Tale guide

The early years

Luanda before the war

During the early years, South Africa was persona non grata across most of the African continent. As a result, South African Airways had to fly around the bulge of north Africa to reach its European destinations.

Because the length of flights around the bulge of Africa were so long, we used to fly from Johannesburg to Luanda where the crew would hand over to a fresh team to take the plane on to Europe.

We would then overnight in a hotel and be ready to pick up the next evening's flight. On one of my first trips as a sky marshal on SAA’s jumbo 747s, we were met off the plane in Luanda by members of the local Portuguese security police who took great pleasure in hosting their South African counterparts whenever possible.

I will never forget my very first visit to this central African coastal city. We landed at around 18h00. In those days we didn't have the luxury of Jet Bridges and had to contend with the steep set of steps that they wheel up to the side of the aircraft. As I stepped out of the airconditioned cabin I literally walked into a solid wall of extreme humidity, so extreme that it stopped you in its tracks and took your breath clean away. 

Én route to the hotel we approached a large circle in the road into which multiple roads converged from every direction. In the middle, stood a round wooden platform not three meters in diameter and half a meter off the ground and on the center of which, under a large umbrella, stood a traffic officer dressed in a white safari suit and a pith helmet that reminded me a little, of Doctor Livingstone.

As mentioned earlier, it was extremely hot, and the thick humidity was so intense and suffocating that the cool air-conditioning in the minibus created condensation to the extent that it caused water droplets to slide down the inside of the windows.

Off the converging roads sped hundreds of cars, trucks, busses, motorbikes, bicycles and donkey carts, all at their own speed and with what seemed without much concern for the faded traffic lanes, let alone the traffic warden.

In the midst of this bustling and noisy pandemonium, we watched as the traffic officer slowly and rhythmically gestured to no one in particular to proceed or stop, but if the drivers were adhering to his signals, it was not at all evident to the casual observer. It looked to me as if everyone was on a mission of their own and weren’t taking a blind bit of notice.

As the bus we were travelling on swung into the traffic randomly circling the platform, it accelerated out of the traffic on the opposite side without missing a beat and without as much as a sideways glans at the warden.

I had never witnessed such comical and scary chaos until many, many years later when let loose in Cairo. In Egypt, the drivers were on a mission to take you out at the highest speed possible!

On that evening our police hosts took us out to a downtown nightclub and a never-to-be forgotten affair. The club was on the edge of the dockland.

We stepped into a dimly lit and smokey room with a bar that stretched the full length of the back wall. Way forward was a stage and in between long tables were arranged across the room, left to right.

The place was heaving, and the music deafening. Every race, culture, creed and sex, big and small, were drinking, talking, singing and shouting. In the midst of this turmoil, our hosts volunteered to fetch us a whiskey.

Although I don’t drink Scotch, I had been cautioned not to decline such an invitation, as it was customary for our Angolan hosts to provide what they believed should be the very finest, as a mark of respect for their guests.

Bottom line, it wouldn’t have sat well to decline. To make matters worse, I discovered to my horror that what they meant as Scotch wasn’t a shot on ice in a glass, with or without water. What they meant was that they would buy the two of us a whole bottle of scotch for the evening and supply an empty glass in which to pour it!

“Oh, good heavens, how was I going to make it through the night” I thought, horrified, but there was simply no way out other than of course, to drink it very slowly!

As the evening progressed, four rather large Angolan lady singers appeared on the stage. In the dim lights and smokey atmosphere, I remember thinking that they looked so much like the four Beagle boys from the Donald Duck comics.

Beyond that, my memory fails me.

Naval Etiquette

During my years with Fidelity Cash Management Services, I had the pleasure of working with Lionel Martin, formerly Lieutenant Commander Martin, previously a Superintendent in the BSAP, who had joined our team a few years after retiring from the South African Navy.

I recall a two stories Lionel told of incidents that occurred during his naval days in South Africa.

A Royal Navy frigate was visiting South African waters and as custom would have it, the officers of the Richards Bay Naval station extended an invitation to the officers of the frigate to a formal evening in the officers’ mess.

The occasion of the visit happened to coincide with the period in which the South African Breweries were in the midst of changing the bottle tops of its famous Castle lager to screw tops.

Lionel directed the catering team to obtain an equal number of screw top bottles of beer as the old -fashioned fixed tops that would require the use of a bottle opener.

The mess hall was duly decked out to meet the standards expected of such an auspicious occasion and the Officers of the Royal Navy were warmly welcomed.

As is customary on these occasions, the officers of the South African navy took up positions along the one side of the long table and their guests, along the opposite side.

Likewise, following the correct protocol, the men stood behind their chairs for the Grace to be delivered before seating themselves. It was at this point that Commander Martin addressed the gathering and drew their attention to the identical bottles of beer that had been placed at each setting on the table.

“Gentlemen,” he called their attention. “It is customary in South Africa to commence the evening by sharing a bottle of beer with one’s guests. So, before we sit down, may I invite you to raise a toast to our respective flags.”

And with that, the South African officers picked up their beers and proceeded to screw the bottle tops off with exaggerated ease.

Their English counterparts followed their hosts’ example but quickly discovered it impossible to remove their bottle tops.

It was a moment of great amusement to some and mild embarrassment to others but in the tradition of spirited seamen, the ruse was roundly applauded and set the tone for a fabulous evening that followed.

In the navy…

It was a dark, stormy, night and Jeremy Collins was on his first guard duty at Simonstown Naval dockyard.

Captain van Rooyen was taking his dog for a walk when he passed by the young seaman.

The nervous young able seaman snapped to attention, made a perfect salute, and called out, 'Good Evening, Sir.'

Captain van Rooyen returned the salute and said, 'Good evening seaman, nice night, isn't it?'

Jeremy didn’t think it was a nice night, but he wasn’t going to disagree with the officer, so he saluted once again and simply said 'Yes Sir.'

The Captain continued, 'You know there's something about a stormy night that I find peaceful, it's really relaxing. Don't you agree?

Jeremy thought that the Captain must have a bit of a screw loose, but rule number one was always, not to argue with a superior, so he replied, 'Yes Sir.'

Then Captain van Rooyen pointed at his dog and said, 'This is a German Shepherd, one of the best breeds to train and used worldwide by the armed forces.’

Able Seaman Jeremy Collins, still at attention, pushed back his shoulders and said, “Yes Sir,” once again.

To this the Captain added, 'I got this dog for my wife.'

Jeremy just couldn’t help himself and without further thought said, 'Good exchange, Sir.'

Crazy South Africa

I have been asked why I don’t write a satiric piece along the lines of my ‘news from the home country’, but with the focus on South Africa.

But I confess, I’m not sure if many of the readers would believe the stories and would reasonably argue that I made them up! But be rest assured that you cannot make this stuff up if you tried.

Just for tasters I read that the United Kingdom are considering giving South Africa a few hundred billion pounds to transform its archaic and floundering coal fire power generation infrastructure which reportedly is the biggest single contributor to greenhouse emissions in the world.

But at the same time this week, (late November 2021) there are reports that Royal Shell have been given a license to drill for oil off South Africa’s east coast.

This is not to detract from the universally held view within the country that the UK’s billions of pounds will inevitably be intercepted by the same people who stole the billions the country originally held in its coffers until a few years ago.

Serious political goings-on aside, I must confess that it is a very tempting prospect and a day never passes when I don’t read a story from good old SA which offers the very finest of material for a hearty laugh or two.

Here are some posts I have collected off social media that tell a tale!