Tag Archives: Devonshire Hotel

Doories Daze

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On 2018/12/18 Stephen Reed wrote: Had a late afternoon chat with Kevin ‘Stanrey Kraarke’ this afternoon . .

( that would be a phone call across the Tasman Sea )

I replied: Ah, good to hear the ancient old bullet is still alive!!

Hoezit Kev!!? ( I have cc’d him here – Kevin Stanley-Clarke, pharmacist and our older boet in res, back in the day).

I can’t think of Doories without thinking of you, the green TAV 5556 Datsun from the metropolis of Grootfontein, the chocolate Alfa Romeo; and old Krazalski, Wartski, What-ski? – those are wrong – what ‘ski was he, your boss?

– Doories student cars – and Ponte; Check out our salubrious quarters –

I can still see the meticulous care with which you changed the crunchy, notchety gears in the Alfa, and remember how you taught me if you open the window you must also wind down the rear window three inches, then the breeze won’t muss your blow-dried hair.

Often when driving I remember your sage advice: WATCH OUT for old toppies wearing hats! Mostly nowadays I see the old toppie wearing a hat in my own rear-view mirror! Gives me a bit of a start every time: Who’s that fuckin old fart? Oh, OK – only me . . . . As for Forever Young! I think we still are! Well, I think we should keep imagining that!

Oh, and we musn’t forget the outbreak of Dobie’s Itch in the Doories Res! Kev rushed back to work and got going amongst the pots and stills and fires and wooden ladles, pestles and mortars and other witchcraft paraphenalia he and Wartski used to keep in their secret Doories factory; he came back with a double-strength potion stronger than anything Dumbledore could have made, and CURED the dreaded ballache! He was our hero!

Stephen Reed wrote: By gosh, we had a few laughs.

Another one: Sunday morning, Kevin having a sleep in – eyes closed …

Are you sleeping Kevin?

Kevin: one eye slightly opens, ‘No No … Just coasting . . ‘

I wrote: Ha HA!! I’d forgotten these! Exactly right!!!

PS: We were so lucky Stanley-Clarke decided to stay in Res that extra year while he re-wrote ?pharmacology? I mean, he could have stayed with any one of a dozen beautiful chicks. They all wanted his moustache! And we would never have met him. It turned into a magic, unforgettable year, and he was no small part of that!

Stephen Reed wrote: Bullshit.

HE was lucky to have had US there.

Bloody boring time he would have had otherwise . . .

I wrote: Ja!! Too True My Bru!

And now here’s the man himself:

Kevin Stanley-Clarke wrote: Kia Ora both of you; What a wonderful surprise hearing from the DOORIE BRO’s in particular the very Articulate Rhodes student Mr Koos Swanepoel himself, from Harrismith; and the attention-to-detail Mr Stevie Reed the boat builder raconteur himself from a little town in the free state that eludes me at this time!

This really made my day – thank you both for all the very happy memories and to think I could have missed that wonderful year if I had passed Pharmacology first go – and to think it was 45 years ago which has basically passed in a flash.

My boss in the very clandestine factory in Doories was Mr Pogeralski – so Pete, the grey matter is still intact;

As for that ointment which I prepared it was Whitefields ointment aka “Ung acid benz co.” Had I given that to you today I would be in serious trouble with “Health and safety”, “Quality and risk”, “Public safety”, you name it! But it certainly works.

Yes, and how can we forget the times we all went to the Jeppe Street post office to use their services “pro bono” utilizing your unbelievable skills with ‘the long tickey” to gain access to their phone lines – Hello World.

Also will never forget the rugby test at Ellis Park “pro bono” an absolute blast – thank you both for the wonderful memories that always bring a smile to my face. Which was it? –

British & Irish Lions27 July 1974Ellis Park, Johannesburg13–13Draw
All Blacks18 September 1976 Ellis Park, Johannesburg15 – 14 South Africa

And Stevie, can you remember the movie we went to on a Saturday morning at the Cinerama we saw “Papillon” ??

I could go on forever – The Dev ? The Bend ? and many more. May leave that for another day.

Take care both of you and please keep in touch

Kakite Ano

Dee Student aka ‘Giscard . . . d’Estaing’ – Kevin Stanley-Clarke

~~~oo0oo~~~

Notes:

Ellis Park “pro bono” – Less than fully legal entry to the rugby stadium for a test match; ahem . .

The Jeppe Street post office and the Hillbrow “pro bono long tickey” – Less than entirely legal as well, say no more . . . ahem . . There were consequences! I got a phone call in the holidays in Harrismith from the GPO: Are Your Name Swanepoel? Did you phone a number in Oklahoma? I meekly coughed up for sundry long-distance international ‘trunk calls’!

Aside: While shaking a tin collecting money for our eye clinic charities outside the big old Jeppe Street Post Office one year, a pigeon shat on my shoulder. I took that as an omen from above and went and handed in my tin.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Raptures & Ruptures at ‘The Dev’

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Devonshire Hotel new

From: Pete (me)
Subject: The Hotel Devonshire – famous again
Sent: 23 May 2011

I see the “rapture” crazies chose the Dev to await the end of their world.
In some ways the Dev was the beginning of mine!

“Buite die Devonshire-hotel in Braamfontein, waar Suid-Afrikaanse aanhangers van die wegraping-kultus saamgetrek het om op die eindtyd te wag, het hulle vir oulaas mense op straat probeer oortuig om by hulle aan te sluit.” (Rapport newspaper)

– various guesses – before and since –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Brauer wrote: In some ways the beginning, yes. But in many ways fuckin’ close to the end. No doubt the reason why they chose it – for symbolic reasons . .

~~~oo0oo~~~

I wrote: Actually, – – and come to think of it . . .

How we survived some of those lightly-inebriated evenings in our um, almost roadworthy jalopies . . .

Maybe THAT’S the miracle they’re referring to!

I have a clear thutty-year-old mental picture of laughing at some oke hanging out of the left rear window of a car spray-painting it with chunder in Wolmarans Street. I’m in another car, witnessing the sight. (Our car probably full of sober okes on their way back from Shul. Probly a Friday).
Who and whose car is mentally blurry, though. Beige colour. Thin exhaust pipe.

Austin Apache, maybe?

~~~oo0oo~~~

Steve reed wrote: Ah that dapper little beige beauty. Memories of crossing Nugget Street on Wolmarans at high speed when Swain Pull has a flash of genius and yanks up the handbriek, Barely a murmur of “Oh Pete” from mesdames Fotherby and Forsdick on the back seat as we 360. Thank heavens in 1977 the ABS EBD BA and ESC all kicked in after the 5th beer. Only one airbag in the vehicle in those days however.

~~~oo0oo~~~
I wrote: I learnt that trick from Pierre du Plessis. He used to do it in his old lady’s little Ford Prefect. Difference, I suppose, was sober and in Harrismith’s quiet streets where we knew the cops by name.
And speaking of chundering: Pierre himself threw a mighty one outside Bergville after a wedding to which we had not been invited, but had partaken in. Thoroughly. Luckily it was his own Datsun 1200 bakkie in which he was a passenger.
Light green. The bakkie. The other was multi-colour yellowish.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Steve wrote: I do remember partaking in an engagement party to which we had not been invited at a little Drakenberg resort. Arrived just as the happy couple were having a post party nightcap with the family. The bloke’s fiance took quite a fancy to us rough boys [we fancied through our drunken haze] and one of us asked her to dance. The blokes family got into an angry huddle and declared the party over – stat. We were sadly abandoned and the generator was switched off leaving us sad creatures to polish off all their left-over booze in the dark. We seemed not to mind this too much.

~~~oo0oo~~~

I wrote: The wonderful Devonshire! Remember the pool of beer on the tables? Remember the Hotel School okes?! Disgraceful. Was it them who auctioned the chicks?

Hold on! Another sudden flashback picture: “Nugget” – short, wild hair and an Irish-looking beard. Poes-dronk through the beer-splatter in the Dev. Remember him? Got his name, it was said, when he rolled down Nugget Hill, blind as only the thoroughly drunk can be.

He had a huge mate Syd Someone (Oertel?), who did civil engineering between beers. I met both these characters through Pierre, who also did civils – inappropriate name if ever there was one – at Wits Tech, remember? Another bloke was called “Irish.”

One would have thought these brain cells would have been obliterated ages ago.

~~~oo0oo~~~
Steve reed wrote: To me the most worshipped oke in the Dev was the bloke from hotel school who could drink a quart of Castle standing on his head.

(Ah, such tertiary skills!)

~~~oo0oo~~~

“Buite die Devonshire-hotel. . . . ” – Outside the Dev a rapture cult of crazies gather to be swept up to heaven bang on the appointed hour. Nothing happened. Funnily enough, none of them had given their possessions to charity . . . they musta had faith like potatoes.

handbriek – handbrake