Blind Patrick

We lived in a two bedroom semi detached house in Mayfair and our Landlord (who was also our neighbour) was a blind man whose Christian name was Patrick. I don’t know that I ever knew his surname and I certainly can’t remember it now so I refer to him simply as “Blind Patrick”.
Every day except Sundays, Patrick would walk the three blocks from his home to the tram terminus where he would board a tram to take him into the City. In the City he would walk a block and a half to his spot beside the Northern aspect of the City Hall and there he would stand all day, tin cup in hand, begging for a coin or two from passersby. At about five-o-clock he would leave his spot and retrace his steps home. I knew his routine because I had once travelled into the City with him.

Blind Patrick

Ears straining to detect amidst the familiar comforting sounds

Those that warn of danger

He walks with cautious confidence born of years of practice

White stick, tap tapping

Boarding the tram for the trip into town is a long acquired skill

Performed with exaggerated action

And the sightless journey is punctuated only by the greetings

Of those identified by voice alone

Alight at journey’s end and tap with measured step the distance

To his own appointed place

There to stand protected by unwritten law that forbids intrusion

By another of his kind

A penny in a tin cup rattles to attract those who would make

Some small donation

And for those passing guilty by looking at some distant point

Just a hint of a smile

What visions inhabit his mind? What shape and size and colour

Does he apply to city sounds?

For never having seen these things do they appear to him

As they do to us?

Does he simply accept them for what he has been told they are

Giving them no further form

Content that they exist as described by some sighted soul

Needing nothing more

Is he certain only that today will pass as did yesterday?

And as will tomorrow?

Content to challenge with unseeing eyes that which he knows not

Yet knows so well?

Is each step taken, each day successfully negotiated

A singular achievement?

Or is he so accustomed to his lot that like us his only fear

Is of the unknown?

Seek no answers in his face for his serene countenance

Affords no clues

Nor do his unseeing eyes yield solutions but prompt instead

Further questions

Keep then your secrets Blind Patrick and continue in weather

Fair and foul

To challenge the sighted world with indomitable courage

White stick tap tapping

The Cycle Race

The Police Athletic Stadium in Mayfair was located directly behind the public swimming pool in Ninth Avenue and consisted of an oval, eight lane athletics track surrounding a grassed rugby field. On the Eastern side was a grand stand overlooking the start/finish straight and a six foot high diamond mesh perimeter fence enclosed the whole complex. While the stadium was under construction the entrance gates were not locked and this gave the local children access to the athletics track which was informally used as a bicycle race track.
On the day in question, workmen had dug a trench on the far side straight in order to gain access to some underground piping. The trench cut through lane one and then into the rugby field leaving the other seven lanes intact. I was not present when my “friends” spotted this and decided it would be an excellent opportunity to play a prank on me by challenging me to a cycle race in which they would give me the inside lane. We would start, as usual, from the start/finish straight so I would have no opportunity to see the trench on the far side in advance. During the race the group would box me in so that I was forced to stay in the inside lane and when we got to the trench I would fall in to the hole going at some speed. They imagined that the accident should be quite spectacular and all except me would have a big laugh about it.

The Cycle Race

Bring your bike and we’ll race the track at the police athletic ground

One quarter mile flat and the quickest time is now 65 seconds around

Who did the best? Who got that time? Was what I demanded to know?

Well, Leonard did by a country mile, the others were much too slow

If you think you’ll do better come with us, we’ll settle the matter there

The trap is set, they know me too well and I just can’t resist the dare

Next thing we’re ready, five abreast and I’ve drawn the inside track

Get away fast and stay out in front, that’s my simple plan of attack

 

I’m much too excited to spot the deceit, winning has addled my brain

Almost too late I look up to see a trench, three feet wide cross my lane

Instinct takes over, I’ve no time to think, fling body and bike in the air

Up over the maw that’s waiting to bite, land safe with inches to spare

 

Now it’s a joke, let’s all have a laugh but clearly I see through their plan

From quasi “friends” a lesson in life, trust only yourself my young man

Kleilat Gooi

My youth was spent (or perhaps misspent) in the vicinity of a number of goldmine dumps and two small dams. The dams were fed by a combination of water pumped from mine dewatering operations and rainwater runoff, neither of which was very healthy I suspect. We didn’t care whether the water was good for us or not and played and swam many long summers away in the one dam or the other. The upper dam was known by us as the “Blue” dam while the lower dam was the “Brown” dam. The major difference between the two was that the “Blue” dam had sticky yellow clay deposits along its shoreline and we spent many happy hours making war by hurling clay balls at one another using short sticks cut from the blue gum trees. The idea is simplicity itself. First you cut a 600 to 700 millimetre long blue gum stick of about 15 to 20 millimetre diameter. Then you gather a huge lump of the yellow clay and knead it until it’s nice and plastic. Then you mould a lump of clay the size of a golf ball on to one end of the stick and holding the other end firmly in your hand, you swing the stick in a 90 degree arc starting from a horizontal position and stopping abruptly at the vertical position. This action has the effect of releasing the lump of clay from the tip of the stick and turning it into a projectile that, with practice can be accurately aimed at a target and delivered with painful consequences if the target happens to be human.

Many a bloodless battle was thus fought between two opposing armies and the most serious injuries that I can recall were some lumps and a few multi coloured bruises.

KLEILAT GOOI

Daar onder by die Bloudam

Was die klei so taai en geel

En elke dag was dit onspret

Om kleilat te gaan speel

Gepaste lat van bloekomboom

Brei klont stewig op sy spits

Lanseer die skoot op volle vaart

Die vyande goed te klits

 

 Dis ek en Bob teen Boet en Jan

Elkeen het hope klei

Staan dan gereed, oorlog begin

Die klonte gons verby

 

Jan tref vir Bob hier langs sy kop

ʼn prima skoot voorwaar

dis twee teen een tot hy herstel

ek gooi net aanmekaar

 

Boet tref my skielik teen die bors

Dit pyn maar ek moet veg

Ek korrel goed en brand weer los

Jan snik en vryf dan aan sy nek

 

Die stryd woed voort met onopthoud

Tot laat sons ondergaan

En more kry ons weer die kans

Ons vyand te verslaan

Die Spookhuis

Close to the public swimming pool in Ninth Avenue, Mayfair stood a derelict double storey house. The house must have been quite old for it was built in the style of early Johannesburg with sash windows, corrugated iron cladding and cast iron balustrades and ornamentation. The double wrought iron front gates hung askew and the grounds were covered in waist high weeds.
We didn’t know to whom it belonged nor what the story was but the popular belief was that the house was haunted. The Afrikaans word for “ghost” is “spook” and “huis” means “house” so together “spookhuis” means “ghosthouse” or more correctly, “haunted house”

Die Spookhuis

Die Spookhuis staan eensaam en verlate

Onsamehangend met sy omgewing

ʼn onbekende se verwaarloosde bate

ʼn Dubbelverdieping huis is baie opvallend

Veral tussen die plat skakelhuisie hordes

Wat netjies saamdrom in rye sonder end

Eertyds ʼn spoghuis, dit is duidelik van buite

Met sy skyfraam vensters en gietyster tralies

Plus deftige skilderglas voordeur en ruite

In die twintigejare volgens praatjies gebou

Deur ʼn welgestelde huidemakelaar

Vir sy eggenoot, ʼn beeldskone jong vrou

In my verbeelding ontwaak ʼn volkleurtoneel

Van ʼn geluksalige gesinsgroep

Wat heel gelukkig hier woon, werk en speel

Realiteit skep egter veel treurige beelde

Van jarelange verwaarlosing

En die verbrokkeling van weelde

Wat het tot hierdie stand van sake gelei?

Watter ramp, watter tragedie

Het hierdie bekoorlike toneel gekasty?

Het die Groot Depressie gely tot bankrotskap?

Of was hulle verslaaf aan dwelms of drank?

Het een of ander euwel hierde mense betrap?

Of het een van die paartjie ʼn minaar gekry?

En ontblood, is deur die ander vermoor?

Doodgeskiet tydens ʼn geweldadige stryery?

Die bouvallige huis staan baie lank leeg

En elke leidraad wat ek ondersoek

Loop vinnig dood in nog ʼn blindesteeg

Die raaisel van die spookhuis bly dus onverklaar

En sy onnaspeurlike voorkoms

Verklik geen antwoorde, stel eerder meer vrae

Voëllym

One of the “characters” living in our neighbourhood (and there were a few) was Hannes Venter who lived with his wife Hester in the house vacated by the Strydoms after the "Lebs had trashed it".  They had no children and that’s perhaps the reason they had a car when so few others did. It was a cream coloured 1948 Pontiac four door sedan which made it about five or six years old when the events described below took place.

If you lived in Mayfair it was because you didn’t have much money and Hannes and my father were constantly hatching “get rich quick” schemes one of which was to drive out to an area Southwest of Johannesburg and there tap a particular species of succulent plant of its milky sap which would later be boiled to produce birdlime. Once this was done we would leave in the early hours of a Saturday morning to drive to Rustenburg (a country town located a good distance from Johannesburg) where there was a farm dam that Hannes knew of. According to him the dam attracted many thousands of exotic wild birds which we could capture using the birdlime smeared on the thin side branches of the trees surrounding the dam. The birds would attempt to land on the sticks covered with birdlime and become stuck. We would then grab them, clean the birdlime off them and put them in holding cages. When we had caught sufficient numbers and varieties we would transport them back to Johannes burg and sell them to breeders and pet shops and thereby make our fortune.

That was the premise. The reality was a little different. We captured only seven birds in total, five of one species and two of another and neither species was particularly rare. I doubt they recovered the cost of the petrol to get there and back but we youngsters didn’t care. We had a fine time in the car and at the dam so our world was okay.
 

Voëllym

Oom Hannes Venter sê ons kan wilde voëls gaan vang

By ʼn dam naby Rustenburg genaamd Sukkelaarspan

Blousuisies is volop en Vinke is miljoene verby

En ons gaan hope geld maak, altans so sê hy

Maar eers moet ons self die voëllym produseer

Wat ons dan sal gebruik om op stokkies te smeer

Dit op hul beurt word aan boomtakke gebind

Sodat voëls wat beland hulle vas sal bevind

Suidwes van die stad lê n groot stuk braakland

Deel van oopvlaktes duskant die Suikerbosrand

Juis daar kry ons genoegsame beeskloutjie sap

Deur die plante te sny en die vloeistof te tap

In ʼn pot op die stoof word dit dan afgekook

Tot die inhoud wel lyk soos taai gouestroop

Voorbereidings is voltooi en die motor is gelaai

Vroeg bedtoe,môre wiel ons nog voor hanekraai

Kort voor twee uur die oggend ry die ou Pontiac

Met ons jonges onder komberse op agtersitplek

Voor sonsopkoms is ons daar en als is gereed

Die toneel is spookagtig in ʼn misbaadjie gekleed

En die swerms waarmee ons ons rykdom bereken?

Daglank is daar weinig van hulle ʼn enkele teken

ʼn Skrale vyf ou Blousuisies en ʼn Sebravink paar

Is ʼn power opbrengs om by die huis te verklaar

Die kool was nou wel nie die sous werd gewees

Nietemin wag daar op ons ʼn koninklike fees

Mayhem in Mayfair

Being a poor area, the suburb of Mayfair attracted people of many different nationalities and many different social classes. Among my fellow school pupils there were children of German, Greek, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, English, Welsh, Croatian, Afrikaans and Lebanese origin. Some folk were financially comfortable (by Mayfair standards) while others were dirt poor (by any standards).
The Afrikaners were among the poorest and worked for the Railways or the Post Office, most often in menial, lowly paid jobs while the Lebanese (or “Lebs” as they were more commonly referred to) worked for themselves running shebeens, selling liquor after hours and weed at all hours. They also did a little illegal gambling on the side and were available as “muscle” to settle disputes. The following poem describes an incident to which I was witness aged about ten or eleven at the time.

Mayhem in Mayfair

That fateful Saturday in Mayfair was, to all purpose and intent

No different from any other that routinely came and then went

There was simply not an inkling of the violence that would come

To scar so many folks before this sad day was finally done

 

Two young girls played with their dolls beneath a poplar tree

Play that should have come to naught but that was not to be

For they began to wrangle as children frequently do

And in this act the makings of a feud began to brew

 

An older brother intervened and smacked the little friend

Who’s brother then came running, his sibling to defend

And thus it escalated with members from both clans

Trying to kill their neighbours with flailing boots and hands

One side sent for reinforcements that lived not far away

And were willing to defend their kin in just such an affray

Soon five cars screeched up and spewed out twenty men

Who stormed the Strydom semi and when they left again

The furniture was kindling, the people bruised and bleeding

Who knew that this was where a kiddies spat was leading?

The vanquished left soon after with no forwarding address

Perhaps it was simpler to move than to clean up the mess?