I was met at Salisbury station at 07h30 Friday morning by Malcolm and delivered to the “mess” – Sawley Close, Marlborough. He returned and collected me around lunchtime, after I had unpacked etc, and we went into town where I had a good walk around and called in at the Bank. That evening we met up with the other two housemates at the Quorn Hotel and promptly got plastered!
Unprecedented, unfettered bachelorhood had arrived with a bang! I celebrated my 21st birthday several weeks later having received a “goodie parcel” which included champagne, presents et al from Mom and Dad - I still have the silver (electro-plated) beer mug engraved with my name - all delivered compliments of Stuttafords!
Within a couple of days it became very clear that transport was a big, big problem! I had no money but was whipped off into town to meet Colin Underwood, who “wheeled and dealed”. Against all bank regulations, I handed over six post-dated cheques of £40 each, no deposit necessary, and drove out – broke but proud - in my first car: a beige 1954 Austin A40 Somerset. This car was something special as I say, it was reliable, although not a speedster, and did us a trip to Cape Town.
A couple of weeks later I awoke in the middle of the night with the most appalling toothache – paid an emergency visit to the dentist the next morning had my two front teeth removed. Virtually ten years to the day after smashing them in the Camps Bay swimming pool, a sizeable abscess had developed and erupted!
The social life was fantastic (notwithstanding the shortage of cash which was being expended on my car!) and we spent quite a lot of time at the bank’s sports and social club. We spent many weekends with Trevor and Shirley Main at Mtoroshanga. He was a marvellous engineer, brilliant with cars, and worked on the Muriel chrome mine – there was a mine sports club and we generally spent Saturday nights there dancing etc.
(Ed: Trevor and Shirley also retired to Somerset West.)
I met up with Mike Pomfret, from Stuttafords, who had worked for my Dad in Cape Town, and he introduced me to the Mashonaland Flying Club. At a braai one Sunday I won a raffle for a flight and thus had my first ever aeroplane ride. The pilot was Zack Bondi – who co-owned City Printers – and who happened to be the top acrobatic flyer in the club - the plane was a Tiger Moth. Of course the Tiger Moth has an open cockpit and there I was dressed like Biggles, three sheets to the wind, flying upside down backside-off-the-seat through barrel rolls and loop-the-loops. Mind-blowing but definitely not good for the stomach!
I had promised my parents I would do all I could to return home for Christmas and somehow managed to persuade the Bank to let me have leave – probably carried over. Through a newspaper advert, I met up at the Alex Sports Club with a Hollander guy (Kuys?) who was also going down to family in Bellville and we agreed to share driving and costs.
BUT - a few weeks before leaving, actually in about the last week of November, I happened to look up from my desk to see a vision – a blonde, suntanned beauty in white blouse and shortish skirt – she was waiting to see the Accountant, obviously for an interview. Not in a lustful or lewd sense I remember clearly saying to myself: “THAT is for me!” She started work within a week or two in a department very close to where I was stationed and we began chatting on a regular basis – she introduced herself: Maureen Cowell. In my Dad’s words “and that started the ball rolling!”
The trip to Cape Town was something of a nightmare. We had to go via Bulawayo as the rainy season had begun, From Fort Victoria to Beit Bridge there were still strip-roads and the low-level bridges were susceptible to flooding. We drove non-stop – supposed to be sharing the driving but Kuys was carsick just two hours after departure, meaning that I did virtually all the driving. We arrived “home” exhausted. One thing I did for my Mom was to take delivery of a new Renault Dauphine, which, accompanied by Glynn, we “ran in” on a trip to Ceres and back via Worcester. This car was later to take a trip backwards down the drive, as the old Chevy had done, but this time ending up in the Bell’s hedge across the road!
The holiday was fine. However, it was already noticeable that I was fading from the “old crowd” but what did emerge, I am convinced, was that my decision to leave home in terms of giving both myself and Bobby “space”, was right and we have been the best of friends ever since. That New Year’s Eve was a time for saying goodbye to a decade, to my youth, to old relationships and to look forward to standing on my own two feet, plunging into my career, broadening horizons and forging new relationships.