From My Notebooks In 1974: South Africa’s South Coast
19th April 2026 |
I’m still travelling through fairly civilised country – if you can call apartheid civilised – being handed on from friend to friend, and taking a day off in Hermanus, another delightful village on the South Coast. Just to remind you, these are raw notes – it would take a book to explain what they all mean.
Sunday 14th
Idleness. Paperwork. Walk on beach with ‘Fred’ – the fat labrador, who waddles off in all directions. Braai in wheelbarrow. Talk to Angela about magazines. To Anthony about “things.” Get address of his family in Swaziland.
Monday 15th
Leave Hermanus at 8.30. Difficult. Felt uneasy about Tessa. Dirt road to Caledon. Very mindful of sprocket. Town before Swellendam noticed loss of power. At petrol station, saw smoke from exhausts. Oil down in tank by at least two litres. Take rockers off before realising that oil return may be faulty. Curse, and reassemble. Oil return seems OK. Pipes stop smoking after a while. Fill up with three litres and take a spare. If piston is seized, what can I do about it anyway? Will try to get to Port Elizabeth. After a short distance engine is swimming in oil. Tighten up rocker box nuts. Keep going. Arrive at Riversdale and go to Wimpy. Grey haired lively gent comes over. Tall, Germanic. In fact old German family of paper makers, originally from Württemberg. At time of Gutenberg – Caxton they went to London, but Thames water was too acid. So they moved to South Africa, where they heard of chalky water flowing from mountains.
He has always ridden bikes – owned 20. Rudge, F.N. (1000cc four in line). Now Honda 4 – 750cc. Says it’s great, in spite of height. Asked me to sleep in their caravan in garden. Very pleasant evening. Cars, bikes. SABC (radio). Chapman (got off with Princess Margaret on Royal tours and was recently eaten by a lion.) [No idea what that was about.]
Flying in war, aircraft carriers (rescued pilots had to buy a drink for entire ship’s company.) Local school with white staff working for coloured headmaster – “If you told them that in the so-called independent countries they’d never believe it. Hell!” His name is Lunnan – or Lonnon – or something, any corruption of London. House in Truta road, Riversdale. Nice strong, smiliing German wife, youthful. Two children at ‘varsity’ in Stellenbosch. Younger girl at school. House big, ramshackle – bathroom in do-it-yourself chaos. Bechstein grand [piano]. Sleep very deep. Breakfast, eggs, and off.
Tuesday 16th
Riversdale to Plettenburg Bay. Check oil en route. Round about full mark – seems quite steady. Plett at lunchtime. Eventually find Jim Williams’ house “Maňana” Put up tent in garden. Cook a mutton chop. Bay is very beautiful. Housing is all posh suburban. People renting for holidays. Mid-afternoon overcast. Decide to buy torch batteries. In town I give Don’s friend Andrew Roberts a ring. Am asked over for a drink. Motley group of middle aged and elderly people have been playing bowls. Big new “West Coast” style house – built from a magazine picture. Rough plastering wasn’t right, says large wife Sally, who poured me an enormous Scotch (and soda) in new glasses, bought for their capacity. Sky is now overcast, and begins to rain. Then heavy wind, lightning, thunder. Only the palsied general and his very composed wife stay to eat. I offer half-heartedly to leave for my tent, and receive half-hearted invitation to stay. The old boy is hard to talk to. Half senile? Half stewed? She (the wife) certainly gets very merry. Clenches her fists over her breasts (she’s 63 and very fat) and cries out her “Valkyrie” passion for her children – shouts defiance of Dr. Spock. [Very influential on childcare at the time.]
One of her daughters is living with John Freeman [prominent British journalist]. The other is Colin Legum’s daughter [Legum was another famous anti-apartheid journalist]. Was she previously married to Legum? She declares it’s a pity her daughters aren’t here – she’d soon have me married off. Something desolate about this great, pretentious space with these two drifting around in it, collapsing with age. The servant lady next morning says they don’t get up till ten, says it with humour and a tinge of contempt. House faces a marshy inlet – there are heron, etc. In morning a cormorant dries out its wings.
7 hp Lister engine produces three and a half Kw. Has an alternator for lights and a generator for batteries.
Wednesday 17th
Ride back to Williams’ house to pack up things. Try oil level and find to my astonishment that it’s back up to top of dipstick, i.e. two pints have found their way back into tank. Very mystifying. Ride on comfortably enough through very comfortable landscape (except where two rivers cut down through tableland – chopped up by erosion like a waffle. In ravines it’s semi-tropical , with baboons, blue gums, and thick vegetation).
Then, after Humansdorp, I stop and something goes rattling around in the crankcase. Dire forebodings. I curse again. Why always short of the mark. Foolish. Why not? But the rattle vanishes as soon as it comes. Whatever it is has settled in the sump. I ride on, holding my breath, and get to Lionel’s Motors [about a hundred miles to Port Elizabeth] without further symptoms – although the oil level has meanwhile dropped right down again. Obviously the pump is not getting it back.
I was racking my brains as I rode to explain the symptoms:
1. Overheating
2. Smoky exhausts when first starting
3. Loss of oil from oil tank
4. Sudden and short-lived loss of oil from rocker boxes, etc.
5. Magical reappearance of oil in tank
I calculated that the best explanation was a moveable blockage in the oil return pipe above the T-junction that feeds the rockers. Then, extra pressure to rockers. No return to tank. Oil forced into combustion chamber via valves. [This last is nonsense]. Anyway, there was no such blockage. The pump was simply not working fast enough – rubbish in it had damaged the seat.
At Lionels the chief workman drains the sump and finds bits of barrel broken off, and the bolt head from one of the flywheel securing bolts. WHY! Is this the way it’s going to go?
Lionel Smith wishes he could get more bikes [Triumphs]. Complains of lack of service from England. Says we’re a second-class nation – but all with good humour.
Walked that evening from Red Lion to Docks and back (3 or 4 miles) Endless, soulless Main Street of super modern, clean high buildings. Not a thing of interest. Life is all locked away. Sign of a divided and insecure society? Street life is a good sign – hence Cape Town street-parties. Streaking also (perhaps?) [There was a craze for people to dash naked through public events, called “streaking”.]
Thursday 18th
No parts from Jo’burg. Talk to Sam Gozzoff [who?] again. He knows nothing. Spend day cleaning up, blowing out oil feed, changing chain and refitting wheel. Greasing rear wheel bearings.
Yusuf is the Malay foreman. Tall and ugly, with long hair and red woolen hat. Two front teeth missing and a strange “sing-song” intonation which makes his English quite unintelligible. Each phrase or sentence is pitched at the same note. The syllables tumble out without emphasis so that the phrase is like a single word. He has a most pleasing personality and a direct, affable approach. He has several other “coloureds” working under him, all long-haired with pom-pom hats, and one white apprentice also. He obviously does his job well and is respected. The white lad, Gary, thought at one time that he should have inherited the job, but Lionel claims to have no colour prejudice and put Yusuf in. Gary seems reasonably satisfied. He says he’s a Christian and does a lot to help the poor. [Apartheid created three classes – white, coloured and black. Coloureds were Indians, Malays, anyone in between.]
There are two Africans also. They are not supposed to do anything but the simplest work – repairing punctures and so on. This is the law, which defines which class can do what work, but the law gets overlooked where possible. One African keeps up a low, humorous monologue directed at one or other of the younger coloured guys – “I don’t want to hear you talking about God. You are the Devil. How can a dirty fellow like you know about God? You are just the Devil.” – or – “You asking me for help? No good all this helping. A man doesn’t always ask for help. A man has to help himself. Why don’t you do your own helping.”
In the “White Males” [bathroom] is an African with his hands in the Castrol cleanser tin. Yussef says “Look at this black man. He is not supposed to be here. If they catch him they put him in –“and he holds up his wrists in imaginary handcuffs. The African is grinning broadly. “I’m not a black man,” he says. “Yes, you are, you are a black man.” “No, no, I’m not a black man” – and so on.
There’s a pleasant conspiracy to defeat irksome laws. Yussef says he is all right with someone like Mr Smith – but it’s a bad country for a coloured man. You don’t get the job your talent merits.”