by R. A. Lang
It was from an ex-girlfriend who had petitioned against me as being the father of her child. The girl was a cook who worked just across the road in the University’s halls of residence. I hadn’t seen her since the previous Christmas and she was claiming to be five months pregnant. Okay, I thought, then she has stated a time in her petition when I had already left her, so she needed to account for two missing months somewhere.
She was the type who desperately wanted a baby, which was the main reason for leaving her. I wasn’t in a position to commit myself to eighteen years of maintenance fees, especially when it was so clear that I wasn’t the father.
She wasn’t having any of it so it was off to get legal support. It was terribly embarrassing answering all the necessary questions from a female lawyer with regard to how many times a week was I seeing her and how many times a night I needed to satisfy the girl. I must admit, my lawyer looked quite impressed when I mentioned figures like three times a night, seven nights a week, but nonetheless the timing was clear that I wasn’t the father so the odds were at least in my favour. After several months of worry had passed by, with the exchange of legal letters and the need to prove the dates I’d left the girl, it fortunately came to nothing.
During this period an Auntie had died and left a Thai Buddha made out of cast brass, which sat on a hand-carved wooden stand. I was later to learn that it was an original antique Thai Buddha aged over three hundred years.
Many years later, I was to learn the true significance of why this Buddha had found its way to me. I was to return it back to the country it had originated, in person, and hand it to a monk who’d play a significant part later in my life.
Chapter 2
South Africa
I had a South African friend who had a double glazing business in Swansea. He met me regularly for a few beers after work. He always told me about his time in South Africa and how good life was when he was living in Cape Town. It sounded like such a wonderful place, and I became even more eager to restructure my future and get away from the United Kingdom for a while.
I was twenty-seven years old, and becoming increasingly frustrated with my day to day routine. In May of 1989, I read in a London newspaper that there was going to be a seminar held in a London hotel regarding emigration to South Africa.
I didn’t need to waste time thinking about it. I decided to attend, compiled my first curriculum vitae, and headed to the seminar. At the seminar, there were representatives from South African banks, immigration officials, and representatives from the South African Embassy. It was there I met a man who had a business partner based in Johannesburg who specialised in recruitment. I handed him my CV and he wasted no time in faxing it over to him.
Just a week later, I was flying to Johannesburg to start my very first overseas contract as a welding inspector, representing the client on the first offshore gas platform to be built in the country.
After rushing around having the usual inoculations, buying suitcases and choosing what to pack, I was ready for my long-awaited adventure to finally begin.
The long-haul flight began in London, Heathrow, and went to Amsterdam and on to Nairobi before landing in Johannesburg. The day I left Swansea was a terrible day filled with torrential rain. I got soaked walking from my mother’s car to the coach station along with my mother.
I was both excited and also nervous, not knowing what was in store for me the other end, who would meet me, and where I’d be staying. Emotions were running high and I felt a little choked up when it was time to bid my mother goodbye. I managed to put on my bravest face and made the exchange as brief as I could before boarding the coach.
I waved her goodbye from my window seat and began thinking about the journey ahead. I figured that I wouldn’t see her for at least a year and a new empty feeling began in my stomach. The coach eventually pulled out of the Swansea Quadrant bus station a few minutes later and headed towards the junction with Oystermouth Road.
Much to my amazement, there, waiting at the junction in the torrential rain without an umbrella, stood my mother. She gave me one last wave farewell before the coach pulled out onto the main road and headed towards London.
You could see by the look in her eyes that she was excited about her only son’s first journey overseas, but she was also saddened to see him leaving with little idea when she would next hear from him or see him again.
It wasn’t until several years later that my mother explained to me what she had found when she arrived back at her empty house. As she entered, she could smell a fresh, earth-like aroma, the type one smelt in a forest after it had been raining. She walked into the lounge, only to see a blanket of mist completely covering the blue carpet. In fact, the mist was so dense that one couldn’t tell what colour the carpet actually was.
My flights hadn’t been organised very well. I boarded the flight to Amsterdam in London Heathrow on time, but it only allowed a brief thirty minute gap before my next flight to Kenya took off, so it was a really hurry in Schiphol airport. Safely onboard my KLM flight, I could finally relax, knowing that I’d made it. My KLM flight finally reached African soil in Nairobi where some passengers got off and others joined the flight. We were invited to get off the flight to stretch our legs, which I took full advantage of.
I walked into Nairobi’s airport for a look around, and I was quite surprised to see how expensive it was. I figured that, because Kenya was a popular tourist destination, the prices were deliberately high to milk the tourists of their last remaining holiday money.
Upon arriving in Johannesburg later the same day at around five o’clock in the afternoon, I was met by a representative from the company I would be working for. I was expecting to be handed my domestic flight tickets to Cape Town, but to my surprise, I was instead handed three maps, some car keys, four hotel booking vouchers, and instructions that Cape Town was, “In that direction, straight down the N1 highway.”
Although Johannesburg is the commercial centre of the country, it is not one of the three capital cities in South Africa.
The company rep helped me with my luggage and drove the car to the hotel, the Travel Lodge. He helped me carry my luggage to my hotel room because it would not be very safe left back in the car. After that, in true South African style he showed me the way to the bar.
Tired from not getting any sleep on the flight, my first South African beer hit me hard. The second was easier … so was the third … and the fourth. Eventually the rep had to leave me to meet his wife.
I proceeded to drink a few more beers to ensure a good night’s sleep before going to the restaurant and then heading for bed. I slept very well that night, and I got up early the next morning to leave at six o’clock while the roads were still quiet for the second leg of my journey.
I had no idea at that time that the South Africans had placed bets on whether I’d make the trip without getting lost. I pulled out of the Travel Lodge and arrived at a crossroads. Right, I thought, no signs saying Cape Town, or N1, or “Andy this way”? When the lights changed to green, I pulled away and suddenly felt as though I was going in the wrong direction.
I made a U-turn to retrace my steps, but then I made another U-turn and went back the way I originally went. Ultimately, I pulled over to the side of the road to think about it. Luckily, there was a group of local road workers doing some repairs, so I shouted out, “Which way to Cape Town?” They all burst out laughing and all pointed me in the right direction, so I more confidently continued on my journey.
My fuel tank was full when I left, but I was warned not to pass a fuel station without filling up because they were strategically spaced far apart along the N1; if you missed a station, you would run out of fuel before getting to the next one. Sure enough, it was almost three hours later before I saw my first fuel station. I was running low, so I pulled over and filled my tank to the top.
After ten hours of driving down the N1 through the Orange Free State with hardly a bend in the road I arrived at my second hotel. Th
e place was called Bloemfontein.
The Republic of South Africa has three capitals: Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein. Pretoria was the home of the executive branch of government, Cape Town held the assembly, and Bloemfontein housed the Supreme Court.
The N1 went straight through the middle of the city, and I found the hotel right alongside the road. It was dark by then, so I had no desire to explore the place. Instead, I checked in, ate, and went straight to bed. There weren’t any bills to pay because my company had arranged to pick up the bills from all four hotels.
After another early start and seven hours of driving, I could finally see the awe-inspiring sight of Table Mountain, albeit far in the distance. It was a hot day, and due to the shimmering effect on the road in front of me, I couldn’t see too far ahead. Still, Table Mountain stood out on the horizon. Throughout the entire trip, I don’t think I drove around a single bend.
As I got nearer to Cape Town, the dual carriageway I was on began featuring some planted flowers. The flowers divided up the two sides of the road. I drove along them for several miles before I entered the city itself, which felt quite welcoming.
The only time I managed to get lost was after I pulled over in Cape Town to ask directions to the Plein Park Travel Lodge Hotel. A friendly local police officer explained that I was just a couple of ‘robots’ away, so off I drove looking for robots.
I drove around for almost an hour looking for robots before I pulled over again and asked another police officer where the robots were. He realised I was from out of town, and he explained that ‘robots’ were traffic lights. When I thanked him, he told me to buy a donkey. In fact, everyone I met in South Africa told me to buy a donkey until I learnt that ‘bia dankie’ meant thank you in Afrikaans.
The next day, I made it to the site office in Saldanha Bay, which was only an hour from Cape Town driving north along the coast on the R27. After being introduced to the project team and checking out the job site, it was time to settle in to my new role.
After work, I followed a new colleague to the Saldanha Bay Hotel, which had also been reserved for me. After checking in, we went to their usual bar. The place which they frequented after work was in a place called The North Western Hotel in a nearby village called Vredenburg.
It was by chance that I met a local South African motorbike police officer called Guy Stokes. He soon became a great new friend and introduced me to a new South African way of life.
Guy helped me find a bungalow to rent in Vredenburg, not far from where he lived. After I was in the country for just a month, Guy came around to my bungalow on a Saturday morning and invited me to join him in target practice. I thought it sounded like fun, so off I went. I was thinking of black and white paper targets with sandbags behind them; how wrong I was!
Guy handed me his standard, police-issue, 9mm CZ semi-automatic and explained that he’d use his unlicensed, Russian, 9mm semi-automatic Tokarev. I innocently asked Guy what targets we would be shooting at, and he replied, “Anyone holding a stone, pitchfork, machete, or anything else in his or her hands!”
I thought: hang on, I was in Swansea just a month ago, and now I am getting involved in an African tribal riot on a Saturday morning. Guy said I shouldn’t wait for someone to throw anything. Rather, he encouraged me to fire as many rounds into them as I could before they hit the ground.
I thought he was a madman until he explained that the South African police often made an example of a few aggressive rioters so the rest would run away and live to fight another day.
He explained that they saved a lot of lives by doing it this way, that they were preventing a bloody massacre. I’ve often wondered why they didn’t just throw some gas canisters and be done with it instead of resorting to a more permanent solution. Fortunately, no shots needed to be fired.
The following weekend, Guy pulled up again and told me that he wanted me to see Saldanha Naval Base where he was a member. The place was simply amazing. We got through the security gate using Guy’s pass, and then we went straight to the officers’ mess. I was well received by the officers and made to feel totally at home and given a guided tour of the facility, which they were obviously very proud of.
It was clear how proud they were of their set up. The design of their barbecue was quite unique: it was made from a big sea buoy that had been mounted on a huge ship’s propeller bearing. It had a chimney fitted to its top and large handles to its sides so it could be rotated according to the wind direction.
Every Saturday morning, they used one of the naval boats to troll Saldanha Bay for barracuda, which some like to call snook. Later, they cooked them on the barbecue whilst continually basting them with a mixture of margarine and apricot jam, and drank copious amounts of Castle or Amstel beer.
The beer was subsidised. At 10p per beer, we drank loads of the stuff whilst eating barracuda and watching the Northern Transvaal playing the Western Province at rugby.
The officers’ mess was a large room with a variety of indoor games arranged around to use up some of its immense space. There were several snooker and pool tables, dartboards, carpet skittles and many other games to occupy their spare time, but it was the barbeque and rugby matches which drew most of the attention.
I got on so well with the officers that, after a few months, they made me an honorary member of the naval base. They explained that I was the first in the history of the South African Navy to be made an honorary member without having any naval history in my family.
I’ve still got my black South African Navy beret, which they presented to me, and I can only assume my name is still on their honorary member board in gold lettering at the entrance of their officers’ mess.
It wasn’t long before my senior management learnt of my naval base hideaway, and they asked me if I could get them in so they could take advantage of the eighteen-hole golf course with beautiful views over the Atlantic Ocean. I spoke to the officers, and they thought it would be a great social event to pit themselves against the project management staff in a games night.
It took a few weeks to arrange because everyone’s car license plate number had to be given to the naval base security office and visitor passes had to be printed. Sadly, I couldn’t enjoy the event I had worked so hard to organise because they had put me on nightshift duty the night of the party.
On the night of the party, the officers were all asking my management where I was and what time I would arrive until they were told they wanted me on night shift duty that night. This infuriated my friends at the naval base; they couldn’t believe how selfish and idiotic my co-workers were to do that to me after so many arrangements had been made.
As a result, the naval base banned everyone from my management team from visiting the officers’ mess again. They seemed to give me an even bigger welcome after that night, and I miss them all to this day.
I was still renting the small, two-bedroom bungalow in Vredenburg, but because I had rented the house unfurnished, it was hard going sleeping on the floor. Because Guy took up so much of my free time, I couldn’t furnish it as quickly as I needed to.
I eventually met a local lady in the nearby supermarket who offered to help me partially furnish the place, starting with all the usual essentials. She also dropped her maid off at the bungalow once a week to clean until I was able to find my own maid.
Eventually, I bought some furniture, sofa, bed, kitchen utensils etc. and rented a cable TV. This made all the difference. Also, because the little bungalow had a barbecue built outside the kitchen, I was able to invite friends around on the weekends.
All was going well. I continued to work shifts: one week working days, the next week working nights. I still hadn’t got around to fitting any curtains in the living room of the bungalow, however, so it wasn’t long before it was noticed.
I’d only had my TV and cable decoder a week when I returned home from work one morning to find that my little place had been trashed. Local thieves had entered through the back of the house via
the kitchen window, which was completely hidden to anyone passing by.
They stole just about everything I had that could fit through the window, but they couldn’t get my rented TV through the window. What they couldn’t take, they smashed. The most annoying thing they did was urinating over all my vegetables in the drawer at the bottom of the small, second-hand fridge I’d bought.
I called Guy as soon as I saw the devastation, and he wasted no time calling his police colleagues who came over a short time later. Several police officers arrived, and as they looked around, the policeman in charge told me it had been the work of locals who lived close by in a township. After all, they had only taken what they could carry on them.
He also pointed out that they were too stupid to open my back door, which had its key in the lock. If everything had a funny side, this had to be it.
Guy told me he would get me a dog to guard the house while I was out working and the very next day he arrived with a twelve-week-old Rottweiler puppy. The dog was very nervous in the beginning, like most Rottweiler puppies away from their mother for the first time. She quickly sensed that I was a dog lover, especially Rottweilers, so I was no longer alone anymore and had a new interest to take on daily exercise along the beach in Vredenburg and everywhere else I went.
The police had recommended that I get window grills fitted all around the house. Guy was quick to help me yet again and notified the owner, who was more than happy to oblige. The very next day, a pickup truck arrived, and a local wrought ironworker took all the measurements around the house. He was ashamed that a foreigner had had such a bad experience in his country, and he made very nice wrought iron window grills for the bungalow.
I could appreciate his workmanship because I had made people gates, railings, balustrading, and other iron works when I was in Swansea for extra income. I was always interested to see how others did the same kind of work.