While Edwin is away -

 

There’s a silence that is felt

In the house where Meggie dwelt

                While Edwin is away -

There’s no roses on her plate

There’s no kiss upon her pate

                While Edwin is away –

And the garden lacks a King

And the Queen lacks everything

                While Edwin is away –

While the humid smoky air

Smells more flowerlike and fair

                While Edwin smokes away –

But I need not fear for long

For his love for home is strong

                He turns for home always –

Once again I see his face

Once again he fills his place

                Sings my heart again always –

 

 

 

Written by Marguerite Allen (Granny Meg) about her husband, Edwin Allen (Barty)

Barty loved his garden, his pipe, his home.

He brought Meg fresh roses every morning, usually red and white.

The picture that was always on the wall of Barty's bedroom, years after he passed on.

A simple water colour in an old frame, signed "from Zephyr".

Barty and Meg Allen were laid to rest together in the same grave alongside Meg's younger sister, Doris Fennell (nee West) who had died earlier at a young age. (The site was recently photographed by Barty and Meg's grandson, David Allen, and great grandsons, Sheldon and Darren Allen)

Meg died in 1975 and was laid to rest beside her husband, Barty, in Butterworth cemetery.

Her gravestone reads:

 

Marguerite Allen

1885 - 1975

"Satisfied"

Psalm 91:16

 

The Bible text reads: With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.

Meg Allen wearing the red and white roses of that day in January 1969 (83.5 yrs).

Meg Allen - June 1962 - aged 77 years

After Barty had passed away, Meg's children, Peggy, Philip and Noel (Ralph was killed in action in 1941) continued the tradition and Meg continued to wear fresh flowers pinned to her dress every day.

Edwin Allen (Barty) died on 9 June 1955, two days before his 82nd birthday.

He was buried in Butterworth cemetery.

His gravestone reads:

 

In Loving Memory of

my dear husband

Edwin Allen

born 11 June 1873 Died 9 June 1955

He Loved Jesus

 

(It is hard to read the middle word of the last line of the engraving, either way, He loved/lived Jesus!)



Meg wore fresh flowers, usually a red and white rose, every day of her married life, lovingly cultivated, picked and presented to her by Barty every morning.

He Pioneered Transkei Fruit

Sacred bananas smuggled

EAST LONDON. – The first man to introduce sub-tropical fruit into the Transkei has died at Manubi, near Butterworth, aged 81.

He was Mr. Ted Allen, one of the Transkei’s oldest and best-known residents.

Mr. Allen, who died after a long illness, would have been 82 this month.

He lived at Manubi Forest, where he was Postmaster, for 50 years.

It is chiefly due to his early experiments that sub-tropical fruit is grown extensively today along the coast region.

A strange mission

A keen horticulturist, he wrote to many parts of the world for plants and seeds, and gradually built up a successful garden of exotic fruit and flowers in the heart of Manubi forest.

His interests brought him a strange mission some years age when he was asked to take care of a rare banana plant.

A horticulturist had smuggled the plant out of India, but heard that agents of a fanatical Indian sect, which regarded the plant as sacred, were trailing him to South Africa.

Determined to keep the plant, he sent it to Mr. Allen for safekeeping, since Indians were  not allowed into Transkei.

Yellow cobra

Unafraid of revenge that might overtake him, Mr. Allen watched the first bunch of fruit ripening.

Then came the day when he cut the oversized bunch.

As Mr. Allen staggered towards the house, the bananas held on his shoulders, he called to his wife to come and see the prize.

She appeared and was immediately horrified to see a large yellow cobra writhing out of the golden coloured fruit, a few inches from her husband’s head.

She screamed and he threw down the “sacred” bananas. The snake slithered away to safety.

Every morning of the 40 years of his married life, till he became seriously ill, Mr. Allen presented his wife with a white and a red rose.

He cultivated special rose trees to make this possible, and explained the custom with the story of the day he proposed to his wife.

He was afraid to ask the important question, so he held out two roses. Beforehand he had decided that if she chose the white flower, he would say nothing.

If she took the red one, he had a good chance and would ask her to marry him.

She took both roses.

Besides being a naturalist, Mr. Allen was a poet and writer, though he made little attempt to publish his work.

His family may publish his papers.

(Newspaper cutting of 1955, transcribed by David Allen, grandson)

Hand -written note from Barty to Meg on the occasion of their 40th wedding anniversary:

 

To Marguerite

 on the 40th anniversary of our wedding day - 1911 to 1951

 

My wildest dreams in youth of bliss

Are thrice fulfilled, sweet Meg, in this:

That Romance in defying Time

 Has banished Time and left thee mine.

                                                                         (Signed) E Allen

                                                                                25 September, 1951

Ted Allen (Barty) and Meg - Silver Wedding Anniversary day - 25 September 1936

Ante-Nuptial Contract for Edwin Allen and Marguerite West

Barty and Meg Allen on honeymoon. They were married on 25 September, 1911

Newspaper cutting published in 1975 after passing of Meg Allen

Roses were a symbol of their marriage

(Newspaper cutting, 1975 - Contributed)

In a garden at Anerley, two rose bushes have been planted recently, a pure white “Virgo”, and the beautiful res “Happiness”. They have been presented, with a simple inscription ‘In Remembrance’ to a Pastor who recently conducted a funeral at Butterworth. Behind the simple gesture lies a romantic story that goes back four generations.

The tale began in Cape Town, where a bashful young man, just about the turn of the century, fell deeply in love with a young lady. Not knowing where he stood in her affections, he set about finding out, by presenting her with two fine rosebuds – a red and white, and asking her to choose the one she liked best. “For”, said he to himself “red stands for love, and white for friendship only”. The lady looked at the buds and cried, “May I have BOTH!”

Some weeks before the wedding, “Meg” was sent “home to England” to stay with relatives. “Barty” arranged with a florist in London to deliver to her a box containing one red rose and one white, so long as they were parted.

The years passed, and a prosperous little fruit farm-cum-forestry, with trading store and a post office on the Wild Coast was the home of the happy couple and their four children. “Barty” grew a rose garden, and every morning he could be seen among his roses, carefully selecting two buds for his love – a daily gift that never became a bore, but was received with the same delight she had displayed years before!

When “Barty” passed away, their children kept the tradition going, and “Meg” was never seen without her red and white flowers, pinned to her dress each morning. Red for love, and white for friendship.

A few weeks ago “Granny Meg” was buried near her Transkei home. She’d spent two weeks in hospital, during which the Matron had herself supervised the picking and arranging of the two roses on “Granny’s” bedside table.

The tradition lives on in the family - to the fourth generation, - the red and white roses symbolizing the sense of values, faith and family devotion that holds them together. And who dares say that red and white flowers are unlucky? Perhaps this tale will help to lay that little ghost.

Marguerite Allen (Meg)

Edwin Allen (Barty) aged 15