Vrystaat Confessions

Whaddabout?

  • The Two Annie Watson Bains

    The Two Annie Watson Bains

    By the time we knew her she was Annie Bland. Never ‘granny’. Only Annie. She was our dear Mom’s dear Mom.

    In fact ‘Annie Watson Bain’ to me was the lady who died in World War 1 and whose name was on one of the monuments outside the Town Hall. She was our Annie’s first cousin, their Dads, brothers Stewart and James Bain, had come out from Scotland together.

    We never knew our Grandad, Annie’s husband JFA ‘Frank’ Bland. They’d already lost the farms and the racehorses, and they’d moved to town. He had died aged fifty and Annie now owned the ‘Caltex Garage’, as we called it – one of the many petrol filling stations in town. At one time there were seventeen of them! Hers was on ‘Caskie Corner’, opposite our posh Town Hall which her father Stewart Bain had been instrumental in building.

    At the time some called the town hall ‘Bain’s Folly’ as it was such an imposing structure for our modest dorp. I remember exploring inside it with fascination as a kid. High up in the rafters and steel gangways above the stage, with all sorts of ropes and chains hanging down and black curtains behind the red velvet main curtains; the backstage rooms, along the marble-floored passages past the toilets, the museum with the taxidermied animals – a lion, a vulture, what else? The galley above the main hall. I never did get up into the clock tower, come to think of it! Nor onto the outside balcony overlooking Warden Street. I wonder why? Locked doors?

    HS Town Hall
    Harrismith Town Hall Bain's Folly
    Town Hall3

    Annie always spoke with great admiration of her late husband Frank – the granpa we never knew – and told me proudly how she’d never seen his fingernails dirty. This as she looked mildly disapprovingly – probably more disappointedly, she never had a harsh word for me –  at mine. She called me Koosie and the way she pronounced it, it rhymed with ‘wussie’ and ‘pussy’, but don’t say that out loud. And don’t tell anyone. I had been out playing in the mud one Xmas morning with me sisters Barbara and Sheila and cousins Frankie and Jemma and we had arrived back muddy – on WAY more than our fingernails; we were made to wash in the horse trough – and happy, and run into dear ole Annie. I spose the ancient ones were a bit panicked as we still had to get dressed and go to church.

    The car she drove was like this one, except faded beige, and OHS 794:

    A Chevrolet Fleetline, I’d guess a 1948 model. It had a cushion on the seat for her to see over the dash, but under the top rim of the steering wheel.

    It looks better like this. Omigoodness, are our memories actually in sepia tones?

    She was born in 1893, the fifth of seven Bain kids of the ‘Royal Bains’ – meaning the Bains of the Royal Hotel. There were also ‘Central Bains’.

    She went to St Andrews Collegiate School in Harrismith (pic somewhere below) . . . and then to St Anne’s in Pietermaritzburg where she played good hockey ‘if she would learn to keep her place on the field.’ She’s the little one on a chair second from left:

    Annie Bain, ? seated on chair 2nd from left
    – Hmm, looks like St Anne’s in Pietermartizburg was a riot of fun and laughter! –

    Medals Annie won for singing in 1915 from The Natal Society for the Advancement of Music. Both say mezzo soprano and one says 1st Grade 1915. (Must tell the kids. THAT’s probly where I got my fine singing voice).

    HS Caltex

    She ran the Caltex forecourt and the workshop at the back, where At Truscott fixed cars. I can still see him tip-toeing, bending over the edge, raised bonnet above him and a lightbulb in a wire cage in his hand, peering through glasses below his bald head. She rented out the adjoining Flamingo Cafe and Platberg Bottle Store premises. At that time she lived in the Central Hotel a short block away across the Deborah Retief Gardens and I do believe she drove to work every day. Maybe drove back for lunch even?

    Sundays were special with Annie as your gran. She’d roll up at our house in the big beige Chev, we’d pile in freshly sanctified, having been to church and Sunday school, and off we’d go on a drive. The back seat was like a large lounge sofa. Sometimes she’d drive to nowhere, sometimes to the park, sometimes cruising the suburbs. OK, the one and only suburb. Usually there’d be a long boring spell parked somewhere like the top of 42nd Hill overlooking the town and watching the traffic. Annie and Glick chatting away on the front seat and us sitting on the back thinking, OK, that’s long enough now. I’m sure they told us the whole history of Harrismith and who lived where and who was who and maybe even who was doing what and with whom. But maybe not, as ‘Anna’ and ‘Glick’ (as they called each other) were discreet gentlefolk. All of which we ignored anyway, so I can’t tell you nothing!

    – our view from the back seat – in sepia –

    Later she got a green Opel and for some reason – maybe after she could no longer drive? – it was parked on our lawn for long spells. I sat in it and changed gears on its column shift about seventy thousand times. Probably why I (like most males in their own opinion) am such a good driver today. It was a Kapitan or Rekord like this, but green and white:

    Annie died in Harrismith in 1983 aged 90. Looked after to the end by her loving daughter Mary. She was ready. ‘All my friends are gone,’ she told me. Her husband Frank had died forty years earlier, and her eldest daughter Pat had died around ten years earlier.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    The pic of the Town Hall with the green Chev is thanks to De Oude Huize Yard – do go and see their blog. (Ah! Sandra’s blog is no more! They have left town! Sad). They’re doing great things in the old dorp, keeping us from destroying everything old and replacing it with corrugated iron and plastic.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Also from DeOudeHuizeYard, this information about the building that housed Annie’s school:

    The Dutch Reformed dominee Rev A.A. van der Lingen began his years of service in Harrismith on the 6th May 1875 and remained there until the 12th July 1893.  He and the church ouderlings built a new church on the site of the original building. The cornerstone of the new building was laid on the 25th August 1892.

    – home, military HQ, school, school, boarding house, demolished –

    Around then the Rev van der Lingen ran for President of the Orange Free State. In the hope of impressing the townsfolk and swaying their vote in his favour, he built an impressive house, the first double-story building in Harrismith. The townsfolk seemingly were not impressed though, and he was not elected. Later, with the British occupation of Harrismith in the Anglo-Boer War, the military authorities made the double-story building their headquarters.

    After the cessation of hostilities, Vrede House (Peace House) as it was then known, became St Andrews Collegiate School (1903-1918), then Oakland’s School and finally a boarding house in the 1930’s.

    Five weeks prior to the unveiling of that church cornerstone, on the 14th July 1892, the town had enjoyed a four-day celebration of the momentous arrival of the railroad from Natal. The festival was paid for by a £5 500 donation by the Free State government! Harrismith was now online!

    – Is this when the first train choofed in? Who was there? –

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    The Other Annie Watson Bain

    Here’s some info and pics from the Imperial War Museum (IWM) of the bombing that killed Annie’s namesake, Annie Watson Bain in World War II in France, found by Bain descendant Janis Paterson, raised in Wick, now living in England:

    – hospital at Etaples after bombing 1918 –

    Filmed at a stationary hospital near Etaples, probably 9 Canadian Hospital three days after a bombing raid hit the hospital on the night of 31 May 1918.

    *** – see IWM movie here – ***

    The wooden huts of the hospital show various bomb blasts but little fire damage. Four coffins, covered in Union Jacks, are wheeled on trollies by soldiers.

    A single coffin, also covered with a Union Jack on a wheeled trolley, is followed by a funeral procession of nurses, soldiers with wreaths, and a few civilians. – ** this could have been our Annie’s ** – The procession arrives at a temporary but extensive cemetery where a burial service is held.

    Stills taken off the IWM movie:

    Seeing the acres of graves – another Harrismithian was buried here or nearby – and knowing about the “War To End All Wars” who would think mankind would go on to fight another World war just twenty years later – and then be at war continually after that up to today 2018 with no end in sight!? – – – Thanks, America! (* sarcasm *) – Update: 2021 and America says its getting out of Afghanistan after 20 years. Predictably, those making money out of death are screaming “Too Soon!”

    Janis Paterson, Bain descendant, distant ‘cousin,’ who keeps a photo record here, visited the cemetery in France and found Harrismith’s other Annie’s grave:

    Our two Annie Watson Bains, first cousins from Harrismith, born of two Scottish brothers, both hoteliers in this small African town in the Oranje Vrij Staat, at that time a free and independent Republic:

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Footnote:

    Maybe this Canadian sister attended our Annie in her last hours?

    Edith Campbell, RRC, MM (1871 – 1951) was a Canadian nurse, one of the first to arrive in England in World War 1 to assist in the establishment of a field hospital. She served in both England and France, earning a number of medals, and was twice mentioned in dispatches. First she received the Royal Red Cross, first class, for her actions in England and France, and again for her bravery during enemy air raids at No. 1 Canadian General Hospital in Etaples, France, during which she attended to wounded nurses. For this, she and five other nurses received the Military Medal.

    Her citation read:

    For gallantry and devotion to duty during an enemy air raid. Regardless of personal danger she attended to the wounded sisters and by her personal example inspired the sisters under her charge.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    Footnote 2:

    Janis Paterson loves flower arranging and has won cups at local shows. In 2014, one of the floral themes was related to the beginning of WW1.

    Janis’ entry was a tribute to nurses like Annie Watson Bain and won the best in show award. We’re a talented lot, all put together, us Bains! The book in her arrangement “The Roses of No Man’s Land” is about those brave nurses.  She thinks that people often forget what nurses like Annie had to endure. The person escorting the judge told Janis the judge was almost moved to tears.  Isn’t it stunning?:

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • Feel The Burn

    Sheila sent me an old picture of the du Plessis’ beautiful pool in Harrismith. Joan and Jannie built a big one as they had three amazing swimmers in their stable. As far as I know, Lynn, Pierre and Sonja all represented Vrystaat and South Africa (or at least went to ‘Top Ten’ where the ten fastest swimmers in the country all get into one pool and then see who can get out first on the far side in the big final national gala).

    Here’s Gary Beaton’s butt, Pierre’s leg and a du Plessis poodle with Platberg in the background. Plus the big wooden fence shielding the pool from Arthur Kennedy’s famous triangular wood and glass house next door.

    Gary Pierre poodle Hector St

    Which reminded me:

    We painted that fence with creosote. Child labour unpaid by Jannie. Pierre, Tuffy and me, topless in our swimming cozzies. It was great fun. When one of us (must have been Pierre, he was usually our chief instigator) ‘mistakenly’ painted another on his bare skin, it was hilarious. Retaliation followed. More hilarity.

    And then it started to burn. Really, really burn. Creosote on your skin is unfunny. We ended up in the pool scratching and rubbing and wiser. We’d learnt a chemistry lesson.

    Fifty years later they invented the internet and now I know this:

    Coal tar creosote is a mixture of hundreds of chemicals in a thick and oily liquid. People need to be trained and certified to use creosote. Creosote is also a pesticide. A pesticide is a substance that kills pests.

    So Pierre was in real danger there.

     

     

  • Jock Grant

    Jock Grant

    Jock Grant was a Harrismith legend. “A legend in his own lunchtime” as they say.

    Fresh out of Scotland he joined the golf club and announced to the usual crowd leaning up against the bar in his broad accent that he was taking Afrikaans lessons.

    “Jock”, said Jannie du Plessis, “We think you should first take English lessons!”

    He started a plumbing business, married lovely local lass Brenda Longbottom and ended up owning the quarry, becoming famous for his loud booms which would rattle the windows of the town at noon, as he dynamited rock on 80th hill on the western edge of town.

    Then he owned Swinburne. Well, the Montrose Motel, anyway. Not much left now:

    Montrose Motel2

    The entrance was around the corner on the left and as you walked in there was a pianola in the hallway.

    ———

    Ian Fyvie has a story about when Jock went over to visit his family in Scotland. On his return they were playing golf and Ian asked him if he had enjoyed the visit. Jock’s reply was very non-committal and unenthusiastic. Ian said “But you must have enjoyed some part of the trip! What was the highlight of the whole holiday?”

    “When I came over 42nd hill and saw the lights of Harrismith!”

    —————————————————————

    Nick Leslie tells of going for a walk in the veld with Jock and Brenda. Climbing through a barbed wire fence Brenda got her slacks caught. Jock said “Well your name’s not Longbottom for nothing!”

    ————————————————————–

    Dad tells of Jock’s big talk which was most unlike most of their Harrismith friends’ more modest approach. Jock could swagger. He arrived at a party (always there were parties!) smoking his big cigars and between puffs boasted “He wanted *puff* six million *puff* but I said I’ll offer you five million and not a penny more *puff*”. When he left that night Hector Fyvie said in his quiet way “There goes Jock Maximilian”.

    ————————————

    Jock brought his nephew Morris Crombie out from Scotland to join him in his plumbing business. Morris was invited to join Round Table and at his first meeting stood up to announce himself. In his broad Scots accent the lanky Scotsman intoned: “I’m Mawriss Crawmbie – Ploomer” and probably didn’t understand why the whole room collapsed with laughter.

    ———————

    Mom was dancing with Jock at yet another party on Swiss Valley, the Venning’s farm. “Och, its smoky in here, I’m going oot fir a breath a fresh air” said Jock. Mom thought that was rich as he’d been smoking his cigars like a chimney, causing the haze indoors. He was soon back, muttering “I toook one deep breath ootside and I came running back in!” (He was referring, of course, to the famously strong smell of pigshit from the piggery).

    Whenever any new guests on the farm referred to the smell the Venning they mentioned it to would look mystified, sniff around cautiously and then pronounce seriously “I smell money”.

    ——————————–

  • Hance in the Grand Canyon

    Hance Rapid3

    Hance Rapid at Mile 76.5 stands sentinel at the Colorado river’s entry into the Granite Gorge. The river drops 30 feet as it passes through a natural constriction formed by the Red Canyon. The dark dike cutting through the red Hakatai Shale is one of the most photographed features in the Canyon.

    I found out more about the man the rapid was named after: John Hance (1840 – January 8, 1919) – thought to be the first non-native resident of the Grand Canyon.

    He opened the first tourist trail in the canyon before the canyon was a national park, giving tours of the canyon after his ca.1866 attempts at mining asbestos failed. “Captain” John Hance was said to be one of the Grand Canyon’s most colorful characters, and one early visitor declared that “To see the canyon only and not to see Captain John Hance, is to miss half the show.”

    Hance delighted in telling canyon stories to visitors, favoring the whopper of a tale over mere facts. With a straight face, Hance told travelers how he had dug the canyon himself, piling the excavated earth down near Flagstaff (thus ‘explaining’ those mysterious then-unexplained dirt piles).

    – wikipedia and archive.org –

    John Hance died in 1919, the year the Grand Canyon became a National Park, and was the first person buried in what would become the Grand Canyon Pioneer Cemetery.

    In May 1891 one Charley Greenlaw wrote this in John Hance’s guestbook: I can cheerfully say that this, the Grand Canon of the Colorado River, is the grandest sight of my life. As I noticed in this little book of Capt. John Hance, a great many people say ‘indescribable.’ I can say nothing more. It is beyond reason to think of describing it in any way. You must see it to appreciate it. A grand sight of this kind and so few people know of it. By accident I formed the acquaintance of two ladies en route to the Grand Canon. I joined them. We have enjoyed our trip; the stage ride from Flagstaff to the Grand Canon is grand. Good horses, competent and accommodating drivers. I have seen the Yosemite, have visited California several different times, in fact seen all the principal points of interest in the United States, but the most wonderful, awe-inspiring piece of Nature’s own work is this, the Grand Canon of the Colorado River.

    Another Hance guestbook entry by J. Curtis Wasson told of the twelve hour stage coach journey after alighting from the Santa Fe Railroad Company’s train: From Flagstaff at 7 o’clock a.m. our stage-and-six goes out. Arriving at Little Springs Station, where a new relay of six horses is added, we make haste until the half-way station is reached, passing through a fine unbroken forest of Pinus ponderosa, quaking aspen, balsam fir, and spruce. The open forest, the waving grasses, the gorgeously colored mountain flowers, the occasional chirp of the forest songsters, the ice-cold springs traversing our smooth compact road, the peaks, clear-cut and massive, towering up nearly 14,000 feet into the blue above, the low rumbling of our great Concord stage, the sound of two dozen hoofs, the sharp crack of the driver’s whip, the clear, bracing atmosphere, every breath of which seems to stimulate, the indescribably beautiful Painted Desert outstretching for a hundred miles to our right.

    – a stage-and-six – high-speed travel –

    One fain would linger on scenes like these but we have arrived at Cedar Station, and after partaking of a very refreshing luncheon we are given a new relay of horses and hasten over the desert portion of our ride to Moqui Station, where another relay is provided, which takes us to the hotel at the rim of the Grand canon, where we arrive at 7 o’clock p.m.

    Leaving our Concord stage, giving our grips to the porter, not even waiting for “facial ablutions,” we hasten across the yard and up to the rim of the canon, when, looking over — the Chasm of the Creator, the Gulf of God, the Erosion of the Ages, that Erosive Entity, that Awful Abyss, lies in all its awfulness before us, — awful, yet grand; appalling, yet attractive; awe inspiring, yet fascinating in its greetings.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

  • A Fine Spectacle

    A Fine Spectacle

    This story will be fuzzy in parts because of the long passage of time. But although some details may be slightly different, ‘strue. So I must tell the tale before those last few grey cells that hold the memory get blitzed by the box wine.

    It was on the Berg River Canoe Marathon that Christof Heyns came to tell me was pulling out of the race. Why!? I asked, dismayed. He’d fallen out in the frigid flooded Berg river and lost his glasses. Couldn’t see past his nose, so it was way too dangerous to carry on in the mid-winter Cape cold and the flooding brown water in the gale-force wind that was the 1983 second day.

    Hell, no, I said, I’ve got a spare pair, you can use mine.

    He rolled his eyes and smiled sadly at my ignorance. His eyes were very special, his glasses were very thick and there was no way just any ‘arb’ specs would do, he mansplained patiently. In his defence, he didn’t know I was an optometrist, that I was wearing contact lenses, that I had a spare pair of specs in my luggage and another tied to the rudder cable in my boat; nor could he know that I had a very good idea of what his prescription was from seeing his glasses on his nose both on this race and on a Tugela trip we had been on together earlier. I knew about his eyes better than he knew about my soul (he might have known a bit about that, as his Dad was a very belangrike dominee in the Much Deformed Church – top dog, in fact).

    So I said, trust me swaer and went and fetched my spares. He put them on and was amazed. I can see! he shouted like I was Jesus who had just restored his sight. I know, I said.

    So he wore the glasses and finished the race and I said keep them till we next meet.

    Many months later I saw an article in the SA Canews, the paddling magazine, titled: “My Broer se Bril”. Christof wrote the story of how he had lost hope when some arb oke said “Here, try mine” and he could see! And he could finish the race.

    He ended off by saying “Actually they were so good I’m wearing them to this day”. Ja, you bugger, I know, I thought. I could have written an article “How a dominee’s son appropriated my bril,” but I didn’t. I’m way too kind! In his defence, we haven’t seen each other since that race.

    Berg marathon

    . . and today – April 2021 – I heard he died, aged only 62. Damn!

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    belangrike dominee – important churchman; flock leader; the lord is my shepherd, I am a sheep;

    swaer – bro;

    my broer se bril – my brother’s spectacles;

    mansplain – when a man laboriously, carefully and ‘kindly’ explains something to you that you already know; usually inflicted on women;

  • Lee’s Ferry across the Colorado River

    Lee’s Ferry on the right bank of the Colorado River, just above the mouth of the Paria River, at an elevation of 3,170 feet asl is the site of the start for most river trips through the Grand Canyon.

    Originally called Lonely Dell by Mormon church-man with 19 wives and 67 children John D Lee, who established the ferry in 1872, it provided the only access across more than 300 miles of river for many years. Actually one of Lee’s 19 wives, Emma ran the ferry for a number of years while he was on the lam – hiding from the law for his leading part in the wicked 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre.

    The massacre near St George, Utah involved a group of emigrants known as the Fancher Party trekking west from Arkansas who were camped at Mountain Meadows in southern Utah preparing for their final push across the Mohave Desert when they were attacked by a group of Mormon Militia who disguised themselves as Native Americans so as to cowardly deflect blame for the attack.

    It was a time of great tension between Mormons and the rest of the United States, and the massacred party was most likely attacked because they were not Mormons.

    After an initial siege, the treacherous Lee approached the emigrants saying he’d negotiated safe passage for them with protection from their supposed Native American attackers if they surrendered their weapons. The group agreed, whereupon the militia proceeded to kill all but the children under 8 years of age.

    One hundred and twenty men, women and children died that day. For almost two decades, the incident was covered up, but in 1874, Lee was brought to trial. Never denying his complicity in the massacre, Lee did insist – probably correctly – that he was acting on orders from high up in the church. He was the only one of about fifty men involved in the massacre to be brought to book. He was convicted and executed by firing squad in 1877.

    His widow Emma Lee sold the ferry in 1879 for 100 milk cows to the Mormon Church who continued to operate it until 1910 when it was taken over by Coconino County, Arizona. The ferry stayed mostly in use until 1929 when the Navajo Bridge was completed. Ironically, the ferry was used to ship much of the material to build the bridge that put it out of business.

    1984: There was only one bridge when we crossed to the right – or ‘north’ (rivers only have left or right banks – think about it) – bank of the river. It was completed in 1929. A larger parallel second bridge was added in 1995. The bridge we crossed is now used for pedestrian sight-seeing.

    Now: To make sure there are no misunderstandings, our John Lee on the 1984 trip down the Colorado is a good ou who, at that stage, had zero wives:

    John Lee
  • Dog Knot

    Dog Knot

    Dogs accomplish mating by a unique physical way and process. Unlike most other mammals, the dog’s penis has a large bulbous enlargement at the base. When the dog’s penis enters the vagina of the bitch, it must go through a muscular ring or constriction of the external opening of the vagina. The moment the penis is through, the pressure of the tube on the reflex nerve center causes a violent thrust and the dog clings to the bitch with all his strength. The swelling of the bulb prevents the dog from withdrawing his penis.

    Dogs remain hung in this manner for on average twenty minutes. The male turns around and faces the opposite direction from the bitch. While the two are hung in this manner, they may get their nails into the dirt and pull with far more than their own weights, stretching the penis amazingly. Do not be alarmed when they pull this way; neither dog is being hurt. As the valve relaxes, the blood leaves the penis, usually from the bulb part first, and allows the enlarged penis to slip out.

    dog-copulation

    They’re usually bound together for about twenty minutes. Quite long. In fact, in animal kingdom terms I think you could almost call it . . ‘True Love.’ Or ‘commitment.’

    I didn’t know this when I first saw it on the Fyvie’s Gailian farm outside Harrismith in the Free State. Tabs and I were farming with his Dad Hector, who was driving the pickup. We rounded a bend and there they were. I watched in fascination. It did seem a bit like, after the passion, they had turned their backs on each other, avoiding eye contact, and were like:

    I can’t believe this; He doesn’t write, he doesn’t call; and him: Will she still respect me in the morning . . . ?

    We watched a few seconds and then Uncle Hec in his inimitable quiet, deadpan way, said: “Locked in Holy Matrimony.”

    ~~oo0oo~~

    Another famous dog knot featured our first dog’s famous father: Stan the Man

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • 1970 – Netjies!

    1970 – Netjies!

    The Harrismith Stadsaal was propvol. Albert Hertzog was coming to speak as leader of his new breakaway party, Die HNP, Die Herstigte Nasionale Party. And the doubtful and the faithful were all there. Plus one Yank.

    The doubtful were there to worry about the severe liberalisation evident in the Nat Party lately – I mean, they were considering allowing television, and Engels, and sulke kak! – while the faithful were there to heckle ou Hertzog.

    Hertzog

    A dapper little dutchman, he gave a rousing speech about the great injustice done to them by the Nats, building up to a rousing “en hulle het ons UITGESKOP!” flinging his arm out in what looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute. Upon which, from the back of the hall rang out a clear “NETJIES!” which brought the house down and quite ruined the dramatic effect.

    This as reported to me by the Yank Larry Wingert, Rotary exchange student from Cobleskill New York, who’d gone along to witness democracy, Old-SA-style.

    In typical political fashion the verligtes hated their brother verkramptes even more than they hated the old enemy, the Sappe. The Sappe they could say, were just stupid, but these ous were verraaiers!

    In the election that followed, the Sappe (United Party – the nickname was from an older party, the South African Party) made gains, the Nats losing seats in parliament for the first time since they came to power in 1948.

    But ou Hertzog’s Herstigtes won 0 seats. Zero. That’s roughly equivalent to fokol. Not one, despite appealing to Larry that they were the way forward to the past!

    The Nats were still in power, but to put their “power” in perspective, in a country of 22.5 million people, 821 000 people voted for them!

    Talk about illegitimate.

    ~~oo0oo~~

    propvol – full – full to bursting

    “en hulle het ons UITGESKOP!” – The Nats in power booted out the doubters; Who then formed the “re-established National Party” (Herstigtes); You know, like brothers falling out; famielietwis;

    famielietwis – family feud

    “NETJIES!” – Well Done! Neat Move!

    verligtes – sort of ‘enlightened’ racists; a bit more realist than the verkramptes; would allow TV a mere seven years later;

    verkramptes – cramp-ass racists; Keep the world at bay! Send the Indians back to India! Drive the Blacks into the sea! Much longing back to their imaginary ‘good old days’! Fond of re-enactments like this:

    Hertzog and verkrampte tannies.jpg

    verraaiers – people whose opinion differs from yours; people who don’t have your insight; blerrie traitors; andersdenkendes; anderskleuriges; kommuniste; liberales;

    ~~oo0oo~~

  • Fire! Fire!

    Fire! Fire!

    We had asbestos heaters on the walls in our Louisa Street residence in Doornfontein, Johannesburg. The res was in the shadow of the not-yet-completed Ponte tower – the 50-story residential cylinder up on the hill that became famous and notorious for varying reasons over the years.

    Doories cars - and Ponte
    Doories cars – and Ponte

    Doories res and view
    Doories res and view

    Late one night we woke up to yelling and cursing. Thick smoke billowed into our room, so we rushed out to see wassup. Glen Barker and Louis Slabbert’s room was on fire! Glen’s clothes, his bedside table, the linoleum floor and the ceiling were ablaze. We soon put it out and, coughing and spluttering, opened up the windows and doors to let the acrid, foul smoke escape.

    To the amazement of the non-smokers amongst us, Louis then sat down on his bed, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply!

    Dave Simpson, Louis Slabbert at Wilge River swing, Harrismith;

  • Road Trip with Larry RSA

    Road Trip with Larry RSA

    Mom lent us her Cortina. Like this, but OHS:

    cortina 1970

    How brave was that!? The longer I have teenagers of my own the more I admire my Mom and her quiet courage and fortitude back in the ’70’s! The thought of giving my teenage son my car and allowing him to disappear (it would be in a cloud of dust and tyre smoke) on a three week jaunt fills me with querulous whimpering. (I’ll do it, I’ll do it, but only ‘cos Mom did it for me).

    Larry Wingert was an ex-Rotary exchange student to SA from Cobleskill, New York. He and I had been on a previous Road Trip USA in 1973; now he was teaching English in Athens and had flown to Nairobi, then traveled overland down to Joburg where we joined up and hitch-hiked to Harrismith. There, Mom parted with the Cortina keys and we drove to PMB then on to Cape Town. We took ten lazy days in going nowhere slowly style back in 1976.

    Wherever we found a spot – preferably free – we camped in my little orange pup tent. In the Weza Forest we camped for free; In the Tsitsikamma we paid.

    Driving through the Knysna Forest we saw a sign Beware of the Effilumps.

    knysna forest

    So we took the little track that turned off nearby and camped – for free – out of sight of the road in the undergrowth. Maybe we’d see a very rare Kynsna elephant? Not.

    In Cape Town we stayed with Lynne Wade from Vryheid, lovely lass who’d been a Rotary exchange student too. She played the piano for us and I fell deeply in love, then disappeared on yet another beer-fueled mission. Coward. We also visited the delightful Dottie Moffett in her UCT res. She had also been a Rotary exchange student to SA from Ardmore, Oklahoma and was now back in SA doing her undergraduate degree. I was in love with her, too.

    We headed for Malmesbury to visit Uncle Boet and Tannie Anna. Oom Boet was on top form, telling jokes and stories and laughing non-stop. That evening he had to milk the cow, so we accompanied him to the shed. Laughing and talking he would rest his forehead against the cow’s flank every now and then and shake with helpless mirth at yet another tale. Meantime, this was not what the cow was used to. It had finished the grain and usually he was finished milking when she had finished eating. So the cow backed out and knocked him off the stool, flat on his back, bucket and milking stool upturned. He took a kick at the cow, missed and put his back out. Larry and I were hosing ourselves as we helped him up and tried to restore a semblance of order and dignity.

    Back at the house we gave Oom Boet and Aunt Anna a bottle of imported liqueur to say thanks for a lovely stay. It was a rather delicious chocolate-tasting liqueur and it said haselnuss mit ei. It was only a 500ml bottle, so we soon flattened it. It looked something like this:

    haselnuss liquer

    “Ja lekker, maar ag, dis bokkerol, Kosie – Ons kan dit self maak!”

    Ja?

    Larry and I decide to call his bluff. In the village the next day we looked for dark chocolate and hazelnuts, but hey, it’s Malmesbury – we got two slabs of Cadbury’s milk chocolate with nuts.

    Oom Boet is bok for the challenge. He dives under the kitchen sink and starts hauling things out. He’s on his hands and knees and his huge bum protrudes like a plumber’s as he yells “Vrou! Waar’s die masjien?” Anna has to step in and find things and do things as he ‘organises’. She finds a vintage blender and – acting under a string of unnecessary instructions – Aunt Anna breaks eggs and separates the yolks, breaks chocolate into small pieces. Boet then bliksems it all into the blender and adds a fat dollop of a clear liquid from a label-less bottle. “Witblits, Kosie!” he says triumphantly. He looks and goois more in, then more. Then a last splash.

    Oom Boet blender_2

    It looked like this, but the goo inside was yellowy-brown, not green. And it had a layer of clear liquid overlaying it nearly to the top.

    He switches the blender to ‘flat-out’ with a flourish and a fine blend of egg yolk, chocolate and powerful-smelling hooch splatters all over the kitchen ceiling, walls and sink. He hadn’t put the lid on! And it was like a V8 blender, that thing.

    Vroulief starts afresh, patient and good-humoured as ever. We mop, we add, he blends, and then it’s ready for tasting at last.

    And undrinkable. That aeroplane fuel strength home-distilled liquor was just too violent. We take tiny little sips, but even Oom Boet has to grudgingly admit his is perhaps not quite as good or as smooth as the imported stuff. We add sugar, more chocolate and more egg yolk, but its only very slightly better, and still undrinkable.

    Ten years later I still had the bottle and despite offering it to many people to sip as a party trick, it was still three-quarters full!

    If we had marketed it we’d have called it Oom Boet se Bokkerol Haselnuss mit Eish!

    I visited Oom Boet and Aunty Anna in a Ford Cortina again in 1983. The top featured pic with the old Chevy pickup was actually taken then by Sheila.

    ~~~oo0oo~~~

    haselnuss mit ei – hazelnuts with egg

    “Ja lekker, maar ag dis bokkerol, Kosie – Ons kan dit self maak!”- Nice, but we could make this stuff ourselves!

    “Vrou! Waar’s die masjien?” – Wife! Where’s the machine?

    bliksems – throws

    witblits – moonshine

    goois – throws

    Oom Boet se Bokkerol Haselnuss mit Eish! – the same stuff except very different