I was born in Harrismith in 1955, as was Mom Mary in 1928, and her Mom Annie in 1893. Annie thought “the queen” of that little island above and left of France was also the queen of South Africa (and for much of her life she was right!).
I attended the plaaslike schools in Harrismith till 1972. A year in the USA in 1973 as a Rotary exchange student in Apache Oklahoma. Studied optometry in Joburg 1974 – 1977. Worked in Hillbrow and Welkom in 1978. Army (Potch and Roberts Heights, now Thaba Tshwane – in between it was Voortrekkerhoogte) in 1979 and in Durban (Hotel Command and Addington Hospital) in 1980.
I stayed in Durban, paddled a few rivers, and then got married in 1988. About then this blog’s era ends and my Life With Aitch started. Post-marriage tales and child-rearing catastrophes are told in Bewilderbeast Droppings.
‘Strue!! – These random, un-chronological and personal memories are true of course. But if you know anything about human memory you’ll know that with one man’s memory comes: Pinch of Salt. Names have been left unchanged to embarrass the friends who led me (happily!) astray. Add your memories – and corrections – and corrections of corrections! – in the comments if you were there.
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Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me. So go’n re-look at some posts you’ve enjoyed before and see how I’ve improved over time (!). It’s just as my friend Greg says: ‘The older we get, the better we were.’
I’m at that happy age when I can be idle with impunity. And . . maybe . . be a chronicle of the old times.
– quote paraphrased from ‘Rip Van Winkle’ by Washington Irving
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“In every age ‘the good old days’ were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them.”
– Brooks Atkinson, New York theatre critic
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“Nostalgia is simply the result of aging and liking the life you’ve lived. Be happy you can feel it. It’s a good sign.”
– Anthony Marais, American writer, musician, and academic
Corollary: Try not to use it to berate, bemoan, belittle today. Remember, to many young people, today is WONDERFUL! and exciting, and filled with potential.
~~oo0oo~~
Nostalgia: Looking back with fondness at places and times you couldn’t wait to leave! unknown
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I don’t like nostalgia unless it’s my own. Lou Reed
Hey, we had written four exams already and we had a five day gap before our last two exam papers. Fluffy and I were on the loose, and when Gabba said Kom Plaas Toe, we were bok for that. Gabba had a bakkie and a plaas. For us footbound townies that was Nirvana! Or heaven. Or an attractive proposition ek sê.
Let’s go!
First we made a brief stop for Gabba to buy beer with the pooled monies. He was legal, we were still unfairly disadvantaged – underage – so we subcontracted the tender.
We waai’d via the tar N3 to near Swinburne, then level with the gravel to Kiesbeen.
Gabba’s was an interesting farmhouse. You walked over the ruins of a fallen room or two in full sunlight till you got to what used to be an inside door, but was now Gabba’s main entrance. This section had some roof. Just inside the door was his fridge with a big glass jug on top – one of those with two ears to lift it by. That full jug would come into play later.
First the beers – we finished them talking n laughing. Then that jar filled with umqombothi – traditional beer – and we finished that. Now we were thirsty. You know how it is: Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min. Shakespeare, I think.
Gabba was the brains of this outfit: We’ll phone Frank! he announced. Frank Aveling said Kom Plaas Toe, so we drove over there. More beer. We finished Frank’s beer. Now Frank was the brains trust: No problem, we’ll drive to town. I know a guy. We piled into his green Datsun 1800SSS. And then I thought I was Gonna Die.
Low-flying on the gravel road behind the mountain to the gravel Verkykerskop road, then down 42nd Hill on the tar N3 into town. Loud WHUMPS as we hit dips followed by road silence but high revs, and then louder THUMPS as we hit the ground again. Narrow bridges flash by with Frank not moving his foot from where it was planted in die hoek. He and Gabba talking away as Fluffy and I sat in the back, me (and maybe Fluff as well?) shitting myself, thinking, We Gonna Die! Buh-liksem! I was used to low flying with Steph de Witt, but this was ‘nother level! Maybe I’d had too little beer?
In town Frank had a connection who topped us up with a small case of marginally illegal after-hours beer from behind the Royal Hotel pub. Another stop to throw stones at a first storey window for Penny to shimmy down the drainpipe and join us, and we were off like a dirty shirt. Back to Frank’s place, and now he seemed to be in even more of a hurry, very keen to get home! I’m Gonna Die!
The next night there was a helluva thunderstorm and I remembered I should maybe tell Mother Mary where I was, I slingered the phone hanging on the wall at Gabbas. 260 asseblief.
WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN!? Mas can be a bit dramatic, nê? I’m here at Rudolph’s with Leon, I said formally, hoping using their formal klasregister names would make Ma think I was with two august and responsible gentlemen. Well, you better stay there in this storm. Come home tomorrow, said ever-wise Ma Mary.
This we obediently did.
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Postscript: I got higher marks for my four pre-Kiesbeen subjects than my two post-Kiesbeen subjects. Maybe cos my head was filled with adventure! I wonder how Fluffy and Gabba’s pre- and post- marks compared?
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Kom Plaas Toe – Let’s do some hard, focused group swotting and exam preparation in quiet surroundings – Gabba’s sensible suggestion
ek sê – verily
waai’d – sallied forth
Een is genoeg; Twee is te veel; En drie is te min – Ah, some Yankee oke called James Thurber, not William: One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough
(voet) in die hoek – pedal to the metal
Buh-liksem! – gosh
slingered – wound the phone handle
260 asseblief – two six oh please; To the live person at the telephone exchange; Sometimes Oom Lappies Labuschagne
(reposted as I received a surprise visit – see the end of the post)
Made of Beech, Birch, Cherry and Maple wood*, it has a hollow laminated oval shaft, the oval at right angles so each hand has its own correct oval. The blade is also laminated, then kevlar-clad and teflon-tipped.
Bruce the Moose Clark of Gauteng and Umko paddling fame was waxing lyrical about Struer sprinting paddles and that got me thinking about my Nimbus river paddle from Port Coquitlam in British Columbia. Not a racing paddle, not a flatwater paddle. A wild rivers work of art for slow-boating. See, I have an arrangement with rivers: I bring a boat to keep afloat, and a paddle to keep upright; All forward motion must be provided by the current.
I ordered two from our trip leader Cully Erdman before we paddled the Colorado in 1984. Being left feather I didn’t want to risk being stuck up a canyon without a paddle. Or with a dreaded right feather paddle.
Dave ‘Lang Dawid’ Walker is also left feather so he used the second paddle for the twelve days. The river was running high, so I didn’t touch a rock the whole 480km way. The only person I heard did touch a rock was Dave in Crystal and the gentleman he is, he immediately came to me to show me the damage: a slight scratch on the kevlar! Chris Greeff, who led the South African trip through the Canyon in Arizona, is also a left feather paddler aus Parys, Vrystaat!
Good friend and tripping companion Bernie Garcin is holding my paddle in the top picture.
Here’s some more paddle porn; Feast your eyes:
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I Meet My Maker!
We paddled thru the Grand Canyon back in 1984; I wrote this post in 2018, and now in 2023, this pleasant surprise: My Paddle Maker!
Since I am the one who designed and build most of the Nimbus wooden paddles in the 1970s and 80s, here the scoop. *The shaft was made of American Ash, the inner laminates are Sitka spruce hollowed a bit more than 3/8 inch. The blades are Sitka spruce, the hardwood edges usually african mahogany. the blades were reinforced with 2 oz. kevlar / epoxy. The tips are urethane, the same material for roller blade wheels. the tips were also cross reinforced with carbon fiber / fiberglass (the black stripes – carbon fiber).
Some people have engineering brains, some only believe their own eyes.
I explained clearly. You guys weigh about 60kg. This harness can hold 1000kg – a ton; the cable attached to it holds a ton; the safety cable, also one ton. The main cable it attaches to has a three ton breaking strain, and the spare cable alongside it that your safety cable attaches to, also three tons.
Tom said, I’m not crazy, and stayed in the car. Jess clipped on, hopped off and went WHEEE!
Stephen Charles R, First Son of the famous Artists Village called Clarens, Vrystaat posted a story on chairs, showing this beautifully-made wooden one, on display in the Auckland Art Gallery.
I stared at it, fascinated and was moved to comment on his blog: ‘Your first pic, the wooden chair, looks like it could stick to the rear of a person with just the wrong-sized bum, poor thing! He’d get up and walk round with people pointing at him and laughing.’
We spoke about chairs, both confessing to using what Stefaans called, ‘a small folding campfire stool. Footstool size. Useful for lots of things. I use mine for pumping bicycle tires, weeding and any other chore for which I would otherwise have to crouch. ‘Cause I can’t get up.’
‘Haha!’ I replied, ‘I have one in my bakkie for changing n pumping car tyres for that same reason: Fear of being unable to rise and lying on the dirt laughing helplessly at the indignity!’
This reminded me of two of Mom Mary’s favourite stories. At 95 and following a few TIA’s Mary’s recollection of the olden days is still strong. About yesterday she is not bad, considering, but she recalls tentatively. About some funny incidents fifty years ago, of course, she is crystal clear. These two stories both involve her good friend Hester and falls and Getting Up. Hester was a barrel of laughs, sense of humour deluxe; barrel-shaped and vertically challenged, she could tell stories and laugh like a drain; the butt of her humour often being Hester herself.
The first story, Mary witnessed herself. They were at Hester and her husband Steve’s home. Steve was also barrel-shaped but had plenty of height as well. Visits to their home – which take note was across the road from the big Dutch Reformed Church. the NGK, the National Party at Prayer – entailed eating mountains of food to fill those barrels, and gallons of drink, followed by song, Mary on the piano. On some days if you listened carefully you could hear hymns being sung from across the road, but they’d be drowned out by the non-hymns sung by these revelers, singing lustily on that day when you’re not meant to be having fun. And now followeth a sermon: People past a certain age who imbibe and who have polished parquet floors, should not scatter rugs on those floors. Especially not rugs which are actually dried skins of dead animals, shot by your husband for biltong. Here endeth the lesson.
Hester bustled about, slipped on a loose springbok skin and landed flat on her back under her large coffee table laden with food and drink and overflowing ashtrays, all of which were wobbling as her tummy jiggled from hosing herself at her predicament. Trapped and helpless and unable to move except for the wobbling.
The second story Hester told. She went for a walk, slipped and landed in the gutter outside their home. Thus also opposite that church, remember. She was lying there giggling helplessly when Gerrie the town dandy, out for his constitutional, happened on her. I see him with hat, walking stick and cravat. ‘Kom Hester, laat ek jou help,‘ he offered gallantly. NEE Gerrie, LOS! she protested determinedly. Netnou beland jy ook in die sloot langs my, en wat sal die dominee dan se?
~~oo0oo~~
biltong – dried meat; jerky in the ‘states
Kom Hester, laat ek jou help – Let me help you up
NEE Gerrie, LOS!Netnou beland jy ook in die sloot langs my, en wat sal die dominee dan se? -No! Leave me. What if you land in the gutter next to me? What will the dominee say then!?
dominee – preacherman
~~oo0oo~~
I must find a picture of dear old Hester. This one is Mary on the right with another great friend Mary Wessels.
‘There is nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.‘ Kenneth Grahame Wind in the Willows
Random thoughts on various boats I’ve enjoyed in my largely landlubber life.
Motorboating
The first thing I knew about boats was they took up the whole lounge and nothing else could happen in there. The old man built a wooden-hull motorboat in our lounge on the plot outside Harrismith ca.1959. There was a lot more room to move about in that lounge when we visited it about half a century later, ca.2007:
As far as I recall Dad used the boat just a few times on the Wilge River (‘The Mighty Vulgar’) at Sunnymede.
Then he sold it and bought a bigger boat. It had a 50hp Mercury outboard. He soon sold that one to local farmer Harry Mandy for delivery to Richards Bay, where the Mandys were going to use it for fishing. I went with Dad towing it behind our 1956 Morris Isis to Richards Bay, my first visit to ‘Zululand.’ Someone else – Jimmy Horsley? – went along for the ride. The two adults sat in front and smoked and talked, ignoring me. I could happily daydream and stare out the window.
At a re-fuelling stop, I stood on the forecourt after we had refuelled the Isis. Always in a hurry, the old man said impatiently, ‘Come on! Hop in!’ and I said, ‘But the boat isn’t hitched up,’ It had been unhitched so the numberplate could be dropped to get at the filler cap under it. They had to quickly hook up the trailer before we could go! I felt very important.
I remember crossing an impressive high-arched bridge – probably this one across the Umhlatuze.
– pic: Hugh Bland kznpr.co.za –
In the village of Richards Bay we stayed in a motel-type hotel; rustic, but still luxury – or at least novelty – to me.
~~oo0oo~~
Sunnymede on the Wilge River, waterskiing behind Richard Scott’s boat.
Tabs’ Balmoral dam. Tabs Fyvie’s first boat we fetched in Howick – On the way home a wheel came past us and we chuckled at the misfortune of ‘whoever’s it was!’ It was ours!
When Tabs finally got it to Sarclet a week or two later, we battled to start the old Johnson outboard. We all took turns pulling and plukking the cord. EVENTUALLY it started, so we all jumped aboard the tiny boat – and promptly sank it! Drowned the motor! Three hours of schlep and zero minutes of skiing!
Later Tabs got a bigger boat, ‘The Pheasant Plucker’ with a V6 inboard motor and a Hamilton jet. I once embarrassingly beached it when the motor cut at speed; I landed up high and dry next to the cars parked on the bank;
Canoeing
The old weir on the Wilge river – shooting the old sandstone weir on tubes and our mostly-open red-and-blue canoe. We didn’t realise then how dangerous weirs are!
– Once with Fluffy Crawley – very low level in that same open red-and-blue canoe.
– Once with Claudio Bellato – river at a high level – we both lost our spectacles – in an Accord K2 owned by the Voortrekkers, white fibreglass with green vinyl deck. We proceeded to wreck it in Island Rapid on Mrs Girly and the Misses – Bessie and Marie – Jacobs’ farm Walton. Had to pay for it. R50!
ca.1969, Charles Ryder arrived in Harrismith in a lime-green Volvo 122S. On his roofrack he had a fibreglass Limfjorden 17’6″, glass cockpit, white vinyl deck, clear hull, wooden struts, crossbars and gunwales, brass handles.
I wrapped (‘wrecked’) it on the Wilge – also on the Jacobs’ farm Walton. There’s an island and the river descends in rapids on both sides of it.
I then completely rebuilt that boat. Learnt a lot about kayak construction. Also that I don’t like fiberglass. Not at all.
Trained for the ’72 Dusi on the mighty Wilge River. Then the boat disappeared! So I hitchhiked to PMB to follow the Dusi. Later I found the boat submerged in the Kakspruit and reclaimed it.
One day I saw the late zoo warthog Justin floating downstream, bloated and feet-in-the-air after the zoo closed down and he’d been turned loose.
Before I knew the danger of creeks in flood, I took a short trip under the bridge on HS-Swinburne road N3, on the Swartspruit to test the Limfy (and me!) as it was running high – Mom took me in her car, trusting soul.
USA
1973 – Lake of the Woods near Quetico National Park, Ontario Canada in open ‘Canadian’ canoes. With Oklahomans Sherry Higgs, Dottie Moffett, Dale Moffett and Jonathan Kneebone from Aussie. The no-see-ems (black flies) and mozzies drove us out after just one night!
Canoe Marathons
Dusi 1972 – My Limfy stolen in Harrismith, so no boat! Hitched to PMB with Jean Roux. Hitched a ride with someone’s second to 1st overnight stop at Dusi bridge; Hitched on to Diptank 2nd overnight stop; Slept in the open under the stars; On to Blue lagoon; Slept on the beach near Addington, then at Point Road police station (an eye- and ear-opener!).
Dusi 1976 – Drove down with Louis van Reenen in his blue VW Beetle. I had a white Limfy with a vinyl deck, he had a red all-glass Hai whitewater boat (small cockpit, rudderless) from Jerome Truran’s Dad in JHB! We tossed a coin and he won, so I seconded him driving his VW. We stayed in my orange puptent. It was a very high river – he swam and swam! But he finished, tough character that he was!
Dusi 1983 – at last I paddled the Dusi! New white hulled Limfy with a red fibreglass deck. At the start I spied Louis, starting his second Dusi.
Umko 1983 – Hella Hella to Goodenough’s weir in my Limfy.
Berg 1983 in a Sabre – after (luckily!) training in ‘Toti with Chris Logan. Cold as hell! Freezing! Gail-force winds! Horizontal rain! Madness.
Fish 1983 – ( from the Fish website): In those days, the race was held on a much lower river (roughly half of the current level!) and it started with a very long first day (over 50km). The paddlers left the Grassridge Dam wall and paddled back around the island on the dam (the WORST part of the race for my hangover!!) before hitting the river, eventually finishing at the Baroda weir, 2,5 km below the current overnight stop. The paddlers all camped at Baroda overnight, before racing the shorter (33km) second stage into Cradock. “In those days the paddlers had to lift the fences, and the river mats (fences weighed down by reeds and flotsam and jetsam) took out quite a few paddlers”, said Stanford Slabbert (winner of the first Fish in 1982). “Getting under (or over) them was quite an art. I recall one double crew, the front paddler bent forward to get under the fence and flicked the fence hoping to get it over his partners head as well. It didn’t. The fence caught his hair and pulled him right out of the boat and they swam!”
Legends were already being born. Herve de Rauville stunned the spectators by pioneering a way to shoot Marlow weir. He managed to reverse his boat into the chute on the extreme left, and took the massive slide back into the river going forward, and made it!
The field doubled in 1983, as the word of this great race spread. 145 paddlers in 110 boats. It was won on debut by Joburg paddler Niels Verkerk, who recalls, “It was a very long first day, especially as the river was not as full as it is now (it was running at 17 cumecs in 1983). Less than half the guys shot Keiths Flyover, which was not that bad as the hole at the bottom wasn’t that big. Very few people shot Cradock weir in those days. I won the race without shooting Cradock”, he added.
At a medium level, the lines at Soutpansdrift were also different. The weir above Soutpans was always a problem, as there was no chute, and even the pipes that created a slide down the weir face were not there yet. At the bottom of the rapid, the only line was extreme left, underneath the willow tree, and then a sharp turn at the bottom to avoid hitting the rocks, where the spectators gathered in numbers hoping to see you come short.
Crocodile 1984 (lowveld croc) marathon to Nelspruit. Back in the days when the race finished in Nelspruit and you had to portage the Montrose Falls. Scouts would check ahead on the second day to see where the hippos were. Sometimes you had to portage round their pool. Other times it was deemed OK to paddle past them. Our year they were in Nelspruit, so the race was ended just above their pool in the river. I loved that river and was disappointed to dip out on those last couple of kays. Short-changed by the river horses!
Ocoee River in Tennessee 1984
Tripping
Colorado river in Arizona 1984
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Other boats – I got a Sella – white deck, clear hull new from Rick Whitton at Kayak Centre.
Later I bought a second hand Jaguar (I think) at the KCC club auction. Red deck.
Now I have plastics – my old Quest, a Fluid Flirt, an Epic something – a bit bigger – and a Fluid Detox. Gathering dust. In 2020 I gave the Flirt and the Epic to Rob Hill, who does great work teaching kids to handle swift water.
Wilge Swinburne – Harrismith
Wilge Harrismith to Swiss Valley (Near Nieuwejaarspruit confluence)
Vaal near Parys
Orange above Augrabies falls
In 1983 or 84 I bought a Perception Quest plastic from Greg Bennett at Paddlers Paradise – in the first batch he imported – for R525.
Tugela – Colenso to Tugela Ferry;
Tugela – Ngubevu to Jamieson’s – with Doug Retief, Dave Walker, Bernie Garcin
Umko – Mpendle – Lundys Hill
Umko – Lundys Hill – Deepdale
Umko – Deepdale – Hella Hella
Umko – Hella Hella – No. 8
Umko marathon – Hella Hella to Goodenoughs Weir
Umzimkulu Hatchery to Coleford bridge
Lake St Lucia – Dukandlovu – Robbie Stewart, Bernie Garcin, and –?
Ocoee river in Tennessee – rented Perception Mirage
Grand Canyon Colorado – rented Quest-like plastic
Colorado river in Arizona (480km through the Grand Canyon). Got two wonderful wooden paddles made in Canada: Hollow oval shaft at right angles, laminated blade kevlar-clad and teflon-tipped. Left feather, of course. Beaut! Still got one, gave Greg Bennett the other.
Vaal near Parys
Orange above Augrabies with Aitch with some local outfitter recommended by Dave Walker.
Trip: We paddled in the Umfula’s store area for the last time before the Inanda dam flooded the Umgeni valley. I borrowed extra boats for non-paddling friends, but we ended up walking it was so low!
Botswana – in borrowed plastic expedition sit-in kayaks, we paddled the Thamalekane river – outside Maun, Botswana; and the Nhabe river in flood – Aitch, Janet, Duncan and I paddled the last 5 to 8 km into Lake Ngami and then back upstream to our vehicle.
Never kayak’d the Zambesi. Rafted a one-day trip below the Falls.
I love rivers and river valleys; water, especially water rushing downhill in the direction I wish to go; big water, we call it; hairy rapids; fun and scary and I enjoy the . . let’s call it excited, tense anticipation. Yeah, fear. My approach to scary rapids is logical / statistical: I know that big water is high perceived danger, but low real danger and that driving to the river is low perceived danger, but high real danger. So I’d reassure myself with that, have a pee, then fasten my splashy and push off into the current. Of course once you’re there on the riverbank, ‘scouting your line’ through the rapid, peer pressure does have a bit to do with it! You going? Yeah? So’m I.
I love little rapids too. As long as the water is flowing I’m happy. If I can do much of the trip with my arms folded and the current schlepping me downstream, I’m in paradise. Still water may run deep, but it’s hard work – no progress unless you’re paddling. And the wind is always agin ya!
Perspiration? Not so much. On many a trip my crazy paddle mates would paddle back upstream to where I was drifting in awesome wonder and ask, ‘What’s Wrong Swanie?’ Nothing was wrong, the day was long. My thought was, What’s the hurry?
In big water my mate ace paddler Chris Greeff would say, ‘If you ain’t scared, you ain’t havin’ fun!’ a quote he got from Cully Erdman. ** Now Chris – he was a very good one. And also a FreeStater who was ‘born to be’ a kayaker. Like me, he grew up on the banks of a Vrystaat river – the lesser Vile (Vaal) as opposed to my mighty Vulgar (Wilge). I used to give him good advice but he’d ignore it and win races. He has no handbrake; He won just about every race you can win except the one South African laymen ask about. And he nearly won that one, despite short and sensibly reluctant legs. These things are hard to verify, but if there was a combination trophy for the highest beer consumption the night before, coupled on the tote with winning the race the next day, I reckon the only other paddler who would maybe come close was Jimmy Potgieter, a decade earlier.
Chris should write a book.
~~oo0oo~~
* I saw this lovely basketball quote –
‘I was born to be a point guard, but not a very good one,’ by Pat Conroy (interesting man)
seen on Dr Mardy’s Quotes
** fear quotes:
Closest I can find are –
‘It ain’t brave if you ain’t scared,’ by Victor J. Banis in Deadly Nightshade.
‘If you ain’t scared you ain’t human,’ by James Dashner in The Maze Runner.
Phoned Mother Mary today. 5:15pm and she’s already tucked up in bed in her room in frailcare. As always, she’s positive. She says, ‘I’m warm and comfy, I’ve had my eyedrops, and I’m ready to sleep. They’ll give me my sleeping tablet soon.’
Then a story or two. Tonight it’s remembering her Granny Bland’s brother in Australia. ‘He went missing, you know. Wandered into the Outback and was never seen again. Alec Caskie.’
I remember my great granma, Granny Bland. I can see her lying in a high bed in her lovely big home in Stuart Street. I was about four or five when she died, so it could have been a normal-height bed, of course. She had been Mary Caskie; came here from Australia and married JFA Bland, lived a long life; buried her husband and all but one of her five sons.
Mary also had a concern tonight: ‘I’ve got such phlegm in my throat and when I hawk it up it sounds so unladylike!’
I sympathise with her. She wouldn’t like being unladylike.
There was a knock at our front door. A stranger. No-one who was anyone went to our front door at 95 Stuart Street. They had a long walk up our front path from the seldom-used front gate half hidden in the high hedge, and then a long wait while people inside thought Who The Hell Comes To The Front Door? I walked the long trek down our long dark passage and opened up. There stood a little poephol with a hat and a camera. Are you Peterrr Swaaanepoel? he asked. Yep. Oh, I’m from ve Volksblad and I’m here to take your picture. That gave me a huge grin. What for!? I asked, curious. For the best student award after when the Vrystaat matric results come out, he explained. Ah, you’ve come to the wrong place. Someone has sadly misled you, I said, starting to shut the door.
He was ready, he had his foot in the door, brave little poephol doing a good journalistic job. No, Mnr Steyl said you might resist, but I’m not wrong, I do want a picture of you please.
He said please.
OK, shoot, I said. No, please, will you put your school tie on, and can I come inside and get a good shot? He said please. Into the lounge we went. I went off to fetch my multi-coloured school tie, demurely coloured in dark blue, orangy-yellow and green. I stood at the mantelpiece, tie loosely attached. Next to me grinned the illegal stolen skull of the poor San Bushman from South West Africa. Can you do up your tie, please?
A bridge too far. No, this is as good as you’re going to get. Shoot now or forever hold onto your piece, I said, peering over the top of my specs. If he wanted perfesser, I’d give him perfesser. He shoots. He leaves, panda-like (old joke).
Wragtig, that thing was published some time later! There I was, 2cm by 1cm in black and white, looking for all the world like a scruffy schoolboy in poorly-fitting spectacles who couldn’t tie a decent tie knot. So an accurate rendition. Apparently among the dwindling few rooineks in the province, I was one of the very few who knew how to skryf an eksamen. Bugger me. A bit like early facebook, I spose.
~~oo0oo~~
(In this school annual pic taken earlier that year – 1972 – I had also tried to peer over my specs for a professorial look. Well, it was the akademiese presteerders photo)
Vrystaat Confessions 