How I Saved South Africa

The first thing I did was to declare a state of emergency. That freed me up to get things done in a hurry. I assembled a team of experts to provide me with reliable information and advice. I went on TV and radio to tell the nation what I was going to do to get the country working and on the path to prosperity.

The most pressing matter to deal with was the Covid 19 crisis.

Henry's First Day at the Dockyard

"There are nine intervals, either end of each being announced by The Sirens. That makes ten times a day that The Sirens sound." He looked at his watch. "In about half an hour we'll hear the 9.30 siren. That's when we take a half hour tea break."

Henry was puzzled. He was seated behind his new desk in the office that he was to share with Senior Stores Officer Mr Alf Whitehead. Mr Whitehead was standing at the window looking down on the Dockyard through the large expanse of glass.

"But we've been reading the paper, drinking coffee and chatting since I arrived this morning. I don't understand, when do we start work?"

The storeman, a portly man in his early fifties with receding grey hair and an upper lip which, over the years, had been allowed to run wild and was now covered with a huge tangle of overgrown moustache, turned to look at Henry, his face suddenly rendered grim by a veil of non-comprehension. Then the light of understanding returned, he snorted and resumed his contemplation of the naval scene.

"You're very new here. It's quite natural that it will take you a little while to acquire our way of seeing the world. There's a lot to learn. You see, to start with, it doesn't matter what we actually do, it's when we do it. Between 7.30 and 9.30 we work. If we choose to drink a cup of coffee in that interval, then it's work."

"But…" Henry remained nonplussed. "I mean, how do we justify it?"

"Good God, boy! Justify it?! If you can't justify it there's no hope for you. You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be on the planet." He paused, trying to control his impatience. "Look, if we are drinking coffee it's because we're testing a victual. Commander Wolfaart has complained about the freshness, or staleness, of the instant coffee. We are conducting tests on different batches of Nescafe to determine which one it is that fails to meet naval standards. We are consulting the newspaper in order to find out when that French freighter will be docking in Cape Town - you know how urgently the shipment of submarine parts is required. We are in conversation because I am briefing you on important matters concerning the efficient running of this store. Get it? Really, if you can't justify your existence then you are bereft of imagination. But don't worry, I'm sure you don't fit into that pitiful category. You'll soon pick it up and become adept in…"

This is an extract from The Life of Henry Fuckit, which can be read on my website here.

What is the Memory Project?

Memory Project is my attempt at writing a memoir. Over a period of three or four months in 2016 I listened to a BBC series called ‘A History of the World in 100 Objects.’ The objects were all from the British Museum, starting with a lump of rock that was a Stone Age tool, and ending with a solar-powered lamp with charger. It occurred to me that this could be a way of exploring my memory, using pictures of items as stepping stones. I realised that each item could in turn lead to others, and yet others, exponentially. The objects could include books, photographs, letters, works of art and music. If I didn’t get bored, this project could keep me busy until I kicked the bucket. Here is an example of what I am talking about.

An Mbira

I bought this mbira while on a hitch-hiking trip through Rhodesia in 1976. ‘A member of the lamellaphone family of musical instruments, it consists of a wooden board (often fitted with a resonator) with attached staggered metal tines, and is played by holding the instrument in the hands and plucking the tines with the thumbs.’ (Wikipedia.) My mbira has six tines, but it is common for others to have twenty or more. It is considered to be an African invention and can be traced back for at least 3000 years.

On one occasion as a child of about eight or nine I visited the houseboy squatting before his fire. I found him busy hammering a length of fencing wire on a short piece of steel rail he had scrounged from a friend working on the Railways. Every few minutes he would stop to heat the wire in the flames and then resume pounding it flat. When I asked him what he was doing he said he was making an mbira. About a week later the instrument was completed and I saw that the flattened wire had been cut into lengths to form the tines. For a resonator he used an empty Cobra stoep polish tin. A piece of rubber cut from an inner tube was stretched over the mouth of the tin to close it like a drum skin. I was impressed with his ingenuity and enjoyed listening to him singing and humming as he plucked the tines with his thumb nails. The ‘boy’ in question was Joseph, and I was sad when he resigned after a year or two in order to return to his wife and children in the Native Reserve.

To view my longer work as an author, you can find me on Smashwords here.