The "obligatory" wedding

By Piet de Wit

Meintjeskop Courier March 1992

Translated from the Afrikaans

When Doris and I recently thought back after 33 years about our wedding in Kenya on Friday, 26 September,1958, we could not but recall the strange circumstances which led to our being married in English in the Afrikaans Dutch Reformed Church in Nairobi.

After Patrick van Rensburg in Leopoldville burnt his passport, joined the ANC and disappeared with the safe keys, I had to go there for three months to normalise the office. While I was there the Department decided to transfer me back to Head Office, little knowing that I had developed an “office affair” in Nairobi with the head of mission, Mr Woodward’s secretary who had assumed duty there only the year before.

When at last I returned to Nairobi in August there was not much time to place the first ring on Doris’s finger. This ring had to be “smuggled in” in great haste by her friend, Anna Ras, at that time an SAA air hostess, who later married General Hein du Toit. After that all the arrangements for the wedding – the first between two members of the mission – and for the reception had to be made. At the same time our return to South Africa, which would be our honeymoon, had to be arranged.

Because the ship, the “Africa” of the Italian Lloyd Triestino Line was due to leave Mombasa on the Monday morning, all our arrangements made for us to be married on Friday afternoon and all our earthly possessions, except our few bits of furniture, to be loaded in our blue Volksie, so that we try to reach Mombasa the same evening.

The other matter we had to bear in mind was that we were to be married under British law. In accordance with that the ceremony had to be concluded before 6 pm. Otherwise it would not be legal. Little did we know what an important factor that would be on the day.

The minister who was to marry us was Ds Hoffie Louw of the Nairobi congregation. His congregation did, however, not only include the city and environs, but stretched from Thomson’s Valley to Mombasa. Because of the long distances he had to do “home visits” by aircraft

As fate would have it in precisely the week before our wedding he was in Mombasa and environs. What a shock it was when he phoned me on the morning of our big day and advised me that there were serious problems with his aircraft and he could probably not be in Nairobi in time for our wedding.

All we could do was to try to find another minister. Because the other Dutch Reformed ministers in East Africa were too far away to get there in time, in desperation I had to turn to fellow South African, the Rev Raymond Silberbauer of the Anglican Church in Nairobi. He shocked me when he informed me that to his great regret he could not help us as we were not of the same denomination. 

He would, however, try to find a Methodist, a Scot or a Presbyterian for us.

An hour later he let me know that he had found a Scot, but the fellow required that Doris and I should be catechised by him before he could marry us!

While all these dramas were plying themselves out, my future bride was peacefully  busy selecting flowers for our wedding. Although she was by nature an excitable person, I must say that heard the unexpected news quite calmly and appeared before the Scottish minister with me a t 2 o’clock.

Fortunately the Rev Mr Keltie soon discovered that the two of us did know something about the Bible and he could start to inform us about the whole ceremony in English, which was strange to us. Especially the “say after me” needed a bit of practice, which left us very little time to get dressed.

By this time we were, of course, biting our nails. As far as the timing of the ceremony was concerned the minister suggested that Doris consciously arrive ten minutes late, just in case Dominee Louw might still make it. (I have teased her ever since that she has never been on time again.)

At twenty to six, with an eye to the British legal requirement and when the guests had begun to wonder whether the bridal car had got a flat tyre, the Reverend had to start in English. Ten minutes later we heard a noise at the back door of the church, but by then the die was cast, and it was too late for the out of breath Hoffie Louw to take over. The De Wits were married by six o’clock in English in an Afrikaans church!