Confessions of a Technophobe, New Series 35
Part 2 continued
1956–1966
I still had some money left by the time we finished the picture, and I spent a few weeks frankly dithering about I should do next. Dennis suggested that I take some still photos for his company, Crown Studios. He sent me to photograph a young woman in one of the farming districts. Despite careful coaching by Dennis, I got the technical side of using the camera all wrong, even though I got the composition and framing right. It underlined what has been a problem for me all my life. When faced by technical issues I go mentally blank. When filming I always had a technically skilled crew working for me. As long as I stuck with the creative side of directing and relied on my crew to handle the technical side of filming, I was fine. I am still ashamed to this day of the mess I made of taking portrait stills for Dennis. The poor man had to go out personally to re-shoot the stills I had failed to produce up to his standard. He was, in retrospect, far too kind to me about the whole thing but I was clearly not cut out for a life as a portrait photographer!
About that time, I became friendly with a girl whose parents lived in Swaziland. We decided to travel together in her car to visit both her and my parents in Mbabane, the capital of Swaziland. In the week or so before we left, she invited me to come with her to visit a friend on the outskirts of Durban. This friend lived in a large house along a narrow lane that led out of the city into the country. The lane continued beyond the driveway, as the urban environment gave way to open fields.
We arrived at the house and the young lady’s friend appeared in the driveway to greet us. As she did so, another car drove slowly past on the lane. We caught a glimpse of what seemed to be four men in the vehicle. The owner of the house frowned and said that she wondered what the men in the car were up to. The lane apparently led nowhere and just petered out a couple hundred yards further on. She asked us to come inside and explained that she and her husband were getting a divorce. It had become messy and unpleasant, and she wondered whether the men in the car were private eyes, sent to watch her. Her husband had accused her of having an affair, which she strongly denied. She thought that they may have suspected that I was her lover and that the girl I came with was there simply to cover up my real intentions. Never having met the house owner before, the whole thing sounded ridiculous, but she was obviously quite paranoid about it. We decided to leave immediately and did so.
While driving back into the city, I kept looking in my rearview mirror and sure enough, the same car was following us. I decided not to try and shake them off, Hollywood movie style, and continued at a normal speed back to my friend’s apartment. By the way, we were not having an affair and were simply friends of convenience, both having parents in Swaziland. I’m not sure what happened to the other car. It had disappeared before I reached the girl’s apartment. I didn’t think much about it and a few days later we set off for Mbabane, Swaziland, a distance of 330 miles. We left after lunch and the girl announced that she would be staying the night at her old school, the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Ermelo, the town where I had previously bought a tractor for my abortive attempt at farming with my school friend Derek Lucas.
She said that I could stay at a small hotel in the town. I was not particularly upset as we were not romantically involved. We arrived in the town by early evening. She dropped me off at the hotel and carried on to the convent. I had supper in the hotel and retired to my room early, planning to do some writing. I had recently started to write short stories, and I welcomed the peace and quiet of the little hotel. There was a side table that I used as my desk and I settled down to write. About half an hour later, I heard a faint scuffling sound outside my door, followed moments later by a loud knocking.
Puzzled, I opened the door and was confronted by two policemen. The older of the two men introduced himself as a major in the Security Branch and the younger man, about my age, was a lieutenant. The major produced a search warrant and said that they needed to examine my suitcase and my briefcase, the two items I had with me. For some moments I was completely confused. I had absolutely no idea why they should descend upon me, but it was quickly clarified when the major asked if I had the film I had made in Durban with me.
I shook my head and said “No. It’s still in Durban with my cameraman Dennis Bughwan and I know he has offered to show it to anyone in authority who wished to examine its content. Have you not seen it?”
The major replied that they were from Headquarters in Pretoria and would not have seen it. He added that they suspected I was taking it through to Swaziland in order to smuggle it out of the country. I laughed and said that it was simply a little story about a young boy working after school to earn enough money to buy his school friend a present for her birthday. Both men looked very unconvinced. They opened my suitcase and found nothing but clothing and toiletries. The major then asked me to hand over the contents of my briefcase. I took a sheaf of papers out of it and handed it over with a sinking heart. The papers consisted mostly of the short stories I had been writing. A couple were science fiction stories, which would not reflect on anything to do with South Africa and its Apartheid regime. However, there were also two stories that I certainly did not want them to read. The one story was about the fact that while we were alive, Apartheid wanted to ensure that people of different color were kept apart. In particular, the authorities were fierce about any hint of a romantic connection between white and black people. Anyone found to be having sexual relations with a person of another color was subject to at least nine months in jail. In my story, I wrote about the fact that in the generally overcrowded mortuaries, dead bodies were placed on slabs regardless of color. I referred to a white woman lying naked on a slab next to an African. I forget how the story ended but it was surely enough to put me in handcuffs!
The other story was, if anything, even more outrageous if you happened to be a member of the Nationalist Party, the creators of Apartheid. It would have also outraged the sensitivities of many Afrikaners who are generally a religious nation. That story was entitled “Meneer God and Oom Jannie” (Mr. God and Uncle Jannie). It was written in English but with numerous references to the more right-wing Afrikaners. In the story, Oom Jannie is a farmer who gets increasingly upset by the fact that plenty of rain has fallen on neighboring farms but none on his. He appeals to God saying that he is a good religious man who never beats his black servants, well almost never, and so on. He becomes increasingly frustrated by his inability to see God and implores the Deity to appear so that they can have a proper dialogue. God finally agrees to this and reaches out his ebony arm to embrace Oom Jannie!
This would have deeply offended the cops both on religious and racial terms. As the major started to read it, in desperation I started talking to him and asking him questions about his work, etc. He tried to continue reading but he was clearly not really taking in what was written as I gabbled away. About halfway through the story, he handed it back to me shaking his head and said, “Man, I’ve no idea what you’re writing about; why can’t you stick to love stories and things that people would love to read?”
At that moment, the lieutenant exclaimed. “I know you. You lived in Walvis Bay and played rugby for the town. It’s been worrying me since we arrived. I was certain I knew you from somewhere. I played a few games for the team, but you were a regular. You were known as the Engelsman on the wing!”
After that, the mood dramatically changed. It felt as though the two cops could not conceive of a rugby player being a serious subversive. Childish though it may have been, they quickly stood up, said goodnight and left.
What was so ironic about the whole affair was that although a finished copy of the film was in Dennis’ possession, the negative and an edited copy were already in London. I had earlier decided that 16mm was not processed that well in the local South African laboratories and we had sent the negative to Humphries in London for processing. So if we had made an anti-Apartheid film, it would already be out of the country. Reflecting on everything, I realized that the four men in the car that we noticed in Durban was no doubt following me, not the lady going through a divorce! That was the end of that, I thought in relief as the cops left.
However, there was one more moment which was quite farcical in its stupidity. The next morning, we set off for Swaziland and about ten miles from the border we approached a police station. Moments after we passed the building, a police car raced out of its yard and switched on its siren to pull us over. The girl was terrified. I had not yet told her of my adventures with the Security Branch. The local cops were polite but insisted on searching both our suitcases. After rummaging around for a couple of minutes and finding nothing, they told us we could carry on.
As we headed for the border I told the girl the whole story. She shook her head in disbelief and told me, “You know what? I’ve got a Super 8mm camera and a few rolls of film in my case. They didn’t even find them. Even if her equipment was in a different format to our 16 mm film, they would surely have at least questioned us about her camera and film. In fairness, the police were generally pretty efficient, but in my case they were plain dumb!
In an odd way, this episode played to my advantage. When we arrived at Mbabane and went off with our respective parents. I settled into what I hoped would be a relaxing two weeks before I had to drive back with the girl to Durban.
A day later the girl’s father called my dad and angrily told him that under no circumstances was I to return to Durban with his daughter. He said that he could not allow her to have any association with a subversive person. My dad tried to point out that I had been entirely innocent but the father would have none of it.
So I was stuck without a lift back to Durban. My dad had an idea. He asked me whether I had a job to go back to there. I shook my head. He then suggested that he and my mother had wanted to travel to Johannesburg for some time. Why didn’t they take me there? I would probably have a better chance of finding work in Jo’burg than Durban.
When my parents had driven from Walvis Bay through the Kalahari Desert and eventually to Swaziland, the old man had sold his trawler and with some of the money he had bought about five acres of land and a run-down house on the outskirts of Mbabane. It had a few thousand pine trees on the land. While renovating the house, my parents had purchased an old caravan (trailer) and stayed in it until the house was complete. My dad was good at renovating houses, having done so previously in Cape Town, and my mum was really good at interior design. Their combined efforts produced a small but delightful house in amongst the forest on the slopes of a mountain.
My dad’s plan was to drive to Jo’burg, towing the caravan, and stay in a caravan park there. There was just enough room to squeeze me in as well until I found a job and place to stay.
There was one small snag. As we set off, the caravan started to sway from side to side. My dad had to slow down to about 30 miles an hour and travel the 400 miles to Jo’burg at that speed. Only after we reached Jo’burg did he inspect the caravan and discover the fault. It had something to do with the wheel alignment. It was a terrifying trip but somehow my dad managed to get there with car, caravan and ourselves in one piece.
The following day I called Killarney Film Studios and asked if they had a job for me. I did not attempt to contact Alpha films where I had worked previously before being replaced by the boss’s nephew (I was still thoroughly pissed off with them). I was told that there was a possible vacancy in the scriptwriting department, which surprisingly was not at the studios but in the center of town.
I made an appointment to see the boss. The following day I went into town and had an interview. He seemed impressed by my writing and copywriting credentials and after a few minutes he asked If could start the following Monday. I happily agreed and wondered whether, had I returned to Durban with the girl, would I ever have gotten the job? My mum then phoned her sister Diana who was living in Jo’burg and asked if I could stay with her and her husband for a while until I could earn my first paycheck and get a place of my own. She agreed and I moved in with them. My parents returned to Swaziland, with my dad having sorted out the caravan’s wheel balance.
My life has been a series of unexpected opportunities. Even joining up with ExoTech much later came about because I gave readings with a group of poets. One of the poets, Alan Douglas, enjoyed my poetry and asked me if I would be interested in writing the biography of an incredible man, Peter Warren, who was developing a radically new computer system that would outshine any other system in existence. How he equated my poetry with writing a biography I’ll never know – but that’s how I had the good fortune to join the ExoTech team.
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.