NYLSTROOM
This was one of the earliest audits in which I was involved. I was still an “apprentice” with Peter de Villiers and probably a lot more nervous of the branch than it was of me. We booked in at the whimsically named Stokkiesdraai Motel, a few kilometers outside of the town. It consisted of A-frame chalets which were fairly comfortable albeit far from luxurious. Meals were taken at a mediocre restaurant on an a la carte basis. I was pleased to be there though as my brother-in-law was accountant at the nearby town of Naboomspruit which meant I got to see my sister regularly.
My regular readers might recall my mentioning a fellow by the name of Douw Steyn, who I encountered at Windhoek in Namibia. Well, this is where I ran into Douw for the first time. I still find it hard to believe that the quiet, likeable chap I met here went on to become an infamous bank robber. His branch was well run and he was capable and well liked. Little did we know that we were giving a future criminal a glowing report!
One Wednesday afternoon the local Commando paraded through the streets of the town and we decided to stick around and watch. I was standing just behind a little short Regimental Sergeant Major wearing a black beret, who was drilling the squad. When he started bellowing orders, I had a déjà vu moment and recalled my feared nemesis from my days at 2nd Armoured Car Regiment in Bloemfontein, RSM John Holiday. Moments later I went cold with shock when the little man with the loud voice turned and I could see his face. It was none other than RSM Holiday – Jan Vakansie as we called him. What a fright that was – I caught myself actually standing to attention when he thundered out an order. I saw myself again with my full kit on, battling through the obstacle course with that nasty man alternately sniggering at me falling off something or screaming at me when I was too slow on something else. I was being punished for lying sleeping in the sun in my lunch-hour. I wasn’t the only one snoozing but I was the only one who got punished. Oh he was a fiend! I should have waited around and said hello but I lost my nerve. He had tried but failed to make a decent soldier out of me so I thought it best to just stay away from him.
PIET RETIEF
I joined Dave Sharp for this one – the first time I worked with him. Before we even started, he told me to leave the savings department to him as this was his own speciality. I was taken aback but not unpleased because savings sections always seemed to be messy areas and I was thus relieved of much drudgery. The first evening after the initial “break-in” jobs, I saw Dave filling up a box with Forms 134, savings signature and record cards and tucking it under his arm. Later that evening around 9 pm I happened to pass Dave’s door which was ajar and there he was, fast asleep on the desk in his room with stacks of cards in front of him and copious lists with numbers and symbols. Thinking he might be ill, I woke him and he, embarrassed, confessed that doing a COMPLETE check of savings was his hobby. He said that word of his actions had gotten to the ear of our boss at the time, Ivan Rudman who had admonished him and ordered him not to waste audit time by doing what the branch should be doing. He had replied that Ivan had been misinformed because he wasted no audit time on this job – it was all done in his own time and he could do as he pleased in his own time. The branches he audited invariably had a general criticism of the savings section but were handed neatly typed lists of ALL the department’s shortcomings, which simplified correcting errors and omissions. I really thought he was a bit dippy and still think so but happily accepted his intrusion into one of my areas of responsibility.
Going shopping with him was like shopping with my granny – he studied soaps, detergents, softeners etc diligently and compared prices, even asking my opinion of things like Biotex. One evening at a café, he was buying his Rothmans cigarettes and he noticed a display of Fizzpops, which were still new on the market. He quietly confessed that he was dying to try one as he had loved sherbet as a kid but didn’t have the nerve to buy one. I had no similar qualms and bought a few, which on the way home, I shared with him. Picture a stately old gentleman in a smart suit, strolling down the road with a Fizzpop sticking out of his mouth. Sad to tell, he found the experience disappointing as the sherbet wasn’t a patch on the stuff he’d known as a child.
In the branch the audit was going quite well. I then decided to sample the statistics the branch was keeping. A young German girl by the name of Monica, whose father was a missionary out in the district, was responsible for a certain section, so I asked her to bring me the vouchers for a few days so I could sample them. When Iooked at her, she was flushed and her eyes were like saucers but she confirmed that she physically counted the items as was required. In the week that I sampled, not a single day was correct - all numbers were considerably inflated. Eventually I said to her, “Monica, you never count these things do you and please don’t lie to me again or else I’ll tell your Dad.” I’ve never seen anyone so embarrassed since. Shame! I’m sure I left a permanent scar on that poor kid. And she was darn cute as well.
POTCHEFSTROOM
Need I remind regular readers that Potch was the town where I worked with Bush Morley for the first time? I had heard some stories about how naughty he could be but when I met him I discounted them because this quiet, inoffensive and dapper man just didn’t seem to be the type who could cut up rough after a few snorts. As you well know by now, those stories were not only true, I was eventually also able to add substantially to his notoriety! I don’t intend reprising those stories here – the entire set is still available on my blog, if you don’t already know that.
During my second visit to Potch, I was dawdling around a mall in the town in my lunch hour and came upon a small record shop. I could spend hours in such shops, wading through the bins, looking for unusual music. The art rock band Talking Heads were being touted as winners in the music press and I was keen to see what they were all about. I found their brand-new album “Remain in light” and took it along to the till to pay for it. The little “mod” Afrikaans girl at the counter looked at me and then at the album and asked, if the record was for me. When I confirmed that it was for me she said doubtfully, “Maar Oom, dis UNDERGROUND die. Is Oom seker Oom wil dit koop”. I said indignantly, “Meisie, ek WEET dis underground en ek hou van underground”. I bet she’s still telling her grandchildren about “die ouderling” (I was wearing a black pinstripe actually) wat die dag die duiwel se musiek kom koop het”.
During the second audit when I assisted Alex le Roux, we stayed at the Impala Hotel. It was a well run but oldish hotel which had an a la carte restaurant which really excelled at providing good food. I tried just about everything on that menu and could not fault them on a single dish. One evening, I was sitting quietly waiting for my order, doing a crossword as I often used to do and I noticed a waiter positioning a couple of buckets under a steady drip of water coming through the ceiling. ‘Oh dear- a burst pipe I suppose’ and went back to my crossword and eventually my meal. It was at least an hour later when I returned to my room and discovered to my utter dismay, that when I had put some handkerchiefs to soak in the wash basin and I had failed to close off the tap fully. The basin had filled and had flooded the entire bathroom and even soaked part of the carpet in the bedroom. The hotel management had been in the room and had mopped up as best they could but the water I saw dripping into the restaurant below, stemmed from my bit of carelessness. I was hugely embarrassed and avoided the management like the plague needless to say!
During the first audit, the much loved South African rock band, THE BATS, played a concert in the town hall and I couldn’t resist going. They played a good, sturdy set of original numbers and Eddie Eckstein the drummer, filled in with comedy between songs. I remember him saying that “Potch is beautifully laid out. I dunno when it died but it’s beautifully laid it.” That was greeted with stony silence. Much more acceptable was Barry Jarman who put down his guitar and pulled out his Wheatstone concertina and let fly with hits like “Weltevrede Stasie”, “Groen en goud” and several others. I doubt if there has ever been another rock band which utilized a concertina in its act but oddly enough, it worked pretty well and was hugely popular.
EAST BURGER STREET, BLOEMFONTEIN
I visited this branch several times but the first time I went there, it was the dawn of the computer age and Willie Ackerman and I were accompanied by Phil Hodgson who was the computer auditor at the time. It was our first taste of computerization and we had no idea how the whole thing worked. The branch had just started using a huge clattering machine which punched paper rolls, which was how the data was captured. Another machine read the punched tape and a monstrous computer somewhere did all the rest. We were impressed, a little intimidated and finally bored stiff by having to sit paging through endless printouts. Back then I never thought I’d even begin to understand or like computers and the future seemed to be very dark to me yet here I am today, attached to the infernal machine with an invisible umbilical cord. I can’t imagine my life without it now and find it ludicrous that I had ever had negative feelings towards the ubiquitous machines.
During one of my audits at “BEBS” as we called it, Hennie Nel was the accountant. I wish I had the ability to see the faces of the ladies reading these lines right now because I know there will be a number of wistful ladies with faraway looks in their eyes at the mention of this man. Hennie was a man’s man, likeable, responsible and a leader but by golly, he was unbelievably irresistible to the ladies as well. To have Hennie as a friend was to plumb the depths of envy and jealousy because no matter how faithful one’s lady might normally have been, she would have probably dropped her guard for Hennie.
I first met him on an accountant’s course during which we were accommodated in the Mariston Hotel. Hennie and I shared a suite and he arrived when I was hanging up my clothes. If I had any misgivings about sharing a room with him, he soon dispelled them – here was a chap who was easy to get along with. He started packing out his clothes and then he motioned me to look at the bottom layer of his suitcase – I went cold because it consisted only of panties! I fleetingly wondered if he was some weird kind of cross dresser but he dispelled that notion by telling me they were just some of his “souvenirs”. I was much relieved and roared with laughter as he picked through them and reminisced. There was even one in lurid red with black trim, which had a flippin’ zip down the front, so help me.
As the week passed, I came to appreciate the man’s charisma and charm. As luck would have it, the hotel was also home to a bevy of Trust Bank girls also on a course and needless to say, Hennie sniffed them out in the wink of an eye and he was into them like a fox amongst the chickens. I didn’t see him until much later on Monday evening and was lying in bed reading when Hennie burst in with a giggling Trust Bank chickie in tow. He quietly closed the door which led into the lounge and I did not see him again until the next morning. While he was busy, the damn phone kept ringing and every call started off “Is Hennie daar?” For the rest of that week, I became his private secretary, noting down names and numbers from all over the Free State. In the morning he would explain to me exactly who the ladies were and where they lived. There were young high school girls, widows, married ladies etc – I was simply flabbergasted. I could not even juggle one affair properly and here he was juggling dozens!
I came away from that course quite severely depressed and feeling inferior. I should really have asked a lady or two what made him so damn irresistible. He was quite good-looking I guess and certainly knew how to charm but there had to have been something else to account for his phenomenal success. Was it pheromones, excessive testosterone, charisma – WHAT ? He had it and I certainly didn’t.
To get to his audit, I really did not know what to expect from that audit. Did Hennie have the time to do his job properly and did he take it all seriously? Remarkably, he was very good at his job and led the office most effectively. I found out later that he was a Captain in the army which should tell you he was a good leader of men …. as well as a good lover of ladies! He earned a very good report and not just because he was a buddy of mine.
However, no matter how seriously he took his job, his eye never stopped roaming. He could spot a likely conquest at the counter from a mile off and would whisper down to me, “Oe op die front”. I would know there was a female “challenge” at the counter and sneak a quick look. Once I heard him take a call from a woman in Welkom – married to a miner – whose husband was working a shift that afternoon and could she please come and visit him while her husband was working. No problem to Hennie – the deed was done and dusted before the day was out.
I think it might have been George Bernard Shaw or someone like that who said that a woman would rather have a small piece of a superior man, than all of an inferior one. There is a lot of wisdom in that and having known Hennie Nel, I can confirm that I have seen it in action. Women didn’t seem to mind if Hennie was having affairs with other women while he was courting them. I don’t know if they somehow suppressed their jealousy or just didn’t minding standing in a queue but I don’t know of any woman who actually rejected Hennie!
I lost contact with Hennie when I moved to Port Elizabeth. I know he landed up at Sandown running Agricultural Courses. I heard that he had acquired a drinking problem and finally that he had had a stroke. I heard that he retired to the family farm near Winburg and there he eventually died.
A final word about him: He once told me that he had had testicular cancer as a young man and had lost one of his testes. Heaven only knows how he would have carried on with two ………….
FICKSBURG
Ficksburg situated at the foot of Imperani Mountain, is almost a twin to my hometown, nearby Ladybrand. I sometimes spent a few days of my school holidays visiting school pals who lived there but all I recall about those times is that the Greek café had a jukebox which could play all the hits of the day. That machine was pure magic to me.
During one of my audits there, a girl who had worked with me in Sterkspruit spotted me when she came to do clearances. She now worked for Standard Bank. We spent a lunch hour at a nearby café, rehashing the old times and getting up to date. We had actually had a very brief fling back then but she met a bloke who became her husband and I was quickly forgotten. Turns out, back then she disapproved of MY drinking habits and went with Gert because he did not drink. Once married, his true colours came to light and he turned into an abusive, shambling drunkard. They produced two kids but she got shot of him as soon as the kids were old enough. I could see her mind working when I told her that I no longer drank. Maybe, just maybe she had backed the wrong horse ………
I recall getting into an argument with the manager Robin Angel about the “Machinery & Occupational Safety Act”. Although the inspection register showed that safety checks had been regularly carried out, I found some glaring electrical shortcomings which had not been attended to, including an overloaded wall plug sagging out, in his own office. Elsewhere a power lead lay across a path which was traversed daily by a heavy, metal wheeled trolley. His reply to my criticism was that I was not an electrician and therefore not qualified to comment on the state of the branch wiring. I saw red and warned him that I would record his answer in my report but would add a rejoinder that anyone could see that the problems I had highlighted were life threatening. He hastily withdrew his facetious remark and we eventually parted on good terms. Rob was a good manager and sadly, he is no longer with us.
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