Tag Archives: Leon Crawley

South West Africa Tour

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Sheila sent me a surprise postcard. So I have re-posted this blogpost from 2015 about a magic 1969 tour, and attached the postcard at the end. Enjoy the Olden Daze!

~~~oo0oo~~~

The Kestell bus was like a half-loaf, but still the metropolis of Kestell – which we regarded as a densely-populated Afrikaans suburb of Harrismith – couldn’t roust enough boys to fill it, so we Harrismithians had been invited along. Johan Steyl announced in the hall one assembly that Kestell was inviting 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! (The new postcard tells me 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 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. Long rows running 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.

Aughrabies Falls
– 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. On from there to the borderpost at Onseepkans.

~~~oo0oo~~~

When we entered SWA we headed straight for a pub. The first pub we found. Us fourteen to sixteen year-olds. Read about that here.  

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 Pikkie Loots and I couldn’t stand it; so – against orders – we zipped down the pathway, slipping and sliding down as fast as we could. 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, slowly.

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– 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.

SWA_mukorobvingerklip-before-it-fell
– vingerklip as we left it – promise ! –

Later we camped near Windhoek where my Dad had arranged that I got fetched by some of his relatives I had never met. 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.

~~~oo0oo~~~

– a Welwitschia plant in the Namib desert – pic by photographer Crawley (Fluffy)
SWA_Brandberg

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.‘

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– Namutoni camp, as we saw it! Fluffy’s pic again –

On our way back, we passed Lake Otjikoto, the ‘bottomless lake’:

SWA_Otjikoto lake
SWA_Lake Otjikoto
– 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 meteorite known, and also the most massive naturally-occurring piece of ferronickel known on Earth’s surface. Estimated to have fallen 80 000 years ago, it was discovered around 1920.

SWA_Hoba meteorite
– this pic from July 1967, two years before we saw it –
– 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. When it had 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.

SWA_springbok
– 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. – Pikkie 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 truly an unforgettable fifteen days! We’re so lucky to have enjoyed such an adventure. We still talk about it. 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 – in England, Rover; in America, Fido

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 – oh, and boulders – near Augrabies Falls – authentic Fluffy pic

~~~~oo0oo~~~~

April 2021 and a surprise from Sheila: A postcard I wrote to them on 7 July 1969 while on tour:

Can’t say I remember ‘Sorris Sorris’ at all, but I see it’s just north of the Brandberg, so maybe we camped there?

~~~oo0oo~~~

Kleinspanskool

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This building used to be something else, I think – not sure – but in our time it was the junior primary school. Occupying a full block between Stuart and Warden Streets near the centre of the metropolis, our Sub A to Std 1 classes were here. Except if your Std 1, 2 and 3 was all together in one room with one teacher (‘die Engelse klas’). Then you went down to the next school in Std 1. So I had Sub A and Sub B in this old sandstone building. I entered age five and departed age seven. With a blue bicycle.

My greatest achievement in this time was probably winning a high-pissing contest in the sandstone boys room and having big mate Fanie Schoeman report the feat to Mrs Van Reenen. Miss! Miss! Peter pee’d on my head, he said. Brief fame, diplomatically handled. The urinal was open to the sky and we’d been trying to see who could leave his wet mark highest up on the sandstone wall above the trough. Wee on sandstone leaves a very satisfactory, undeniable mark which cannot be disputed, in contests like these. It lasts long enough for judges to judge and disputes to be resolved. Mine was highest. And some did go astray and hit Fanie, it’s true.

Here’s a view of our classroom taken from the boys toilets. In fact this photographer’s head is very near where Fanie’s head was back then. Chips!

– second door from right was our classroom – Far right was girls toilet –

Another clear memory of that class was admiring the beautifully accurate Noddy car Lincoln Michell made of yellow and red plasticine.

– Lincoln’s Noddy car looked just like this –

That sums up my first year of formal education. Luckily it didn’t cost a lot.

– this was there, but I don’t remember ever using it –

One of the joys of being in this kleinspanskool was it was a junior part of the bigger primary school down the road and quite regularly something would need to be schlepped down there. To be chosen to pull the wooden trailer or trolley, with its rubber wheels from one school to the other was a much sought-after diversion from classtime. You’d be FREE! FREE AT LAST! and wandering the shady tree-lined streets in school time on a Long Walk To Freedom! Bliss!

  • – streets like this –
– our trolley was like this ‘cept ours had proper, bigger, rubber tyres –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Behind that long building was a rugby field where Giel du Toit despaired of my ever learning one end of a rugby ball from the other – or one end of the rugby field, for that matter. His coaching methods consisted of patting me on the head and muttering ‘There, there; Moenie worrie nie!’ Everyone was very kind to me in my young days. Occasionally onse Giel (Joyce Joubert called him Heilige Giel) would get a faraway look in his eyes and talk about walking behind the ploughshare and picking up a clod of freshly-turned earth, smelling it and saying something about nothing in the world could ever smell better. The dorpsjapie in me thought ‘huh?’ Years later I speculate he was angling to marry a farmer’s daughter and was practicing his pitch to Pa. He actually did just that, I learned.

I played for the under-eleven B team, and the only reason for that was there was no C team. Although we were now down the road at the bigger school, rugby practice was at the old kleinspan school, as the bigger school didn’t have a field.

The end of the season arrived – near the end of winter – and the last game loomed. The traditional big derby day against the Olde Enemy, Vrede, played home and away each year. This year the final game was away, in that far-off dusty city of sin and ribaldry. OK, dusty dorp. Now famous for not having a dairy, back then it was famous for losing at a range of sports to Harrismith. Though, every now and then they’d spring a surprise and beat us.

For some unfathomable reason, Giel decided I would captain the under-eleven B’s on that auspicious occasion. It was 1966, so maybe England winning the soccer world cup got him thinking, ‘Miracles Can Happen?’ Anyway, as the lowest of the most junior teams, we would be playing the first game early in the cold Vrede winter morning, long before most spectators arrived, only dedicated Ma’s and Pa’s on the rickety stand. Our job was to break through the frost on the dead grass on the rock-hard ground for the more important games to follow. With our bare feet.

Which is how I came to have the leather odd-shaped ball in my hand that morning. This was a novel experience. Usually I was only vaguely aware that there WAS even a ball involved in this mysterious game that onse Giel was despairing that I’d ever get the hang of.

My orange-clad barefoot underlings, now fully under my command, dutifully formed a line behind me as I ran onto the field and skopped the leather ball to start the game. I remember only four things about that game, but they are indelibly etched in my newly rugby-focused tactical brain:

1. We were awarded a penalty quite late in the game with the score still on 0 – 0;

2. I made a show of going down on my haunches, and staring at the posts, then tapped the ball and hared straight for the line and dotted the ball down. TRY!!

3. The ref awarded the try. We were 3 – 0 up!

4. There was a muttering from the tiny partisan home crowd of early-morning Ma’s and Pa’s, and the ref seemed agitated. At the next lineout I asked him ‘That was a try, nê?’ and he growled ‘Play on!’ So we won the game, I think.

The next year – or the year after? 1967 – I was suddenly a rugby player and in the A team. I’d like to say it was because of this revelation, revival, awakening and discovery of deep latent talent, plus a realisation of my brilliance thanks to Giel’s inspired and kind gesture, but it was mainly cos my balls dropped, and I shot up four inches and became the tallest oke among the under-thirteens! Size counts in a shoving and huffing and puffing game. When guys have to look up to you they often give way to you.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Kleinspanskool – small persons school; junior primary school

‘die Engelse klas’ – the English patient

‘Moenie worrie nie! ‘ – Dinnae Fash Yersel’; Don’ Wurry

dorpsjapie – townie; urban chap; not rural; the finer points of ploughing escape him

dorp – village; hamlet; one-horse town

skopped – kicked with pinpoint accuracy

Wonderful stuff, booze

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Booze opened wonderful opportunities for us as kids in the olden days. Firstly, it paid the bills, as Mom and Dad ran the Platberg bottle store for profit. Socially it was a big help too – as our hawk-eyed parents and their crowd became bleary-eyed and witty and hilarious, so their surveillance levels dropped and we could get on with doing more interesting things than we could when they were sober.

So it was at the MOTH picnic one year on the far bank of the mighty Vulgar river down in the President Brand park where, after a lekker braai and quite a few pots the folks were suitably shickered and plans could go afoot.

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The older boys formed a syndicate which consisted of them hiding and the younger boys being sent in to do the dangerous stuff. See if you can get us some beer from the pub, was the thinking. So (some of or all of) Pierre, Fluffy, Tuffy and I approached the MOTH barman and WW2 ex-serviceman Ray Taylor – as always alone at the bar, teetotal. The other old WW2 servicemen and their wives a little way off making a lot of noise. Uncle Ray, quiet as ever, was easily distracted by my accomplices and as he was being his kind and obliging self to them, I slid a full case of dumpy beers off the makeshift bar counter and turned round, hugging it vertically straight in front of me against my chest. I walked straight away with my back to Uncle Ray into the darkness of the poplar and oak trees towards the river. I had become a thief. Recruited into a crime.

Under the suspension bridge the receivers of stolen goods waited. Etienne Joubert, a Brockett and a Putterill, I seem to recall. They took the loot and told us to move along then. We were too young to be allowed to partake; we were simply a small part of the supply chain!

~~oo0oo~~

Etienne remembers: “I remember this incident well. We drank them on the river bank upstream. We had female company as well, but best we do not dwell on that subject. There was also unhappiness about the brand that was procured . . . Bloody cheek! We put our reputations at risk for those teenage beer drinkers!

Dear old Uncle Ray with his Alsatians (Etienne continues) . . Twice I went on walks with him up our beloved Platberg! He was an interesting man, who behind a façade of dullness was very wise!!

Stories like this bring back a thousand other memories……!! Cheers vir eers, Et

~~oo0oo~~

Another memory of The Far Side – of the river: Roaring around the dirt roads between those big trees in Dr Dick Venning’s light blue Triumph and in his Land Rover, Tim Venning at the helm. Hell for leather, running commentary all the way, huge grin on his face, sliding sideways around the tight corners.

~~oo0oo~~

Uncle Ray was attacked by baboons on one of his Platberg walks. Not sure if his dog/s were with him, but he said he fought off the babs with his walking stick. We were told he had suffered “shell shock” in the war.

~~oo0oo~~

River Trip Swinburne – Harrismith

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Fluffy Crawley and I were dropped off in Swinburne on the banks of the Mighty Vulgar in the grounds of the Montrose Motel with our open red and blue fibreglass canoe by my Old Man. We were aiming to head off downstream, camp overnight and finish in Harrismith the next day. This was circa 1970.

But we bumped into the inimitable Ian Grant who persuaded us to spend the night at Montrose. His folks Jock & Brenda owned Montrose. They agreed to let us sleep in one of the rondawels.

Swinburne, Montrose Motel
– what was left of the motel in 2012 –

As evening fell Ian was up to mischief as always, and soon after dark one of the petrol attendants snuck up and slipped us a litre bottle of brandy. Ian organised a litre bottle of cream soda and we were set for nonsense. After a couple of quick shots I suggested we hang around and let the alcohol take effect and let the laughing begin, but as I was in the bathroom taking a leak I overheard Ian mutter “Fuck him, I’m drinking the lot!” so I  came out and said “Pour!”

Well, Ian was first and I stuck a bucket under his chin as his technicolor yawn started. Just then I heard HURGH! from Fluffy so I grabbed the little wastepaper bin from the bathroom and stuck it under his chin. It was a lumpy laughter duet.

Early the next morning I woke Fluffy and said “Come!” and we carried the red-decked boat to the river and launched it onto the muddy waters. Well, actually “launched” it because it touched bottom.

Swinburne-bridge-1
– we launched – and ran aground – under the old sandstone toll road bridge –
– built in 1884, it was the second bridge to cross the Wilge –

Here’s the boat in picture, with younger sis Sheila paddling it. It was an awkward beast to carry, especially loaded. If you tipped it slightly things would come tumbling out and swearwords would also tumble out.

The river was so low we didn’t even get our shoelaces wet! A long spell of carrying the boat on our shoulders, stopping for a hurl, carrying a while till another stop for a chunder ensued till we found deeper water and a settled stomach and could paddle home.

Fluffy remembers: “The river was terribly low and we did a lot of foot work crossing or by-passing the rapids. We made it in one day, no overnight stop. Your Dad picked us up in town under the old ysterbrug.“

Harrismith-Hamilton-bridge
– we finished under the old ysterbrug – the Hamilton bridge in Harrismith – this looking upstream –

~~oo0oo~~

Dave Walker tells of a Tugela trip or race with Clive Curson when they broke and had to carry their boat for miles. They christened their trip Walkin’ an Cursin’.

Mine with Fluffy Crawley would then be Walkin’ an Crawlin’.

~~~oo0oo~~~

The picture of the very fibreglass craft we paddled had been kept all these years by sister Sheila, keeper of the archives. Red deck, powder blue hull, huge single cockpit, wooden slats on the floor.

– the Fluffy-Koos Swinburne Expedition craft –

~~oo0oo~~

Rugby Free State u/13 Champs

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It was quite a year. I had shot up, my balls had dropped, and I became the tallest blonde in the team. Coenie Meyer was the only other one, but he was a stocky centre and I was a lanky lock in the serious half of the team, the half that did the hard work and won the ball – only for the frivolous half to donate it to the opposition, starting the whole process all over again! Us bum-sniffers suffered while the pretty-boy backs got all the glory. Before this hormonal reshuffling, rugby had not been I.

But truth be told, our real strength lay in an outstanding flyhalf called De Wet Ras; and in great teamwork, determined tackling and a fierce desire to do well by ‘Sir’ – as we called Bruce Humphries, our tennis-playing coach.

We were coached by a bespectacled tennis champ called Bruce who inspired us to give our all. His sidekick Ben backed him up and supported us – a kind soul was Ben Marais. We beat all-comers and moved on to play against bigger teams. We drew one game against Bethlehem Voortrekker 0-0, our ‘winning’ De Wet Ras drop kick sailing high directly above the right upright, so the ref did not award it. We beat them 8-3 in a re-match.

We were the Harrismith under thirteen team of 1967, playing in bright orange, looking for all the world like mangoes complete with little green leaves on top and some black spots below!

HarrismithU13Rugby cropped_2.jpg

At the end of the season we were unbeaten and happy.

But then we read in the newspaper, the Engelse koerant, The Friend of Bloemfontein:

Free State u/13 Champs: 140 points for and 0 against!

And they weren’t talking about us – it was an u/13 team from Virginia. We thought: Free State Champs? Like Hell! We also thought: Where the hell is Virginia? That doesn’t sound like an egte Free State dorp.

Bruce Humphries phoned them and challenged them to come and play us. ‘No, we’re Free State Champs,’ they said, ‘Can’t you read? You’ll have to come to us!’

Off we went to Virginia in Bruce’s new 1966 white Ford Cortina and Giel du Toit’s tweede-hands black Mercedes 190 – about 1959, and Ben Marais’ blue VW Beetle, undetermined vintage.

Cars Harrismith_2

There we watched their second team play Saaiplaas, a little mining village team with an egte Free State dorp name. We cheered Saaiplaas on and exhorted them to victory! I can still hear our hooker Skottie Meyer shouting mockingly – he was full of nonsense like that, onse Skottie – “Thlaaiplaath!! Thlaiplaath!!” They beat the Virginia seconds 3-0, handing them their first defeat of the season.

Our turn next, and the Saaiplaas boys did their best to be heard above the din of the enthusiastic local Virginia supporters. It was a tight match but we had the edge, our left wing Krugertjie being stopped inches from the left corner flag and our right wing Krugertjie pulled down inches from the right corner flag. Yep, identical twins, find them in the pic. The difference at the final whistle was a De Wet Ras drop goal from near the halfway line. 3-0 to us to complete a bad day for ex-Free State Champs Virginia. Which they pronounced Fuh-Jean-Yah.

What’s Next?
Now Bruce Humphries had the Free State’s biggest fish in his sights: Grey College Bloemfontein. No, they didn’t really think they’d want to play us, thank you; and anyway they were off on a tour to Natal that week, thank  you. ‘Well’, said Bruce ‘You can’t get back from Natal without passing through Harrismith, and you wouldn’t really sneak past us with your tails between your legs, would you?’

So the game was on! That day the pawiljoen at the park was packed with our enthusiastic supporters and cars ringed the field. Our followers’ numbers had grown as the season progressed and excitement at our unbeaten tag increased. No Grey College team had ever played in this little outpost of the British Empire (yes, we were that, once!) before.

Another tough game ensued, but a try just left of the posts by the tallest blonde in our team was the difference: We beat them 8-3, all the other points being scored by our points machine and tactical general De Wet! Die Dapper Generaal De Wet!

What a year!

see: Not that Generaal De Wet.

Beating the Rest
When it came to selecting an Eastern Free State team, the other schools introduced a twist: Not only did you have to be under thirteen, you also had to be in primary school! This excluded a few of our boys, who were in Std 6 (Grade 8). Only four of our team were chosen. So we challenged them to a game. Bruce told them it would do them good to have a warm-up game against the rest of us before they went to the capital of the province, Bloemfontein, to play in a tournament. Having been chosen as reserve, I was lucky: I could still play for ‘us’! Plus we ‘innocently’ added Gabba Coetzee to boost our depleted team – with their knowledge and permission. He was in Std 6 and just too old to actually be under thirteen. He was a legendary machine of an eighth man! An Iron Man, actually. His matric 1972 shot put record stands to this day, nearly fifty years later.

Ho Hum! Depleted Harrismith 17 – Oos Vrystaat 0

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On the LEFT: Bruce Humphries (coach); On the RIGHT: Ben Marais (assistant coach)

All smaller heads Left to Right: Dana Moore, Attie Labuschagne, Leon Fluffy Crawley, De Wet Ras, Redge Jelliman, Skottie Meyer, Hendrik Conradie, Hansie Jooste, Irené Tuffy Joubert, Coenie Meyer, Peter Koos Swanepoel, Kruger, Kobus Odendaal, Kruger, Max Wessels

– I wonder what that trophy is that De Wet is holding? I cannot remember what that trophy might have been for.  ‘Handsome Vrystaters Floating-on-Air’ Trophy maybe?

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We got word that Bruce Humphries passed away in about 2011. 
Go Well Sir!  We'll never forget that 1967 rugby season. We soared high and grew our self-esteem that year. Thank you!

~~~oo0oo~~~

Prohibition lifted, re-instated

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The rumour on the Kestell bus was that in South West Africa the laws pertaining to grog did not actually, y’know, pertain. Specifically, the drinking age laws. You could order a beer in a pub in South West Africa even if you were only fourteen or fifteen, as we were. In fact, so the rumour went, it wasn’t a rumour, it was a fact.

It was 1969 and we were on tour in the little Kestell bus. Kestell had launched a seuns toer and then discovered they didn’t actually have enough seuns in Kestel to toer. So they extended the invite to Harrismith se Hoer School’s seuns: Who wants to join us on an adventure? R25 for 15 days! Pierre, Pikkie, Tuffy, Fluffy and I jumped at the chance, our folks said yes, and we were off on a historic adventure which included a World-First in Kimberley on the way: The world’s first streak, Pierre and Tuffy giving their thighs a slapping as they raced kaalgat from the showers to our campsite in Kimberley’s Big Hole (or their caravan park anyway). Some historians think streaking started in California in 1973. Well, they weren’t in Kimberley in 1969, were they?

We crossed into Nirvana at the Onseepkans border post armed with our newfound legal knowledge and confidently entered the first licenced premise we found: A fine Hotel on the main street of the small metropolis of Karasburg. It was hot, the beer was cold and we were cool. We sat in the lounge and supped as though we had done this for YEARS.

We decided to order a refill while that friendly man who hadn’t batted an eyelid when we ordered our first round was still around. His relaxed response had confirmed the now well-known fact that South West Africa was a bastion of good sense and sound liberal values. I got up to press the buzzer which would bring him back.

Unfortunately, the buzzer stuck and it buzzed too long, which must have annoyed the owner or manager, as he came stomping into the lounge to see vuddafokgaanhieraan.

He looked at our short stature, our short pants and our tall beers in astonishment and demanded Wie is julle? and Waar’s julle onderwyser? and other seemingly pointless questions which were disrupting the peaceful liberal ambience. He dispatched me to go and fetch our onderwyser forthwith and instructed the others to sit, stay.

But as he turned his back the rest of our gang disappeared after me, taking their beers with them. And like the good mates they were, they brought mine along too!

Early next morning we hightailed it out of the metropolis of Karasburg and headed for the nearby Finger of God. Was it going to wag at us sternly for our little alcoholic misdemeanour?

~~~oo0oo~~~

seuns – boys

toer – tour

kaalgat – no clothing; ‘as the day they were born’

vuddafokgaanhieraan – What’s up, gentlemen?

Wie is julle? and Waar’s julle onderwyser? – Time, gentlemen, please!

onderwyser – teacher