Johanna van Rhyn Luyt (1897-1985) is a key person in Hermanus history. She married P John Luyt in 1915 and with him, managed the Marine and Riviera Hotels until he died in 1940. She then sold the Riviera but continued to own and operate the Marine until 1947. Later in life, she dictated her memoirs to her daughter Berdine. I was given access to the typescript and edited and published it in 2014, under the title “In Those Days: The Story of Joey van Rhyn Luyt at the Marine Hotel, Hermanus”. I have a small number of copies for sale at R220:robinlee@hemanus.co.za) Chapter 11 of the book contains short descriptions of some of the hundreds of prominent guests who stayed at the Marine and Riviera in the 1930s. Joey was not overawed by anyone, even British royalty, and there are brisk references to some guests. Others she treats with compassion, as was the case of the Earl of Clarendon and family. The last Governor-General to stay with us was the Earl of Clarendon. He and the Countess spent a weekend at Schoongezicht, as their predecessors had done. I turned the card room in the hotel into a private dining room for them, and I saw to the cooking of their meals myself. I, therefore, spent the entire weekend in the kitchen! It was a private visit, so ceremonial trappings were dispensed with. The Clarendons spent a quiet weekend, from Friday to Monday. They were a pleasant, unassuming couple, kind and considerate. He was a tall, thin man, and she was short, plump, and homely. While the Clarendons were in South Africa, their son, Lord Hyde, met with a fatal accident. He had been out shooting, and, in climbing over a wire fence, his gun had gone off and killed him. Lord Hyde had only been married a short time, and his wife was pregnant. The accident occurred shortly before the Earl’s term of office as Governor-General was over, and when they returned to England, they took Connie Spears with them to look after Lady Hyde on the voyage. Connie remained with Lady Hyde until her baby was born. Among the hundreds of people mentioned by Joey from the 1930s, was a couple who became famous figures to all gardening enthusiasts: Another attractive couple were Colonel (not yet Major-General) Kenneth and Mrs Una van der Spuy of ‘Old Nectar’, Stellenbosch. The Colonel was a tall, handsome man and his wife a delightful and lovely woman. Mrs Van der Spuy had not yet become famous as a gardening expert through her books. Una visited Hermanus many times in her long life. She died in 2012, just four days before her 100th birthday and the following obituary appeared in a Johannesburg newspaper: Gardening legend Una van der Spuy (20 July 1912 – 16 July 2012) has passed away. As the author of 10 books devoted to gardening, she leaves a formidable legacy to SA gardeners. A close family friend, SA’s Mr Gardening, Keith Kirsten, recalls that in the days before her sudden heart attack on Monday, she was still driving to friends, scheduling tour groups to visit her garden this September and looking forward to a big family party planned to celebrate her 100th birthday. Born in East London, Una matriculated from a high school in King William’s Town in 1928. In November 1942, Una and her husband, General Kenneth Reid van der Spuy bought Old Nectar, a 12-hectare property with a historic Cape Dutch homestead for £3 200 in the picturesque Jonkershoek Valley, Stellenbosch. As a young wife and mother in the 1940s, Una set about creating a garden worthy of their historic home at Old Nectar. She had little knowledge of plants, but by the 1950s had developed a garden that would be declared a national monument, the only private garden to have been so honoured to date. From 1950, she opened the garden each spring to raise funds for various charities. Ten years after she arrived at Old Nectar, Una started contributing gardening articles to magazines and, a few years later, wrote her first book, ‘Gardening in Southern Africa’.To illustrate her books she learnt photography and, over 12 years, she took about 10 000 pictures of flowers,” says her son David van der Spuy. For many years Una was active in the field of conservation and preservation, particularly of old buildings. In 1992 the Cape Tercentenary Foundation gave her an award of merit for outstanding services to conservation in the Cape. She also received the highest honours from both the SA Nursery Association and SA Green Industries Council (Sagic). “It is now 42 years since my two books on indigenous plants were published, the one dealing with trees and shrubs and the other with wildflowers”, reminisced Una on receiving Sagic honours in June. “I still remember lying flat on the ground to take a close-up of some small but stunningly beautiful flower growing in the veld,” she said. Looking back, Una said: “I often wonder why it has taken so long for gardeners to become enthusiastic about our indigenous plants. “At least two other writers produced books about them in the 1970s when my first book on wildflowers appeared.”