Welcome to 'The duPs' - The website of Paul and Margaret du Plessis.

They are Salvation Army officers

Margaret is a former Medical Social Worker, Paul a physician. 

They have served in Zambia, the United Kingdom, India, and their homeland of South Africa. Now, in retirement, they live in Bromley, in southeast London.

Their children, Catherine and Andre, and the wider family mean a lot to them. Placing Paul’s poems and other information on a website has been a family request for some years. Grandson, David, took on the project and became the website architect.

Please enjoy reading Paul's poems which reflect something of their faith and experiences.

Margaret has researched the life of Louisa Mary Tucker, the first wife of pioneer Indian missionary, Frederick Tucker.

Please use the menu on the left and the search function in the top right to navigate through the site.

Here is Paul's most recent poem:

There Was No Tomorrow

Details

Written November 2011

He’d seen a bit of tomorrow and said it was okay
But is now re-living his yesterday as the planet spins
Axially with the clock, emerging from another sunrise
Uncovering the past with the tidiness of hindsight;
Our history archived for apocalyptic review
Of all that’s said and done, but chronicled
By perfect tenses in the kindly judgements of the mind.
 
We live more comfortably with memories stacked,
To be taken down and relished in occasional browsing;
But less confident about a future that arrives unannounced
Though put on hold for now, zigzagging uncertainly
Across the date-line into the freedom of a new day’s beginning
And the chance to meet the one who said it would be okay,
Only to find that he was there but the day was lost.
 
 
On travelling across the international date-line.
 
November 2011