Vrystaat Confessions

Category: 2_Free State / Vrystaat

My Home Province in South Africa

Raiders of the Lost Saab

The black Saab is packed to capacity as we roar off in the dead of night to Kestell, that mecca of silence and stillness and, uh peace, I guess. Or was that Vrede? We aimed to fix that in our 1961 black two-door Saab 93. Riiing! ding ding ding ding Riiiiing! – that’s the two-stroke engine you can hear.

Steph, Larry, Pierre, Tuffy and Me. Warmly dressed against the Harrismith winter chill, we’re packed shoulder-to-shoulder, hardly able to lift our elbows to down the 455ml can of beer we each have. Black Label Long Toms. A sixpack. We’re a little bit young and slightly illegal to buy it ourselves, so we had to contract the procurement job out to Steph’s gardener. It’s 5.5% so better value than Castle 5%. The sixth one of the carry-pack we’ll share. Tuffy’s empty can goes clanking along the Warden Street tarmac before Steph has even hit third gear. Glugged. He’s focused. He knows the object is to get that stuff circulating in the bloodstream, then crossing the blood/brain barrier and getting into the thinking part of your brain soonest, to provide fun and courage and laughter.

– the occupants – Pierre, me, Steph, Tuffy, inset Larry –

When the Saab goes quiet we stop briefly to tap the fuel pump with the half brick kept under the bonnet for just that purpose, and we’re off again. Riiing! ding ding ding ding Riiiiing!

– Saab engine and half-corobrick spanner-mallet-tool –

After cavorting on the gravel main street of Kestell and losing a tyre off the rim on one of our laps drifting – did I mention we invented drifting? – around the biggest thing in Kestell, the Groot Klip Kerk, we pick up the car to change the wheel as there’s no jack. Come to think of it, the word ‘domkrag’ might have been invented that night!

The guys at Jakes Grove’s garage kindly fix things for us and we’re away, heading for Jan van Wyk’s place on the way home.

Jan’s farm is a turn-off to the left on the way back home. He’s the sitting hoofseun at Harrismith se Hoer, 1970 edition. It’s 3am and there’s something we need to tell him.

Tuffy tackles an ox en-route

Driving down the farm road with its middel-mannetjie the passenger-side door suddenly flies open as we drive past a few cattle blinded by our headlights. Next thing we know there’s a dust cloud and some concerned moo-ing. Tuffy has launched himself into a flying tackle of one of the cows / bulls / oxen. We stop and Tuffy gets back into the car dusting off his khaki grootjas with a smug look of “that’ll teach them” on his dial. Long toms always went straight to the clever-witty-and-brave lobe of his brain, especially when he downed them in seconds flat. We didn’t know it yet, but he was practicing to be a parabat and a recce.

Arriving at the homestead all is in darkness. The dogs sniff us as we tiptoe into Jan’s room and wake him. Maybe we aren’t quite as stealthy as we think, as a voice comes from down the passage ‘Jan, maak tog vir hulle tee.’ His Ma. Ma’s. They always know what’s going on.

As we leave we spy pa Hertzog’s big Chev Commando parked in the open garage with a few big sacks next to it. Mielies, probably. Takes a bit of effort but we manage to raise it and push the sacks under it, leaving the rear wheels just off the ground. The beer is obviously still circulating, making us innovative, witty and irresistible. Oom Hertzog van Wyk probably had a good chuckle as he heaved his car off the sacks, we felt sure.

~~oo0oo~~

Larry left for home – Cobleskill, in upstate New York – soon after, missing the school photo session. We sent him this: Pierre, matric; me, Std 8; Steph, matric; Tuffy, Std 9 to remind him that, as the oldest among us, he had led us astray. Happily astray.

.

– a picture of innocence –
– as can be clearly seen here, I should have been driving – I’m the only one here who’d had his eyes tested –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Vrede – peace; the name of a town; dorp, really; misnomer

dorp – village; hamlet; no metropolis

Groot Klip Kerk – see the action picture of us drifting; It’s the building in the background;

middel-mannetjie – hump between the tracks in a rustic road to tickle the undercarriage;

domkrag – car jack; literally ‘stupid strength’; Us;

hoofseun – head boy;

Harrismith se Hoerskool – Place of learning; but without an umlaut: place of ill repute; place where you could learn some tricks;

grootjas – greatcoat issued by the army or bought 2nd-hand from army surplus stores;

parabat – parachute battalion; mal ous; jump out of aeroplanes

recce – recconaissance battalion; mal ous; jump out of helicopters

‘Jan, maak tog vir hulle tee’ – Give these drunks something to sober them up, would you? Moms always know what’s happening

Mielies – maize, corn;

drifting – right foot flat; steering wheel turned full lock; hold till you cannot see a thing from all the dust; turn the steering wheel to opposite lock; rinse and repeat; any passengers present should be yelling advice at the driver, telling him they should be driving;

~~~oo0oo~~~

Update: R.I.P – Jan van Wyk died in a car accident ca.2010. Shit.

Update again: R.I.P – Steph de Witt died in a car accident 2015. Shit.

11 Apr 2015
Culture, FreeState Style . .

. . and Counter-Culture.

At the Harrismith se Hoerskool, we were taught “sang” by Eben, well-known HNP lid of the Harrismith Tak who we thought fancied himself as a singer and a ladies man. Rather vroom, onse Eben – which has an opposite meaning to the English vroom.

He tried his best, but we were not an easy task. The RIGHT way was very clear in ou Eben’s mind: Die Volk, Afrikaans, Die Voortrekkers, Die FAK Sangbundel, no “anglisismes” and no Engels. And modern music was the work of the devil. This much was not in doubt. This meant, of course, that the RIGHT way in our minds was – well, definitely something other than that.

He announced one day in the asbestos pre-fab sangklas that we would now sing “Heb je al gehoord van den silveren vloot”, which wasn’t actually Afrikaans, being Hoog Hollands, but that was kosher in his world; followed by the pure Afrikaans “Wie is die dapper generaal? DE WET!” which made us all think we were singing a song of praise for our flyhalf, De Wet Ras.

At this, Skottie Meyer sighed audibly: “O, jis, sing ons al weer vir Fokken Faderland?”

Well! Despite Skottie’s protestations that he had said “Volk en Vaderland”, he was despatched by a puce-faced Eben to the headmaster’s office, forthwith! Inderdaad! But he must have forgotten to go all the way because he appeared at the window behind Eben a minute later and proceeded to have us stifling grins the rest of the singing session.

I will confess we did sometimes sing words other than those strictly written down in the sangbundel.

Skottie the irreverent and Eben the reverent have both since shuffled off this mortal coil.

~~oo0oo~~

HNP lid of the Harrismith tak – member of the Herstigte Nasionale Party – an extreme nationalist apartheid political movement

vroom – not vroom; pious; saintly

O, jis, sing ons al weer vir Fokken Faderland? – Omigawd, are we singing boring, dreary old nationalistic songs again? Any chance of a Rolling Stones number?

10 Apr 2015
Chariots of Beer

It was the Eastern Free State athletics championships, and we were three kranige athletes, in our prime. Well, so far . . we would get better at some things as time went on.

Here’s the line-up!! It was 1970:

In the triple jump we had Steph de Witt, matric. Long legs, big springs. In with a chance of a medal. The driesprong.

In the pole vault we had Richter Hoender Kok, Std 9. Feisty competitor, but probably not a contender as his short aluminium pole looks ancient and stiff next to the long, whippy fibreglass poles the boys from Bethlehem Voortrekker school are sporting. Fullback for the rugby team, he was nicknamed “HO Ender” after HO de Villiers, the Springbok fullback (hoender, geddit?). The paalspring.

In the javelin we had Me, Std 8. New to javelin, just discovered it that year and loved it. Unknown factor, only frown wif a spear once before – at the recent Harrismith Hoerskool Atletiekbyeenkoms, where I had won the Victor Ludorum very unexpectedly. The spiesgooi.

The school bus was naturally available for us to get to the metropolis of Senekal. That was the usual and expected way, so we naturally declined, Steph organising that we drove ourselves to Senekal in Gerrie Pretorius’ white Ford Corsair. Actually we weren’t licenced – to drink OR drive – so one of the guys who worked for his Mom Alet at JN de Witt Hardware drove us. I dunno why I think his name was Charl. Maybe it was Charl.

Accompanying us was Larry Wingert, Rotary exchange student from Cobleskill New York and keen athletic spectator. That day.

The white Ford Corsair’s engine roared off in the pre-dawn heading west, the rising sun behind us, to Senekal, city of song and laughter – and horror. Tiekiedraai songs, probly. As we pulled in to the dusty dorp Steph had our chauffeur pull over outside likely the only cafe in town, where he asked the Greek owner, who became his mate in two seconds flat – Steph is like that – if he’d please keep our beers. ‘MY FRIEN’! Of course I keep your beers cold for you!’ Stuck them under the eskimo pies, he did.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention: Steph’s gardener had procured a sixpack of Black Label Mansize cans for us from Randolph Stiller’s Central Hotel offsales, Mom & Dad losing the sale at Platberg bottle store because of their unreasonable “No under 18’s” policy. Also known as “the law.”

Now at this juncture, please don’t come with any stimulant or performance-enhancing accusations. Let it be noted that we did not partake in our stimulants until AFTER the athletic meeting was over. During the competition we were clean, nê? And anyway those mansize cans were only conversation stimulants and personality enhancers.

Let the games begin!

Steph’s event was first and we watched, moedig’d him aan and coached him. He won the driesprong! We had an event Gold Medal in the Corsair! The beer was legitimised: It was celebratory! True it was only a paper certificate, but it said Eerste Plek and to us that = Gold Medal 🏅

A long gap followed before my event after lunch. It didn’t look too good and I was languishing, but then I didn’t have any expectations. My last throw came and the whole thing is etched in my memory. I can still today feel the quickening run, the cross-step, the full-strength launch, the perfect flight of me – and of the javelin – and my landing, right spiked foot digging in one inch behind the wavy, hand-drawn white-wash line on the grass and having to push back to not lurch over it and get disqualified. I just knew it was perfection and it flew on and on, second stage booster firing halfway, soaring past all the markers of the langgatte from Voortrekker in Bethlehem and pegging perfectly. The word ‘exocet‘ flashed across my chuffed brain. Another Gold Medal 🏅 for the Corsair! Spiesgooi. This one out of the blue, even though the skies were grey (which significant fact would come into play later that day).

Hoender’s event was last and we went to cheer. It didn’t look good. One short stiff aluminium pole vs a bunch of long whippy fibreglass poles seemed unfair. He was offered the use of a newfangled pole but he declined. They take some getting used to.

Then it started to drizzle. The grey sky got wet. Suddenly everything changed! The langgatte with the whippy poles started floundering and slipping. Hoender soldiered on. It made no difference to him what the weather was like. On the last height there were two competitors left. Whippy pole slipped and gly’d and got nowhere. Hoender went over to a roar of applause from all four of us. He’d won! Our third Gold Medal 🏅 ! Paalspring. A clean sweep! The orange vest trifecta!

– Eerste Plek – – Eerste Plek – – Eerste Plek –

The music from Chariots of Fire swelled over the once dusty, now damp, dorp, rising to a crescendo. Sure, the movie was 1981 and this was 1970, but WE HEARD IT.

We hastened straight to the white Corsair, parked in the drizzle under the nearby bluegum trees, skipping the official podium pomp for Hoender.

– Senekal under-bloekom parking looked much like this –

We had our own unofficial celebration waiting. Off to the cafe to rescue the beer from under the eskimo pies and away we went “with the windshield wipers slappin’ time, n Larry clappin’ hands!” We roared off in the twilight, heading east, the setting sun behind us, slightly pickled after glugging the 450ml of contraband nectar, conversations stimulated and personalities enhanced.

– with the windshield wipers slappin’ time, n Larry clappin’ hands”! –

– our HS Hoerskool pavement star –

AND: We got our name up in lights and our handprints pressed in to concrete next to a big star on the pavement.

Well, the Harrismith Hoerskool equivalent: On the Monday morning we were mentioned in dispatches by Johan Steyl at assembly in the skoolsaal. He sounded rather amazed, but was generous in his praise, tempered by a mention that we hadn’t taken the bus, as we should have. Right . .

~~oo0oo~~

kranige – excellent; and handsome

hoender – his nickname; he looked a bit like a scrawny old rooster, I guess?

Harrismith Hoerskool Atletiekbyeenkoms – renowned school athletics meet, widely known in the district, like . . famous

tiekiedraai – Like, lame dancing that adults approve of; you were allowed to tiekiedraai, so who would want to?

nê? – y’unnerstand?

moedig’d him aan – told him ‘C’mon, Move Your Arse! JUMP!’ Also coached him by saying the same thing

driesprong – triple jump; hop, skip, n jump

langgatte – long arses, tall chaps; the opposition is always way larger than ‘us.’ Probly also older.

spiesgooi – spear chuck, javelin; Seems all that practice frowing fings wif a stone of my youth translated well into frowing wif a spear.

gly’d – slipped

paalspring – pole vault; see how we pole-vaulted in the tough old days, with stiff poles and the ground ploughed over and a sprinkling of wood shavings and sawdust to act as a “soft” landing;

skoolsaal – hall where you assembled; often to receive criticism

HO de Villiers – Henry Oswald de Villiers (1945-2022) “HO – Aitch Oh” played 14 Tests and 15 tour matches for South Africa. Made his Springbok debut against France in Durban in 1967 and scored four conversions and a penalty as the Boks won 26-3. His last international was in 1970 in the drawn Test against Wales in Cardiff. He also represented UCT and Villagers at club level, and played in the blue and white hoops of Western Province from 1965 to 1975. HO revolutionised fullback play at the time with his counter attacks.

~~oo0oo~~

Years later a nocturnal visit to Senekal involving beer would not be as much fun; more dark hillbilly horror than daylight athletic fun!

10 Jan 2015
Thanks, Charlie Ryder!

I canoed the Vrystaat Vlaktes thanks to Charles Ryder, who arrived with Jenny in Harrismith – about 1968 or ’69 I’d guess – to start his electrical business, a rooinek from Natal. He roared into town in a light green Volvo 122S with a long white fibreglass thing on top of it like this:

I asked:
What’s that?
It’s a canoe
What’s a canoe?
You do the Dusi in it
What’s the Dusi?

Well, Charles now knew he was deep behind the boerewors curtain! He patiently made me wiser and got me going and I got really excited the more I learned. I decided I just HAD TO do the Dusi. What could be more exciting than paddling your own canoe 120km over three days from Pietermaritzburg to the sparkling blue Indian Ocean at the Blue Lagoon in Durban? Charles made it sound like the best, most adventurous thing you could possibly think of. He showed me how to paddle and was so generous with his time. Both in paddling and with Harrismith’s first Boy Scouts troop, which he helped establish.

I started running in the early mornings before school with a gang of friends. Tuffy Joubert, Louis Wessels, Fluffy Crawley, who else? We called ourselves the mossies as we got up at sparrow’s fart. Then I would cycle about two miles to the park in the afternoons and paddle on the flat water of the mighty Vulgar River in Charles’ Limfjorden, or Limfy, canoe, which he had kindly lent me/given to me. That was in 1971 and it was the fittest I’ve ever been, before or since.

Overnight I would leave it on the bank tethered to a weeping willow down there. One day around Christmas time with only a couple of weeks to go before Dusi I got there and it was missing. I searched high and low, to no avail. So I missed doing the Dusi. Not that I had done anything but train for it – I hadn’t entered, didn’t know where to, didn’t belong to a club, didn’t have a lift to the race, no seconds, nothing! Still enthused, though, I persuaded my mate Jean Roux to join me in hitch-hiking to the race.

1972 Dusi: We got to Pietermaritzburg and the next morning to the start in Alexander Par PMB. Milling around among the competitors and their helpers, we watched the start and as the last boats paddled off downstream Alexandra Park started emptying, everyone seemed in a big hurry to leave. We asked Wassup? and someone said, We’re Following Our Paddler! so we bummed a lift with some paddler’s seconds to the overnight stop at Dusi Bridge. We slept under the stars and cadged supper from all those friendly people. They let us continue with them the next day to the second overnight stop at Dip Tank and on the third and last day to the sea, the estuary at Blue Lagoon, following the race along the way.

Back in Harriesvlei I continued the search for my missing kayak and found a bottle floating in the Kak Spruit, a little tributary that flows down from Platberg and enters the river downstream of the weir. It had a string attached to it. I pulled that up and slowly raised the boat – now painted black and blue, but clearly identifiable as I had completely rebuilt it after breaking it in half in a rapid in the valley between Swinburne and Harrismith. Come to remember, that’s why Charles gave it to me! I knew every inch of that boat: the kink in the repaired hull, the repaired cockpit, the wooden gunwales, brass screws, shaped wooden cross members, long wooden stringer, shaped wooden uprights from the cross members vertically up to the stringer, the white nylon deck, genkem glue to stick the deck onto the hull before screwing on the gunwales, the brass carrying handles, aluminium rudder and mechanism, steel cables, the lot. In great detail.

1976 Duzi – In 1976 I entered the race and convinced a friend at College Louis van Reenen to join me. He had asked ‘What’s that?’ when he saw my Limfy on my grey and grey 1965 Opel Concorde in Doornfontein, and ‘What’s that?’ when I said ‘The Dusi,’ so he was ripe for convincing. Later in the holidays he bought a red Hai white-water boat with a closed cockpit from Neville Truran and paddled it once or twice on Emmerentia Dam. In those days that sort-of qualified you for Dusi! Then he loaded it up on his light blue VW Beetle and drove down from Jo’burg to meet me in Harrismith. Only one of us could paddle, the other had to drive as the ‘second’ taking food and kit to the overnight stops. So we tossed a coin. I lost, and so we headed for Alexandra Park in PMB with the red Hai on the roofrack. A great pity for me, as I had done a lot of canoeing, also in flood-level rivers, and had broken two boats in half and repaired one, getting it going again in time for the 1972 Dusi as related above. But – a coin toss is a coin toss. For Louis, the coin toss won him first-ever trip down a river. And what a river!

In that 1976 flood-level high water Louis swam his first Dusi!

He swam and he swam and he drank half the water, lowering the level somewhat, but not enough, as it continued raining and filled up faster than he could drink it down. Evenings he had to hang his bum out the tent door, wracked with ‘Dusi Guts’, but he rinsed and repeated the performance three days in a row and finished the marathon. He was a tough character, Louis!

I drove that pale blue VW in the thick mud of the Valley of a Thousand Hills. Us seconds took turns getting stuck and helping each other out. In places there was a queue of dozens of cars, but one-by-one we’d give each car a shove and we all got through.

Here’s Louis at Blue Lagoon finishing that epic Duzi!

Here’s my orange pup tent and Louis’ red Hai and blue VW at Blue Lagoon after the race, wind howling:

Waiting for Louis van Reenen, probably floating in the swollen Umgeni next to his Hai!

1983 Duzi – It was only in 1982 that I eventually got round to paddling again – and then in 1983 I finally did my first Dusi. On a low river:

first overnight stop

start last day

1983 Umko:

1983 Berg:

Berg River

Berg River Canoe Marathon 1983

1983 Fish:

a more recent ‘Fish’

and the Lowveld Croc:

– a more recent ‘Croc’ –

All in quick succession, and all at my not-furious pace, staring at the scenery, which was good practice for kayaking the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in 1984.

– Colorado River 1984; Crystal rapid –

When I got back from America I thought I must get hold of Charles and tell him what his enthusiasm had led to.

But I didn’t do it then – procrastination – and then I was too late. His heart had attacked him, he was no more. Thank you Charlie Ryder. You changed my life. Enhanced it. Wish I had told you.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Years later good friend Harry Pikkie Loots forwarded this post to Charlie’s son Bradley. I hope Jenny also got to see it.

10 Jan 2015
Coldest Nights

Some freezing nights I recall. Funny thing is, most hold such good memories!

– At home some nights at 95 Stuart Street, getting in between cold sheets in a cold room; Harrismith Free State in winter! In the ’60’s

– On the Wilge riverbank with Claudio – sharing a wet sleeping bag after one swim too many on an overnight canoe voyage from Swinburne to Harrismith; ca.1970

– Above Oliviershoek Pass, under some wattle trees on a stream bank – sleeping bags on the ground, no tent – on Jack Shannon’s farm Kindrochart with Pierre and his cousin Kevin, fresh from Durban. In mid-winter in the July holidays. We rode there on our bicycles – about 19 miles. Kevin thought he was gonna freeze-die; To be fair, Durban is sub-tropical and Kevin’s thighs were not made for long bike rides! We woke up to find the top of our sleeping bags frozen – the dew had turned to ice. ca.1968

– With Tuffy and Fluffy in Bloem in an empty school hostel (Jim Fouche se Hoer Skool?); No bedding, huddled under our school blazers. ca.1970. Apparently Daan Smuts had forgotten to arrange accommodation. But who cared! He had NOT forgotten to arrange a coupla beers for us first – which made us late for whatever accommodation may have been arranged by other, more boring, teachers. That’s how I remember it anyway!

– On the Berg River Canoe Marathon in the Cape. July, mid-winter in a winter rainfall area! Rain sweeping in horizontally on the freezing cold gale-force wind. The night before the race we were given a shed to sleep in and reminded to bring mattresses. I managed to burst my new blow-up mattress and so had a freezing night on cold concrete. That second day, the shortest of four, was the longest day of my life; and the coldest I have ever been. EVER! The first fatality ever in a canoe race in SA happened that day. Novice Berg paddler Gerrie Rossouw died. The third and fourth days warmed up, thank goodness; ca.1983

With Aitch in the kombi in the Kalahari Gemsbok Park. Like sleeping in a refrigerator. The lions knew to wait till the sun was up before getting it on; ca.1996

– Silver fox, Kalahari Gemsbok Park –

With Aitch on Sheila’s expedition up Mt aux Sources. Sheila insisted we camp right in the open, exposed to a freezing gale with our tents leaning at 45º and rolling away if they weren’t weighted down. Pegs didn’t help. The reason Sheila wanted us just there became clear at sunrise; ca.1996

– not warm –

Another cold night on Mt aux Sources with Larry Pierre and Tuffy ca.1970, where we were joined in the hut after dark by two guys who had got a bit ratty with each other on the walk in the dark. They argued about the beef stroganoff and whether the wine was being ‘frozen instead of chilled’ where it was outside in a bank of snow; that set us off into gales of laughter and mocking. When they eventually shut up and settled down for the night Larry started off with ‘100 bottles of beer on the wall‘ and we sang that very annoyingly for way too long. Hopefully they were more cross with us than with each other in the end?

With Aitch on Nyika Plateau in Malawi 10 000ft asl – but then we dragged our mattress to the lounge and got a roaring log fire going using felled timber from the pine plantation that was being cleared! So that night only counts before the fire got going; ca.1993

– cozy after a while –

– romantic dinner for two – in luxury accommodation –

~~~oo0oo~~~

4 Aug 2014
Crisis Averted

The Church of England, Vrystaat Outpost of the British Empire Division (diocese?), in its small sandstone building in Harrismith – off the beaten track, not even in the shadow of the tall, imposing Kerk of ve Chosen People in the square which sat smack in the middle of Warden Street, interrupting the flow of traffic, forcing ox-wagons and – later – automobiles to go AROUND it – had a big problem:

Dwindling membership and a severe shortage of people able to serve the Queen and the Home Country – oh, and the Lord – as deacons.

Not a new problem, this shortage had occupied the minds of these good Anglican, Anglophile Colonialists even before the darned Nationalists had taken over Colonial Rule in 1948 and the death of their dear King George in 1952. Long gone were the days when the mayor and a few councilors might occupy these pews (and speak English at town meetings!). Everyone who was anyone now sat in the Kerk pews of a Sunday and listened to thundering donder n bliksem sermons of power and guilt (and what one could quite legitimately do to the sons of Ham) up the road.

Part of the problem was those families who might cough up good English deacons sent their sons away. Hilton, Michaelhouse, St Andrews, Treverton. You know, good Church schools (yes, some of them might be Methodist, but one has to make do out here in the Colonies). Trouble was, these good schools’ chapels cured them of any desire to spend more Sundays on cold, hard wooden benches. So what to do?

A thought: What about young Clive Oswald? An approving murmur started up among the little group of Church elders, a quiet buzz . . . He had recently returned to the district to join his father and mother on the farm. Young, good-looking, polite, capable; why, it was like manna sent from . . .

“Has his shadow ever darkened the door of this church!?” boomed a voice.

Belonging to Joan Simpson. Dairy farmer; Long-serving deacon; Anglophile; Known for sleeping on her bed on the open porch of the farmhouse she shared with her sister Vera. Year-round, even in Harrismith’s freezing winter. And for delivering milk in big metal cans on the back of her grey Morris Minor pickup – made in England, what. And for wearing khaki trousers at all times. Occasionally a dress to a MOTH do or high church. She’d served in the war in defence of Empire, and was still now serving in defence of what was right. After all, sleeping on the stoep within earshot of the N3 highway which linked the town pubs and Gailian probably gave her more insight than most as to which doorways shadows had darkened on many nights well past closing time.Hmph!

Well, that settled that question. Tabs Fyvie was safe. England expects every Church of England in the Provinces to do its duty and die quietly, fizzling away with dignity.

~~oo0oo~~

Joan is probably in this picture somewhere:

– Platberg MOTH Shellhole, Harrismith ca.1960 –

Luckily Joan probably hadn’t spotted Tabbo patronising the Anglican Bazaar, or she might have mollified her stance and he might have been sentenced to carry the collection plate for decades.

– he and his cousin Desmond would only have been there for the chicks –

~~~oo0oo~~~

kerk – stepping stone to heaven; compulsory; ladies, wear a hoed!

donder en bliksem – fire and brimstone

hoed – isigqoko

7 Jun 2014
River Trip Swinburne – Walton

Down the Mighty Vulgar River (Wilge really) in a borrowed canoe ca 1970. An Accord double kayak borrowed from the ‘Voortrekkers’ – Afrikaner Propaganda Volks Brainwashing Outfit – thanks to Ou Lip’s kindness. He had a good heart, Ou Lip Snyman, and I’m sure he thought he looked dashing in his Voortrekkerleier uniform.

– Claudio figlio Bellato –

I’m with my mate Claudio Bellato. He’s not a Voortrekker, even though his Afrikaans is bedonderd goed. For an Italian. We embark in Swinburne.

The water’s high, it flows up in the willow branches making some sections very tricky. A branch whips off Claudio’s specs – down into the swirling muddy waters go his 5D cylinders (optometrists will know that’s no mean amount of astigmatism). His view of the world has changed from clear to, er, interesting. He wants to go after them, knowing that Dad Luigi will take a dim view of the loss. I say,“Are you mad!? You’ll drown!”

Later I lose my specs after an unscheduled swim and I go out on a precarious willow limb sticking out over the current looking ‘just in case.’ “Oh!” says Claudio, “I’m mad to think of looking for mine, but its OK for you to look for yours?!” Well, mine are only 4D spheres I didn’t mumble, illogically. I must have muttered something, though. Optometrists will know that even with all my foresight, my view of the world was now also not pin-sharp. Rocks in the river would now be navigated by sound.

We paddle on in the blur, the myopic leading the astigmatic. I’m wearing my PlusFours. We decide we should camp while there’s still daylight. That night we share one damp sleeping bag, as mine’s sopping wet. Little did I know that for decades ever after Claudio would introduce me: “Meet my mate Peter. I’ve slept with him.”

The next day we sally forth, peering ahead and paddling tentatively. Many years later, we learn this is not the way to negotiate a swift current. The river forks to go round an island, and we wrap the boat around a semi-submerged treetrunk. Many years later, we learn the word ‘treeblock.’ Our downriver expedition has ended and we’re marooned on an island. One day we’ll write about this escapade!

This is new to Claudio, but it’s the second time I’ve now wrapped a borrowed boat on a flooded Wilge River. Fording the rushing current, I only just make the right bank and I signal above the roaring water for Claudio ‘SIT! STAY! on the island. DON’T try and cross this stream, its DANGEROUS! I poep’d myself!’ This I semaphore in my best sign language. Then I turn and run off to the beautiful old sandstone house under the splendid oaks of Mrs Girlie and the Misses Marie and Bettie Jacobsz’ farm Walton to phone Charlie Ryder.

Not long after, says me, ‘A hundred years later,’ says Claudio – Charlie comes roaring out in his pale green Volvo 122S in a plume of dust with a long rope. We pull Claudio off the island, but the boat is pinned to the semi-submerged tree. We only rescue the Voortrekkers’ green and white boat two weeks later when the water has subsided.

– Jock shuns the Swanie / Bellato Vulgar River Expedition ex-Voortrekker canoe –

The Voortrekkers take a dim view of my treatment of their flatwater fibreglass Accord craft and rush me R50 so they can buy a replacement – keep the wreckage.

I’m hooked on kayaking! I can do this, I think . . . just a bit more practice . . who’ll lend me a boat?

~~~oo0oo~~

bedonderd goed – eccellente

1 Jun 2014
River Trip Swinburne – Harrismith

Fluffy Crawley and I were dropped off in Swinburne on the banks of the Mighty Vulgar in the grounds of the Montrose Motel with our open red and blue fibreglass canoe by my Old Man. We were aiming to head off downstream, camp overnight and finish in Harrismith the next day. This was circa 1970.

But we bumped into the inimitable Ian Grant who persuaded us to spend the night at Montrose. His folks Jock & Brenda owned Montrose. They agreed to let us sleep in one of the rondawels.

– what was left of the motel in 2012 –

As evening fell Ian was up to mischief as always, and soon after dark one of the petrol attendants snuck up and slipped us a litre bottle of brandy. Ian organised a litre bottle of cream soda and we were set for nonsense. After a couple of quick shots I suggested we hang around and let the alcohol take effect and let the laughing begin, but as I was in the bathroom taking a leak I overheard Ian mutter “Fuck him, I’m drinking the lot!” so I came out and said “Pour!”

Well, Ian was first and I stuck a bucket under his chin as his technicolor yawn started. Just then I heard HURGH! from Fluffy so I grabbed the little wastepaper bin from the bathroom and stuck it under his chin. It was a lumpy laughter duet.

Early the next morning I woke Fluffy and said “Come!” and we carried the red-decked boat to the river and launched it onto the muddy waters. Well, actually “launched” it because it touched bottom.

– we launched – and ran aground – under the old sandstone toll road bridge –
– built in 1884, it was the second bridge to cross the Wilge –

Here’s the boat in picture, with younger sis Sheila paddling it. It was an awkward beast to carry, especially loaded. If you tipped it slightly things would come tumbling out and swearwords would also tumble out.

The river was so low we didn’t even get our shoelaces wet! A long spell of carrying the boat on our shoulders, stopping for a hurl, carrying a while till another stop for a chunder ensued till we found deeper water and a settled stomach and could paddle home.

Fluffy remembers: “The river was terribly low and we did a lot of foot work crossing or by-passing the rapids. We made it in one day, no overnight stop. Your Dad picked us up in town under the old ysterbrug.“

– we finished under the old ysterbrug – the Hamilton bridge in Harrismith – this looking upstream –

~~oo0oo~~

Dave Walker tells of a Tugela trip or race with Clive Curson when they broke and had to carry their boat for miles. They christened their trip Walkin’ an Cursin’.

Mine with Fluffy Crawley would then be Walkin’ an Crawlin’.

~~~oo0oo~~~

The picture of the very fibreglass craft we paddled had been kept all these years by sister Sheila, keeper of the archives. Red deck, powder blue hull, huge single cockpit, wooden slats on the floor.

– the Fluffy-Koos Swinburne Expedition craft –

~~oo0oo~~

29 May 2014
Ladies of Stone

Way back in high school we spent a night in an old sparsely furnished Drakensberg farmhouse with no ceilings and a tin roof.

We accompanied Klein Kerneels Retief to his Dad’s winter grazing farm Sungubala below Oliviershoek Pass and were left on our own overnight. Adventure! The skies were overcast and soon there were deep rumblings and flashes of lightning. A heavy rain started falling followed by hailstones. The Drakensberg storm built up until it was a roar and we couldn’t hear each other at all – not even shouting into your ear from an inch away was audible above the tinroof fandango. We jumped a foot high when a massive crack of thunder clapped half an inch above the roof. The loudest heavenly bang I’d ever heard in my larf!.

The next day we explored the soaked veld and ouhout thickets above the house and came across a well-endowed woman lying naked on a huge stone in the woods! Stunning! She sported huge shapely boobs and was a wonder for the eyes of lustful teenagers. She was gorgeous! OK, she was made of stone, but hey, what else did we have?

I have often thought of her over the years and started thinking I may have imagined her but then I read of the stone carvings of the Drakensberg and determined to go and find her.

I took the kids and we stayed at The Cavern, lovely old-style ‘Berg hotel. They loved it.

Beautiful things in the grounds – also flowers

Asking around, one of their guides said he knew where my statue was and he’d take me there. I packed a rucksack, he packed lunch and off we went for the day, leaving the kids behind. They could not WAIT for me to GO, DAD! as they had discovered an amazing secret: If you gave any hotel employee your room number he or she would give you anything you wanted under the sun. They had discovered the key to endless riches.

Tom’s signed slip for a ‘free’ movie

Kids with free drinks!

When my guide and I got to the little valley in the foothills where he said the statue was it didn’t look right. It didn’t feel like the place I remembered from – uh, 40yrs ago. But there she was: A maiden with luscious boobs carved in stone.

But this lady was standing up, not lying down on a rock in a seductive pose. There is another statue, I told him. This is not the statue I saw. Its beautiful, and thank you, but she is not the lady of my vivid mammaries and my dreams. Ah! He knew where the other one was. He had seen it once. But it was on private property and he couldn’t take me there. Back at the hotel I asked around and they showed me a picture.

And there she was, exactly as I remembered her. I had not been hallucinating. Here was proof of my excellent memory, my sanity and my dodgy taste.

Well, almost exactly. Um, I must confess I did NOT notice that she had wings back then, nor that she had clothing. I was remembering naked bunnytail more than dressed wings. Hey, Teenage Testosterone! Vrystaat! 1970! No internet! Very few Playboy magazines! Cut me some slack here! It was a lekker and enhanced memory.

~~oo0oo~~

The Story of the Stone Ladies – a tale was told of a reclusive sculptor who fell in love with a trader’s daughter and sculpted these rocks in homage to her. She was a Coventry. We had Coventry twins Glenda & Glynis in Harrismith who came from a Drakensberg trading family. And I think I see a resemblance . . .

~~oo0oo~~

Later I found this in a book by Rowan Philp, Rediscovering South Africa: A Wayward Guide.
“There are two boulders hidden deep in a Drakensberg forest which tell a near-Shakespearean tale of obsession, genius, and revenge. Completely unsign-posted, they feature magnificent, life-size sculptures of the same nude, full-breasted woman, painstakingly carved by her lover fifty years ago. The story begins when Willie Chalmers, a wandering artist with a wildly unkempt beard, came to the area from the Kalahari in the 1930’s to learn more about Bushman paintings from a farmer’s daughter, Doreen Coventry. He fell in love with her and spent fourteen months carving her likeness into a flat sandstone rock on her farm, adding a halo and the face of a child alongside. He called it Spirit of the Woods.

But some of his younger in-laws saw him as a con man and a parasite at the family homestead, and at the height of the row, Coventry’s nephew hiked up to the sculpture in a rage and smashed off the nose. So, some say, Chalmers began a second Spirit of the Woods, this time in a secret location almost completely enclosed by other boulders, sometimes working for weeks without a break.”

~~~oo0oo~~~

ouhout – Leucosidea sericea; mountain shrub and tree

27 May 2014
Safety First, Old-Style

I was telling you earlier that the Road Safety slogan in the Vrystaat in days of yore was Friends Don’t Tell Friends They Can’t Drive Because They’re Drunk, Because Then Friends Will SHOW Friends How They Actually Drive Very Well When They’re Drunk, Thank You Very Much, and this was proven half true one night when I told Tabs, ‘Listen, I think you’ve had a few too many and the best thing to do is to let ME drive.’

It was all Bess Reitz’s fault. She was buggering off to America and insisted we drink beer at the Holiday Inn . .

. . and that we then repair to her garage opposite the Town Hall to drink beer. We were all sad to see her go, so we had drunk more than usual.

It was OK though, the cops wouldn’t catch us as a lookout was posted in the tree on the pavement outside Dr Reitz’s old surgery next door in the form of accomplished gymnast and ceiling beam swinger John Venning. Where a normal person would climb up a tree till the branches started thinning, John climbed up into the twigs, then the leaves, till his head, shoulders and belly button popped out from the very top. From this crow’s nest vantage point he kept a 360° lookout shouting, ‘Where are the coppers!?’ and ‘The coast is clear!’ and ‘Ahoy!’ and ‘The gendarmes are coming!’ and other helpful stuff.

Now it was true I had been with Tabs all night drinking and he could have said the same of me, but it was me talking, making my sensible suggestion. And anyway Pierre agreed with me, and volunteered to follow us and bring me home safely from Gailian after I’d delivered Tabbo safely home. We were all about safety, see.

– and Bessie would have vouched that I was in showroom condition –

Tabs was perfectly rational and amenable to my eminently sensible suggestion. ‘Tell you what,’ he said, ‘I’ll drive to the top of forty two second hill and then you can drive. I want to show you what my SSS can do.’ I was perfectly rational and amenable to that suggestion, and so we set off down Warden Street.

At 190mph.

Tabbo had a green two-door Datsun SSS 1800 (Geoff Leslie had famously called his red Datsun 1600 his ‘Triple Ess Ess Ess’) and that thing ~~fucked off~~ went fast. We touched the tar twice on the way down Warden street and flew up 42nd Hill at a hell of a rate of knots. By slamming into 4th gear halfway up Tabs kept our speed up, slacking off only to about 189mph. I was highly relieved when Tabs pulled over as promised and I took over, proceeding at a much more sedate pace.

Soon after, I turned sedately into Gailian and the road took a sharp left and I didn’t. Changing down into second I let out the clutch but I hadn’t taken my foot off the gas, so we leapt forward into the only deep ditch in the flat vlakte veld for miles around. Tabbo irresponsibly bit a huge chunk out of the dashboard. I thoughtfully didn’t, as the steering wheel stopped me from doing the same. Seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet. Or more accurately, the wearing of seatbelts hadn’t been invented yet *. OK, the wearing of seatbelts hadn’t yet become popular. OKAY! We weren’t forced by law to wear seatbelts yet.

As it turned out, speed hadn’t been the problem after all – it was the sudden stop that dented Tabbo and made him bleed untidily in the SSS.

Fortunately for us, Pierre was right behind and ambulanced us to hospital where the local vet stitched up Tabbo’s lip and he ended up looking quite handsome after that. As the doc said Vasbyt Tebs, he said ‘Hit it Doc!’ but gripped my hand tightly as he said it. It was True Valour in the face of Adversity, and a movie or documentary could be / should be made.

But the sudden stop, the bleeding and the hospital afterwards were NOTHING. We now had to face the hard part: Telling Stella. They were in bed in the wee morning hours dark; we couldn’t see them, we could just hear Stella after Tabs’ confession that ‘we’ had crashed into the ditch. She asked if we were OK. Hector was silent.
~~oo0oo~~
* I looked it up: The first U.S. patent for automobile seat belts was issued to Edward J. Claghorn of New York not long before our escapade, in 1885. So we weren’t used to them yet.
~~oo0oo~~

11 May 2014