PHUTHADITJHABA
To tell the truth, I remember very little about this dismal little town in the North West Free State, quite near Harrismith. Yet I had to include the town as I recall so vividly how I battled to learn to spell the stupid name of the place. (It apparently means “Meeting place of the tribes”). It was the main town in the erstwhile homeland called Qwa Qwa (Meaning “whiter than white”. Hmm, what’s in a name?) To sum up, I went there, learned to spell the name of the place and that’s all I remember. Need I add that the place did not impress me?
EVANDER
Bush Morley and I were sent to Evander and discovered upon arrival, that the mining town had no hotel. The town Secunda where Sasol 2 is situated was nearby and had a brand new Holiday Inn, so we booked in there. Holiday Inns were usually comfortable well run hotels but while this one was comfortable, it was rather poorly run especially the kitchen. One night I was watching TV and elected to order from the room menu. I ordered “Fried Fish and chips” – imagine my surprise when they brought me FIVE portions of fried fish. My fried had become five! The food wasn’t much to write home about and they even wanted to charge me for all that fish. After 3 days and running up a “vast” bill of R85.00, we checked out.
Cor Kaan, accountant at the branch then arranged for us to stay in the Winkelhaak Mine single quarters in Evander. For a mere R75 per month, we had a Spartan but adequate room, a communal bathroom with plenty of hot water and some the finest food I ever encountered on audit. And if we went away for a week-end, those days would be deducted from the R75. Their kitchen had to cater for miners coming off shifts at all hours of the day and in fact, one could walk in at ANY time of day or night and receive a well cooked, tasty meal which would shame many a hotel. Bachelor miners were very well looked after at that mine and so were we.
PETRUS STEYN
This little dorp was one of the most forgettable places I ever visited and that was thirty years ago. I wonder if it even still appears on any maps. I checked into the little hotel which was run and owned by Uncle Fred, a former Rhodesian and his wife. I had a decent room with a double bed and plenty of hot water and while the meals were not great, I didn’t go hungry. I got up one morning and did my usual bathroom ritual. As I started buttoning up my shirt, I suddenly caught a whiff of rank body odour. I sniffed tentatively at my armpits and couldn’t believe what I found. I stank to high heaven. I wondered wildly if I had forgotten to bath the previous night but dismissed the though as I knew for sure I had. Then my eye caught my roll-on deodorant and unscrewed the cap and by golly, THAT was where I had picked up my smell. Then the penny dropped – the cleaning maid, obviously not particularly fastidious in her personal hygiene, had used the roll-on and had transferred her awful odour to it! I was so disgusted I stripped down again and ran a bath and scrubbed myself raw. Need I mention that I have never used anything other than spray deodorants since?
Oh wait, the branch …. damned if I even remember what it looked like. Oh dear ……
HOPETOWN
This is yet another really nondescript little branch. The town is where South Africa’s first diamond, The Eureka, was found and lies close to the Orange River. I stood up from my table in the branch one morning for a stretch and went to look out the windows into the street opposite. The local police station was situated there and I happened to notice that the old national flag was flying upside down. On a military establishment such as the Military College, flying the flag upside down or even allowing it to touch ground when you strike it is seen as desecration of the flag and punishable. (I know that because I once had the dubious honour of striking that Military College flag) Just for fun, I phoned the police station and announced that I wanted to lay a charge of “vlagskending” against them and stood back to watch the fun. Next thing, a hatless policeman came haring out, hastily brought down the flag, turned it right way up and shot it back up. Elsewhere in the world, flying the flag upside down is a signal of distress.
On a Sunday afternoon I took a drive up the main road to Kimberley and saw a board pointing to a place called Witput. Curiously I went and had a look and found a railway station and of all things, a little hotel. I was mystified as to how that hotelier could make a living there and was told back at the branch, that steam enthusiasts often made it their base when doing steam engine photoshoots. Steam engines were still around then but now that they’re extinct, I have no idea what keeps the hotel , which is still there, going.
TWEESPRUIT
Tweespruit was an oddity in the heart of the predominantly Afrikaans speaking Free State – many of the farms in the district have English names and an unusual number of farmers were English speakers. This came about after the second Boer War when the Duke of Westminster bought a large tract of land between Ladybrand and Thaba ‘Nchu, which he carved up in order to resettle officers from his regiment. The managers and accountant appointed to the branch, had to be thoroughly bilingual in order to cater for the client base’s language preferences. A famous client of the branch was Belgian painter and Roman Catholic Priest, Father Frans Claerhout. His paintings are known the world over and much of the money earned from the sale of such paintings, went towards maintaining building houses and schools in his mission. I saw the great man in the branch on at least two occasions. He died in 2004 at the age of 86.
EXCELSIOR
This is yet another nondescript little town on the Free State plains. It had its moment on the world stage for all the wrong reasons when in the heyday of the Nationalist Party, (architects of the Immorality Act) several senior party members in Excelsior were arrested and tried for “having fun” with black girls on their farms. I recall the old bank building which did not have indoor toilet facilities. One had to exit via the front door and go down a narrow alley to the toilets which were located in the backyard. I really disapproved of this situation – I had visions of personal disasters galore in the “appelkoosmaag” season. Someone having to head for that far off relief station under severe pressure would have found it a bridge too far I’m afraid.
I recall my former boss and good friend, Mike de Villiers telling me that he was sent there to relieve the manager. He sat drinking a beer at the local pub one evening and bemoaned the lack of a golf course at the town. Someone who was with him also having a beer, knew of a piece of municipal land which could easily be turned into a 9 hole course and Mike of course volunteered, went ahead and planned and laid out the whole thing. Mike was a keen golfer and actually collected courses but the one he had personally designed was the one he valued most. I saw his list of courses – there were hundreds, even St Andrews and some in America.
EMPANGENI
I no longer remember who I assisted at Empangeni but I do recall arriving there and finding the only hotel filled to capacity. Some phone calls later and I had found accommodation at a little village some 90km down the main road from Empangeni. The place is called Gingindhlovu (or Gin Gin I Love You as some wag will have it) and my word, that little hotel was a wonderful surprise. Fresh line fish daily just for starters and I could happily live on fish like that. It was a bit of a schlep getting to work behind the endless sugar cane trucks on that road but that accommodation was some of the best I ever encountered.
On the way every day, I used to see black women along the road selling avos and bananas and as I like both, I stopped one day and bought avos. When I asked how much they cost, she said One Rand. I thought it pretty steep for an avo but handed over my R1 whereupon she tipped her entire basin into the backseat of my car. Talk about value! Only trouble was, they all ripened at the same time and I just could not get round to them all before they spoiled. The same thing happened with the bananas I stopped to buy – a whole flippin’ bunch for R1. Oh yes, that Zululand is a fine place.
Nearby Richard’s Bay had started expanding, with industries springing up all over and we grabbed at the chance to tour through the gigantic aluminium smelter which had been set up at the port. Aluminium is extracted from bauxite in Australia and the resulting alumina powder is brought to this Alusaf factory for final processing. That one single building was something like 1.3 km long and was like hell inside. The alumina powder was deposited in large shallow baths into which massive DC anodes were placed. The resulting heat burned off oxygen and molten aluminium was left. The amount of electricity used by that single factory was just astronomical. A machine which fascinated me was the one which made aluminium wire. A massive ingot of aluminium was placed at one end and was progressively squeezed down to toothpaste size and rolled onto drums. It was just an amazing place.
LICHTENBURG
Bush Morley and I tackled Lichtenburg together. We stayed in separate hotels; Bush went for the more expensive one of the two in town. Corrie Roodt, a highly competent and approachable man was the manager and towards the end of the audit, we were invited to his house for a meal. As we turned into the street where the bank house was situated, we spotted a Jaguar pulled right up to the home’s front door while the driver’s door was standing wide open, as was the front door. Mystified, we made our way inside to discover the manager who was white as a sheet, sitting on a sofa while a doctor attended to him. We assumed he’d had either a stroke or a heart attack but were told that a bee had stung him and had caused him to go into anaphylactic shock. The really perspicacious doctor’s fast reaction to the manager’s wife’s frantic phone call probably saved his life. Turns out that unbeknown to the Roodts, a swarm of bees had taken up temporary residence in the lounge chimney and one of the little demons had seen him as a threat and stung him. Corrie was OK but it could have been a tragedy.
Once the furore had settled down, we got down to some serious socializing. An old farmer and his wife, Oom en Tannie Krappie (Never found out their surname!) had also been invited and they arrived bearing gifts. These were bottles of their finest “Mampoer” which Tanne Krappie herself had distilled. She would make it from whatever was in season – peaches, prickly pears, lemons etc .You name it, she stoked it. Always curious, I could not resist at least trying it. It looked innocuous enough – just like water. They recommended I try it with ginger ale which I did and after tasting it, was a trifle disappointed as it did not seem to have the “kick” it was notorious for. I mean, I was used to double Red Hearts with a dash of Coke and this stuff seemed a bit wishy washy by comparison. Boy was I wrong! After my second double of Tannie Krappie’s finest, I started feeling a numbness creeping over me and found my tongue would not articulate as well as I thought it should. My word, that stuff had a kick – I didn’t so much have a hangover the next day (Which mercifully was a Saturday) as an indescribable “spaced out” feeling, which Red Heart had never managed to produce. I never tried mampoer again.
Between Lichtenburg and Zeerust lies a resort known as the Molopo Oog. The Molopo River runs underground for a vast distance and exits here, forming a beautiful lake of crystal clear water. The overflow of the lake flows for a short distance and then promptly dives underground again to emerge no-one knows for sure. It is surmised that the Eye of Kuruman, an incredible Kalahari water source, is where this river re-emerges but that may just be a myth. I’ve actually been to the spot where the river goes back into the earth and it really is an amazing sight. A short distance away lies yet another natural wonder – Die Wondergat. It is a deep (70 m) dolomite sinkhole in which divers regularly train and practice their sport. Several divers have lost their lives in the sinkhole so it’s not a place to be trifled with. Diving is strictly controlled and supervised and the spot is probably the premier fresh water diving site in the country.
HOWICK
I had really fine accommodation while doing Howick with Dave Sharp. Dave booked us in at the excellent Hilton Hotel which is a few km out of town on the road to the coast. We arrived at the hotel after dark and by golly, it made an excellent impression at night. It looked like a castle with battlements and with fog swirling around. If a sentry wearing armour had appeared up there, the picture would have been complete. It was just a lovely old place with superb cuisine.
The people in the branch were fun too. I remember a rather forthright but hospitable lady, Mrs Symon who I just could not look in the eye due to the fact that she had a glass eye, invited us to her home on a farm near the town. She told us that she was working merely to keep her son at Hilton College, a ruinously expensive private school nearby. Her little daughter was learning to play the violin and proud Mommy wanted her to show off her new found skills to us. The violin well played, is a sweet sounding instrument but badly played, is like drawing fingernails across a chalkboard. I suppose little Peta is all grown up and plays her violin beautifully now but heavens, she was awful back then. And doting Mommy must have been flippin’ tone deaf.
On another occasion, the accountant Hugh Penn invited us round to his house to meet his wife Barbara and kids. I think the daughter was either Sharon or Cheryl. Hugh and his daughter turned out to be accomplished pianists and they sat down and played a duet – Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. It happens to be a piece I’m very fond of and I was blown away by their talent. I actually came back the next day with my tape recorder and had them play the piece again, so I could record it.
SPRINGS
I have no idea how Bush Morley and I drew this branch as it was in the territory of the Reef Inspectors. We could not find accommodation in the “Art Deco” capital of South Africa and the closest hotel we could find was at Dunnottar, a small town out east of Springs on the way to Nigel. We learned that the hotel had for years been a transit home for factory workers from Britain, coming out to work in factories and mines on the East Rand. A small sign pointing to its history was in the fact that dinner menus all included “mushy peas” as an item – an item definitely unique to that hotel but a staple in a British workman’s diet.
Bush and I were having a drink in their ladies bar one evening, when an elderly gent walked in and started nursing a glass of whiskey. Before long, he had introduced himself to us as “Bendini the Magician” and when we looked doubtful, he started doing “magic” for us. He soon had us astounded with his card tricks and we started plying him with whiskey to keep the entertainment going. For me the most amazing trick was when, after asking if Bush tied his tie in a Windsor knot or not, he said he would take off his tie without passing the circle over his head and that the circle would still be unbroken. He then grabbed hold of the knot, did something too quickly for us to register and handed us the tie, still in its original circle. It did NOT pass over Bush’s head so I have no idea how he managed that. His tricks were sleight of hand, that we knew but he managed to impress and puzzle us nevertheless
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In the branch I found a desk in the busy ledger department, which was commanded by a lady named Marietjie. She was a tall rather domineering woman who brooked no nonsense in her department. I asked her politely to come over to my table and help me with something and as she came across, I heard her mutter, “Kyk hoe vreet ek hierdie Inspekteurtjie heel op vandag”. When she got to me, I turned my back on her and said I wasn’t prepared to talk to ANYONE who approached me with that attitude. Oh boy! She went all colours of the rainbow and then stuttered an apology, meek as a lamb. We became friends then and there and I was able to give her department a well-earned clean sheet.
The managers took us out for lunch and that was the only time EVER that I managed to eat a snail. The endless gins which kept turning up at my place at the restaurant table might have had something to do with that bravado!
Something else I’ll never forget about Springs was the hailstorm which blew up over the East Rand one night. The lightning and thunder woke me at around midnight and when I looked out of my bedroom window, the fine hail was coming down like a solid wall. My car was just below my window and I thought disconsolately that all the paint would be stripped off the car but luckily it was too fine to do damage. Where a hailstorm usually lasts no more than 10 minutes or so, this one just went on and on for a good 45 minutes. When it eventually stopped, it looked for as if we had had a snowstorm. Hail lay in drifts and the next morning, there was such a drift still piled against the front door of the hotel that the door could not be opened. In town, several large shopping centres were under water as roofs had collapsed under the weight of the hail.
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