I went to South Africa with 1900 Programming in 1970 and spent 3/4 fantastic years there - what a great place!!

Bit of trepidation before going - because of the Apartheid thing - didn't agree with that - how would I live with it??

It came out of the blue...I was working in the London office and Wal and I went skiing in his Marcos in March 1970, and on our return, Bassy and KPJ had decided that things were bad in South Africa, and it needed sorting out, so I'd go there with KPJ spending lots of time there too.

Arrived 10 May, 1970, into the Astor Hotel where all the new arrivals were put and had to endure the first 'dealing with black Africans/apartheid' sort of thing.... see below.

Within 30 minutes of arriving Fred Boulton (who I'd never met), Graeme Wallace (who I knew well) and a couple of others were downstairs ready for a few drinks and some lunch - and so it went - straight into the fray!

At the hotel, you could order a morning paper (or not), and a morning drink (or not) - I'd decided that rather than an alarm call - Room Service delivering ONLY a drink would be enough of a wake-up, so had asked for Hot Tea at 07:00AM. 

He was a lovely guy, and over the weeks I got to know him a bit, and we laughed and joked - good fun, but I'm sure that what he was doing was in some way - the African's revenge - because of Apartheid. Knock-knock - "room-service" - "Jesus, is it 07:00Am already?" - leap out of bed, go to door - there he is "Morning Bossy, your Coffee" - look at watch - its 04:30AM!! Tell him to bugger-off, go back to bed...... Knock-knock - "room-service"  - "Jesus, is it 07:00Am already again?" - leap out of bed, go to door - there he is "Morning Bossy, your Newspaper" - look at watch - its 05:15AM!! Tell him to bugger-off, go back to bed...... Knock-knock - "room-service"  - "Jesus, is it 07:00Am already again, again?" - leap out of bed, go to door - there he is "Morning Bossy, your Hot Chocolate" - look at watch - its 06:00AM!! ....etc... I don't think he got it exactly right any morning of my 2 week+ stay!! Nor would I have - if I'd had to endure what they (the Africans) did.

And on that subject.... (apartheid)! I think it was bad, inhuman and there wasn't much an individual could do about it.

I'll largely ignore descriptions of work, suffice to say that I transferred within 1900 Programming and therefore lots of socialising was done with work colleagues. Outside of work - life was great - I moved into a serviced apartment (The Augustus) in Illovo (northern suburbs of Johannesburg). All around were BIG houses in BIG grounds, with pools and tennis courts and well tended gardens - paradise! I had a variety of rented cars including South Africa's own (a Ranger) - which was basically a rebadged GM/Opel - managed to write it off on the way back from Durban.

Evenings were spent boozing in bars or at home and eating out - lots of time spent at Cafe Mozart, the Coffee Shop at Rand International Hotel etc whilst weekends were for "getting away from the city", mostly camping or staying at Holiday Inn type hotels:

• Durban was a favourite trip - leave around 17/18:00 on Friday evening (this is before the Expressway was built), and bash on through the Free State, stop for petrol at Harriesmith then through Van Reenen's Pass, off the Highveldt down to the Lowveldt, through Pietermaritzburg and into Durban - usually used to stay at Durban View Hotel, just 5/10 miles north at Umhlanger Rocks. 5 to 6 hours if you stopped for a bite at the petrol fill-up - 400+ miles - not bad! But the enjoyment of driving on empty roads (single lane in each direction), in total darkness - and seeing a small town (street lights etc..) on the horizon, and it getting nearer and nearer - really felt like "being all alone out there". In those days there was only 1 set of traffic lights - the whole way, and that was in one of those piddly dorps.
• Mozambique (Xai-Xai (pronounced Shy-Shy) or Zavora) these were reserved for longer weekends, because the border crossing at Komaatipoort closed around 22:00 until 06:00AM - I can remember joining the queue of cars around 01:00Am, and just snuggling down to sleep - there wasn't anything else to do - nothing there. Joburg to the border was about 350+ miles, and from there to Xai-Xai was through Lorenco Marques (now Maputo) - nothing great - but lots of Portuguese influence as you'd imagine - and then about another 200 miles up the coast - along paved roads, which were wide enough for only 1 car - so when another came in the other direction, or if there was an overtaking move - the etiquette was for both cars to put 2 of their wheels in the dirt and 2 on the tarmac, slackening speed only slightly. I remember Fred used to get fed up with this (in his punchy Peugeot) - I'd follow him, and when a car came in the other direction, I'd stay all 4 wheels on the tarmac, Fred would do likewise until about 100 yards separated he and oncomer, then he would swerve - as if out of control (left and right) - invariably the other guy dived for the dirt, and we'd both give  the thumbs up as we steamed on....stupid!! Camping at Xai-Xai was hot - I remember 112 F. degrees in the shade (and there wasn't any) one year, but there was super swimming with a "protective" reef keeping sharks out - except that some silly sod blew part of it up one year - so he could get his boat out into high-seas - and then of course there were the "blue-bottles" - jellyfish - swarms of them - but you had to ignore them - and get on and enjoy!! Remember Clive Lewis, Fred and I one year just hanging onto an inner tube and getting smashed by the surf - fantastic!! but we were always "frightened" about the sharks that may have been close by - ooooohhhh eeeeerrrrrr!! Great snorkeling on the reef.
• Swaziland & The Drakensbergs amazing scenery, and little African kraals everywhere, you could drive all day, stopping at waterfalls and view-sites and see very few other cars.
• Lesotho same as Swaziland - but if anything - more rugged scenery - lots of river erosion. Can remember arriving in the Swaziland capital Mbabane - Holiday Inn and seeing Ross (work colleague) and his wife Georgina at breakfast, not knowing they were going there that weekend. Next weekend - same thing happened in Lesotho/Maseru - travel 400+ miles to stay with people you work with!!
• Garden Route - Cape Town driving from Joburg down to the coast at Durban, and then all the way along the coast to Cape Town - fantastic mountainous and coastal scenery, Stellenbosch, the wineries and of course Cape Town, Cape Point etc.. you've seen the pictures - it really is that great. I once drove back from Cape Town to Joburg in 11h 55 mins - its something like 800/900 miles, but empty roads - I had the punchy Chrysler Valiant Rebel by then - good car!! One good experience was staying overnight in the Transkei or Ciskei (can't remember which) - in those days it was a Bantu Homeland - where oiks of that tribe were supposed to be able to self-govern etc... not much of a prospect considering the Homelands had no ability to trade with any countries they may border - anyway we tried to stay at the nicest looking hotel in the capital (forgotten its name too) - but we were refused - because we were white!! great!! OUR hotel was down the road - and wasn't too nice!!
• Desert and Big Hole at Kimberly the Big Hole is worth a visit (biggest man made hole in the world). I once stayed at a hotel with the Hole at the bottom of the garden. Dug by miners looking for gold or diamonds. Kimberly isn't much, but the route back from Cape Town goes through.
• Botswana only went there once on business - we were doing a project for the Government in the capital Gaborone - and what a one-horse town it was. Some idea may be gained from the fact that the capital of Botswana used to be in a different country (Mafeking in South Africa),before they decided to build Gaborone!!
• Rhodesia or Zimbabwe went there camping - a 4 week driving camping holiday. Joburg, north to Beit Bridge/Limpopo border and Bulawayo- then 900 miles up to Victoria Falls - stopping off at Wankie Game reserve (largest concentrations of elephant anywhere in the world - we saw one in 2 days!!). Vic Falls is great - the rain forest and up river cruise, then off to Salisbury/Harare (Matopos Hills are great) and Umtali, then off to the coast at Beira in Mozambique from where we'd planned to drive down the coast on a "newly completed highway" - didn't exist, and we ended up doing about 3,000 miles going back into Rhodesia out into South Africa then back into Mozambique to get to Xia-Xai

Fred Boulton's flat in Berea became a bit of a Sunday morning thing - buy some booze and the Sunday papers on the way there (if you hadn't picked them up from a seller at the traffic lights on the way home late Saturday night/early Sunday morning) - then just sit listening to good music - on the Sinclair Hi-Fi.

I moved into a fantastic pad again in Illovo, next door to the Augustus. It was a large house (maybe 4/5 bedrooms) with small cottages (rondhavels) throughout the gardens. The guy who owned it didn't live there, and only rented out a couple of rooms in the main house and all the rondhavels ONLY to male bachelors. What a time we had. There were about 10 servants (cooks, cleaners etc..) my car was washed every morning, there was a beautiful garden with pool and every Saturday or Sunday in the Spring/Summer there would be a barbecue. Shame - I went back there years later, and it had all been knocked down and bull-dozed into the pool prior to being remade into a small apartment block....memories!

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