HARRISMITH
I paid Harrismith at least two visits over the years – the first time over Christmas and the second time in mid-winter. Bethlehem is a cold place but Harrismith is pretty cold too. During my second visit in winter, I joined Mike de Villiers and John Bell. We’d been there less than a week when on a Friday morning I felt distinctly unwell. By ten o clock I realized that I had flu and asked Mike if I could leave early and get home to Ladybrand. What a trip that was! I was shivering violently from fever and my body was racked with pain. The road just seemed to go on forever and I was like a robot driving. When I got home, I got out of the car, stumbled to my bedroom and lay down under the covers, still wearing my full suit and shoes! Much later I got up and disrobed and quickly went back to shivering under the covers. After a week I had recovered enough to go back to work but it took me a lot longer to regain my full strength and shake off the depression which had hold of me. Ever since then, I’ve not had a year in which I did not go for a flu injection! I have much sympathy for people who have contracted Covid – flu is bad enough for me.
You may have read my essay about the exceptional bank cleaner I met at Warden, Joseph Molefe. Well, this fine fellow was a keen marathon runner and apart from the Comrades, he also used to tackle the super-tough Harrismith Mountain Race. Looming over Harrismith is the Platberg Mountain – basically a plateau with steep cliffs guarding the summit. The race, at 15 km is not very long but it has a start which takes you up a steep climb of 676 metres up to One-man’s Pass, a knee trembler by itself and then across the tabletop to the Zigzag Pass, from where you descend and finally head for home. The effect on your legs must be damn near catastrophic and every time I looked at that mountain, I had renewed respect for Joe, who was a already senior runner when I knew him.
Harrismith is also home to the Drakensberg Botanical Gardens, a well maintained reserve featuring the flora of the Drakensburg. Plants and trees, neatly labeled lined well kept footpaths, pleased the eye and tickled the nose with unknown fragrances. Even if you had no interest in botany, a walk around the reserve was good for the soul and peace of mind. I spent many of my private hours there.
HENNENMAN
This is a town I would prefer to forget! My audit there was uneventful initially and nothing at all was suggestive of a ticking time-bomb. The manager was an old acquaintance who early on invited me to a fine lunch cooked by his good lady. There were exceptions both in credits and routine but nothing to write home about. Two weeks after I had finalized my report and had left the branch, a nasty shock hit me – there was big trouble in the credit of Hennenman and I had to return to conduct a special investigation into the manager’s actions. To say I was flabbergasted hardly describes my reaction! Could I have misjudged my old friend so badly and was he actually crooked?
The trouble revolved around an account for a maize milling company. A customer had used his capital to set up the mill and all its machinery but once he started milling, he did not have working capital and so approached the branch for assistance. The trouble was, the miller was having to pay cash for the maize he was buying from the Maize Board but was selling the finished product to wholesalers in the Transkei at credit terms of 90 days or more. Within months the account was up to its limit, as wholesalers took their time paying for their purchases. Local Head Office would not permit any excesses and the client desperately needed cash to keep going.
In a badly misguided attempt to help what should have been a good going concern, the manager started retaining mill cheques in favour of the Maize Board for increasing periods in suspense accounts, until the client had accumulated enough to cover the cheques. The young accountant in his first appointment was uneasy about what the manager was doing but the latter convinced him that it was legitimate practice. At the same time, he started moving money around between a number of accounts, to stave off having to report to L.H.O. and even helped himself to some, when it seemed to be a good scheme.
Inevitably the growing imbalance in the mill account could no longer be handled so the manager paid all the cheques he had suspended and reported the vast excess to L.H.O. This touched off a furore in L.H.O. who obviously thought my audit report was woefully skimpy and they demanded that I return to investigate. (“Properly” they probably added silently). I was astounded by what came to light during the painstaking investigation. The suspended manager called in one day and offered me his own “record” of what he had done but I rejected the offer and told him I would find every last cent, come hell or high water and when I had done, he could bring along his own record. Turned out I found considerably more manipulations than even he had recorded!
He was fired needless to say and the bank lost quite a bit of money and I had learned a bitter lesson. I don’t think he set out to benefit – he was inexperienced but felt he could help the mill in his own way. The mill owner should have made use of long term finance to set up his machinery and used his own money as working capital. That should have been what the manager had advised right at the start but lack of experience meant it had not dawned on him. Working capital is the lifeblood of any enterprise, no doubt about that.
The matter was reported to the Business Crime Unit of the police and police Major who had a copy of my report, came to see me some months later, to make sure he understood the modus operandi. It went to court and the manager was eventually handed a suspended sentence.
Although it certainly seemed as if my initial audit had been too cursory I realized that no auditor would have been in a position to pick up those manipulations during a normal audit. The whole scheme would have come to light right at the start had the accountant reported the first manipulation of a suspense account but he didn’t. You might say it was a young inexperienced manager, a young inexperienced accountant and a young inexperienced auditor who were to blame!
KNYSNA
The staff at Knysna must have got very tired of always seeing me at their branch. You see, the lady who is my wife today, lived in Sedgefield, a village between George and Knysna while I was courting her. My boss Mike de Villiers, a most considerate man, always made sure I was included in whatever team audited at Knysna and George which meant I could stay with Sonja and travel in every day.
The last time I went there, I was accompanied by Francois Booysen. If you’ve never encountered one or the other of us, let me inform you that we are both pretty hefty chaps. And yes, we are fond of our grub and both find ice cream utterly irresistible. Sonja used to pack me some sandwiches for lunch but sometimes I would get peckish early on and nibble away at the sarmies until there was nothing left. It was on such a day when I joined Francois in a hunt for something extra for lunch. We ferreted around in a café trying without success to find something tasty and then we arrived at the ice cream fridge. Those puny ices on sticks were just inadequate so we bought a 2 liter container of vanilla and went back to the branch triumphantly. Using my pocket knife I carved out a slice, about a third in size of the total while Francois took the rest with glee. I felt slightly seedy after all that ice cream but I don’t know how Francois felt. It didn’t matter anyway – we had done the unthinkable and the branch just looked on in wonder.
LUCKHOFF
Most people have never heard of Luckhoff. Pull out your trusty roadmap (If you still have one) and look at the South West corner of the Free State and if you squinch your eyes, you might see it. You don’t really need to go there because time has ground to a halt there and left the town dusty and drab.
I recall the town from the days before I joined the bank, when I was still a pay clerk in the Free State Roads Department, based in Fauresmith. We had to go down to Luckhoff to pay the men in isolated road maintenance camps as well as a road building unit which was building a road down to the site of the Vanderkloof Dam, which was soon to be built in one of the Orange River “canyons” . The amazing thing about Luckhoff was the fact that it had no electricity and the thinly sown streetlights ran on GAS! I know of no other town in South Africa where this was ever the case. Luckily electricity reached the town before I was called upon to audit there. When I booked into the little hotel, I was met by the owner, Dawid de Lange. In times gone by, there was a most successful “Boereorkes” leader by that name and I jokingly asked he was that fellow. He wasn’t – the musician happened to be his uncle. Unlike his uncle, he had not been blessed with musical ability.
I was the only guest for a couple weeks. At the week-end, Dawid brought out his “potjie”, lit a fire in the backyard, invited me and we proceeded to “kuier” with gusto. The pot bubbled away, releasing mouthwatering smells while I started feeling bloated from all the Cokes I had consumed. (I had quit my drinking habit by then). I suffered real hunger pains as I waited for Dawid to get to the end of his stories, not to mention his “dops” – time for him had speeded up enormously while it crawled for me. Luckily the grub was well worth waiting for or maybe hunger was the best chef, but it was a memorable Sunday to be sure. Dawid was a master of the Potjie.
ENGCOBO
None of the erstwhile Transkei branches ever endeared themselves to me and I really hated having to go there. Engcobo might have been an attractive little town at one time but the population explosion pushed all facilities in the town to the limit. As in Umtata, that constantly milling crush of humanity caused a sort of claustrophobia in me which I found distressing.
There was no hotel in the town and the nearest town with accommodation was Elliot, nearly 60 km away. To make things worse, one had to contend with a notoriously dangerous road across Satan’s Neck, which called for concentration and careful driving. The fabulous mountain views which greeted us every day made it all worth enduring though. One special morning, as we were approaching the edge of the escarpment, the sun broke raggedly through the fog patches on the high ground and rays of sunlight beamed down in spots in the valleys below. It was one of those perfect scenes one only sees once in a lifetime – just like a Biblical scene as imagined by 16th century artists. If Moses had come tramping down off the heights, with that celestial spotlight shining on him as he brought the Ten Commandments home, I would not even have been surprised.
How deflating it was to drive through that wonderful scenery and then have to endure the squalor and crush of humanity, in the town. Before the bank built a spanking new, spacious branch, the staff was crammed into an old building which was a true disgrace. There was even a hole in the concrete floor in one spot, into which I accidentally stepped and twisted my ankle.
During my second visit to the branch, the agency vehicle was waylaid and robbed on the way to Cofimvaba. I sent Bob Bullock to investigate and report on the incident and when he got there, the agency vehicle was way off the road, where the robbers had rammed it with their car. It’s not often we’re on the scene of a crime, so soon after it has happened. The lumbering agency teller who Bob christened “George Forman” due to his resemblance to the boxer, was more indignant than shocked by the incident. George would probably have made mincemeat of them, had they not been armed. I doubt if the robbers were ever brought to book.
Here I met the first black lady accountant I had encountered. Hazel Tlale was a tall, personable lady, well versed in her job and earning the respect of her staff. Her surname rang a bell as I had known a Mrs Constance Tlale, a school principal who had banked with us at Sterkspruit. Mrs Tlale was an impressive lady with a commanding presence and her daughter was also cast in the same mould. Hazel was doing fine as accountant but I thought her talent in Human Resources could be better used further up the ladder, which was what she also believed. I don’t suppose she stayed in the bank but I would love to know where she eventually found her niche.
KEIMOES
I have written about Keimoes before. This was the town in which Bush Morley was auditing when the hotel burned down. His description of what happened that night has to be one of the most hilarious stories I’ve ever heard. (You’ll find it elsewhere on my blog). But I’ll not repeat that story here. The town lies along the Orange River, amidst miles of vineyards and date palms. Hardly a kilometer away from the river, the landscape is dry and dusty semi desert but along the river everything is green and lush. This was where I first had the pleasure of eating fresh dates. Most of us know only those sticky packs of dates with which mothers and grannies used to bake delicious date loaves and suchlike but I doubt if many have eaten fresh examples of the fruit. It looks not unlike a grape and is easily the sweetest fruit of all. I wonder why the date palm is not also cultivated in other dry areas of the country. It seems to me that it would do well in the arid regions.
Keimoes is definitely not an exciting place to visit but within easy reach of the town, lie the Augrabies waterfalls which are well worth a visit. I saw the falls when the river was quite low and they were not as magnificent as when the river is in spate but even a low river sees vast masses of brown water tumbling into a rocky gorge on the last leg of a journey to the sea. There are many waterfalls much higher than Augrabies but what the falls lack in height, they make up for in the sheer brutality of the cascade. I would have loved to have seen the spectacle during a flood.
NORTH END, PORT ELIZABETH
While I encountered other managers at North End over the years, to me it will aways be “Basie Ferreira’s Branch”. I met many competent and talented managers in my time but somehow this Ferreira fellow, stands head and shoulders above the rest in my estimation. I often jokingly said that Basie did not understand the word “No” and would not accept a refusal of something he wanted one to do. If you’ve read my story of my fishing trip in Algoa Bay arranged by Basie, you will have heard about my earliest experience of Basie’s drive and willpower. He brought all that bulldozing power to his job as well. If Basie decided to paint the branch over a week-end and expected all his male staff to participate, that is what would happen. You just didn’t say no to him. (Incidentally, that’s exactly what happened at one of his previous branches – they actually painted the flipping office over a week-end.) He did not suffer fools and loafers gladly and he could be ruthless if you fell into either of these two categories but he was a supportive and sympathetic boss to people who took pride in their work. His energy and workrate were amazing. Basie, it was a privilege to know and work with you.
Sometime in the past, the wife of one of the messengers at the branch passed away and in her memory, he decided to donate a full-sized snooker table to the branch for installation in the recreation area. It really was a magnificent table, well used by the staff. Now that North End Branch no longer exists, I have to wonder what became of that table. I just hope that however it was disposed of the new owner was been informed about its history. (If anyone reading this knows the final chapter f this story, do come through to me please)
I wonder if the ladies who worked in securities recall the fall I had in their department? I rose from my seat and promptly plonked my size 12 foot in a box of vouchers. While trying to regain my balance, I lifted my leg and landed it in another box, just around the corner. Nothing could save me then, so down I went, the corner of the table catching me a stab in my kidney area. I landed in the boxes, demolishing them and scattering vouchers far and wide. People on the second floor actually heard the crash. The next day I had a bruise the size of a dinner plate on my back. For a change, I had not broken my chair as well. I wonder if any of the ladies working in my vicinity remember the fall? How about you Renee?
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