Koos Mof van Wyk was a bachelor who lived with his Ma out on the Kestell road. One evening he drove home and a Joburg driver drove right up his bum as he slowed suddenly on the main road in order to turn in at his gate.
The Joburg oke was angry, ‘Waddefok maak jy dat jy sommer so skielik stilhou innie mirrel vannie pad!?’
Koos Mof was astounded. Waddefok maak JY!? he yelled.
Almal weet dis my hek hierie en ek draai altyd hier in. Ek is Koos Mof en ek BLY HIER!
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Joburg driver: How can you just stop in the middle of the highway!?
Koos Mof: What do you mean!? Everyone knows this is my gate and I always turn in here! I LIVE HERE!
Long long ago Annie said to me I should get her beloved husband Frank’s oak desk. We never knew Frank. He died when Mom was just fifteen or so, still in school. Annie had five grandkids and I suppose her reasoning was the only grandson should get it? A lot of mysterious value was attached to having a penis in ye olden days. OK, so not that much has changed, really.
So now Mom’s in Azalea Gardens and Dad will be joining her soon, so it was time to fetch the desk. Dismantle, ship on the back of and inside of my Ford bakkie and re-assemble in my office.
It looks good.
Very importantly, the key is in the top drawer, attached to a label ticket. Written in (I suppose) Annie’s handwriting: “Key of Frank’s Desk.” Interesting, as there’s no lock or keyhole in the desk, nor any of its drawers!
~~~oo0oo~~~
‘Fraid it wasnt in my care for long, Annie! It has moved on. Into Sheila’s care now, as I’ve sold my home. Took it apart again – 14 separate pieces) and schlepped it down to her in my same Ford bakkie. I took care to make sure she got the key, too.
I spose this means the penis (lineage) has been severed!
Harrismith had a very successful sportscar designer! Sheila reminded me on her facebook. He was a big mate of Polly du Plessis. They called each other Sissel Pud (du Plessis backwards) and Tweedie (de Witt backwards). Verster was captain of the rugby team and Mary Bland’s boyfriend. He dopped a few years and was in JC when she wrote matric. A real gentleman, says Mary. When she left to go nursing he said, ‘My fear is that we don’t meet again – worse, that we’re living in the same city and we don’t even know it.’ Sensitive soul.
Here’s the story of Verster de Witt – or the parts I could fish out:
Two Stellenbosch university pals wanted to make a great sportscar. They were Bob van Niekerk and Willie Meissner. In 1958 Meissner went to England and saw a new technology called fibreglass. He wrote a letter to Bob van Niekerk asking him to come to England to study fibreglass crafting. Bob hopped onto a Union Castle ship and joined his mate. In those days that was called ‘instant response’: The letter took a week; the response took a week; the ship took a month; Bang! Two months later there his mate was, ready to help.
Bob recalls: ‘We had full confidence in our ability to produce the mechanicals and a good chassis, but needed someone to put a ‘face’ on it – a good looking design. As luck would have it, Willie knew a lady Joan, nee Peters, who was married to a stylist working at Rootes who would hopefully stop us from producing a mediocre, unattractive body.’
Mary & Polly in Harrismith schooldays
His name was Verster de Wit, an ex-Harrismith boykie and good friend of our Polly du Plessis and Mary Bland-Swanepoel. He very soon had them building quarter-scale models with plasticene during the week in their one-roomed flat in Earls Court while he was off working in Coventry on the Sunbeam Alpine. Fridays, Verster would come down to London to inspect the work they had done. When they got to scale model number 13, it suddenly all came together, and ‘a unanimous decision was made to progress to full-scale.’
– Bob van Niekerk racing a Dart –– a 1962 GSM Dart –
‘We rented a garage in Gleneldin Mews in Streatham and built the mock-up using wooden formers and plaster of paris. The first body came out of the mold in April 1957 and was sold for 75 pounds, which helped to pay for my trip back to Cape Town where Willie had started the Glassport Motor Company (GSM).’
They considered what to name their cars: Cheetah, Mamba, Simba, Zebra, Kudu, Lynx or Tyger? Eventually they called the open top the GSM Dart and the hardtop the GSM Flamingo. On returning to South Africa, they built four prototypes in 1957, and the first production car rolled off the line in early 1958. In total, 116 GSM Darts and 128 GSM Flamingos were produced from 1958 to 1964. Actually, the GSM club tracked down many of them and reckoned there were a few more than that.
The GSM cars were astonishingly quick and agile and won a lot of races. In their first nine hour in JHB, a Dart beat Sarel vd Merwe in his Porsche into second place; they were followed by an MG, another Porsche, a Volvo and an Alfa Romeo!
But perhaps the best story was after they had sold 41 cars by 1959, for racing and road use in Cape Town, they decided they could also be sold in England and Bob set sail with a complete body and chassis kit on the Union Castle liner. In England Bob was introduced to Mr John P Scott at Windsor Garage, West Malling in Kent. Scott agreed to give him a place to build a car and fund all the parts on condition that Bob built the car in 10 days! AND that he entered it in a race at Brands Hatch! AND that he won the race! What a tall – almost impossible – order!
Bob accepted the challenge and worked day and night to complete the Dart by the Friday before the race. On the Saturday, April 18, 1960 Bob found himself in the middle of the grid on an unfamiliar circuit in a brand new and untested car. He steadily worked his way up into first place and won the race! He actually did it! Setting a Brands Hatch lap record that stood for seven years! A delighted Mr Scott then established a GSM production facility in a 5000 square foot factory behind the Windsor Garage to produce the first batch of cars. They couldn’t call them Dart in England, so they used ‘Delta’. Records are vague – it seems somewhere between 35 and 76 GSM Deltas were made in Kent.
The little cars developed a legendary winning reputation in the UK, Europe and SA. To show they weren’t only about racing, the Flamingo was marketed as the road-going version:
In 1964 they ran out of money.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Aftermath with Verster de Wit: 1976
A GSM club was formed in JHB and they tracked down Verster at his home in Kosmos on the Hartebeespoort Dam. He and his new wife Eva hauled out a suitcase full of his photos and sketches of his design days in England and in SA. They regaled the club members with tales of the hours of dedication and hard work Verster had put into his automotive design career. Another well-known design he had also been involved with – in addition to the Sunbeam Alpine – was the Humber Super Snipe.
In the 1980s the design got another lease of life when Jeff Levy got Verster to help him make a series of accurate replicas known as Levy Darts.
A. Ross & Co. General Dealers in Harrismith had gone phut, sold out to OK Bazaars. Their big old building was being gutted. Dad enquired about the ‘pressed steel’ ceilings* and was told ‘You can have the ceilings gratis if you strip them and remove them within a week.’
He bought six ‘nail puller pliers’ like these, and ‘did it himself’ (SA-style):
. . by hiring six men (not that he used a decent word like men), having them take down the panels, scrape them down, scrub them with wire brushes and seal them with clear varnish; then they painted them with a mix of glossy and matt white paint to get a lovely finish: not shiny, not dull.
He put them up in our huge lounge, our long passage and our spacious dining room of the old house at 95 Stuart Street.
Old family home 95 Stuart Street Harrismith
He sold the excess panels to someone in JHB who paid and fetched.
Dad says while he was fitting them, Ouma paid us a visit from PMB. She would sit up with him as he worked till late at night. When it got late she would encourage him to stop: ‘Kom my seun, nou moet jy gaan rus. Gaan slaap nou.’
I’ve no pics of the ceilings . . . The feature pic and these are from the ‘net. They give a good idea of the look. Wait! See below . .
When I was taking pictures of his old tools I lined up these pliers and he said ‘Oh, those aren’t old. I bought them.’ Yeah, I laughed; Like fifty years ago! He saw the humour in that.
~~oo0oo~~
Sheila found pics of the lounge ceiling – a lovely pic of a gathering of friends on the occasion of Mom’s 45th birthday!
– members of the choir gather together –
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
*Tin ceilings were introduced to North America as an affordable alternative to the exquisite plasterwork used in wealthy European homes. They gained popularity in the late 1800s as Americans sought sophisticated interior design. Durable, lightweight and fireproof, tin ceilings were appealing to home and business owners alike as a functionally attractive design element that was readily available.
Important chaps like this one harumphed . .
. . that it was morally wrong and deceptive to imitate another material and blamed the degradation of society (on) the “art of shamming” rather than honesty in architecture. Oh well . . we weren’t going to invite him for tea to 95 Stuart street anyway.
Despite these old farts, tin ceilings were also popular in South Africa and in Australia where they were commonly known as pressed metal ceilings or Wunderlich ceilings;
Friend Charles got marooned on a Seychellois island from drinking too much. Drink – hard liquor imbibed on dry land – made them forget about their yacht and it broke anchor and drifted off without them. They were marooned like My Man Friday. And his mate, the colonial. He’s writing a book about his adventures, of which more later, when he has published and become famous. On this lonely island he met ‘an Empire Games javelin champion.’
I went looking for who that might be. I didn’t find a javelin gold medalist, but I found:
Henry Beltsazer “Harry” Hart – a South African athlete born in Harrismith, Orange River Colony on the 2nd of September 1905.
At the 1930 Empire Games in Canada he won the gold medals in the discus and shot put competitions, and bronze in the javelin throw. He finished fifth in the 120 yards hurdles.
In 1932 he went to the Olympics in Los Angeles, USA and finished tenth in shot put, twelfth in the discus and eleventh in the decathlon.
At the 1934 Empire Games in London (originally awarded to Johannesburg, but changed to London due to concerns regarding the treatment of black and Asian athletes by South African officials and fans) he won his second brace of Empire gold medals in the discus throw and shot put competitions. In the javelin throw contest he won silver.
Hart was the owner of the Royal Hotel in Reitz, Orange Free State, South Africa. He was friends with Hollywood actors Douglas Fairbanks, Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, US swimmer and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller and CR ‘Blackie’ Swart – at that time a cowboy actor, later the first state president of South Africa. His study at the Reitz Royal Hotel – not really ‘Royal’ – displayed hundreds of photographs of himself in the company of these famous stars, as well as with US swimmer and actress Esther Williams, and Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan – she played Jane in six Tarzan movies.
Henry Harry Hart himself was apparently offered the part of Tarzan but refused as he had to return home to his farm to practice for the Empire Games. Hmm – I can just hear him: ‘Hollywood? Reitz? Ag, fanks, I’ll take Reitz, OK?’
Read the comments below to see more, as two of Harry’s descendants found this post.
– the Reitz Royal Hotel – ask to see the pub and Harry’s study –
So Johnny Weissmuller got lucky. Here he is with Maureen O’Sullivan, shouting AAH ee YA ee YAAAH!! She’s a good actress: She’s not blocking her ears.
The SA team to Canada in 1930. Where’s Harry?
– kneeling left holding a guitar – see the comments –
Mary Craig married Alex Caskie; they had a daughter
Mary Caskie, who married John Francis Adam Bland; their eldest son was
Frank, who married Annie Watson Bain; their second daughter was
Mary Frances, who married PG Swanepoel; their eldest daughter was
Barbara Mary, who married Jeff Tarr; their eldest daughter was
Linda Mary, who married Dawie Pieterse; their eldest daughter was
Mary-Kate, boss of the house, turning six this year!
– Sheila has this old daguerrotype of Great-Great Gran Mary Craig and Great Gran Mary Caskie and a suspicious chap –
In this day of easy instant photography I find it fascinating to read how this image was made:
To make the image, a daguerrotypist would – 1. polish a sheet of silver-platedcopper to a mirror finish; 2. treat it with fumes that made its surface light sensitive; 3. expose it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; 4. make the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; 5. remove its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment, 6. rinse and dry it; 7. seal the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.
The image is on a mirror-like silver surface, normally kept under glass, and will appear either positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Some tarnish around the edges is normal. (thanks wikipedia)
~~oo0oo~~
Nowadays a few quick sweeps of free software Faststone and I can hide most of the cracks of the broken glass:
I asked Leanne Hilkovitz Williamson about Poccolan / Robinson’s Bush and this brought a flood of memories:
She takes up the story:
I was born on the farm De Nook which belonged to my grandfather Elias Hilkovitz and was inherited by my father Leo Hilkovitz after the 2nd World War probably round about 1945, two years before I was born.
Dad built Little Switzerland Hotel on the farm and we made pathways through the forest called Robinson’s Bush for guests to hike to various spots: The Wishing Well, Protea Plateau, etc. I named most of the spots, and one that meandered in and out of the forest edge I named Hilky’s Way after my grandfather who was affectionately known as Hilky.
We sold the hotel when I was in my early twenties but the various owners over the years have kept the use of the forest and the guests continue to enjoy its wonderful beauty – it is wonderfully exhilarating to either clamber down Breakneck Pass from the Wishing Well or climb up to it from the road below. The path twists and turns in amongst indigenous trees, true and mock yellowwoods, and lianas and ferns along the side of a stream full of huge beautiful boulders in all shades of grey & lichen & dappled shade. So one experiences the mountain air, the refreshing sound of the steam and always the melodious bird song. I particularly loved calling up the Mocking Chats and Natal Robins that mimic other birds and have a whole repartee of calls, copying them and they’d call back. A wonderful game that Dad taught me.
According to my father, Robinson’s Bush is the biggest natural forest in the Drakensberg. I wouldn’t take that as gospel. I’ve come to be a bit circumspect about those sorts of claims that locals all over the world tend to lay claim to!
Robinson’s Bush abuts on De Nook and we treated it as part of our farm. Dad looked after it although it is part of government nature conservation; at one stage in my late teenage years there were two nature conservation officers who lived in a hut on the edge of the forest and tended it but that did not last.
I was there for my 70th birthday in 2017 with my two sons and their families and we climbed up Breakneck Pass through the forest and I showed it to my granddaughters and taught them the things my Dad had taught me.
Some of my earliest memories are of picnics in the forest on the side of the stream with our neighbours Udo and Margo Zunkle of Cathkin Hotel fame when they lived on Windmill farm. Udo would put small pieces of raw steak on the river rocks and we’d be fascinated by the crabs that came from all sides to feast on it.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Leanne again later:
Hi Again
I put together a Power Point family history together for the family and we had an evening when Ishowed it to them. It started with the great grandparents on both sides and their cars and the farm in the very early days and the beginnings of the hotel and its growth as I grew up & went to HS Volkschool & then boarding school, varsity, etc. and then our children growing up and then finally the grandchildren from babies to present. I can never leave the farm & the berg for long & return there often – even if it is just up and down in a day – and I climb a mountain, drink in the soul food and return home refreshed, invigorated and together. The families also love it and visit but we have never all been there together at the same time & so took advantage of my 70th to ask this favour. So we stayed in the timeshare from 24-28 Dec & had a wonderful Christmas & my birthday on 27th. We had a wonderful time and I was able to share some of my favourite places & stories with them just this once as you know how short attention spans are when kids are having fun. Didn’t want to bore them!
Pic of me on my birthday in my most favourite place in all the world.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Famous shenanigans: South Africa’s most notorious bank robber, Trust Bank robber Derek Whitehead, was arrested at Little Switzerland in 1971 at 3am on Friday morning the 14th of May. They had arrived at 4.30pm the previous day. A team of CID detectives from Johannesburg, the Orange Free State and Natal were involved in the swoop. After the arrest, the Whiteheads were taken to Bloemfontein for questioning
~~~oo0oo~~~
Drunken shenanigans: Omigoodness; You don’t want to know . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
Genealogy: Our Bruno the doberman was a Hilkovitz! Dad Pieter Swanepoel told me Leo came to town one day, called in at the Caltex garage and said ‘Come and look!’ On the back of his bakkie he had a bunch of little black pups in a box. Dobermans.
Dad chose one – he says he gave Leo a pocket of potatoes! – and we grew up with ‘Bruno’ – I only now found out he was a citizen of Little Switzerland! He grew up to be a handsome lad!
Mom and Dad’s big mates Hester and Steve Schreiber became Mr & Mrs Mayor and Burgemeester of the City of Song and Laughter, Harrismith OFS. A celebration was called for and hizzoner your worship Oom Steve decided to go big.
Not only would they use the huge and impressive stadsaal, they would get the new Holiday Inn to cater! They chose as their theme: Mexican! Edelagbare Mexican.
That may have been a continent too far for the dorp as, although they had a wonderful time thanks to the liquid refreshments, it was generally agreed the food was terrible. Much grumbling was heard, but the irrepressible Jack Shannon brought light relief when he said solemnly to his wife Joan: “Ma, next time we go on our around the world tour we must remember to give Mexico a miss!”
~~oo0oo~~
burgemeester – mayor
stadsaal – city hall; we always called it the town hall, though so dorpsaal
dorpsaal – town hall
edelagbare – like hizzonner, your worship, all the OTT shit politicians add to their names; it should be mercilessly mocked
First run in 1921 – or in 1926 ? – over 3200m for a stake of 2000 pounds sterling, the Gold Cup is Africa’s premier marathon for long-distance runners. It boasts a proud history and captures the public imagination. The race starts at the 400m mark in the short Greyville straight; there’s much jockeying for position as the runners pass the winning post for the first time before turning sharply right and heading towards the Drill Hall; normally many runners are under pressure before they turn into the home straight; the race is known to suffer no fools when it comes to fitness and stamina, and it takes a special type of horse and jockey to win the event.
And away they go!
Usually the final big race meeting of the South African racing season, the Gold Cup is often decisive in determining the Equus Award winners for the season. Initially a Grade 1 race, the Gold Cup was downgraded to Grade 2 in 2016 and to Grade 3 in 2017. Nevertheless, it is still the most important horse-racing marathon in the country.
– 1985 – Occult wins –
The distance and unforgiving conditions that prevail as the field go past the Greyville winning post twice, are great levelers and a look at the list of champions beaten in the Gold Cup is a long one, with less-fancied runners carrying less weight often winning.
Sun Lad won the first running in 1926. He raced in the silks of leading owner-breeder Sir Abe Bailey. The Gold Cup was one of just two wins for Sun Lad that season. He is frankly unlikely to be regarded as one of the race’s better winners.
The first horse to win the Gold Cup on two occasions was Humidor, who was victorious in 1933 and 1935.
And so to us:
Harrismith’s winner was the horse Rinmaher (pronounced ‘Rinmahar’) owned by the George Shannons of Kindrochart. What year? Probably 1932 or 1934?
Mom and Dad both tell the story of raucous parties on the Shannon farm where at a suitably ‘sensible’ stage the Gold Cup would be taken off the mantelpiece, filled with champagne or whatever hooch was going, and passed around to the ritual comments from the more sober of “Here we go! We’re drinking moths and mosquitoes again!” At least it had lovely handles to give an imbiber a good grip!
– Jack Shannon on his Shetland pony ‘Suzanne’ on Kindrochart – with Peter Bell –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Later: Sheila rousted Colleen Walker, granddaughter of George Shannon, who straightened me out on some Gold Cup details. She even had an earlier pic of Jack and Suzanne the Shetland. More questions: Is that Kindrochart? Is that George?
~~~oo0oo~~~
May 2020 – Mom sent a message that I must phone her! She wants to tell me the full story of the brothers Shannon. Phone Me Soon does not mean that her cellphone will be on, or charged, or answered; so it was a full two days later I got hold of her;
And away they go! She took a deep breath and set off:
Jim and George Shannon left Ireland on a ship bound for South Africa. Somewhere on the journey they had a fight and fell out; They never spoke to each other again!
They reached Harrismith where they both became ‘rough riders’ – breaking in horses for the British army – I guess also for anyone else who wanted horses broken in and/or trained? Somehow and sometime, they both ended up as farmers, George on Kindrochart and Jim on Glen Gariff.
George married Mrs Belle Stephens who came complete with two daughters Betty and Bobby. Then they had a son Jack – some called him Jock – who also featured in our lives as a friendly, lean, handsome, side-burned, smiling, pipe-smoking, pickup-driving, genial figure in khaki. We loved Uncle Jack! He married Joan from Joburg – Mom Mary and her older sister Pat went to the wedding. Later Bobby married a mine manager and some people thought that was very important. Betty never married, stayed on Kindrochart, worked in town and became a beloved young-in-spirit ‘auntie’ of ours, always a smile and always a tease and some fun. We called her Betty Brooks.
Meantime Jim on Glengariff married Amy, and they had three kids, one of whom they named George, despite the feud ongoing! Maybe there was a prior ancestor George? Other kids were Marshal (died young, not sure what of) and Sylvia. George married Betty McGore and they had sons Jim and Patrick who we knew in Harrismith in the sixties. Handsome lads, Patrick maybe too handsome for his own good!
– Jack and Joan years later –
When the second of the original Jim and George died (I think it was Jim), Jack contacted young George, son of Jim, and said ‘We’re having a party. You and Betty should be there.’ And so a reconciliation took place and they normalised family relations. Up until then, their mothers Belle and Amy had been forbidden to talk to each other! She remembers that after a good few drinks and a meal and another good few drinks, the Gold Cup was taken down off the Kindrochart mantelpiece, filled with wine and passed around! George offered his wife Betty first sip and after a gulp she exclaimed ‘George! It’s full of moths and mosquitoes!’
~~~oo0oo~~~
No doubt there’ll be other versions of this tale – and much more detail. But this is how 91yr-old Mother Mary fondly remembers the story of these good friends from days of yore.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Elizabeth de Kock spotted this post and wrote:
This was so interesting for me to read. My grandfather, William Stocks, was a neighbouring farmer. We spent many holidays on their farm called Lust. We visited Aunty Betty often and enjoyed sitting on the big swing overlooking the dam. She gave us the use of a little grey pony (very naughty) to ride during our holidays. As children we got our blankets from her shop in Harrismith. The shop was an experience in itself. I’m 69 years old now and still have very fond memories of Aunty Betty.
I replied: Hi Liz – Thanks so much for commenting! Lovely memories! Betty was a lovely lady.
I’ll ask my mother Mary Bland Swanepoel (93) what she remembers about the Stocks family. I know I have heard her talk about the Stocks but can’t remember any detail.
Kind regards – BTW, I’m 66, my sister Barbara will 69 in January – maybe you remember her?
I phoned my Mom Mary Bland. She was tickled pink to reminisce about her friend! Here’s her tale:
She nursed with Margaret Stocks at the Harrismith hospital and they were great friends. She says Margaret wasfive years older and much bolder and naughtier than she was!
She once visited her on their farm at Lust. Margaret’s brother was there. Later, that brother was killed in a plane accident in the airforce. His plane wing clipped a sand dune. When she heard about it, Mary phoned Margaret to say, If you like, you can join me to mourn your brother. Margaret said, No thanks, we may as well stay here on the farm and be miserable together.
Margaret married John Reed, a farmer. A few years later, Mary took her two year old daughter Barbara and visited Margaret on the Reed’s farm near Belfast in the Transvaal. (I wasn’t born yet, so this was probably early 1955). One day he was lying in the bath and Barbara wanted to go and see him. Margaret said ‘No my girl, you’ll have to wait another twenty years for that!’ Once in Harrismith, Margaret called out the houseman on duty for her patient. When he didn’t arrive, she sent her junior nurse (who she called ‘Ginger Biscuit’) to call him. The nurse found the houseman in bed with the matron. He had to leave town.
Those were Mary’s memories of Margaret Stocks!
Liz Kibblewhite wrote again:
I was brought up on a gold mine just outside Krugersdorp and went to Lust during school holidays. If I remember correctly, Jury Swart was a neighbouring farmer to my grandfather William Stocks.
The last time I saw Aunty Betty was in 1975 with my future husband, spending the night with her reminiscing. We were on our way to Durban and I wanted to show him the beautiful Orange Free State Drakensberg and particularly Kerkenberg and the old farm before we returned to the UK.
Margaret had a twin sister Edna. My mother Joan was their younger sister.
I have been living in England for 46 years now and am proud to have passed a bit of my South African even to my grand children who live in France – they love bobotie and say muti for medicine.
There was David, Margaret and Edna, Joan (my mother), and Neil. Margaret and John (Umpie) lived in Pretoria after he left farming. Margaret died about 8/9 years ago and John before that.
Mary isn’t getting mixed up: Neil flew in Italy during WW2 and was decorated. DFC. The squadron was called 13th Hellenic Squadron. He also flew in Korea and after that a test pilot in SA.
I always wondered how his crash happened.
He was buried on the farm.
~~oo0oo~~
Ah, that’s lovely that you visited Betty before leaving South Africa!
I said to Mary: Margaret had a twin. “Edna” she said immediately. And she had a younger sister. she thought a while . . “Joan” “Their brother was Neil” she said. “He was younger than the twins.” Mary says, “When I first started dating, Margaret – never slow with her opinions! – huffed: “These people that just say yes to the first person that comes along!” Well, this time Margaret was mistaken, as Mary married her date, and seventy years later they’re still married.
When I got back to Harrismith in December 1973, we were moving house. The ole man had sold the old house . .
. . and built a new one in Piet Uys street uptown.
I filled the blue kombi with stuff – small furniture, paintings and odds – and drove it the kilometre or so down Stuart Street to Piet Uys street; then back, again and again. Load after load. I loved it, I had driven very little in the USA.
We had LOTS of stuff to go. Including Jock, the brindle staffie terrier.
Finally when I’d moved all the stuff I went for my drivers licence. Overdue. I had turned eighteen eight months prior. I drove myself there. After a short drive the traffic cop turned to me and said “You’ve driven before”. I said Um, Ja and he told me to turn round, go back and he signed on the dotted line.
As I was leaving he asked “Who drove you here?” Um, Me I said. He just grinned.
Vrystaat Confessions 