Part 81
I had intended to include two ladies in my previous blog but the boundless activities of Prue Leith escaped onto the pages and I decided to cut the blog into two.
In about 1961, I ended up stage managing two plays in Durban after having failed to secure the job of 2nd Unit Director for the Movie “Zulu” – I’ve written about that previously so won’t repeat all the details. The first play, “The Eagle Has Two Heads,” was written by the famous French writer Jean Cocteau in 1943. The lead character is a mythical European Queen, who has anarchistic tendencies. An assassin is sent to kill her and, ironically, he is an anarchist with Royalist leanings.
It is a powerful dramatic work and the leading role in Durban was played by multi-talented Rae Hoffenberg, an interior designer as well as an actress. She had established a reputation for modernizing the more traditional decor in South Africa (that were based on European lines and unsuitable for the much hotter climate in cities like Durban). We got along well and I sometimes joined her and her husband for dinner before the show. She also acted in the second play I stage-managed, “Five Finger Exercise” written by the British writer Peter Shaffer. Coincidently, I had worked with his brother at BBC TV London about three years previously. In contrast to the previous play, it was a story about the uneasy social conditions in Britain during the 1960s.
Two very contrasting plays which Rae handled superbly. She really was a fine actress. Unfortunately, I blotted my copy book with her after a performance one night. I would sometimes drive her home after the show if her husband was not available. On this particular evening she asked me at the last moment to drive her home. I was, however, in the process of developing a strong relationship with a young lady called June and we had arranged to meet after the show that night. When I told Rae I was unavailable, she was furious and never spoke to me again. She was a very imperious lady and wasn’t used to being denied. I never saw her again after the shows were finished.
A few years later I read about a new London property boom located in the East India Docks that had fallen into complete disrepair. Before getting into BBC Television in 1957, I had worked for a large company called Cementation, which specialized in pile-driving. In case you’re not sure about this “exotic” occupation, it consists of digging deep holes in the ground, filling the holes with steel and concrete, making a solid platform for building construction. This was done in areas like London where the ground was soft clay and bedrock was up to forty feet below the surface. The piles went through the clay and rested on the bedrock.
I’ve previously written about my job as a pile driver’s assistant, but my point is that the yard where we were based when not actually doing piling was close to the original Limehouse (named after the numerous lime kilns that were used for the process of producing fine pottery in the late nineteenth century). There was a rumor that the district was named after the storehouse of limes that in previous centuries British sailors would eat on long voyages to prevent scurvy (a disease caused by lack of fresh fruit and vegetables). That seems to be an urban myth, but it’s true that the British sailors were called limeys because of their consumption of limes.
So, what in the hell has all this to do with a Durban actress with designing skills?
The property boom took place in this Limehouse, also known as Dockland area, where numerous empty warehouses were converted into luxurious apartments – changing the character of the area from derelict to desirable.
Guess who was the first person to initiate this massive change? None other than Rae Hoffenberg! With her flair for interior design, when she relocated to Britain in 1973 she had the foresight to visualize the potential of these old warehouses overlooking the Thames. Not only was she a pioneer in what has become a multibillion-pound property innovation, she fought tooth and nail with bureaucracy to convert the Dockland area from commercial to residential zoning. Her persistence finally paid off.
Not only did she develop the first four warehouses into up-market apartments, but she established a huge reputation for her sparkling designs and open-plan architecture. Prince Charles commented on visiting the Dockland that Rae’s conversions “have more human scale” than much of the other Dockland architecture that had followed her example. The influential fashion magazine Harper’s & Queen said that Rae “was arguably the best architect alive today.”
She was nicknamed variously as “Rae of Hope” and the “Grande Dame of the Docks.”
Today at 88, Rae seems to be as active as ever, writing a screenplay about her life and looking for someone to produce it. (She should try a blog, it’s easier!!)
Talent and even genius appear from almost everywhere. South Africa has had its fair share of remarkable people. Why is that? I have a theory that growing up in a land of huge wide-open spaces with an eternal undercurrent of potential danger, either from the wild beasties or fellow man, sparks an alert and energetic frame of mind often lacking in more temperate climes.
Having said that, one of the nations that have spawned so many men and women who have made an indelible mark on the world is that funny little island just north of France, that despite its size has used the appellation “Great” in front of its identity “Britain” with some justification.
I’m certain of one thing: that the next rising star in the pantheon of excellence and innovation will be Peter Warren, creator of ExoTech, born in Britain, currently resident in Canada. The ExoBrain team are, in fact, scattered all over the world but use the current imperfect computing technology of Zoom, etc., to band together. ExoTech is registered in Bermuda, an island that both Peter and his father spent time on in the past.
It is a measure of the enormous capacity of ExoTech’s abilities that allows a team of just over 300 already (plastered as far afield as Australia, the US, Canada, Britain, France, Greece and even India) that can nevertheless work in harmony. Current computing has its infuriations, but we get by and can’t wait for the incredible simplicity of ExoTech communication to create a truly global village with ExoBrain as its epicenter.
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.