Confessions of a Technophobe, New Series 33
Part 2 continued
1956–1966
Despite the exhausting routine of driving a cab at night and filming by day, both Dennis and I felt that the little movie was progressing well. However, I was shocked when Dennis called me one morning. He apologized profusely and said that there was a urgent matter that he had to sort out with his photographic studio in the neighboring city of Pietermaritzburg. He said that it could take some weeks to handle as it involved complications with the lease of the premises where the studio was located. Dennis assured me that we would continue and complete the picture but the future of an important section of his business was at stake. I told him that I understood. I wished him well with his negotiations and put the phone down quite devastated. What on earth was I going to do in the meantime? I could just continue to drive the taxi and catch up on my sleep during the day, but I felt it would be better if I could acquire enough money to be able to work full-time on completing the picture.
I suddenly had a wild idea. I remembered that in Walvis Bay, where my parents lived, the pilchard fishermen would have earned a lot of money by the end of the year, when the factories would close for some weeks over Christmas. The fishermen were a wild bunch. They would either buy a secondhand car or take a taxi all the way to Cape Town just over a thousand miles away. They would drink and look for girls until their money ran out, then return somehow to Walvis Bay to await the new fishing season. I owned a wonderful old Rover saloon car. The previous owner had been a mechanic. It was in impeccable condition when I bought it and I had looked after it well. I had paid 400 SA Rand for it and I was optimistic that I could get close to that amount if I drove it to Walvis Bay. Besides which I hadn’t seen my parents for a couple of years, and it would cost me nothing to stay with them until it was time to return to Durban and continue filming. I got Dennis’ agreement with my plan, but he did ask how I would get back without a car. I shrugged and replied, “I’ll probably hitchhike.“ Hitchhiking in the 1960s was still a popular and acceptable mode of transport so Dennis just chuckled and wished me well. I called my parents, who looked forward to seeing me, and the following day I set off on the journey I had made by train after leaving school. about eight years previously
Leaving Durban, I drove west across the country. The lush sub-tropical foliage of Natal gradually gave way to the massive mealie fields (corn) of the Orange Free State, a staple crop for many South Africans of all colors. I reached Kimberley on the first night, as the land transitioned into semi-desert. Kimberley is best known for its “Big Hole,” the deepest hand-dug excavation in the world. After the discovery of diamonds in 1871, up to 50,000 men from all over the world descended upon the town and started digging, eventually reaching a depth of 800 feet. By 1914, a combination of a growing scarcity of diamonds, frequent accidents and unsanitary conditions forced the closure of the mine.
Today it remains a huge deep hole with a pool of water covering its lower parts. Nevertheless, a re-creation of some streets and bars of the 19th century town, spawned by the largest source of diamonds in the world, still brings tourists to the area. I didn’t stop then but visited the site years later and filmed it for a documentary. There are still a handful of ever-hopeful prospectors who mostly pan for diamonds along the banks of the Orange River and somehow eke out a living. I was told the story of a well-respected businessman in the town who was secretly involved in IDB (Illicit Diamond Buying). One day the cops almost caught him, but he escaped and drove off in a fast car. As the cops pursued him, in desperation he threw handfuls of diamonds he had just bought out of the car window onto the dirt road. It is said that people searched the road for many months in the hope of finding even one of the precious stones. I spent the night in a small hotel in Kimberley and set off the following morning for the main road to the Namibian capital Windhoek and, eventually, Walvis Bay.
Stopping off at the tiny hamlet of Rehoboth (whose biblical name means “open spaces”), I was persuaded to take a shortcut off the main road which would take an hour or so off my journey. I was warned that it was a dirt road unlike the tarmac surface of the main road. But it had recently been graded and should be a smooth ride. It’s in my nature to take chances, so I branched off and took the shortcut. It passed through Kakamas, a farming district that was famous for its yellow clingstone peaches. It always amazes me how semi desert and desert areas have been transformed into rich farmlands. Israel is a prime example of this, but Namibia is not far behind. In fact, there is a dairy farm in the middle of the Namib Desert that supplies rich and tasty milk to its nearest town, Walvis Bay. The cattle are fed on imported hay and somehow produce some of the best milk I have ever drunk.
Anyhow, I soon found that one side of the road had indeed been graded and was as smooth as the main road I had left. There was no other traffic in sight, so I put my foot down and my wonderful old Rover surged forward to almost float over the road at between 70 and 80 miles an hour – until disaster struck!
Without any warning from road signs or barriers, the graded section abruptly stopped and ran into a mound of loose sand. I tried to stop but was traveling too fast and careered into the sand pile, throwing me forward into the windscreen. We didn’t take much notice of seat belts in those days. Luckily, I managed to bend sideways in midair and hit the windscreen with my shoulder instead of my head. Even so I thought I had broken my collarbone, but I later found that part of my body to be simply badly bruised.
Now I was stuck. I tried to reverse but only succeeded in digging the wheels further into the sand. What had pleased me previously about the absence of any other traffic now became a serious worry. It was already late afternoon and I realized that I was probably stuck there overnight. All I had in the form of sustenance was half a packet of chocolate and a Fanta (orange soft drink). I leaned against the car and gloomily watched the sun disappear over the horizon surrounded by a rich aura of red sky. Even the beautiful sunset failed to revive my spirits. Half an hour of intense silence followed. Then in the far distance, on the road I had recently driven along with such pleasure, I saw the lights of a car in the gathering dusk. It seemed to take forever to draw close and I feared that it might turn off to some farm hidden over the horizon.
Fortunately, it continued towards me and I stood on the ungraded side of the road that ran past my mini sand dune. The car, a huge old Buick, slowed down and stopped. One of the biggest men I had ever seen unwound himself from the car. At 6 foot 2 inches I was dwarfed by the man who must have been almost 7 foot tall, with broad shoulders. Despite his age that I estimated at about mid-fifties, there was not an ounce of fat on him. The Afrikaners, descended from the Dutch, were generally a big race but some of them were virtual giants, which is why South Africa has traditionally excelled in the game of rugby. The man looked at me then glanced at my car, scowled and shook his head. I greeted him with my very few words of Afrikaans and quickly ended off in English as my vocabulary was exhausted. He gave no sign that he had heard me but strolled over to my precious Rover and climbed into the driver’s seat, with his head bent as he struggled to fit into the space. The key was still in the ignition. He started the engine and tried very gently to reverse out of the sand. He had no more success than my previous attempts. He got out again, still ignoring me, went over to his car, opened the boot (trunk) and removed a spade and a couple of sacks.
As he headed for the back of the Rover, I called out asking if I could help. He still ignored me and set about using the spade to dig some of the sand from behind the rear wheels as well as sand that had piled up under the body of the car. Eventually he laid a sack onto the ground behind each of the rear wheels then repeated the process with the front wheels. He got back into the car and did a masterly job of inching it backwards, taking care not to increase the revs any more than necessary. It was almost like watching a surgeon perform a tricky operation. This huge man had a delicate touch and it paid dividends. The rear wheels moved slowly back onto the sacks and, due to his skill, the wheels did not spin at any point. The result was almost anti-climactic. There was no scream of a high revving engine or plumes of sand flying into the air. The car simply moved back and out of the sand.
The man got out of my Rover, picked up his spade and sacks. Still without speaking a word to me he returned to his Buick and drove off. I had called out my thanks, but it provoked no reaction. I don’t think I have ever experienced such contempt from a fellow human being any other time in my life. I got into the Rover and carefully drove off with very mixed emotions.
After spending a night in a hotel in Windhoek and fortified by a hearty German breakfast, a legacy of the former German occupation of the territory, I set off on the dirt track through the desert to Walvis Bay. Some hours later the familiar sight of massive sand dunes scalloped into half-moon shapes by the wind, some reaching over 1,500 feet above the floor of the desert, presaged my arrival in Walvis Bay. My parents had moved to a new house but had given me directions on the phone before I left Durban.
As I greeted my parents and settled into the spare bedroom, I was in awe of the contrast between the foliage of the environs of Durban and the stark but surprisingly beautiful desert. The South African Tourism Board used to employ the phrase “A World in One Country.” Although not as large a land mass as USA or Canada, it was still big enough to contain an incredible variety of flora and fauna, differing terrains and climates plus some of the greatest remaining sources of wildlife in the world.
Over dinner, my dad regaled me with his latest attempt to create a business to supplement his income from the fishing trawler. With his typically quirky sense of humor he had opened the first male barber shop in Walvis Bay and used our surname to call the emporium “Herr Dressers!“ Having set up the shop and imported a proper barber’s chair, he then found that none of the barbers in the territory were willing to come and live in Walvis Bay. It was still considered a Wild West town, with the ever-present threat of muscular fishermen likely to go on a drunken rampage at any given moment. He finally found a barber willing to brave the vagaries of life in a town where the rule of law was virtually unknown. The barber arrived and for a short while Herr Dressers thrived. Rather like our fish and chip shop some years before, the main clientele were the fishermen.
Then one day, my dad discovered why his barber had agreed to take the job. He was an alcoholic and no one else would employ him in Windhoek or any of the neighboring towns. On this day the barber weaved his way into the shop and somehow managed to remain standing while his first customer, a particularly large fisherman, sat down in the barber’s chair. The barber snipped away; all went well until in his drunken state he succeeded in cutting off a large slice of the fisherman’s ear. With a bellow of rage, the fisherman leapt from the chair, grabbed the terrified barber, bound him to the barber’s chair with some towels, then using his great strength he ripped the chair from the floor and carried both chair and barber into the street. He then dumped the chair into the middle of the main road and directed traffic towards it. Fortunately, none of the passing drivers were inclined to run over a fairly solid barber’s chair let alone its abject and sniveling captive. When the fisherman tired of the game, he released the barber who was last seen running out of town, presumably hoping to hitch a lift to any place not inhabited by wild and angry fishermen!
At that point my dad decided to concentrate on just two activities, the fishing trawler and a few mining projects, the most successful of which was a quarry which produced road-making material for the few dirt roads in the region. He had also found a vein of iron ore only a few miles from the town. It seemed to be incredibly high-grade ore and the old man had hopes of striking it rich. He needed to send samples of the ore to geologists who would then come out and estimate the quantity located on my dad’s claim. A few days after returning to Walvis Bay my dad asked if I would like to help him with the iron claim. I was happy to do so. (I had nothing much to do until Dennis Bughwan in Durban would call me when he was ready to resume filming.) My dad drove out to the claim site where he was busy creating a deep hole and taking iron ore samples. He would come to the site every afternoon, place dynamite in the hole and blow up the rocky material. He then had a laborer go there every morning and dig out the fractured rocks and ore. I was basically to act as a driver. I still had my Rover and only intended to sell it once I was ready to return to Durban.
Prospecting, whether for iron ore, copper, uranium or even diamonds is rather like buying tickets for a lottery. You never know if you are going to strike it rich and it’s incredibly time-consuming.
Contrast Peter Warren’s discovery of a basic flaw in all of computing, leading to a predictable outcome, namely the creation of a working ExoTech model and the launch of a world-beating product with resultant rewards for his and others’ efforts!
An ExoTech Ltd shareholder, Chris is currently authoring two of the four books to be published the day ExoBrain launches and has helped to create ExoBrain’s introductory video to the Confidential Technical Briefing. Chris has spent his working life in the film and television industry, starting with BBC Television in London, then ATV in Birmingham becoming, at the time, the youngest Studio Manager in Britain.
Later, in South Africa, he wrote and directed film and TV commercials, having four South African entries at the Cannes Advertising Festival. After a number of years of writing and directing or producing documentaries (eight international awards) and corporate videos, he concentrated on writing feature film screenplays (five screened) and television series (seven screened). He has a novel, ”Pursuit of Treachery,” with a literary agent and is currently obtaining finance for an action adventure feature film he has written and is co-producing. He is a published poet and has given many readings.