Vrystaat Confessions

Whaddabout?

  • The Good Old Days – That’s Now

    The Good Old Days – That’s Now

    Nothing is more responsible for the good old days

    than a bad memory – Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960), American columnist & wit

    =======ooo000ooo=======

    Steven Pinker has data and figures for important things in this world we live in and how these things have changed over the years.

    And some people hate him for it! They know the world is worse than it was in the ‘good old days’, but he shows data that shows how some things – a lot of things – have actually improved.

    Wars still go on, including the worst war in a generation in Syria, but by and large the trend in war has been downward. A fraction of the number of people are killed in wars today, compared to the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s.

    In fact, five-sixths of the earth’s surface is free of war. That’s an example of a kind of trend that you can’t really pick up from the news because when a country doesn’t have a war, it’s not news.

    Child mortality is down.

    Maternal mortality is down.

    Illiteracy is down. Ninety percent of the world’s population under the age of 25 can read and write.

    We’re even getting smarter: IQ scores have been rising by three points a decade for almost a century. (The Flynn Effect refers to the observed rise in IQ scores over time).

    We waste less of our waking hours on housework.

    We work fewer hours.

    We have wider access to culture.

    Many, many more people who would have lost contact with their families can now phone home.

    Its much easier for people working far from home to send money home.

    All these developments won’t make the news, but give you a bit more confidence in the way the world is heading, says Pinker, to boos from people who seem to dislike – and distrust – good news.

    Part of the problem is when pessimists speak they speak in serious, sober tones and people tend to nod gravely. Optimists tend to be more upbeat and human nature looks on that with misgiving – as though the optimist is being (heaven forbid!) frivolous! Years of listening to dominees and politicians have made us think pessimism is serious – and thus true.

    If we could go back to the good old days of our youths we would hear our elders seriously complaining about how bad things are!

    ========ooo000ooo=======

    See this TED talk: Steven Pinker: Is the world getting better or worse?

  • Cycling the Free State Vlaktes

    Cycling the Free State Vlaktes

    Sheila asked:
    Hi Koos. What make were our bikes? Something with an R. Ruttludge? Rudling?
    I answered, ‘Rudge’. The same Rudge ridden by the English King.
    ‘Strue!
    Sheila’s and Barbara’s were red, mine was blue. Given to us by Mom and Dad around 1960 to 1965, I’d guess. We were certainly in the Kleinspan School and Barbara would have started there in 1958 or 1959, Sheila in 1961 or 1962 and me in-between those dates. They made the level, less-than-one-mile trip to school and back a breeze. We’d park them under cover at school in special bike parks with a slot in the concrete for the front wheel to go in and metal hoops to hold them upright.
    Ours were WAY more basic than the one above though. Only a back brake, no gears, no cables, no light. They did have a little L-shaped attachment in front of the handle-bar where we could attach a battery-powered square silver torchlight.
    The company Rudge-Whitworth Ltd. Coventry, England was one of the prominent pushbike makers of the classic British era … Eventually bought by Raleigh in 1943, the Rudge name takes a rightfully prominent spot in England’s cycling history.
    Dan Rudge built the first Rudge high bicycles in 1870. In 1894 Rudge merged with the Whitworth Cycle Co. to form Rudge-Whitworth. They made an excellent reputation for themselves over the next twenty years for producing a full range of beautifully made machines with many clever and unique features. Rudges were ridden by King George V and family. See? There it is! Royal bums sat on seats just like ours!
    The name was finally killed sometime in the early 1960s in Britain, but may well have been used in export markets later.
    Later on, in high school, I got a bigger black ‘dikwiel’ bike – a ‘balloon tyre bike’ – tougher more adventurous! Somewhat like these:
    I asked Pierre: Can you remember what we called our dikwiel bikes? Each one had a nickname. His immediate reply:
    Bolts, Schlump and Arrii. I had only remembered Arrii, named after a desert camel joke. Pierre continued:
    Like yesterday.
    Also recall the (world’s) first mountain bike race now known as MBR’s down Queens Hill and Tuffy whipping out the barbed wire fence.
    Regards
    Pierre

  • Up Sani Pass in Redfoot

    Up Sani Pass in Redfoot

    scan0033

    Three modern bakkies and a 1979 Series II Landrover LWB with a Ford V6 3litre engine shoved in – and hand-painted flat white with bright red wheels – ventured up Sani Pass one day. The three very capable bakkies sailed up with ease, boring ease, while Redfoot had to pause for a breather at about three stream crossings to have its radiator topped up and let its heart rate subside.

    The three more capable - but less photogenic - bakkies
    The three more capable – but less photogenic – bakkies

    But at photo op time where did everyone pose? On old Redfoot the Landie! Hey, we’re rugged! We battled up this pass!

    Redfoot Sani crop
    And on which vehicle did everyone pose for their “We Conquered the Mountain” picture?

    See, driving a pickup you look like you’re going to work; but driving a Land Rover, you look like you’re going on an expedition! From which you might not return!!

    Kingfisher Canoe Club mates all, they naturally battled to behave themselves.

    sani_1
    Beautiful rockjumpers on the rocks

    Slightly disconcerting on the way down Sani: As Redfoot was catching its breath and airing its brakes halfway down, two nuns breezed past us, chatting gaily, in a 2X4 bakkie. They waved at us. Bitches.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Aitch found Redfoot. One of her PMB doctors was ‘doing up’ an old Landie, putting a new engine in and it ‘would be like new’ he said. He was a fibbing car salesman but my Need-A-4X4-O-Meter was up and he could have sold me a – Wait! He DID sell me a Landrover! Never thought I’d fall for one of those.

    ‘Only one previous owner’ he said and that was true: Besides him, only one previous owner – The KwaZulu bantustan homeland Police Force. I only found that out too late but anyway he’d have re-assured me that they treated it with kid gloves and as if it was their own, sticking to the speed limit, never over-loading it and at all times, staying on the tar.

    I bought it for R12000 in partnership with my three business partners, 25% each. I assured them they would thank me. I don’t think Lello and Stoute ever used it. Yoell did once. And Prem Singh used it once to take a wedding party to Ladysmith. Soutar used it a few times, but he doesn’t count as he also owned an old white Landrover.

    I spent a further R13000 on two more Ford engines and sold it with relief for R5000 hot cash. The Sani trip was the only worthwhile exercise it ever undertook. Come to think of it, I don’t think my Redfooted partners ever did thank me! I don’t know why. I mean, it was a real conversation stopper. You had to say what you wanted before you left, cos on the journey there was no way you could even hear yourself speak, never mind what your victims passengers were saying. There was this slight hole in the aluminium between your knees and the engine compartment and also a slight hole in the aluminium between your heels and the road, so lots of noise rushed in where angels feared to tread.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    You’d think I’d have leanrned about Landies on this trip to Botswana. But nope, that trip was part of the reason I wanted one. I had to burn my own personal fingers.

  • Seeking to Dodge Salvation

    Seeking to Dodge Salvation

    Stephen Charles Reed sent a terrible picture of a recovering drunk back in the old days. Around 1980. He found this poor soul asleep on the covered veranda of his top floor flat in 10th Avenue off Clarence Road in Windermere, Durban and cruelly photographed him, him unknowing. Sleeping with his specs on so as not to have blurry dreams.

    Koos Steve flat ca1980
    – me – innocent –

    Later he accompanied the poor soul to the cafe on the corner for something to slake our Sunday morning cotton mouth thirst. En route we came across the Salvation Army on the pavement, gearing up their instruments, blowing the spit out, getting ready to go and blast a bracing dose of Christian ‘look sharp’ into some poor sinners’ ears. And we were convinced they’d marked us as just exactly the right type of sinners they needed.

    Neatly – if severely – dressed in their fierce outfits, sensible shoes and soldier-looking hoeds they glared at us, fiddling threateningly with their instruments.

    I could feel their accusing stares boring through the back of my head as I minced delicately past them, taking a wide – but not too wide – berth by stepping down into the gutter – where I belonged? – trying not to upset them in any way. Had they sounded the horn and hit the drum we might have capitulated and joined immediately. Thankfully a baleful stare was all we got and we made it past them. We eyed them out from a distance from the cafe door and returned to Stefaans’ flat once they’d parum-pum’d off a goodly distance down the road. Anyway, I’d already been saved a few years before, so there was no need for them to target me. Dunno about Stefaans – he looked like he needed a bit of salvaging.

    They were like this menacing-looking mob, except there were more tannies with sensible shoes, like in the top pic:

    salvation army

    hoeds – headgear; salute-worthy hats

    tannies – aunties

    parum pum – guilt-inducing tympanic torture

    Ah! This is better! THIS is what they looked like – Beryl Cook captured them perfectly:

    – see how fierce they are –

    and check out their instruments of tympanic torture ..

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • The Legal Has Landed!

    The Legal Has Landed!

    I was working with Serge in the UBS building in Field Street, ca.1981

    Bending over someone with my right eye one centimetre from their right eye, I was gazing deep through their pupil with my ophthalmoscope when the building trembled and I heard a loud, dull thud.

    WTF? I thought; ‘Hmm’ I said, ‘Sounds like the UBS sign fell off the building!’ I was about to change eyes when my door flew open and Serge darted in “Excuse Me” he panted, flung open my window and hopped out nimble as a cricket, as old and grey as he was. WTF again?

    I stuck my head out and there was Serge in his ice cream suit bending over a man in a grey suit lying face-down on the tarry-stuff covering the roof over the street-level shops below us.

    Turns out the grey suit was a lawyer. Partner in the firm on the fifth floor, who took to plummeting. We were on the second floor so he only fell three stories and survived. Came back to work a few months later limping with a stick.

    I dunno. Haven’t a clue. Lawyer stuff? Money stuff? Or am I repeating myself here?

    ~~oo0oo~~

    pic of downtown durban from thegreengallery.co.za

    Serge = Serge de Marigny, longstanding venerable catholic optometrist; venerated the archbishop, who came to us for his multifocals. Brought them back once, “I have to lift my chin to read.” I made him new lenses, a millimetre higher. Brought them back again, “Now I have to lower my chin to drive.” I scurried about, muttering three hail marys and re-made them again, half a millimetre lower. “One low, one high and this one smack in the middle” he announced and swept out triumphant, frock swirling. Very sure of himself was old Denis.

    When checking his eyes I had asked him what a sinner like me should call him. “Your Grace,” he boomed, thought about it – about me being un-catholic maybe? – and said “or just Archbishop.” I called him neither. Maybe that’s why he wound me up with his new specs!

    I see when they made a graven image of him to worship after he’d keeled over, they left off my specs, the buggers. See how he has to peer without them!

    – graven image of the arch –
  • Tugela Gorgeous Boats n Boobs

    Tugela Gorgeous Boats n Boobs

    Bumbling down from Ngubevu through the legendary Tugela Gorge. Here’s Bernie Garcin (Bernie and the Jets), Doug Retief (Doug the Thief), Dave Walker (Lang Dawid) and me, preparing to spend the night at Fig Tree Sandbank campsite, one of the planet’s most beautiful spots.

    Kayak Tripping Tugela (2)

    Four plastic Perception kayaks – Dancer, Mirage and Quest. We tripped in 1984 and 1985. In those early days old-timers would still mock plastic boats, saying ‘tupperware keeps turkeys fresh,’ but we knew the joy of not having to nurse the boats, nor having to schlep fibreglass patch kits along, and just smiled! You can do more in plastic!

    Kayak Tripping Tugela (5)
    The bog roll got damp!
    – the bog roll got damp and needed drying –

    At the time Greg Bennett was sponsoring and competing in a motorised rubber duck race down the Tugela. Sacrilege! In ’84 he had Jerome Truran as crew, in ’85 Rip Kirby was his sidekick and pilot. Greg knew how to pick his rapid-readers while he ‘put foot’ in the back of the boat. We used Greg’s bakkie to get to Ngubevu. Then someone must have fetched us at Jamieson’s Bridge at the end.

    On one of the trips bare-breasted maidens flashed us! We saw a Landrover parked on a hill on the left bank, then saw some swimmers in the river. As they spotted us they ducked down, but then as we passed two of the girls popped up their lily-white tits to huge approval. They were like this except the water was brown and there were no cozzies and the parts hidden by this cozzie were lily-white – except for the central little bump, which was beautifully darker, and perky. Not that we stared.

    tugela boobs
    tugela-boobs

    The current swept us past them, but the mammaries lingered on.

    Four-man Hole was soon after that and I crowded into a Bernie-occupied eddy straight after the drop and punched the nose of my Quest into his ribs. Being Bernie he didn’t wince, but I knew it had hurt.

    Overnight at the crowded duck race camp the sponsors Lion Lager thought we were competitors, so their beautiful beer hostesses liberally plied us with ale. OK, lager. It was exactly like I imagine heaven is going to be: You walked up to the beer can-shaped trailer, said to the gorgeous lady ‘One Case Please’ and she plonked a tray of 24 cans on the counter, opened every tab pfft pfft pfft pfft – all 24 – and off you went. Stagger back to where you were pontificating.

    When they ran out of beer, I rummaged cleverly in the boats and found wine papsaks we used for flotation and squeezed out the dregs. Karen the gorgeous, voluptuous newspaper reporter – remember the days when they wrote stuff on paper? – was covering the event for The Natal Mercury or The Natal Witness or some-such. Went under the byline Karen Bliksem if I remember correctly. She held out her mug and as I dispensed I gave her the patter: “A good wine. Not a great wine, but a good wine, with a delicate bouquet.” She shook her mug impatiently and said endearingly, “I know fuckall about flowers, I’m in it for the alcohol,” and I fell deeply in love. Again. My kinda dreamboat lady in shape and attitude. She was like . . .

    tugela boobs_2

    Dave too, was smitten as one of the comely lager hostesses joined him in his laager and treated him to sincere sleeping bag hospitality above and beyond the call of duty, ending the session with a farewell flash of delightful décolletage as she kissed him goodbye in the morning. She was like . . .

    tugela barmaid

    or like . . .

    tugela barmaid boobs

    As we drifted downstream Lang Dawid led the singing. We sang:

    The landlord had a daughter fair – parlez vous 
    The landlord had a daughter fair – parlez vous 
    The landlord had a daughter fair 
    Lily-white tits and golden hair 
    Inky Pinky parlez vous

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    We sang to the resident goats: 
    I ain’t afraid of no goats 
    That was Doug the Thief's chirp.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    We sang - to the tune of He Aint Heavy . . . : 
    Hy’s nie swaar nie . . . 
    hy’s my swa-a-a-er 
    Walker again.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Ah! Those were carefree daze!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Hy’s nie swaar nie, hy’s my swaer – He aint heavy, he’s my brother-in-law

  • A Crayfishing Oenophile CA LLB

    A Crayfishing Oenophile CA LLB

    John Newby was an LLB  attorney and a CA accountant, wine connoisseur, boyfriend of the lovely Heather – and a crayfisherman. A very capable and interesting fella. That’s him in the pic above, ‘cept I gave him more hair on top. He would shove his scrawny frame into a wetsuit and disappear under the waves among the rocks at low tide, then emerge with crayfish. Which he would then very generously cook and share with his fellow inmates at 72 Hunt Road, our communal house on the Berea in Durban.

    I always knew when a crayfish treat was coming cos he’d walk into my room, mumble an apology, roll back the carpet and shove his scrawny frame into a hole. He’d disappear under the floor of my baronial-style bedroom and emerge covered in cobwebs clutching a dusty wine bottle or two talking French and flowery oenological words which I took with a pinch of salt. Some people are just like that and you tolerate them, nodding gravely, while quaffing their wine. You don’t contradict if they’re buying.

    But lo! As with everything he did, Newby wasn’t bullshitting. We suddenly found out he had won the Natal Wine-Tasters Guild sniffing and spitting finals and was off to represent us at the nationals in Cape Town! I mean I always thought of myself as an oenophile, but that was in a volume and enthusiasm sense, not so much as a nexpert judge. I always swallow.

    Hunt Rd
    – our Hunt Rd neighbours – our house looked much the same –

    So now we were rooting for Nubile! We always knew he was a connoisseur, we now said. We had helped him train, we said. My memory is that he won that tasting too, and Hunt Road thus had an SA champion under our roof; WE were expert wine tasters.

    ..

    If I were you, I would take this 38yr-old self-serving memory with another sizable pinch of salt. And a large swallow of chablis.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Nubile upped and offed to Aussie, which we didn’t like, but worse: he took Heather with him!

  • Eyewitness Account

    Eyewitness Account

    Thanks to coincidence, luck and connections, I have an eyewitness account to the time my good friend Tuffy fell out of a helicopter!

    Chris Greeff is one of the most connected people I know. He mentioned that John Lee is a parabat. I said: My two schoolmates did parabats in 1971 (Pierre du Plessis) and around 1975 I’d guess (Tuffy Joubert). He asked: Tuffy Joubert – that became a Recce – and raced Rubber Ducks with Maddies?

    I said Yep. He’s a Harrismith boykie. So Chris sent me a pdf file: Read page 10, he said.

    Interview – Major Peter Schofield by Mike Cadman 21 August 2007

    Reconnaissance Regiment – Project Missing Voices

    Schofield on arrival at Recce base on the Bluff in Durban:

    Then I had lunch and went looking for the climbing course. Now, it wasn’t a very long walk but I walked along the length of the camp where there was a helicopter hovering at about a hundred feet. And I stopped on the edge of the hockey field where this was taking place and watched this, and out came a couple of ropes and a couple of guys came whizzing down in sort of abseil fashion. And a couple more came whizzing down sort of abseil fashion. And a couple more.

    Then one came out, and came into free fall. And he literally, he got hold of the rope a little bit, but he just fell a hundred feet flat on his back wearing a rucksack and a rifle. And I didn’t even bother to walk over to him, I thought, He’s Dead. He can’t fall that far and not be.

    And obviously the ropes were cast off and the chopper landed. They whipped him into the chopper and flew away. I didn’t know where to, but it was in fact to Addington Hospital, which is about three minutes flight away. And, I thought well this must be quite something of a unit, because basically they carried on with the rest of the course as though nothing had happened.

    I thought, Well, I better introduce myself to the senior people here and see what’s going on. So I walked over and met the senior members of the course, and it was being run by a bunch of senior NCOs and I was impressed by the lack of concern that anybody showed for the fact that the guy had just fallen a hundred feet from a helicopter. A guy called (Tuffie?) Joubert. And Tuffie is still alive and kicking and serving in Baghdad right now.

    And I said, What the hell are you doing? How did he fall over there? They said, Well nobody’s ever done it before. I said, OK, show me what you’re doing. And they were actually tying the abseil ropes direct to the gearbox of the rotor box in the roof, I think it was, in the Puma. Which gets to about a thousand degrees in no time flat. So if they had gone on long enough, they’d have broken at least one if not all four of the ropes with people on them. I said, Well let’s change that. And anyway you’re not abseiling properly so let’s send the helicopter away and let’s do some theory on abseiling and then we’ll go and do it off a building or something that stands still for a while before we progress to helicopters.

    Then I went back to report to the commanding officer, John Moore, that I wasn’t really terribly satisfied with the way things were proceeding on this climbing course. He said, Oh well, have you done it before? I said Yes, I’ve done a hell of a lot of it, I was a rock climbing instructor apart from anything else. And he said, OK, well take over, run the climbing course. So I did just that. And again I was so impressed with the fairly laid back attitude of everything.

    =======ooo000ooo=======

    me & Tuffy Joubert in his Durban recce days
    Tuffy Joubert (right) with me in his Durban recce days

    I told Tuffy and he replied in his laid-back Recce way:

    Good morning Koos,

    Trust to find you well; This side of the coast we are all well and we think we have everything under control.

    Maj Peter Schofield was a Brit, he was part of the Red Devils if I recall correctly; came to South Africa and joined the Recces. His first day at work on the Bluff he had to take over the Mountaineering Course that included abseiling. As he walked out to see what was going on, “Yes, I fell out of the helicopter”. He was not impressed.

    He lived in Harrismith for a few years after retiring, Pierre knew him. He passed away a few years ago here in Cape Town.

    No I have not heard or seen his talk.

    Lekker dag verder, enjoy and go for gold – Groetnis – Tuffy.

     

  • Honeymoon Hudson

    Mom & Dad went to Lourenco Marques in Mocambique for their honeymoon in 1951.

    With cars being very scarce after the war, Dad looked around for anything he could afford. He found a Mr Smith selling a fifteen year old Hudson Terraplane 4-door for £100. It came with a spare engine in the boot – and the feeling that it would probably be needed.

    Honeymoon Hudson.jpg
    – Mary behind the wheel –

    On the way after the second day, somewhere in the old Transvaal, they smelt fish – and the smell got worse. They stopped, the ole man opened the bonnet and found a dead fish on the manifold. He said immediately, I know who did this; He’s put it where it will stink, but it won’t cause any harm Only Upsy would do this. Upsy Sorenson. He removed the fish, burning his hand in doing so. Mom says, ‘To think we went to Lourenco Marques in that old thing. Dad says he wouldn’t drive to the gate in it now.’

    But it made it to LM – and back. Mom had to put her feet on the seat – the floor got too hot, even with shoes on. While in Lourenco Marques the Hudson started missing, so Dad took it to a garage but the Portuguese owners couldn’t understand him. He tried Italian, which he’d learnt in the war. “Candela?” – Ah! Candela! Yes, they had sparkplugs and they could sort him out.

    They stayed in a boarding house a couple blocks back from the seafront. ‘It was cheaper than a hotel’. While there they met with Frank Cabral a big game hunter married to some relative of Mom’s. They swam – Mom remembers the huge beach and the shallow sea with only tiny waves. They had fish for breakfast one morning – a whole fish whose eye gazed balefully at Mom, spoiling her appetite.

    Honeymoon bullfight cloth Lourenco Marques
    – they went to a bullfight and the matadors signed Mom’s scarf –
    Honeymoon bullfight cloth Lourenco Marques 2
    – detail from the signed matador cloth / scarf –

    Outside the zoo Dad bought six parakeets or lovebirds with red faces and a cage for them; as they approached the border he hid it behind the large Hudson cubbyhole – there was plenty of space under the dashboard. So he’s a budgie smuggler.

    On the way back they went through Kruger Park and Mom recalls feeling very uncomfortable at how flimsy the reed walls of the park huts at Skukuza seemed when she thought of the wild animals outside! They went to visit an old friend of Dad’s, Rosemary Dyke-Wells, a Boschetto agricultural college old girl who was married to a game ranger there, the son of the famous Harry Wolhuter.

    Montrose Falls, Lowveld, Crocodile river
    – Montrose Falls in the Lowveld Crocodile River –
    LM Mocambique dockside honeymoon 1951

    ~~oo0oo~~

    The Kruger Park was opened to tourism in 1927 and after a slow start  – only three cars entered the Reserve in that first year – soon turned into a popular destination. Within a decade, 3600 kilometres of roads had been built and several camps established. In 1935, some 26,000 people passed through the gates. By 1950 a research station and rest camp had been developed at Skukuza, transforming Stevenson-Hamilton’s base into the “capital” of Kruger.

    Some Kruger Park pics from the later fifties – 1956 to 1958:

    Kruger Park 1950s 3


    Kruger Park 1950s 2

    …

    Kruger Park 1950s 1
    – Skukuza from the air –

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Later back in Harrismith when the clutch packed up, Dad found out the Hudson had a cork clutch. He bought dozens of cork medicine bottle tops from the chemist and hammered them into the angled holes set in concentric circles in the clutchplate, then cut the protruding parts off as level as he could and it worked again.

    When it came time to sell it he can’t remember who he sold it to and for how much, but he does remember Pye von During would pay £25 for them and convert them into horse carts.

    Years later they came across one at a vintage car show. Dunno when this was, but this year (edited 2023) they had their 72nd wedding anniversary.

    1936 Hudson Terraplane in museum

    1936 Hudson Terraplane

    Hudson Terraplane 1936 interior RH Drive

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Soon after this the Post Office moved Dad back to Pietermaritzburg following a back injury. They stayed in the Creamery Hotel – ‘a dive, but cheap’. They moved to the slightly better (but ‘very hot in the afternoon’ – Mom) Windsor Hotel. Mom took a sewing course at ‘the tech’ while pregnant and then, just before first child Barbara was born they moved in with Ouma Swanepoel in Bourke Street in downtown PMB. Mom gave birth at Greys Hospital in mid-summer, 7th January, then came home to Ouma. Mom remembers Ouma’s kindness and the Bourke street home being beautifully cool.

    Somewhere before or after, they stayed in Howick, in The Falls Hotel.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    First ‘date’

    Annie came to Mom and said ‘Peter Swanepoel has tickets to the Al Debbo concert in the Town Hall, would you like to go?’ He sat between Mom and Annie in the upstairs stalls, and ‘that was the beginning of their romance,’ says Mom.

    Al Debbo 1949
    – Al Debbo around then – 1949 –

    ~~oo0oo~~

    An old LM citizen spotted this post and used the pic of Mom & Dad sitting on the seawall in his blog here – but first he deftly tidied it and colorised it. It looks terrific! Thanks Antonio!

    LM Mocambique dockside honeymoon 1951 - colorised

    2021 update: They hit 70yrs marriage – platinum! Well done Ma! You deserve a medal!

    2023 update: 72 years

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Hairspray

    Hairspray

    Just been checking some crested guineafowl in Mkhuze and they reminded me of an SAOA Natal Branch meeting we had in our waiting room in Musgrave Centre, way back in the early eighties.

    Ballin had just had a stylish haircut and waltzed in with his new “do.”

    I said to Geoff Kay “crested guineafowl” and Kay took one look and said “Gallinus Ballinus” – and that’s exactly what he looked like:

    Crested Guineafowl (Guttera pucherani)

    I see now this guinea is actually Guttera pucherani. The domestic chicken is Gallus gallus domesticus.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Here are the stunning Gallus ancestors of the domestic chicken in the wild: