Vrystaat Confessions

Category: 8_Nostalgia

Looking back with fondness on those things we couldn’t wait to get rid of, or away from, back then . .

  • Mona’s Wake

    Mona’s Wake

    A gathering of a flock of du Plessis is always a very special occasion. Not an orderly occasion. Not a quiet occasion. Just very special. Mignon, Jean-Prieur and Jacques-Herman celebrated their Mom Mona’s wonderful ninety years of Mom, Music and Magic at a wonderful venue outside Harrismith – where I forgot to take any pictures! If anyone has any, please share a few – especially one of that magnificent pub of Rob and Cindy’s! – but also of the people, of course!

    – J-H Mignon and J-P at Lala Nathi –

    People poured out of the woodwork from far and wide. Austin, Texas; Vancouver, Canada – even Marquard, Free State!

    We almost didn’t get there:

    – this could have been unforgettable in a bad way – but we had Zelda to sing to us –

    . . but get there we did.

    – our hosts –
    – mense – a formidable clan –

    Later we found out we – me, sister Sheila and old Harrismith friend Zelda Grobbelaar – were stuck there – the Ford needed big repairs – so Bess put us up in her lovely home:

    – I had teddy bears in my bedroom –

    When we didn’t show up at the du Plessis gathering that evening, I texted them:

    My car got locked up in a ballet studio among the tutus.

    – that part was true, check it out:

    Ranger in ballet studio

    . . and I got plied with strong liquor by three gorgeous chicks and clean forgot about any other friends I might have.

    Oh, that part was partly true as well.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Thank goodness the Ford went vrot. It was diagnosed with terminal head gasket, whatever that means. I thought it was premature after only 300 000kms, but the upside was this meant we got an extra twenty four hours in the dorp the metropolis. We visited all and sundry, had supper with Bess; had breakfast and bought rusks at Something Lekker owned by a local lass; and then we lunched with the du Plessis clan while they ran around organising that Mona be laid to rest next to her husband and their Dad Pollie, who has been waiting patiently in the Harrismith cemetery for Mona to join him for decades. Patiently? Maybe.

    I can just hear Oom Pollie. After he’d got over his joy he would comment on the very smart coffin, worried about the price. He’d relax when he heard it was made by Oom Jan, gratis and for niet. Then he’d harumph that it took Mona joining him for the grass to be mowed round his grave. Then he’d sing Hello Dolly!

    To get back to KwaZulu Natal, we hired a brand new Toyota Corolla at Harrismith Avis – of course our dorp has an Avis! Not only that, look at this: They’re the reigning champions!

    We visited Georgie Russell; and Mariette Mandy at The Harrismith Chronicle where she had already written about the gathering for her wonderful hundred-and-plenty-year-old local newspaper. I’ll post that when I get it. I’ll also link to any other reports of the day I can find. And add pictures.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    . . . after a suitably polite interval I think Oom Pollie would also murmur hopefully, ‘Did you bring any cigarettes?’

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Late Monday afternoon, after we’d left, the family carried out Mona’s wishes

    – Jean-Prieur, Mona & Pollie in the mowed grass – Platberg behind –

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Driving home in a brand new car where all the knobs work was a novel experience – and hey! it had six forward gears! That brought back memories of another Toyota thirty two years earlier . .

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Two weeks later I was joined by good friend Allister Peter to drive back to the dorp in the rental to go and fetch my Ford Ranger from Riaan who had fixed it up like new! We bumped into John Venning at the coffee shop – and it turns out these two old bullets are fishing n drinking chinas from way back – apparently there’s a thing called The Grunter Hunt down in the Eastern Cape and they have indulged. And frolicked.

  • Harrismith Town Hall

    Harrismith Town Hall

    It’s quite an amazing building for a dorpie! When it was being built sensible locals called it Bain’s Folly, believing the mayor Stewart Bain – my great-grandad – was overdoing things. What’s wrong with the dorpsaal we already got!?

    – the old town hall / dorpsaal – perfectly adequate if anyone had asked me! –

    Do we really need this. concerned citizens may have asked?

    and this inside (thanks to Sandra & Hennie Cronje and Biebie de Vos):

    Well, ready or not, we got The Grand Old Man of Harrismith’s dream town hall:

    Building operations:

    Newly-completed:

    In front of it was the market square, which later was turned into an ornamental garden once cars with tighter turning circles than ossewas were invented:

    The main entrance and the stage after a recent revamp:

    And the setting for this beautiful building is spectacular:

    In the end the townsfolk liked it, some called Stewart Bain The Grand Old Man of Harrismith, and he was given a fancy funeral when he died in 1939.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • Mary Frances Bland Pictorial

    Mary Frances Bland Pictorial

    A Pictorial Timeline

    • Ongoing – needs work:
    • Better dates (which will fix some wrong sequences) and
    • Captions –
    • Born 19 Sept 1928
    • Mary with big sis Pat
    • See Platberg?
    • Sister Mom at the Boksburg-Benoni Hospital
    • Addington beach Durban
    • Scottburgh beach
    • Honeymoon Lourenco Marques
    • Winter wedding 1951
    • Mary & Trudy
    • Trish eskimo, Mom eskimo, Dad & Sheila
    • Birdhaven townlands
    • Mary with Trish & Jessica
    • Swanepoel ladies
    • with one son & two grandkids Jessie & Tommy
    • 90th birthday
    • 80th birthday
    • 80th birthday
    • – Four Generations –
      Annie, Mary, Barbara & Linda
    • Mary MOTHWA
    • Mary Rotary Ann
    • First Grandchild Linda Mary Tarr
    • Sheila & Mary
    • Mary & Jean Coleman
  • Scope Magazine – The Restless Years

    Scope Magazine – The Restless Years

    Scope magazine wasn’t always South Africa’s Playboy. Even though it was given a nice niche by the banning of Playboy and Hustler, it seemed to struggle with the intriguing question: ‘What Do Men Really Want?’

    Once they got so desperate and misguided they even tried this:

    – early attempt at finding popular pin-up icons –

    These turned out to be not so much icons as aikonas (to gratefully steal a pun from Pieter-Dirk Uys). Sales plummeted . .

    Then they hit on them at last! They had been staring at them all along:

    Sales soared! In 1973 they could push their price up . . . to twenty cents! Never again would sweaty, fully-clothed, flat-chested models grace the cover of Scope Magazine!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    aikona – isiZulu for ‘no way!’

    failed cover – Charles Mason and Tank Rogers, winners of the 1967 Duzi Canoe Marathon!

    The Restless Years – 1958 movie

    – source wikipedia – Fair use –
  • Cocky and the Cockatoo

    Cocky and the Cockatoo

    In tiny cages. Cocky the African Grey Parrot and Jacko the Australian Sulphur-crested Cockatoo. We grew up with them and didn’t think anything of parrots in cages. Poor things.

    – their cages behind Francois –
    – Jacko on Jabula – our pedal-car was ‘Happy’ –

    But when you see a free-flying one and realise Jacko never flew five metres, never mind five kilometres, it makes ya think. Friend Steve Reed ‘shot’ this one in his neighbour’s tree in Brisbane, and put it on his blog.

    Also left-handed, I see – as was Jacko. Cocky was right-handed.

    – free-flying in Brisbane –

    I commented on Steve’s blog: So amazing to me that this can be a bird that flies free and visits you! We had one in a cage, poor thing. My old man got him from an old lady in Pietermaritzburg in KwaZulu Natal who had had it for – you know – forty years, and then he had it for – you know – forty years. These numbers don’t get reduced. They grow.
    And we grew up with Jacko. Who suddenly laid an egg and became ‘she,’ but kept her name Jacko. Poor thing.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    And what happened to them? “Given away” yet again. To a ‘Mnr Boshoff’ in Krugersdorp or Klerksdorp, who ‘trained’ parrots and put on shows where he would demonstrate how Jacko could ‘dance’ and Cocky could ‘talk.’ He was very well-known and that made it a good thing. Except well-known and ‘respected’ bird-cage people aren’t always what they say they are. Here’s what a raid on a parrot breeder found when the South African vice-president of the parrot breeders association’s aviaries in Randburg were raided this week: 150 dead parrots and the live birds in cages in shocking condition! Strange how almost all people who keep wild animals say how they LOVE them, but as far as I’m concerned it’s all Dancing Bears – they’re kept for money, fame, personal ego, etc. For their humans, not for the animals themselves.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Here they are flocking in the wild:

    – thanks kidcyber.com.au –

    Mea culpa: While raising kids we let them keep things in cages too! Only fair to admit that! A gerbil, a hamster, a snake.

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Pulling a Fa(s)t One

    Pulling a Fa(s)t One

    Greg Bennett told me about his latest Yamaha outboard motor over coffee the other morning – a 425hp V8 5.6litre beast. “Stands taller than me with my hand stretched skywards” he said.

    – big mama –

    This reminded me of the time we went out to Hazelmere to test his then-biggest outboard motor: I think it was 225hp.

    I was slalom skiing behind the beast when I felt a twinge in my hamstring and immediately let go, faithful to my exercise mantra of No Pain, No Pain.

    Greg whipped the boat around and roared up to me. “What’s up, Swanie?”, bellowed his big boet Roland.

    I think I pulled a muscle, I said.

    Roley roared with laughter. “NO! Swanie, can’t be! You couldn’t have pulled a muscle. You must have pulled a fat!” Rude bastid.

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Free State Action 1851

    Free State Action 1851

    A magistrate’s life could be kept very busy back in 1851 if ruffians, escaped prisoners, adulterers, inebriates and horse thieves had their way . .

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Fascinating info from eGGSA.org

  • Come With Me To The Station

    Come With Me To The Station

    The old man inviting me to go someplace! How’s that!? I hopped into the old faded-blue VW Kombi OHS 153 with alacrity. This sounded interesting. We never went to the railway station. We’d go near there to the old MOTH hall and occasionally to the circus field when the Boswell & Wilkie’s Big Top was pitched there! But never to the station itself.

    ‘We’re fetching a family from Italy. The father is coming to work at the Standard Woollen Mills and they can’t speak English,’ says the old man. He picked up Italian in Italy around 1943 to 1945, first wending his way up the Adriatic coast in the Italian campaign and then later on involved in the post-war stuff armies do after the end of WW2, y’know, loafing, eating, drinking, before flying home, having traveled the length of Italy south to north and into Austria.

    He kept up the language over the years mainly by fraternising with Boswell-Wilkie** circus folk when they hit the Vrystaat vlaktes on the circus train and pitched the Big Top next to the railway line on the west edge of our famous dorp.

    This exciting station trip was in 1965 or thereabouts. So we got to the stasie, the train rolled in, and there hanging out of a window was a family of four: Luigi, Luigina and two sons about my age, fresh from Italy out. They were probably staring at my bare feet. But I’m just guessing.

    – we met Claudio with some fanfare – maybe not this much –

    I carried one suitcase to the kombi and then from the kombi into the Royal Hotel, where my great-uncle Smollie Bain was the barman. His Dad owned the hotel and I think he stayed there all his life.

    – the Royal – here’s where we took Claudio to stay – it was shortly after this photo was taken –

    Soon Claudio and Ennio were in school, Claudio a standard below me in sister Sheila’s class, and Ennio a standard or two lower. They got a house in Wilge Park and so started many happy visits and sumptuous Luigina meals with the Bellatos – I can still picture her kitchen so clearly. And sundry happy adventures with Claudio.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    The only time before this anything Italian might have rolled up at Harrismith stasie might have been these Italian things ca. 1914.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    ** Boswell-Wilkie Circus: Every few years for a while we would suddenly have clowns, lion-tamers and acrobats in our home! They all looked very ordinary, frankly, in their normal kit; except Tickey the clown. He and his daughter were instantly recognisable even without make-up because of their small stature and strong faces.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Ah! Claudio read it and responded with compliments and corrections:

    ‘Excellent Koos. The year was 1967 – 24 March. Otherwise pretty accurate. A good read and great memories. ** laughing emoji – thumbs-up emoji ** Well done.’

  • Early Bird Books

    Early Bird Books

    We grew up with Roberts Bird Book in the house. First edition, but about the sixth impression. It still had its dust jacket with the kingfishers and bee-eaters beautifully depicted on it. Mom and Dad still have it – I took this pic at their home in Pietermaritzburg. We also had a newer McLachlan & Liversidge edition of ‘Roberts.’

    Here’s the plate I turned to in eager anticipation after hearing a wonderful and startling nocturnal call while camping in the dennebos with Stephen Charles Reed:

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Another bird book on the shelf at 95 Stuart Street. This one you collected cigarette cards. Keep smoking till you have the complete set!

    ROBERTS, Austin | Our South African Birds
    Johannesburg and Cape Town, United Tobaccos Cos, Westminster Tobacco, Policansky Bros 1941; hbk, 25×21 cm, 106pp, colour illus with 150 cigarette cards and five colour frontisp.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~
    Later this beauty arrived. Published in 1961 we got it some years later:

    Bloody insects have got into it now!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles

    An Inordinate Fondness for Beetles

    Asked what could be inferred about the Creator from a study of His works, British scientist and naturalist JBS Haldane replied:

    “The Creator, if he existed, had an inordinate fondness for beetles”

    Now it’s true he meant the one on the left, not the one on the right, but still . .

    My gran Annie’s Caltex garage in Harrismith had a filling station, a restaurant on the forecourt, a workshop behind – and the VW agency. My gran Annie sold VW Beetles!

    – Platberg bottle store, Annie’s garage, Flamingo Cafe & OHS 155 – the little light-blue beetle – ca.1959 model –
    – interior of a ca.1959 VW Beetle –

    toy models

    One of the perks of Annie having a VW dealership was Volkswagen’s toy models of their cars & kombis. They were fascinating! They had moving doors, flaps, engine covers, side loading locker in kombi pickups; some had a clear sunroof that clipped off. Something like these:

    At one time – I don’t think I’m imagining this – the VW Beetle cost less than R1 per cc: The 1200cc engine model cost R1199. Let’s check: A VW Bug in the USA was around $1563; A US dollar cost us 72 SA cents – Yep, about right.

    A long concrete ramp lead up into the workshop behind the Flamingo Cafe. At Truscott was the mechanic – I remember him as small, bald and kind. I remember the big jacks that lifted the cars; the lights they shone into the engine bay – an incandescent bulb in a cage to protect it, with a 220V cable dangling behind it; There was a high ‘shelf’ overhead – above the wall of the ‘office’ inside the big shed-like workshop on which lots of tyres were stacked; The wooden workbenches were full of interesting vices and spare parts and grease.

    One of Annie’s forecourt attendants was Joseph Culling. He was a son of Sgt Culling, who was demobbed in 1913, when the British finally left Harrismith after the Anglo-Boer War. He had been stationed on Kings Hill and unlike most of his fellows, he stayed behind and married a local Harrismith lady. In the apartheid classification of the day that immediately – and magically!? – made his children ‘coloureds.’ I remember him with the leather coin dispenser satchel on his hip, the strap holding it slung around his neck and shoulder, wearing a Caltex cap.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Back in the sixties, many of us, of course, also had an inordinate fondness for the beatles . .

    Lovely Venn Diagram from Michelle Rial

    ~~~oo0oo~~~