If you’re writing an olden days blog you run out of material. Only so much happened from when I was born till I met Aitch, which is the timeline of this blog – my Born, Bachelorhood and Beer blog. So there’s recycling. Here’s a post I wrote in 2014, twice updated and embellished:
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In high school we had an older mate who was in the Free State koor. He was famous in Harrismith for that. You could say he enjoyed Harrismith-wide fame. His nickname was Spreeu but we called him Sparrow. Everyone knew Sparrow – Chris Bester – and everyone knew Sparrow was one of ‘Die Kanaries – Die Vrystaatse Jeugkoor.’ Fame! Travel! Bright lights! Girls threw their broekies at the Kanaries! OK, maybe not.
One day a buzz went round school that Septimus – apparently he was the seventh child – Smuts, Free State Inspector of Music was there – here! in Harrismith, city of song and laughter – to do auditions for new members for this famous koor.
We were there! Me and Gabba. Neither known for having the faintest interest in warbling before (my membership of the laerskool koor a distant memory – I was over the trauma). Nor any other form of culture come to think of it, other than the fine art of rugby. Gabba was a famous – beroemde, kranige – rugby player, having been chosen for Oos Vrystaat Craven Week in Std 8, Std 9, Std 9 & Std 10. Strong as an ox, great sense of humour, good heart.
People were amazed: “What are YOU ous doing here?” they asked as we waited in the queue. We just smiled. We’d already missed biology and PT.
Septimus was a dapper little rockspider full of confidence. He gave Gabba exactly three seconds and sent him packing. Gave me ten times longer and said ‘Nice enough, but no range.’ So back to class we went, crestfallen look on our dials, mournfully telling our mates and the teacher that we COULD NOT understand how we’d been rejected and there must have been some kind of mistake. Tender-rigging, maybe? Maybe our voices were taken out of context?
– Gabba in choirboy mode – Seppie at the piano –
The maths teacher Ou Oosie raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes, but they were a bit hidden behind his thick black plastic bril. But we stuck to our story: It had been a longtime deep desire of ours to sing for our province and the rejection cut us deep. And maybe the keuringsproses was rigged.
It became my & Gabba’s standing joke over the decades that followed. Every time we met we’d have a lekker laugh. Then he’d update me on our hoerskool athletics records: his for shotput and mine for the 100m sprint. Mine was eventually beaten about twenty years later. Gabba said ‘hier’t n nuwe oukie gekom wat soos die wind gehol het.’ His shotput record probably still stands, as far as I know. It was a mighty heave. I choon you, verily, on that day in 1972, he stooted that gewig moertoe.
We may have scored E’s and F’s on most of these, but on 7.2.1.8 Intelligence and Dedication we surely got an A? Also, if we’d known that Septimus the choirmaster had ‘n besondere liefde vir die gedrae polifonie van Palestrina se koorkompetisies,’ we’d have practiced that shit.
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spreeu – starling, but mistranslated and verengels as ‘sparrow’
verengels – anglicised; corrupted
Die Kanaries – ve canaries
Vrystaatse Jeugkoor – Free State Youth Choir; it must be confessed we would mock it as the Yech Choir
broekies – panties; maybe bloomers
beroemde, kranige – famous, outstanding
Oos Vrystaat – Eastern Free State; our neck of the woods
bril – spectacles; eyeglasses
hier’t n nuwe oukie gekom wat soos die wind gehol het – a new guy arrived in the dorp who ran like the wind
keuringsproses – like ‘Harrismith’s Got Talent’ – y’know, judges; impartial??
stoot a gewig – shotput
moertoe – a long way
‘n besondere liefde vir die gedrae polifonie van Palestrina se koorkompetisies – fuck knows
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Here’s Sep and one of his choirs with which he gained moderate regional fame. Of course he dipped out on international acclaim by not signing up me and Gabba as a duet.
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For those sad mense who doubt Gabba’s dramatic talents and aspirations, I give you evidence:
Some 50 years on, R.I.P Gabba! You’ve moved on to that Great Shotput Circle in the Sky. Choirs up there will welcome you, I’m sure.
Sheila sent me a surprise postcard. So I have re-posted this 2015 blogpost about a Magical 1969 Tour, and attached the postcard at the end. Enjoy the Olden Daze!
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The Kestell bus was like a half-loaf, but still the metropolis of Kestell – which we regarded as a sparsely-populated Afrikaans suburb of Harrismith – couldn’t roust enough boys to fill it, so they decided to invite some Harrismithians along to add wit, charm and Engels to the proceedings. Or anyway bulk.
So one fine winters day Johan Steyl announced in the assembly hall that Kestell was inviting fine, talented, well-behaved Harrismith boys to join their ‘seunstoer’ to South West Africa. It would be for fifteen days in the July holidays, and the cost would be twenty five South African 1969 Ronts.
Leon ‘Fluffy’ Crawley, Harry ‘Pikkie’ Loots, Pierre du Plessis, Tuffy Joubert and I said YES! and then our parents said yes and forked over the cash, so we were off! Now Sheila’s postcard reminds me that Jan van Wyk – who would be chosen head boy in matric the next year – also went along.
– an actual pic by Fluffy, care of mother Polly’s Kodak! –
It was boys-only, a seunstoer, but Mnr Braam Venter of Kestell took his young daughter along. She was about Std 4, we were Std 7 to 9. She was very popular and soon became like the tour mascot, second only to Wagter the tour dog – who was actually a found holey corobrick with a dog collar through one of its three holes and string for a leash.
The short bus had a longitudinal seating arrangement. The rows ran the length of the bus so you sat facing each other, sideways to your direction of travel.
We all bundled in and set off. After a few hours we had the first roadside stop. Mnr Venter lined us all up outside the bus and said ‘Right, introduce yourselves,’ as the Kestell ous didn’t know us – and we didn’t know them. Down the row came the names, van Tonder, van Wyk, van Niekerk, van Staden, van Aswegen, vanne Merwe, van Dit, van WhatWhat, Aasvoel, Kleine Asenvogel, Marble Hol. Fluffy standing next to me murmured ‘Steve McQueen,’ but when his turn came he let out with a clear ‘Leon Crawley,’ so I said ‘Steve McQueen’ out loud. Without a blink the naming continued before I could say ‘Uh, just kidding,’ so I became ‘Ou Steve‘ for the duration.
– Augrabies Falls – by Leon Fluffy Crawley –
Our first stop was Kimberley, where we camped in the caravan park and had some fun; then on to the Augrabies Falls on the Gariep (Orange) River, stopping at the roaring dunes near Hotazel in the Kalahari en-route. On from there to the borderpost at Onseepkans.
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When we entered South West Africa we headed straight for a pub. The first pub we found. Us fourteen to sixteen year-olds. That’s cos we knew something.
We went to the Fish River Canyon. Like all canyons, it is billed as the biggest, longest, deepest, whatever, in the (insert your province, your country, or ‘world’ here). We stood on the rim and gazed down. Then Harry Loots and I couldn’t stand it; so – against orders – we zipped down the pathway, slipping and sliding down as fast as we could on the loose surface. Before we got to the bottom we decided we’d get into big kak if we took too long, so we reluctantly stopped and returned to the top, a lot more slowly.
– Steve Reed’s pic from 1993 when he did the full hike –
We camped next to the Vingerklip, or Mukorob, or Finger of God, near Karasburg, a sandstone rock formation in the Namib desert, while it still stood. It fell down nineteen years later on 8 December 1988, so that was obviously not our fault, nê. About 30m high from the vlaktes at the base, the little neck it balanced on was only about 3m by 1,5m, making it rather precarious.
– vingerklip as we left it – promise ! –
Later we camped near Windhoek where Dad had arranged that I got fetched by some of his relatives I had never met, to overnight at their home. Third or fourth cousins, I suppose. In the car on the way to their home they had lots of questions, but before I had finished my second sentence the younger son blurted out “Jis! Jy kan hoor jy’s ’n rooinek!” (Boy, You can hear you’re English-speaking!) and my bubble burst. All of my short life I had laboured under the mistaken and vain impression that I was completely fluent in Afrikaans. Hey! No-one had told me otherwise.
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– a Welwitschia plant in the Namib desert – pic by photographer Crawley (Fluffy) with Polly’s Kodak camera –
On to the Brandberg, where a long walk would take you to some rock paintings. I chose not to make the walk. Pikkie did, and remembered: ‘the terrain was barren, hot as hell, and rock strewn. The rocks had a rich red-brown colour, and I thought it was amazing that the local indigenous people had painted a white lady, which according to legend was the Queen of Sheba, who they would probably never have seen! Some people wanted to pour water on the paintings but I think Braam stopped them and of course today I realise that he was a hundred per cent right in not letting us do it. If we all poured water on it it would have been washed away by now!’
– new Okakuejo gate –
We got to Etosha National Park after dark so the Okakuejo gate was closed. We didn’t pitch our tents that night to save time, simply bedding down outside ready to drive in first thing the next morning. On spotting us the next morning the game ranger said ‘Net hier het ‘n leeu eergistraand ‘n bok neergetrek.‘
– Namutoni camp, as we saw it! Fluffy’s pic again –
On our way back, we passed Lake Otjikoto, the ‘bottomless lake’:
– cichlid fish, Tilapia guinasana –– that’s us at the ‘bottomless’ lake – Fluffy the photographer – with his Ma Polly’s Kodak –
The Hoba meteorite next. Weighing about 60 tons, made of iron and nickel, it is still the largest single intact iron meteorite known, and also the most massive naturally-occurring piece of ferronickel known on Earth’s surface. Don’t worry, it’s estimated to have fallen 80 000 years ago.
– this pic from July 1967 –– 1969 – Fluffy’s authentic Kodak pic of the meteorite –
On the way out of SWA we reached the South East corner of the country, heading for the border with the Kalahari Gemsbok Park, when we spotted something tangled up in the roadside fences. Turned out to be a few springbok, some dead, some still alive but badly injured. As we spotted them one of the farm boys yelled out, ‘Ek debs die balsak!‘ He cut off the scrotum, pulled it over the base of a glass cooldrink bottle. What? we asked. Once it dried he would break the glass and he’d have an ashtray, he explained. Oh.
The alive ones were dispatched and all were taken to the nearby farmer who gave us one for our trouble. It seems some hunters are indiscriminate and less than accurate and the buck panic before the onslaught and run into the fences.
– looking at them I would never have guessed they had potential ashtrays a-hanging ! –
That night we made a huge bonfire on the dry bed of the Nossob river or one of its tributaries and braai’d the springbok meat. It was freezing in July so we placed our sleeping bags around the fire and moved closer to the bed of coals all night long. Every time we woke we inched closer.
A wonderful star-filled night sky above us.
~~oo0oo~~
edit: Updated since Fluffy found his 1969 pictures of SWA. Taken with Ma Polly’s Kodak camera. So now our story has real pics, not just internet pics. – Harry says: Even reading it a second time brings back great memories! Fluffy asks: Can you guys remember the freshly baked brown bread we bought from a plaas winkel… Twee Rivieren… On our way back… Pretty expensive if I remember well – 17 cents . .
That was an unforgettable fifteen days! We’re so lucky to have enjoyed such an adventure. We still talk about it. For many years after – fifty-plus years – I kept the oxwagon axle hub I had found in the veld and written everyone’s name on.
*put pic of hub here*
Pikkie tried to get us to go again in 2019 – fifty years later! Inertia, work, family and all the usual shit put paid to that great idea. No longer could we just say, “Ag pleez Daddy!” and go without a backward glance, as we did in 1969! Adulthood sucks.
~~oo0oo~~
seunstoer – boys tour;
Wagter – Rover in England; Fido in America;
nê – y’understand? capiche?
“Jis! Jy kan hoor jy’s ’n rooinek!” – Your Afrikaans Are Atrocious; or Boy, You can hear you’re English-speaking!
Ek debs die balsak! – ‘Dibs on the ballbag!’ or ‘I lay claim to the antelope scrotum’;
Net hier het ‘n leeu eergistraand ‘n bok neergetrek – Right here where you’re camping a lion killed an antelope the night before last; ‘Be Nervous’ was the message;
– another view of Otjikoto ‘bottomless’ Lake – about 100m deep vertically, but then leading off horizontally into caves beyond that – Fluffy pic– a hillock covered with rocks – who are walking on boulders – near Augrabies Falls – authentic Fluffy pic
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The 2021 surprise from Sheila: A postcard I wrote on 7 July 1969 while on tour:
Can’t say I remember ‘Sorris Sorris.’ I see it’s just north of the Brandberg, so maybe we camped there?
Fine, thank you. I’m tucked up in bed already, waiting for the sister to bring my pain muti and eyedrops. They put a drop in my left eye and five minutes later another drop. Same eye. Only my left eye.
It’s 6pm. Early to bed, my Ma in frail care.
Do you sleep well?
Like a log. I’m warm and comfortable. And Kosie! I’ve been having the most wonderful dreams lately. Nice, happy dreams. I wake up smiling.
That’s so nice! Can you remember what they’re about, or are they too racy to repeat in polite company?
Laughs!!
No, they’re about the farm. The wonderful farm, the beautiful view, the walks with my Dad. It’s all underwater now, of course.
The farm Nuwejaarsvlei on the Nuwejaarspruit. Now submerged beneath the waters of Sterkfontein Dam. About ’15 miles’ from Harrismith towards Oliviershoek Pass and ‘on the Witsieshoek road.’
I was eight years old when we left the farm.
That was 1936.
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muti – medicine;
Kosie – my nickname; Ma pronounces it the Afrikaans way, Kuwa-see; unlike Annie and her friends who all called me Koosie, rhyming with pussy or wussy; True fact; Accounts for a lot?
Nuwejaarsvlei – New Year Marsh or wetland
Nuwejaarspruit – New Year creek or stream
Sterkfontein – strong fountain
Oliviershoek – the place of the Oliviers, a surname
Witsieshoek – the place of the Basotho chief Witsie who lived there from 1839 to 1856.
The pic shows Mom floating on the water above her old farm in 1990. Its somewhere in the background in this pic:
We good people of the Harrismith Methodist Church would never have taken Mrs Brunsdon to court for her singing! Sure, her singing was awful, but church would have been duller and there would have been less giggling and less to skinder about without her. She would bellow off-key and at her own pace, sniffing loudly from time to time, dabbing with a well-used hankie, and gazing all round the church mid-hymn; sometimes through her glasses, sometimes over her glasses; sometimes turning right round to see who was behind her. The sniffs would put her behind, so soon she’d be a few words and then a few lines behind but no way she would play catch-up. She got her money’s worth, singing every single word. In fact, our Mom Mary Methodist, the organist, would wait for her, as would we all.
Not so the Methodists in Lumberton, North Carolina USA. They were considerably displeased when William Linkhaw sang hymns very loudly and very poorly. Deviating from the correct notes, he continued singing well after the congregation reached the end of each verse. On one occasion, the pastor simply read the hymn aloud, refusing to sing it because of the disruption that would inevitably occur. The presiding elder refused to preach in the church at all. Upon the entreaties of a prominent church member, Linkhaw once stayed quiet after a particularly solemn sermon. But he steadfastly rejected the repeated pleas of his fellow congregants to remain silent altogether, responding that “he would worship his God, and that as a part of his worship it was his duty to sing.”
In their defence it must be noted that some of the better congregants of Lumberton Methodist – like us in Harrismith – found Linkhaw’s singing hilarious, but the bitter lot won out and decided to show him! They had the law hand down a misdemeanor indictment against Linkhaw, charging that he had disturbed the congregation. Obviously the LumberMeths had never heard Jesus’ clear instructions in his sermon that we ‘Turn The Other Tympanum.’ Or if they had, they were ignoring Him! No wonder Ghandi reputedly said, ‘I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.’ And if Ghandi didn’t say that, he should have, as ‘good Christians’ were mismanaging both his countries at the time: India and South Africa.
The Lumberton Methodist case went to trial in August 1872. Several witnesses, including the church’s pastor, testified that Linkhaw’s singing disturbed the church service. One witness, being asked to describe the way in which Linkhaw sang, gave an imitation of it, singing a hymn in Linkhaw’s style. He provoked what the court described as “a burst of prolonged and irresistible laughter, convulsing alike the spectators, the Bar, the jury and the Court.” Witness testimony also showed, however, that Linkhaw was a devout and spiritual man, and the prosecution admitted that he was not deliberately attempting to disrupt worship. Linkhaw asked the court to instruct the jury that it could not find him guilty unless it found intent to disturb the service. He was right, but the judge rejected his request, ruling instead that the jury only needed to determine whether Linkhaw’s singing actually disrupted the service. The jury found Linkhaw guilty, and the judge fined him one penny.
Well!
William was not gonna take this lying down. He appealed the judgment to the North Carolina Supreme Court; the case was heard in 1873 and the court unanimously set aside the verdict. It accepted the jury’s ruling that Linkhaw had indeed caused a substantial disturbance. It also agreed that intent can generally be presumed when the defendant could have anticipated his actions. However, the court observed that the prosecution had expressly admitted that Linkhaw had no malicious intent. The justices therefore held that the presumption, being contradicted by uncontested evidence, did not apply. The court issued a writ of venire de novo, nullifying the jury’s verdict. Linkhaw was free to bellow afresh.
Well!
We of the Harrismith Methodist Church liked our Mrs Brunsdon, and we did not take her to court. We instead thought like the 1873 Supreme Court that since she was attempting in good faith to worship, and she had a good heart, and she made great marmalade, she could not be subjected to criminal penalties. And we also thought thus:
Although the proof sure did show / Ms Brunsdon's voice was awful / Us judges found no valid ground / For holding it unlawful /
and
While LumberMeths grumbled / And acted all nefarious / Us Harrismithstians benevolently / Thought it all hilarious /
and
If all things bright and beautiful / The Lord God made them all / Then sniffs and squawks discordant / Are welcome in the hall /
and
Old Brunsdon raised the rafters / Some congregants did cringe / But she was screeching to her Lord / So we laughed, we did not whinge /
I’ll stop now.
OK, one more:
Some thought that they could bellow/ In holy tones so fine / But'oo's to know what the Mighty One/ Regards as a voice divine? /
I mean, how do we know the Good Lord likes it when he hears the famous Three Fat Blokes Shouting (some call them The Three Tenors)? And I bet He gets tired of hearing Jingled Bowels after a few weeks of it, starting in October every year, ffs!
The first poem paraphrased and Harrismith’d from The Green Bag – self-described as “A Useless, but Entertaining Magazine For Lawyers.” Second and other limericks sommer made up as a tribute to Dorothy Brunsdon, good soul.
I notice I put an olden-day post about a fascinating old rooinek Swanepoel in my Bewilderbeast Droppings blog. It actually belongs here, so here it is.
Swanepoel, David Abraham (1912–1990). Swanepoel began collecting in 1925. Pennington’s Butterflies of southern Africa (Pringle et al. 1994) describes Swanepoel as follows: ‘Probably no other person has spent as much time and effort in the pursuit of butterflies in the field as this great collector, who had the tremendous gift of being able to excite others about butterflies. His immaculate collection is in the Transvaal Museum. He discovered many new species and subspecies and published many descriptions of new taxa.’
His list of publications includes the book Butterflies of South Africa: where, when and how they fly, published in 1953 in Holland at his own cost. At the time, it was the most valuable reference guide to South African butterflies, citing his many collection localities across the length and breadth of South Africa. He collaborated closely with both Georges van Son and Ken Pennington. Popular names for many of South Africa’s butterflies were proposed by him. (SANBI Biodiversity Series 16 (2010)6 ).
Swanepoel ended his book with these words: ‘In laying down my pen at the end of what has been to me a pleasurable task, I take occasion to dedicate this book to all naturalists and friends, without whose kindness and ungrudging aid it must inevitable have left much to be desired; and to those naturalists who may one day wander over the numerous paths that have afforded me so many happy, unforgettable hours – these would hardly have been possible without the grace of the Creator of all the beautiful forms described in this book. As mentioned in the introduction, this work is by no means complete, and if one day it is revised by some future observer, may he fulfil my dearest wish by building a great entomological castle upon this small foundation stone.’ (Epilogue of D.A. Swanepoel’s book, page 316).
Read more about David A Swanepoel and other pioneering flutterby enthusiasts here. And read some of what he wrote here.
Here are three of the butterflies named after him:
– l – r: Swanepoel’s Blue – Swanepoel’s Opal – Swanepoel’s Widow –
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steve reed wrote: When we lived in Clarens we had an annual visitation by what must have been the self-same Swanepoel. Khaki clad solitary figure, fleet-footing round the village with his net like something out of Peter Pan. Regarded by the locals with great interest (and a good level of suspicion) . . .
Ina Prinsloo came into the bottle store one day many years ago to get stuff for a party. Said Ina, “Don’t tell Egbert. I’m arranging a surprise party for him.”
She bought plenty of grog.
Later Egbert came in. Tongue-in-cheek he said: “I don’t like this Harrismith tradition on your birthday. People fall all over you, make a fuss of you, and you have to buy them food and drink!”
He also bought plenty of grog.
Dear old honest Mom was torn as she accepted the second Prinsloo grog payment of the day: I didn’t know what to say . .
~~oo0oo~~
I didn’t know this: Mom met Ina when she first started nursing at the Boksburg-Benoni hospital – her very first hospital. Egbert was a houseman there and that’s where he and Ina met. Years later Egbert joined a general practice in Harrismith. They stayed and raised their kids Adri, Yalta and Willem, and became a big, active and well loved part of the town.
While suffering terribly (NOT) during Basic Training in the weermag in a remote outpost outside Potchefstroom (which is itself remote) called Loopsruit, I had a brief respite from the relentless um, tedium, to pen a hurried note to sister Sheila and friend Joey K Nott. They were being paid to drink beer and lead schoolchildren astray in the gin-soaked hills of Empangeni. So briefly, you see, I was a war correspondent.
The lasses had kindly sent me a letter and a parcel and how welcome that was, if you’ve ever sat through a whole posparade where every Tom, Dick and Jannie gets a letter and you sit there like kippie and get fokol, then you know the humiliation of the latter and the unbridled joy of the former. Looking down your nose at the poor poeses whose Ma’s haven’t written to them that week cos they’re working, and anyway there’s no news in their little tuisdorp, and secretly, they don’t actually have a girlfriend even though they’re always talking about a girlfriend, gives one a great sense of superiority and one needs superiority when the whole point of Basic Training is inferiority. Y’unnerstand?
My parcel contained – as I wrote in appreciation – “grub, Scopes, sweets, Time magazines, etc.” Ha! ‘Scopes’ were poesboekies in the days of nipple-censorship. In 1979 gentlemen were expected to go through a marriage ceremony before legitimately seeing their first nipple. Black stars covered the area where a nipple might hide, and if you scratched the black ink off, it just left a hole in the page.
My main news was normal army shit: We’d had 2,5hrs of punishment drill cos we missed a 4.45am deadline to go on a route march. Turned out – this is NOT unusual – the punishment drill for missing the route march was way milder than the actual route march. We were relaxed after 2,5hrs punishment, whereas the ous were fucked after the 5hr route march experience. Don’t look for logic.
According to my letter the only two ‘hard’ days we’d had were a Monday and a Tuesday on which we did ‘leopard crawl’ and ‘rolling down a hill’ in full kit and helmets and ‘carrying our pea-shooters.’ The toughness was relieved by the hilarity of ‘watching the others’ – ‘you just saw helmets, arms, rucksacks, feet and rifles flying.’
And weekend passes had been cancelled, so I would miss Des’ wedding.
‘Lotsa love, Koos’
~~oo0oo~~
image found somewhere on the internets years ago
weermag – weather might; defence force; army
posparade – ceremony of the handing out of the postal delivery
like kippie and get fokol – like a fool and no post for you
Vrystaat Confessions 