Issuu

ZULULAND TALES byEddie Wellmann 1995

CONTENTS HOW‟S THAT FOR A GAMBLE! ......................................1 AMATIKULU RIVER MOUTH ..........................................3 PROFESSOR MAREE.........................................................5 SGT. BEN SCHOEMAN .....................................................7 THE NEW MTUBA HOTEL ...............................................9 ZULULAND TYRE CO. ................................................... 11 THE ROYAL HOTEL ....................................................... 13 SATURDAY RAFFLES .................................................... 15 THE PROVINCIAL HOTEL ............................................. 17 “SHAKA ZULU”............................................................... 19 THE BABANANGO HOTEL ............................................ 21 THE NQUTU GYMKHANA ............................................. 23 “ESHOWE HAS 8 CHURCHES” ...................................... 25 PUBLIC PROSECUTOR JAN COMBRINCK ................... 27 THE ESHOWE MOTH HALL ........................................... 29 THE POLICE CANTEEN .................................................. 31 THE SAFARI MOTEL ...................................................... 33

CONTINUED

GOEDETROUW DAM ..................................................... 35 “BLAME IT ON THE RAILWAYS”................................. 37 “I‟LL PAY YOU TONIGHT IN THE PUB” ...................... 39 THE IMPERIAL HOTEL .................................................. 41 A VIRTUOSO ON THE ACCORDION ............................ 43 “HAPPY HOUR” .............................................................. 45 THE MLALAZI LAGOON ............................................... 47 RICHARD‟S BAY ............................................................ 49 THE ST.LUCIA GRUNTER SEASON .............................. 51 A 3½ HP SEAGULL ......................................................... 53 UMFOLOZI RIVER BRACKET BRIDGE ...................... 55 A VAUXHALL VELOX WITH A SERIOUS MISSFIRE .. 57 THE SISALANA HOTEL ................................................. 59 THE MTUNZINI COMMANDO UNIT ............................ 61 HLABISA AND THE CORRIDOR ................................... 63 “I‟LL TAKE YOUR CHEQUE” ........................................ 65

HOWâ€™S THAT FOR A GAMBLE! The small country hotel pub in Zululand has always had a fascination for me. Even though I have only lived in Zululand since 1962, I have been fortunate to meet a lot of interesting characters, made a lot of friends, and had a lot of fun. The Mtunzini Hotel bar was my first introduction to that fraternity of Zululanderâ€&#x;s who used to meet in such places, and these stories are dedicated to them. The pub had wooden panelling and quite dark, with a magnificent collection of beer mugs and tankards hanging from the ceiling. The manager was Rod Clark and some of the regulars were: Harold Jones, Willie Mackintosh, Alan Mayer, Vic Tainton, Tony Baptie, Lionel Jones, Frank Hobbs, Peter Mottram, Eugene Erasmus, Selwyn Heathfield, and Ted Umpleby. We used to play darts in the 60's (before the pool table era) and, one day the local butcher Jimmy Mundell suggested that for our competitions, we should play for prizes of frozen chickens, which he would provide from the butchery. Our 20c entry fees would cover the cost of the chickens, and any surplus would go to a suitable charity. We duly adopted two old ladies in an Old Age Home in Durban, who had neither kith nor kin. In addition to the knockout competitions, we sold 20 20c tickets for a raffle, the prize also being a chicken. We got the barman, Gundu, to throw a dart at the board: the number he hit won the chicken. As chickens were selling for less than R3-00, we made a profit every time. Sometimes we raffled as many as 5 chickens this way. At Christmas, that year, we were able to send our 2 ladies R81-00! It was quite touching how grateful they were. 5

ZULULAND TALES

This scheme worked well for a while, until a new sergeant arrived. He stopped it immediately, on the grounds that it was illegal to gamble in the pub. He didn‟t last long, but we never went back to our scheme. Some 15 years later, I had occasion to visit the pub one evening. The manager, then, was Guy Keth. He called me over and after 2 or 3 drinks, I suggested we should take on the 2 dart players who had been on the board all evening. He thought it was a good idea, and we challenged them. Before we started I said to the opposing captain, “Lets play for a drink”. “0f course,” he replied, “Right round the pub!” As there were only 3 or 4 customers there, I agreed. We won the first game easily. They took the next one. We were going well in the final when the pub started filling up. Some 15 to 20 Wits students came in. Guy was going for his closing double, but he left me double 2! I put 2 darts on the counter, took my 3rd dart and threw it. Turning round before my dart hit the board, I sat down. Only then, did I sneak a look. My dart was safely in the double! The round came to R14-99, but I didn‟t tell anybody I only had R3-50 in my pocket! How‟s that for a gamble!

ZULULAND TALES

AMATIKULU RIVER MOUTH The Imperial Hotel at Gingindlovu was perhaps best known for Ian Campbell‟s collection of whiskeys in the pub. I wish I could remember exactly how many brands there were; vaguely the figure of 35 comes to mind, perhaps it was more than 50. It was here that the old question, wives have been asking for years “Why do men sit in a crummy bar for hours and hours,” was raised by Jos Harvey, one particularly hot and humid summer afternoon. The power had gone of f and therefore the air conditioners were off too. Even the beer was not cold any more. To crown it all, the Amstel had run out as well. This is when Jos came up with his question. He went on to say that he had a fridge full of ice cold Amstels at home, quite close by. “What‟s the fun sitting and drinking alone? it‟s the companionship and the intelligent conversation!” Turning to the barman he said: “Let‟s have another round!” Before ESCOM power came to this area, the villages of Ging and Mtunzini were serviced by a private power station belonging to Mr. Gill. Power interruptions were, therefore, frequent and one learnt to accept them. I can remember finishing a few dart games by candle light, the scorer holding up a candle near the board. Snooker games were a little more tricky, it being difficult to know exactly where to hold the candle, and, because the land-lord would complain if candle wax was dropped onto the green baize, they were usually abandoned. As Ging was also the junction of the road to the Amatikulu River Mouth, a popular fishing spot, many of 7

ZULULAND TALES

the fishermen used to drop in at the pub. Emer Reve, one of our Eshowe friends, did just that. He had recently acquired a Beach Buggy and thought he would refresh himself before fishing all night. Unfortunately, there was the usual friendly crowd there, and he spent a rather longer time than he had intended. When he eventually left, his co-ordination was not quite what it should have been. The road turned very sandy, and it was not surprising that he was soon in trouble, what with his “Marie Biscuit” tyres and all, and he rolled his Buggy. He sustained a damaged knee and ended up in the Eshowe Hospital. His birthday fell on the 2nd. or 3rd. day after this calamity, and his mates from the Provincial Hotel, led by Johnny Edwards, decided to cheer him up. It was a Saturday morning, and we collected some bottles of cheer and after getting permission from Dot Laing, (who will be fondly remembered, and whose recent passing mourned by many) to visit our sick friend, we invaded the ward in which he was the only patient. We promised not to make too much noise, but this promise was soon broken, and it wasn‟t long before the nurses were seen scurrying back and forth fetching more ice. When Sister Laing came to complain, she was invited to drink at least one toast. Because it was near Christmas, and the Hospital was nearly empty, and anyway she knew all of the young chaps, and had even helped deliver some of them, she capitulated.

ZULULAND TALES

PROFESSOR MAREE The Rector of The university of Zululand was Professor Maree, a man also known for his linguistic abilities, he spoke 8 languages. When I first met him, I spoke to him in German, and whenever we met, we used to converse in that language. A Zulu waiter was asking a patron of the Mtunzini Hotel something, in rather broken English, one day. The patron criticized him for not saying “please”. The Professor quickly pointed out that in Zulu there was no such word as “please”. He also mentioned that im Russian, which was the latest language he‟d learnt, the word for “beautiful” is the same as “red”. One Friday evening, on the way home to Empangeni, where he lived, he stopped at the Hotel for a drink. It was rather dark at the side of the pub, where he parked his official car, a white Volkswagen Beetle with GG No. plates. He saw me in the pub and we had a beer together. He then took his leave, but was back a short time later, complaining that his key wouldn‟t open the door. I told him not to worry, as I had some Q 20, and fetched it from my car. We sprayed it into the keyhole, but still no joy. “Must be jammed!” he said, as he picked up half a brick. “Got to get home!” and he smashed the quarter vent glass. He opened the door from the inside and tried the key in the ignition. Amazingly, that was stuck too. While I was squirting Q 20 into the ignition lock, I saw how a thought suddenly struck him. He walked to the back of the car, and horrors! it had a N U F No. plate. There, 2 cars away, stood the GG Beetle. The window was open and the door not even locked. We discovered that the wrong car 9

ZULULAND TALES

belonged to Peter Bex, who had only bought it a week ago! A very embarrassed Professor apologised to Peter whom he knew. As he told them the story, a roar of laughter greeted him from the dining room table where Peter was having dinner with some friends. Round about this time, another Professor came to the university to lecture lecturer in the Law Faculty. He was Barend van Niekerk, whom I got to know quite well. He had recently returned from Germany, where he had studied on a scholarship. My wife and I invited him for a braai at our home, and also visited him at his cottage, just behind the Church. While having a sherry with him one evening, he looked at the level in the bottle and remarked that his servant seemed to have taken a liking to the contents. He pointed out, however, that there was a law “for the protection of thieves” - it was illegal to put poison into the bottle if you suspected someone of stealing from it. He invited us to a film show at the university one evening, it was “Zorba The Greek”, with Anthony Quinn. As he had been to Greece, just before his return, he confirmed that the setting was absolutely authentic, also the peasant lifestyle and the music. At the end of the semester, he left for Durban, where he became very well known for his interest in the historical buildings of Durban, and his campaigns for saving them especially the Old Durban Station.

ZULULAND TALES

SGT. BEN SCHOEMAN In about 1965, the Mtunzini Police got a new Station Commander. He was Sgt. Ben Schoeman, and he brought with him a big Alsatian, called Wolf. When the prisoners who had finished serving their sentences were released, Ben would stand at the door holding Wolf by the collar. As they walked past him, Wolf would bare his teeth and growl at each one in turn. Ben would then look them up and down and tell them he didn‟t want to see them back again. Apparently this warning was taken to heart, because there was quite a sharp drop in the crime rate. Ben invited me for a drink one evening, explaining it was his birthday. As it was school holiday time, our respective families were away, so I readily agreed. After a few drinks we had a game of killer. He was drinking double vodkas with coke, and he must have had eight or nine when we started playing. His first throw was treble 20, treble 19, and treble 18. I think I had two 20's. His next throw was treble 17, treble 16, and a single 15. So it went, and I must admit I didn‟t win too many games that evening. Eventually, well after 11, he said he was hungry. We went to his house, where a young Konstabel Vermeulen, was cooking supper. All that was still to do, was the rice. While he started on that, Ben showed me his collection of confiscated home-made firearms. Most of them had come from the Heatonville district where he had been stationed before. He picked up one, a shotgun, that was of particular interest to him. It had a single barrel, fashioned from a piece of ½ in. (13mm) galvanised water piping, with a cleverly bent nail for a hammer. The stock was roughly 11

ZULULAND TALES

hewn from a piece of thorn wood. It fired a .410 cartridge. Ben assured me that it was deadly accurate. When I expressed my scepticism, he grabbed a No.4 shell, and thrust it into my hand together with the gun and walked outside. Shining a torch at a small whitewashed corrugated-iron building (a toilet), about 40m away, he said: shoot. Without thinking about the danger, I fired. Astonishingly the shot pattern, clearly visible, was a neat circle a metre in diameter! By this time the rice was cooked, and we had our midnight supper soon afterwards. While the prison cells remained empty, Ben started raiding the compounds on the sugar cane farms at night. With all the laws then in existence, it was not difficult to find something to charge the workers with, and then usually the entire labour force was locked up. The cane farmer, suddenly finding himself without his staff, was forced to pay bail to release them. When this happened to the influential sugar barons like Barry Matthew, Roy Kirkland, George Nel, Cliff Ross and Arthur Wadman they were understandably peeved off. A delegation went to Eshowe to see Col. Kurt von Keyserlingk, the Chief of Police for Zululand. I heard about this, so it came as no great surprise when Sgt. Ben Schoeman was suddenly transferred. I never saw him again.

ZULULAND TALES

THE NEW MTUBA HOTEL The New Mtuba Hotel, later to become The Sundowner, was another small, friendly, country pub. Our regular crowd consisting mainly of mechanics, carpenters, brickys, shop assistants, and a few sugar farmers. Fishermen, passing through, made up a small part of the bar trade. The Sugar Mill at Riverview had .its own club and although some of us were members there, we preferred our pub. The Hotel manager was Hayden Thody, and some of his patrons were: Mike Benadie, Vossie Vorster, Justin van Rooyen, Graham Killerby, Theuns Scheepers and Percy Jackson. Mike Benadie was telling us about an experience heâ€&#x;d had. Fishing from a boat in the St. Lucia Estuary, he had one rod in the water and, as he was about to bait his second rod, there was a sudden ratchet scream and his first rod disappeared into the river. The reel was a new Penn and he had set the drag a fraction too tightly. In desperation, he cast for it with the spare rod. At the second attempt he felt he had hooked something. Reeling in, he could feel a fish pulling. Surprised, because his hook had not been baited, he played the fish until suddenly his lost rod appeared, he had hooked one of the eyes. The fish at the end was getting tired but still fighting, and reeling the rod close to the boat he managed to grab it and land a 3kg. grunter. Percy Jackson bred crocodiles as a hobby on his small farm. The S.A. Breweries publicity dept. took a photo of 13

ZULULAND TALES

him, wearing his leopard-skin-banded wide-brimmed hat, standing amongst his crocodiles. This picture was enlarged to poster size, and used in advertising Lion Lager. It was displayed at bottle stores and hotels throughout the country, I even saw it in Pretoria. The SA Breweries presented him with a few cases of Lion Lager, and he promptly swopped them for Castle at the Hotel‟s Off-Sales. Percy was also an excellent Zulu linguist, and I often held conversations in Zulu with him. We were sitting together on the verandah, behind a partition, one afternoon, drinking beer and chatting in Zulu. Hayden happened to hear Zulu spoken, and I overheard him muttering something about “having told the waiters a thousand times not to serve „them‟ here, their place is at the back,” as he stormed towards us. Great was his surprise when he saw only us two sitting there. We had to laugh at the look on his face. At that time we stayed at the old Mfolozi Village, which had ceased to exist. All that survived was the trading store, a butchery, and a few houses. We lived in the house belonging to the butchery. It was about 15km. to Mtubatuba, where I worked, the road winding through cane fields for about 5km. alongside the Umfolozi River,. then joining the main road at the southern end of the railway bracket bridge. It was quite hair-raising, the way the planks rattled underneath the car, or the way the whole structure shook and swayed if a train crossed at the same time. Alas, that too is gone now, washed away by the floods of the cyclone Demoina.

ZULULAND TALES

ZULULAND TYRE CO. In the late 60's, while working for Zululand Tyre Co. as a counter-hand, Don Mellis asked if I would take over Peter O‟Farrell‟s area, visiting the farmers, while he was on leave. I agreed with alacrity. Zululand was divided up between the three reps with each one visiting each area twice a week. The Company was using blue Chev C 20's, all equipped with 2-way radio‟s. So, on this Monday morning, they gave me a clipboard with delivery notes, and the truck loaded, our destination Melmoth. When I asked how my itinerary went, Don said not to worry, Peter‟s assistant, Pristin, would show me where to go. He was a cheerful type, also a mamba with a tyre-lever and rubber mallet. As we wended our way through the Nkwalini Valley and up the Melmoth Pass, Pristin would tell me where to call and where to pass by. I noticed that many farmers were not at home, and when I mentioned this, Pristin said we would see them later. I was fortunate in meeting Bertram Vanderplank, then the oldest surviving Rugby Springbok. He was in his 70's, but still active and running the estate. At another farm we called in and picked up a 7.50 x 16 tractor front tyre, which Pristin said had been promised us the week before. Eventually, we arrived in Melmoth just before lunch. Pristin said we had to rest for an hour or so. I parked the truck in front of the Melmoth Inn. It was the first week in January and very hot and as I went through the pub to wash my hands, I heard somebody ask, 15

ZULULAND TALES

“Where‟s Pete? I see his truck outside. I introduced myself and explained that Pete was on leave. “Where is your order book?” I fetched it. It is then I realized what Pristin meant by “seeing them later” they were all in the pub! Guy Boast wanted to know if I had picked up his tyre. So I spent an hour or so writing orders for a variety of items : oil filters, cane knives, welding rods etc., and making new friends. A week later, I called there again. It was a misty, rainy day, and I noticed Stan Havemann‟s Steyr Haeflinger Puch, a small 4x4 pickup truck, was parked right by the pub door, loaded with cabbages. Again, I picked up some orders, and while I was still writing, one of the chaps came in with a cabbage. “Hey, Stan, there‟s a guy from the Free State under-cutting you, he‟s selling his cabbages for 10c.” (Stan‟s were 20c). He put it on the counter. Stan had an artificial leg and he didn‟t move from his bar-stool. Calling for a kitchen knife, he said: “I‟ll show you why he is so cheap!” He proceeded to chop the cabbage to pieces, bits of cabbage flying all over the pub. “There you are!” he said, “ You see how loose the leaves are - large gaps between them. They should be tightly packed!‟ What made it funny, was that everybody in the pub realised it was Stan‟s own cabbage that he had been cutting up and criticising. When somebody started laughing, the whole pub roared. Stan got quite cross until someone explained the reason to him when he sheepishly joined them.

ZULULAND TALES

THE ROYAL HOTEL The Royal Hotel in Eshowe was established in 1886, and when Andre Meyer, the land-lord, mentioned this one day 100 years later, he said anyone born before this date could drink “on the house.” I looked at Allan Davies, nicknamed A.D. but, because he had never shaved, and his beard looked like Rip van Winkle‟s, I called him B.C. A retired building inspector, he was about 70, and came into the pub every lunch-time and had his 2 or 3 beers. Jokingly, Andre said it was lucky he didn‟t qualify, the hotel couldn‟t afford it. He laughed and bought us all a round anyway. The present pub was built later, a fire having destroyed the original hotel. It had a couple of roughly hewn black oak beams, or, what looked like oak but could well have been concrete. The counter was a very solid affair, difficult to say what wood had been used: the years of polishing had given it a dark shiny appearance. A heavy brass foot-rail ran along the counter, and a copper trough, half filled with sand, behind that. The counter was lined with a beaten copper kick-board, and more than once I noticed “Scrap” Barratt eyeing it with a professional eye. Among the managers that came and went, one of the more colourful ones was Ted Keey, a jovial, big man with a fondness for bow ties, a red and white striped one being his favourite. I can still visualize him leading a file of waiters, all carrying covered dishes, marching from the kitchen through the dining room into the pub. This, in execution of an order by Trevor de Lange for some snacks, quite late one evening. 17

ZULULAND TALES

When Ted discovered losses through petty theft among his kitchen staff, one day, and couldn‟t pin down the guilty party, he loaded them all into his Kombi and went to see a Sangoma. After some throwing of the bones, this worthy pointed out the culprit, who was then promptly fired. He was the only one upset -everybody else was quite happy. And after that peace reigned once more in the kitchen. A local lawyer, Terry Juul, took a fancy to Ted‟s wife, a very attractive blonde. The fact that he was married did not deter him, and it was not long afterwards that a double divorce was engineered, “by mutual consent at no cost”, and he married Ted‟s ex-wife. They left Eshowe, and by all reports it worked out well. We heard later that he was appointed as a legal advisor to the Defence Force in Pretoria. Ted left Eshowe soon after and we never heard from him again. Quite a few years later, Terry dropped in to the pub one Saturday morning, just passing through. After a couple of drinks and winning three of our pub raffles, which were held in aid of MOTH funds, he begged us to excuse him before we ran him out of town - which some of the old-timers who spent a lot on tickets every week, felt like doing - if he had won the fourth raffle, (half-a-sheep), as well!

ZULULAND TALES

SATURDAY RAFFLES The Saturday raffles in the pub at the Royal Hotel have become quite an institution. They have always been in aid of MOTH. Club funds and were started by one of the managers who was a MOTH. He obviously saw the possibilities of boosting the bar turnover as well. The first raffle was for half a sheep, and the tickets, or donations, were a Rand. The list was left on the counter and was numbered up to 100. At first the barman on duty battled to sell them all and sometimes we had the draw with some tickets unsold. To help increase the number of contributors and attract more customers, the manager decided to give everybody who had taken a ticket a free drink. Also as an added incentive the Hotel would dish out free plates of curry and rice, or some similar snack. Then, a free raffle for a chicken was added. In addition, a bottle of whisky was donated by the hotel. This was also free, and everyone who had had a drink during the preceding week qualified. When you paid for a drink, your name was written on the back of the till chit and it was put into a box, and come Saturday, one was drawn. The person whose name came up had to be present to get the bottle. If the person drawn was not there, it went forward to the next week. Later still, a 4,51 (gallon) bottle of whisky was added to the list of prizes. By then the donations went up to R2.00 each. The scheme must have had clearance from the police, actually our M.C. at the draws was Dennis â€œPlastic 19

ZULULAND TALES

Bones” Palmer, a member of the Force. He rang the little bell and announced the different draws every Saturday. One of the first winners of the ½ sheep, was my brother Ozzie, who was not a supporter of the pub. On a Friday evening after a Motor Traders meeting, just across the road at N.M.I., the Chairman, Mickey East, suggested they have a drink there. Krish, the barman, offered the list around. Ozzie took a ticket, and on the Saturday afternoon he got a phone call, telling him to fetch his sheep. He had never been in the pub before. and I don‟t think he‟s ever been since, either. “Bossie” Bosman, had the most incredible luck: he won 5 4,51 bottles of whisky in 6 weeks, plus a few more at various times. Some fishermen from the Transvaal, passing through on a Wednesday took a few tickets, saying they‟d be back on the Saturday to pick up the whisky. Sure enough, one of them did win it, and they promptly filled their 201 Coleman water container with ice blocks, decanted the whole 4,51 bottle into the ice and departed. One of them still said they wouldn‟t need to stop at any pub on the way home, at least not for a drink. The MOTH Club were able to buy a number of houses left behind by the Water Affairs Department, after the completion of the Goedetrouw Dam Scheme. These houses, although constructed of wood, were quite comfortable. They were let to needy families at a nominal rent. We felt quite proud of our little effort in this achievement. What‟s more we had a lot of fun too.

ZULULAND TALES

THE PROVINCIAL HOTEL The Provincial Hotel in Eshowe was the rival of the Royal, and had its share of loyal patrons. There were, however, some who supported both establishments. They would drive past the one, checking to see whose cars were parked outside, then maybe drive to the other one, depending on whom they wanted to see, or to avoid. The barmen, too, would sometimes change from one to the other, depending on the manager. They knew everybody anyway. In the earlier days, we played a lot of darts, and once a month on Thursday nights, we had a tournament. This took the form of a doubles knockout competition, partners drawn from a hat. A floating trophy and bottles of drink were the prizes. My partner, three months running, was Stan Folkard. We won twice and were runners-up the third time! Those were the days when our crowd consisted of: Norman â€œJacksonâ€? Freeman, Emer Reve, Eric Platt, Dick Field, Mickey Leathern, Stan Folkard, Peter Knoop, Billy and Johnny Edwardes, Ronnie Martin, Norman Steenberg, John Truelock..... to name just a few. One Saturday evening at home I had a phone call from Tina Bromfield at the Hotel. She was there with a couple of nurses from the hospital but their money had ran out. Jerry refused to serve them, or to charge my account without my permission. I went there, and after a few rounds it developed into quite a party. It ended up by us trying to balance empty beer 21

ZULULAND TALES

bottles one on top of the other, to see how high we could go. Of course, when we reached three or four, the pile would fall over, resulting in broken glasses and bottles. This didn‟t deter us, we just kept on trying again. When we ran out of bottles we went home. On the Monday I went to see Johnny Edwardes to pay for the damage. All he said was : “What damage? I know nothing about it!” One Thursday night at darts, I enquired whether anyone had any bananas for sale. Arthur Botha said he had some. I explained that I wanted to take them to Vryheid to my father-in-law, and as I was leaving after work on Friday, could he deliver them to me during the day? He assured me it was no problem. The next morning he duly delivered a nice big bunch. I gave him R5-00 and put it into the boot of the Cortina. Just then there was a phone-call for me, it was Wyndham Foxon, Arthur‟s boss, wanting to know if I had seen Arthur: he needed the Mercedes urgently. “Arthur had just left”, I told him, “He brought me the bananas in the Mercedes”. There was a pause on the line, and then Wyndham exploded, calling Arthur a name that cast aspersions on his parentage: “Not only does he pinch my bananas, but he uses my car to deliver them too!” My father-in-law later said they were the most delicious he‟d ever tasted. It was, therefore, not such a surprise to me that when I returned after the weekend, I heard that Arthur was looking for a new job.

ZULULAND TALES

“SHAKA ZULU” The Royal had built up quite a reputation for its meals, and non-residents were encouraged to book a table for eating out. Andre Meyer, the landlord, had even had a phone call from Ulundi, booking lunch for Dr. Mangusuthu Buthelezi‟s party of 30, some 4 weeks hence. Then, a week or so later, this booking was cancelled. On the original date, just before lunchtime, however, the party did arrive. Obviously, this caused a bit of consternation, but Andre kept his wits about him and quickly found a way out of the predicament. He discovered there were plenty of lamb chops in cold storage, and these were quickly grilled. There was a large pot of “putu”, intended for his staff, ready cooked, so that was utilised. A spokesman for the party later expressed his appreciation, and said that in future they would have their lunches there, whenever the occasion should During the filming of the T.V. epic: “Shaka Zulu”- , a few local people were used as “bit part” actors. Among them were some of our regulars, like: Digger Swan, Eric Platt, Norman Freeman, and more. Some of the actors and technical people became familiar faces in Eshowe. Ken Gampu was of course well known, but Henry Cele as Shaka made his debut here. Kingsley Holgate was in charge of building the sets. The Royal Kraal in the movie is now known as Shaka Land, a major tourist attraction in the area. Peter Gordon, Fergus Upfold, Gavin Lyle and Lloyd Balcomb, were some of the assistants. Barry Leitch was a consultant in matters of traditional dress and arms and in charge of training the actors for the dance scenes. It was quite interesting to see how Lloyd Balcomb had 23

ZULULAND TALES

some of the shields constructed‟: pieces of masonite were cut out to shape, painted the authentic colours with PVA and nailed onto 38 x 38 battens in lots of 3 next to each other. The illusion of vast Impi‟s could thus be created by relatively few men against the distant horizon: one man raising 3 “shields” at once; it also helped to show off the precision of their drill. Before the advent of T.V, occasional entertainment would be laid on by the Hotel: a local band concert, or a dinner dance. This usually took place on the verandah, which would be closed by unrolling the canvas drapes. I can remember one afternoon enjoying a sundowner with my wife before such a dance later that evening, at which George and Clare Demmer were to provide the music. We were sitting on that verandah, and when I looked up, I noticed two paper flowers stuck onto the ceiling above each end of the verandah. I didn‟t mention this to anybody, but during the dancing later, the M.C. announced a spot dance, and when the music stopped, he glanced at the ceiling and presented the prize to the couple under the one flower. I then took care that when the next spot dance was due, I kept under the other flower until the music stopped again. Sure enough, the M.C. again looked up at the ceiling and handed my wife and I the other prize!

ZULULAND TALES

THE BABANANGO HOTEL Hidden behind hedges, shrubs and trees, is the Babanango Hotel. It is set back from the main road, and only the weatherbeaten and faded sign betrays its existence. The building looks like an old farm-house, with a verandah, potted plants, a fish tank or two and well worn easy-chairs. On alighting from his conveyance, the traveller is welcomed by a large dog, name of Lady, who shows the way to the pub. It is difficult to decide what the most striking impression of the tiny cramped pub is: the shelves stocked with every conceivable kind of drink interspersed with a host of funny plaques, (Bath 5/-, Used Water 2/6) or the incredible profusion of photos, maps, and business calling-cards covering the opposite wall from the floor to the ceiling; or the side wall, full of British Army uniforms and other relics dating back to the Zulu War - props used in the movie “Zulu Dawn” which was shot in the area. Or maybe the figure of the landlord and owner Stan Wintgens, a big jovial fellow with white mutton-chop sideburns and a clean-shaven chin, usually dressed in “Lederhosen” - those leather shorts which are part of the national costume of the Tyroleanness. These were a present from his son-in-law who owns a leather-goods factory in Bavaria. The Martini Henry rifle displayed there was in the news not so long ago. When the one from Dr. Mangusuthu Buthelezi‟s personal collection disappeared, it was 25

ZULULAND TALES

reported that it had been seen in the Hotel, and a delegation arrived to take it back to Ulundi. Fortunately Stan Wintgens had documentary proof that this was not the missing one. With only a small farming community and a handful of local workers, the hotel could hardly be expected to survive. The few commercial travellers who pass through and sometimes stay for the night, however, are so impressed with the friendly and homely atmosphere, that they tell their friends and colleagues. So gradually a fair clientele has been built up. Some of the locals have been heard to warn people to check their change carefully, but I think that the atmosphere is so friendly and relaxing that one tends to forget exactly how many drinks one has had, and is sometimes surprised at the size of the bill. An interesting fact is that the N.S.R.I. collection-box brings in more than many larger hotels, even though it is far from the sea. On trips from Eshowe, it is necessary to stop there to let the engine cool down. There is a new theory that it is better for the engine to stay warm for maximum efficiency, but everybody knows that the oxen in early times had to have a rest after pulling up Rem Hoogte, so my cars were similarly rewarded. As it is the nearest hotel to the Isandlwana battle fields, tourists often make use of itâ€&#x;s hospitality. One University Professor who took his History students to the battle-fields and stayed at the Hotel, wrote: â€œThe art of inn-keeping in the rest of the country is still in its infancy, compared to this Establishment!â€?

ZULULAND TALES

THE NQUTU GYMKHANA For many years, Nqutu was the venue of a gymkhana held on New Years Day. The racecourse finished where the Charles Johnstone Memorial Hospital is now standing. My cousin Armin, a jockey, would carry on riding past the winning-post to the Hotel, bump the bat-wing bar-doors open with his horse, ride up to the counter and order a beer. Later, when the Hotel was sold to an African business-man and the village became black, the venue of the gymkhana was changed to the farm Swartwater, belonging to the Wessels family in the Helpmekaar district. The Hotel was no longer accessible to white travellers and they thus made use of the hospitality of the Babanango Hotel. Stan Wintgens acquired it in the late 60's, and his wife ran it while he worked for a liquor firm. When his wife died suddenly, he took over the running of the Hotel himself. A large jovial man, he would lose his joviality if his Sunday afternoon rest was disturbed. One Friday afternoon, when I first met him, I mentioned that we would be passing through on Sunday again, so he called his head maid, Lulu, and told her to open the pub for me, should I be early and he still resting. So, over the years, became his most regular irregular customer: usually staying longer than I originally intended. One day I suggested to Stan that he should stock Schnapp (about the only drink he didn‟t have), and the next time I dropped in, he poured me one, “on the house.” In recent years Stan has started a collection of foreign 27

ZULULAND TALES

bank notes, pinned onto a board above the glasses shelf and while a lot of them, like the Angolan Kwanzas, are worthless, Dollars Pounds and Deutschmarks are appreciating in value. A crowd of us from Eshowe went to the Oktober-Fest in Vryheid one year, Stan also, and we had a lot of fun. We decided to meet again at Babanango on the Sunday night. Val and Myrtle Bunge and we arrived at about the same time, Stan and the others were a bit late. After a couple of “Regmakers” we left. My daughter Yvonne was due to go for her drivers licence test the next week, so I let her drive. Even though it became misty and started to drizzle, she handled the car so well that I soon fell asleep. When we got home I promised her she could use the car for a weekend as soon as she did get her licence. She went for the test, and passed the oral and written part with flying colours. When the driving part came, she asked the Inspector: “Please fasten your seat-belt”! “I don‟t need to”, he said. “Then I refuse to drive!” she told him. So he acceded to her request. Needless to say she got her licence, and when she came to tell me at work she said: “Bye-Bye, I‟m off to Durban to visit Rita!” There is a long climb on the way to Melmoth, called Havemann Heights, but because of a round boulder formation protruding from the mountain side, it is locally known as “Ouma se Boude”, which is quite an apt description. The Zulus see it as a different part of the female anatomy - the breasts of a woman.

ZULULAND TALES

“ESHOWE HAS 8 CHURCHES” We were on top of the fortress of Salzburg and our guide was pointing out some of the interesting features. “There are 27 Churches in Salzburg”, he told us, “and 2 Breweries. In Munich,” he laughed, “it is the other way round!” Eshowe has 8 Churches, and 2 Hotels, but if you count the Country Club, the Sport Centre, the M.O.T.H. Club and the Police Canteen, you have 6 bars. Just before Christmas one year, the Methodist Church had an Interdenominational Sunday-School Social Evening. Most of the customers of both Hotels who had children, went along: the Minister, Peter Young was well-liked. After the singing of Carols, the acting of Nativity Plays etc., there was also a quiz for the children. They were asked to complete the pairs e.g. Adam and ..?.. Eve, Samson and Delilah, and so on. When it was my son Hans‟ turn, he was asked : Cain and Coke, came the answer. He was about 6 or 7, but, apart from embarrassing his mother, he caused a roar of laughter, Peter Young‟s included! The police canteen was really a private club for members of the force, but Johnny Roux from the C.I.D., the first honorary barman, invited some members of the public for the opening, and a few of us became regular customers. Not only were the drinks cheaper than the hotels, but the atmosphere was quite different. Eshowe was the first Station for a lot of young Constables who had just come out of Police College, and it was a pleasure to see how keen and enthusiastic they were. Another advantage was 29

ZULULAND TALES

the early closing time: one didn‟t get into trouble for getting home late so easily! One also could sometimes (accidentally) get early warning of roadblocks and could warn ones friends! Tollie Nel was showing off a digital wrist watch, one day. It was free, he said. All he had to do was to buy 51 of Shell oil. The next day there were two more people sporting similar watches. Six months later all the watches had packed up but everyone still had the oil. Philip Moolman came into the Canteen one afternoon bringing in a most awful smell. Everybody checked under their shoes to see if they had stepped into something. It later turned out that Philip had stopped to relieve his bowels in the cane. Unfortunately a “drol” had slipped into his boiler-suit which he hadn‟t pulled down properly. About this time my brother Ozzie had a burglary and was telling the story to Gerry van Moerkerken, the Borough Electrician: “They took out the louvres from the bedroom window and climbed through.” “Fancy that,” said Gerry, after removing the long cigarette holder. “Then they took all the trousers of my good suits from my wardrobe and left the jackets”! said Ozzie. “Fancy that,” said Gerry. “Also a portable radio from the lounge”. “Fancy that”, said Gerry. “Then some freshly baked bread from the kitchen table.” “Fancy that” said Gerry. “Then they opened the fridge and took a six-pack of beers”. “The bastards!” said Gerry, putting his. cigarette holder back in his mouth.

ZULULAND TALES

PUBLIC PROSECUTOR JAN COMBRINCK While working at Zululand Tyre, a stranger came to see me one day. He introduced himself as Terry Richards, Roseâ€&#x;s uncle. He was with the High Court and invited us to meet the Judge and have a drink with him at the Royal Hotel that evening. Uncle Terry had distanced himself from the Family, (he had even changed his surname from Reiche during the war), but was anxious to pick up the family ties again. We met Judge Muller, and the other Assessor, Todd and the Public Prosecutor Jan Combrinck. I had seen him the night before in the Provincial Hotel. After ordering a beer I had left my change lying next to my beer on the counter and went to play darts. Coming back, my change was gone. Jerry glanced at a stranger who then apologised and said he had picked it up by mistake. As they would be staying in Eshowe for 2 weeks, I invited them to a braai at our home. The Judge was most impressed, especially with a marinated chicken recipe of mine. The next week, the Court Messenger brought me a letter, and not without some trepidation, I opened it. It was an invitation to the Judgeâ€&#x;s party. It was customary for the Judge to have a party after the Circuit Court had finished its session: all the Town dignitaries, such as the Mayor, Councillors, Postmaster and prominent businessmen were invited. The party was to take the form of a braai and to be held in the caravan park, to which purpose the army had already erected some tents. I was also requested to assist him in the braaing of the meat and to help in acquiring 31

ZULULAND TALES

some wire-grille clamps. As the hardware stores did not have enough in stock, I set about manufacturing the required number. The Judge had prepared his own secret marinade and the mutton pieces had been marinading and tenderising for 2 days. He was most meticulous about the heat and the turning of the meat: I could see a master at work. While we were enjoying the meat and the compliments of the guests, one of the junior assistants of the court asked me how come I was invited, as he didn‟t think I was a “larney”. I told him not to let the Judge hear, but an uncle on the Bench helped. Nowadays one does not see quite so many big braais being organised anymore - the astronomical meat prices are against it. I saw a cartoon recently where two schoolboys were bragging about the relative wealth of their respective families: “We bought a new Mercedes”, said one. “That‟s nothing”, said the other, “we had a braai last weekend!” In 1959 in Rhodesia I used to buy the whole beef fillet for 50c a Kg. One Saturday I was too late and had to get something from a different butchery. All that was available was a chicken, for R2,l0c. It was quite big, but by comparison, that chicken would have cost some R50 to R60 today! We met Uncle Terry in Vryheid at a Christmas Family Reunion again, and also went to visit him in Pietermaritzburg on a few occasions when we were in the vicinity. He cooked us a most delicious guinea-fowl casserole on one occasion. He was happy to have made up with all the family again. 32

ZULULAND TALES

THE ESHOWE MOTH HALL The Eshowe MOTH Hall is hired out to different institutions. One of these was the Blood Transfusion Service. So, on such days, members wishing to go to the bar which is housed in the back, could either sneak round the side - ducking as they passed the window, or, donate blood first then go through to the back, or just walk through, avoiding the eyes of Sister Mundy and her help. I can tell you that not too many took this last course. I always insisted on having my left arm punctured so as not to weaken my dart-throwing one, also, as soon as the extraction was finished, I made sure that at least two pints of a suitable liquid were replaced as soon as possible. That is why this venue suited me - it was on the way home and saved a trip to the hotels on the other end of town. It was decided to install a pool table in the bar area, so the room had to be enlarged. A new counter was also fitted. It ran the length of the room, and was nearly a metre and a half wide. It reminded one of the olden times when the barman needed the protection it offered. I used to drop in occasionally when I saw Sid Brien‟s car parked outside. Sid was, at 80 probably the oldest practising attorney in the country - a slim, sprightly, neatly-dressed white-haired gentleman. He was interested in the English language and music, and we usually discussed one or other of those subjects over a beer. He was a slow, moderate drinker. Among the staunch members, were: Dennis “The Menace” aka “Plastic Bones” Palmer, Jimmy Keyes, a 33

ZULULAND TALES

humourist (he took orders for honey at R1, and butter at 75c a ½ Kg. and then warned that there might be a slight delay in the execution as he only had one bee and one cow!) “Uncle” Louis Stead, ex-mayor of Ladysmith, then the licencee of the Club, Steven and Harold Barratt, Oom Piet de Haas, the barman, Johnnie Jewaskiewicz, Rob Chowles, Jan “F.M.” Henning, Borough Health Inspector and spare-time barber who gave haircuts in aid of Club funds, Johnny Louw, Edgar Brook, Scon Bannock, and many more. It was a pleasant place to spend half-an-hour on the way home. The Armistice Day Parade and the Remembrance Service are attended by all M.O.T.H.s, and one year even the German Lutheran Minister, an ex-Luftwaffe pilot, was present. In 1944, I and some 25 High School pupils from around Natal spent the Michaelmas holidays as guests of Rotary, camping on the Technical College Sports Grounds, just of f the beach-front near the Snake Park. We were given lectures on “Leadership” etc., and visited factories like Dunlop‟s and Lever Bros., also The Daily News, where we each got a copy of the paper with our picture in it as it came off the press. The picture had been taken the day before. The Flying-boat Base at Salisbury Island was also on our list. We were allowed aboard a Sunderland moored there. At the end of our tour we were taken to the MOTH Headquarters at Old Fort Road and met Charles Evenden, MOTH 0, the founder of the Order. He gave us a talk on how it came into being and it‟s aims.

ZULULAND TALES

THE POLICE CANTEEN The Police Canteen was run by members of the Force, and like any hotel or club, the barman contributed greatly to the success or lack of it. One of my favourites was Basil Nicholson. Basil and I had a lot in common, not least of which was our love of cooking, and often, when I had run out of ideas for supper, I would visit him for a quick beer and a recipe, then rush to Adamâ€&#x;s Supermarket, buy the ingredients I was short of, go home and cook. One of his recipes was for fried chicken which, he claimed, his kids preferred to Kentucky. It required Aromat and crushed corn-flakes, among other things. Another was a mutton casserole, consisting of: stewing mutton, preferably lean neck, covered by a layer of green beans and sliced potatoes. A stock made from brown onion soup was added and the mixture allowed to simmer in a sealed casserole in the oven for an hour. Another stew used a Â˝ litre of apricot Liquifruit as stock, and another, Brazilian beef, instant coffee. One evening as I was driving home, there was a helicopter hovered over the airstrip, which was near home. I drove towards it. An Army Puma with Mike Hill, an ex Eshowe boy and a friend of ours landed. Apparently their engine was giving trouble and they would have to stay over. They were on the way to Durban from Hluhluwe, and were carrying an Inyala carcass which they had obtained from the Parks Board. As it seemed likely that the machine would be stranded for a few days, they were worried about their meat. They took off again and landed in the Police grounds. Fortunately the Canteen had a large cold-room, and we were able to keep the carcass there. I then phoned Ernie Wardell, a local blockman, and he 35

ZULULAND TALES

agreed to cut it up for us. Seldom have I enjoyed venison more than the shoulder which they gave me. Naturally I had consulted Basil about the recipe and invited him and his wife to share it with us. Unlike the pubs north of the Limpopo in the earlier days, where they played poker dice and lie dice, there was very little gambling in the Zululand pubs. Maybe an occasional game of darts for a drink, and in some pubs dominoes or matches. One simple game enjoyed a brief spell of popularity: using 2 coins, such as Sc pieces as “dice”, 2 or more people could play. You would place your bet, put the 2 “dice” in a cup, shake them and the bets would be paid according to how they landed. If both fell heads up, the thrower would collect the pool. If both were tails the thrower would have to double up the amount in the pool If one coin was heads and the other tails, it was “pass”. As the bets were usually only 10c, not much money was made or lost, but one evening, with 5 of us playing, after a few double tails, the pool was suddenly R8, and when I threw another 2 tails, I had to feed the pool that amount. The player who followed me threw 2 heads and collected the R16. He was a sport, though, and later offered me a chance to win it back, playing matches. “Best of three calls, double or quits,” he said. Fortunately my luck changed then, and when I won, I pocketed the R16 and saying that I should have been home long ago, I left quickly.

ZULULAND TALES

THE SAFARI MOTEL The Safari Motel had just been built when I arrived in Mtubatuba. The bar had been stocked but the final inspection for the licence had not been done, so it was not officially open yet. I had met Cassie Els, the landlord, and he invited us round the back to the bar for a beer. As it was summer, Theuns Scheepers (the foreman at work) and I, frequently availed ourselves of this invitation. It was opened soon afterwards, and immediately became popular, especially with visitors to and from the Game Reserves and also with commercial travellers. One Saturday morning at work, I had a phone call from Cassie asking whether I could help in the bar after work. He was expecting some 30 odd delegates for a conference that afternoon. When I arrived just after 12, he informed me that his regular barman had not turned up and I was on my own. I remembered the advice of Sam, the barman at the Imperial in Empangeni. He served both the public and private bars single-handedly on a busy Saturday morning. He told me that once everybody had a full glass, you kept glancing along the counter watching only those customers whose glasses were down to less than a quarter. If they wanted to re-order, he was waiting for them just to look up and catch his eye. Of course, new arrivals would be no problem. It made it easier that some of the delegates were friends of mine, one of whom was Rob Short. They also only had one or two drinks before attending to their meeting. A small company of about 12 tourists came into the 37

ZULULAND TALES

private lounge one evening. One of their number was a short, retired German Civil Servant from Berlin. He called the waiter and told him he would pay for all their drinks. It seems that their tour, which originated in Switzerland, had landed at Jan Smuts three days before. It had then travelled via the Kruger Park to the Swazi Spa Casino. This tourist then played a one-armed bandit, and with his first attempt got some R60, for which he promptly bought chips. After half an hour at the roulette table, he had won R400 and stopped. It was this money that he was now spending. We were sitting outside one evening, when a waiter walked past me, muttering something about funny tastes and Americans. He was carrying a tray with a drink which looked like a coke with cream on it. It was. Curious, I watched him put it down in front of a customer near me. He looked at it suspiciously, first smelled, then tasted the concoction. He looked at the waiter and I heard him say in German: “Was ist denn das?” The waiter looked perplexed, and I offered to help, speaking German to him. “Ich hab em Rum und Coke bestellt!” he told me. I laughed and explained that his pronunciation of rum was quite close to the Afrikaans “room”, or cream. I explained the misunderstanding to the barman who rectified it. The tourist was from Hamburg and I invited him home for a braai. He thought my sosaties almost as good as the ones in Germany, only he called them shashliks. The steaks he thought compared favourably with the best he had tasted in Europe or North America.

ZULULAND TALES

GOEDETROUW DAM Sunday mornings, soon after sunrise, was the time I went for my weekly jog. I was accompanied by Tramp the Alsatian, and Fluffy the Maltese poodle. I slipped on my Tigers as usual, one bright summer‟s day, (after a braai that lasted rather later than usual), and set off across the lawn, wet with dew followed by the eager dogs. There was something which niggled me slightly, but I couldn‟t put my finger on it, and I soon forgot about it -what with the fresh morning air and my sloshy shoes pounding the road and the dogs enjoying their exercise. The jog was quite a leisurely affair, and was usually only about 5kms. or so. When I got back I removed my takkies near the tap to rinse my legs and feet, and then I discovered what had been bothering me: there had been a frog in my one shoe, and by now had been squashed into a pulp, yuch! Ever since then, I‟ve carefully inspected my footwear for frogs, cockroaches and scorpions. On another occasion while running past the airstrip, I saw Dick Herbert battling to push his plane out of the hanger. After I‟d helped him, he asked me whether I would like to come for a flip. I jumped at the offer and we flew over the Goedetrouw Dam, the Ntumeni area, Sunnydale and Eshowe. When we landed, Fluffy was waiting for me, but Tramp was missing. He had tried following the plane and got lost in the sugar cane. A couple of weeks later I was fishing at the Goedetrouw Dam when Gordon Vanderwagen took me for a spin across the dam in his cabin-cruiser. We went into many of the little inlets and bays which I had seen from the air. The surrounding area had been cleared of trees up to the 39

ZULULAND TALES

expected high-water mark. Eric Steenberg had seen the many mthomboti trees growing there and had got the contract for the bush-clearing. I was amazed when I saw later how many planks he‟d been able to cut. One day I noticed a new Audi 500 body on a trailer parked behind the Royal Hotel. It was painted, complete with all glazing, but had no seats, wheels or engine. Asking Andre Meyer the landlord about it, he told me it was to be used in the filming of a Zulu TV series. The hero returns home to Zululand after having made his fortune in Johannesburg and gets caught in a storm. As he fords a small river, it suddenly becomes a raging torrent and his Audi car gets washed away. Naturally he has a miraculous escape. The scene is to be shot on the spillway of the Goedetrouw Dam. The sluice gates are opened, releasing the torrent which washes the car away. When I asked what would happen if the scene went wrong, the producer who was in the pub said: “Nothing much, we‟d just send to Uitenhage for another Audi body - it only cost.R10,000. The budget could stand it.” The scene was scheduled to be shot the following day, but I was unable to attend. Quite a few people did, however, and enjoyed the entertainment. It went of f without a hitch. Zulmet had already contracted to buy the body and had a team standing by to salvage it as soon as the filming was done. The damage it sustained was not too extensive.

ZULULAND TALES

“BLAME IT ON THE RAILWAYS” The SAR & H were always considered inefficient and it was easy to “blame it on the railways” whenever some urgent part didn‟t arrive the next morning, or was delayed. Often, of course, the real culprit was the assistant responsible for the ordering, but had forgotten to do so, or had phoned too late. When we left Fort Victoria in Southern Rhodesia, in 1962 we obtained a small closed railway truck and loaded all our belongings into it, wired up the doors, and abandoned it to the mercy of the R.R. We left for Zululand by car the next morning, and 10 days later, the truck arrived at Mtunzini station. The railage came to under R70. This for a trip of over 2,000 kms. via Francistown and goodness knows what other places. Our neighbours, the Lionel Jones family, had to pay R120 for getting their furniture from Durban to Mtunzini by road, a mere 130 kms. So I don‟t think the Railways are that bad. I often wonder when that railway truck got back home: 5 weeks later it was still standing in the shunting yard at Mtunzini. A new Station Master took over some months later, and I got to know him quite well, as I used to collect the firm‟s parcels of spares every morning on my way to work, (the ones I hadn‟t forgotten to order!). When I first met him, he was raking the fine chips on the platform. He noticed my curiosity and explained that he was just showing his staff how he wanted it done, so that they had no excuse for not doing it properly. The same 41

ZULULAND TALES

way he also showed them how to make the tea to his liking, and a lot of other routine jobs. His fastidiousness was rewarded when he won the prize for the “Best kept Station Garden” in his class. On some mornings there would be wicker-work baskets containing live crabs, awaiting the train to be transported to some epicurean customers, one of whom was Dr. McHugh „in Eshowe. The crab-catcher was Ken Trotter, a descendant of the famous Jelly family. Who can‟t remember Trotter‟s Jelly? Now retired, he held the only crabbing licence in the area. He had special traps which were illegal for anyone else to use. You would usually find him in knee-length shorts and vest but barefoot - even in the pub. He enjoyed the company of the old-timers there and the occasional game of darts. He had a curious style of throwing his darts (heavy ones), from behind and over his shoulder, like assegais. The manager would wince every time they hit the board. They left quite a dent and this made it wear out much quicker. He also had quite a reputation as a practical joker. Once when he had to go to hospital, he took a supply of plastic insect replicas along. He would sneakily drop a cockroach or spider into his glass of water, then enjoy the nurses perplexity. He also would palm insects and laugh uproariously when he caught someone rash enough to shake hands with him. At the same time he was also very generous and would dish out sweets and chocolates to the nurses and the other patients as well. His favourite sweets were, not surprisingly, jelly babies.

ZULULAND TALES

“I’LL PAY YOU TONIGHT IN THE PUB” When I was asked whether it wasn‟t boring, standing behind the counter all day, I admitted that occasionally it did get a bit monotonous, but some customers more than made up for this. There was the small black boy who came in with a piece of brown paper on which was written: 6 plugs. He didn‟t know the make of the car or who the owner was. Suddenly, however, he brightened up and said it was a black car. I gave him Nl4Y‟s, suitable for a Valiant. He didn‟t come back. Then there was a bricklayer who sent his assistant with a brick, on which he had written his order for a Z 73 oil filter and 51 of S.A.E. 30 oil. A carpenter sent his assistant with a piece of skirting board, about 5m long, on which had been written with a carpenter‟s pencil: “Dear Ed, please order a set of rear brake shoes for my Rambler Station Wagon, 1965 model. Thanks. Frikkie van Jaarsveld. I‟ll pay you tonight in the pub, if you can find out the price.” He wrote the whole thing in one line, and there was still plenty of space left. When I asked him why he didn‟t saw the plank of f after he had written the message, - his assistant had quite a bit of trouble crossing the busy street -he said he had already measured it for the job. A taxi owner who did all his own repairs bought a set of Valiant rear brake shoes, one day. He was back, a short while later, saying they didn‟t fit. Surprised, as all Valiants are the same, I asked him to bring the old ones in. 43

ZULULAND TALES

When I saw them, I could see they were not Valiant, but he insisted. Studying them, I suggested they might be Ford. He then admitted that he had replaced the whole rear axle assembly with one from a Ranchero, but his car was still a Valiant! We had decided to reduce the price on certain parts which had been in stock a long time. There was a distributor cap for a Ferguson tractor, which a black customer wanted. The price marked on the box was R6, but we had reduced it to R4.50 nett. He insisted on some discount, so we explained to him that we could not give him any discount on this figure, but, eventually, when we offered him 10%, on the original price, he was quite happy. When a customer asked for a rotor for his Mazda B 1600, I found we did not have one. I asked him to turn the key, and there was just a whirring noise. “You see”, he said, “the rotor is not turning the engine.” What he needed, of course, was the Bendix drive. On a closer look, I found that the starter motor mounting bolts had fallen out and it was just dangling by its cable. A history student, using a metal detector, had found some metal objects near a ruined farm house where there were reputed to be some ancient graves. He proudly showed me his find, which he thought could be of great historical value. One turned out to be the condenser of a 1934 Ford V8, Part No. 40-12300. The other one was a rusty driver used in the back wheel of a bicycle. I told him Oom Chris Lewies must have serviced his old Ford before leaving the farm in 1939. If he looked again, he might even find some points and old spark plugs as well.

ZULULAND TALES

THE IMPERIAL HOTEL Carl de Villiers was the India Tyre rep. On his monthly visits to Eshowe, he would always invite me for a drink after work. Although he suffered from diabetes, he said he could have about three beers without any trouble. He was interested in cookery and so we often discussed this subject. One day just before we left, a friend of mine came into the pub, and looking rather worried, he ordered a double. We heard him tell the barman that he was in trouble and asked him for advice. He explained that a very pretty new girl had started work at his office that day and, to make her feel at home, asked her to have a drink with him, - give her a run-down on the office procedures, the staff members, and so on. As he found her company extremely pleasant, time went quickly, and he suddenly realised how late it was. Now he was scared to go home. The barman gave him a piece of chalk and told him to stick it behind his ear, go home and tell his wife the truth. He later told me that when he started telling her the story, she interrupted him: “You lie, you‟ve been playing darts with the boys again!” From this one can see that a good barman is much more than just a pourer of drinks, Carl said. He is often a psychologist, a councillor, a walking encyclopaedia, and goodness knows what else. I remembered a waiter with an astonishing memory I‟d met in Fort Victoria, Zimbabwe, some years ago. A Zulu who‟d grown up on a farm near Utrecht in Northern Natal, he was the head-waiter at Meikle‟s Hotel. When we had our Christmas Staff Party there, he was on duty. After the whole crowd of about 30 had sat down, our manager 45

ZULULAND TALES

ordered a round of drinks. Without writing anything down, he gave everyone the drink they had ordered. There was music and dancing, people moving about, sitting down in different places and, when about half an hour later, somebody asked the waiter for a similar round, he gave each one his drink, without a single mistake. Sam, the barman at the Imperial Hotel in Empangeni was also known for his good memory. I happened to visit his pub one Saturday morning, and after one beer, left. About 4 months later I again dropped in. It was a very busy Saturday morning and the pub was packed, but Sam just asked me whether I would like the same as last time. I nodded and he brought me a Castle. There was a list for the July pub sweep on the counter, and it reminded me of the time I‟d won the Gold Cup sweep in Mtunzini, a few years ago. I was unaware of it when I came into the pub quite late that Saturday afternoon. Rod Clarke held out a handful of notes and said: “The Gold Cup sweep!” ”Drinks all round!” I said, when I saw that the pub was empty. “Thanks, I‟ll have a whisky”, he replied. A Yank asked a friend of Carl‟s what his job was. “I‟m a clerk” (clahk) he said. The American looked at him: “Do you mean you stand on the mantelpiece and go tick tahk?” ”No, I work in an office”, he replied. “Oh, then you must be a clurk!” he said. As we left, I declined the piece of chalk from the barman.

ZULULAND TALES

A VIRTUOSO ON THE ACCORDION When it comes to music, the Zululand pubs could never be compared with their counterparts in, say, Bavaria. Zululanders didn‟t often indulge in such frivolities. Occasionally, however, a musician would appear to edify us, and to raise the tone of the establishment with a bit of culture. One such was Emer Reve, a virtuoso on the accordion. His instrument was of the sort that had buttons at either end, like a concertina. It had a sound somewhere between that of a Hohner and a Scandalli, but quite pleasant. Emer was proud of the fact that he could play a tune from virtually any country around the globe. So, on entering the Provincial, it was not unusual to be greeted by the strains of La Cucaracha, Waltzing Matilda, Annie Laurie, The Volga Boat Song, or even Sane Marais. Unfortunately, Emer‟s accordion got a virus infection, and started wheezing and becoming short of breath, and it wasn‟t too long before it expired. Another exponent of the gentle art was Jake Rabe. He had an electronic organ, and some people even went so far as to compare him with Peter Kruit. While I couldn‟t quite agree, his playing was nevertheless easy on the ear. Peter Kruit played the Hammond Organ at a German restaurant in Durban and specialised in an oompah-like style. I don‟t know what he charged but he would travel to perform in distant places like Eshowe and Empangeni. Usually pamphlets with the words of songs were supplied to enable people to sing along. The Spring Ball in the Eshowe Town Hall where he played one year, took a 47

ZULULAND TALES

while to get going. He started with: “In Muenchen steht em Hofbrauhaus - ems, zwei,. g‟soffa!”, but when he got very little response to his invitation to sing along, he warned that “We might just as well shut the shop!”. Gradually the crowd got into the mood, and at the end of the night, it was considered by most people to have been the most successful Ball ever. Stan Hall played a clarinet. It was rumoured that he had played in symphony orchestras overseas. His favourite tune was: “When the Saints Come Marching In”, and Saturday mornings in the Royal, he would often perform it, swaying and marching in time to the music, between the tables and bar-stools. His other hobby was collecting T-shirts with slogans on them. He had a different one for every day of the year, and still some left over. A troubadour with a guitar and a lot of talent, was Graham Stewart, but his tourist business didn‟t allow him much time to indulge in it in Eshowe. I only heard him on a few occasions, once in the Royal, and was quite impressed. Sandy de St. Pern would break out in “O Sole Mio”, or some operatic aria, with only two or three whiskies as encouragement. Unfortunately he was not a regular visitor and we enjoyed his singing only occasionally. Later, of course, most pubs were infested with the curse of the endless tape, which played the same music, over and over. The only time it was interrupted was when there was a race meeting on, and the barman wanted to fill in the results on his card.

ZULULAND TALES

“HAPPY HOUR” The Provincial Hotel was not enjoying as much of the bar trade as the Royal, so various measures were introduced to rectify this imbalance. One of these was “Happy Hour” every Friday between 5 and 6, when drinks were sold at half-price and free snacks provided. This certainly drew the customers from all over and many only went back to their own pubs after the snacks and cheap drinks were finished. Naturally the Royal wasn‟t slow in introducing something similar. There was also a free draw where a lucky customer merely had to be present to win a prize if his number was drawn. This was also to take place on the Friday, just after Happy Hour. If the owner of the number was not there, the prize would be carried over and added to, until it was won. The prize consisted of bottles of drink, biscuits, and sets of glasses and was displayed in a special cabinet on the wall. At one stage, the value of the hamper had grown to some R70, and that evening there was a crowd of young Bank employees from both local Banks present. I knew most of them and mentioned that if I won the draw, they were all invited to a party at my home. When Dick Field drew my number, I told him to choose what he liked. He picked a bottle of 100 Pipers. I told the youngsters from the bank to come to my home on the night of the following Wednesday. We prepared snacks and soon the party was swinging. I found a record of underground music, and put it on the turntable. It was soon after this that Eddie Jackson, who 49

ZULULAND TALES

had had a trifle too much Oude Meester, felt the need to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, he tripped and, er, vomited on the floor. J.J., his colleague, apologised for his manners, and added: “But what a critic!” I admitted that I shared his opinion of the music and put on Beethoven‟s “Emperor” piano concerto instead. When I needed a small overdraft, I heard that my bank had just got a new manager. As I hadn‟t met him yet, I was a little bit apprehensive, not knowing what sort of reception to expect, but made up my mind to go and see him on the Monday. On the Saturday, at an High School Athletics meeting, somebody pointed him out to me. I didn‟t get a chance to meet him then, but on the way home in the Dlinza Forest, I came across a Chev Constantia with a puncture. I pulled up behind it and offering my assistance, introduced myself. The driver was grateful, admitting that he didn‟t know too much about cars. He told me he was Louis Vermaak, just recently arrived in Eshowe. I then recognised him as the new bank manager. After changing his wheel, I mentioned that my brother‟s garage could repair the puncture for him, if he needed it done urgently, otherwise Zululand Tyre Co, where I. worked, would only be too happy to do it on Monday. As he thanked me, I mentioned that I would like to make an appointment to see him in his official capacity. He smiled knowingly, and told me to come at 10 am on the Monday, and to have tea with him. Needless to say, I had no trouble with my small loan, in fact he Offered me more!

ZULULAND TALES

THE MLALAZI LAGOON The Mlalazi Lagoon Resort at Mtunzini lies in the Mlalazi Nature Reserve which is administered by the Natal Parks Board. The ranger then, was Harold Streek. When the road system in this area deteriorated to such an extent that visitors started complaining to the Mtunzini Town Board, that body denied responsibility and referred the complaints to Pietermaritzburg, the N.P.B.‟s headquarters. Eventually it was decided to do something about it and a road-grader was sent from Saint Lucia. The operator was John Kymdell, who would live in a caravan, parked at the Lagoon Resort. We saw him occasionally at the Mtunzini Hotel after work, and when he‟d got his roads into shape after about two weeks, he told us he was leaving the next day, He said he still had some tinned food left over and didn‟t want to take it back home He then invited some of us to help him finish it. He warned us that it would be cold, but we made no objections. After he had opened various tins: potato salad, peas, sardines, peaches, pears, pilchards in tomato sauce, meat balls, spaghetti, etc., he got a large bowl, (his only one), and poured everything into it. He then apologised for not mentioning it sooner, but he had only one plate, one knife, one spoon and one fork. When I offered to fetch some, Constable Vermeulen, who had come with us, asked if I could drop him off on the way - he suddenly didn‟t feel so well. I had noticed that he had gone a little green around the gills when John mixed everything together, so I agreed. The rest of us managed to finish the strange concoction, and, amazingly came to no harm. The Mtunzini Hotel darts team invited a team from the 51

ZULULAND TALES

Provincial Hotel in Eshowe for a friendly game, one evening, and when Rod Clarke called “time” at 10.30, the Eshowe chaps were not ready to go home yet. I mentioned that I had a bottle of Mainstay and some of James Mundell‟s boerewors, and invited them home. My braai fire took too long for Carl Knoop, so he and Eddie Kuhn said they were going home. Dave Ainsworth told them to go -he would phone his driver in Eshowe to fetch him and Norman Freeman, later. (They had all 4 travelled down in Carl‟s V.W. 1600 Variant Squareback). When we eventually finished our braai after midnight, Dave asked to use the phone. I then remembered that our Exchange closed at midnight and we could not phone till 6 a.m. I apologised for not telling them sooner, but offered to take them to Eshowe in my Consul. Rodney Swemmer accompanied me. Dave was a rep and was staying at the Provincial, so when we arrived there, he was all for waking up the manager and asking him to open the pub for us - just imagine, at 1 o‟clock in the morning! Fortunately we were able to dissuade him from this foolishness and went back to Mtunzini. That afternoon, Ivor Davies, another rep who had also been staying at the Provincial came to Mtunzini. He gave me a brown paper parcel: from Dave Ainsworth, he said. It was a bottle of whisky.

ZULULAND TALES

RICHARDâ€™S BAY In the early 60's, before the idea of another sea-port was even mooted, we decided to explore some of the unknown (to us) coastal areas north of Mtunzini. The first place we picked was Port Durnford, but somewhere along the line we got lost in the forest and never did find it. When I heard that it did not have a pub, we didnâ€&#x;t try again. I was told that Richardâ€&#x;s Bay had a hotel, and it became our next target, one Saturday afternoon. The beach was not very impressive, being deserted. After strolling in the sand for a while, we visited the hotel. The building was not very impressive, either, being constructed of corrugated iron and needing a coat of paint. The only interesting thing in the pub, apart from its contents, of course, was the one wall, covered with faded photographs of fishermen with their catches. There was no barman in sight, and no bell or any other visible means of summoning him. The price of drinks was prominently displayed, however, and when I discovered that the fridge was unlocked, and there was a plate with some coins in it, I assumed that customers were expected to help themselves, and trusted to honour their indebtedness. This, I was told, was indeed the case, and dishonesty was rare. Years later, when the Natal Parks Board transferred my brother Tich to the area, which was still under their control, we visited there quite often. By then, there was a barman permanently on duty. After R.B.6 had started on the harbour construction, Tich, by using his N.P.B. Landrover, was able to get us into the area restricted to permit holders, where the best fishing 53

ZULULAND TALES

was. On one such occasion., while fishing near the pipeline with Peter Knoop, a shoal of salmon suddenly hit us. We caught about ten, all around 3 kg. in a few minutes, and then they disappeared as suddenly. Although the layout of the town is quite brilliant in it‟s conception, there was an occasion, years later, when we wanted to visit the Richard‟s Bay Trade Fair, and we couldn‟t find it. You would have to know which area: Alton, Meerensee, Veld-en-Vlei, or wherever. Only when we saw a balloon hovering, did we find it. When it was time to leave, my son Hans was missing, so we went back to Eshowe without him. He couldn‟t find a lift and spent the night at the Police Station, getting home only the next morning, not feeling too friendly towards me. Maybe it was poetic justice, but I was punished some years later. I had gone to the Richard‟s Hotel, one Saturday evening, just to see what it was like, and there I met Tina Bromfield. After a few drinks together, I discovered I had a hole in my pocket, so I asked her to look after my Kombi key; I would get it later. She put it on her key-ring, and as there was some ladies only entertainment, she went off. I met an old friend in the pub and it got very late. When I looked for Tina, she had gone home to Empangeni, my key and all. I slept in the Kombi right outside the hotel, then caught the bus to Empangeni at 6am, the next morning but it was a 2 km walk from the bus-stop to her house.

ZULULAND TALES

THE ST.LUCIA GRUNTER SEASON The St.Lucia grunter season of „67 had just started when some of the guys working for Natal Earthworks (even then on a shaky foundation) hired a boat and invited Fred and I to accompany them for an evening‟s fishing. Fred was my colleague at Ritchie Motors, Mtubatuba, and had an outboard motor. We anchored the boat above a channel in the Estuary, some distance upstream, just around the bend, then baited up with shrimps and settled down, waiting for the fish to start biting. Naturally we had come well prepared with our favourite medicinal potions to help ward off the evils of chills and other maladies one would be exposed to on the river at night. For an hour or so, the only movement was that of the boat and of the level of the contents of various bottles, downwards, and of our tongues. I was just thinking that no fish would bite with all that noise, when a number of reels started screaming together. Drinks got spilled while rods were pounced upon, nobody knowing exactly whose rod had hooked something and whose hadn‟t. The fish kept biting for quite a while, and as soon as our rebaited hooks hit the water, they were taken by hungry fish. It did not matter if the shrimp were properly threaded on the hook or not, the grunter took them anyway. They were all between 1 and 2 kg. Every one of us five kept pulling them in as fast as we could get our hooks in the water, and soon the bottom of the boat was a slippery mess of fish. There was a slight lull, and we collected them, filling an orange pocket. After that, there were a few more sporadic runs and we got another quarter pocketful, then they 55

ZULULAND TALES

disappeared. Now we felt it was time to celebrate, but soon a small problem cropped up: the coke ran out. This mainly affected the Captain Morgan and Oude Meester drinkers, and because they wouldn‟t drink it neat, they used some of my beer as a mixer. When that also ran out, they took to mixing the two together. I felt it was now time to go home, but just then our Cadac lamp spluttered and went out. The sudden darkness was total and we couldn‟t remember which way was home : we were completely lost. There was the faintest noise of the surf, but it was impossible to determine where it originated. Even the anchor-rope hung slackly because the tide was turning. The faint glow of the rising moon eventually showed us the way. Driving home to Mtuba, I told Fred to take the wheel, as I felt a little tired. He meandered all over the road, blaming my wheel alignment, which he said was out by bloody miles. It wasn‟t long before this erratic locomotion caused me to get car-sick. I told him to stop. Afterwards I felt better and took the wheel. The wheel alignment had suddenly righted itself but it wasn‟t long that he also became nauseous and we had to stop again. I remembered that he‟d brought the bottle of Oude Meester. and could understand why his co-ordination was not quite what it should have been. Early the next morning, I realised that there was an orange pocket full of fish in the car, and I had to clean and gut them before going to work.

ZULULAND TALES

A 3½ HP SEAGULL A report came in that some nice salmon had been caught in the Mtunzini Lagoon one Monday night. Although the veracity of fishermen in general leaves a lot to be desired, being of a gullible but optimistic nature, I invited Tina to accompany me on the Wednesday evening, to try our luck. High tide was at about 9.3Opm. and we left Eshowe at 6pm. I had borrowed some tackle and a 3½ HP Seagull from “Uncle” Ted Clerk, and packed a picnic basket with a roast chicken and some beers. I had booked one of Koos Hamman‟s boats, so we were soon on the water, and armed with an 8 cell torch we put-putted to the shallows to try and catch some live mullet with a scoop-net. Unfortunately my skill was of a very limited nature and after some 20 minutes I had only caught 3 small mullet. The next minute the scoop-net slipped out of my grip and disappeared into the murky water. We moved down-river about halfway to the mouth, anchored over a channel, baited up and cast our hooks into the water. The tide was coming in quite strongly. It was a beautiful evening with just enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. The sound of the surf was very soothing and the iodine smell peculiar to the combination of mangroves and sea water, was not unpleasant, and we were soon ravenous. While enjoying the contents of the picnic basket, we watched the starry sky and in about an hour, counted as many as 7 satellites streaking over. There was only one major problem - the fish were not biting. We moved nearer the mouth looking for another channel, with no luck. 57

ZULULAND TALES

The tide had changed in the meantime, and was running out. When the beer ran out as well, a while later, I suggested we‟d better think about getting home. Tina agreed and I pulled up the anchor rope and tried to start the trusty Seagull. Of all the outboard motors, it had an enviable reputation for reliability, but after pulling the starter rope half a dozen times it refused to live up to its reputation - it just wouldn‟t start. The tide was moving out at an alarming rate, and we had drifted quite a distance towards the sea before we grabbed the oars and started rowing. If you‟ve ever had the misfortune of having to row one of Koos Hamman‟s heavy wooden boats against the tide, you would have some idea of what we were up against. For every yard we moved forward, we seemed to drift back two, and when the boat kept pulling more to the one bank, I realised that Tina was outrowing me! I asked her to stop for a minute, ostensibly to try to start the motor again (actually to get my breath back). I pulled the starter rope again and noticed a spark behind the transom. This was suspicious and on checking, I discovered that the spark-plug cable had chafed through and was shorting against the transom. Quickly re-routing the cable, I pulled the starter rope once more and the Seagull sprang into life and purred ever so sweetly. We got back to base without any more drama, except that by the time we had loaded the outboard motor and got to the Mtunzini Hotel, the pub had closed.

ZULULAND TALES

UMFOLOZI RIVER BRACKET BRIDGE Graham Killerby was our salesman at Ritchie Motors in Mtubatuba. He fancied himself as a rally driver, and when Justin van Rooyen traded in a hotted-up Cortina Super 1500, he was thrilled. The Cortina was a 1965 model and among the modifications were a 3/4 race camshaft, two Weber carburettors, Koni shock absorbers, a free flow exhaust system and wide low profile tyres. Graham used it for his personal transport. At the time, I lived at the old Mfolozi Village, about 12km from Mtuba. One Saturday after work Graham was going home to Durban, so he offered me a lift home. The trip normally took me 15 minutes, but this time it only took 8! The crossing of the Umfolozi River via the bracket bridge was quite hair-raising. Instead of slowing down to my 20 K.P.H., he put his foot down and clattered over it at more than 100! The road through the cane fields was narrow and twisty with high cane on both sides and visibility restricted to a few metres. This, however, did not deter Graham - with utter disregard for our safety. Hoping there was no tractor or other traffic on the road, he broad-sided around the corners, heel-and-toeing the accelerator and brake pedals in the best rally tradition, we made it. Some time later, Ford Motor Co. invited their North Coast Dealers to a relaunching ceremony of the â€œUpgraded and Improved Mk.4 Zephyr and Zodiac Rangeâ€? at Donnellan and Perry in Stanger. We decided to travel the 150 odd Kilometres in the Cortina Super. Laurie de Leeuw, our Manager, Graham Killerby, as driver, Johnny Harris and I, represented the Mtuba 59

ZULULAND TALES

dealership. It was when we had a rear tyre blow-out at Felixton that I appreciated the skill of Graham‟s driving and the excellence of the Koni shock absorbers: the car kept in a straight line without a hint of going into a skid - although we were doing a good 150 K.P.H.! Naturally the tyre and rim were ruined. After the presentation and free drinks, we were treated to an excellent meal, featuring “Chicken in a Basket” with all the trimmings. On the way back, our exhaust pipe broke off - just before the front silencer. The noise was deafening, and the only thing to do was to go at full speed - now reduced to 180 K.P.H - thus leaving the noise behind. The broken exhaust affected the performance, also causing the engine to overheat and burn more oil than normal: we had to add 3 pints at Mtunzini. A touring orchestra included Mtubatuba in their itinerary, and when we heard that the principal violonist was Isolde Menge, a cousin of Rose, we made a point of attending. We later met the orchestra at the Safari Motel. Among the players were a cellist and a trombonist on a visit to South Africa and seeing a bit of the country. When I asked them about their impression of the tour, one said it was E type country - open, empty roads. He wished he‟d brought his Jaguar out here. The other one agreed and said he seldom got a chance to drive his Sunbeam Rapier full-out on the overcrowded English roads.

ZULULAND TALES

A VAUXHALL VELOX WITH A SERIOUS MISSFIRE Des Taylor of Ntumeni was the owner of a Mercedes Benz Unimog, a kind of a go-anywhere tractor, with 4 W.D. and many gear ratios. It also had a cab with windows. It was used on the farm and also on trips to Eshowe, towing a trailer. As useful and versatile as it was, it had one serious drawback, - the incredible noise to which it subjugated it‟s driver. This was not surprising if you took all its gears, transfer boxes and diffs and the grip tyres into consideration, but as Des preferred to drive it himself, it was rather trying. When he mentioned this to us at Zululand Tyre, one day, Jeff Armstrong sold him a pair of earmuffs - the kind used by shottists at a rifle range. This helped. A few days later, another customer mentioned that he didn‟t know Des was a music lover: he even has a stereo in the Unimog and drives with his stereo headphones, he said, listening to Mahler‟s Fourth, or Tchaikovski‟s Sixth, no doubt. Maybe we should ask Diamond Bozas to invite him to his Music Evenings, he said. We laughed as we told him that it was only the noise Des wished to keep out, and there was no music involved. Mr. Howdon owned a 1958 Buick, and when he had trouble with the automatic transmission, the G.M. dealership in Durban told him that the parts would have to be imported and their workshop would have to fit them. The labour cost could run to about R1,500. He thought this a bit steep and consulted my brother Ozzie, who 61

ZULULAND TALES

suggested that a certain pressure valve would probably fix it. Mr. Howdon had it airfreighted from U.S.A., and brought it in. Ozzie told him to leave the car for a couple of days, then phoned him the next afternoon, telling him to fetch it. The labour charge was R35, and Ozzie had another satisfied customer. I remembered another customer that I had come across some years previously, with a difference, though. I was waiting for a lift at the driveway of Ritchie Motors in Mtubatuba where I was working, one Saturday afternoon. A Vauxhall Velox with a serious missfire approached, spluttering and jerking. The driver was desperate - he had to get back to the Transvaal in a hurry, he said. He was prepared to pay anything to get his car fixed immediately. I told him to open the bonnet. It didnâ€&#x;t take long to discover what was wrong: a few plug wires had been mixed up. I sorted them out and when he had paid for his petrol, I closed the bonnet and told him to start the engine. It sprang into life and fired on all 6 cylinders, purring smoothly, with no hint of a miss. He revved it up, and then, without as much as a thank you or good-bye, pulled away and disappeared in a cloud of dust! I should have looked serious, scratched my head and told him to go and have a cup of coffee and come back in half an hour -then charged him R20. I wonder if he would have felt better. My father-in-law in Vryheid charged a customer 50c for a second-hand filler cap for his master cylinder. The customer was happy. When I later told him that they actually sold for 17c new, my father-in-law was also, happy. Service is what counts, he said.

ZULULAND TALES

THE SISALANA HOTEL On Saturday mornings after work at 11, I would wait for Rose to pick me up at the Sundowner Hotel in Mtubatuba. I had told her we worked till 12, so had an hour for a drink and a game of darts with the boys. One day it was raining and while we were playing, somebody wheeled in a barbecue machine. The smoke from the boerewors soon filled the pub, and when we couldn‟t see the dartboard anymore, we stopped playing and enjoyed the braai. I forgot my three darts in the board, and gave them up for lost. The following Friday evening, I was travelling to Eshowe, and when I stopped at the Safari Motel, I found one of my missing darts in the board. I pulled it out, drank a beer and proceeded on my trip. I stopped at the Imperial Hotel in Empangeni, and ordered a beer. I glanced at the dartboard and there was another one of my darts. My next stop was the Mtunzini Hotel, and there, incredibly, was my third dart, stuck in the double top! I never did discover who was responsible. We usually played “Killer”, and then only for a drink. Occasionally, we played “Shanghai”, and then for small stakes. My family were away ,f or the school holidays and I had been working late with stock-taking, so I intended going home early to catch up on my sleep, one evening. With that in mind, I had taken only a small amount of cash, and when it was suggested we play a game of “Shanghai”, I saw I had just enough money for one game and one more drink, so I joined in. Well, unfortunately for my good intentions, I won that game, and a few others as well, so I carried on. At closing time I bought everyone 63

ZULULAND TALES

there a drink, and when I got home, still had R3,33 left over - and a sore head the next morning! The Sisalana Hotel was on the old road to Hluhluwe, and was frequented by friendly sugar-cane and pineapple farmers. We arranged a darts competition and took over a team of eight players, one evening. Their bar boasted a scoring machine for the game of 301. It was the only one I‟ve ever seen: you dialled the number you had thrown, and it automatically subtracted it from your total, showing the number left. It was, therefore, not necessary for the score to be chalked up on the blackboard. We played a series of games of 301 and, ended up all square. For a decider, we played a “Killer” team game with all 8 players. Briefly, you could only score on a number after you had hit it three times. The opposition then had to close it by also hitting it three times. Anyway, after all the numbers had been closed, we suddenly found that we were over 200 behind, with only the bull still live. We had to open the bull and then score more than this to win before they closed it. Our luck held and we won. The hardest part had been, the calling up of the next player. The noise in the pub was by this time considerable. One of the pineapple farmers had a load of pineapples on the back of his pick-up and gave us each a crate of Queen pineapples for our victory.

ZULULAND TALES

THE MTUNZINI COMMANDO UNIT In 1963 Mtunzini founded its own Commando Unit. Some 30-odd of us from all walks of life, joined up. We were drilled just like school cadets - marching, left turn, right turn: all that stuff. Soon it was realized that this was just a waste of time. Bushcraft, shooting and fitness were now considered more important. Our training then took the form of manoeuvres in the Port Durnford Forest. These usually took place at night and were great fun. To make these exercises more realistic, we had to have terrorists. Eight of us volunteered and were trained by Dick Willis. Our camouflage uniforms were khaki overalls sprayed with black, green and yellow aerosol paints. Map reading was naturally an important subject for us. One night we were given a map and told to find a peg marked thereon. The compass reading and the distance from a starting-point were shown. It was nearly pitch-dark. The compass pointed to a gap in a line of trees just visible on the skyline. Our peg was 500 metres away. It looked easy, but as we paced off the distance with 1 metre steps, we were we were suddenly confronted by a 15 metre-deep donga. We had to walk along the donga at right angles until we could cross it. We had to remember how many paces we had gone, then how many we had deviated. Then, after crossing, we had to turn back at right angles again and carry on counting until we reached a spot opposite our deviation point. We resumed our way and when we got to 500 paces, our leading man put his foot 65

ZULULAND TALES

down within 15 centimetres of the peg! Because it was thought unlikely that we would be successful, we had an independent referee equipped with a walkie-talkie accompanying us. It was not long, however, before it was found that this technological wonder was completely useless: the terrain and the forest blotted out the reception. Our role was either to harass the Commando troops, or to avoid being captured by them. As we were rarely caught, the rules made it more difficult for us. We were restricted to ever smaller areas. On one particular large-scale operation in the Richards Bay area, we had evaded capture by about 2 Companies the whole morning. In the afternoon session we were restricted to a very small area. We waited until our scouts reported a platoon approaching along a path between two tree-covered dunes. We ensconced ourselves behind one of them, peeping over the top. Just then the heavens opened with a torrential rainstorm and the brave soldiers scurried for shelter towards the nearest trees. These were 20 metres from were we were waiting. The rain was running down our necks, down our backs and legs right into our boots. We didnâ€&#x;t move. When they were huddled together like a bunch of fowls, we opened fire killing them all - with blanks, of course! Our only casualty was Frank Hobbs who was stuck in the leg by a yucca palm thorn. It had to be cut out by a doctor.

ZULULAND TALES

HLABISA AND THE CORRIDOR The road to Vryheid from Mtubatuba forms the boundary between the Mfolozi and Hluhluwe Game Reserves. It is about 15kms long. There are no fences. If you drive slowly, you are frequently rewarded by the sight of game along this corridor. My in-laws lived in Vryheid, and while I worked in Mtuba we travelled this route on our occasional weekend visits. The family always looked forward to this section of the journey and kept their eyes open. We often saw impala. Then there were also warthog and occasionally, kudu. We were coming back from one of these visits when, between Hlabisa and the corridor, around a bend, we suddenly came across two rhino bulls facing each other, blocking the road. There are, of course two kinds of rhino - the white and the black. I didnâ€&#x;t look to see which kind they were - I did only one kind of reversing: the quickest kind! From a safe distance we watched them scraping the ground with their feet, snorting and glaring at each other. The thought came to me that the flimsy grille of my Consul was no protection for the radiator against one of those massive horns, so I slowly retreated a little further. One of the kids suggested that we turn round and go back to Vryheid, but eventually they shuffled away. This had taken toll of our nerves, and when I suggested we needed a drink, they all agreed. So we went to the Riverview Club where we also had supper, before going home. 67

ZULULAND TALES

While working in Pongola some years later, I met Kallie Kohrs. He owned a game ranch between Mkuzi and Pongola. When he needed an exhaust pipe for his Landrover, I ordered it for him, and as his home was close to the road, I told him I would deliver it there on my way to Eshowe that Saturday. He invited me to stay for lunch. I accepted with pleasure. To my surprise, it turned out that I was related to his wife and we had grown up together. The ranch stretched right to the shores of the Jozini Dam, and sported a tennis court as well as a pool. In the entrance hall of the ranch house there was a mounted snow-white full-grown polar bear which he had shot in Alaska. The licence alone had cost $6000. In the lounge was a display library of illustrated books on game and game reserves in English, German, Afrikaans and French. Game trophies adorned the walls above the bookshelves. At a rough estimate I valued the books at over R10,000! After a few Amstels, we had a super lunch of grilled kudu liver accompanied by salads and fresh home-baked bread. About 60 years earlier, my grandfather had been walking along a path in the Transvaal bushveld, one afternoon. He was armed with a .410 BSA single barrelled shotgun loaded with No.6 shot. He intended shooting a few bush pigeons for the pot. As he walked under an overhanging branch, something made him look up, and there, no more than 3m away, was a full-grown leopard, waiting for him. It‟s tail was twitching and he knew it was ready to pounce. Without a moment‟s hesitation, he lifted the shotgun, aimed, fired and dived to the side. It landed where he‟d been standing a second earlier, stone dead!

ZULULAND TALES

“I’LL TAKE YOUR CHEQUE” A farmer had to suddenly make a long trip over a weekend. When a tyre blew out near a small country town, he asked the proprietor of a garage for help. He needed a new tyre and did not Lave enough cash, could he pay by cheque? The proprietor refused- unless he could show some proof of substance. The farmer remembered his bank statement in his pocket. He had cleared his post box on the way, but not opened this letter. Before handing it over, he hesitated for a moment (for he knew that it reflected rather large balance printed in red ink), but then thought: “Here goes”. The garage-man took one look and said: “I‟ll take your cheque, if he bank can trust you with ten thousand Pounds, I‟ll take a chance on twenty!” The traffic volume on the roads in the 40's and 50's was nothing. like today‟s. If you had a breakdown you could wait for hours before somebody came along and maybe helped you. My uncle lad this misfortune and eventually a driver stopped. It was found hat his carburettor had gone out of tune and he‟d run out of .petrol. The good Samaritan gave him a can with 2 gallons for free ft condition that he wrote his registration number on it and kept filled in his boot. When he came across someone in the same predicament, he must hand it over to him, with the same instructions. About three years later, my uncle ran out of petrol again, be tended to be a bit forgetful and was not very mechanically minded) and, 10 and behold - a car stopped and the same petrol in appeared again! On investigation, 69

ZULULAND TALES

there were 7 different numbers written on it. After this, my uncle‟s was the only one that appeared twice. Our farm was on the edge of a plateau, and in the rainy season the bedraggled figure of a man with muddy shoes walking to our front door looking for help, was a common sight. His car had probably got stuck in the mud. It was that kind of soil. My Dad had a 1934 Ford V8 Sedan, and while the wet motorist was drinking coffee and drying himself at the fireplace, my job was to fit tyre chains to the back wheels of the V8. We had a long manila rope which, after reaching the stuck car, I had to tie to the bumpers, usually crawling underneath. Mud and I were, therefore, no strangers. In all the years, the Ford never failed. People who lived in the valley got wise to the danger of travelling in the mud - even downhill. So, whenever they were caught out by the weather, coming from town, they would drive straight into our barn, and while they enjoyed a cup of coffee, I would fit their chains for them. After reaching our place, coming up from the valley, I had to remove their chains, mud and all. It must have cost my Mom a fortune - the coffee pot was never allowed to go empty. Many drivers didn‟t like getting their hands „dirty when they reached hard roads and just carried on home. Often the chains were badly worn and had to be tied together with baling wire.