Boys love forts. Give them a few planks and a barrel and, voila, they make a fort and proceed to declare war on the world. Bush must have been big on forts but this story is about a hedge and not a bush.
Continue readingThe Hedge: Fort B
Elizabeth Daisy McCleland: Overcoming Adversity
Granny Mac was more than our grandmother, she was the matriarch of the family. Adversity came in many forms, all steeling her for the next calamity. But she endured, persevered and overcame all these trials and trubulations. First the family lost its farm on the Gamtoos due to floods, then the cattle herd at De Stades due to rinderpest, but the cherry on the top was the death of her husband, Harry William, due to Black Water Fever in 1925. Despite all this misfortune and adversity, she survived and prospered. With her tiny frame and diminutive size, she was the epitome of the fighter that she was.
This is the story of that amazing woman.
Main picture: Schoenmakerskop and Daisy’s Tea Room with its famous home-made buns became a popular destination due to the convergence of a number of simultaneous events namely the invention of the motor car and the opening of the coastal road to Schoenies in 1922.
Continue readingGuy Fawkes: Gives you Wings
I think our kids have missed out on a great deal of fun
Guy Fawkes was as eagerly anticipated as Christmas. The presents were better at Christmas but nothing could touch the excitement or the sheer irresponsibility of it. Boys were designed with this in mind – launching rockets from your back garden, Catherine wheels spinning, Roman candles spewing and daring each other to hold lady crackers in your hand. I think I managed to progress to a big bang resting on an open palm. In short I was a woes.
Main picture: Typical Balsa wood model aircraft construction
Continue readingMy Rocket Scientist Brother: A Youth of Normality
This blog just comprises vignettes written by my brother mainly to prove that despite his intelligence, he had a normal upbringing. What is singularly important is that he experienced the same anxieties, boredom and surprises as the rest of us. Only now after 50 years have I finally heard about Blaine’s entanglement with the law. What an admission. I never knew a thing. This is a random collection of Blaine’s musings of a life in a different age, an age of innocence and discovery. This is Blaine’s story.
A Footnote to History: Boys as German Soldiers during WW2
I have always been fascinated how a youngster would cope with the ardours of war. In the case of the indoctrinated youths of the Hitler Jugend perhaps that were able to endure it as they were supposedly the Herrenvolk, Master Race. Notwithstanding that, can the level of brainwashing overcome the trauma of war? This blog contrasts two such callow youths.
The best known example is a 15 year old lad by the name of Wilhelm “Willi” Hubner in March 1945. Hubner, short for his age, possessed the visage of a 10 year old and the vocal register or pitch of a young child. With a naivety belying the deadly job that he was performing, he fixed his gaze on Hitler as he approached the squad of German youths about to be rewarded for their acts of valour.
Main picture: Adolf Hitler congratulating Hitlerjugend boys including Wilhelm Hubner
Continue reading
Blister Juice and Other Hiking Tales
After a long hiatus, I heard it again on the Florence Hill Trail at Kaapschehoop last weekend: blister juice as the punctured blister squirted its clear liquid in all directions. Every sport has its own unique vernacular. Often this argot is used regionally whereas often it applies only to a coterie of friends. So it is with the Quo Vadis Hiking Club. This blog covers the transformation of Quo Vadis over a 25 year period from the first blush of innocent youth to a club of geriaterics.
In our youth – when I was 40 years old – a lot was left unstated. Instead it was the competitive male spirit which generated the signals and subtle unobtrusive signs. The six day 120 km Amatola Hike in 1989 epitomised that unspoken communication. Unfortunately Kurt was at the peak of his Comrades and Iron Man prowess while Mike Brown was not a laggard in the running stakes either. Having recently completed a marathon in Edinburgh, Scotland in a whisker over three hours, he certainly was no slough.
Main picture: Looking back to Kaapsehoop
How could they ever have permitted adverts like this?
In this era, Political Correctness had clearly not been invented. Women were meant to occupy the kitchen and babies to drink copious quantities of Coke. What about smoking? Even the doctors were advised their clients to smoke.
What will our grandchildren berate us for? Advertising breads and pasta. Perhaps even hamburgers will a distant memory with the Golden Arches of a McDonalds only serving fatty foods and salads but no carbohydrates or starches. That is the excruciating difficulty in making predictions about the future as the future is synonymous with change but where will that change lead us to.
What it sometimes takes to get to School
As a child we never got a lift to school. In Primary School it was on foot albeit only for half a dozen blocks. High School was a little further, so I cycled to school. Given the fact that my mother could not drive, and that we were a one car family, that was our lot. In my children’s generation, they never experienced the pleasures of walking or cycling to school as they were fetched and carried.
In the case of many third world children, even our experiences are minor in comparison. This blog highlights their plight or perhaps that their real determination to obtain an education.
Main picture: Children of Gulu in China should be run up to 5 hours on a cliff path that is sometimes 50 inches wide to reach their schools
Quintessential Images of Various Countries
Every country has its own set of images which evokes the essence of that country; England with its lush verdant fields, Norway with its fjords and Japan’s paddy fields. Each of these photographs will evoke such a response: “It only happens in…………”
Main picture: This was an easy one. Of course it could only be Australia where one would take a pet kangaroo to the supermarket.
The Yukon Quest: The World’s Toughest Dogsled Race
Of the dogsled races, its contemporary, the Iditarod is the better known. Both cover 1600kms of frozen terrain. In the case of the Quest it stretches from Whitehorse, the tiny capital of the Yukon to Fairbanks in the heart of the Alaskan interior. Notwithstanding that, of the two the Quest is widely acknowledged to be the more difficult.
The surprising aspect of the race is the unbelievable resilience and hardiness of the dogs. The most prevalent breed is the Alaskan Husky as opposed to its purebred Siberian variety. Their stamina is demonstrated by the ability to run all the way between check points which are up to 320 kms apart with tails still wagging as if it was a Sunday picnic jaunt.