Well, me. Born in Liphook Hampshire England in April 1942. Dad was a Petty Officer in the Royal Navy. We emigrated to Canada in 1946 in January and settled in Hamilton Ontario. 

 How well i remember that great event of arriving in Canada. Anybody who goes to Canada in January is nuts. The ship was blown 5 days off course by severe winter storms and it was absolutely freezing. I think this all accounts for my dislike of the country. Thankfully we left 11 years later and returned to the UK where we stayed for 2 years and then chugged off to Cape Town South Africa.  

South Africa, how i miss you. I’ve been away for 40 years and never been back but my heart is still there and i think about you often. Such good times. Such beautiful friends. Such a beautiful country.

What a beautiful city Cape Town is.  We lived in Camps Bay for a few years and then my parents bought a large house in Vredehoek which was at the base of one of the mountains. Spent hours up that mountain with my trusty Afghan Hound.  Walked all over the place.

Got an apprenticeship as an aircraft engineer on light aircraft at Owenair Pty Ltd in Cape Town but chucked that in after 4 years. The manager (Mr Webb) was a raging  psychopath who hated poms. When we finished a job on an aircraft the engineer who worked on it was blessed with going on a test flight to see all ok. I guessed they figured that if the plane falls to bits midair then they will be taking the engineer with it. Mr Webb always made sure that he would try and rip the wings off. A real screwball. Just the opposite was Dan who was a flying instructor and part time crop duster. A true picture of a pilot, large, jovial and a huge handlebar moustache. I remember in particular a test flight in a DC3 where we were fooling around and flew so close to the water we were getting spray on the windscreen. A test flight with Dan was not complete until we had flew low over the beaches looking for scantily clad ladies.      

Adventure called me and my best friend (Hans Zander). where are you Hans. Been trying to contact you. We decided to join the British South African Police in 1962 in what was then Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia and now of course Harare, Zimbabwe. I got in but Hans wasn’t accepted due to a hearing defect but he stayed and worked in an insurance company. Salisbury in those days was a pretty city, flowering trees and beautiful parks and gardens and a nice sub tropical climate.

We returned to Cape Town in 1964 from Harare. I bought a 1956 (i think it was) Riley 2.6 litre for $200 and drove for 5 nights and six days nearly non stop because we didn’ t have a penny except for petrol. The country even then was getting restless and we were stoned a couple of times on the way down. A break down on the way down was not a good thing due to people being locked in their cars and burnt alive when their cars were set on fire.

Had a variety of jobs in Cape Town and finally moved to Johannesburg where i entered the IT field as a Computer Engineer for Control Data. Worked on site at the Iron and Steel  Corporation in Vanderbijlpark. At the time this CDC Computer setup was the largest in the southern hemisphere. Great job with a great bunch of people. South Africa at that time was very backward like we didn’t get TV for ages and everything was banned. You couldn’t listen to the music you wanted to, watch the movies you wanted to and read the magazines you wanted to. Penthouse and Playboy were much prized and worth more than the price of gold.

We were all big strapping healthy lads brought up on good South African beef and had healthy past times like trying to meet girls. Biltong (Beef Jerky) was an ongoing food source when hungry. Chasing girls came second only to spending whole weekends at a snooker hall in Cape Town who made the best hot dogs i have ever had, dripping with butter.

Much time was spent at the stunning Cape Town beaches getting horribly sunburnt, hence i suspect the start of my skin cancers. I’m surprised i don’t have more. Red hair and freckles are not an ideal basis to get a tan. I remember that we used to get so sunburnt we used to take vinegar baths to ease the burn. We were very active physically and walked for miles and went camping often. I think the secret of my healthy long life is the amount of walking i used to do. I walked for hours most days in Cape Town and those rolling hills were taken in my stride. I was skinny skinny skinny. I used to walk from Camps Bay into town which took hours.

At 28 i went to the UK to visit my relatives for 6 months and ended up staying for 2 years. Freedom was found. Anything went and i went with it. Got a job as a computer operator at Freeman Fox and Associates which was unfortunately located across the road from a pub called The Two Chairmen. Lunch normally consisted of 3 or 4 pints of Draft Guiness with a pork pie or a sausage sandwich. Dinner normally consisted of a half dozen pints of Draft Guiness with Drambui chasers. In 6 months i went from a skeleten to a blimp. Totally inebriated most of the time. such were the sixties in London.     

The great friends i loved and lost contact with. Hopefully they may read this or someone may know of them.

Karin Blum. Met in Jo’burg and think of you often. On a working holiday from Stuttgart Germany. My first great love.

Hans Zander. My best friend from Cape Town. And your beautiful sisters Ursula, Lorainne and Thea.

Max Rubin. Cape Town. Girl hunter extrordinaire. What great times we had and what a master of your trade you were.

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