Saturday 12 November 2011: 5 years 3 months on … Deuce
I have written before that Home is where the Heart is - about a number of places where I am privileged to have lived or visited.
But now I have a broken heart. It is split and parts remain in those wonderful places.
Stellenbosch is where I was born and educated.
There is the greater Cape Town Metropole including the City of Cape Town itself and the Hottentots-Holland basin: The Strand, Somerset West and Gordons Bay where I was raised and spent my formative years.
Then there is the United States of America, in general, and Oklahoma and Sulphur in particular. I lived and went to school there too.
There is the Eastern Cape where I have lived for the past twenty-seven years.
I have visited Londres no less than seven times.
It is the city of my surname, my forefathers and my dreams: the New Jerusalem to which I look forward. But, if that destination is anything better than London, it can only be called Heaven!
And from the noise and bustle and coloured tracks of the tube trains of London, there is the quietness and simplicity and dust tracks of The Karoo.
With each of these places comes the so many people who are my friends and acquaintances.
The simpler one’s life, the less one has to give up and the less one has to say goodbye to.
The more privilege, the more pleasure, the more places, the more people, the more presents, the more pets, the more paper, the more photos, the more possessions, …
Yes, the more parts of your heart …
And the more parts lead to the more partings and the more pain.
It is hard to start saying goodbye to a hundred places, a thousand people and a million pipe-dreams.
Saturday 9 July 2011: 4 years 10 months on … Advantage ED
Last week came the news that Port Elizabeth’s stately King Edward Hotel on the Donkin Reserve (next door to the original Grey Institute Building), dating back to 1903, had closed its doors after 108 years.
She has left many a tale, many stories, many recollections, many memories, and long will they continue.
This weekend we have learned of the “End of the World”, the closure of the British tabloid newspaper, the News of the World, after 168 years.
It will leave many a tale, many stories, many recollections, many memories, and long will they continue.
One hundred years ago, at 12:13pm on 31 May 1911, the hull of the Titanic was launched in Belfast, Ireland. She “lived” for less than a year and, as we all know, sank on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York on 15 April 1912.
She has left many a tale, many stories, many recollections, many memories, and long will they continue.
One hundred years ago, in 1911, a new Rector of Port Elizabeth’s The Grey Institute High School was installed. He was William Archer Way (b 1869) and would preside over the progress and development of the school during the next seventeen years of his reign, until he passed away in 1928.
He has left many a tale, many stories, many recollections, many memories, and long will they continue.
In fact, “his name has become legend, and history confirms the popular claim that his noble conception of education, imposed with such intellectual charm, did much to raise the school to its lofty stature it maintains so admirably to this day.” (1)
Upon his commencement as Rector, he identified two basic inadequacies in the school structure. The first was that of the 210 boys in the High School (then from Std 3 to matriculation), less than twelve were in the highest (matriculation) class.
The second cardinal weakness, in Mr Way’s opinion, was the absence of boarders.
He immediately acted and obtained temporary accommodation in the vicinity of the School on the Donkin Reserve for boys wishing to become boarders. The first house was Gowan Hill in Bird Street (directly opposite what was then the Collegiate Girls’ School). The second house, Rose Cottage, was added the following year, right next door to the Grey in Havelock Street (and opposite the King Edward Hotel) and a third house, Norwood, adjoining Gowan Hill, was added a few months later.
Eleven youths, who had been with Mr Way at Graaff-Reinet High School (he had previously been at Dale in King William’s Town and then Graaff-Reinet) soon joined him in Port Elizabeth and became the nucleus of the boarding establishment of The Grey.
Those eleven lads from Graaff-Reinet (with recognisable surnames still today) were Bernard, Eric and Guy Hobson, Everitt and Petrus Enslin, George and Cecil Davenport, Wilfred Lee, Edward Wille, Gert Bekker, and one surnamed Dodds.
So, today 100 years later, we wish Grey’s Boarding House, the nucleus of the School (and now known as Meriway – after Rectors Meredith and Way) a very Happy 100th Birthday!
It has left many a tale, many stories, many recollections, many memories, and long will they continue with the many boarders who have resided there (including me as Boarding House Master (1984 – 1986) and Sean as boarder and prefect (2009 – 2010)).
Interestingly, as Grey’s First Cricket Team returns from touring England tomorrow, it is also 100 years ago in 1911 that Rector Way (who also played in the First XI) invited the first English cricket professional, H. Myers (from the Yorkshire Country Eleven) to spend the summer in Port Elizabeth coaching the boys.
During the first four years of his tenure (1911 – 1915) and as the First World War Clouds gathered, Rector Way would also oversee the planning, building and moving of the Grey (High School) from the Donkin Reserve to its present site and magnificent buildings on the Mill Park campus.
For the next four years, therefore, there will be a number of 100-year milestones in the life of the school to commemorate and celebrate.
Monday 4 July 2011: 4 years 10 months on … Game ED
Happy 235th Birthday United States of America from your proud Honorary Oklahoman and African American son!
Thirty five years ago, in 1975 / 1976, I had just finished my schooling in the USA when she was celebrating her 200th birthday! Upon returning to South Africa in January 1976, I found something here that was not here before and had never been here before I left.
A television set now graced our lounge at home!
Every night, just before six, the family closed the curtains and waited for the orange, white and blue TV logo (to us it looked like a toilet seat) to appear on the 51cm colour PAL TV set. Then came the Bible reading and prayer, the kiddies’ programmes, the magazine programme, the sport show, the 8 o’clock news bulletin, the adventure programme and the serial. At 11pm, the orange, white and blue (old) South African flag fluttered in the breeze while the symphony orchestra played the (old) National Anthem, the Call of South Africa. Thereafter, the test pattern would grace the screen until six pm the following night, when the whole process would repeat itself.
With one difference!
On Monday night, the programme would commence in English and remain in English until after the News at 8:30pm. Then the language would swap over to Afrikaans until the test pattern appeared at 11:00pm. Tuesday night would start in Afrikaans and change over to English at 8:30pm.
Strictly two and a half hours of each language every night. We were, after all, a bilingual nation of 3 million white people and, in those days, we chose to forget about the 30 million black Xhosas, Zulus, Ndebeles, Sotho’s , …! All that was about to start changing when Hector Pieterson and the children of SOWETO started the Soweto Riots on 16 June 1976 (which we commemorated two weeks ago on what we now call Youth Day) and which would alter the history of this country forever.
TV programmes such as Haas Das, Wielie Walie, Dallas, Longstreet, The World at War, High Chapperal, Bonanza, The Avengers became household names in a nation that had never experienced television before.
And on Saturday afternoons (and never on Sundays, because God said that mankind should rest on the Sabbath!) we watched strictly bilingual sport, too. There was tennis from Tarkastad, bowls from Benoni, darts from Durban, jukskei vanaf Johannesburg, brug vanaf Bloemfontein, cricket from Cape Town, chess from Carnarvon, netball vanaf Nelspruit and rugby van Reg oor die Land.
Maar niks van die buiteland nie! (“But nothing from overseas!”)
Because of our apartheid policies, we were the skunks of the world and banned from international sport – participation therein and watching thereof!
Banned from everything – all, except for whatever reason I can’t remember, the Wimbledon tennis championships.
So, our annual dose of international sport became the All Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships held each year in June and July. Armed with champagne and strawberries and cream, we would curl up in our winter woollies watching, on Sunday afternoon, televised directly and live from that favourite city of mine, LONDRES, the men’s final match of the tournament.
And then on Sunday 7 July 1985, I was in England with the sanctions-busting Grey Touring Cricket team, and we eagerly watched the final at Seaford College in Petworth, West Sussex. South African born (and just two-month then naturalised American citizen) Kevin Curren took on the 17-year old unseeded German Boris Becker in the final. Unfortunately for us, but fortunately for the Germans, he would become the youngest and first German and unseeded player to win at Wimbledon and it would be the first of Boris’s 3 Wimbledon championship titles.
In 1999, Pera and I were in Wimbledon, staying with John (an ex-teaching colleague) and Sue Galloway at King’s College. John dropped us off at the tennis grounds, and we watched, with thousands of others, the final on the big screen attached to the outside of centre court from the Terraces which we had seen so often on TV! We rubbed shoulders with Ernie Els and ate our strawberries and cream and Magnums.
And, after Pete Sampras had beaten Andre Agassi in the All-American final, exactly 12 years ago to the day on Sunday 4 July 1999 (6 – 3, 6 – 4, 7 – 5 ) , we walked back in the bright evening English sunshine to the Galloway’s house, across the Wimbledon Common and past the pubs, the Crooked Billet and the Hand in Hand, where we had spent the previous evening, sitting outside drinking our ales in the fading sunlight at 10pm!
Now, with the advent of the New South Africa, we are back on the world stage. In a world moved on from restful God-forsaken Sundays and a one-channel SABC TV (Thank God!) to digital and satellite technology, tennis barely competes with the international rugby, cricket, athletics and football.
But, yesterday, in a cold and rainy Port Elizabeth, we watched, sans champagne, strawberries and cream, as Novak Djokovic beat Rafael Nadal 4 sets to 1 to become the newest Wimbledon champion.
Ironically, the 2011 Grey Touring Cricket team was playing against an Old Grey side at King’s College in Wimbledon at the same time! And in a new South Africa, Wimbledon and Raynes Park in London have become the home to so many South Africans who have emigrated to the United Kingdom in search of that greener grass.
But, the grand slam of life is like tennis: it’s not always strawberries and cream, and the grass isn’t always greener on the other side. People move from one side to the other in search of the perfect sweet spot.
And It it’s not always love all. There are good serves and there are bad. There are many break points. And one often has to come from behind to beat the challenges. We win some and we lose some. We take the game but lose the set, or lose the game and win the set. Sometimes, we do get the break.
As the world watches your every move, sometimes you are wide off the mark. Sometimes it’s a let; sometimes you are out and sometimes in; sometimes you make forced errors and sometimes unforced errors; sometimes you are in the net! You make good shots and you make poor shots. Sometimes it’s your advantage, sometimes it’s theirs.
There are times, when the tension builds, that you need the “Quiet Please”!
The bounce is not always to your advantage and when the rains come, you need to be inventive: adapt and build your roofs to avoid delays. You need a team effort.
But we also have our faults. We may think “it’s just a lot of balls” and a “pain in the bum”! We let ourselves go. We don’t always know where the lines are; we grunt and we groan.
All the time, we need our dream to win; and we need to live our dream. We have to concentrate. We must control our mind. We must keep our eye on the ball We need to say “What a shot!”
In the rallies of Life, we have to make sacrifices to get to the top. To be a Champion, we also sometimes need to stop and smell the roses, and, like Djokovic, taste the grass.
Yes, for all of us, there comes the call of the Great Umpire: “Time!” And this life is not a practice or the test pattern - it’s the real thing and the only one we will ever have!
Friday 24 June 2011: 4 years 9 months on … Game ED!
INVICTUS
(from the Latin meaning Undefeated or Unconquered)
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
English poet: William Ernest Henley (1849–1903)
At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 17. Stoicism inspired him to write this poem. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53.
The poem was written in 1875 in a book called Book of Verses, where it was number four in several poems called Life and Death (Echoes). At the beginning it bore no title. Early printings contained only the dedication To R. T. H. B.—a reference to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846–1899), a successful Scottish flour merchant and baker who was also a literary patron. The title “Invictus” (Latin for “unconquered”) was put in the Oxford Book of Verse by Arthur Quiller-Couch.
The poem has Influenced the arts ever since.
In the 1942 film Casablanca, Captain Renault, a corrupt official played by Claude Rains recites the last two lines of the poem when talking to Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, referring to his power in Casablanca. The irony in the reference is that the theme of the poem refers to self-mastery, when in fact all of Renault’s power in Casablanca is merely granted.
In the 1945 film Kings Row, Parris Mitchell, a psychiatrist played by Robert Cummings, recites part of “Invictus” to his friend Drake McHugh, played by Ronald Reagan, before revealing to Drake that his legs were unnecessarily amputated by a cruel doctor.
While incarcerated on Robben Island prison, Nelson Mandela recited the poem to other prisoners and was empowered by its message of self mastery.
The poem was used in a voice-over by Lucas Scott in the television series, One Tree Hill.
Canadian poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen recited the poem as an introduction to his own song “The Darkness”, during a couple of shows on his 2010 world tour, most notably at his State Kremlin Palace show.
In Napoleon Hill’s book, Think And Grow Rich, this poem is quoted and discussed. Hill added that, we are master and captain, “ . . . because we have the power to control our thoughts”. We are warned that this “power”, alluded to in Henley’s poem, “ . . . makes no attempt to discriminate between destructive thoughts and constructive thoughts”. Napoleon Hill explains that the conscious choice is laid upon the individual and suggests that the poet left others to, “. . . interpret the philosophical meaning of his lines”.
The poem was important to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, who recited it on the day of his execution.
Novelist Jeffrey Archer quoted the poem in the first volume of his A Prison Diary series ‘Hell’ which recounted his time inside HMP Belmarsh.
“Invictus” is also a 2009 biographical sports drama film directed by Clint Eastwood starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted here following the dismantling of apartheid. Freeman and Damon play, respectively, South African President Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar, the captain of the South African rugby team, the Springboks. (1)
The 1995 Rugby World Cup Final was played between the Springboks and the New Zealand All Blacks at Ellis Park in Johannesburg exactly 16 years ago today on Saturday 24 June 1995.
For three weeks, prior to this big day, we had lived through World Cup euphoria (something similar, although not quite as big, as last year’s Football World Cup).
Together with friends and family, we had planned a day of festivities around the Final and which would culminate in that South African tradition of all traditions, the all-important braai!
Well, we never got to participate in the events planned for the day.
Pera was six months pregnant and due at the end of September 1995. (We previously lost a second son who had been still-born in November 1994.) Early on the morning of the Final, I woke up to hear her screaming in the kitchen. The baby (at 26 weeks) was threatening to come out and I rushed her to St George’sHospital, where we spent the rest of that day. The doctors managed to prevent the birth, Pera remained in hospital and late that evening I drove up Cape Road on my way home.
Everywhere, the fires were burning, people were partying in the street and ecstasy, excitement and exhilaration pervaded the country. We had beaten the All Blacks 15 points to 12 and the World Cup was ours – the rugby kings of the World! (To this day, I have never watched THAT game in its entirety, but, of course, I have many times seen the photograph of THAT drop goal that sealed the game in our favour and which hangs in just about every boardroom and pub in this country!)
It was a tremendous boost for our fragile new democracy born in 1994 and barely one year old!
But talking about births … for the next two weeks, the baby threatened to be born. On the night of 6 July, with Pera’s gynaecologist, Dr Caras Ferreira, out of town, Dr Ivan Berkowitz was hurriedly called from a formal dinner to St George’s Hospital when, once again, it was touch and go. He arrived at midnight in his tuxedo and bow-tie.
(I knew Ivan and Harriet well, and we have remained friends to this day.
Ten years prior to this, in June/July 1985, the Grey First Eleven went on the first Grey overseas cricket tour to England and Holland. Darryl Berkowitz was Headboy of Grey in that year and a member of the touring team that I accompanied, together with Rod McCleland, Keith Crankshaw, Dickie Ogilvie, Neil Thomson and Charles Pautz. We sold tickets for that dreaded VW Golf and raised funds together with the Berks (and all the other parents) and also had our return party at their home in Conyngham Street.
It was so good to meet up with many of the members of that touring team at last year’s and this year’s 25th Reunions at the school. And, as I write this, the Grey cricket team is once again touring England. We wish them good luck and happy travelling!)
Anyway, Ivan explained that Pera would have to remain in hospital for the rest of her pregnancy, and that if he did not deliver the baby soon, we would lose either Pera or the baby.
And, so it was, on the next morning, Friday 7 July 1995, sixteen years ago, that our second son (and we had previously been told by the gynaecologist to expect a girl) was born by caesarean section at twenty seven weeks and weighing 1,3 kg. Our previous son was due to be called Phillip, so this baby was named Phillip John. He spent the next two months in the incubator at the hospital, and cost the medical aid about double the price of our very first house that I had bought!
Phillip John Lunnon (our Dr Phil!) celebrates his sixteenth birthday in two week’s time. Now, at six feet and three inches, he is the tallest in the family, beating me at six feet and Sean at six feet and two inches!
He is our fighter – our very own Invictus.
There have been times that I did not think that I would make it to his sixteenth birthday but I, too, am a fighter.
I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
It was a way of communicating my activities and my state of health to my friends and family. The word “blog” comes from the contraction of the two words “web” and “log”. A blog is simply a “web log” of one’s activities – a sort of electronic diary available for all to read.
So my writing of blogs had two goals: one was to be a diary of my last days on this earth; the other to raise awareness about my illness, corticalbasal degeneration (CBD), a form of motor neurone disease and a virtually unknown syndrome when I became ill now four years and eight months ago.
In the beginning, the blogs flowed fast and furiously. My brain’s ability to work with figures was replaced with a new-found ability to write prose. I have written some 160 blogs to date, and they have been read online by more than 22 000 “hits”.
In the last month or so, the writing has not been so easy or so regular. My ability to type has been severely restricted, and I have been making use of voice recognition software to assist me. However, I now find that my cognitive abilities are also declining, and it is not always easy to put into writing what is going round in my head! My ability to get around and to do the so many things that I have written about in the past has also become more restricted.
So, the last few weeks have become even more challenging. However, it is even more important now to stay busy and to keep my mind occupied as much as possible.
That’s easier said than done: my hands are affected and so manual work is difficult; my short-term memory and concentration is affected and so reading and movies are problematic; my ability to multi-task and order is affected, so organising things are not easy. (The Gilbert and Sullivan production of OKLAHOMA last week tested my skills in that regard and I think I have now met my match!) Even my ability to sit has become a problem – the spasms that I get down my left side become more pronounced when I sit for a while.
It has however allowed me more time just to relax and to watch TV – normally CNN or Sky News. It has opened a whole new world for me – and what a world and global village we live in!
I have written before about living in moving times!
Over the last period of time, I have witnessed the earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan and the tsunami in Japan. I know no-one in Japan but I have a sister in New Zealand.
Then there have been the floods, the droughts, the fires and the tornadoes. Just yesterday, we saw the death and devastation in Joplin, Missouri, USA caused by a tornado that is reported to have killed more people than any other before it. Our family was in Joplin in 2001 when we visited the USA, and my American “family” live close by in Cassville and at Table Rock Lake, Missouri.
There has been the Arab Spring – the uprisings in the north of on our own continent. First, there was Tunisia, then Egypt, now Libya and Syria and all the other smaller Middle Eastern countries. There is the whole Israeli / Palestinian challenge that has raised its head once again – and, as I write, the Israeli Prime Minister is addressing the American Congress, in a room that I have visited in the House in Washington DC.
There were the northern hemisphere winter snowstorms and the Ash Cloud this time last year from the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull that disrupted life around the globe. Just one year later, we have that volcanic ash cloud problem all over again – almost de je vu.
The upheavals of the world remind me of the challenges that we face in our personal lives. They come at regular intervals to us all, and they provide the rungs that raise us higher and the stepping stones that make us stronger.
But, as in our personal lives, we also experience the pleasant things in our world.
Recently, we spent much time watching the Royal Wedding. I was in London in June 1981, just before Charles married Diana. The hype then, as now, was unbelievable.
Then there was the recent visit of Queen Elizabeth II to Ireland – a country much like our own in that it has had its fair share of problems and challenges. I had the pleasure of visiting Dublin in November last year, and it surprised me that I had visited that City before the Queen (I wondered if she may have ever gone there before – incognito?!)
The history of Ireland is so very similar to that of South Africa. And the peace that they now experience there, ratified in their Good Friday Agreement signed on Good Friday, 10 April 1998, can in part be ascribed to our own lessons learnt that led to the birth of the New South Africa on 27 April 1994. (Our own elections last week were testimony of the peace that we now enjoy.)
I enjoyed tracing the Queen’s steps through Dublin as she visited many of the places that I had the privilege of visiting last year: the Garden of Remembrance, Croke Park, Dublin Castle, the Liffey River, and, of course, the home of “The Black Stuff”, the Guiness Brewhouse! Her steps in the summer were, of course, very different to mine in the heavy snowfalls of last December.
And, I have enjoyed watching the President of the United States, Barack Obama, visiting Ireland (and tasting the Black Stuff) and London. And, indeed, even as he can trace his roots to Ireland, I can trace my roots to Ireland (on my maternal grandmother’s side) and to Wookey Hole, Somerset, England (on my paternal grandfather’s side).
When our family visited Buckingham Palace in 2001, Sean (then 9 years old and clinging to those famous railings that surround the Palace) asked why SHE needed such a large house. Well, tonight as the Queen entertains 171 guests to dinner (with 2000 knives and 5 wine glasses per person!) I can now see why SHE needs it!
Ten years later, our pleasant things: we celebrated Sean’s nineteenth birthday last week; we saw, on Tuesday, the production Oklahoma (where I went to school in 1975) and yesterday, I made an amazing discovery.
The ongoing spasms that I have been getting, especially when seated, appear to come from the fact that the gluts in my left buttock have atrophied. When I sit, I am either affecting the circulation or a nerve. And, if there is no weight on my left bum, then there are no spasms! How best to sort this out will be the challenge of the next week … the story continues.
Yesterday, I spent most of the day with the electricians. A while back, our house must have been struck by lightning and since then we have had ongoing problems with the electrics. The house has been something like my body – the circuitry has just not been working properly leading to all kinds of strange effects!
First the plugs in the kitchen weren’t working and that was sorted out. Then the washing machine kept tripping the earth leakage. And then, the other morning, I showered in the boys’ shower and discovered that when I touched the taps I was feeling a light electrical shock in my fingers! So the electrician was called back again (I think they thought I was really mentally ill because they could not feel it and their gadgets did not register any current!) Anyway, they replaced the element in the geyser and did some earthing work in the roof. The tingling feeling disappeared.
But, lo and behold, when I showered the next morning, it was there again! So back they came yesterday and spent the day with their gadgets, meters, wires and electrical brains. By the time they left late yesterday afternoon – problem solved! – I was quite tired just from providing my input in what the problem could possibly be. So I had a lie down from 5pm to 7pm – then had supper, and then slept from 21h30 through to ten this morning! I don’t think I have ever slept so much and yet, the tiredness doesn’t appear to go away. It appears that my body needs more and more rest and I need more and more sleep.
I was woken up by the electrician to find out if everything was in order. Well, I was still in bed and hadn’t even showered yet! So I got up with difficulty and headed off to the shower – this time, no tingling! But after a while I also realised that there was no hot water! After all the work they had forgotten to switch on the geyser!
But, thank goodness, today it was HOT! It was really HOT! In fact, at 14h00 the thermometer in my car said it was 38 degrees C outside.
So I decided to go to the beach for a walk (Dr Doidge firmly believes that brisk walking rejuvenates brain cells, and walking had certainly been good for me in Ireland and England).
So walking has been added to my list of activities. Yesterday morning I walked the golf course. Today it was the beach.
What a beautiful day: not a breath of wind and this incredible heat. I started at Hobie Pier and walked to Pollock Beach and back. Then had a swim – the water was quite cold but refreshing! It was great getting out of the house and the exercise did me good – both physically and mentally. So much so, that when I got home I had another swim in the pool and then headed off to the gym for a thirty minute cycle and a ten minute run on the treadmill. I really need to do this more often. I know it will go a long way in keeping the happy hormones going and making me more positive.
Tonight, we are experiencing yet another electrical storm. Please lightning don’t strike the house again because I’m still fighting with the Bank about the last claim! I don’t choose for the lightning to strike our house but somehow they (being that unfriendly lady in their call centre who only answers after 15 minutes and many computer-generated questions later!) think I do, and now they call me a storm risk and want me to pay exorbitant excesses on my claim. Anyway, I thought that’s the meaning of the word insurance and the reason why one takes it out – for when the storms of life hit you. It’s sometimes more difficult dealing with the Bank (their invisible call centre wherever it may be with unfriendly people who don’t talk English!) than it is dealing with my CBD! They really have strange Standards! I wonder if I can deduct the cost of my phone calls from the bank charges they charge me?
Anyway, I am really moeg tonight … must be all the exercise. So it’s time to sign off, have my nightly pills, read my Faith for Daily Living, and then have another look at that Insurance policy fine print (and don’t forget to thank God – and Spec-Savers – for my new specs – it really makes it easier to read that fine print, but pity it doesn’t make it easier to understand it, too!)
Saturday 5 March 4 years 6 months on … ADVANTAGE ED
So much has happened lately that it has often been difficult to find time to document all the events. To crown it all, there have been my personal battles with the CBD and myself, the medication and the side-effects and my ongoing tiredness that have often just kept me away from writing. And, then sometimes, my memory just leaves me in the lurch – and things that I have been doing for years on the computer just suddenly evade me. “Now how do I make capital letter …?”
The last two weeks have seen considerable movement health-wise to the positive side. I seem to have found the right balance with the medication – at least for now!
But talking about moving things – there has been a string of occurrences worldwide over the last few months that need mention. The world seems to have gone mad!
We have witnessed snow storms all over the Northern Hemisphere that brought movement to a halt on numerous occasions. I was lucky to get out of Dublin just at the right time early in December – thousands others were not so fortunate.
There have been numerous floods in South America, Australia, South Africa – torrents of water moving everything in its way, including people and property, on its path to the sea. (And yet, ironically, we here in the Eastern Cape still buckle under the ravishing effects of a prolonged drought. The only movement here is that downward movement in our reservoirs, and if we don’t get rain soon, there is only sufficient water to see us through to the end of this year!)
Large fires have moved through areas of California and Australia destroying homes and hectares of land and vegetation.
Popular movement in the political world has seen life-long leaders, despots and dictators moved out from their positions of power, abuse and absolute authority. First there was Tunisia, then Egypt, then Libya and a number of other North African and Arab states. This movement continues daily and one can only wonder when it will spread to Zimbabwe and where it will stop.
Of course, all this political movement in the oil-rich lands of the world has led to an incredible upward movement in the price of petrol with warnings that we could see prices double if this political turmoil is not contained soon.
And this political turmoil leads to the millions of African refugees moving into our country that has great difficulty in sustaining itself and our own population! And, as we see a continuing downward movement in our own security, education, health services and infrastructure, we also see so many of our countrymen, friends and family continue moving to other parts of the world.
Therefore, when we witness the wrath of the earth itself, shaking and moving in the form of earthquakes especially in Christchurch, New Zealand this past week, it strikes home because it involves and touches those nearest and dearest to us. Luckily, my sister, sister-in-law and cousins were not directly affected, but Sean’s school mate Curtly Diesel who left for Christchurch just weeks ago to stooge there, was having lunch but three blocks away from the devastated city centre and the Christchurch Cathedral that we saw so often on TV news here! Luckily, physically, he was not hurt. Mentally, it takes a while to recover from the violent movement of what we consider our solid foundations.
I still remember the physical and mental effects of the 7-odd Richter scale earthquake that moved the earth and woke us up at 10h29 on 29 September 1969 in the Western Cape (and we were in The Strand some 150 km from the epicentre of that earthquake at Ceres and Tulbagh.)
Movement in the fields of medical science was the topic of a talk by Dr Norman Doidge that I attended last week. He researches the brain and has written a book about neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain and its cells to adapt, recover and renew. There were so many things that I could relate to that are so particular to my illness and my experiences – my left hand that worked so well whilst my rand arm was in a sling after I fell and broke my elbow; my left paralysed fingers that will automatically “kick in” when I play the piano; the walking in London and Dublin that rejuvenated me! I have included links to his website on my web page www.edlunnon.co.za.
Unfortunately, I had to discontinue my discussion with him because I had been invited to a book launch by Belinda Walton at Collegiate High and was running late. (I wanted to go as I knew her brothers Adrian and Andrew from school days and spent many hours teaching Adrian extra maths in the hostel.)
Belinda was severely injured in a car accident 15 years ago and, despite the odds against her, has made the most amazing strides on her continuing road to recovery. She has written a book BELINDA that details her journey of the last fifteen years. What courage! What determination! What resolve!
That gathering was possibly the most moving experience of recent times. There are so many of her feelings and situation as a handicapped person that I am starting to understand. I certainly have come to realise that we and our children are not exposed or properly educated on interacting with disabled people.
It takes situations such as Belinda’s to bring home the reality to me (and to many people) just how fortunate one is. As you look around you, there are always people in so much greater distress and need than yourself. It came as a wake-up call to me to realize just how fortunate I am! Belinda’s youth and life were taken away in the prime of her years – I have been so fortunate to have lived (and still do to a large extent) a very full and rewarding life.
Such as Sunday that saw us back at the Sundays River for the swimming of the Redhouse River Mile. The organisers have moved the Redhouse River Mile to Sundays River. We used to have a sort of annual gathering braai at the Colliers at Redhouse on the day of the Mile, but that has all changed now that they have moved the swim to the Sundays River – supposedly because of the high bacterial levels in the Swartkops River.
John and Wendy Clarke loaned us their boat and we spent a lovely day in magnificent weather – picnicking on the river bank and watching the thousands of people moving up with the incoming tide and swimming that mile – not for the faint-hearted! A seething mass of moving people …
And this weekend, the family moved in different directions – Pera was asked to speak to a mothers’ conference about MOTHERING. So off she went to some or other game farm for the weekend; Sean has joined the NSRI so he had to do weekend duties at the PE Harbour; Phillip was going to friends.
Well, that left me … so I decided to move off to St Francis Bay. It’s always good for the soul just to relax at the river, meet up with friends and acquaintances like Len, Barry, Charles and Julie, Pat and Louis … and visit the Porthole, Legends and the Trat! The pizzas are still very good!
And, of course, at this time of the year there is not much movement in the laid-back village other than the water in the canals that moves up and down with the tides. So, I get to finish reading BELINDA, bearing in mind that reading is becoming more and more difficult for me. I have to read each page a few times before it sinks in, and with this book, I also have to stop regularly to wipe away the tears …
Yesterday, I went for my annual checkup (report back?) to the neurologist. I will disuss that later, because right now I am very excited and very humbled.
I have always said that the more you give in this life,the more you get back. And today has been no exception.
Lance du Plessis – my host at AlgoaFM for “ED is in wEd”, and the star of the show! – often jokes about the fact that the CBD has taken away my ability to feel the cold (as it has my sense of smell and taste).
Temperatures below freezing were my saving grace when I recently visited England and Ireland (read ED is in EnglanD and ED is in irElanD). I can walk around in shorts and a t-shirt and not feel the cold. Sean and Phillip even bought me a thermometer last year so that I could read the temperature and dress accordingly!
(Howver, I have to be careful because eventually the progression of this disease will lead to my dying from pneumonia. Right now, I am battling to get rid of a lung infection, and the antibiotics seem to be helping!)
But the heat catches me. It washes me out and makes me extremely weary. I battled with the humidity and heat last week, and after leaving the AlgoaFM Studio, I stopped in at Cool Projects at 286 Walmer Boulevard to disuss the practicalities of an air-conditioner.
On Friday, Lindsay Caine, the sales rep, came to see me. We discussed the requirements, the practicalities, the positioning and the cost. Eventually, with a family discussion we decided that the main bedroom would be the appropriate place, as that would become my “home” as the CBD winds its wieldy way, and restricts my movements.
Today, Lindsay phoned me to inform me that her boss, Victor Pretorius, and Cool Projects, together with AlgoaFM, had agreed to sponsor the provision and the installation of an air-conditioning unit in our main bedroom!
How’s that for being Cool?
I am excited, I am grateful, I am thankful, I am so very humbled.
LG – Life’s Good
Stop Worrying (Luke 12:22-34) 25“That’s why I’m telling you to stop worrying about your life—what you will eat or what you will drink[k]—or about your body—what you will wear. Life is more than food, isn’t it, and the body more than clothing? 26Look at the birds in the sky. They don’t plant or harvest or gather food into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. You are more valuable than they are, aren’t you? 27Can any of you add a single hour to the length of your life[l] by worrying? 28And why do you worry about clothes? Consider the lilies in the field and how they grow. They don’t work or spin yarn, 29but I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. 30Now if that is the way God clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and thrown into an oven tomorrow, won’t he clothe you much better—you who have little faith?266 31“So don’t ever worry by saying, ‘What are we going to eat?’ or ‘What are we going to drink?’ or ‘What are we going to wear?’ 32because it is the gentiles who are eager for all those things. Surely your heavenly Father knows that you need all of them! 33But first be concerned about God’s kingdom and his righteousness,[m] and all of these things will be provided for you as well. 34So never worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Arrival at London Heathrow’s Terminal 1 was just a few minutes behind schedule. The usual rush along the seemingly endless passageways, the picking up of the luggage and the going through customs (and, as always, I get stopped and interrogated!), marked the beginning of the first week of my stay in England.
I spent time with friends, ex-colleagues, ex-pupils and old school friends of mine: Mark Stanborough and his wife Janet (who fetched me from and delivered me back to LHR and with whom I spent Thursday and Saturday nights), John and Sue Galloway (Sunday and Monday nights), Barry Vincent (Tuesday and Wednesday nights),Clive Case (Thursday), Hester Havenga (Friday night and Saturday) and Mark Sylvester (Monday evening).
For every friend I see in England, there must be at least another ten that I don’t manage to see this time round. It would be so great to be able to hire Buckingham Palace and have one huge reunion party!
I become excited like a little boy when I take the map of the London Underground and Overground train systems and plan my trips on the various coloured lines. Thanks to my Britrail Pass I can get on and off and travel as near and as far in England as I wish.
The first and last things I did in London were the obligatory walk down the Thames Embankment from The Palace of Westminster and Big Ben across Westminster Bridge past the London Eye and up to Waterloo.
From London, I also travelled north to Northampton, Stratford-Upon-Avon (William Shakespeare’s hometown) and Harpendon, and south to the country just other side Gatwick airport.
We caught up and chatted and filled in the gaps. We flew radio-controlled helicopters and “flew” ourselves on a few evenings thanks to copious amounts of the good ales and lagers. We drank Christmas Fudge Lattes and ate fine British cuisine at home and in a number of restaurants.
The weather was fine in England – well, temperatures somewhere between 0 and 10 degrees Celsius, but no rain, no snow and no wind. I don’t feel the cold (thanks to my body’s non-functioning thermoregulatory system – this is common to CBD and other neurodegenerative disorders where the body’s autonomic system doesn’t work well) and I thrive in those conditions. No heat for me, thank you!
The UK is so well geared up for tourists and disabled people. I was managing so well, and the only delay was when the tube trains slowed down on Thursday when someone committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. It was my first experience of waiting on a platform and no train arriving!
It happened to me at Oxford Circus. I had come into town arriving at St Pancras International Station on the overland train. Then I took the blue Victoria Line to Oxford Circus in order to catch the red Central Line to Marble Arch.
Well. No red line trains arrived, and the crowd on the platform got bigger and bigger, as more and more trains arrived depositing their passengers, but with no redline trains collecting them. It becomes quite crowded and scary and claustrophobic.
I was in the front, right at the edge of the platform. No moving forward and no going backward!
Then, a train arrived. A surge came from behind. “Mind the gap!”
But, no room on that one! Or the next or the next!
Eventually, I managed to squeeze onto a train that took me to Marble Arch and to the venue of the Old Greys’ Union (Europe Branch) reunion dinner. Here, I meet up with a number of my ex-pupils and Grey school friends, Lindsay Brown, Anton Pakendorf, Clint Saacks, Chris van der Wath, Rory Stear, Mike Carswell, Mark Powell, …
Almost eighty Old Greys, from twenty to seventy years of age, gathered to reminisce about their school days in Port Elizabeth. They were joined by Neil Crawford, Rector of the High School and Lindsay Pearson, Headmaster of the Junior School.
Grace is said and toasts are proposed to their new homeland and the Queen of Great Britain, to the President and their land of birth, the Republic of South Africa. The School Song is sung: We sing of a Home of Old Renown with its Front to the Southern Seas – 10 000 km away across the sea in Port Elizabeth!
It is a happy sense of occasion, but also, for me, a sad sense of occasion. These eighty people are but a small minority of all the Old Greys and other South Africans living here in Britain and elsewhere.
What a great pity that so many of South Africa’s brightest and best have to work and live abroad!
Too soon, the evening came to an end, and, because the silver Jubilee Line wasn’t working yet, we hailed a black London taxi to get us to Waterloo Station and the trip home to Egham, in West London.
Each day of the week was a highlight, but if the Reunion dinner was icing over the cake, then the cherry on the top of the cake must surely be the visit to Twickenham on Saturday.
I woke up on Saturday morning to the sounds of Afrikaans Bokke music blaring through the house. I was with Hester Havenga, an old Hottentots-Holland school friend of mine. Together with her husband, Hein, and their friends (all dentists who studied at Stellenbosch University and who have lived in England for some twenty years already), we drove by car to Twickenham, and parked in a reserved area in one of a number of car parks that surround the rugby ground.
We were all dressed in our Springbok Green and Gold outfits and South African coloured scarves, and were surrounded by English supporters dressed in their garb and with flags flying. The cars are parked and the boots opened to reveal the best of British food and wine. A festival of note starts as the first cars arrive, finishes just before the game starts at 14h30, and continues after the game ends at 16h00, until the last car is able to leave the car park!
Of course, it gets dark just after three pm and the temperature was hovering around freezing point. Snow was forecast for the second half of the game. But what was lacking in light and heat was more than made up for in terms of the gees and the atmosphere. Swing Low Sweet Chariot was interspersed with Bokke Bokke Bokke and Ole! Ole!
If the eighty South Africans at the dinner was a lot, then the thousands of them here at Twickenham was such an awesome sight. And the Bokke winning the game 21 -11 made it even more memorable – it looked like half of Twickenham was filled with their supporters as they all moved forward to applaud the Bokke after the game when they walked their lap of honour!
We continued the party in the car park after the game, and then I headed off to the Harlequins ground nearby which acts as a fan park for the many that can’t get tickets for the game and watch on the big screen. Thousands more of fans all resplendent in their green and gold!
It was like going home – and I walked in, straight into Dave and Brendan Horan, ex-pupils of mine who had flown in for the game from Bermuda and Johannesburg! Then, when Harlequins closed down at the height of the party (at 19h00 nogal!), we moved on to the Cabbage Patch, a pub near Twickenham station that was filled to capacity with people dressed in – you guessed it – more green and gold!
That Saturday evening finished off all too soon with dinner at Banks, a restaurant in Egham, a forgotten quiche in the oven that looked like a black brickett in the morning and filled the house with smoke and could have burnt it down (at least it advised us of a non-functioning smoke detector system!), and a very weary body that laid itself down to rest on my last night in England.
Sunday morning was packing up and heading off for Heathrow Airport at 10h30 to meet up with Mike and Grace Carswell, and our very short flight of 55 minutes over the Irish Sea to Dublin. But flights into Dublin were delayed (we would see why later!) and we only left LHR shortly after 15h00.
Another week lay ahead!
Lesson #3, for me, LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST, BUT DON’T FORGET THE QUICHE IN THE OVEN!
