Memory Project: Pise de terre

My father must have taken this photograph at some time in 1958. Alan and I are wearing the same school ties, which means he was 12 and in Standard 5, while I was 7 and in Standard 1. Jean would have been going on 3 and my mother was 38. I am round-shouldered and miserable looking, Alan is truculent, holds himself stiffly erect and refuses to smile for the camera, much to my father’s annoyance. Jean is a toddler holding a doll under her right arm. My mother wears a pearl necklace and has removed her spectacles for the picture. She looks just a little care worn.

Behind us is the house where we lived for the eight years we were in Rhodesia. The address was 931 Grey Street in the suburb of Windsor Park. All the houses in Windsor Park were pises (pronounced pee-zay) that had been built after the War to accommodate European immigrants who had been encouraged to settle in the colony. Due to a shortage of conventional building material and in order to reduce costs the pise de terre (rammed earth) method of construction was used. Poles were planted at corners and set intervals and the spaces in between were filled with compacted earth contained within temporary shuttering. When the material had dried and set hard the shutters were removed and the walls were plastered with cement and sand mortar. The steep roofs were made from pole trusses covered with thatch and topped with a lightning conductor. Externally, all the houses were whitewashed down to a three-foot-high skirt of black oil paint. Because there were no gutters the tropical cloudbursts would cause torrents of rain to fall from the eaves and splash red mud against the house. A garden boy could then brush dried mud off this black paint.

I later learned that these pise-de-terre houses had cost between £660 and £1,040 and had helped to accommodate the 60,000 new settlers between 1946 and mid-1950. Monthly rental had ranged from £7.15s to £10.5s.

Long before we left Gwelo at the end of 1963, the white ants (termites) had moved in and started eating the wooden door frames. Beneath the skin of pale green oil paint whole sections were being hollowed out. 

My father left by train for South Africa at the beginning of that year. He returned to Fish Hoek, found a job and built a house on the mountainside overlooking the valley where we had originally stayed.

For a second time my mother had to pack up, find a removal company to transport our household contents south, and to sell the house. By then, the white ants were in the walls and the roof, and all she could get for the pise was £100.

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The Dockyard

I was employed as a civilian in the Simon’s Town naval dockyard on two occasions.  The first was in 1971 when I was 20. I served as an Assistant Storeman for four months before quitting. Then in 1976 I returned as a Stores Verification Officer for five months.

It would be inaccurate to say I worked in the Dockyard. In all the time I was there I cannot remember doing anything more useful or meaningful than playing the part of a man pretending to be busy with the efficient running of a naval store. Although the experience provided me with valuable material as a writer, I found the interminable hours of every day insufferably boring.

After digesting the experience for over thirty years, I decided to give it value by incorporating it in my semi-autobiographical novel, The Life of Henry Fuckit. In the following extract Henry (my alter ego) is inducted into the absurd world of the Dockyard.

"The wholesale squandering of human, financial and material resources is condoned by the authorities as an unavoidable price to be paid in order to maintain a defensive capability. Should war break out, the facilities must be in place and the personnel must be there to man them. In the meantime, in the absence of war, nobody really expects us to do much more than keep up pretences. So, Fundamental Reality number one: very little is required of us."

"That sounds not merely realistic but downright philanthropic." Henry sipped his aromatic tea and sat back, well disposed towards hearing more of what seemed to him like good common sense. "What's Fundamental Reality number two?"

"Fundamental Reality number two is that we are reluctant to perform even the barest minimum of work. The disparity between the expectations of the authorities and those of the workers gives rise to a certain dramatic tension without which the Dockyard would not be able to function at all." He paused to finish his coffee and glance at his notes.

"How many Fundamental Realities are there?"

"Three. Fundamental Reality number three is that we all know exactly what's going on. We know that they know that we know what's going on. And…"

"And I suppose they know that we know that they know that we're all a bunch of lazy, good-for-nothing cocksuckers?"

 When I stand here looking out, I often feel I'm on the bridge of a great ocean-going vessel. I can survey the entire Dockyard, all of Simon's Bay, the sweep of mountains right round to Muizenberg and to the east a large expanse of False Bay. I mark the sun's passage across the sky and the infinite variety of colour and light. I watch the seasons come and go; I never tire of the ever-changing weather.

I use a telescope mainly to study human behaviour. There are a lot of men working in this dockyard and there's a lot of strange goings-on to be followed. I can spend hours at a time engrossed in the scurrying and scuttling, clambering, creeping and crawling of artisans and labourers, not to mention sailors and officers." And so saying he fixed his eye on something taking place in the Dry Dock. The SAS Kruger had been brought in for a refit early that morning and the pumps had nearly completed their task of emptying out the dock. A sizeable crowd of men had gathered on the caisson and adjacent quaysides. All were looking downward in rapt concentration.

If you find this entertaining and educational, read more of it here: http://www.ianmartintheauthor.com/Text/chap036.htm

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Memory Project: The Crib That Became a Laundry Basket

This wickerwork crib was probably bought from the Civilian Blind in Salt River. It was used to transport my baby sister- on the train trip from Cape Town to Bulawayo, and later served for many years as the family laundry basket.

Jean was born in September 1955. In 1956 my father left for Southern Rhodesia in search of a better life. He ended up in Gwelo, where he found work as a motor mechanic. My mother had to sell the house in Fish Hoek, pack up and make arrangements with a removal company, and then undertake the 3-day train journey north. Her children were aged nine, five and barely one.

My only memory of the trip was of passing through Bechuanaland and how the countryside was becoming increasingly African, with signs of European habitation giving way to thatched mud huts. At one point the train slowed and a group of naked piccanins ran alongside waving, shouting and laughing. I looked into the black face of one little boy and was disgusted to see that he wore a moustache of glistening white snot.

On our arrival in Gwelo my father took us to the Royal Hotel, which was dark and seedy. My mother was far from happy, and when my father showed us the house, we were to live in for the next eight years, she wasn’t over the moon at what she saw. We were unable to move in until our furniture arrived by road some days later.

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On the Beach: Avian Flu

Suspected avian flu outbreak kills hundreds of birds

By Staff Reporter  

CAPE TOWN - Western Cape authorities are responding to a suspected outbreak of avian influenza among wild seabirds in the Bergrivier Municipality on the West Coast and Walker Bay in Overberg.

All disaster nodes have been alerted and both municipalities and CapeNature have already deployed teams of officials to collect the dead and sick birds.

Veterinarians are also at the scene.

Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell urged the public to avoid the area and not to collect or touch sick or dead birds.

“It is critical to prevent the spread of the disease. This means people must not attempt to assist or transport any sick birds, even to take them to rehabilitation centres and veterinarians as this could spread the disease. It is critical to keep a controlled environment.

“This is a serious situation. We note that the deaths are occurring currently among endangered wild birds including cormorants. Yesterday alone an estimated 1 500 dead cormorants were collected in the region,” he said.

Bergrivier Municipality remains the hotspot, with reports of dead birds from Velddrif to Arniston.

There are additional hotspots on Dyer island and Robben Island which are receiving attention.

Neighbouring municipalities have been alerted and urged to be cautious and to keep an eye out for potential spreading of the disease.

The Western Cape Disaster Management Centre is doing an assessment to determine if the outbreak constitutes a disaster.

“This is an incurable disease affecting birds that is not preventable, cannot be treated and is highly contagious to birds,” said Bredell.

The current virus strain was detected in wild birds in May, mainly affecting gulls. The first cormorants were only diagnosed with the disease in mid-September and cases have increased rapidly in the past week.

There is no evidence that this virus poses a threat to humans. However, humans can transmit the virus from sick birds to other birds if their clothes or hands get contaminated.

“People are advised not to handle the birds at all unless it is absolutely unavoidable and in that instance to please use gloves and face masks,” he said.

The Disaster Management Centre urges the public to be vigilant and report unusual deaths in any birds to their local municipality, conservation authority or state veterinarian.

Contact details for state veterinarians are available at: https://www.elsenburg.com/services-and-programmes/veterinary-services-0#s=Animal-Health-and-Disease-Control.

Cape Times

 

The following day.

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Memory Project: Cecil John Rhodes

Rhodes was born in 1853 and died at the age of 48 in 1902. His short life was packed with achievement, much of them being of a dubious ethical nature. He was shrewd, ruthless and domineering. He believed in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and maintained that Africans lived in a state of savagery, labelling their customs barbaric. By the time he was 35 he had amassed a fortune, was gaining political influence and dreamed of expanding the British Empire. It was his intention to build a Cape to Cairo railway linking all the British colonies on the continent. Advancing across the Limpopo was the first step in this strategy.

The Martin family moved to the country named after this megalomaniac in 1956 when I was five years old. I later attended Cecil John Rhodes (CJR) Junior School. In the school foyer stood a larger-than-life statue of the great imperialist. He was striking some sort of heroic or statesmanlike pose and was painted in gold. In 1969 and 1970 I was a student at UCT and often had to pass another statue of this man. I was by then more politically aware and can still remember the pleasure I derived from spitting on this effigy when no one was looking. I have also spat on his bronze head up at that ridiculous monument with its Greek temple, horseman and stone lions. I have never spat on the statue in the Company Gardens, but I have regarded it with derision as he points north and proclaims “Your hinterland is there!” I  have neither urinated on nor thrown excrement at any statue. I did, however, piss on a plaque attached to a large chunk of rock in a remote part of South West Africa. The inscription boasted that this was the biggest meteorite in the world. As far as I know this has got nothing to do with Rhodes, and I only mention it to further illustrate the disrespectful attitude towards authority and convention that I developed in my youth and have retained to this day.

 

 

This is what the meteorite looked like when I visited it in the 70’s.

 

In more recent times the Hoba meteorite has been excavated and circular stone steps lead down to the 60-ton lump of iron and nickel. I am sure that in Namibia it is strictly forbidden to urinate on a national monument.

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Airborne Arrival and Departure

Forty years ago, Gough 26 was the last team to arrive on the island by crane and the first to leave in a chopper.

 The coastline of Gough Island consists almost entirely of sheer cliffs. The only place for a boat to land is on a narrow boulder beach in Quest Bay. This is where the first base was established  in the early 1950’s. Situated at the bottom of a steep gorge known as The Glen, and hemmed in by walls of volcanic rock, it was no site for a weather station. The single piece of coastal plateau where buildings and a radio mast could be erected was the relatively level area above Transvaal Bay. To overcome the problem of bringing supplies, construction material, as well as personnel, to the new site, a crane was positioned on the clifftop forty meters above the sea. From then on, everything that came ashore was transported by raft from ship to the base of the cliffs, and then hoisted up on a pallet in a rope net. This proved a laborious, time-consuming process and only possible when the sea was calm.

There was mounting pressure to switch to the use of helicopters in the replenishment and maintenance operations that took place every twelve to fifteen months. An obstacle to this change was the absence of a safe landing area on the island, there being no such thing as firm ground. Everywhere was covered in ferns and waterlogged moss riddled with nesting burrows. In the late 1970’s it was decided to build behind the base a floating platform that could serve as a stable helipad. It was to consist of 3m x 2m interlocking polystyrene sections placed on the unstable surface  to form a raft. For greater stability and durability this would be covered with timber planking.

 

As the material was offloaded from the ship, we formed teams of four and spent three days carrying the foam sections and the bundles of planks from the landing stage in front of the crane to the helipad site. The contingent of PWD (Public Works Department) artisans then set to work constructing the helipad on the area that we had helped to clear of ferns and level with mattocks and spades.

Once the work had been completed, the workers and scientists caught the last crane and the Agulhas departed for Cape Town, leaving us to our welcome solitude.

The brand-new helipad served as a spacious exercise area until the ship returned and the first helicopter landed on the island.

Looking back at the island before landing on the Agulhas and returning to Cape Town

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