The pinnacle of my tennis career came when I beat a Springbok Grand Slam winner in a doubles tournament at the Wanderers in Jo’burg.
Of course, it helped that my playing partner was Free State junior champ Alick Ross, a brilliant left-hander who carried me all the way.
Also, it helped that the ‘Springbok tennis player’ was actually our opponent’s DAUGHTER, not he himself. So the truth is Alick and I beat Ilana Kloss’ FATHER in an early round of a doubles tournament back in 1974.
Here’s Ilana, left, who we didn’t beat. She was lucky enough never to be drawn against us in her career.
Oh, well, it sounded good for a while there . . .
Unlike me, Ilana went on to greater heights, winning two Grand Slam titles two years later, the US Open doubles with Linky Boshoff and the French Open mixed doubles with Aussie Kim Warwick. Her Dad had probably passed on a few things he learnt from me.
I emigrated from Hillbrow and Parktown to Welkom, Free State. The joke goes, “I spent a year in Welkom one weekend.”
In about April 1978 Kurt E, optometrist in the city centre near the famous horseshoe – the dead-centre of town – asked me to work for him. Yes, please, I said. In Highpoint Hillbrow Graham B, the known world’s finest optometrist, had said he didn’t have enough work for me – he had “let me go” – so I drove off in my grey-and-grey 1965 Opel Rekord breaker in a south-westerly direction, crossed the Vile river and arrived in Welkom, city of sin and laughter. Where Kurt gave me a warm friendly welcome. introduced me to his friends and ducked off on leave more often than he’d been able to when on his own. A handy trick I would copy enthusiastically decades later.
Got myself a big ole empty flat in a big building in town – my first very own apartment! The Thornes of Barbour & Thorne, estate agents, arranged it all. Father and sons estate agents – who became firm friends. Andy & Evyn, and Dad Wally. They also helped me buy a double bed, a couch and a fridge, you don’t need anything else. I had left behind the lovely communal house at 4 Hillside Road in Parktown and a lovely lady, the delightful Triple-Ess. I was all swoon and sigh, but the Pru in her soon sorted me out and made me realise life moves on! I guess I was “let go” twice that month!
I loved the work – I was much busier than I had been in Hillbrow, doing a far wider range of challenging cases. One of my first patients was a keratoconus patient I fitted with her first rigid contact lenses and she saw beautifully as she hadn’t in years! Another early patient put on his minus fours and said he couldn’t see fokol. I tested him again and he was minus two. I said he should see his doc and he went off pop in a spittle-flecked fury, ranting that I was just trying to rob him and was obviously in cahoots with the GP or ophthalmologist. He knew our types! Dink jy ek is fokkedom?! Luckily when he finally went after passing out at home, his GP instructed him to come and thank me for saving his life – he was a sky-high undiagnosed diabetic one Fanta Grape away from death or losing a toe. Once his sugar levels had stabilised he actually did come in and thank me and say jammer asseblief. Halcyon days.
Being the Vrystaat and late eighteenth century, the practice had a back door and a tiny separate test room for Nie Blankes, can you believe it!? Frontline ladies would firmly instruct darker people to walk down the alley next to the shop to find the back door.
Kurt was a character, Swiss squash champion. He had two mates who were also Swiss champions in various disciplines besides drinking and carousing – cross-country running and skiing, I believe. They would meet annually and be suave, drink and carouse. He had an old Mercedes sedan in mint condition and a beautiful Beechcraft Bonanza India Mike Alpha. He kept a little car at the airport in JHB so when he flew there he had transport.
– similar -this is not IMA –
Winter solstice in 1978 we had a boys night in Kurt’s sauna with Kurt and Johnny H, lawyer and mensch; We sat drinking beer in the heat of the sauna till it became unbearable, then plunged into the freezing open air pool. Then back into the sauna . . It’s good for you, they say . . To this day I believe in the beer part of that prescription.
Kurt once asked me to drive his Merc and a young lady pilot with instrument rating to Joburg while he flew there. She was probably going to fly the Bonanza back at night? The Merc got tired in the metropolis of Parys and we had to spend the night there while the local mechanics got it back on its feet. A few months earlier the Barclays bank manager in Hillbrow had been a ‘barclaycard pusher.’ He’d pressed a credit card on me over my protestations that I didn’t need it. Well, that night I did – I paid for both hotel rooms and the car repair. So where some might have had their first Campari in Benoni, I had my first credit card transaction in Parys. Milestones.
Memories of people: Kurt’s receptionists, Elsabe and La Weez; Yoyoyo lots of make-up; Ralph G, the other optom; Kurt’s lovely wife Barbara; The shapely Maria; The shapely pharmacist Frick; matric classmate Elsie C’s shapely blonde Vrystaat varsity friend; McM the shapely Rhodes University student; The mafia tenderpreneur builder / truck transport brothers who wore matching thick, dark Safilo plastic frames and bought matching yellow Lamborghinis to prove a point. Not shapely. Built like squat double-door refrigerators, but lots of money.
Swanning around in my grey-and-grey 4-door, three-on-the-column 1965 Opel Rekord Concorde, the Welkom ladies must have swooned. Surely. Those days men were men and, like the Lambos, my Opel had a good hard steel dashboard, not soft and airbaggy, and a bakelite steering wheel. A front bench seat. And all the ladies agreed that it trumped the Lamborghinis when they saw my back bench seat!
I was due in the army for national service in July but Kurt spoke to the local Nationalist MP and swung it so I only started in January the next year. Strings. Who said corruption is a new invention? It’s always who you know. ~~oo0oo~~
Around 1967 – long before my time there – the Welkom manne decided that the Welkom / Johannesburg road was too dangerous to travel on, and learnt to fly. Together with his great friends Wally T and Heinie H, Kurt bought a Cessna 182 Skylane, ZS – DRL and operated the plane in an association they christened “HET – Air” – their initials. I got this info off Barbour & Thorne’s website. ~~oo0oo~~ fokol – not much; less than twenty/two hundred; less than six/sixty; Frank Duro would have raised his (were they bushy? were they non-existent?) eyebrows
Dink jy ek is fokkedom?! – think I’m schoopit?
jammer asseblief – my bad
Nie Blankes – Non Whites; Human beings deemed not to be ‘white.’ By highly scientific tests of course
Alf Beyers, son of the Hoof of the Hoerskool in Petrus Steyn OFS, struck enormous good fortune on leaving the village and striking out for the big smoke of lower Doornfontein, Johannesburg, city of sin and laughter. It was akin to winning the lottery.
He was allocated me as his room-mate.
Dropping our suitcases on the sticky deep purple linoleum floor we immediately headed off to Nirvana, a place we had heard about for years. A place our mothers warned against with such dire foreboding that we knew we had to find it.
Hillbrow.
We heard they sold liquor in Hillbrow and we had fresh pocket money, so off we went with the gang of new students in the Doories res of the Wits Tech for Advanced Technical Education on our first night in Joeys, 1974, in search of pubs and nightclubs. Vague names waft around in my head now: Summit? Idols? Sands Hotel?
Most of us returned late that night, but there was no sign of Alf. He had landed up in the Johannesburg General Hospital, a victim of alcohol poisoning. The docs assured him it wasn’t bad liquor, it was simply too much good liquor.
The ill-effects wore off quickly and the potential for fun endured. On another occasion when we’d had a skinful Alf indulged in a bit of streaking under the Harrow Road flyover, appearing completely kaalgat to the amusement and delight of rush-hour motorists. Some were so impressed they called the cops and Alf roared up the stairs and hid in the smallish free-standing cupboard in our room, which actually overlooked the spot where he’d been parading!
When the hullabaloo died down he appeared with a huge grin on his face, still buck naked and inquired innocently “Looking for me?”
=======ooo000ooo=======
twaalf eiers – a dozen eggs; rhymes with Alf Beyers;
hoerskool – school of ill repute;
Hoof of the Hoerskool – in charge of that place; influential position
kaalgat – naked as the day he was born;
——-ooo000ooo——-
Dodgy history lesson: Grand Central Station, in the metropolis of Petrus Steyn, situated on the banks of the mighty Renoster:
I joked that my gran Annie thought ‘the queen’ was also the queen of South Africa. Elizabeth, not Pieter-Dirk. And I thought ‘You know, Annie was probably alive under Queen Victoria!’
So I thought I’d check.
Well, she certainly was. And what’s more, she actually lived under six British Monarchs!
Smiling Vicky; Eddie Seven; Georgie Five; Eddie Eight; Georgie Six; Lizzie Two Second
How’s that! Long live the Queens! Long live the Kings! But longer live our Annie!
– Annie looking regal, crown without any stolen diamonds in it, complete with corgi accessory –
~~~oo0oo~~~
I myself have lived through the (distant, irrelevant) reign of Lizzie Two Second and . . oh, only Lizzie. She recently de-throned or defrocked her great-great-granma Victoria as longest reigning Breetish monarch. Poor old Bakoor Charlie has gone straight from lifelong unemployment into pensionerhood before ever actually doing anything. He’s sixty nine in the shade, has never worked a day in his life and is still sitting around waiting for a vacancy to arise.
“Royalty” is such BullShit. If his mother keeled over millions would be wasted putting a hat on his head; after which he’ll carry on doing nothing while not wearing that stupid hat. We humans are incredibly stupid often.
– dreaming of his hat –
~~~oo0oo~~~
As a determined anti-monarchist I much prefer this fact: Annie and Mae West were both born in 1893. Mae died in 1980, Annie three years later. As a big fan of Mae West I do hope Annie liked her and didn’t follow the moralistic American censors in panning her. I doubt it. I think she’d have loved her!
Mae West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980): American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter, comedian, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. She was known for her lighthearted, bawdy and clever double entendres and breezy sexual independence. She often used a husky contralto voice. Quotable: “Marriage is a fine institution, but I’m not ready for an institution.”
~~~oo0oo~~~
breetish – Mugabe-speak for that island to the left of France;
We used to borrow our parents cars on the without-permission system and drive around at night with the ultimate destination being the Royal Natal National Park Hotel down Oliviershoek Pass. That was a triumphant destination I only achieved once, other times we went to Little Switzerland, halfway down the pass. Or Kestell.
Once Steph de Witt decided to raise the bar and we headed off to Durban with the goal of putting our toes in the warm surf of the Indian Ocean and getting back to Harrismith before sunrise but we ‘changed our minds’ soon after Ladysmith and turned back.
I knew this habit could not be genetic as Mom would never have done such things, but recently I found out something which may throw new light on the possible causes of such fun behaviour.
Mom’s older sister Pat matriculated at Girls High in Pietermaritzburg while Mom matriculated at Harrismith se Hoer. I suddenly wondered why, so I asked.
Oh, she was getting into boys so Dad sent her off to boarding school, said Mom. She must have been in standard eight and about fifteen or sixteen years old.
Apparently some boys had borrowed a car from Kemp’s Garage in Warden Street and headed off to Royal Natal National Park Hotel back before it was Royal. It only became Royal after the Breetish Royal visit in 1947 and this must have been about 1941. Mom thinks Pat’s fellow felons may have included Michael Hastings and Donald Taylor. Pat, being the fun-loving person she always was, was right there! FOMO (fear of missing out) was a thing then too, even if it didn’t yet have an acronym! I know I had it big as a teenager.
The hotel looks like this now, but not because of us, swear!
=========ooo000ooo=========
Potted history of the Royal Natal National Park area:
In 1836, while exploring Basutoland, two French missionaries, Mons. Arbrousset and Daumas first discovered Mont-Aux-Sources, the source of three rivers. In 1908 the idea of establishing a National Park in this area was conceived, and the territory was explored by Senator Frank Churchill, General Wylie, Colonel Dick and Mr. W.O. Coventry. Recommendations were put forward, but it was not until 1916 that the Secretary of Lands authorised the reservation of five farms, and certain Crown Lands totalling approximately 8160 acres and entrusted it to the Executive Committee of the Natal Province.
On the 16 September 1916 the National Park came into being. An advisory committee was appointed to control the Park. Shortly afterwards the Natal Provincial Administration purchased the farm ‘Goodoo’, upon which a hostel for hikers had already been opened in 1913 by W.O.Coventry, and incorporated a small portion of the Upper Tugela Native Trust Land, thus swelling the National Park to its present 20 000 acres. The Advisory Committee was abolished in January 1942, and the Park was administered by the Provincial Council until the formation of the Natal Parks, Game and Fish Preservation Board on the 22 December 1947.
Mr. F. O. Williams held the first hostel lease rights on the farm Goodoo which he obtained from Mr. W.O. Coventry, the original owner. Mr. Coventry became Lessee of the whole park in 1919, and took over the post of Park Superintendent in August 1924 at the grand salary of five pounds per month. In 1926 he was succeeded by Otto and Walter Zunkel, who each added their share of buildings and improvements. Mr. Alan Short was the next Superintendent.
Short was in charge when the Royal Family visited the Park in May 1947. Prime Minister Jan Smuts wanted King George VI, the Queen and the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret to take a break from their two-month tour of southern Africa and see the splendour of the Drakensberg. It was Elizabeth’s first overseas trip and she celebrated her coming-of-age there, drafting her first important speech at the hotel.
The Royal family were so impressed with their stay that they insisted that the hotel and national park be granted the “Royal” designation.
Today, the Royal Natal National Park is managed by KZN Wildlife, the provincial conservation body of KwaZulu-Natal.
Here’s why everyone loves the area:
Picture taken by Pierre du Plessis while he was working down there.
Louis Schoeman, (Fanie, Marie, Little Louis, Lulu and Katrina’s father) when he heard that a whole Portuguese family was living behind the Fruit & Veg shop in Warden Street, remarked: “Hmph – that’ll ripen the bananas.”
Maybe the same family, when they arrived in Harrismith, decided to join the Anglican Church. On the first day, the church warden politely inquired of the head of this large, obviously foreign family: “Are you Greek Orthodox?” “No”, came the reply, “Portuguese Fruit & Veg.”
Elsa du Plessis at Aberfeldy Primary School in the 1960s – the teacher asked for a translation into Afrikaans of “horseshoe.” Elsa came back quick as a flash – “drankwinkel.” Old Harrismith people will remember the Scott’s Horseshoe Bottle Store just up the road from Mary and Pieter Swanepoel’s Platberg Bottle Store, both in Warden Street.
When Annie Bland used to ask her old mate, Dr Nel (Petronella) van Heerden, how she was, the stock phrase from that formidable character was “Oh, fair to bloody!”
The Lotsoff Flats in Stuart Street were owned by Basil Lotsoff, who was enormously fat. Inevitably, he was called Lots of Basil.
Jaap van Reenen (Rina’s grandfather) had a very loud voice and you could hear him coming long before you saw him, so he was called Jaap Aeroplane.
Roy Kool was a traveling salesman, selling fertiliser to farmers. The first time he called on Mr Blom, the farmer stuck his hand out and in the time-honoured brusque manner of old Free State farmers, said “Blom”. Roy said “Kool” (Afrikaans pronunciation) and the story was Blom thought he was taking the mickey! (‘Blomkool’ means cauliflower).
Roy Cartwright, who owned the Tattersalls, called Barney and Louis Green, brothers who owned a little shop in Warden Street where we used to buy our school shoes, Barmy and Looney.
The Green brothers’ stock was always coming in on “Vensday Veek”. Whatever you were after, they didn’t have it, but it would be there by “Vensday Veek”.
Roy also christened Martha McDonald and Carrie Friday, as they cruised around in a beautiful bottle-green Buick “Martha and My Man Friday”.
– this is the actual Buick we frew wif a stone decades ago!! Martha and my man Friday cruising around town –
Michael Hastings to Mary Swanepoel as they were leaving Harrismith in 1964: “There’s been a Hastings in Harrismith since 1066 and now we’re leaving.”
Dr Hoenigsburger, great friend of my great grandfather, Stewart Bain, was the family GP as well as the Harrismith government doctor (district surgeon). Annie called him Dr ‘Henningsberg’.
One day, driving back to town from the prison, he missed the bridge and his car landed in ‘the spruit with the name.’ The Kak Spruit. Only his pride was injured. In the meantime, back in town, the hostess of the bridge evening was getting a bit perturbed as Dr H hadn’t arrived yet and they couldn’t start playing bridge without him. She ‘phoned the Hoenigsburger home and was told by Dr H’s young son Max: “No, I don’t think my father will be coming tonight. He’s had enough bridge for one day.”
Aunty Hester Schreiber was a much loved friend of our family and had a wonderful sense of humour and the heartiest laugh you can imagine. She was walking along the pavement one day outside their home opposite the big Dutch Reformed Church right in the middle of town. Suddenly she felt faint and sank to the ground. But help was at hand. Gerrie Coetzee, Harrismith’s own Maurice Chevalier, happened along. Always impeccably attired, in tweed coat, deerstalker and kierie – with beautiful manners to match, he gallantly bent down and tried to help Aunt Hessie up. Her response? “Nee los Gerrie, los. Netnou lê ons altwee innie gutter. Wat sal die dominee dan sê?”
The same Aunt Hessie walked into her lounge one say, slipped on the “springbok velletjie” mat and slid right under the narrow coffee table. And there she lay, completely trapped by the legs of the table and screaming with laughter. Oh, how we loved her and her sense of humour.
So many of Mum and Dad’s stories are about good times they had with Steve & Hester Schreiber, Joe and Griet Geyser, Bert & Margie Badenhorst, Jannie & Joan du Plessis, Frank & Harriet van der Merwe, Cappie & Joyce Joubert, Manie & Mary Wessels, Hector & Stella Fyvie, Geoff & Billy Leslie, Dick & Barbara Venning.
The last time Mary saw Jannie du Plessis, he said to her: “I’ve got to take so many pills I can never remember if I have to take two at 10 o’clock or ten at 2 o’clock.”
~~oo0oo~~
Mosleyisms
Stan Mosley worked for the Woollen Mills in Harrismith back in the ‘fifties. Born in England, he had a colourful turn of phrase. Mom used to tell us of things he said over the years, but I forget them, so I’ve been trying to get her to remember them. Here are some Mom remembers and one Pierre du Plessis recalled:
A journey in a pickup along a rough road, “We rattled along like a tin of sardines;”
Harsh justice: “The judge sentenced him to be hanged by the neck until death us do part;”
On the golf course: “The ball was rolling towards the pin, gathering memorandum;”
– lovely old pic of the golf course (so clear!) from deoudehuizeyard blog –
The lights went out at the factory, so Stan phoned up Ben Priest in the municipality: “Mr Priest! Is there any lights?” To which Mr Priest answered “No, there isn’t none at present now;”
On Platberg: “On the mountain the only living thing we saw was a dead baboon;”
Etienne Joubert added:
His mother Joyce’s “Remember Who You Are!”- And the threat made at school by an ignorant teacher that, “All I would become one day was a wheel tapper’s mate!”
~~oo0oo~~
drankwinkel – liquor store; bottle store
kierie – walking stick
“Nee los Gerrie, los. Netnou lê ons altwee innie gutter. Wat sal die dominee dan sê?” – Abandon me to my fate, gallant knight! We can’t afford to be seen together in the gutter by the local guardian of the dorp‘s morals!
95 Stuart Street was home from 1961 to 1973. To learn more about Stuart Street as a street, go to deoudehuizeyard! where Sandra has done a great job using old and new images of the long east-west street we grew up in.
– Mom with Barbara. Koos in rugby kit – probably 1967 –– the country mansion and stonehenge –
Some stiff poses in the garden in 1970 with Jock the Staffie:
Inside, in the dining room and the lounge:
Twelve years at 95 Stuart Street. Funny how that felt like forever! Ah youth!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Married, we stayed in our first home for around fifteen years, 7 River Drive Westville. From early-1989 to Dec-2003. That time appeared to go much faster!
. . and have now been in our second home, 10 Elston Place Westville, the longest of all – since late 2005:
Sheila saw to it I had a party! As so often, Sheila saved the day. Back in 1976 before there were rules and the rinderpest was still contagious.
– those TC wimmin could really get things going –
Des Glutz threw open his palatial bachelor home, Kenroy, on the banks of the mighty Vulgar River to an invasion of students from Johannesburg and Pietermaritzburg. That’s because as a lonely horny bachelor Free State farmer he had his eye on some of those student teachers from Teachers Training College in PMB!
“Kindness of his heart” you thought? Ha! You know nothing about horny bachelor Free State farmers! Anyway, he owed me for managing his farm brilliantly when he went to Zimbabwe. Probly doubled his profit that year.
Sheila invited everybody – and everybody arrived!
Eskom had not yet bedeviled Kenroy, so paraffin lamps, gaslamps and candles gave light. So you didnt flick a light switch, hoping it would work, no. You lit a lamp knowing it would work cos Gilbert will have reliably topped up the paraffin. Des might have done that, you thought!? Ha! You know nothing about lonely horny freestate farmers with butlers. Music pomped out from car batteries. There was singing and much laughter. Except when Noreen, Jo and Ski danced their Broadway routine The Gaslamp Revue with Redge Jelliman holding the silver tray footlight staring in open-mouthed wonder at their skill. And of course, their legsnboobs – another lonely horny bachelor Free State farmer, y’know. Awe-struck silence reigned. For minutes.
– Noreen and Jo in the Gaslamp Revue, using available props –– Reg dreaming bachelor harem dreams – Noreen Mandy Jill Liz –
There was also Liz and Mops and Jenny, Georgie, Mandy, Gill and Jill; Hell, we bachelors were in awe at almost being outnumbered – a rare event. We were so excited we got pissed and fell down. Timothy Paget Venning got so excited he walked all the way round the house smashing Des’ window panes to let in the night.
– someone baked a cake – lots of advice on how to cut it –
Poor ole Gilbert, Des’ personal butler, valet and chef – seen here in purple – and his men bore the brunt of the extra work!
He cooked and cooked, including a big leg of lamb which didn’t make the main table, getting scoffed on the quiet by ravenous would-be teachers under the kitchen table. Pity the poor kids who would have to grow up being taught all the wrong things by this lot in Natal in the eighties.
– Sir Reginald dreaming he has died and gone to heaven – with Noreen, Mops, Mandy, Jill and Liz –
These would-be teachers and pillars of society were wild n topless:
– if the bachelors had been there, we’d have politely averted our eyes. Right!! –
Tabbo wore his tie so he could make a speech into his beer can microphone:
Funny how Glutz doesn’t feature in any pics! Where was he? We know he wasn’t in his bedroom cos the TC girls raided it and were in awe at the impressive collection of bedroom toys and exotic rubber and latex items in his bedside drawer. No stopping those TC girls!
Ah! Here’s Glutz – Sheila and Liz presenting Des a thank-you gift for hooligan-hosting:
– Sheila & Liz thank Des for hosting – Des tries to hide the liquid gift – in vain –
The morning after dawned bright. Too bright for some . . .
– hair of the dog in the morning –
A mudfight! said some bright spark – Sheila, no doubt – so Des arranged transport to the mighty Vulgar river.
– fasten seatbelts while I check the airbags, says Farmer Glutz, Kenroy’s Safety Orifice – Occifer – Officer – Simpson scratches his head –– the mighty Vulgar River and its mud – roomerazzit it has beauty-enhancing properties – seems to be working –
After the weekend I roared back to Jo’burg in my brand-new 1965 two-shades-of-grey-and-grey Opel Rekord Concorde deluxe sedan, four-door, grey bench-seated, 1700cc straight-four, three-on-the column, chick-magnet automobile. My first car! Watch out Doornfontein!
– 21st birthday present! A 1965 Opel Concorde DeLuxe 1700 in sophisticated tones of grey and grey. Note my reflection in the gleaming bonnet! –
Thanks Mom & Dad! And thanks for the party, Sheils and Des! Before we left, Mom tickled the ivories while the TC gang belted out some songs:
~~oo0oo~~
The old man organised the numberplate OHS 5678 for me. The man at the Harrismith licencing office said “Oom, are you sure you want an easy-to-remember number for your son? Don’t you want one that’s hard to remember?”
The original source of info for this post was on https://deoudehuize.blogspot.co.za/ – do go and look, they are doing wonderful heritage conservation things in Harrismith! And they have a cool old car!
Maximilian John Ludwick Weston was a South African aeronautical engineer, pioneer aviator, farmer and soldier – and mystery man. He was probably born on 17 June 1873 in an ox wagon at Fort Marshall south of Vryheid in British Natal (though he invented an entirely different place of birth when it suited him). He married Elizabet Maria Jacoba ‘Lily’ Weston (nee Roux) a direct descendant of Adam Tas. The couple had three children: Kathleen, Anna and Max.
Weston’s early years are . . . interesting. And he may have invented a LOT of his life stories. But some things are verifiable – more or less, and they certainly are interesting! Read more detail here about his time building the railway line around Lake Baikal in Russia!
– was Weston here ca. 1903? –
Weston began the construction of his own aeroplane in 1907 at Brandfort in the Free State. This was the first South African-built aeroplane. He lacked an engine with enough power so he dismantled the aircraft and shipped it to France. In France he fitted a 50hp Gnome rotary engine and flew it successfully in 1910. On 16 June 1911 John made the first flight in Kimberley establishing a South African non-stop flight record of eight-and-a-half minutes in his Weston-Farman biplane.
At the outbreak of World War I Weston was appointed ground officer in charge of landing strips in South West Africa. He prepared an airfield with hangars and workshops at Walvis Bay.
For services rendered to the Greek Ministry of Marine he was made an Honorary Vice-Admiral in the Royal Hellenic Navy. Thus he was often glorified by the title of Admiral. Isn’t that delicious? The land-locked Free State had an Admiral! He appeared to relish the joke and later named his farm “Admiralty Estate”!
In 1918, John Weston took his family on an amazing adventure in this motorhome, a converted Commer truck. From about 1920 for twelve years, he and his family traveled the world.
The ‘Weston Caravan’, as it was called, was an extraordinary example of his tenacity and ingenuity. It doesn’t look like much from the outside and if the truth be told, the interior is enough to give anyone claustrophobia, yet this neat and compact arrangement of luggage and folding beds served them well. According to Weston, the living compartment could be removed from the chassis proper in a mere 10 minutes in order to float it across rivers, while the chassis could drive and/or get pulled across!
This ingenious ‘seven-by-fourteen-foot mansion’ ferried the pioneering Weston family on an overland trip from Cape to Cairo, and on to England, ‘to take the children to school!’
The purpose of Weston’s project was not simply to satisfy his lust for travel but was also an expression of his idealism. “To travel from land to land, to mix with the people of all nations…, to speak to them and hear their views, to study their institutions and their customs, that is his aim”.
It was also a bold experiment in the education of his children: he wanted them to see the world, to be freed from the narrowness and prejudices of those who grow up among never-changing surroundings, who know nothing of life beyond the pale of their dorp or city, the beauties and the grandeur of the earth, or of the nations and races who people it, and adorn (or mar) it with their works. He is preparing them to be citizens of Planet Earth”
On their trip from Cape Town to London they ‘had run-ins with elephants, occasionally had to float their vehicle across rivers on logs, and on occasions entire villages of more than a hundred natives had to dig them out of mud and thick sand and pull them up river banks.’ Weston said, “It can be stated without reservation that the indigenous people encountered on the African continent were all friendly and helpful“.
There were no fuel stations dotted along the route and no easy access to fuel, water or spares shops. Even the kids became handy mechanics. In the Southern Sudan they suffered misfortune when the rains broke later than usual. Weston broke a bone in his foot and the two daughters were also laid up with injuries.
On their trips Weston used to fly the South African blue ensign from a long bamboo pole on “Suid-Afrika” as he called the truck. On the side was painted a disc with the inscription ROUND THE WORLD circling the following:
On his return to South Africa in 1933, Weston bought a farm near the present Sterkfontein dam in the Harrismith district (or was it nearer Bergville?) and called it “Admiralty Estate”. He hoped to keep his kids with him for ever, but would not give them any certainty as to their future on the farm. The youngest two ended up reluctantly leaving to start their own lives, at which he disowned them and never spoke to them again.
One Friday night 21 July 1950 Weston and his wife were in the dining-room when they were attacked by three masked men. Mrs Weston regained conscious three days later in the Harrismith hospital, but John went on his last mission at the age of 78 on 24 July. It was his wish that his funeral should be quiet and simple. His body was cremated and no last word spoken. Lily recovered from the attack although certain permanent injuries persisted. She passed away on 14th April 1967 at the age of 91.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Read a fuller story of this amazing man’s astonishing life here. And especially here. where a sleuth has done a fascinating job of trying to unravel the true story of ‘John Weston’! Was he a spy? What was his real name? Where was he born? He wasn’t an admiral; He certainly was no farmer; He had no visible means of support yet often had plenty of money. He would disappear overseas for quite long spells quite frequently, sometimes buying aircraft and shipping them back to South Africa. He DID help build a Russian railway line. He said he personally met Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin and other notables.
Major D.P. Tidy in a tribute to pioneer SA airmen, wrote about Weston’s oldest child, daughter Anna. he wrote
(Weston) was elected an Associate of the Institution of Electrical Engineers on 5 February 1903 and a Member of the Society of Arts in the same year, in which he also published a slim philosophical handbook in November.
In 1981, his intrepid elder daughter Anna Walker flew with me in a Transall C160Z to the presentation ceremony of the Compton Paterson biplane replica in Kimberley. She gave me a copy of the little book, and was bright and lively at 05h00 when I picked her up from her house in Rosettenville, Johannesburg. She continued thus for the duration of the journey via Waterkloof, Durban, East London, Port Elizabeth, and Cape Town, keeping me enthralled with stories of travels with her father. She has decided views on the origins of the disastrous fire that caused the loss of Weston’s aircraft, and of the identity of those who instigated the murder of her father in the 1950s.
In the little book of her father’s that she gave me he wrote ‘Never allow human conventionality to interfere with the dictates of your conscience; in other words do right and fear not.’ This could be the essence of the thinking of both father and daughter. She was born Anna MacDougal Weston on 6 February 1908, after he had married Miss Lily Roux on 10 August 1906.
Settled at Brandfort in the Orange Free State, he had a well-equipped workshop there in 1909. He himself stated that he built his first aircraft in 1907/1908, presumably on the farm Kalkdam, near Bultfontein.
TV, harbinger of kommunisme, arrived in South Africa in 1976. This in spite of the Nationalist Party’s Posts and Telecommunications Minister Albert Hertzog’s determination not to telecommunicate.
Hertzog had vowed that television would come to South Africa over his dead body, denouncing it as ‘a miniature bioscope over which parents would have no control.’ He also argued that ‘imported fillums showing race mixing and advertising would make non-white Africans (or ‘plurals’) dissatisfied with their lot.’ Their God-ordained lot. The new medium was the ‘devil’s own box, for disseminating kommunisme and immorality.’ This, naturally, made people curious. Hetzog was better at marketing than at telecommunications. The influential Dutch Reformed Church, the National Party at prayer, saw the new medium as ‘degenerate and immoral.’ This, naturally, made people curious. The church was better at marketing than at afskrik. No doubt they had to send a few dominees oorsee to check and make sure it was as bad as vey fought. Dominees can be like that. Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was also full of wisdom, comparing television to atomic bombs and poison gas, which‘are modern fings, but that does not mean they are desirable. The goverrinmint has to watch for any dangers to the people, both spiritual and physical.’ That was onse Hennerik, now reduced to a street name.
Very prescient of them all: I mean do we have free speech and human rights now? See! They TOLD you! Not to even mention the scourge of ree-hality TV.
But there was no holding back ve small bioscope. TV came to South Africa irregardless, only . . not to Clarens!
Citizens of Clarens had to listen enviously to Bethlehem se mense when they spoke of staring at the test pattern or watching The World At War.Then came The Dingleys and The Villagers, as well as comedy series Biltong and Potroast’s SA vs British comedians shootout, and variety program The Knicky Knacky Knoo Show. Also The Sweeney in Afrikaans, called Blitspatrollie. Things were now getting Crucial in Clarens! The frustrasie mounted.
Then: A breakthrough! Someone discovered there was TV reception on the top of Mount Horeb which looms above the dorp! Mount Horeb, where Moses got the Ten Commandments, was about to beam down much breaking of the seventh and tenth commandments – the ones about adultery and coveting your neighbour’s wife’s ass. Yes, Mount Horeb is near Clarens, as is Bethlehem and the River Jordan. They wrote a book about it.
What was needed was a ‘repeater.’ A what? A repeater. Say that again . . You get an aerial to catch the signal, then a repeater, then another aerial aimed down at the dorp and voila (or ‘daar’s hy’): you have TV.
Steve Reed, son of hizzonner, the incumbent Lord Mayor of Clarens at that historic time, writes of the ‘many trips up Mount Horeb: At one stage we enlisted the TV expert from the Bethlehem TV shop – Haas Das. Two-way radios were used to speak to the manne down in the dorp, hunched over the test TV set’:
“Hoe lyk die picture nou? – Over”
“Nee man dis net sneeu. – Over”
“En nou? – Over”
“Dis nog steeds net sneeu. – Over”
“Daar’s hy! Wag! Agge nee, weer net sneeu. – Over”
Ens, ens . . en so voorts = etc.
So that was done, and TV arrived in Clarens to groot vreugde and tidings of great joy. The mense didn’t know it at the time, but they had embarked on learning to speak Engels.
And then it died. Wat de hel gaan aan? Telephone lines buzzed heen en weer. The battery’s flat. What battery? Ja, it has a battery to drive the repeater. The what? The repeater. Wat!?O bliksem. So a roster had to be drawn up for the dorpsmense – the villagers – to take turns driving and walking up Mount Horeb to change the battery and bring the flat one down to charge it. Daily. Every day. (Moses se Moses, he only went up Mount Horeb once).
– the summit of Mt Horeb – trying a petrol generator here –— Here’s a different home-made repeater aerial; Same battery-changing chore — This one at Hella Hella outside Richmond in KZN —
Then there was Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward Men. Except if men forgot their roster slot. Then there was hell to pay. Later a wind charger was installed so they didn’t have to change the batteries every day.
~~~oo0oo~~~
harbinger – anything that foreshadows a future event; omen; sign; ek het vir julle gese
kommunisme – communism; a vague concept, undefined, but BAD; don’t ask
fillums – motion pictures
devil’s own box – duiwel se eier doos
afskrik – dissuade; ‘don’t look!’ which made people look
goverrinmint – guvmint; Pik Botha discovered the ‘R’ in guvmint, his only achievement as Minister of Foreign Affairs. Although he was minister of foreign affairs for ages, he was actually better at Local Affairs, taking gewillige meisies to farms for frolics around ve braai
gewillige meisies – willing lasses; paid?
Bethelehem se mense – Bethlehem’s TV-enabled people
frustrasie – frustration, impotence, FOMO
dorp – village
daar’s hy – there it is, Suzelle; voila; see Jaap’s away you go below
manne – the boys
“Hoe lyk die picture nou? – Over” – What’s the picture look like? Over
“Nee man dis net sneeu – Over” – No man, its just snow – Over
“En nou? – Over” – And now? Over
“Daar’s hy! Wag! Ag, nee, weer net sneeu. – Over” – Shit! Over
Ens ens... – etc etc
groot vreugde – tidings of great joy
Wat de hel gaan aan? – WTF; Whatsa happening?
O bliksem – Oh shit
se Moses – like . . . “that was nothing!”
~~~oo0oo~~~
I wanted to know more about how they did this, so I asked –
and got a reply from Jaap:
Yes this is no secret, in fact we at the SABC / Sentech, encouraged the use of TV repeaters for the smaller communities, and at one stage there were more privately owned “self- help” TV stations than those we ran for the SABC.
The right way to do this was to purchase a transposer, a combined TV receiver and transmitter that will receive a TV signal on one channel, then re-broadcast the signal on another channel. This could be UHF-UHF or VHF-VHF or VHF-UHF. Then you need a receive antenna and transmit antenna. Install on a high structure, such as a grain silo or mountain top. This transposers was in the order of 1-10 Watts output. This then would receive the distant TV signal from the TX station through a front-end amplifier on one channel before feeding into the transposer, and transmitting it on another channel.
The cheap and dirty, crude way was to get hold of a VCR with AV out, a TV tuner with a AV output, or even a modified TV set. The AV output would then be taken to a TV modulator, which you can buy off the shelf, and then tune it to a suitable channel, and then put the RF into a amplifier that could be home-built or even a commercial distribution (set-back amplifier ) connect it to the antenna and away you go. Equipment could be bought from your local TV spares/ equipment dealer, Ellies Electronics, Space TV, or even your local co-op store. Drawback was that only one channel, normally TV3 (SABC3) could be re-broadcasted like this, any other additional channels would have to have identical set-ups.
According to the law, such self-help stations had to be licensed by the SABC, but many of them did not bother to do so. Obviously the home-brewed equipment was very prone to causing interference as the amplifiers they used was not channelized, with no filtering whatsoever.
In all instances the equipment had to be placed so that the clearest possible signal could be received and the maintenance of such repeaters was obviously the responsibility of that community.
Vrystaat Confessions 