shop which opened now and then.
Noelle Obers (then owner of the Ibis Art Centre), Bronwen Langmead (a newcomer to Bethesda), and Gillian Rennie (a well- known journalist) decided that a book club was in order. It took a few minutes to print a flyer (no emails or WhatsApp groups then), and pop it under the few doors in the village and beyond towards the farms. All interested parties were to pitch up at the 'Rusty Metal Yard', the home of Clive Lawrance (famous poet) and Gillian Rennie, one Thursday evening. And that is how the Nieu-Bethesda Book Club was born!
The rules were simple. Pay something to the following month's host, the host cooks supper, buys enough books for the budget and presents them at the following meeting. About 20 book-lovers pitched to the first meeting, and the Book Club has met roughly once a month for 20 years since then. There have been people who have ebbed and flowed, arrived and left, but at the core has remained a love of good books, decent debate and conversation and hearty meals to boot!
Memorable books over the years have included: "As Meat Loves Salt" by Maria McCann; "Cutting for Stone" and Deon Meyer's, "Fever" which was set in a place similar to the Sneeuberg and translated by Graaff-Reinet's Laura Dixon. This has always been a club where books matter, and while some tried to introduce formal book reviews (an idea that was thwarted), books are really read and discussed around good wine and food at tables spread between 'Zuurplaats' and 'Bloemhof'.
Over 20 years, the Bethesda Book Club members have come to love and respect each other as real friends. Robert Kingwill, a long-time member, is profoundly deaf, so dim lighting is not always an option as he lip-read convivial conversation with the help of his wife Phillida. Children have been born, left homes as adults, relationships forged, support given, and, as ee cummings so poignantly puts it, "into the strenuous briefness, life, (they) charge(d), laughing." This book club is unique in that both men and women are welcome, and conversation while sometimes deep and meaningful, is usually charged with a good dose of humour and light-heartedness.
With members sometimes traveling up to 2 hours to other people's homes, some meetings have been interesting. A few aardvarks were spotted en route; Clive Lawrance once rebelled against the fact that it was a book club, not a supper club, and presented everyone with baked beans in cans that they had to warm up themselves; so engrossed was everyone in a particular conversation one night, that Phillida's warnings about the fact that it was raining were ignored, and 4 people ended up being very stuck and had to sleep for the night out on the road!
The Nieu-Bethesda Book Club is a special one, filled with colourful characters who over the years have shared wonderful books, great food, fantastic friendships and fun times.
The current Nieu-Bethesda Book Club members: Paula Kingwill, David Langmead, Karen Schoeman, Julian Murray, Phillida Kingwill, Robert Kingwill, Bronwen Langmead, Lisa Watermeyer, Michelle Cilliers, Iain North. Absent: Kevin Watermeyer.
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