Welcome to 'The duPs' - The website of Paul and Margaret du Plessis - Margaret a former Medical Social Worker, Paul a physician.
They served with The Salvation Army in Zambia, the United Kingdom, India, and their homeland of South Africa. They retired to live in Bromley, in southeast London. Margaret passed away in 2019.
Their children, Catherine and Andre, and the wider family have always meant 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 life 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:
The Offering
- Details
- Written November 2025
As the years condemn us
To knocking knees and knobbly joints
With wobbles and tremors,
As stiff fingers jerk into unwanted action
Zig-zagging across the page
Destroying architectural order,
Hoping the eye will reconstruct
An image that thinks it knows
What’s there, stored in memory
But now unseen,
To become a thing of beauty
In the eye of the beholder
And possibly the creator also.
November 2025
When disappointed about a watercolour.