Vrystaat Confessions

Tag: Peter Koos Swanepoel

Blast from the Past II

FINALLY clearing out some more boxes from the garage. It’s nine years since Trish died, fifteen years since we moved here, and some of the boxes haven’t been opened since even before that.

And I was to find out some haven’t even been opened since LONG before that! Like this one:

This was a bachelor box! That typed letter was the school newsletter – no, the school newspaper! – from 1971. A previous school newspaper ‘Die Kanêrie’ had existed. In our time it was edited by Francois Rope Marais. It died, like all good canaries should. In matric Jean Roux, Fluffy Crawley and I – and a few others – decided to revive it, but we wanted a new name. We were in a big Beatles phase, so its new name was Let It Be.

Racy scandal, very much tongue-in-cheek, we were determined to be irreverent. “Jou Mielie!” was a popular insult, so the mielie cob was our emblem, the paper was a member of the ‘mielie groep,’ and although this issue of 19 February 1971 was the first and probably the only issue, we made sure to put “Established 1971” in the banner to give it an air of gravitas. You never knew, maybe it would start a publishing empire? ala Rupert the evil Aussie, or Lord BeaverBroek? I mean, it would have been celebrating the 50th year of its existence next year had it gone on a few issues. So there’s that. And it wasn’t free. This was no freesheet, you had to buy it. Let It Be serious.

– You heard it here first: the Troggs were not going to appear in Swinburne!! –

Memories of the ‘roneo machine’ – you typed on blue wax paper, then you drew your pictures or wrote your headings in freehand with a metal stylus; then you carefully put your precious waxpaper koerant into the roneo machine. The ink ran into all depressions in the wax – hammered by the typewriters and tikmasjiene in Ou Rot se klas, or scratched by hand. We used typewriters for the Engelse stories and tikmasjiene for the Afrikaans stories. Then you turned something manually, and out came copies of what you’d done – reproduced by the magic machine. Any mistakes were permanent. And there were a number! Jean wrote the Pop Music Column ‘On The Knob With Roux.’ He was from Bloemfindyn, a metropolis much larger than Herriesmif – so more up-to-date with his music, as Bloem is nearer to London than Herriesmit.

Someone wrote to the paper – an anonymous Letter To The Editor! It was a whinge. Someone had been applauding too enthusiastically at a debate contest! Gasp! They were applauding and stamping their feet! Instead of only giving contestants ‘their rightful applause!’ There was some question as to the character of someone who would let themselves go like that! Like Victoria, Nik and Nak were not amused. Well! There you go. Thanks to our Freedom of Speech approach as editors of Let It Be, they were able to vent and kla.

One article confidently announced we’d soon go international (it didn’t say that all that meant was we had asked the previous year’s USA exchange student Larry to write to us). Sadly we went belly-up before the eagerly awaited Letter From Larry – a notorious procrastinator – reached us. I think we were a one-issue outfit, like some famous one-hit wonders in the music world. Journalism Schools will probably write learned theses on What Might Have Been. Maybe we can claim to be very early victims of the innernet which was yet to be born?

We – the Std 9’s, Grade 11’s – were also announcing a ‘Ritmiese Ete’ at the country club where one would get a full supper and music by the vdLinde Trio – at R2 a head – to raise funds for the Matric Farewell.

Military news of past-pupils was: Sparrow was in the lugmagkoor – and was even chosen as a ‘solios‘ – or so we said. Pierre was off to Bloem as a parabat. Steph was off to Walvis Bay.

A ‘kringleierskamp’ was held on Clawervlei, Casper Badenhorst’s farm, led by ds Venter, ds Smit, Eben Louw and Giel du Toit. Liewe Bliksem! Must have been a riot! ‘Besprekings’ (read Propaganda!) of about an hour were held morning, afternoon and evening. The weekend ended on Sunday with a church service and a group photo.

Evidence of the rooinekkery of this koerant was a report on the dorp’s new Boy Scout troop: We had done swimming badges under the watchful eye of Cyril Nocton at Ralph Morton’s pool. Also a report on the Methodist Guild, who held a braai in which ‘all the members’ arrived dressed as tramps.

Some blerrie Eland – signing himself Phomolong – wrote the athletic day report and crowed about the Kudus winning, them second and us, the Impalas coming our usual third out of three – to which he said foei! Blurry hell! He would eat his words one year later when we, the Impalas, swept the boards! At least an Impala, De Wet Ras, broke the twenty-year-old pole vault record this year.

A long report on a debate – the ontgroeningsdebat – is a bit faint to follow easily. Seems the debate decided history should not be a compulsory school subject. Ha! ‘Jammer Mnr Stander,’ said the reporter to the history teacher!

Costa Georgiou and Erika du Plessis were chosen as Mr and Miss Standard Six.

– that faint headline reads Town Cricket –

Fluffy Crawley wrote an article on Town Cricket, asking for players to join him in strengthening a sport which had been waning and was now being rebuilt. Forthcoming matches were against Old Scholars (Bethlehem?) and Frankfort. He also gave a report on a drawn match against Bethlehem Defence in which they scored 95; We managed to drag out our innings for two hours, forcing a draw; De Wet Ras scored 25, Fluffy scored 14 and Dave Davies hung in to score 5 and achieve the draw. Our best bowler was De Wet, 6 for 25! Fluffy never gave up on cricket – he remained involved with Free State cricket for decades – as a batsman, then an administrator!

Tuffy Joubert was our be-speedo’d swimming reporter. He announced the team going to the Provincial Gala at Mazelspoort, outside Bloemfindyn. Boys: Leon Blignaut, J Nel, Steve de Villiers and himself; Girls: Sonja du Plessis, Sheila Swanepoel, Jenny de Villiers, Marita Badenhorst, R vd Merwe (probly Ilse), J Eksteen and L Ros (Lulu Ras – our reporter would end up marrying her despite this spelling mistake!). Sonja duP was chosen for the OFS team and went on to win bronze in the 100m freestyle girls under fourteen at a national gala.

Under the commercial section there was one advertisement: A 15ft fibreglass canoe for sale by one P. Swanepoel. It would have been blue with a red deck. The seller probly underpaid for the ad which wouldn’t have helped the paper’s financial woes.

~~~oo0oo~~~

mielie groep – maize or corn future publishing empire; ‘jou mielie’ was a popular insult at the time; it had . . connotations; hey! sixteen year old testosterone

on the knob – DJ’s twiddled knobs, and . . connotations. hey! sixteen year old testosterone

koerant – newspaper

Ritmiese Ete – rhythmic dinner – grub and dance fundraiser

tikmasjien – typewriter

Ou Rot se klas – the typing teacher’s nickname was Rat; pointy nose, bristly moustache, hair much longer than the headmaster-desired half millimetre; dodgy reputation with the young ladies

lugmagkoor – airforce choir

kringleierskamp – ringleaders’ propaganda kamp en lieg event

besprekings – discussions; propaganda

foei! – shame! or ag shame!

ontgroeningsdebat – initiation debate for Std Sixes, just entering high school

speedo – tiny swimming costume; budgie-smuggler

~~~oo0oo~~~

Careful readers would have seen a promise for this promising and exciting newspaper to go INTERNATIONAL! Well, I’m not sure we even made a second edition, but we DID receive the promised input from afar: from New York. Larry was late, though. Nothing new there. His letter of 22 April would have reached us on 29 April soonest by which time Let It Be might have run out of oxygen. No billionaires to rescue us – they hadn’t been invented yet. Note the formal address: Die Redakteur, “Laat Dit Wees / Let It Be!! I don’t know why he put our name in inverted commas, though? Would he have written “New York Times” – ? I must speak to him!

– Larry Letter to Let It Be –

PS: I would have included his “ballsup” PS had we had another edition.

~~~oo0oo~~~

3 Jul 2020
A Third Beach Holiday

I remembered two beach holidays in my schooldays: A stay in a cottage in Chaka’s Rock and in a high-rise of ‘holiday flats’ in Durban.

But then Sheila revealed her 1971 diary: Our winter trip to Pennington, where Dad had bought a plot of land and was having a cottage built. Or as South African men often say, ‘building a cottage.’

I remember trees and dirt roads and that we were near a boundary. On the other side of that was ‘Umdoni Park’ said Dad. The cottage was on a corner plot at a crossroad. The road that ran towards Umdoni ended just half a block past the corner. A halfway down that short dead-end road, a big tree stood on the right with a branch stretching out over the dirt road. On that branch sat a Nerina Trogon. My firstvsighting ofcthat striking bird. And that’s all I remember from that trip to Pennington.

But Sheila kept a diary. It was a nine-day holiday. We camped in the half-built house; We met six young guys on three 50cc buzzbikes and had a great time buzzing around the empty dirt roads on the sparsely-built sub-tropical coastal village of Pennington, three-up per bike!

We walked to the beach, we swam in the rock pool, we walked on the beach; we drove further south to Margate and (fill in here from Sheila’s diary in my whatsapp) – to be continued . .

~~oo0oo~~

The Narina trogon of Africa utilises a wider range of habitats than any other of the world’s fifty-odd trogon species. It can live in habitats ranging from dense forest to fairly open savannah, and from the Equator to southern South Africa. It is the most widespread and successful of all the trogons.

19 May 2020
Mary and Jean
Mom: When the Colemans arrived in Harrismith for Ken to start work in ‘the milk factory’ we met them right away as Dad was a great friend of Ken’s older brother Wally. Wally had been his tutor as an appy electrician in the Pietermaritzburg Post Office back in 1938. I recall visiting Uncle Wally as a kid once – I think in Howick?

– Wally Coleman in the white coat – Dad standing second left – 1938 PMB –

Ken and Jean started building a new house on the corner of Hector street and Berg street, the road that led out of town to our plot less than a kilometre away. While the builders were at it, some leave time came up and Ken took the family away, prompting Dad to opine to Mom, ‘I would never go away while someone was building my house! I would watch their every move.’ Right.

Mom’s not sure, but thinks Donald was already born when they arrived in Harrismith. When Anne was born soon after me, Mary was chosen as her godmother as ‘Jean was a great friend even though she was Anglican.’ Mary Methodist speaking!

Then Eddie was born and we were like this:
- Koos, Anne, Donald & Sheila ca.1959
- Donald, Anne and Eddie in front – Durban ca.1965
In 2015 Sheila wrote: Mum says when we still lived on the ‘townlands’ on the way to the waterworks, Jean would often ‘phone and say ‘Have you got a little visitor?’– once again her son Donald had gone missing and she knew exactly where he was – he used to walk all the way to our farm to visit his great mate, Koos. The two were inseparable.

Today in 2020 Mom’s version was slightly different: ‘You used to walk to Donald without telling me. I would phone Jean and ask ‘Is there anything there of mine?’ Maybe the strolling went both ways?

What started this reminiscing was Eddie sending me pics of Jean’s 80th birthday celebration in June 2008, when Anne and Eddie took her on a very special outing:
– Eddie, Anne and Jean with Cathkin Peak and Champagne Castle behind –
They got together for Mary’s 80th in September 2008

– Mary turns 80 in PMB – 2008 –

For years after the Colemans left Harrismith we heard about their farm outside Winterton. About how Ken built the rondawels and bathroom very rustically. But I never saw Donald again and only lately found out that I had heard from him once!

– view from Craggs outside Winterton – looking at Cathkin and Champagne –

– Jean and Ken –

~~~oo0oo~~~
26 Apr 2020
Today Fifty Years Ago
5 April 2020 – Today exactly fifty years ago was also a Sunday. I know this cos sister Sheila kept a diary in high school and every now and then she pops out with an entry that brings back a flood of memories. Even everyday entries like ‘had lunch at (place) with (people)’ can trigger memories and start some lovely reminiscing.

On the 5th April 1970 she wrote:

Climbed Mt aux Sources, had lunch at the waterfall and climbed down again.

“My descriptive writing was still under development” she now says! She was thirteen years and ten months at the time. I had just turned fifteen. Mother Mary was forty one.

Leading us were Mother Mary, Uncle Cappy and Auntie Joyce Joubert. Making up the party were two older boys, Etienne Joubert and Whitey Fourie; then myself, Sheila and Deon Joubert, in descending age order.

– Mother Mary on that 1970 hike – looking at the Eastern Buttress, Devil’s Tooth and Mt Amery –

Mom always knew all the peak names – from the Sentinel to Giants Castle.

– the chain ladder around that era –

The feature pic of the chain ladder is more recent – to show the surroundings – the second chain ladder on the right in that pic was added long after 1970. For wimps. Like airbags in cars, we didn’t have spare ladders back in our day (!!!). Here’s a pic of how I first remember it – one ladder, with wooden beams to keep the rungs away from the rockface.

– Sheila The Diarist on the edge of the amphitheatre near the lip of the Tugela Falls – a few years later, Sept 1972 –

– myself, Sheila The Diarist and Bets Key (nearest) on the edge – on a more recent trip –

– this was ca.1998 – I think –

– the boots picture was taken on the edge somewhere just past the lip of the falls in this pic –
– some chain ladder pics off google maps – thanks everybody! –
– a 1973 pic of the starting point of the hike – Sheila in matric here – wearing the white jacket –

~~~oo0oo~~~

Around April 1970:

Rhodesia under Ian Smith had just become a Republic, severing their last ties with Britain;

The 27 Club started, with Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all dying at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971.

Jumbo jet 747’s had been flying for about a year;

Apollo 13 was in space, having gone to the moon but not landed, after an oxygen tank had malfunctioned; The first moon landing had been eight months earlier;

We were singing 1969 and 1970 hits like – All Kinds Of Everything; Mama Told Me Not To Come; Build Me Up Buttercup; Crimson and Clover; Proud Mary; Come Together; and many MANY more! In the Summertime; A Boy Named Sue; My Baby Loves Lovin’; Ma Belle Amie; Yellow River; Beatles hits; Elvis hits; Creedence hits – a long list, seared into our memories, never to be forgotten.

~~~oo0oo~~~

I’ve never forgotten “kickin’ and a-gougin’ in the mud and the blood and the beer . . “

~~~oo0oo~~~
5 Apr 2020
Cappy Joubert
Uncle Cappy was a mentor to his three sons and to many others around him. He was a huge influence in my life. He taught me how to play cricket, how to rough-and-tumble, how to BE THERE for your family; how to do the right thing. And – big lesson in HS where the opposite was revered – that you did not have to be skynheilig to be good.

As Mobiloil’s representative in the district he had new cars every now and then, which were cause for great excitement. His winged green Zephyr 6 Mark III (made 1962-1966), then his stompgat gold Zephyr 6 Mk IV are the ones I remember best.

– Cappy Joubert’s Zephyrs – internet pics

His job with Mobil took him all over the countryside, visiting farmers and the depots, so he knew the back roads around Harrismith – and sometimes he’d take us along.

He was always available to help: With sport, with Sunday school, with church, with lifts to sporting events, being Father Christmas, arranging picnics, organising games at the picnics, umpiring cricket, playing cricket, coaching cricket;

I was raised by my Mom and her Mom Annie, so was in danger of being pieperig, as they were gentle, quiet ladies. Thank goodness for frequent visits to the Jouberts, with rugged Uncle Cappy, three tough boys and – the toughest of them all – Aunty Joyce! Cappy would show you exactly how to hold a cricket bat; he would warn the boys and if they didn’t listen, physically wrestle them to the ground and donner them. I remember Etienne wrestling back, squirming, protesting and not giving up, and Cappy holding him in a vice grip on the grass until he conceded! When Etienne went one step too far for Joyce in trading chirps and talkback, Joyce would finally get to the point where she’d lean forward from the waist and jeer, ‘Etienne Joubert met ‘n bek soos ‘n skȇr!’ LIVELY action at the Jouberts!

Typical older brother, Etienne would try and get youngest of us all, Deon to do stuff, pushing the little one into taking the risk for our reward. Once when Deon refused, he said, “Chicken!” and Deon instantly and heatedly responded “I aren’t a blerrie chicken cos I aren’t got fevvers!”

Full of jokes and ‘streke,’ I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Aunty Joyce with her Cape accent – she pronounced the Afrikaans ‘so’ as sue, not sewah as we did – that put Tuffy up to this prank.

~~~oo0oo~~~

I wrote to his eldest son Etienne one fine morning, soon after Uncle Cappy had died peacefully in his sleep on his ninetieth birthday:

Et

I was lying in bed this morning listening to the birds and de-fragmenting the hard drive in my head when this popped up on some old grey cells:
```
Knyptang innie broeksak 
Dinamiet innie gatsak 
VOORWAARTS die Ossewa Brandwag!
```
Also then, of course you have to remember his song on a moonlit night:
```
O, die maan skyn so helder . . 
. . op my POEPHOL ! 
```
He was a huge influence in my life. A very good ‘normalising’ influence to go along with the more conventional, narrow influences!

I’m sure you can remember much more.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Koos,

Yes, he did rather have many funny little sayings.

Hou die blink kant bo was another favourite.

The ‘knyptang’ one he’d say aloud in the yard so that Eben Louw could hear.

“C’mon guys, let’s play the game.” That would be when us children were arguing.

He based a lot of his life’s philosophy on Cricket & the fairness & unfairness thereof.

When he drove me to Pretoria to start in the bank he reminded me:
```
Never over dress or under dress. 
Do not drink on your own. 
A gentleman leaves the club before seven.
```
I miss him often in sticky situations.

Have a great day Koos.

Etienne

~~~oo0oo~~~

Uncle Cappy widened our horizons where school and others tried to narrow them down. He showed us how you can be thoroughly decent and also naughty! So many skynheilige people who weren’t a patch on him would NEVER swear in front of us boys, but Cappy did – with a twinkle in his eyes. Now, mind, he never swore in front of us in front of Auntie Joyce! That’s for sure! That mischief was for boys-only gatherings.

~~~oo0oo~~~

As he was Mobil and Annie – my gran – was Caltex, those were the ONLY fuels we would even THINK of using in our cars. Our non-existent cars. We would NEVER use Shell or BP!

So when one day we were in his car at the fuel depot and we saw a Caltex tanker filling up from the BP tank we were MORTIFIED!! What!!?

Cappy calmly set our minds at rest, ‘All fuels are basically the same,’ he said – to our loyal mystification. ‘It’s the additives we add afterwards that make them different,’ he explained.

We were half-mollified.

~~~oo0oo~~~
```
   'You never forget the people 
who were kind to you in childhood' 
- PD James, English detective novelist
```
skynheilig – pseudo-holy; fake

stompgat – short tail

pieperig – a softie

Etienne Joubert met ‘n bek soos ‘n skȇr! – ‘Etienne bigmouth’

streke – waggery; jokes; pranks

knyptang, etc – the Ossewa Brandwag was a racist, anti-semitic, anti-British and pro-German organisation in South Africa during World War II. Justifiably angry at what Britain had done to them in the Anglo-Boer war, they over-reacted churlishly. Cappy had volunteered for the war and gone off to battle; on his return his church spurned him for wearing his uniform, so he joined the Methodists – the Methodists’ gain.

O, die maan skyn so helder – romantic: the moon shines so brightly

. . . op my POEPHOL ! – on my arsehole ! The sting in the tail of his mischievous ‘romantic’ song!

Hou die blink kant bo – keep smiling; look on the bright side

Feature pic: Deon, Cappy, Joyce & Tuffy – just Etienne missing

~~~oo0oo~~~
29 Mar 2020
His Uncle Hec’s Funeral

Des is a mensch. He’s a gentleman and he has good intentions.

He’s in a serious marriage and under strict starter’s orders. The thing is Des has a bit of a dodgy handbrake. Even when pulled up tight it can occasionally slip and he can lurch forward a few steps and then all hell can break loose and you don’t know if he’ll be able to stop.

So Hector Fyvie being a legend and him being a nephew, Des got written permission to go to Uncle Hec’s funeral and straight back. Promise.

It was a lovely funeral and lots of people were there celebrating the life of a very special man. Now it was time to go home, and Des was definitely going to leave as he had clearly undertaken to do. Honour bright. And he would have . .

But there were Vennings and Fyvies and Leslies and other people there and a strong case was put forward for Des to stay for the wake. The after-gathering was naturally well-catered with sustenance and libations – Aunt Stella, Gail, Ian, Skig and Tabbo always do things right. Still, Des refused to relax and partake, which made the exhortations stronger. With friends like this . . .

He raised himself up, closed his eyes and tilted his chin up in that way he does and made a small speech, one of many we have heard from Des:

“You guys”, he said. “Jy weet: Een is genoeg, Twee is te veel and Drie is te min” and he agreed to have Just One. Just. The. One.

So we knew he was staying for the duration.

– unlike the hooligans, Des kept his jacket on, ready to depart in the getaway car at any moment –

Een is genoeg, Twee is te veel and Drie is te min – “One martini is all right. Two are too many, and Three are not enough” – James Thurber

~~oo0oo~~

28 Mar 2020
My Umko Marathon

There he goes, no lifejacket, as was the way those days.

. . another guy might be wearing full lifejacket and helmet but he’d be disqualified: wasn’t wearing his club colours! Such was ‘safety’ and ‘decorum’ back when ships were made of wood and men were made of iron!

map 4

I roared in 140th – looks like 152 finishers, but maybe there was another whole page? Can’t tell – the first page is also missing so we can’t see who won. I know Chris Greeff won the singles. I spent a long time training him in the bar till late at night when the GO TO BED!!s built to a crescendo and we politely thanked Jesus, downed a last beer – and did as we were told. This was Jesus, or Dave Williams, of course, the saintly Umko barman.

– 1983 Umko results with pics of Jesus – when he shaved they started calling him John Cleese –

Hang on, the other page was given the wrong year. Here it is: 1983 results: 162 finishers out of 263 starters. Pope won with Tim Cornish. Chris was 6th and first single.

1983

Notables who finished behind me were Pete the Pom Mountford, Richard Finlay and Toekoe Egerton. They should pull finger.

That was my only Umko marathon. For a few years after that I would sweep or pick out human flotsam and fiberglass jetsam at No.1 rapid, staying with Barry and Lyn Porter on their game farm afterwards.

– 1987 – the swimming gala below No.1 –

~~~oo0oo~~~

28 Mar 2020
Loopspruit Army Basics
The trouble with universal conscription is you get some very unlikely fellas donning uniforms. You look at them and you think, soldiers they aint, and you begin to worry about the term ‘military efficiency.’ Later, you learn the term ‘oxymoron.’

So there we were ensconced on a farm outside Potchefstroom among raw rockspider seventeen year-olds, fresh out of high school from all over South Africa. We heard it had been a reform school for delinquents before we got there and then recently turned into a military camp. Into a SAMS base in fact: South African Medical Services. “Loopspruit” or “Klipdrif” they called it. We’d been sent there for “army basics.” Basic training.

We were old. Around twenty three or four, having delayed the joys of military life by studying to become optometrists. In hindsight, maybe we shoulda done the army first!? Maybe we could now see too clearly? Time would tell . .

Our barracks were ex-classrooms. Ours an old science lab. It still had the thick polished wooden workbench tops, the thick ceramic washbasins with fancy thin high bronze taps, and fitted bunsen burner attachments. Expensive-looking, so a reform school for blanke delinquents, no doubt.

And best of all – our lab had shiny vinyl tile floors! Other classrooms were older, with wooden floors. That flooring was to become our biggest asset . .

One young dutchman was big as an ox, quiet as a mouse. He sat listening to us twenty four year-old oumanne praating Engels in fascination. In many pockets of the old South Africa you could grow up hearing very little Engels.

Suddenly one day our man became famous! He burst into song, singing three lines: ‘Are you lonesome tonight? Are your brastrap too tight? That’s why you’re lonesome tonight!‘

He sounded unlike Elvis:

We hosed ourselves and gave him a new name: Jelly Tots. He didn’t really like it, but his surname was Lotzoff, and we would see him and say ‘Lots and Lotzoff – JELLY TOTS!’ He learnt new words from us – and taught us a new phrase too: When frustrated, he didn’t say “fuck’s sake”, he said “fuck’s fakes” so that became our phrase too.

Another character was as small as Lotzoff was big. He looked twelve years old and was a compact, muscular, good looking, perky, cute little bugger. He had a smattering of Engels and preferred to use it. Some of the others refused to even try – Stoere Boere. His name? GT Jones! Pointless giving someone with so apt and memorable a name a nickname. GT Jones!

We were in the medics and we had to know all about ambulances. GT Jones called them ‘ambuminces.’ And so was born a new name for one of the meals in the mess. On ground beef days we would refer to the stuff plopped onto our plates by the bored chefs as ambumince – which led in turn, naturally, to gruesome speculation on its origin!

Among the older, optometrist inmates:
Graham Lewis – A companion worth his weight in gold. Never fazed, always cheerful. Keenly aware of the hilarity of this fake existence we were leading. He’d been assigned to D Company. We were in A or C Company and we were chuffed when he got transferred to our (better, natch) company. We were good company and so was he! D Company’s barracks was one of the old residences. Wooden floors. A nightmare to clean. They would regularly get bollocksed for dirty floors after hours of scrubbing them, while we got praise for our vinyl floors after all we had done was sweep them. Typical army illogical unfairness. They would lose weekend passes and we would win bonus weekend passes based on the luck of the floors we’d been allocated! Once while we were away on a weekend pass . . .

Basics was, uh, basic. Get up in the morning, bugger around with your clothes and other domestic stuff like making your bed; Assemble in straight stripes; March; March; Trudge; Omkeer! Eat; March; March; Trudge; MakeeriePAS! Holy shit . . .

Dhhave Cooper was another worth his weight in gold. Always smiling, always upbeat.

Les Chrich, Les Davies, Les Miller, Okkie Oosthuizen, Rod Stedall, who else? Magic comrades all. They made our time together memorable and less stressful, full of laughter.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Loopspruit – walking creek; running stream;

Klipdrif – stony shallow river crossing or drift;

oumanne praating Engels – old men (24yrs) speaking English

flyswatter – qualified hygiene and health inspector

casevac – casualty evacuation; carrying a ‘wounded’ fella away on a stretcher, the heavy bliksem

bliksem – ou; prostate ‘soldier’

wat sal gebeur – what could happen, pasop!

pasop! – watch it, nê!

~~oo0oo~~
- – still to come –
Weeding duty – When even corporals and sergeants couldn’t think of anything mindless for us to do, they used us as cheap labour, sending us out the gate into the fields to pull weeds. What a plesh. Doing very little while talking shit with your mates is what I may have been born for. I’m a natural.

Guard duty – Wear your grootjas, it’s cold; dire threats of wat sal gebeur if you’re caught not looking sharp on duty;

What could gebeur – One poor flyswatter gets DB – the dreaded Detention Barracks – for forging the sarge’s signature. The wily sarge use different colour ink on different days, so altho the forgery was good, he knew it wasn’t his John Hancock. Military efficiency?

Big Day casevac demo – One day some unknown Oom with lots of ornate decorations on his shoulders and a different cap arrived in a helicopter to check us out. From the way our resident belangrike Ooms were flinging salutes at him we knew he must be baie belangrik. Actually we knew he was coming, as the last two weeks teaching us to shoot and stitch wounds had suddenly become unimportant, and teaching us to behave, march, salute had become frantically important. / race / stretchers -to Puma helicopter. We win!
28 Mar 2020
A Slice of Vrystaat

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I was born in Harrismith in 1955, as was Mom Mary in 1928, and her Mom Annie in 1893. Annie thought “the queen” of that little island above and left of France was also the queen of South Africa (and for much of her life she was right!).

– annie watson – mary frances – peter frank –

To balance that, there’s this side of the family.

I attended the plaaslike schools in Harrismith till 1972. A year in the USA in 1973 as a Rotary exchange student in Apache Oklahoma. Studied optometry in Joburg 1974 – 1977. Worked in Hillbrow and Welkom in 1978. Army (Potch and Roberts Heights, now Thaba Tshwane – in between it was Voortrekkerhoogte) in 1979 and in Durban (Hotel Command and Addington Hospital) in 1980.

I stayed in Durban, paddled a few rivers, and then got married in 1988. About then this blog’s era ends and my Life With Aitch started. Post-marriage tales and child-rearing catastrophes are told in Bewilderbeast Droppings.

‘Strue!! – These random, un-chronological and personal memories are true of course. But if you know anything about human memory you’ll know that with one man’s memory comes: Pinch of Salt. Names have been left unchanged to embarrass the friends who led me (happily!) astray. Add your memories – and corrections – and corrections of corrections! – in the comments if you were there.

~~~oo0oo~~~

Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me. So go’n re-look at some posts you’ve enjoyed before and see how I’ve improved over time (!). It’s just as my friend Greg says: ‘The older we get, the better we were.’

12 Mar 2020
Kleinspanskool

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. A Rudge, I believe.

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! or Duck!

– 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 speculated he was angling to marry a farmer’s daughter and was practicing his pitch to Pa. Then verily, that came to pass.

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. My record as captain was 100% wins.

The next year – 1967 – I was suddenly a rugby player and in the U/13 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 and talent-forecasting genius, 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. We had a helluva year in 1967, so achieving Harrismith-wide fame by becoming the undisputed World Champions . . OK maybe I’m getting ahead of us here.

~~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

5 Mar 2020