Elsie loved language. She read and read, and she and my father discussed books and the news. She was also a prolific writer and, until she was really very ill, she kept in touch with people all over the world with beautifully written letters, usually typed at great speed on her tiny, portable Olivetti typewriter. She taught me many things about writing, not least the art of the well-crafted thank-you note. The story of any life, I suppose, is simultaneously the story of what could have been, the things a person could have done, but did not do. In Elsie's case, I think this is particularly true.

When Elsie was a little girl, because she liked to write stories, she was taken to meet another little girl about 18 months older than her, who was also a story writer. Like Elsie, this little girl was the daughter of Jewish migrants from Zhager (also known as Žagarė) in Lithuania, although her family did much better economically than did the benighted Cohens of Abel Road. The little girl lived in Springs, just under 50 kilometres from Johannesburg, and Elsie was instructed to be nice to her because the little girl, she was told, had a weak heart, as a result of which she spent much of her time at home writing. The little girl's name was Nadine Gordimer.

I wish I knew more about the relationship between Elsie and Nadine, but it was only quite late in her life that Elsie even told me about the Gordimer connection – long after Gordimer was awarded, in 1991, the Nobel Prize for Literature. I don't know how much time these little girls spent together, but Elsie did tell me that she and Nadine would send stories to each other, and that they discussed writing. Elsie also told me two things about the public side of their relationship. In 1936, the year Elsie turned 11, the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) was established, and Elsie and Nadine both sent stories in to the SABC, and had them read over the radio. I have tried and tried to find archival material on this – through the Gordimer archives in Bloomington, Indiana, through the SABC itself, and using various networks – but I have not turned up anything.