1985 Apartheid Kleinzee, School Squabbles, Bushmen and Strandveld Wildlife

1985. Mark Esslemont's Springbokke, Kleinzee Private School. >

When parents complained about my disciplining their slack daughter, by sending her to sit a while at the school secretary's office, Meneer Nel and Ferreira tried disciplining me at a disciplinary hearing, with parents present. "I won't be changing my teaching methods," I said. Parents had over-reacted, and Nel and Ferreira were too weak to tell them to, "Bogger off!"

As schools' superintendent, Meneer Nel had a Paterson D band house, bigger than boorish Bolander Ferreira's C band house. Nel drove a small company-car and led four white and coloured schools - roll 400 pupils. Ferreira only led our white school - roll 200 pupils. Ferreira coveted Nel's perks, so a power-struggle flickered between them. They both had Paterson band envy, and Ferreira often back -stabbed Nel. They played De Beers lead roles, but would've played Fools in state schools.

One morning, I overheard this bickering: "Kapiez iz lazy hey Neef?" said Nel.

"Jy's 'n drol in die drinkwater hey Niggie?" said Ferreira.

"Mediocrrity brreedz contempt hey Neef?" And so they whined from day to day.

Gallstone, exasperated by Nel's skinnering about female staff, banished Nel to an office near the supermarket, where other feckless managers languished: an engineering foreman and a shop manager. Nel's new office was equidistant from his white and coloured schools. Gallstone gave Ferreira Nel's old Kleinzee Private School office, and Ferreira consulted Kleinzee Hospital for free cholesterol checks.

At a drunken braai, Ferreira knyped SAP Pampoen's balls with braai -tongs.

At Aggenys school rugby, Ferreira had a fist-fight with a drunken doctor.

When a senior-teacher job arose, Ferreira wanted me to apply, so he could download his crap duties. I didn't like the idea of lecherous Ferreira expecting me to organize academics, school camps and sports, like galas. The pay increase was risible. Alwyn got the promotion.

After giving me two days' notice, Ferreira was piqued I refused going to Villiersdorp school camp. I'd already arranged a Cape Town trip with Leah. Ferreira went to Villiersdorp instead of me. Thereafter Ferreira called me a "Soutie-Moffie," while eyeing my Israeli gold ring I wore on my pinkie.

After I left the school, Nel returned to the Transvaal, and Ferreira became schools' superintendent. Ferreira played golf, held court at the Golf Club, ogled other men's wives, and passed dirty remarks about women. Ferreira groped a school girl I'd taught, then denied it at his disciplinary hearing. Ostracised, he fled to Ceres.

Lucky was lonely in our backyard, barking at Xhosa garbage -collectors and cats, and chasing skunks, living beneath our garage. On one of our Cape Town treks, we bought a Jack Russel bitch and named her Strike. East of Grootmis, a granite koppie loomed over Buffels wadi south-bank - my sacred place, where Lucky, Strike and I hunted hasies and meerkatte. Bushmen had eaten shellfish, leaving middens amongst dunes. Bone-songs blew down Buffels wadi, tickling across my body. From atop the koppie, I saw Poseidon Cape being wrecked off Kleinzee.

I found thousands of Bushmen stone-tools, including double-handed axes; smaller hand-axes; hammer-stones; grind-stones; smooth digging-stones; thousands of chipped thumbnail-cutters and scrapers; shards of ostrich-egg shells: old water containers.

Amongst ruins and rusty machinery, glass bottles lay pitted by windblown sand. I harvested stones, bottles, ancestral whisperings...

After rains, during our Diamond Coast trekking, we viewed flowers in the sandveld, and drove to Kommagas, where we saw donkeys sheltering under Acacia cyclops trees. At Springbok's Hester Malan Reserve, we saw xerophytes, like vulval Lithops stone-plants and Fenestraria window-plants amongst stones. Our favourite xerophyte spot was on Buffels Rivier bank, which later became Molyneux Reserve. Buffels Rivier flowed twice while we lived in Kleinzee.

Looking for daisies, we explored Aninaus pass, Spektakelberg Pass, Wildeperdehoek Pass, and saw tiny geraniums, giant kokerbome, crassulas and cotyledons in granite hills. De Beers lambs grew fat on succulents, while Floors the Boer's coloured shepherds rode horses while shooting jackals, then hanging them bleeding on barbed-wire fences, to discourage live jackals.

We saw geelslange - Cape Cobra - on strandveld dunes; secretary birds kicking sand, hunting prey; black male ostriches doing courting displays before brown females; steenbokke nibbling succulents; suricates standing, guarding burrows; flattened hares and bat-eared -foxes on roads. Hoot-an'-skrik was the best way to avoid hitting wildlife, blinded by bakkie headlights.

We visited Port Nolloth, MacDougall's Bay, Hondeklip Baai fishing dorps. We picknicked on Dog Stone Rock near an unfenced cop-shop, where epitaphs on coastal tombstones described drownings of English sailors. We saw offshore diamond-dredgers and illegal kreef - crayfish boats, which headed for deep sea when they saw us. During kreef-fever season, we caught kreef, by casting handlines from rowboats, or casting into secret rock-pools, then pulling up cautious kreef, clinging to our mussel-baited hooks. We netted kreef before kreef escaped. Sometimes we saw otters and seals hunting like us.

During flower-fever season, we drove to Wallekraal dorp; Spoeg River; N7 freeway; Garies, near Groen Rivier; Kamieskroon; Bitterfontein train-terminus; dry Knersvlakte to Vanrynsdorp... We explored Bokkeveldbergpas to platteland Nieuwoudville and saw spectacular flower-fields... At Cedarberg, we saw Bushmen painted elephants on cave walls. At Clanwilliam Dam, breezes from Olifants Rivier caressed us. We trekked bedsides Olifants Rivier to Piekenierskloofpas. At a shop on top, we bought ostrich biltong, Cape wines and veldskoene.

At Palm Court, near Cape Town parliament, we lay by the pool, scoffing apricots, peaches and grapes. At Sea Point, we grazed steaks in Italian restaurants, and spooned along the sea-front at high tide, dodging waves crashing on the sea-wall. At Carnaby Hotel, while conceiving our first-born, we heard Green Point fog-horn's elephant song.

1985. Mark Esslemont's Skollie Patrolie, Kleinzee Private School. >

Apartheid, Some 1985 Unrest and Kleinzee Socials

< 1985. Mark Esslemont directing Die Verdwaaldes, Oupa Uil en Koor at Kleinzee Rec Club.


ANC / UDF continued to make SA ungovernable. Pass laws were abolished. (Jon Murry, et al, South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland, Lonely Planet, Hawthorn, 1997).

Crossroads shanties, Cape Flats near the airport: Unemployed puppet homeland blacks flowed into the Western Cape, traditional coloured area. SAP repeatedly bulldozed and burned shanties. Crossroads regenerated. (Hilda Bernstein, The Rift, The Exile Experience of South Africans, Johnathan Cape, London, 1994).

South of the Limpopo: White farmers were land-mined. (Martin Meredith, Nelson Mandela, A Biography, Hamish Hamilton, London, 1997).

Eastern Cape, March killings: 20 black mourners shot by cops at a Langa funeral. (Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness, Random House, New York, 1999).

Government suspended forced-removals, but forced-removals continued.

Fish River: Cops dumped 3 black bodies. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol 2, Macmillan, London, 1999).

East Rand: Blacks killed.

Gaberone, Botswana: SADF raided ANC houses. 12 people killed, including white pupil I'd taught. (Sean Moroney, Editor, Africa Volumes 1, 2, Facts on File, New York, 1989). Another old-boy was hit-by-truck killed while hitching home from an army camp. Official hitching spots for troopies were designated along freeways.

Cradock: 4 blacks killed by cops. (Ibid TRC, Vol 2).

Duduza: Maki Skosana was burnt, suspected of being an impimpi informer. (Bruce Connew, et al, South Africa, Hodder and Stoughton, Auckland, 1987). Bishop Tutu threatened to leave SA after her township incineration was shown on SATV.

Daveyton: 3 blacks shot by cops. (Ibid Connew).

Brandfort: Winnie Mandela's house, where she was banished, was raided. (Ibid Connew).

July State-of-Terror: (Euphemistically called State-of-Emergency) first in over two decades declared by president Botha, and enforced in selected Eastern Cape and Witwatersrand areas. Cops did what they liked. So much for Botha's Tricameral parliament and "reforms."

Puppet Ciskei, August: Army corporal necklaced by funeral mourners. (Alan Cowell, Why Are They Weeping? South Africa Under Apartheid, Stewart, Taboriand, Chang, New York, 1988).

Queenstown: Blacks necklaced.

Soweto: Blacks killed.

Durban City Hall, August: Botha's "Rubicon" speech, never stated expected reforms, nor the end of apartheid. The result of Botha's speech was that the Rand devalued and America demanded debt millions back, causing a financial crisis in SA. (Alan Cowell, Killing The Wizards, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992). Although the Nat government was bankrupt, it would wriggle and squirm for years before dying.

Black schools were boycotted, and black rent and consumer boycotts increased. Thousands were detained, including some black De Beers employees.

Tambo, exiled ANC president, wanted to nationalize mines, but white businesses needed to make profits for shareholders, so Anglo American boss Relly, and other businessmen, consulted Tambo in Lusaka, the first open consultation with ANC. (Ibid Cowell, 1992).

We paid off what we owed on our Durban house. Aged 34, I had the financial security of a fully paid house. Tenants provided extra income for us. We didn't know that within 12 years, during our NZ emigration, we'd lose every cent we made in SA.

We bought two plots at Pringle Bay, where Hottentots Holland Mountains dropped to False Bay. I climbed a hill, viewing Cape Hangklip. A sunset silhouetted Table Mountain 100 kays away. I feared being watched, but saw only spotty rocks and fynbos. I rushed downhill to Leah in our bakkie. "I skrikked myself," I said. "I felt I was watched, but saw niks."

"There's a 'friendly leopard' up there," said Leah, "roaming Hangklip. The leopard wanted to eat you." The agent who sold us our plots later shot the leopard.

Kiwi lawyers in 1985 stopped the All Blacks touring SA, stopping the rights of All Blacks leaving NZ, a hypocritical punishment for 1981 Kiwi riots when Springboks toured NZ. (Charles Sturt, Dirty Dollars, Reed, Auckland, 1998). Only in 1985 was the NZ Treaty of Waitangi Amendment Act passed, enabling Maori to make dispossession claims going back to 1840 when the Treaty was signed. If NZ took that long to sort out dispossession claims, SA would need centuries to resolve apartheid dispossession.

Kleinzee white sports, including rugby, cricket, golf, jukskei, MotoX, were excuses for piss-ups. Sport was the only socializing between some coloureds and whites. Dreyerspan blacks didn't socialize with whites or coloureds, as Dreyerspan barrack-hostel was deep in the mine security- area, behind security-fences.

< 1985. Xhosa mineworkers' war dance, Kleinzee sports field.


Coloured / whitey Christmas Fairs were held on Kleinzee sports-field. De Beers paid for coloured / whitey kids' Christmas presents, which parents chose according to their Paterson pay band. On Fair days, Father Christmas arrived in a De Beers' bakkie and doled out presents and sweets. Kids got tickets for more sweets, ice-cream, cool drink and fairground entertainment, including merry-go-round, ferris -wheel tractor rides, throw-the-hoop, coconut-shy, fishing for magnetic fish. It was rare for coloured / whitey families to socialize. Black men weren't invited for Christmas Boxes, as blacks were too low on the Paterson pay scale, and their families stayed in homelands.

Salaries, seniority and perks were evaluated according to the Paterson System of Job Evaluation: based on the level of decision -making in each job. Senior E band managers like Gallstone and Duiwelsteen had big company houses, cars and private swimming pools. Pom, General Manager, God in De Beers firmament, had the best salary, company house, company car and pool. Status in Kleinzee and De Beers empire was defined by saint Paterson: D band - middle management; C band - artisans and professionals like teachers; B band - secretaries, clerks, machine-operators, drivers; A band - labourers. Each band had subdivisions based on job complexity and supervision.

Unrest, Maseru: 9 blacks killed. (Ibid Tutu).

Zondo limpit-mined Amanzimtoti Sanlam shopping centre: whites killed. (Ibid TRC, Vols 2, 3). Years before, Leah and I had swum in Amanzimtoti River of sweet waters.

1984 Apartheid, Kleinzee Diamond Mining

< 1984. Namaqualand daisies near Kleinzee.


Most Namaqualand white and coloured Boers were poor. De Beers, other diamond mines and copper mines enriched some locals. Some coloureds lived in matjieshutte, or in small stone dwellings. Reticulated water and electricity was rare. Toilets were sometimes long-drops. Gutter pipes caught condensed fog water, and modern Namaqualand houses, including Kleinzee mine houses, had water-tanks alongside. Brak water from the Orange and Buffels rivers was briny - only good for washing, although soap scummed in hard water. We fetched jugs of fog water from our tank whenever we cooked or brewed tea. Water had to be boiled before cooking. I fetched water purifying tablets from the friendly personnel receptionist, then sprinkled powder in our water-tank.

Fortuin, Goosen, Mostert were Namaqualand surnames, and many Goosens and Mosterts had red hair. In olden days when sandveld was isolated, Namaqualanders inbred, married cousins, producing mamparas. Trekboers and criminals, fleeing from British rule in the Cape Colony, took Bushmen, hottentot and runaway slave lovers, producing Basters. Outcast Baster areas where coloureds lived, separately, were Richtersveld, Kommagas, Concordia, Steinkopf near Aninaus Pass. Coloureds worked on mines, or herded sheep and donkeys in the gammadullas. Some didn't like city ways, and lived unemployed in Namaqualand. IDB?

Millions of years ago, from inland Kimberlite pipes, the Gariep - Orange River, which changed its course, and other rivers carried diamonds to the sea. Diamonds became trapped in seabed crevices. The coast raised, becoming sandveld. South of Kleinzee, stone-heaps reminded us of manual alluvial-diggings. After surface-diamonds were dug out, a modern mine developed north of the Buffels, stretching inland from the coast to Port Nolloth dirt-road.

A seal colony, ostriches, blacksmith plovers, brown hyenas and jackals guarded the mine. Alluvial, diamond-bearing conglomerate lay above bedrock. In hand-digging times, huge trenches were dug. Duiwelsteen, our conservation-minded geologist, supervised digging of overburden sand with mechanical auger-drills, down to bedrock, lying 1-30 metres below. Prospecting pits were refilled after inspection. Modern mining involved giant drag-lines, bowl-scrapers and bulldozers removing overburden sand.

Xhosa mine-workers toiled in sandveld sun. Xhosa jackhammer-men and bedrock-sweepers removed diamond-bearing conglomerate. Sweepers finding dirty diamonds in bedrock cracks were paid a bedrock-sweeper's allowance to keep them honest. Xhosa men from puppet Transkei's Sterkspruit region, and labouring coloureds were lowest on the Paterson wage scale. Short-contract Xhosa migrant -workers existed in Dreyerspan hostel, in the mine area, apart from Kleinzee, and were repatriated to Transkei to visit outcast family and farm. There was little work in Transkei, so they bussed back to Kleinzee and signed new contracts. Some Xhosa men worked at Kleinzee for thirty or more years. Due to episodic-contracts and homeland stays, their pensions amounted to 15-20 years' service. Coloureds and whites, living permanently in Kleinzee, got better pensions.

Terex trucks hauled conglomerate to a metallurgy plant, which crushed and processed rocks. Diamond final-recovery was by conveyor, where X-ray machines fluoresced diamonds, triggering air-puffs, blowing rough diamonds onto another conveyor. Rough diamonds were transported to Harry Oppenheimer House, Kimberley, for sorting then transport to Central Selling Organization (CSO) London, which monopolized the diamond market, keeping diamond prices high and stable by stockpiling diamonds, and selling diamonds to selected buyers for cutting, polishing and re-selling.

Whenever we drove south, a tailings-dump loomed over sandveld, long before we reached Koingnaas. Would De Beers ever flatten dumps and refill trenches? Would they forever blot sandveld?

White, black and coloured recreation clubs were separate social galaxies. In the white rec club, there was a men's bar and Desert Rose ladies' bar. A restaurant served steaks and Cape wines. White schools and amenities were five minutes walk from home. A heated swimming pool, squash court, and tennis courts adjoined the white rec club. Our white school at the back of the club used club facilities.

Camera, drama, aerobics, pottery, yoga clubs were popular. Pom General Manager's wife, Indian yoga trained, directed drama shows. Leah attended her yoga, and I acted in her variety shows, raising funds for back-stage change-rooms. A club could be started by any group, and club constitutions were vetted by rec club management. Clubhouses, affiliated to the rec club, were sprinkled around Kleinzee. On Sundays, happy-clappy interdenominational white church services were held by a resident minister in our school hall. We didn't attend. I didn't know how blacks and coloureds socialized at Kleinzee, as it would've been a skande if whiteys socialized with them.

Ferreira, former South West African hockey player, encouraged me to play hockey with De Beers pilot Swael and others. Swael had been a Rhodesian Bush War pilot, cheating death by out-flying terr SAM missiles. After leaving Rhodesia, Swael had flown in Botswana before joining De Beers. Some coloureds joined our hockey club, and we played hockey in Kleinzee, Cape Town and Oranjemund. Whenever we passed an Alexander Baai road, named Hottie Close, scurrilous Ferreira called his coloured players, "Hotties."

December 1984: Leah and I backspoored to Durban, for our end-of -year champagne-razzle with Leah's parents. Our bakkie was repaired, good as new. I registered at UNISA to read correspondence Industrial Psychology, third major to my BA degree. I'd find UNISA psycho theories, statistics, Yank ergonomics and Yank organization psycho irrelevant to the manpower, manning, industrial-relations, community services and training I did for De Beers.

Fraser was retrenched by Standard Bank after a decade's service, accused of stealing from the Main Branch strong-room, where he'd worked with a coolie. Fraser denied the allegation saying, "The coolie was the thief. He's pulling me down to his level!" White Fraser was replaced by an ATM, black being the in-colour in the ungovernable 80s. His name cleared, Fraser did temp work at Standard Bank, Briardene, but the mental damage was done to Fraser, living on his own and boozing.

Note: Ferreira is a composite character.

1984 Apartheid, Kleinzee Private School

< 1984. Leah Esslemont's whitey music class at Kleinzee Private School, with coloured kids from Zonderberg Primary, Kleinzee.


When it rained in inland, granite berge, Buffels Rivier occasionally flowed, and muddy water flooded more than a metre deep down Buffels wadi into Kleinzee estuary. In the spring, daisies grew in mud-cracks. Cape Town was about 700 kays south. Port Nolloth was 60 kays north through sandveld. Alexander Bay on Orange River south-bank and north-bank Oranjemund were about 200 kays northwards along a restricted salty road through southern Namib. North-eastwards, in mountainous Richtersveld, spiky Halfmense grew amongst stones - facing the northern sun.

Kleinzee Private School was my strangest donkey wagon ride, as the white school was dual-medium. I taught six pupils in my standard 2 (year 4) English-medium class. In 1985, my class increased to nine pupils. Some kids were bright, some dof. Leah taught sub B (year 2), rolls same as mine. Bigger Afrikaans-medium classes stressed Afrikaner teachers. English parents wanted English-medium education for their kids, so De Beers provided relaxed teaching for English teachers. Meneer Nel welcomed different Cape curriculum programmes and new teaching ideas. I managed book-stock and bought an English reading programme, which would've taken years to get in NED.

Arrogant Ferreira taught Afrikaner standard 5 (year 7), caned naughty boys, bought computers, and taught IT in his new computer room. When I mentioned Guy Fawkes Ferreira said, "Ja, that's just a Soutie cultural tradition man. We don't do that here man."

Burly, black-haired Alwyn taught Afrikaner standard 4 (year 6), and was a SADF major who checked white men's military service. Alwyn communicated with Springbok Command and SAP Pampoen, whose home and office was outside De Beers security-gate. Alwyn said, "Luister, coach junior-rugby man!" I did, as I liked Alwyn - another strandveld gem. Before matches, Alwyn prayed with his team in a change-room, before his barefooted boys donnered opposition, Alwyn coached future provincials and Springboks. Alwyn drove us in a De Beers bus along gravel-roads to inter-school sports functions, like rugby at Oranjemund, or athletics-meetings on Port Nolloth saltpan. Alwyn always waved to a Port Nolloth shopkeeper when we passed: "Check dat ou Mark." Alwyn winked. "He makes lotsa IDB money. Shhh!... Trek noord! Fok voort!"

We slept-over at Aggenys rugby, or Villiersdorp annual school -camps. A busload of kids, screaming through Namaqualand - past Wallekraal, Garies, Bitterfontein, Vanrhynsdorp, Clanwilliam, Citrusdal... was 50 degree Centigrade hell. At trek's end pupils thankfully sang, "Ons se baie, baie dankie (x3), vir die lekker dag..." (Reprised). Afrikaner hospitality included braais, beers, melktert, koeksusters, other goodies, although formal at Aggenys, and more-so at Alexander Bay's white school, which used gold-plated cutlery when we came.

Some English pupils spoke better Afrikaans than Leah and me. Playing Luister, our Afrikaans improved. Some pupils spoke with a Malmesbury brei. Most Kleinzee adults were bilingual, but unconscripted Pom employees battled with Afrikaans. Leah and I spoke English when speaking to Afrikaners, until our confidence improved. Our understanding of Afrikaans was better than our speech, so we and others spoke the language we were comfortable with. Staff-meetings were bilingual, and Meneer Nel and Ferreira spoke English with Transvaal and Boland accents, as well as their native Afrikaans.

I supervised skollie-patrollies, by rostering pupils and staff at road -crossings outside school, where heavy vehicles passed. De Beers was safety-conscious, and Kleinzee had a ***** NOSA (National Occupational Safety Association) rating.

Unrest: Pick 'n Pay shopping centre alongside our old Montclair duplex was bombed. No one was injured. Phew! Leah and I had shopped there. In September 1984, Botha became president and Sharpeville boycotted house rents. (Alan Cowell, Killing The Wizards, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992).

North of Springbok, some coloured employees' families lived in Steinkopf Basterdorp. Outcast coloureds' home language was usually Afrikaans. Pretty Labia, our domestic, was bussed once a week by De Beers from Kommagas, another Basterdorp. Like many outcast Kapies, her middle incisors were missing. I chastised Labia for pinching sweets from Leah's purse. Labia silenced me out for months. Despite meals we gave her, she stole food from our pantry. De Beers expected honest employees, as diamonds could easily be hidden. Had I reported Labia to security, she would never have worked for De Beers again.

Golden sands in our Fifth Street garden were nutrient poor, so I fertilized soil with beach kelp or cow dung. Kleinzee farming was supervised by Floors the Boer. His Friesland cow-byre was a concrete slab, partly covered by an iron-roof. Witch-winds blew cow dung pongs. Floors fed Frieslands food-pellets, hay, lucerne. Namaqualand had no meadows, but sheep grazed succulent sandveld plants, watered by Atlantic fogs. De Beers profited from mutton and wool sales. Floors's dairy produced milk, and his abattoir produced fresh meat for us. If consumer goods weren't available at the supermarket, De Beers ordered goods. There was a drankwinkel, cafe, bank, and a library for literati. We did volunteer museum work. At month's-end in the post office, coloured and Xhosa men sent money to their outcast families in Western Cape and puppet Transkei.

1984. Leah Esslemont & strandveld daisies, Schulpfontein, near Kleinzee.

1984 Apartheid, Douglas to Kleinzee Trek

1984. Esslemonts' De Beers mine house, 4 Fifth Street, Kleinzee.

At a Kimberley garage, a white teenager, pouring petrol, asked, "Hello oom. Whad 'appened to your bakkie oom?" I'd changed from Rooinek to oom en meneer - from pejorative to honorifics. I'd trekked from English-Zulu-Indian -land to Coloured-Tswana-Afrikaner-land. I rocked up at Leah's old school friend's pozzie, where Lynelle gave me a pup, Lucky Injasuti (well fed dog), a Dachshund x Rottweiler. Lynelle's hubby, MotoX champ, drove me around De Beers blueground dumps on his motorbike.

With Lucky, I west-trekked to Schmidtsdrif, where I'd camped as a troopie...

At Griekwastad in the 1800s, Adam Kok, half-cast free-slave, had wandered north from the Cape Colony, robbing Boers and lawless frontier settlers with his band of free-slaves. (Dougie Oakes, Editor, Illustrated History of South Africa, The Real Story, The Reader's Digest Association, New York, 1988). London Missionary Society Mary Moffat Museum was a stone pondok on the Griekwaland West road. David Livingstone had trekked that way, marrying Mary further north at Kuruman. As a Christian-missionary-explorer he didn't convert many kaffirs, as a medical-missionary he saved some. Being the first clergy backpacker to Mosi-oa-Tunya and central African explorations made him famous. I bought a tigers-eye tortoise pendant at Griekwastad then west-trekked to dry-lands.

At Upington, I slept with Lucky at Die Eiland white campsite along the Orange River. The next frosty morning, we snuggled together inside our tent. I drove along a palm tree avenue, past black and coloured townships, then westwards to desert silence...

At a Kakamas vineyard, a coloured stared at my bakkie and asked, "Wie't tjou geslaan meneer? Enig iemand dood?" I bought a bottle of North Cape wine. In dry veld, on concrete slabs, Boere en Kapies spread saultanas to dry in Kalahari sun, for Safari Droe Vrugte Kooperasie.

At Augrabies Falls on the Orange, the great mass of sepia water thundered over red granite cliffs, the biggest granite cliff waterfall in the world...

At Pofadder, dusty veld bordered Karoo, Kalahari, Boesmanland...

Boggerall...

At Onseepkans on the Orange ~ South West Africa border, Boere farmed river banks amongst derelict farm houses. Northwards, beyond the river lay desert... Beyond boggerall... Where Bushmen songs blew on the north wind - songs of animals, moon, stars, rain and Bushmen customs... (Neil Bennun, The Broken String, Viking, London, 2004).

Westwards to Bushmanland, where no Bushmen lived, as Boers had exterminated Bushmen as vermin by the twentieth century. Wadis appeared, and karakul clumps and black-headed dorper sheep spread over dry, treeless veld. At Aggenys Black Mountain Mine, two camels stared at us over a barbed-wire fence, as I rattled by.

At Springbok, centre for Namaqualand xerophyte flowers and karakul sheep farming, a purple Jowells truck rumbled by. Nearby Concordia and coloured mining dorps Okiep and Nababeeb were full of brawny Boers and Baster coloureds.

To Kleinzee, 100 kays westwards, I drove along the most dangerous Namaqualand dirt-road, slithering down dusty Spektakelberg Pass, Three centuries before, Cape governor Simon van der Stel, on a copper-hunting expedition, had admired the spectacular view over sandveld - towards the Atlantic. In red granite hills, kokerbome stretched aloes up to a cloudless sky.

At the bottom of the pass were matjieshutte - Namaqualand beehive-shaped reed-huts; a copper mine; a turnoff to Kommagas - a Baster dorp, serving nearby copper and diamond mines; De Beers Langhoogte Mine; Bontekoe dorp - a few straggling houses; Buffelsbank Mine...

I followed a silver-painted pipe, carrying water from the Orange River to Kleinzee (pop 4000), alongside Buffels wadi to Grootmis splattered on the north-bank near Kleinzee. Grootmis was a few dry houses, garage, derelict stone-school, parched gum trees, active Dutch Reformed kerk and cemetery, used by Grootmis and Kleinzee. A pump-house in the wadi mixed Buffels borehole water with piped Orange water for Kleinzee. I crossed a concrete-causeway to SAP Pampoen's cop-shop, and greeted coloured De Beers security-staff at the boom-gate-house, "Goeie middag..."

I picked up Leah at Kleinzee airstrip. She'd flown Scareways from Jo'burg to Kleinzee, enduring a witch-wind all the way from Upington. Lucky welcomed Leah by widdling on her. I welcomed Leah with a kiss and the tigers-eye tortoise. Our three-bedroom, concrete-block, iron-roofed house, rent-free, was at 4 Fifth Street.

I'd west-trekked 1400 kays from Durbs through warm, Mozambique -current-moderated KwaZulu-Natal, through Vrystaat platteland, southern Kalahari, Cape Boesmanland, to cool, Benguela-current -moderated Namaqualand - a land of desert-daisies, diamonds and miscegination - producing outcast Basters. From sardines to seals, from bananas to bamboes kelp. Sepia fogs rolled in from cold Atlantic upwellings, watering sandveld succulents, and eastern witch-winds dried our Natal tears, leaving us tough as ostrich biltong.

"Welcome to Kleinzee," phoned Skate. He'd got our phone-number from Leah's mom. "You're gunna hustle diamonds for Africa. I'm scheming to get IDB rich man."

"No way Skate, you can't come here! Your police-record stops you visiting." Skate was a dronkgat dagga-rooker who'd grown up in SA with all its white privileges, a petty thief in SA and UK, seeking easy work and refuge from UK cops in SA: poop-scared to do military service in SA. Rhodie Kleintjie, although a terr killer, was the better man. Afterwards Skate, Kleintjie and other Durbanites faded from my life. Our Durban years had been formative sweet-thorn years. We'd never live in Durbs again, but we'd return to visit family and friends.

1984 Apartheid, Durban to Douglas Trek

Leah's great-grandfather, Rev. Mackintosh, a Wesleyan minister, had emigrated from Nairn, Scotland to Avoca, north of the Umgeni. He allowed a Zulu goatherd to graze goats on his Avoca land. The goatherd murdered him. Leah's grandfather John Mackintosh also emigrated from Nairn, as marine-engineer to India, then he re-emigrated to Durban. John Mackintosh and his wife Mary, settled on Mount Vernon, Hillary, producing seven sons and a daughter. Mary spoke fluent Hindustani, and never allowed a Zulu on her property, which was the highest point on Mount Vernon. Views of Durban Bay, Stainbanks Reserve and Chatsworth could be seen. Leah's parents built their Freemantle Road home on the Mount Vernon site.

As a child, Leah had had Indian neighbours who, according to the 1950 Group Areas Act, were cast out to Chatsworth, on the south side of Durban-'Maritzburg milk-train railway-line, running below Mount Vernon. Before apartheid, Leah's dad knew cartage-contractor Mahommed, who owned a donkey-cart and a team of donkeys. After deliveries, Mahommed visited Bellair Hotel, where he boozed with white, working-class men - English and Afrikaners. Mahommed's donkeys knew the way home. (Alexander Mackintosh, Durban Memoirs, 1998, Unpublished).

Leah's parents had Zulu servants. For years, Francina worked for Leah's family, then returned to KwaZulu with her baby. Elizabeth from Flagstaff, lived in the khaya at the bottom of the garden. Her khaya had electricity and hot water, better than her puppet Transkei mud hut. Elizabeth earned a non-taxable wage, and was given work -clothes and meals. She worked for Leah's family for years, before returning to Flagstaff to her outcast children and sick mother, to farm her family plot.

Cantabile choir had re-started, and Leah sang with Cantabile in Llangollen again.

A furniture-removal van arrived at our duplex, and coloured removalists loaded our possessions, then left for Kleinzee. I'd decided to bakkie-trek valuable belongings, which I thought would be safer with me, on my way to Kleinzee. When I locked our duplex for the last time, louche coloured Skollie said, "Hello meneer. Ah'm a removaleest. Dose manne tjus' wen' ta Joeys weedout me. 'S true's God!"

I west-trekked over Drakensberg with Skollie, so he could rejoin his maats in Kleinzee. At freezing Bethlehem, mom's birthlace, I stopped for petrol and gave Skollie my beige parka. At Bloemfontein, I slept in a cheap whitey hotel, while Skollie slept in my bakkie cab, as outcast coloureds weren't allowed in whitey hotels.

At Koffiefontein, we crossed Riet Rivier, where Boer commandos had camped during the Boer War, and Ossewa Brandwag dissidents were interned during WW2. We passed Koffiefonteins' blue-kimberlite mine-dumps...

Orania, an old Water Affairs town, was coloured-flooded, after the Orange River Vanderkloof Dam and canals were built. (Post -apartheid, conservative Afrikaners bought Orania as part of their verkrampte separatism. Mevrou Verwoerd, widow of assassinated PM verwoerd, lived in Orania. In 2004, puppet Oraniastaat declared ridiculous UDI). At prefabricated Orania High School, Skollie greeted his sister, whiter than most whiteys. Her krissy hair damned her as a coloured. On the Douglas dirt-road, we stopped at Skollie's pondok, where his light-skinned mother served us tea under a sweet-thorn tree, and Skollie's darker sister looked shyly at me.

Near Salt Lake, my bakkie dry-skidded, rolling into a culvert. Skollie hit his head on the door: blood poured from Skollie's blood-mask. Our seat-belts had saved us. "Out!" I said, thinking of fire. While khaki dust settled over my marriage treasures, I inspected a smashed windscreen, crunched panels, broken manifold dripping oil. My bakkie's glass-fibre canopy was crushed. Leahs' bird-cage hung in a wag-'n-bietjie boom, mom's silver samovar lay dented in the dusty culvert, broken heirloom crockery lay smashed in the bushveld, new curtains hung on a barbed-wire fence. Below lay dad's stamp-books in a torn manila envelope. Skollie sat in the culvert staunching blood with my shirt, and listening to hits on my transistor radio.

A Boer stopped his truck to help. Aboard were goggling farm labourers. Boer ordered a labourer to gather my belongings. I gave the labourer ten Rand. "Dis te veel," said Boer. I shrugged, thankful and in shock. Boer drove us to Douglas, and took Skollie to hospital. After reporting the accident to SAP, I asked a garage to tow my bakkie to town. I visited Skollie who lay turbaned in a coloured ward. A Tswana cop guarded another coloured patient who was handcuffed to his bed.

Skollie's kleurling pels visited. "Wragtig Skollie! Wat het gebeur?" asked a pel.

"Adap' or die man," said Skollie. "May whitey pellie rolled ees bakkie. Now ah'm fokked op een bed. 'S true's God." Pellies laughed.

In a clapped-out Chev, beneath a pepper-tree, we dopped neat brandewyn, while a pellie said, "Skollie wasn' a removalist meneer. He hitched with removalists to Durbs meneer. Skollie took tjou forra lekker ride meneer? Sommer kak en betaal meneer."

I washed Skollie's blood from my bakkie cab: blood christening, then the white garage-owner, steering me to his second-hand cars asked, "Meneer, what'll you do if I can't fix your bakkie?"

"Ja-well-no-fine. The garage across the square will fix it." The garage took five days to get a new manifold from Jo'burg.

1984 Apartheid, De Beers Kleinzee Job and Durban Roundup

1984. Leah Esslemont, Ndumu Game Reserve near Mozambique.

De Beers flew me to Cape Town and accommodated me in the Capetonian Hotel. I boarded a six-seater Scareways plane, which flew me over Namaqualand to Kleinzee. North of the Olifants River, I saw thousands of giant termitaria circles on dry terrain below.

At Kleinzee, Meneer Nel, Afrikaner Superintendent of white Kleinzee Private School, interviewed me. Compared to bully Mr Maher, Meneer Nel seemed dof. I liked Nel, a Vaalie, bald, fat and arrogant. "You muzn' be zcarred of Gallztone, perrzonnel managerr hey?" said Nel. "I rreporrt to him." Nel took a can of deodorant from his desk drawer, and sprayed his underarms through his jersey. "I'll zhow you zybarrite development in Kleinzee." Meneer Nel drove me to Gallstone's personnel offices: waving to hotnot and Afrikaner passersby. Nel stank of after-shave, sweat, deodorant, fear.

Kleinzee was on the Buffels Rivier south-bank. The river ran rarely when it rained in eastern granite berge. Main Street separated coloured housing and recreation club from white (Afrikaner and English) housing and recreation club. Xhosa migrant-workers from Sterkspruit, about 1000 Kays eastwards, lived in Dreyerspan Hostel, north of Buffels Rivier, moer-in-gone into the fenced, mine security -area. Kleinzee shopping-centre was used by everyone. Kleinzee was fenced off from the rest of the planet. North and south access roads through sandveld were controlled by security-officers manning boom-gates. Visitors had to be security-cleared weeks before arrival.

Small Gallstone explained: "Kleinzee is a remote diamond-mining dorp, in a restricted diamond-mining area on the west coast. All black, coloured, Indian and white personnel are vetted by SAP before working for De Beers. Anyone with a criminal record is rejected, as IDB is too tempting. What are your De Beers ambitions?"

"Your job," I replied. Gallstone smiled. Gallstone would prove to be my best boss, and would wield more power, authority and responsibility than any boss I ever had. Positively, Gallstone and Nel didn't wear ties.

Nel fed me Cape wines and a rump steak in the white rec club restaurant, then faffed me to Ferreira his VP. Youngish Ferreira, boep -bril-padda-man, explained: "Nel heads Zonderberg Primary, the coloured school on the west side of town, as well as Kleinzee Private School for whites. Nel also coordinates the separate white and coloured pre-primary schools. I only lead our white Kleinzee Private School man. A coloured VP leads Zonderberg Primary, where mainly coloureds teach, but some whites teach there as well man. Our dual-medium Kleinzee Private School only has whites man. Half the classes are taught in Afrikaans, half are taught in English man. As Namaqualand is a coloured / Afrikaner area, our school has more Afrikaner kids than English - lekker job for a Soutie man, as our English classes have fewer pupils than our Afrikaner classes."

I flew back to Durbs. Gallstone phoned, and offered Leah and me Kleinzee teaching jobs. Ferreira phoned saying, "You were seventh on our short-list man, but we chose you as we thought you wouldn't give us any shit man." Ferreira was dof.

Leah and I profitably sold our Wild Fig Tree duplex, as SA had rampant inflation. My Glenwood goodbye speech: "Although over the last two years I've taught biology up to matric and led the general-science department, supervising ten white teachers and an Indian lab-assistant, and been responsible for general-science teaching of over 600 form 2 and form 3 boys, and inaugurated and led form 3 drama classes (a first in Natal boys' highs) and a Wildlife Society, and coached cricket, my salary was static: so much for NED merit-assessment. I reckon management and teachers need to care about the quality of their teaching." Mr. Maher blanched.

My Wildlife Society boys waited by my lab and shook my hand: sad we wouldn't be hiking the Berg anymore. But they'd never forget when I went "flap-happy," as they put it, after two bad boys once left a path, without my permission, lost themselves in Ndedema Gorge, and only found their way out late that night. (My friend Roy Cowgill had lost a boy in the Berg, when the boy left a path, without permission, and fell to his death). The next morning, I flapped the boys' arses so hard they never hiked the Berg with me again. And the rest of the group were softly flapped, for leaving their camp untidy.

Blikskottel farewelled Leah and me at Killarney Hotel, then Smugglers Inn, where we munched monkey-nuts ogling a strip-show. Pissed Blikskottel slurred, "Mishterr Maher didn' like yourr shpeech hey?... 'Memberra Eshplanade bombin'?"

"I worked at John Ross School nearby," said Leah, dipping a Simba chip in pate.

"Rreally? Sdrrollin' along Esplanade, ah 'earrd dunderr. Know whad ah mean?" Blikskottel gnawed a polony sarmie. "Was rrainin' an' sunny... a Monkeys' Weddin'. Ah sdood againsda buildin'... wasn' rrain: Dhousandsa splinterrs showerred frrom high-rrise windows... Afterra showerr, ah shuffled away... Passa Niknaks!"

In London Leah had taught and socialized with non-whites, but in Durban over 5 years and in 6 white schools Leah had taught and socialized only with whites. As Durban white and non-white schools were racially splintered, during my 10 years' teaching in 5 Durban white schools, white teachers never socialized with black menial staff. We only socialized with white parents and white teachers. That was the reality of apartheid state schooling. Black, coloured and Indian schools were splintered as well. In Durban, aged 32, I'd never shared a meal nor sociaized with black staff. I'd never taught with non-white teachers, nor taught non-white pupils, nor played nor coached sport with non-whites. But that would change after I left the white education donkey wagon.

After leaving Glenwood in mid 1984, I complained to the NED director about Mr. Maher's and Inspector Mandrill's bad behaviour. The NED director said my NED file was clean, so I left it at that. Years later, Mr. Maher early-retired to make way for a post-apartheid white principal. After Meneer Basson retired, he was replaced by Inspector Mandrill's son. Two colleagues, Jew and Afrikaner, had the same surnames as bosses of apartheid's Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme. By 1987 a lady teacher I'd taken on wildlife excursions left her husband for a standard 9 schoolboy.

By 2008 two white deputy HMs, already teaching at Glenwood HS when I left in 1984, were still there, so apartheid white affirmative-action continued years after apartheid ended. By 2008, drama was taught in senior classes.

1984. Leah Esslemont, Boer War Vroue Monument, Bloemfontein.


See Glenwood High School, Durban.