Little albums full of memories

Muriel Tilbury stands at her door with a warm smile to make any guest feel very welcome. She invites visitors to come and sit in her living room in Edenpark where she would regale them with fascinating tales and the story of her life.

She was born in 1924, when her father, Mr Ralph Elliott, and his partner founded the Oxygen Company in Johannesburg. As her parents’ only child and daughter of a businessman who travelled a lot, she knew many homes.

“I was transferred to at least 16 different schools,” she told, one of which was a boarding school at a convent. In 1932 her father started an Oxygen Company in North Rhodesia (Zambia), in Ndola, where she remembers spending most of her younger years.
While she was still at school she worked part time at the company doing ‘cylinder control’.

As though Muriel suddenly remembers something she was most anxious to show – she hurries to retrieve two small albums from a drawer in her room. They contain pictures from her youth and she pointed excitedly to a picture of a pretty girl holding a big fish.
“I used to go on regular fishing trips with my father and caught this eight pound tiger fish!” The 90-year-old woman laughs then and looks years younger, making it easy to see her as the young woman who once posed for this photo.
Then Muriel continues with her story…

In 1948 she married Maurice whom she met at the Falcon Hotel. “I was at a party and he was standing alone outside on the veranda – so I decided to introduce myself.”

The couple had five children together and Muriel was later blessed with five grandchildren.
In her albums and framed photos, Muriel would also point them out, telling very proudly of all their achievements.
It was not meant to be for Muriel and Maurice, however. “In 1965 I divorced him on account of cruelty,” Muriel told simply. She had left then to go to the Salvation Army back in Ndola where she went to take care of her mother. Her mother resided at the Hadden Hall and it seemed Muriel arrived at a time that there was much help needed at the guesthouse. Without really looking for a job, Muriel was then given this task to help out at the Hadden Hall. Muriel told of all the interesting people she met during her time there – including a very big man named Tom, who was in charge of the kitchen.

Although taking care of so many residents at the Hadden Hall could, at times, be very stressful, Muriel always seemed to manage.
“I would never take any alcohol as the others did to relax – but I did take to cigarettes now, didn’t I!” she said and laughed out loud.
Her mother passed away a year after she was employed at the guesthouse and after three years she then also resigned.

Muriel continues telling how she was appointed at the Falcon Hotel where she managed the place well, and was soon referred to by the staff there as ‘Mamma Muriel’.

She had built up quite the reputation and was loved by everyone who knew her.
Muriel recounts all the other hotels, guesthouses and inns she worked at after she left the Falcon Hotel…
At the Monkey Fountain Zoo, just outside Ndola, she managed a guesthouse and speaks fondly of the people there – including the curator with his cockney-accent.

She went on to the Ambassador Hotel and was even later recommended to the Directors Lodge, where she once met the president of Angola and catered “to the army he brought along with him.”
Muriel made many friends along the way and many more memories.

She closes the little albums filled with more stories yet untold, with a promise to tell more another time.