1965 Apartheid, Stutterheim HS and Cadets, Northlands Boys HS

1967. Northlands Boys High Cadet Band.

Worrier mom had a nervous breakdown at Forest Sanctuary, then admitted herself to Queenstown Komani Hospital. Fraser and I stayed at Forest Sanctuary, and went to Stutterheim School where we had brief donkey wagon rides. The Eastern Cape form 3 (year 9) curriculum was backward, as most subject content, except book-keeping, I'd already done at Northlands. Winston Churchill died. We listened to a Springbok Radio broadcast of his funeral. SA didn't have TV yet. Besides English and Afrikaner pupils, some Stutterheim pupils had German ancestors. Herman, in my class, shoved Fraser around in the playground. I sneaked up yelling, "Los my boet!"

"Mind your own blerri business! Fraser called me Afrikaner-vrot-banana!" Herman backed off. "Rooinek soutpiel!"

Fraser and I visited mom: Shock-treatment had stuffed up mom's memory, and garbled her speech. She had scabrous temples, where electrodes had been attached. She showed us the ward where she'd been electro-shocked.

Back at Forest Sanctuary, Fraser and I stayed in a rondavel, where we watched coloured men re-thatch rondavel roofs, completing one roof a week. Outside Forest Sanctuary lounge, I saw a puffadder sliding along a gutter. I called Xhosa gardeners, who hit the snake with knobkerries. We kept our school books in a potty-cupboard. While chatting to the lady manager, my hand lay on top of the potty-cupboard door. "Snake! In your cupboard!" shrieked the manager. I skrikked, slamming the door.

Gardeners poked the door open with a knobkerrie. Another puffadder flicked its tongue, its head raised to strike. Gardeners clubbed the puffadder - longer than the snake they'd killed earlier. Our school books were blood spattered. Ancestors called.

Every school day, Fraser and I were driven to school by a farmer's wife, who picked up local kids and drove along a dirt road to Stutterheim. One evening, too young to die, I woke in Stutterheim Hospital, concussed, retching into a kidney-dish. Fraser, in the bed next to me, with a sprained ankle, explained, "A tyre blew out, our lady driver lost control, rolling her car down a bank: we flew from her car - a write-off."

I had dizzy spells for years.

Mom drove us back to Durbs and resumed teaching. Mom regularly visited a lady psychiatrist, who fixed-up mom with melleril tablets, keeping mom stable. "My depression's like having a huge weight pressing on my head," said mom.

July holiday: Ol' ballie Mr. Russel's Rosetta scout camp was one of the coldest places in Natal. On our last camp night, a polishing-gang searched tents for victims. Our young scout-master, powerless to stop assaults, wandered about the hell-in. I escaped into the veld. Skelm, Fraser and others were polished. I hid in the sick-tent and escaped polishing.

Back at Northlands, RC McFarquhar reprimanded me for misbehaving. He thought I'd had polio during the 50s polio scare. I didn't bother to explain about my Perthes hip. Ol' ballie Blobjob Davies, English teacher, battled to control our class. I tape-recorded Blobjob Davies's rowdy lesson. Afterwards, boys crowded round my desk, listening to the tape.

Ol' toppie VP, Nobby Noble walked in. "What's in that desk?" asked Nobby Noble. Boys slipped from class. "If I haven't heard what's in that desk by lunch-break, this class stays in after school..."

I owned up. Peer pressure. RC McFarquhar, former POW, interrogated me in his office: "Rat!...Strip your tape!...Throw your tape in the bin!...Put your recorder in my storeroom!...Choose a cane from my shelf!...Bend down!...Touch your toes!..." I had bum-stripes for weeks. My classmates were ashamed.

Cadet-master Kaydee played the tuba in a military band and walked with a backward lean. I became bugler in Kaydee's cadet-band, which had a side-drummer rank; a rank with two tenor-drummers, cymbalist and bass-drummer; trumpeter rank; and bugler ranks. Preparing for band competitions, we practised before, during and after school: marching, left-wheel, right-wheel, counter-marching, figure-marching, music. Blowing my guts out, I liked Aida March. Neighbours complained when I practised Last Post and Come to the Cookhouse Door Boys after midnight. Our drum-major threw his silver mace, and yelled at band-players. I, smallest band-player, wearing the smallest boned army boots, swaggered next to wyser Skelm.

Aged fourteen, at my first band competition, and proudly wearing my khaki cadet uniform, with green beret, gaiters and boned brown boots, when Northlands band marched onto the field the crowd laughed. We came last, and Durban High School won. For years I paradiddled to "Boomalakka!...Ooompapa!..Eh! Kwa! Dammit!" For three decades in the land of my birth, I'd witness militarization, including SA producing nuclear weapons. (John Pilger, Freedom Next Time, Bantam Press, London, 2006).

At school, I learnt my lessons of involvement and detachment, which would characterize me. I was involved with family, friends, rugby, cadets, choirs, drama and some lessons. I detached from other lessons, like maths, and my hours of swotting, reading, hitching, surfing and jogging detached me.

Unrest: 1965. Rhodesia. Smith's white government declared Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. (Glen Lyndon Dodds, The Zulus and Matabele Warrior Nations, Arms and Armour, London, 1998). Rhodesian white conscripts would fight a ten year Bush War against Mugabe's Shona terrorists and Nkomo's Matabele terrorists. "Kaaa! Ka-ka-ka-ka-kaaaa!..."

Christmas Eve: Tapping woke me. Tokoloshe? I prowled outside our house, and crouched between our hedge and yesterday-today- tomorrow bushes. "Mina shaya wena!" I shouted. Tapping stopped. "Thieves!"

Christmas: I found bicycles chained together on the verge outside our home.

New Year: Mom chopped down our dying avocado tree. As Paul's death-mask had become dusty, mom cleaned it and painted it gold.



1965. Northlands Boys High Cadet Band, Durban North. (Bird). Principal RC McFarquhar. Cadet masters Mnr Booyens left & Mnr Bonthuys right

1964-65 Apartheid, Durban North Indians

Skelm and I smaaked Durban North Rocket Hut Beach, a fishing spot for Indian and white fishermen, a beach where skates parked their cars to booze and smoke dagga. Homos went there. Skelm and I hunted shaggers in tickberry bushes. When we heard panting and squealing, we lobbed sticks and clods on blankets. A head or two popped out, and if we were lucky we saw bare numbis. Once, a big man chased us to hell-an'-gone, caught Skelm and clouted him.

Durban North whiteys had a dirty secret: Indians living near them, and indifference to their fate. Once, when hitching along N2 freeway, north of the Umgeni River, Skelm and I threw clods at outcast Indian boys, running from "black spot" shacks, where flags on top of bamboo poles advertised marriageable Hindu maidens. Indians chucked clods at us, tuning, "What yous cheeky whitey lighties doin' by da 'ouse ek se? 'Ave yous gotta skyf ek se?"

"Jislaaik!" said Skelm. "Pull out Coolie! Don' tune us skraal!"

One bad hitching day, when Skelm and I sweated past shacks, an Indian asked, "Why yous uncles sending it so fa' an' all?"

"We're goin' surfin' an' you thievin' charras aren't allowed on Europeans' North Beach." We ran along the freeway calling, "Coolie- Coolie-Coolie!..."

Outcast Indian market-gardeners sold crops at Warrick Avenue Indian market. Sammy Naidoo strode from Riverside slum carrying a bamboo pole over his shoulders. Two wicker baskets filled with produce hung from the pole. Once a week, Sammy knocked on our back door, calling, "Fruit an' vege-tables maram. Wachu smaak?" Sammy eventually bought a truck, and drove about Durban North selling vegetables and fruit. After Sammy's truck stopped at our gate, Rosie haggled prices on our back stoep. Sammy barefoot-stomped on scuttling cockroaches, leaving smeared fat on our concrete floor and gunge between his toes.

According to the 1950 Group Areas Act, Durban North Riverside and Red Hill Indians were cast out to Chatsworth, south of Durban, splintered from the white CBD and Grey Street Indian CBD. Some Indians remained in freehold brick-and-tile homes, until they too were forcibly moved to a separate Indian location, like Phoenix, north of Durban. Bulldozers rubbled... Mango trees and ruins remained. The Indian school, renamed Phoenix School, became a special school for whites with learning disabilities. Durban North whites were splintered from swart gevaar by the Indian Ocean, poorer Red Hill westwards, and a coloured area across North Coast Road, over the hill from Greenwood Park. Nor'westwards, beyond sugarcane fields lurked natives' KwaMashu.

To splinter the English vote, government built an Afrikaanse Hoer Skool near the Hindu temple on Umgeni River north bank. Post-apartheid the hoer skool was re-named Durban North College. Former Durban North Indian residents, Indian devotees came from afar to worship at the temple. A white primary school was built on cleared slum-land. Umgeni Road Tent Crusader built a Living Waters Church where Durban North Indians once slummed. Happy-clappy, "I love you Jesus...praise the Lord," whiteys worshipped there, no love lost for former Indian residents. A Pick 'n Pay hypermarket, new houses and retirement cottages for rich whiteys were built where Indians once slummed. Durban North Indian slum became part of whitey Durban North, smothered by urban sprawl.

I never heard protest about the Group Areas Act splintering the Indian community, from English-speaking Durban North whiteys, or Greenwood Park, Red Hill, Virginia and Glenashley whitey suburbs, all north of the Umgeni. I never heard whiteys protest about Durban North Indian forced removals. I never heard protests from complicit Durban North Methodist, nor complicit Saint Martins Anglican pulpits. Durban North was a whitey "United Party" suburb (no Indians nor other non-whites allowed), and later whitey "Progressive Party" suburb. Sometimes, a few whitey Black Sash ladies stood silently protesting on Northway near Robina Stores, watching passing cars.

Durban municipality landscaped a Japanese Garden on part of the old Indian slum. Thousands of outcast Indians visited, especially during weekends. Apartheid splintered Durban North Indian community, one of many Durban Indian communities obliterated by apartheid. "It'sa helluva t'ing Mak," cackled Rosie, "a heeeelluva t'ing!"

1964 Apartheid Durban, Northlands Boys HS Lightie

< 1964. Mark Esslemont, standard 6, Northlands Boys HS. Pop Garner class teacher


According to Verwoerd's 1953 Bantu Education Act, blacks' schooling became inferior to whites,' coloureds' and Indians' schooling. Schools were racially separated, except for some high fee-paying private and church schools. Mom sent Fraser and me to white Northlands Boys High for more donkey wagon rides. Northlands was further from home than newly built Beachwood Boys High off Broadway. Some Beachwood white boys lived closer to Northlands. Apartheid separation of white schools (and other race schools) displaced Durban North high school pupils, according to ol' toppie choices. Black, Indian, or coloured kids, perhaps illegally living on white properties with their servant parents, had no choices. Outcasts had to be schooled in locations or Bantustans.

I began standard 6 (year 8), smallest lightie at Northlands BH. Ol' ballie music teacher, Menck played the piano, teaching us songs in the school hall. Menck sang operatic-baritone, sometimes singing with us, mangling our merriment. His music was naf to pop-singing boys. Menck made us sing old songs like, "At six o'clock of a shining morn we start our little day..." When we mocked Menck, ol' toppie headmaster RC McFarquhar stood glaring at us at the back of the hall. We silenced, as RC McFarquhar commanded respect. Before my voice broke to lyrical-tenor, I joined Menck's choir, singing at prize-givings.

Ol' toppie class teacher, Pop Garner was the only (yawn) maths and science teacher who inspired me. They were scarce. Pop Garner sometimes said, "It's as easy as falling off a log...Hell's teeth! You're sailing for it boy!" When Pop Garner said, "I've got an itchy hand!" we knew we were, "Sailing close to the wind!" If that failed, Pop Garner slapped our backs.

While school buses returned from sports matches, senior Northlands boys grabbed lighties, whose balls were polished with shoe polish, or toothpaste, or stinging wintergreen, then polished lighties were wysed through bus windows to motorists. I avoided polishings, as I didn't play ball sports, due to my Perthes hip.

During weekends, Ndlovu painted our house, and gardened for mom. Once, after I cycled home from school, Ndlovu stood keening by our house wall. He wailed, "Woza lapha tokoloshe! May mudda died tokoloshe! May mudda died..."

I went inside our lounge, and mom said, "Give Ndlovu twenty Rand train fare to shut him up! Tell him to pay me back!" Mom expected me to be, "the man of the family." Ndlovu never paid us back.

Unrest: July 1964. Johannesburg Station was bombed. (Alan Paton, Journey Continued, Oxford University Press, Cape Town, 1988).

See Northlands Boys High, now Northwood School.

1960s Apartheid Durban, Thieves and Religion

1960s. One of Mom's Northlands Girls HS classes. (Mumby) >

On another Bloemfontein holiday, a kwaaitannie shopkeeper, whose shop was near aunt Dorothy's home, caught Fraser and me stealing: "Why're yous two Engelse stealing my comics? Pasop Hey!" Fraser and I gave the comics back, and ran like mad. During the rest of the holiday we climbed Signal Hill, then climbed Naval Hill to look at the observatory and zebra. We looked at zoo ligers and swam in the municipal pool.

Back at Durban North Astra Cafe, a Greek lady caught me stealing a war comic: "Ya've come 'ere for yearz. 'Aveyabin stealin' alliz time?"

"Ag nah! It'sa first time."

"What'zyaname? Where'dyalive?" Silence. I ran home.

Aunt Dorothy phoned mom: "Yoiks! Your delinquent sons stole money and a magnet from my friend's bedroom."

Mom rushed me to Meyric Bennet Centre, Berea, where psychiatrists sorted out problem kids. I did easy block-tests, played games, then ol' ballie Psycho-lady asked, "Ever stolen anything?"

"Money and tinned food from mom," I said. "Money and a magnet from my aunt's Bloem friend."

Psycho-lady said to mom, "Mark's quite normal. He needs pocket-money. As Mark will attend high school next year, he needs sex education." I read her sex book on her couch, staring at drawings and long words, differing from playground whisperings.

I became an authority on love matters when Skelm asked, "Do okes piss in chicks?" I told him to check library books. Saturday flicks were grope-flicks at Broadway's Rex Cinema. I learnt more about chicks' bodies at Rex Cinema, town Roxy Bioscope, and parties than any books. Fraser also spent his pocket-money at Rex Cinema.

Mom sent me to piano lessons: Ol' toppie Tinkle taught me, while her Beethoven bust jiggled on top of her piano. She was a sweaty Pom, so I left her for ol' toppie Twang. Spit dried at corners of his slobbery mouth. He wanted me to practise a polka an hour a day for his annual concert. I left, as I didn't smaak being forced.

Mom studied Scientology, and Bible-bashed Fraser and me to stop us stealing. After threatening everlasting hell, Billy Graham saved me at a Kings Park Crusade: "Come forward! Be born again!..." Smiling savers watched me cry, patted my back, gave me Bible tracts, then sent me home to be a good boy. We heard Brother Mandus, who'd preached in Delhi, then preached in Durban Central Methodist Church. We attended Umgeni Road Tent Crusades. Mom sat Fraser and me in the front row. Preacher yelled, "Hallelujah!..." He mopped his brow, while the crowd waved above their heads calling, "We love you Jesus!... Praise the Lord!..." Preacher hit his Bible, and ranted at Fraser and me, "Are you saved?" I nodded. "Praise the Lord!"

Priests laid hands on us at Musgrave Road Methodist Church healing services. After church mom asked, "Did you feel the power of priests' hands?" I felt nothing. Mom befriended a Pom priest, who ran Kearsney Mental Home, near Stanger. An inmate said, "I'm Queen Victoria. I own all the land from Stanger to Gilletts." Another inmate carried photos in a cardboard box, and no one was allowed to touch her photos.

During Christmas holidays, we went to Camps Farthest Out, at Forest Sanctuary, near Stutterheim. Fraser and I eyed chicks; spoored crowned-cranes in a vlei; and hiked to Kubusi Forest waterfall. Playing hide-an'-seek, I ran into a tree, saw a strange light, and woke up with a cut on the back of my head. We studied the Bible, listened to sermons, and sang choruses. Ol' ballie Bernadette, a blubbery Canadian, amused us, when reciting Albert and the Lion, and The Man with the Single Hair. Bernadette's coloratura warbling dominated choruses, like: How Great Thou Art; He's got the Whole World in His Hands; Zipperdidodah, Zipperdiday...


A priest preached a First Corinthians sermon on, "faith, hope and charity." He hugged women and shook hands with their husbands. He fondled mom's leg, leering, jabbering about love. (Years later his wife divorced him). Fraser and I enjoyed socializing, but fervour was a switch-off.

Driving through the Vrystaat, mom drove onto a one-way bridge crossing a river. A Boer in a bakkie drove onto the bridge from the opposite bank. Mom stopped. Boer stopped and roared, "Mevrou! Move your car!"

"Pass me a naartjie Mark," said mom. She chucked peels into the river.

Boer dressed in khaki shirt, shorts, socks, veldskoene and felt hat with leopard skin sweatband, got out his bakkie and snarled at mom, "Mevrou! Move your car!"

"I was on this bridge before you," said mom. "See all the cars behind me." Although mom suffered anxiety, she never showed fear. Boer backed off.

When we visited Bloemfontein, aunt Dorothy said, "Yoiks! Valmai, you're leaving the Methodist Church! Our father will be spinning in his grave!"

"Let him spin! Look what he did to my mother!" Aunt Dorothy shut up. She was clueless about Fraser and me growing up. Whenever we visited, she gave us a tin of buttons to play with. Aunt Dorothy tolerated Fraser and me, and posted us each one Rand for our birthday and Christmas presents. She loved her fat dogs and cats, feeding them diced fillet steaks. Her pets were better fed than location piccanins.

Ol' toppie Rosie loved Fraser and me, never scolding us. At May Street, every morning she woke at 05:30, commuted by Indian bus along Umgeni Road to Durban North Indian bus rank in the Indian slum, by Gopals Store, where we bought fireworks. Rosie then walked barefoot, crossing the sweet-thorn valley off Old Mill Way, to our Chelsea Drive home. Rosie never missed a day's work in the 1960s. During that time, Durban North rubbish-removal / street-sweeping jobs were reserved for Indian men only.

Mom, Fraser and I went to Wilkie Circus performances, and enjoyed animals, trapeze artists, tight-rope-walkers and Tickey and Stompie clowns. We went to Drive-In flicks: "When you leave, please replace your speakers," was announced at the end of each flick. Mom enjoyed NAPAC ballet at Alhambra Theatre, choral singing like Vienna Boys Choir, Passion Plays with David Horner as Christ, and Marcel Marceau. Every year, we trekked to 'Maritzburg Royal Agricultural Show, and mom honked her varsity song, "O 'Maritzburg, happy land, happy land..."

See Boswell Wilkie Circus website.

1960-63 Apartheid Durban, Elandspruit and Holidays

< 1960. Esslemont Brothers, Durban.


We holidayed at Elandspruit farm, where us kids swam in the dam. We looked at pigs and fowls, and collected eggs. We helped aunty Esme in her garden. We dried squash, pumpkins and onions in the stone cool-room. At the dairy, we watched uncle Chum bossing Zulu umfaans and men hand-milking Jersey cows. The bull had a brass ring through its wet nose. We fed pails of milk to calves, which sucked our milky fingers. We turned a separator handle, then stored milk, cream and butter in an old paraffin fueled fridge. We scoffed apartheid amasi with breakfast cereal. After meals, aunty Esme called her Zulu maid, "Letha iteye Intombi!" Intombi brought tea for us. Aunty Esme then placed a big bowl of milk for her cats outside the kitchen door, and called, "Kitty!-Kitty!-Kitty!..."

Sometimes, a mad munt stripped off his tatty clothes, doing a Zulu war dance, stamping his coarse feet in dung, his penis eeling sideways. Zulus grabbed him, dressed him, and led him raving back to his wattle-an'-daub thatched rondavel.

Shannon and I helped munts load mealies from fields into a trailer. In a silo we pelted each other with sugary silage. We collected mielie-cobs from the barn, and stored stove-fuel cobs in a shed outside aunty Esme's kitchen. We wrestled in an itchy haystack. In a shed, we climbed onto an old, red tractor, and talked on and old, wooden wagon.

We played hide-an'-seek in the barn. At night we shone torchlight into rats' red eyes in the barn roof, and watched uncle Chum shoot rats. We scraped our muddy feet on a metal scraper by the door, near agapanthus blooms.

Mom said to aunty Esme, "Siobahn's a domineering sponger with an Irish temper!" Aunty Esme smiled.

Back in Durban, Rosie cackled, "Maram! I 'ave allis extra bread-buying from Bakers Bread lorry, an' bunny-chow cooking! Terrible t'ing! Aai-yai-yai-yai-yaaai!"

We holidayed at aunt Dorothy's Bloemfontein home. "Yoiks! Get that Irish woman out of your house!" hissed aunt Dorothy, while soothing her nerves, raking gravel paths around her house. "Crunch-crunch..." was a good burglar alarm.

Near the Basutoland border, we visited uncle Lesley's Clarens farm. We saw Mushroom Rock on a red cave-sandstone cliff-top, amidst Golden Gate koppies. Uncle Lesley's sunburnt hands were crippled with rheumatoid arthritis. He showed us Bushman paintings in caves - from Bushmen to blogs ne? He showed us his collection of Bushman stone thumbnail-cutters, axeheads, circular digging-stones with a hole in the middle for a sharpened digging-stick, grindstones, ostrich egg shells with a hole in the top for water storage.

Basutho owned cattle and goats overgrazed slopes, causing donga erosion in steep Malutis. We holidayed at Caledon Poort Christian guest farm near the Caledon River, where Shannon and I swam in the sepia Caledon, threw mud, collected jasper, agate and moss-agate from the riverbed. We played tennis, rode horses, swam in the pool, and climbed eastern Free State flat-topped koppies. We played Monopoly, Scrabble, ping-pong, cards, and watched thunderstorms over the Malutis: "Boomalakkawa!..."

We holidayed at Southport MOTH beach-cottages, as dad was a former soldier. Shannon and I picked red num-nums from spiny bushes, and sucked tart sweetness. We put coins on the railway-line, and watched steam-trains squashing them.

While changing in a cottage, when Shannon wriggled into her Speedo, I checked her cherry. She checked my knob. While crossing the railway-line, Shannon and I held hands. I smaaked her moist palms. We walked under whispering casaurina trees and clattering banana trees. We scoffed bananas under silver-oaks, while sand burnt our feet.

We swam in rock pools and Southport beach-pool, then lying on our towels we caught a tan. Shannon lowered her Speedo top, so her flat titties caught a freckled tan. We folded our towels into points, dipping the tips into water, then we flicked our legs, leaving red wheals. Wind blew stinging sand, which dried on our skins. We looked for cowrie shells and seaweed, and popped bluebottles on the shore. Our eyes were bluebottle blue.

Back home, mom told Siobahn to leave, and was enraged when Siobahn said, "You're a sucker!"

I was glad to return to my porch, as an oil painting had hung there all my life: a mouse swam around in a bowl of cats' cream, with six hungry cats looking on. Fraser and mom slept in their own bedrooms. Toby returned to the kitchen. Rosie cackled, "Aai-yai-yai- yai-yaaai!..."

Ndlovu's and "boys'" families lived in Zululand. After school, it was scary sneaking past out-of-bounds Ndlovu's school khaya, as khaya walls and ceilings were blackened by soot from cooking fires on concrete floors. Electric bulbs hung broken and flyblown. Sour stench of urine, stale putu, munt-sweat hit my nostrils.

From my porch window in our Chelsea Drive dip home, I could see Brooklands Crescent; flower seller Mrs. Porteous's flower-plot; and the spire of St. Martins Anglican Church. Late at night, I pissed through burglar-guards into hydrangeas. If I strained hard, aiming for St. Martin's steeple. I could reach our couch-grass lawn.

1961. Mark Esslemont, standard 3, Durban North Primary. (Mumby)

1963 Apartheid Durban, Irish Friends

1959. Mark Esslemont, Durban. >

Divorced Siobahn, mom's Irish Methodist friend had nursed through the London Blitz, and in 1963 taught at a Berea girls' school. Boarding with us, Sally and Anne, Siobahn's teenage daughters, slept in my enclosed front porch, and I slept in the Wendy House. Siobahn and Shannon, youngest daughter my age, slept in mom's bedroom, while mom and Fraser slept in the other bedroom.

Domineering Siobahn, six foot tall, banished our dog Toby to sleep outside. Toby used to guard us inside our home. Siobahn chivvied us kids to do our homework before playing, and insisted we were in bed by 19:30. Fraser and I resented being ordered about. Siobahn cowed Rosie, who cackled to mom, "Maram! I 'ave allis extra Wed-nes-day washing an' cleaning. Terrible t'ing! Aai-yai-yai-yai-yaaai!"

We swam in the Durban North Primary pool in black speedos. After a swim, Fraser and I padded into our lounge and saw nude Sally, who'd forgotten to close her porch curtain. Springbok Radio blared hits in our lounge, and Fraser and I gawped while Sally towelled her blonde hair, her white tits wobbling. Anne giggled. Sally shrieked, yanking her curtain closed.

The Immorality Act ruled that only white boykies could smaak white chicks. So pasop umfaans and Indian boys!

We grazed high teas, using mom's silver tea-service, under our cassia tree, while semen-scented pods hung from the tree. Siobahn invited Irish expat ladies to our home, and we played sweaty summer charades, cards, hide-an'-seek. Mom played the piano while we danced Hokey Pokey. And Fraser and I ogled bouncy-bosoms.

At parties chicks sang, "On top of Old Smokey..." and, "She'll be coming round the mountain..." Twisting in our lounge, Fraser and I tried not to look pathetic, while mom's wooden radiogram wailed Jailhouse Rock and Summer Holiday. Twisting chicks trilled, "Ooh that's spastic!...Ooh that's fab!...Ooh that's divine!...''

Our avocado tree overhung our garage and house. If we climbed to the top, we could see as far as Durban Bluff - about 10 miles away. (Durban definition: All Bluff till you come to the Point). Our avo tree grew huge pears, which broke roof-tiles when falling. We picked pears at the ends of our avo kingdom. One way of climbing onto our garage roof was to shin up a drainpipe. I held the pipe for Shannon, and while Shannon climbed I saw her freckled legs and white broekies.

Our avo tree trunk was hard to climb, and once when Sally got stuck, Shannon and I sang, "Oh the grand ol' duke of York..."

"Sally slide down!" ordered Siobahn, "Or I'll call the fire brigade!" Sally slid sown howling, as bark chafed her arms and thighs.

Once, Fraser fell from our tree-house, breaking a roof tile. Once, I fell from a branch onto the garage roof, hurting my ankle. Once, Shannon fell about 10 feet, but branches caught her, stopping her hitting the concrete driveway.

Mom bought a corrugated-iron swimming pool, which we rolled over our hedge into our garden. Shannon, Fraser and I filled it with water and swam round and round. Jumping up and down we made waves. When water slimed we siphoned it into our garden, scrubbed the pool and refilled. We dived from the Wendy House roof into our pool. During afternoons, we did homework in my Wendy House, and played and talked.

Sometimes at night, I listened to umfaans' hullabaloo, while they jogged past our hedge, returning from stick-fights in the valley off Old Mill Way. Sometimes, Zulu "boys" sang while strolling along Chelsea Drive. Sometimes, a "boy" played a concertina, or harmonica, or Jew's harp, or penny-whistle, or strummed a homemade guitar. "Boys'" music was repetitive, swelling and thinning down the road. After gardening each day, a grizzled Zulu man sat on the verge by our home, playing his piano accordion.

See Immorality Act 1950 and other apartheid laws.




< 1964. Durban beachfront. Mark Esslemont's first play-acting. "There's a worm at the bottom of the garden..."(Barett)

Late 1950s - Early 1960s Apartheid Durban, Fire and Drama

< 1959. Rosie, Esslemont Brothers & Sandy, May Street, Durban.

Fraser and I burnt leaves behind our garage, causing garage eaves to burn. Rosie saw flames and called, "Maram! Cheeky rogues burning garage! Aai-yai-yai-yai-yaaai!"

Mom bounding from our house: "Jesus Christ! What've you done? Fetch the hose and squirt the roof!" Mom tore the wooden garage door off its trolley rail, then heaved the door back on. Mom was strong for her five foot half an inch height. Mom always emphasized the half inch. Mom reversed her Morris into the street, wrenched the hose from my hands, and doused the fire.

Mom replaced the garage door with a Lazyman metal door, which opened from ground level. Concrete side-weights, on pulleys, pulled the door open. After a weight came off its pulley-wheel, Fraser held the weight from below. I levered the cable back on, but the cable slipped from the pulley-wheel, the weight smashing Fraser's big toe. Fraser stood shocked. I jumped off the ladder, easing the weight off Fraser's bloody toe. Fraser screamed his face purple. "Stay there!" I yelled, running on my Perthes hip leg, "Mom! Fraser's toe's squashed."

Mom bandaged Fraser's toe, then drove him to Addington, where a doctor put 25 stitches in Fraser's toe, saying, "Take him home, keep his leg up, see if it heals!" Fraser's toe healed, safe-like-a-skyf.

Our Methodist Sunday School teacher chastised Skelm and me for telling, "Knock-knock who's there?..." jokes, instead of praying. At Friday afternoon Church Club, after choruses and bible study, games included Open Gates, K-I-N-G and Catchers. Kids loved Rev. Bellis's ham-acting, "There was an old woman who swallowed a fly. I think she'll die..."

Rev. Boraine, succeeding Rev. Bellis, went into antiapartheid politics. After April 1996, Rev. Boraine was deputy at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Tutu.

Outside the Methodist church and Broadway shops, thousands of Indian mynahs roosted in umdoni trees. At dawn and dusk, we heard mynahs cackling in umdoni trees and purple-shatting on congregants' and shoppers' cars.

Durban North Methodists and Chelsea Drive Saint Martins' Anglicans were English-speakers, protected by apartheid. My ol' toppies' generation benefited most from apartheid. Some worked in colour-bar jobs their whole careers, not competing with non-whites, living bourgeois lives - in big houses, served by Indian or native domestics. Some Europeans had big swimming pools and drove big cars. Some were closet-Nationalists, indifferent to the plight of non-Europeans.

Once, we sat in Saint Martins, Europeans-only church, listening to a sermon. A drunken Zulu man stood at the back door, shouting and swearing. Congregants froze, ignoring the racket, until the minister said, "It's unrealistic for me to continue. Will someone sort out that man?" Only then did a sidesman rise from his pew, hushing him.

X-rays showed my hip improvement. I was allowed walking, but no running, as jarring would damage my Perthes hip, which prevented me playing ball-sports for five years. I was left with a right-legged-limp, which changed my spoor.

Skelm was Oliver in the musical Oliver at Lyric Theatre, Umbilo. I joined the Junior Methodist Choir, singing at morning services. At a choral service, I stood next to Skelm singing on stage. I
thought if I could out-sing Skelm I'd be noticed. "Jislaaik!" hissed Skelm. "Stop wysing! You're singing too loudly. Baba-baba-boo!" The congregation was amused. Mom was on-like-scone proud.

In addition to my recitations at Professor Sneddon's annual Speech and Drama Festivals at Little Theatre, Acutt Street, I acted in a Durban North Methodist show, Cafe Continental, my first play performance. I wore a rabbit suit and sang, "There's a worm at the bottom of the garden, and his name is Wiggley Woo..." Skelm sang, "I like to dance and tap my feet, but they wont keep in rhythm..." Adults sang The Lily of Laguna; Anything you can do I can do better...; Finiculi Finicula... Pretty ladies danced a cancan.

As marble partners, I horded Skelm's and my winnings in a cloth flour-bag. In playground red sand we set up stalls, calling boys to throw marbles: "Roll-up four allies!...Roll-up ten allies!... Roll-up a sixpenny!...Roll-up an ironey!..." We played Follows and Holey. Boys fought when we scragzzed our marbles.

Hula-hoops, yo-yos, scooby-doos, tops, charms, jacks and skipping-ropes were intermittently fashionable, the latter three girls-only, until teachers banned them. Boys loved Stingers with a tennis ball, Bok Bok and Open Gates. Swimming, cricket, netball, tennis, soccer were official school sports. Skelm was in the school soccer team, and had a habit of clutching his balls. "Rort!..." was the rallying cry for playground fights, when spectators gathered. Skelm once strangled a boy, until his face went blue. A duty teacher broke it up.

After school, by the Chelsea Drive school gate, a sweaty Zulu man sold Clover Dairies ice-creams from a cool-box attached above the front wheel of his bike. He rang his bell, while we Banana Boys searched through dry-ice for ice-creams. I paid for my Eskimo Pies with dosh stolen from mom.

See Saint Martins in the Fields, Chelsea Drive, Durban North website.




< Esslemont Brothers & Rosie's Granddaughter, illegally at 87 Reitz Straat, Bloemfontein.