My Rocket Scientist Brother: How the Mind Works

By Dean McCleland in McClelands, Other Personal 0 Comment

By 11 years of age, I was reading the newspaper from cover to cover. In addition with my limited pocket money I did not purchase comics like the rest of my friends but magazines such as Look and Learn. I was enthralled with the world that opened up. What finally caught my attention was the part work by Purnell entitled The History of the Second World War. Even though Blaine was only 9 years old, he had to listen to my expounding on all these issues – the Holocaust, the rabid racist Nazis and of course their wonder weapons. Initially it was a monologue but soon Blaine would contribute. What was fascinating partly in retrospect was how his mind worked compared to mine. This is that story.

Main picture: This Guy Fawkes was not going to have a huge straw Guy Fawkes or an even bigger bon fire. Rather being Kentron engineers, it might not be a guided missile but at least it was a potent rocket. Talk about taking work home with you.

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My Rocket Scientist Brother

By Dean McCleland in McClelands, Other Personal 0 Comment

Perhaps it is not common knowledge but my brother can validly be awarded the sobriquet of “rocket scientist.” Certainly as regards intelligence it was indubitably true but definitely not in the nerdish dilettantish sense. What was it like to have a brother who was four years younger than one oneself yet who was nonetheless intellectually one’s superior?

Main picture: This is a huge drawing that Blaine did on his bedroom wall. It was so perfect that I always wondered why he did not do more sketches or drawings
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Haircuts: Barberous Acts

By Blaine McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands 0 Comment

This is another episode in his Vignettes of Youth series whereby he recalls the quirks and oddities of life in Port Elizabeth during the 1960s and 1970’s when life was far simpler but discipline was more stringent. No doubt psychologists reading these sketches will be aghast and wonder aloud why our generation was not more ill-adjusted due to the trauma inflicted upon us by parents who did not appreciate the latest hair fashion: long hair. And I wanted mine as long as possible

Main picture: For us as pre pubescent youths, La Pebra was more important than food. Why we attached such importance to it, I will never know.

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The Spoon Rest: Lost in Translation

By Blaine McCleland in Family Histories, McClelands 0 Comment

One day when I was in about standard 4 Mom decided that she needed a spoon rest while she was cooking.  I asked her what it was and I said that I would make her one, in fact I would make her a double one.  She described it as having a concave part where the bowl of the spoon could lie and a raised bit at the back for the handle.  With these scanty design specifications, I went to work.  I incorporated the technical features and added some customisation of my own.  After a few days of cutting, filing and sanding pieces of fruit case wood, I produced my masterpiece piece

Main picture: Lost in Translation

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Arachnophobia: Spiderman I Ain’t

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 0 Comment

They say that much of what we are, we learn at the knee of our parents.  Well, I learnt my fear of spiders from Mom.  Maybe she learnt that from her mom but, then again, Granny Dix looked so stern that she would have scared away the spiders.  Mom was terrified of them to the point of irrationality.  Unfortunately for her, the rain spider is endemic in Southern Africa and, I must admit, they are big, hairy and scary.  To her they were not the gentle rain spider, they were the worst thing she could think of – tarantulas.

Main picture: One of at least 6 rain spiders that inhabited our bedroom

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God: Losing my Religion

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands, Religion 1 Comment

Coming from a pretty religious family, Dad must have been a disappointment. My great, great grandfather, Rev Francis McCleland, was the first Rector of the St Mary’s Church. Our family actually owns a square foot of the historical parsonage house at 7 Castle Hill, P.E.

Main picture: As dad was an atheist and mom was religious, the church which we were supposed to attend as children was the Newton Park Methodist Church

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Moon Landing: A Small Step for Man, A Large Leap For Boykind

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 0 Comment

1969 was a momentous year.   It was my senior year in primary school and I was doing well at school.  My brain had been awakened and was like blotting paper to this fascinating world.  My interests rampaged across the sciences of aeronautics, electronics, chemistry, physics, astronomy and quite naturally space travel.  I stalked the main public library for interesting books.  I discovered the separate Reference section and photostated pages from the various Janes[1]  so that Dean and I could discuss the latest weapon systems at home.   They were carefully selected because of economic strictures.

Man on the moon#1
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Radiogram: New Adventures in Hi-Fi

By Blaine McCleland in McClelands 0 Comment

Vignettes on Youth Series

We had a big valve radio.  At some stage it sat in the dining room on a side table.  We must have listened to it many times as a family as Dad and radios were a single organism.  However, I only remember one occasion.

Picture idyllic the scene:  It’s a cold winter’s night with Dad and Mom sitting in chairs on either side of the table and a single bar heater in the front.  Dean and Cheryl are on the carpet reading and drawing and I am also drawing – copying a picture from a Noddy book.  It’s the one on the inside cover that shows Noddy and Big Ears in his car with Toyland in the background.  I consider myself to be an excellent artist and this is my best work yet, in fact it’s a perfect facsimile.  I rush over to my parents to show them and it slips out of my hand and onto the element.  Spoof.  My masterpiece is bursts into flames without the world, as least my parents, having seen what I’m capable of.

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