Apartheid, Durban Brother's Rehabilitation and Koffiefontein De Beers Roundup, 1988.

< 1988. Esslemonts at a Mackintosh Xmas Do: "Mackintosh" farm, Cato Ridge.


Fraser lodged at a Durban Mental Health halfway-house, Windermere Road. A ruse by Addington to certify Fraser? Daily, he walked or bussed to occupational therapy at Addington. Fraser got drunk at Wagon Wheels Hotel, Florida Road, falling on his face. While Fraser's scabrous face healed at Addington, matron moaned, "Bed space!..."

Social-worker said, "Fraser'll be a hobo." Chief psychiatrist and doctors avoided me. I made an appointment to see Fraser's physiotherapist. She didn't arrive.

The halfway-house social-worker said, "People like Fraser err during rehabilitation..." Durban Mental Health didn't want Fraser anymore, despite a Durban protected environment being ideal placement for Fraser. I made appointments to see the soulless Mental Health director, and waited outside his office for hours. He avoided me, and only replied to my letters, after I appealed to his common humanity.

Addington had fucked up Fraser with neuroleptic brain damage, and had crippled him. When Fraser's curator and I bailed up Addington's accountant in his hospital office, the smarmy Durban North accountant avoided court-action, by waiving Fraser's two year hospital bill. Fraser's curator completed the sale of Fraser's home, and invested Fraser's money.

Without my knowledge and consent, Addington psychiatrist certified Fraser to Town Hill Hospital, Pietermaritzburg. After I complained, he wrote: "My team certified Fraser - a team decision. Fraser's Addington rehabilitation has failed. He's a danger to himself and others. His judgement is poor and he lacks insight into his condition. His rehabilitation would be better effected at Town Hill Hospital." (Paraphrased). That pscho-jargon would prove to be bullshit.

I learnt a magistrate could certify a patient, if one or two doctors provided documentation. There was no legal requirement to consult the patient or family, nor was legal representation required for the patient or family. Psychiatrists could legally do what they liked in apartheid SA, without knowledge or consent by a patient's family. Never mind brain damaged, outraged Fraser being locked away for years at Town Hill, having his human rights violated with incarcerated retards, madmen, drug addicts, criminals and murderers. Certified Fraser became a state-funded President's Patient, and his Town Hill stay wouldn't cost Fraser and me one cent.

The actions / inaction of nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, physiotherapists, hospital accountants, social-workers, magistrates and mental health management showed contempt for Fraser and me. We were enemies to be avoided, patronized, manipulated and abused.

Had Fraser lived with us, he would've caused financial, emotional and social hassles for me and my family. Arse-sniffing guilt spoored me, but I couldn't expect Leah to raise our family and nurse Fraser while I worked.

Unrest: Black youth Stompie Seipei was hit in Winnie Mandela's Soweto home by members of her Mandela United Football Club (Fred Bridgeland, Katiza's Journey, Beneath the Surface of South Africa's Shame, Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1997.) Some said Winnie had led assaults. (Winnie denied it at later trials). Stompie vanished from Winnie's home: killed in strange circumstances. In 2003, Winnie was found guilty of fraud.

Trust Feeds massacre, New Hanover: 11 Zulus killed by cops. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol 3, Macmillan, London, 1999.)

The day I left Koffiefontein, I asked Ballon why I hadn't been paid my promised Koffiepit money. Ballon steepled his podgy fingers in his oak furnished office and said, "Off teaching eh? Payrolls will include your Koffiepit pay with your pension contributions and leave pay when you leave. When I job interviewed you, I said you'd do job evaluation, then IR. We planned fast-tracking you to Stellenbosch next year on an IR course."

"I wanted to do training. Personnel is boring, especially IR, not as stimulating as teaching. The articles I wrote and published in Koffiepit, and the job descriptions I wrote would fill a couple of books."

De Beers kept its contributions to Leah's and my pensions for two decades, before considering payment to us. It took a year and several letters from East London to German-GM before my Koffiepit pay arrived. Koffiepit continued as a community newspaper in post -apartheid Koffiefontein. In 2002, Ballon developed colon cancer, and retired early to his million Rand Knysna beach cottage. German-GM started Transvaal's new Venetia Mine, then became Premier / Cullinan Mine's GM.

De Beers strength was that, aged 37, I'd equitably worked with non -whites for four years during apartheid. Had I not left white teaching, I'd never have worked equitably with non-whites in SA. I also played multi-racial hockey and acted in multi-racial shows with coloureds, which I never did in the rest of apartheid SA. I reckoned De Beers management was superior to any teaching management I knew. We'd lived Rhodes's and Oppenheimers' De Beers heritage, and Jake was a De Beers boy, born in Kleinzee, baptized in Koffiefontein beneath the Diamond Cross.

By 2008 Koffiefontein Mine was sold to a company of ex De Beers and Koffiefontein people.

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.

Apartheid, Koffiefontein Businesses, CTU, De Beers Discipline, 1988.

< 1988. Part of De Beers Koffiefontein Mine Pit.


Besides their De Beers work, "staff" had various money-making schemes. Zeppelin began a fast -food shop in the dorp Main Street, ran by his wife. An English mechanic began a garage, ran by his son. George bought a shop on Ditlhake-Diamanthoogte road, (ran by his wife) bought a plot, planted vegetables, and transported vegetables from Bloemfontein. Black mine -workers stopped in their donkey-carts outside George's shop and bought produce. Frikkie began a video shop in Main Street, ran by his wife. Thieves cut through burglar-guards and stole all Frikkie's video equipment. Frikkie lost money and closed shop. I stopped buying milk from a Boer's wife, after she delivered milk with a blood swirl in our milk.

Moodley resigned, and made money subcontracting draughtsman services to De Beers from a dorp office. Nel, our McHardy Crescent neighbour, also resigned from the engineering drawing-office and went private. His daughter Elaine, older than Jake, played with Jake, while he sang, "Baa Baa black sheep, 'ave you any woo'?... an' one for the li'l boy who lives down Elaine..." As there were no English teachers in Koffie kindergarten, we were worried Jake would become Afrikanerized, so Leah started a play-group for English Koffie-kids.

I acted for Frikkie when he went on leave, or when he was secretary for NUM-De Beers wage-negotiations, chaired by NUM negotiator Ramaphosa, in a cyclone of killings by black mineworkers (like NUM's August 1987 national goldmine and coalmine strikes). Frikkie and German-GM flew back and forth between Koffiefontein and Jo'burg meetings, and when negotiations deadlocked, there was shop-steward / management trekking between mines and Jo'burg at company expense. Frikkie minuted wage negotiation meetings, typed minutes at Koffiefontein, then distributed minutes to mines.

Doppelganger warned me before my departure to an IR supervisor's course at CTU: "Your company car's wheel-alignment's faulty." While I drove, the car vibrated all the way to Vereeniging, but wheel-wobble lessened when I drove over 100 kays per hour. At the course I met mining men from all over SA. On my return near Kroonstad, my car's right back tyre blew out at 140 kays per hour. I slewed to a halt without mishap. While I bumped back to a Kroonstad garage for a tyre change, tyre bits flew off, smacking the car.

Meanwhile at McHardy Crescent, a whirlwind had blown roofs off mine houses. Leah had stood by a wall clutching Jake to her breast while our house roof trampolined.

Frikkie blasted me for wrecking a company car. "There was a wheel-changing kit in the boot." He puffed his pipe. "Why didn't you use it hey?"

"It was hidden in the panelling. I was shocked. I drove to Kroonstad with a flat-tyre so a garage could fix it."

"But you blackened the fender hey?"

"I knew you and Ballon would blame me. I could've been killed because the engineering department was negligent. Doppelganger told me before I left Koffiefontein that wheel-alignment was bad. My options were to use my Golf, or use the only available company car. I want the maintenance-foreman disciplined for poor work performance."

"No way! You wrecked the company car hey?"

Ballon hissed, "These teachers in IR!" My diamond days were ending.

Gijima called Zeppelin and Ballon, "AWB" behind their backs and dubbed IR, "The Firing Squad," as we processed employee dismissals. NUM shop-stewards monitored dismissal hearings with interest. Morena caught Mhlongo going through the mine security-gate with cosby clamps in his pocket. At his disciplinary hearing Mhlongo said, "Et otherr mines wherre ah worked, eef ah tooks tools an' cosby clamps home nobody minded. Everrybody done eet." German-GM sacked Mhlongo.

Underground, an Afrikaner knifed Gijima. Hollander Pushy separated them. German-GM sacked the Afrikaner, who joined an AWB -dominated platinum-mine in north-west Transvaal.

Pushy attended German-GM's business-breakfasts and joked, "GM chews my balls, while I eat his shit." Morena gave Pushy a breathalyser test at the mine security-gate. German-GM sacked Pushy, as dronkgatte endangered others on-the-job. Besides Hollander Pushy, Polish, Portuguese, Pom, Irish, Aussie, Kiwi and Kenyan white foreigners also benefited from "fast track" senior jobs. None were conscripted by SADF, and all benefited from apartheid.

Morena was absent once too often. I minuted his dismissal hearing, while Jonas interpreted for Morena and German-GM.

Black hostel-dwellers went on a wildcat strike about hostel food, so I "minuted" a crisis meeting between management and NUM shop-stewards. My deafness had gained, with periods of intermittent silence and intermittent hearing, lasting unpredictable days, or weeks, or months. I had permanent tinnitus, blackouts, dizziness, nystagmus and nausea. "What was the meeting about?" I asked George. "I couldn't hear anything."

"You'd better buy a hearing-aid," said George. I did. I was still in denial. Thereafter, I played Luister by tape-recording meetings and writing minutes.

On Main Street, I reversed my Golf towards a parking-place by the dorp supermarket. The dorp Magistraat drove into my parking-place. I leapt from my Golf shouting, "You saw my reverse-lights on. Why'd you take my parking?"

Magistraat glared at me, then glared at Gijima sitting on the kerb, then slithered into the supermarket.

"Dumela," grinned Gijima, doffing his shades. "Magistraat drop you?..."

Leah and I felt Jake needed more English playmates, and De Beers wasn't making us richer. As a teacher I could get a R50 000 housing subsidy, a big perk. East London Selborne College offered me a biology teaching job, which appeared suitable.

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.

Apartheid Koffiefontein, Consultative Committees and Recognition Agreement, 1988

< 1988. Mark Esslemont, Staff Consultative Committee, Koffiefontein Rec Club.


I organized "staff" and "monthly-paid" consultative committee elections, and coordinated and minuted agenda meetings. German-GM chaired consultative committees, which aired grievances and criticism about De Beers living and work conditions, which I minuted. "Staff" were the highest paid white employees with few coloureds and less blacks. Eddie, Jonas and Moses were the only black "staff." At "staff" consultative committee meetings, white elected representatives discussed mutually beneficial issues with management. I circulated minutes to consultative committee members and other employees, usually engineers, who processed corrective action.

There were no blacks on the "monthly-paid" artisan consultative committee, legacy of apartheid job reservation. The committee had vigorous, outspoken coloured and Afrikaner elected representatives. Artisan "monthly-paid" workers were adequately paid, like me, with free company housing, on the Paterson C band. Coloured chairman, Doppelganger had worked at Koffiefontein for years, even during closure as skeleton-staff, and represented white and coloured artisans. Doppelganger complained about roadworks at Diamanthoogte. Other complaints included plumbing; parks; lake recreation facilities; veld encroachment; neighbours' tree branches; toilets; rec club renovation. A big issue was shower-room facilities, as white artisans wanted to keep shower-rooms racially separated. It was OK to mine and perhaps die underground together, but not OK to shit-shave-shower-shampoo together on the mine surface. German -GM said, "We're changing. We're no longer paternalistic!"

There was no consultative committee for black and coloured labourers, who worked mostly in metallurgy and underground mining, and belonged to NUM union, which replaced a black consultative committee. In De Beers-speak, labourer / operator blacks and coloureds were monthly-paid workers on low A and B Paterson bands. Gijima, elected full-time shop-steward, reported to Frikkie. When NUM called a legal strike, apropos De Beers-NUM recognition-agreement, IR personnel monitored strike-ballots late at night when black shift-workers emerged from underground at shifts -end. Monitoring ensured no intimidation occurred while workers signed, or didn't sign. Never mind dangers to IR officers, in a hostile work environment.
< 1988. Koffiefontein Mine's new Emulsion Explosive Vehicle with Operators & Shop-steward.


I gave a recognition-agreement seminar to black shop-stewards in the black hostel training-room. Moses and Jonas were interpreters. Several native languages were spoken, but Afrikaans was the lingua franca. Ballon welcomed the shop stewards in English. Shop-stewards rose from their desks and walked out. Ballon whirled past shop-stewards, back to the admin buildings. "Why've shop-stewards walked out?" I asked Gijima.

"Mhlongo's not weeth us," said Gijima, doffing his sunglasses.

"Due to Mhlongo's poor timekeeping his foreman kept him working underground," I said.

Frikkie dust-devilled in: sucking shop-stewards inside. "Mhlongo will stay working underground," said Frikkie. "I'll give him a lecture - later. Stop being obstructive and get on with the seminar hey?" I handed Jonas and Moses my English lecture notes, and they continued in Sotho, Tswana and Afrikaans, thus saving me from swart gevaar. A bat flew through the window. Shop-stewards jumped up, trying to catch the devil-wind bat by flinging jerseys, caps and pens. The bat escaped.

I'd arranged a meal in the black hostel dining-room. "Why mus' we eat in da hostel?" asked Gijima. "Why can' we eat in da white dorp hotel, where whites eat?"
< 1988. Volunteer Kitchenhands, Diamanthoogte Coloured Rec Club, Koffiefontein.


"Skip the meal?" I said. Shop-stewards sniggered and ate in the hostel. Their posturing was more puerile than Sotho kids I'd taught. (Years later, the same white hotel was razed). After the seminar I said to Gijima, "Thanks for dropping me." Gijima looked skaam. He'd been a training instructor before becoming a shop-steward. As job reservation laws were breaching, Gijima planned to get his blasting-certificate and become one of De Beers first black miners, a job reserved for whites for years.

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.

Apartheid Koffiefontein, My Industrial Relations, 1988

1988. Koffiefontein Mine Entrance & The GM's Mercedes

In March 1988 De Beers celebrated its centenary, giving every employee a gift diamond and a letter from chairman Ogilvie -Thompson. Some outcast blacks and coloureds sold their centenary diamonds to other employees.

Unrest: 10 000 troopies and Savimbi's UNITA troops killed Angolan, Cuban and Soviet forces in Cuito Cuanavale, Southern Angola. (Sean Moroney, Editor, Africa, Volumes 1, 2, Facts on File, New York, 1989). As troopies patrolled township carnage in SA, generals thought they were saving SA from communists. But "End Conscription" okes also avoided conscription at an annual rate of 5000. (Ibid Moroney).

"Koffiepit's not part of your job," hissed Ballon, "so I'm not recognizing it in your performance-appraisal."

"You asked me to begin Koffiepit." I said. "Added to my job evaluation work, I've published ten Koffiepits, and worked unpaid overtime, using my camera and car."

"You'll be paid for Koffiepit, but I'm transferring you to Industrial Relations."

Masterful Frikkie (48) bald IR boss, had been a surveyor then a teacher in Rhodesia, before emigrating after the Bush War to SA. "Don't let Koffiepit come between us hey?" said Frikkie puffing his pipe. "IR's busy hey? Last year in SA, a record 5.5 million work days were lost due to strikes hey?" (Ibid Moroney). "We work in a bending-over-blackwards politicized and militant environment hey?"

















1988. Some Koffiefontein Mine White Bosses, "Beggars' shadows"

I handed over Koffiepit to Dweet, who struggled to publish three Koffiepits in six months, helped by Frikkie, George, Zeppelin and Ballon. George shot springbokke with German-GM and management on De Beers farms. Dweet despised George, making George grovel whenever she typed for him. "You're a deluxe box," said Dweet.

"You're a cow with an ox's face," said George. Four years older than me, George began work as a post office clerk, read his BA through UNISA, then worked at SASOL oil refinery in 1980 when MK terrorists blew it up. (Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom, Abacus, Little, Brown and Co., London, 1996). He'd moved to Koffiefontein so his wife could be closer to her Boer pa who farmed nearby. Boer divided his farm into three sections, giving his daughters their inheritance before he died, as canalized water-rights from Vanderkloof Dam were expensive.

George and I cycled to work along McHardy Crescent, even on minus 8 Centigrade, frosty mornings. "Lekker by the sea," said George while peddling past the old slimes dam, upgraded as a recreational area. I taught George job description writing. George's English was better than my Afrikaans. For Koffiepit, George had checked my Afrikaans copy and did translations. Ballon's IR was bad, as he'd employed George as a senior personnel officer. Other personnel officers, like me, were more experienced, lesser paid minions.

Like Nel and Ferreira at Kleinzee, George at Koffiefontein was another De Beers affirmative-action Afrikaner: not forgetting Engelse affirmative-actions like Mike and me. De Beers had "career paths" to "fast track" favoured graduates (often whites / foreigners), like miners, personnel officers, metallurgists, geologists, mining engineers, accountants and engineers into management positions. Blacks and coloureds could also follow the career-paths on merit, but their lack of specialist tertiary-education stopped their promotions.

Playing Luister, my IR work sorted out a white staff consultative committee and a white / coloured monthly-paid artisan consultative committee. I recorded multi-racial grievances and disciplinary actions on computer files and taught vigilante Jonas and Moses to do likewise. I lectured black shop-stewards about De Beers-NUM recognition-agreements, and lectured white employees about IR. I did white inductions, white exit-interviews, ghost-wrote German -GM's briefings, and collected Frikkie's stationery from mine stores.

Vigilante Jonas and Moses, IR practitioners, had worked at Prieska, when Koffiefontein mine had closed. At our daily meetings, Jonas and Moses briefed Frikkie on IR problems. Moses had a karate black belt, and Moses and Jonas recorded grievances and disciplinary statements for mostly black, monthly-paid workers, and arranged multi-racial disciplinary hearings with Frikkie and management, which Jonas and Moses attended as IR advisers and interpreters. English, Afrikaans, Tswana, Sotho, Zulu, Xhosa were spoken. Jonas's interpretings were brilliant, except for Shangaan, his weakest language.
















1988. Koffiefontein Mine, Non White Metallurgy Plant Trainees & White Trainers.

Frikkie used the legal principle of balance of probabilities when judging someone innocent or guilty. It seemed unfair to me, as accusers didn't give evidence beyond reasonable doubt. Frikkie scraped the bowl of his pipe, lit up and puffed, while we discussed the latest grievance or disciplinary case. Jonas unrolled toilet paper from his pocket, twisted wads to clean his nostrils, then examined results. "We must stick to procedural and substantive fairness hey!" puffed Frikkie.

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.


See The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale. Cuba's Mythical Victory (R. Allport)

Apartheid Koffiefontein, Riet Rivier Flood, Hockey, Brain-Damaged Boet, 1988

1988. Koffiefontein's white cemetery flooded by Riet River.

Scenes which presaged apartheid's collapse: On 22/02/1988, Riet Rivier flooded, due to rains the previous week flooding Kaffir River, Riet Rivier tributary, flowing into Kalkfontein Dam. SATV showed the dam overflowing, and Koffiefontein went hysterical awaiting flooding. I waited on the metal road bridge for Riet Rivier to flood. SAAF Impala jets buzzed Koffiefontein, and National News warned about flooding. Ditlhake community centre and Diamanthoogte rec club prepared for evacuees. De Beers provided trucks to evacuate Ditlhake residents who lived on Riet Rivier bank.

Brown water surged amongst reeds, and by 17:00 water rose 2-3cm a minute. The white cemetery and Ditlhake was flooded. Riet Rivier was 1.5km wide at Ditlhake. Scores of Ditlhake pondoks were under 1.5m of water. Hundreds of evacuees slept in separate black and coloured community halls. De Beers provided food for evacuees, and SADF tents were erected on high ground for evacuees.

A SAAF Puma helicopter put lip-licking, prime minster Botha and minstrel Heunis onto a red carpet on the dorp sports-field, for smarmy Heunis to sing his, "own affairs" aria about devolution. Grey-suited Heunis smoothed his hair on his pink scalp with his podgy hand, while conscript troopies (De Beers white employees) stood at ease by the carpet in their brown army uniforms. MPs leered when Zeppelin sang, "Aaaandag!..." Troopies clicked heels, clenched arses, sucked boeps in, and presented arms, before thrilled MPs soared off presto. "Other affairs" flooding at Ditlhake wasn't inspected by MPs. I didn't bother snapping them: not worth a koffiepit.

I became inaugural secretary of Koffie Hockey Club. The IT manager was chairman (later sacked for IDB). A mining engineer and cost accountant were other committee members. Our male / female teams played Griqualand West Sunday-League hockey against Kimberley and rural teams. We trekked 200 kays each Sunday, playing on Eskom Club fields, CBC fields, other sports fields. We played against high school teams and mostly adult teams. Adolescents were fitter than us, but fuelled with beer, we psyched them out, winning and losing games. Our T shirts stated: "We're here for De Beers."

Besides best-player Craton, our men's team included four coloured players and Pushy, Hollander mining engineer, who was piqued that I was voted onto our hockey committee instead of him. At an after -match binge I told Pushy, "You're Fulla Shit!" The next year, when Pushy was voted onto the committee, he antagonized players by carping non-stop.

Draughtsman Moodley was a brave goalkeeper. He and his family were the only Indians living in a company house surrounded by whites. When I was a kid, Indians were forbidden living in the Vrystaat. Late at night, dorp Afrikaners did wheelies on Moodley's grass verge, leaving ripped grass and scorched earth.

Playing fullback against Vryburg, I tackled a Dutchman charging down the wing. Swiping for goal, he crushed my left index finger between our sticks. Pushy tried pulling my finger straight, leaving me nauseous. Another game, I dropped an Evergreens player with a follow-through blow to his head, when he tackled me from behind. I didn't see him, and Pushy carped, "You're a Dangerous Player!" At our Koffie Club awards-dinner, German-GM was impressed when I was awarded a hockey stick for being, "The Dirtiest Player." I'd written club minutes during work hours. One game, an umpire had shown me a yellow card for turning and bumping a boy. I truly turned, as my broken finger needed protection.

1988. Mark Esslemont & Koffie Hockey Club: 'We're here for De Beers'.

Unrest: Non-ANC, QwaQwa-MP Paki Marake's home was torched by tsotsis. (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa Report, Vol 3, Macmillan, London, 1999). Whenever there was township strife, ANC lackeys were present. My exit from QwaQwa had been well timed, to avoid trouble for us.

Monthly, when we backspoored to Durban to see Fraser and Leah's folks, I drove past 'Maritzburg and Mpumalanga green hills, where Inkatha and ANC / UDF Zulu factions fought: over 400 killed. (Sean Moroney, Editor, Africa, Vols 1, 2, Facts on File, New York, 1989).

SATV showed boere jabbering about droughts, while Ina Perlman and her Operation Hunger helpers fed hungry, impoverished blacks. (Jane Goodwin, Cry Amandla, Holmes and Meier, London, 1984).

Addington's chief psychiatrist said, "Fraser's condition is grave." For months, Fraser was bedridden. When he began moving, he lay silent. Left-handed, he used a chain and wooden handle, hanging above his head, to pull himself upright. His right hand was pale and clawed. Nurses strapped Fraser to a wheelchair, his crippled feet pointing to the floor. Physiotherapists hadn't massaged his limbs, leaving his calf muscles contracted and Achilles tendons shortened. A Zulu nurse -aide forgot to strap Fraser into his wheelchair. He lunged forward, cracking his forehead on the concrete floor. Concussed: more head scars - back to bed for months.

Matron muttered, "Bed space!" while glaring at Fraser, who eventually wheelchaired around unstrapped. Surgeons hacked notches in Fraser's Achilles tendons, readjusting his feet, wrapping his legs in plaster-casts, so Fraser's Achilles tendons grew "normally." Fraser shivered in agony, suffering pain for months.

Doctors and nurses avoided me, or were non-committal. A social -worker said, "Fraser's an alcoholic and schizophrenic. He'll be a hobo."

"How can Fraser be a boozer and schizophrenic," I asked, "after being brain-damaged, and after being in a coma for ten days, and after Addington staff fried his brain with neuroleptics, causing high temperatures, convulsions, and incapacitating Fraser for months, then allowing him to fall from his wheelchair, re-injuring himself?" Silence. After that, I disliked interfering social-workers. Physiotherapists only worked on mumbling Fraser, after his plaster -casts were removed.

Playing Pig Dog, when I baled up the ward doctor, he denied there was more brain-damage to Fraser after neuroleptics and the wheelchair fall. "Fraser's been brain-damaged three times," I said, "once by a Zulu trucker, once by white nurses and doctors, and once by a Zulu nurse-aide."

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.

Apartheid Koffiefontein, Koffiepit, 1987

< 1987. De Beers Koffiefontein's old Traction Engine.


Playing Luister, I interviewed employees, wrote job descriptions, administered job evaluation, drew organization-structure diagrams, checked labour-complement requests against labour forecasts, and maintained job evaluation and job directory files. I wrote Koffiepit copy, edited employees' contributions, interviewed employees and dorpenaars, visited the kindergarten and Koffie Skool, chatted to principals and took photographs.

Koffiefontein Club was situated between white company houses and dorp houses. Behind Koffie Club, a golf course stretched up a hill, overlooking the dorp and mine-pit. Opposite Koffie Club, a phallic, grey stone WW1 memorial was laagered by sweet-thorns and pepper trees. I played snooker in Koffie Club, chatted to Koffie Club manager, and attended sports and community functions.

< 1987. Koffiefontein's WW1 Memorial.


I chatted to George Goussard who managed company hostels, housing and community services. I photographed a kitchen in the black hostel, and photographed black, male, single employees in their barrack hostel near a mine dump. Married black employees lived in Ditlhake, where some bought company subsidized pondoks. White, single male employees had their own hostel near Koffie Club. Every month, I sent 20-30 A4 draft Koffiepit pages and photographs to Kimberley Head Office editor, who printed galleys, which I proof-read and returned. Kimberley did final printing, and I distributed Koffiepit free to employees, dorpenaars and other mines.

White security-officers (ex cops) showed me their riot gear and shotguns which they locked away. One had a wooden carving of a landmine as a paperweight. They looked nervous when black employees toyi-toyied to work. Two white security-officers were dismissed for IDB.

My Koffiepit photos included metallurgy conveyors and crushers; Elmco Secoma drill-rigs for tunnel-rounds; Terex haul-trucks; workshop machinery; R1000 000 load-haul dumpers; Tamrock minimatic face-rigs for tunnel-rounds and roof-bolt holes; survey office drawings; employees being presented long-service awards; new emulsion-explosives plant, offices, staff garages, mining equipment, houses, replanted grass; revamped gardens; proto-team rescuers led by Craton ventilation manager. (Mark JS Esslemont, Editor, Koffiepit, Editions No. 1 August 1987 - No. 10 May 1988, De Beers Consolidated Mines, Swiftprint, Kimberley, 1987, 1988).

When Craton invited me underground to take photos, I donned overall, black boots, plastic hard-hat, got a lamp from the lamp-room, then attached my lamp to my white hard-hat and the battery-pack to my belt, then plunged underground in the skip. I snapped Sotho drill-riggers, roof-bolt gangers, ventilation equipment and engineering machines. In 2002, Craton was killed in a helicopter crash near Premier mine.

I drove Dweet to Kimberley Hospital to see her Aussie engineer husband, who'd been buried alive in a rockfall, and freed by a Tswana mineworker. Aussie came from the operating-theatre unconscious, his body cut and stitched. I had a nystagmus attack on our hot drive back to Koffiefontein, and had to pull over to recover.

Doc. McGill, musty, retired schoolmaster, who'd taught at Koffie Skool, had written A History of Koffiefontein Mine and Town, and brought me history copy for publishing in Koffiepit. "During WW2," boasted Doc. McGill, "I wrote to the military, recommending Koffiefontein as an internment camp, thus Koffiefontein became a concentration camp during WW2."

Doc McGill wrote about the Boer War, and Brits and Boers battling near Koffiefontein. Western Jacobsdal was a Boer supply depot. Koffiefontien mine GM went through the war unscathed, but once a Boer had him in his Mauser sights when the GM forded Riet Rivier. After the war the Boer said, "I recognized you, so didn't shoot a good Rooinek mine manager." South-east, New Zealand soldiers were blooded at Colesburg. New Zealand Hill was named after them. At that time, my maternal grandpa, Rev. Cosnett, was Wesleyan minister in Colesburg.

When British troops came up the railway line from Cape Town, general Lord Methuen beat Boers at Belmont, Graspan and Enslin, but at Modder River, generaal Koos de la Rey hid Boers behind Modder River bank and shot Tommy Atkins to hell. De la Rey then hid Boers in trenches below Magersfontein hills, twelve miles south of Kimberley, and shot Brits to hell an' gone. In February 1900, Lord Roberts besieged general Cronje at Paardeberg along Modder River. After 10 days of fighting. Cronje surrendered his 4000 strong Boer army. Cronje was exiled to St. Helena, where Napoleon and Dinizulu were formerly interned. (Rayne Kruger, Goodbye Dolly Gray, The Story of the Boer War, Book Club Association, Swindon, Pan, London, 1983).

< 1987. Mackintosh & Esslemont, Magersfontein Boer War Memorial.


I snapped Boer War sites and the WW2 guard house, last internment building, near the dorp campsite. I snapped Italian POW graves in the white cemetery near Riet Rivier. The separate Ditlhake black cemetery was also by Riet Rivier.

See Anglo-Boer War Museum, Bloemfontein, including Magersfontein Battle, Black Week.



1987 Koffiefontein. Fresco done by an Italian WW2 POW of Benito Mussolini on an internment camp wall. >

Copyright Mark JS Esslemont

Apartheid, Koffiefontein Corporate Writer, 1987

< 1987. Elizabeth, Jake Esslemont & Brat Pack cousins, 294 Freemantle Road, Durban.


Koffiefontein dorp had one black, two white and two coloured townships. Our three-bedroom, brick-and-tile, free De Beers company house, at 14 McHardy Crescent was amongst pepper trees, pomegranates, lemons, grapevines and devil-thorns. We lived in the white company housing area near the open-cast mine. Headgear towered above a 600 metre shaft near a deep pit, and haulage roads gyred into the pit. Underground shaft-mining had begun when the pit became too deep. Mainly Afrikaners lived in the dorp, which was bigger than De Beers housing area. The dorp had two hotels, two garages, shops and Costas the Greek's shop. Podgy Costas sold dear products, and his son drove a joller car. Every Sunday, Afrikaners attended a Dutch Reformed kerk. A Methodist church had monthly services, and we baptized Jake there.
< 1987. Koffiefontein Mine's new whitey houses below a blue ground, kimberlite mine dump.


In the 1920s my grandfather Rev. Frank Cosnett was Methodist minister at Middelburg. He did circuit ministry at Koffiefontein. My mom finished her primary schooling at Middelburg. My son Jake was baptised in the same church where his great grandfather had preached.

Koffiefontein was on the ox wagon road from PE to Kimberley. Long ago, wagon-drivers outspanned at Riet Rivier, and filled koffiepots with fresh water, leaving koffiepitte kernels on the ground. During WW2, Koffiefontein was an internment camp for thousands of Italian POWs, civilian fascists, Roman Catholic priests, Ossewa Brandwag, Afrikaner dissidents and Nazi sympathizers against Smut's government. (Mirella Ricciardi, African Saga, Collins, London, 1981). Future prime minister Vorster and Zeppelin's pa were imprisoned.

At the dorp entrance a sign stated KOFFIEFONTEIN, and a metal koffiepot hung below the sign. A traction-engine stood across the road. In olden days, mined blue-ground (kimberlite) was weathered on concrete-slabs, then traction-engines drove over the blue-ground, crushing ore and releasing diamonds. Next to the traction-engine, under a roof, stood two concrete wall-panels, with two metre high portraits of Victor Emmanuel 111 and Mussolini, painted by a WW2 POW.

Koffiefontein white politics was Conservative or Nationalist. Outcasts' political aspirations were ignored. Diamanthoogte and Rooibult coloured townships were separate from the mine and white dorp. Ditlhake black township was on Riet Rivier bank. Riet Rivier flowed north-westwards joining Modder River south of Magersfontein.

Jake was in nappies, so we needed a domestic. Afrikaans-speaking Christine, best servant we ever had, lived in a Rooibult pondok. Once a week, she walked to our home to clean and launder. After work, I drove Christine back to Rooibult.

After five years' neglect, home and mine fences needed repairs. Strike vanished, and Koffie Club patrons reckoned she was shot by Security in the mine security-area. Zeppelin said, "Strike was dog-jacked man: eaten in Diamanthoogte or Ditlhake."

Months later, I saw a coloured youth cycling across veld with Zeppelin's puppy under his arm. Koffie, succeeding Strike, was a black Staffordshire x bull terrier, a Kimberley devil-dog with cafe au lait smudges on her muzzle and paws. Koffie, nervous bitch, puked in our car when trekking, but was an excellent watchdog. Koffie's spot was at our front door, and she growled when Lucky approached. Bitches bared their teeth at mealtimes. As Pig Dog, I growled, threatening murder when they fought.

On my first work day while cycling to work, I fell off my bicycle, breaking my left wrist. Sotho security-man Morena drove me to Kimberley Hospital, where doctors straightened my wrist, wrapping it in plaster-of-Paris. Koffiefontein's Afrikaner GP had finished his SADF conscription in QwaQwa, and was kind to me, but unkind to non-white patients, forcing them to trek to Fauresmith state doctor, if they couldn't afford his GP fees. A sick coloured died along the way.

My bone-breaking comeback to personnel enabled me to learn to write right-handed. While my wrist healed, I worked on labour -forecasts. I drove to De Beers Finsch Mine, Lime Acres, and photocopied all their job descriptions, which made my job easier. Ballon sniggered, "De Beers mustn't pay your private petrol costs!"

I paid.

Before joining personnel, Ballon had been a miner. During apartheid, there were no black miners, as Dutchmen feared black miners, with a knowledge of explosives, would use their knowledge nefariously. Ballon hissed, "You'll write job descriptions, administer job evaluation, and labour-complement requests, and inaugurate Koffiepit our monthly newsletter."

Other personnel officers reporting to Ballon, were Afrikaner George Goussard, and Sotho Eddie Nkojwa, the only black working in offices near me. He'd been a pupil in Soweto during 1976 riots. Like white Mike at Kleinzee, black Eddie manned the mine, and solved my manning queries. Two black IR officers, Jonas and Moses, worked in the mine security-area, and lived in Ditlhake with Eddie. Jonas was a puppet Ditlhake councillor. Strugglers called him a, "Sellout." Total Strategy Warmongers called him a "Middle-class, Urban Vigilante." Dweet, Afrikaner secretary, did my English and Afrikaans typing, and brought her own koffie mug to work, as she refused drinking from company cups used by black employees. She was scared of Aids.

I arranged insurance payout on our stolen van, and bought a VW Golf GTS. I'd been without wheels for three months, and needed a fast car on taxi-smirched, car-jacking roads. The GTS would outrun any dangers. One morning before work, I found contract-workers' cars occupying covered-parking where I parked. I drove across the road, and parked in German-GM's parking place. Ballon said, "Move your car!"

"Why?" I said. "There's no sign showing German-GM's parking-place. His Mercedes is a company car. I'm not parking my Golf in the sun all day." Like Sarel at Kleinzee, Ballon idolized his GM. Ballon worked hard sorting out plastic signs for parking-places. Soon, a JOB ANALYST sign was above my parking-place, and other staff had designated parking-places, including German-GM.

Our gardener, coloured youth, rifled our unpacked boxes, which we'd stored in our khaya, and stole hand-tools. I never reported the theft to cops. One day, without permission, he pushed our electric-mower from our khaya into our garden, then wanted to plug the cord into our lounge wall-socket. We refused, as we didn't want our mower wrecked. He'd already broken the tine off our garden fork. He wheeled the mower back into our khaya, and vanished, never to return.

Kader Asmal, et al, in Reconciliation Through Truth, David Philip, Cape Town, 1997, opined that SAP boss Vlok was the, "Minister who spoke in 1987 of a need to 'annihilate' political opponents, and who was responsible for police practices during the three years between January 1985 and December 1987, when 50 000 people were held without trial - the vast majority, as several studies confirm, subjected to some form of torture. This number was roughly equal to the total number of detentions in the preceding quarter century. Between 1960 and 1990 - including 1985-1987 period - a total of 100 000 people were detained."



< 1987. Koffiefontein. 














Copyright Mark JS Esslemont.


See De Beers Group Mines.