Moving Moments
Chapter 9
Banana Boy in Training – Life moves on
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| Howard College at UND |
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| Aerial view of part of UND campus |
I had booked into Louis Botha Hall residence, which was where Al was
already living. By this time he was into second or third year engineering. When
we arrived at the residence I was back in the role of a first year student and
was expected to go through initiation again. By this time I was two years out
of school, coming up for turning 20 in March and had had my fill of these
childish games. I told the committee running initiation that I had done it once
at Wits and I wasn’t doing it again. I think they didn’t quite know what to do
with someone who refused to do it. Along with that, Al was well liked and I
guess they didn’t want to cross swords with him, so they let me off the hook. I
was treated as an “honorary second year”.
At Wits I had had my own room. I was surprised to find at Louis Botha
Hall that I was sharing a room with another guy. We had a dividing partition
between us, so we each had our own space. He had long blond hair growing at
least half way down his back. Even for me, who fancied himself as a would be
hippy, I found this a bit much. This guy also looked like he was permanently
spaced out on something. We immediately took a disliking to each other. We
shared this room for six months, before I was allocated my own room half way
through the year. I don’t think we said more than half a dozen words to each
other.
I was two years out of Falcon, paying my own way and my mindset was now
more geared to getting down to the business of learning. I found the nature of
the B. Comm courses much more generic and to my liking. The exception was
Accounting 1. The lecturer had a reputation for being a stickler and a bit of
an eccentric. I vividly remember him teaching us the rudiments of accounting “debits by the door, credits by the window”.
He used to set accounting problems which always had interesting characters such
as Poor Manager, whose partner was Greedy Guts, who were making Widgets, but
not making a profit and so on. I suppose it’s hard to make accounting fun, but
this at least elicited a few chuckles.
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| Durban is a surfing hotspot |
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| 25 people in a Mini - yep 25 |
UND being by the beach was very casual in its approach. Guys would go
down to the beach, in the early morning for a couple of hours of surfing before
classes. They would stroll barefoot into class in their beachwear and no one
would bat an eyelid. As with all other South African universities, each year
the students would run the Annual Rag Event as a fundraiser. Rag, as it was
called, would raise large amounts of money for local needy causes. Part of the
tradition was that students would do “stunts” to make the headlines to promote
Rag and prepare the public to be shaken down in the streets. In Nev’s first
year at Wits they had broken the world record for the number of people on a
bed, about 80 I seem to remember. In our first year at UND, our students broke
the world record for the most number of people in a Mini Cooper and have the
car drive a few feet – we got 25 in.
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| In sufficient quantities, burgers can be pretty unappetising |
One memorable event was when Julian
Mitchell, a friend from Kitwe, volunteered for the burger eating contest. A
local burger den had offered complimentary burgers. There were four or five
participants. They were each handed a bucket, a bottomless supply of burgers
and as much beer as they wanted to wash it all down. They had half an hour to
eat as many burgers as they could manage. About half way through the guys would
go around the corner and empty their stomachs into the buckets and then come
back for more burgers. It was a pretty gross sight to watch. By the end the
guys were looking much less enthusiastic and chewing had slowed to a snail’s
pace. Julian won the competition with 30 burgers. He was so stuffed he could
not bend at all. We carried him to a car, laid him out flat and took him back
to his bed where we left him for the night to digest his success.
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| Pedal Car racing - deadly serious business |
Another Rag related activity was the annual pedal car races. Different
groups at the university, generally engineering students, would design and
build a pedal car for the big race. This was a deadly serious business and each
year the teams would go to great lengths to find the latest and lightest alloys
to give their team an edge. On the day, teams of six would take turns to pedal,
at breakneck speed, a circular course around the campus. UND had a very hilly
campus, so each cycling turn would involve a lot of up and down hills, along
with having to take due care for the cornering and braking in the right spots. The
route around the campus would take two or three minutes, so one’s turn would
come up quite quickly. It was a perseverance race and lasted for six hours,
with the team completing the most laps being declared the winner. I joined one
of the teams and by hour three or four I was dreading my turn each time each
fifteen minutes or so.
I still had my long head of hair, which really was an unruly mess. This frustrated
some of the girls we would hang out with. One time Steph Baird, who was a
friend from Kitwe, and her friend Brains, decided that they were going to help
me improve my look. They had me rest my head on my desk and then used a hot
iron to flatten and straighten my hair using the desk as a flat surface to push
on. Whilst this was an interesting experiment it was doomed to failure. My hair
has a natural curl and my new flat and straight look lasted a day or two before
it returned to its original natural state. I wasn’t too fussed. Mom had never
taught me much about care of my personal looks. Only when I started dating Cher
some time later, did I gain any insight into the fact that clothes are supposed
to be colour co-ordinated and hair is supposed to have some kind of shape and
style.
Although I was paying my own fees Mom and Dad were still giving Al and I
pocket money. Each month, our allowance was twenty five rand. In today’s terms
that would be about $25. Al and I were both running our own vehicles. We had to
pay all our vehicle expenses along with toiletries and of course any partying
we might want to do. Mind you gas in those days was only 9c a litre, so that particular
expense was not a major burden. In those days, communication was patchy to say
the least. There were no cell phones, Pay Pal or internet banking. Everything
was done by cash or cheque. Mom and Dad had appointed Nev, who was in
Johannesburg, to be in charge of sending us our pocket money monthly. He was
allowed to consider special requests and use his discretion in granting them or
not. Al and I would always be on the phone to Nev to jog his memory to send us
our allowance or consider the merits of some emergency we were dealing with. Nev used to enjoy his role of big brother and Al
and I were forced to hone our persuasion skills to get the money flowing a bit
more freely. Mom and Dad were pushovers compared to Nev.
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| Louis Botha Hall - I lived in one of these rooms and watched the staff mow these lawns with a flymo tied on a rope |
Louis Botha Hall was heavily occupied by engineering students. They were
known as a conservative grumpy bunch. However having these practical types
around did have its upsides. In those days public telephones were nicknamed “tickey
boxes” because they had originally been designed to work with a tickey or three
pennies. In a world of no cell phones, the sole tickey box in Louis Botha Hall
was our window to the world. One of the engineering students had hotwired it so
that we could make calls for free. A wire stuck out of the box and all one had
to do to make it work was short the wire to the side of the box when it called
for money. Occasionally the Post Office who ran the tickey boxes would come by
and repair it, but it didn’t take long before our good old engineering students
undid their work. Needless to say our LBH tickey box was an item in hot demand
and there would be line ups every night to use it.
As I mentioned earlier UND was a casual campus. In those days political
correctness had not reached the fever pitch it has these days. This meant that
there was still a significant disrespect by guys for the feelings of girls
around them. An annual event was the beauty pageant around the swimming pool.
The girls would parade by in their bikinis while the guys in various stages of
inebriation would cheer, jeer and cat call. Any girl who did not match up to
expectations would be greeted with boos and jeers. Phil Hodgson was in a different
residence to us. I remember him telling us that their residence’s annual ball
would have an award at the end of the evening for the most unattractive girl. She
was awarded the Grunt of the Ball prize. Even I, in my advanced state of blissful
ignorance, was a bit shocked by this one. To me this is one of the strongest
evidences that every guy needs a good woman in his life. How else are guys to figure
out what is right and wrong? I guess this is part of God’s plan for life. There
must be a reason that girls need guys too, but it’s not as obvious.
Despite still being a committed party-er I managed to make it through the
year academically and ended up with middling results. I was passing but
certainly not with flying colours. I was still chasing my demons, or probably more
accurately they were chasing me and I was finding my solace in drinking and
craziness of various kinds. I returned home at the end of 1972 for our annual
long vacation. This vacation was to be different, because for the first time I
found myself a proper, fully accredited girlfriend. Her name was Alison
Bassingthwaite. She lived and worked in Kitwe full time. I had never had a
proper girlfriend. I think six years of boarding school, stuck out in the bush
had left me lacking confidence and basic relating skills around girls. So for
me this was a big thing. It was now a great feeling to go parties and
activities and feel that I had someone to accompany me and make me feel
complete. I enjoyed her company but wasn’t shell shocked by the relationship as
some are. Girlfriend? Check – been there done that.
As part of our long holiday break Al and I had planned to go with our
cousin Robert Cornish to UK and skiing in Austria for a few weeks. Dad’s
contract with Anglo American included a trip “home” to UK every couple of years
for the family, so our fare was paid for. Robert, our cousin, was a good friend
and we had a great relationship. He was younger than Al, but older than me, so we
were all a similar age. He had never gone to university but managed a local
timber company in Ndola, about forty miles from Kitwe. Rob had just started
dating Judy Mason and he was head over heels in love.
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| L. to R. - Robert, Rob and Alan, in Amsterdam |
Having Rob with us added more than a touch of interest. Rob always the
tough guy, was not going to allow anyone to push him around nor was he going to
be taken advantage of by anyone trying to scam us. He had never travelled
overseas before and he was on high alert and practically bristling with
prickliness. For Al and I this was often helpful as Rob saved us from a couple
of tight spots, but he also was a bit more the rough diamond than we would have
liked at times. Our flight took us via Athens where we stayed for a day or two.
We bumped into a couple of friendly Greek guys in downtown Athens and next
thing they invited us to a nearby pub for a drink where they had friends. When
we got there, we were the only people in the place apart from a handful of quite
attractive looking women in the corner who began to make eyes at us. The
trouble began when we had to pay for our first drink. The charge was
astronomical. Robert grabbed one of our “friends” by the collar and forcefully
told him we were only paying half of that and walked out. This was repeated
again the next day, where we were having a drink at another place and the owner
brought us a small bowl of “complimentary” nuts to enjoy with our drinks. When
the bill arrived, the nuts had cost more than the combined cost of our drinks.
Once again Rob grabbed the guy by his collar and told him clearly that we were
not paying for the nuts and once again we walked out. Whilst not the
friendliest approach, Rob did seem to have a way of making the Greeks see our
point of view.
Rob’s problem was that he was in love and he was pining for Judy. By the
time we got to London he had already decided that he was cancelling his skiing
in Austria and was going home to Judy early. Al and I were a bit puzzled. Our
strong, prickly cousin Robert was like a mushy pussy cat when it came to Judy.
We secretly disapproved of how a girl could have such an effect on a guy. It
was a bit disturbing.
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| Auld Lang Syne in Trafalgar Square |
Our last night together was in London for New Year’s eve before Al and I
headed out skiing and Rob returned to his true love. We ended up at Trafalgar
Square for the midnight countdown. At the stroke of midnight everyone started
hugging and kissing each other. This was an opportunity not to be missed. I
ended up in a large circle of girls and guys singing Auld Lang Syne. The crowd
was so huge that Al, Rob and I very quickly got split up. Somehow Rob and I
re-connected and eventually we ended up at some of these young people’s
apartments where we all found a piece of carpet or couch to sleep. Al was just
missing. We had no idea where he’d ended up. Rob and I returned to our hotel
room the next morning and were relieved to find Al waiting for us there.
Unfortunately in all the fun and festivities of the previous evening he had
lost his traveler’s cheques. We reported the loss to the bank who promised to
make good, but not before we had to leave for Austria. We agreed that we would
have to make do with the money I had and bid farewell to Rob who left to go
back to Zambia.
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| Trafalgar Square - one of life's great places to be on New Year's Eve |
Neither Al nor I had skied before, so we had to have three or four days
of lessons in the village of Solden in Austria before we were let loose to try
out our skills on more than the nursery slopes. We were young and invincible so
we went for it. We had two weeks to become world class skiers. All I can say is
that I ended the two weeks with bruises, bumps and twisted joints but we were
fearless and our skill level went up dramatically.
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| Al looking like a pro |
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| Some of the crowd we connected with Rob back row on right. |
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| Rob and a couple of skiing buddies. |
Because Al had lost his traveler’s cheques we were a bit tight on our
budget. One thing we had discovered at our hotel in Austria was that if you
wanted a bath, you had to pay extra for it. As good Rhodesians we were used to
showering or bathing at will and it wasn’t unusual for us to shower twice a
day, so we regarded having to pay for a bath as a bit much. We devised a scheme
whereby one of us would pay for the key to the bathroom and then we would take
it in turns to bath before returning the key. Well the maid on our floor was
wise to this one and it wasn’t long before she started to lock us in the
bathroom until we promised extra payment. Al and I then got smart and went into
the bathroom at the same time. A bit more laborious but making do with our
remaining cash was vital.
Al and I returned from our skiing trip refreshed and ready to take on a
new year at UND. We had decided that we could live more cost effectively by
renting an apartment ourselves. Six of us had banded together and rented two 2 bedroom
apartments with an enclosed balcony at 10 Colenmore Road in Durban. We figured
the enclosed balconies could each double up as a third bedroom. Phil Hodgson,
Al and I rented one apartment and Ian Kelly and Charlie Summers, ex Falcon
friends and Kevin Cornish, our cousin, Robert’s brother, would rent the other
one. I had managed to make it through my first year of university and had not
come unglued. I figured life was good and I was now on my way to making my mark
in life.
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