South Africa – Elgar birthplace – Rubinstein – Primrose – 96th birthday – My Viola and I – death

In 1967 Lillian and Lionel Tertis went to South Africa to take a holiday and to promote the Tertis Model. In a letter dated 17 October from Radnor Hotel, Green Point, Cape Town, to Bernard Shore and his wife, they described their outward journey:

In Cape Town they were again guests of the Kreitzers. Among the gifts Tertis brought his friends was a copy of the BBC tribute marking his ninetieth birthday and the newly issued long-playing record from EMI, including a selection of his recordings made after the First World War. One side of the record was taken up by the Mozart Sinfonia concertante, with Sammons and Tertis as soloists. After supper one evening they were all listening to the slow movement when the Kreitzers’ youngest daughter suddenly left the room crying; her mother immediately went after her to find out what the problem was. The girl finally explained to her mother that she found it unbearably moving to see the expression on Tertis's face as he listened to himself playing many decades earlier.

The Kreitzers organized a party in their music room on the occasion of Lionel's ninety-first birthday on 29 December 1967, and the toast was proposed by the musical director of the Cape Town Orchestra, Derek Hudson.

Tertis was very keen that a South African craftsman should make Tertis Model violas. He was astounded that there was not one professional maker in Cape Town, and wrote a letter on the subject to the Cape Times, which appeared on 24 November 1967: