The Cawood File
This file contains the known descendants, to the 6th
generation, of Joshua Cawood, born about 1690, nailmaker of Otley, Yorkshire.
Notes for Patricia SENN
Runs a game farm at Ganna Hoek, Eastern Cape.
Story of an African game farm
Dubbed "Out of Africa Patty" South African game farm owner and
professional hunter Pat Cawood spoke to David Bonnici about slugging it out in a traditionally male domain and life on Ganna Hoek, one of nature's chosen spots in the Eastern Cape.
The South African game farming industry has traditionally been a male dominated community which only sees women as the wives of the men who hunt.
Pat Cawood was one of these wives until a tragic twist of fate saw her break through the khaki curtain to become one of the industry's most respected players.
The "Iron Lady" of game farming owns and operates her company, Southern Cross Safaris, on her massive Karoo (semi-desert) property Ganna Hoek that is straddled by spectacular hills and provides sanctuary to 30 species of game including the rare Cape
mountain zebra.
The property was established in 1843 when the Cawood family moved to the Eastern Cape from Yorkshire.
These days the family is one of the most respected in South African game farming circles and the woman they call "Out of Africa Patty" and "Patty Thatcher" unwittingly became its matriarch after the tragic death of her husband, Michael, who turned the
family's property, near Cradock, into a game farm 30 years ago.
She was left with four children and a business to run and admits that in the early days after Mike's death she was ready to give the farm up until one day when she looked down on the property from one of its surrounding hills.
"I sat on those hills at sunset and thought 'what the hell am I going to do?'
"Then I looked down and there was a herd of blesbok, impala and springbok, and I looked at these and thought, 'I've got this, I don't owe on this'.
"So I gave myself two years and said if I failed I'd give it up and lease out the property as Michael advised me to.
"I've failed practically every year since but I'm still developing and trying to make it better so it's something my children can take over from me one day."
It will be a long time before the 52-year-old is ready to hand over the reigns of the farm to her children who are pursuing different interests in other parts of the world.
Even after she is not around to run the farm, she promises not to be too far away.
A small graveyard lies a few hundred metres away from the property's beautiful Victorian mansion. Several generations of the Cawood family are buried there including Michael and the renowned South African author Olive Schreiner.
It was on Ganna Hoek that Schreiner compiled a great deal of her famous novel The Story of an African Farm.
Pat Cawood says she does not want to be buried in the graveyard though. "My spot's on top of the mountain," she laughs.
"Everybody who knows me very well, knows exactly where it is. I've told them the music and the booze I want. The only thing I haven't done is make a guest list.
"I'm very fanatical I want to be up there and keep an eye on the place," she says.
Replacing Pat Cawood would be difficult. She almost single-handedly runs the administrative side of her business as well as the campsite; she plays host to her guests and drives them to and from Port Elizabeth airport. She also organises their travel
to other game farms and makes the biltong from the animals they shoot.
Cawood sits in her office which adjoins the mansion. It is adorned by trophies of various animals and a large portrait of her late husband.
Standing sentinel above her desk is Ishen, an almost fully grown black eagle who Pat saved from death after finding him away from his nest with a lame wing.
Trying to be heard over Ishen's shrieking which she says is just him being jealous, she explains how, despite the farm's success, she still finds it hard being a woman in the game farming industry.
"It's definitely a man's world. There's no question about it," Cawood says.
"If a client who is a powerful man in his own organisation, has to be told what to do by somebody else, you've got to have a charismatic way of doing it.
"They (men) don't approach a woman as easily, so I'm the back-up.
"Even though I make the decisions and own the company and the property and the animals, I have the men in front which, I suppose, is the only way I can do it.
"It's not only men that are apprehensive.
"Some women think 'hell I don't want my husband going there with a woman running the organisation'.
"I've never had a hassle from a client in my life, nor have I had a hassle with their women though. I don't make the women feel threatened.
I'm too old now anyway," she adds with a laugh.
Cawood believes in giving people a real "out of Africa experience" and provides her customers with the best in South African hospitality.
But she's not afraid to come down on guests who abuse hunting ethics or disturb other guests.
One American boy received the wrath of the Iron Lady when his bad manners pushed her a little too far.
"He was the most spoilt brat I've ever seen on this property. He was constantly rude to his parents, particularly to his mother. I actually spoke to Mike about it and the next time he did it, I warned him.
"The next time he was rude, we grabbed him and tied him by the ankles and we threw a rope over a tree and hauled him up, upside-down," she says.
"The mother got hysterical, but I wouldn't give ground at all.
"Eventually when we let him down he apologised and he was a changed child for the rest of the safari.
"The parents wrote back afterwards and said we'd changed the course of their child's life.
"He was behaving respectfully -- no more lip, you know."
Pat also finds it hard to tolerate people who know nothing about hunting or game farming but are quick to speak out against it.
"I know there's a huge anti-hunting fraternity and I despise them completely because they don't know what they're talking about.
"They certainly don't generate any income to keep animals on the land so I have no time for them.
"It's all a platform they like to prance on."
To the uninitiated, breeding animals to roam so that hunters can shoot them, may seem barbaric but, as Cawood explains, it is the most practical form of conservation.
"It's your hunter who brings in the income to be able to keep wildlife on the
property,"she says.
One thing Pat is against is bad conservation management, which is why most of the animals on her property will never be seen in a hunter's sight even though they can earn her up to US$1500 (about £900) each.
"I believe in hunting. I don't believe in raping an area," Cawood says.
"You've got to manage your wildlife and your numbers and you've got to look after your species."
She says the days of hunters entering a property and shooting everything that moves are over and adds that if she had a choice she would not hunt on her property for four years.
"If you've got a fit dominant bull, you must not hunt it. You must keep it to breed and not be tempted by the dollars."
After three days at Southern Cross Safaris I say good-bye to Pat Cawood who has returned from the hills after showing two American women some remarkable bushman paintings and views which are usually the domain of black eagles and the mountain zebras.
It's getting dark and rain is starting to sweep across the Karoo.
After losing yet another battle to get her to pose for some photographs I proceed to shake her hand, but Cawood insists on a big motherly hug and sends me on my way.
After three days I finally get to see the real woman behind the Iron Lady, who grabbed the game farming industry by the horns and did it her way.
David Bonnici and Andrew Hutchinson flew to South Africa courtesy of STA Travel.
[Downloaded from Southern Cross Website, Issue 521, 14 October 1998]
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