Bush was normally a quiet, peace-loving man not given to belligerent behavior. He was rather short and stocky and reminiscent in looks of a Staffordshire Terrier, but without the pugnacity. However I discovered he was no pussycat when one afternoon, when we were auditing Bloemfontein branch but staying in nearby Brandfort (The annual Agricultural Show had snapped up all the beds in the city) we were having a quiet beer together.
We were talking about once powerful men who had fallen from grace in the bank and I casually said something about “Yesterday’s heroes”. Wow! That must have triggered something from wartime in his mind because he suddenly demanded exactly what I had meant, with totally untypical belligerence. While I was stuttering out some reply or other, he suddenly took a roundhouse swing at me. Luckily I was relatively sober and my reflexes a lot faster than his and I was able to grab his fist and stop it from flattening my nose! We stood there in silence, him trying to wrestle his fist away from me in order to carry out his original aim. After a while, he suddenly relaxed, said “Aww flip it, let’s have another drink” and we carried on as if nothing had happened.
The subject was never raised again and he never took another swing at me. But it sure as hell kept me on my toes from then on.
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