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The Silver Tea Service: A memoir
A rich memoir about exploring a family mystery, and how a search for truth can yield unexpected outcomes.
Eight years after the death of her mother, Judy reviews her family relics, including the antique tea service that belonged to her mother’s grandfather. Should she just sell the damn thing and buy new lounge furniture? It’s tempting.
But she stops to read the inscription etched into the solid silver tray. It honours this man around whom hangs a century-old mystery. Prickling with a strange resentment towards her widely loved mother, she embarks on a journey to uncover the truth behind the story of grandeur and ruin her mother had promised, but never wrote.
The author’s relentless research in dusty archives and neglected cemeteries across South Africa unravels an unexpected family history. The process draws her to revisit the darker corridors of her youth, and her sense of identity. She confronts the losses and complexities of her own life.
The Silver Tea Service is a thought-provoking memoir of loss, redemption and belonging, of political injustices and the inescapable nuances of history in South Africa.
291 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 9, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 12, 2020
Some years after the death of her mother in Sydney, Judy Campbell’s curiosity about her family’s history in South Africa finally got the better of her. She was particularly curious about the story behind her great-grandfather’s silver tea service that had been presented to him by the citizens of Heilbron and was now in her possession – a silent witness to four generations of her family’s life.
“We…choose to make sense of who we are and where we came from, to make peace not only with our ancestors, but with ourselves” she writes in this moving memoir of loss, belonging and acceptance mixed with fascinating insight into the Boer War and the history of the short-lived Orange Free State.
Johan Luyt and his wife Mary Ann produced 11 children, one of whom was Judy’s grandmother, Grace. Despite the Boer War, political hardships and social/racial inequities of the time, life for the family was comfortable until Johan lost everything in 1910. The family was forced to live in greatly reduced circumstances at a time of failing health, when he and Mary Ann had just lost a beloved daughter at 19, soon after giving birth to her first child.
How did a successful lawyer, politician and respected communal leader suffer rapid financial ruin and social disgrace? Who was responsible, and how? Judy’s mother, June, had often spoken of writing the family story but ill-health and relatively early death prevented her from seeing through the promise.
Campbell, armed with only family folklore and a genealogical chart, commenced years of painstaking research both online and on numerous trips to dusty, forgotten archives in South Africa and Lesotho. She was determined to unravel the family mystery and give further meaning to the tea service that had alternated over the years from being stored away, ignored, to being treasured in household pride-of-place.
Here she examines her own painful past: traumatic teenage years, disempowerment and her often detached relationship with both parents – a mother often depressive and distant and a miscreant, rogue of a father. Along the way she explains that “Impenetrable leaves in the genealogy jungle had parted to reveal fruits and flowers. I had no idea I would find them so full of flavour”.
Among her talents, Judy Campbell is a professional musician. Her book is written as an expert musical score, weaving and resonating with beautiful harmony from the multi-varied strands of her family’s story as instruments in the best of orchestras. She not only successfully solves the family mystery and recounts it with sensitivity, flair and historical insight but she also manages to come to terms with her previously unresolved parental issues, acknowledging the resilience she gained from her “unplanned survival training” and the lessons in creativity, kindness and strength her parents unwittingly bequeathed her.
As in Joanne Fedler’s When Hungry Eat, Campbell examines her sense of national identity and the concept of ‘where is home?’. Though grateful for her life in Australia and horrified by the actions of government and some ancestors in her country of origin, she comes to the realisation that South Africa still “informs and enriches” her. I know that readers of The Silver Tea Service will likewise give thanks to Judy Campbell for the expert way that she has informed and enriched us all.
“We…choose to make sense of who we are and where we came from, to make peace not only with our ancestors, but with ourselves” she writes in this moving memoir of loss, belonging and acceptance mixed with fascinating insight into the Boer War and the history of the short-lived Orange Free State.
Johan Luyt and his wife Mary Ann produced 11 children, one of whom was Judy’s grandmother, Grace. Despite the Boer War, political hardships and social/racial inequities of the time, life for the family was comfortable until Johan lost everything in 1910. The family was forced to live in greatly reduced circumstances at a time of failing health, when he and Mary Ann had just lost a beloved daughter at 19, soon after giving birth to her first child.
How did a successful lawyer, politician and respected communal leader suffer rapid financial ruin and social disgrace? Who was responsible, and how? Judy’s mother, June, had often spoken of writing the family story but ill-health and relatively early death prevented her from seeing through the promise.
Campbell, armed with only family folklore and a genealogical chart, commenced years of painstaking research both online and on numerous trips to dusty, forgotten archives in South Africa and Lesotho. She was determined to unravel the family mystery and give further meaning to the tea service that had alternated over the years from being stored away, ignored, to being treasured in household pride-of-place.
Here she examines her own painful past: traumatic teenage years, disempowerment and her often detached relationship with both parents – a mother often depressive and distant and a miscreant, rogue of a father. Along the way she explains that “Impenetrable leaves in the genealogy jungle had parted to reveal fruits and flowers. I had no idea I would find them so full of flavour”.
Among her talents, Judy Campbell is a professional musician. Her book is written as an expert musical score, weaving and resonating with beautiful harmony from the multi-varied strands of her family’s story as instruments in the best of orchestras. She not only successfully solves the family mystery and recounts it with sensitivity, flair and historical insight but she also manages to come to terms with her previously unresolved parental issues, acknowledging the resilience she gained from her “unplanned survival training” and the lessons in creativity, kindness and strength her parents unwittingly bequeathed her.
As in Joanne Fedler’s When Hungry Eat, Campbell examines her sense of national identity and the concept of ‘where is home?’. Though grateful for her life in Australia and horrified by the actions of government and some ancestors in her country of origin, she comes to the realisation that South Africa still “informs and enriches” her. I know that readers of The Silver Tea Service will likewise give thanks to Judy Campbell for the expert way that she has informed and enriched us all.
October 20, 2020
I don't think I've ever read a memoir quite like The Silver Tea Service. It's a fascinating journey into South Africa's history, seen through the author's eyes as she embarks on a quest to unravel family secrets. Stunningly written with grace and honesty, and surprising humour that had me laughing out loud. An extraordinary account of her family's history unfolds with intriguing insights and brave storytelling. I was captured from page one and couldn’t put this book down! A must read for all history buffs and lovers of memoir/non-fiction classics.
December 11, 2022
Fascinating look into family history
I’m likely a bit biased here as I also descend from the same Frederick Luyt, but down a different branch to Ceres and Cape Town. So this book breathed a lot of life into our family tree for me too. It was an enjoyable journey to follow, and does also highlight the complexities of the contexts at play during and after the Boer War.
I’m likely a bit biased here as I also descend from the same Frederick Luyt, but down a different branch to Ceres and Cape Town. So this book breathed a lot of life into our family tree for me too. It was an enjoyable journey to follow, and does also highlight the complexities of the contexts at play during and after the Boer War.
March 10, 2020
I was enraptured by The Silver Tea Service. From Judy Campbell's unorthodox upbringing to her fascinating delving into her heritage. I too, remember those interminable years of South African history lessons feeling uninterested and alien to the subject . Her discoveries and writing made that history come alive and be relevant to South Africa’s past and present. How the consequences of the Boer War, the hensoppers and bittereinders led to the ongoing divisions in South African society and the rise and strength of the National Party. Her personal story of discovery into her family’s lives and role in history is dramatic, intriguing and as I said fascinating. I loved “The Silver Tea Service” and look forward to her next book.
Coincidently I heard a radio interview (National Radio, Saturday Morning with Kim Hill, 7th March) with Damien Barr talking about his new book “You Will Be Safe Here”. This book is the story of a Boer family and the concentration camps in the Boer War and a 2010 connection into modern Afrikaner “Safari Ranger” schools. I have not read it yet but I think that you may find it interesting.
Thank you for your wonderful book.
Wendy Wilton
October 13, 2019
This was an unvarnished memoir of the author and her family. It took great courage to write this book to deliver such a straightforward story of certain members of the family. I particularly appreciated the history of South Africa which was tied into the story of the family and of the Boer War, in particular. The author dug out the truth of what happened to her great grandfather and along the way touched other members of the family. Finally, the author dealt with feelings for her parents and the effect they had on her life. This was a very good read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews