Open Writing

As someone somewhere said ‘start at the beginning and finish at the end’.

I still remember clearly the first time I heard the name “Oranjemund.” It was from a friend of mine who was in the same bunch of surfies that hung out together.
Patrick, who was a year or two older than me, had worked for a year at Oranjemund as a geologist assistant. We were relaxing on the beach at the time watching the waves. It was too windy to surf. The southeaster had come up and was howling across the bay. Glen Beach was almost deserted and only the hopefuls were still hanging around hoping to get a surf.

Patrick spoke of the wide open spaces of the Namib Desert and the mad bunch of people who worked there as well as the excellent money with all accommodation, meals and medical cover provided free. The company was the Consolidated Diamond Mines or CDM as everyone called it. Located in then southern South West Africa, now Namibia, it was just over the South African border, about 800 kms from Cape Town, so not too far from civilisation for an 18-year-old.

It was the first time I had heard of the place. Only being interested in the beach and surfing tended to narrow ones perspective of the world.

I was at a loose end at the time. I had completed my year 10 and, being lazy, left school and started working as an apprentice compositor for one of the newspapers in Cape Town. It seemed like a good idea to get a trade but I hated the job. The long hours, the weekend work, the terrible pay and the bad treatment by the other qualified tradesmen at the paper made work hell. I was always getting into trouble with the supervisor, who gave me all the menial jobs and generally made my life as miserable as possible. This was probably typical of worksites in South Africa in the late 60s.

I couldn’t accept the bullshit and would speak my mind and stand up for what I thought were my rights as a person. I was always given warnings by the supervisor even though I was a good worker. I was no angel but, being young, rebellious and very strong willed, I wasn’t going to let anyone give me a hard time. I probably had my mother’s genes and took no nonsense from anyone. Not a good thing for an 18-year-old to do. And to think that I would still have another four years before I completed my apprenticeship!

My parents were divorced when I was quite young and I, being the youngest, ended up with my mother, and my brother and sister ended up with my father. My mother had a tough time of it. She had two jobs, a day job working at an office in town and then a part-time job working as a cashier at a club. She used to come home at about 9 pm, exhausted. Thinking back, I don’t know how she did it. Being a young teenager, I was in my own little world and tended not to notice anything outside it.

Added to that my father passed away suddenly in late 1966 and I had started to think about things a bit more rationally. Death seems to make one sit up and take notice about life.

I hardly knew my father, who was badly wounded in the war and struggled to get a decent job. Even though he was a qualified tradesman, being a die and tool maker, he couldn’t pass the required medicals when applying for a permanent job. So he could only get casual work. Factor in the heavy drinking and smoking and he was a prime candidate for health problems. Unfortunately the pub was only two blocks away and on the way to and from work. So each payday, which was every Thursday, they would all head to the pub and drink.

I remember vividly when he died. I had visited him in hospital the previous Sunday, and he was sitting on the bed in the ward looking a lot better than he had been for a long time. He didn’t seem as pale or weak as he had been. I mentioned to him how well he looked and that soon he would be up and about again.

He looked at me with a hint of sadness as well as regret. “I’ll never get out of this hospital alive.”

I thought he was joking and didn’t really pay too much attention to his words and carried on talking about surfing and diving. How little we notice when we are young. By Wednesday he was dead. The hospital rang me at work to say that he had just died and my heart went numb. “Too late, too late,” were the words that ran through my mind continuously.

The great sadness was that I never knew my father. I didn’t know what he loved or what he hated. I didn’t know what his hobbies were nor his likes or dislikes. I never found out about his childhood or what his passions were. We never spent time together. We never went fishing or to a rugby game or did any of the normal father-son things. My only remembrances were his drinking and arguing, either with my mother, or with my uncles and aunts. It was now all too late for me to ever get to know my own father. That was the real tragedy.

The funeral was a strange event. I remember it was a Saturday and it was cold and grey even though it was only autumn. Here was this large dysfunctional Italian family arguing about who should carry the coffin.

My father came from a family of six brothers and six sisters and they never got on. They lived near each other in one of the poorest areas of Cape Town and were forever fighting and arguing. Alcohol certainly played its part. I often wondered why people drank to excess. Did it make them forget everything?

My uncles and aunts loathed and ridiculed my father while he was alive but now praised him in his death. My brother, who had been given everything that he wanted by my father, cried at the funeral. Perhaps he cried because of remorse or perhaps he cried because of all the sacrifices my father had made to ensure that my brother got the best education and whatever else he needed. The relatives all thought the sun shone out of my brother. Perhaps I was jealous and envious. I don’t know. It seemed all so bizarre and phoney at the time.

In the end my brother and five uncles carried the coffin. My sister and I stood watching quietly from the sidelines at this circus, not quite comprehending what was going on. The casket seemed to disappear very quickly into the dark hole in the ground as it was lowered to its final resting place.

When I returned to Cape Town in 1996 and went to the cemetery, I was unable to find the grave. There was no headstone. No trace of the grave. Nothing. It was as if my father had never existed. All I have is one single black-and-white photograph to remind me of who he was.

My father was only 50 when he died and it was a shock to say the least. It seemed such a waste of a life. He seemed an intelligent man, but trapped by circumstances from which there seemed no escape. Being from a traditional Italian family, where the man was always the breadwinner and head of the house, not being able to accomplish this role must have been soul destroying and demoralising. His inability to support his family must have really gotten to him. I hoped he was now at peace.