Girlie and Mr Bezuidenhout

Notes

At first glance this sketch looks like a cartoon.

The Bezuidenhouts lived on a farm in the Piet Retief district. Eugene Labuschagne did this sketch of them seated on a bench in the 1950s. Mr Bezuidenhout called his wife "Girlie" and she thus became known to everyone in the district as "Girlie Bezuidenhout".

By the late 1950s Girlie's obesity problem had become so severe that Mr Bezuidenhout had to modify the back of his old 1940s Chev so that she could fit into it.

This sketch is neither a caricature nor a flattering portrait, but a gentle, accurate record of the Bezuidenhouts at their best looking.