Open Writing

My parents never owned a car. They never owned a house. They never went on holiday when they were together nor after they got divorced. Being poor was the norm. I remember wanting to buy new rugby boots. We had to get a second hand pair as my mother couldn’t afford to get new ones. My friends at high school had bikes. My mother could never afford to buy me one.

It was a rather grim youth. Did it affect me? I don’t know. Perhaps it made me appreciate everything more. Perhaps poverty makes one more humble. Perhaps humility is a good thing. Who knows?

My mother had remarried and moved to the UK the previous year. My stepfather was a chef who had worked on the Windsor Castle, which was one of the Union Castle boats that cruised between Cape Town and Southampton, and was a great guy. They were immensely happy. My mother deserved that much after a rather tough life with my father, who was a very difficult man.

I had elected to stay behind in Cape Town as I could not picture myself away from my beloved beach and surf. I was right into surfing and loved the beach and spending the weekends surfing at Glen Beach or occasionally Long Beach and Kommetjie, popular surf beaches around the Cape peninsula.

Even when the southeasterlies blew in during the afternoon, I would often go down to the breakwater near the old harbour and sit and watch the white horses and wave chop. At those times it was delightfully quiet, with hardly anyone around. After a storm the surf could get huge – often 10 feet or so. I body-surfed the big waves and relished in the challenge of picking the correct one so as to not get dumped by the breakers onto the hard sand.

Girls were irrelevant to me. I probably didn’t have the sophistication or the inclination to even bother trying to talk or even socialise with them. I envied how easily the young girls and young men socialised and mingled. I had few real friends. Acquaintances yes, friends no.

Cape Town at that time was an enjoyable place that seemed neither too big nor too small. Perhaps youth made it seem much more pleasant, but when I returned in 1996 and 2001 the city had grown enormously and seemed dirtier, grubbier and much more dangerous and threatening. The only thing I relished was the smell of the air. That smell of the sea and earthiness with perhaps a touch of smog. There was nothing like it anywhere.

I was living with my brother and he became a doctor, and I often wondered why. Perhaps it was because he enjoyed the status and making lots of money. When he got married he told everyone that my mother was dead even though she very much alive at the time. My mother came over on holiday from the UK in 1977, and I told her about this. She was as angry as hell and she made me take her to visit my brother.

I took her to their mansion in one of the wealthy suburbs of Cape Town. She went to the front door and when my brother’s wife opened the door, said: “Good morning. I’m your husband’s dead mother,” and walked in. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to have heard what was said.

I do know that my mother never forgave my brother. Even when my mother died in 1978 and I phoned my brother to tell him, he was coldly indifferent. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

My brother was very good at manipulating and using people. I saw right through him and we were always having fights. Not arguments but physical fights. He was always trying to bully me just like older brothers always seem to do. Perhaps it was from him that I got my hatred of bullies. I promised him that if there was ever another war, then he would be the first person I would kill. We hated each other's guts and still do to this day.

The last time I spoke to him would have been over 25 years ago. One of my last surviving aunts in Cape Town bumped into one of my brother’s daughters and discovered that she was unaware that her father had a brother and a sister, nor even any other relations. My aunt was invited to visit her and upon arriving found my brother and his wife there. Even when confronted by my aunt, he was unrepentant and unapologetic and didn’t seem to care about his immediate family and seemed almost ashamed. It was an eye-opener for my aunt, who always thought my brother was the best thing since sliced bread.

So getting away from the terrible job and an unhappy home life seemed like a very sensible thing.

But back to the main story…..

So it wasn’t going to take much for me to jump. Patrick gave me the address of the company and I wrote off in early January 1967 not expecting too much. To my surprise, in mid February I received a telegram (remember telegrams?) from them saying that if I was still interested, there was a vacancy for process plant operators at the mine and could I please let them know.

Being flat broke (who wasn’t on an apprentice salary?), I borrowed some money for the flight as that was the easiest way to get to the mine and telegrammed them back the date I would be arriving. I didn’t bother to resign from my lousy job at the newspaper – I just left. Let them get some other poor dumb b------ to torment.

I didn’t have a clue what a process plant operator was, but who cared? It was a job with good money and a chance to see another country. Most of all I would get out of the double trap of poverty and being near my brother. I was young, healthy and unafraid – there was a whole world to conquer.

So one February morning I climbed on the plane heading to my new job and hopefully new life, turning my back on Cape Town and its rather unpleasant childhood.