15 1954 – 1955: The Bank in Estcourt, Clee, and onward to Jo’burg.

15 <> 1954 – 1955: The Bank in Estcourt, Clee, and onward to Jo’burg

Back at a home with Dad after my failed first attempt at a career, I spent many days just reading and thinking. Among the books I read were sea stories, stories of life and adventure on sailing ships with titles such as ‘Two Years Before The Mast’ (a true story) and ‘Cappy Ricks Retires’ (a novel) — one or both I think were authored by a Captain Marriott. I read other books as well, reading deep into the night by candlelight and throughout the day, but I mention these because of what I did next. Dad had also often told me stories of travelling on sailing ships — as far as I know he and his brothers all came from England to South Africa on sailing ships, and he had also been to Canada at some time, all this round about the year 1900. So it was no surprise to him when one day I said “Dad, I think I will go to Durban and get a job on a ship and see the world”. In typical Dad-fashion he said “All right, my boy”. So a couple of days later I kissed Dad goodbye and, with my rucksack on my back, walked the distance to the main road and hitched a lift.

I got dropped off in Pietermaritzburg. While standing at the corner of Voortrekker Street and the street leading out to Durban, I saw up the road to my right the building of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial & Overseas) and a thought struck me: “Why not ask the bank for a job?”. I went straight across to it and did just that. Whoever it was that interviewed me immediately made me sit down with a piece of paper and add up a column of figures. That was it! He or she checked my addition and said “I think you will do. We will let you know in a couple of days”. I hitched a lift back to New Hanover. I can’t remember what Dad said when I arrived back at the door but I imagine it would have been (you have guessed it!) “All right, my boy”.

The letter arrived not many days later. I had a job at the bank and was to report for duty at the Estcourt branch as soon as possible. I packed my bags (this time I had my rucksack and the attaché case salvaged from the Watkins Products episode) and headed for Estcourt. The journey there is a blank in my memory but I must have hitch-hiked as usual for I certainly didn’t have money to spend on train- or bus-fares. I also have no recollection of walking into the bank and announcing my arrival, nor can I remember how I arrived at the Private Hotel which became my home for my time in Estcourt. I met up with Neville Ardendorff, a schoolmate from Greytown, who kindly let me share his room at the hotel until one came available for me (or until I got paid at the end of the first month and could afford the room-rate. It’s a puzzle). Neville worked for the Standard Bank.

Life in Estcourt was quite good. The work at the bank was not too bad: the accountant, a Mr. Delgardo, was friendly and helpful enough. He was a chain-smoker and every time he lit a new one he offered me one as well. That was when, as the rookie in the office, I had to help him open and sort the mail as it came in a couple of times a day. My main job was as agency waste-clerk accompanying Mr. Smith to the agencies at Weenen and Winterton twice a week. I’m afraid Mr. Smith got a little frustrated with me because I was a bit slow at adding the columns and columns of Pounds, Shillings and Pence (£.S.D), which was quite unfair since he was able to add a column by running his fingers down it and coming up with the total in seconds. I tried to develop the technique myself over the years that followed but didn’t get very far. Mr. Smith was phenomenal even by bank clerk standards. (The reader should understand, of course, that in those days, other than some mechanical adding machines not available to most offices, there were no calculators of any sort, let alone digital calculators. There were only two or three, room-sized, computers in the world in 1955, ENIAC in America and EDVAC in England. The first electronic calculator only came in 1963 and the affordable small ones we all know only came in the late seventies.)

I was urged to study for the Banking Exams and I duly ordered the study material (and paid for it out of my ‘barely sufficient for board and cigarettes’ salary) but I confess that, consistent with my normal study habits, apart from opening the first books to see what they were all about, the materials stayed unused in the box in which they came until long after I had left the service of the bank.

Searching for some meaning to life (remember, I left school as a complete sceptic) I tackled reading some philosophy — a book by David Hume lent to me by someone at the hotel — but, if I remember correctly, I didn’t finished it because I am a slow reader and had to return it to the owner. But it did give me a taste for philosophy which is still with me today. Then, still in search of knowledge, I fell prey to a salesman again! This time it was ‘The Encyclopaedia Britannica’ (in many volumes delivered in two or three cartons) which had to be paid for in monthly instalments over several years! (I couldn’t cart it with me when I left Estcourt and fortunately was able to do a deal with Mike Mossop (a Civil Engineer working for the railways) who took it and the future monthly payments off my hands in exchange for an Oxford Dictionary (which I used for may years and which, I think, is still in the family somewhere today. If it is in the family, it has Mike Mossop’s name in it!)

The year spent in Estcourt was made really significant because of Clee with whom I fell in love. Clee boarded at the hotel. She was teaching at the Convent school as part of a programme towards becoming a nun. She was undergoing some sort of trial or testing period to discover whether the life would suit her, and for the nuns there to assess her suitability from their side. I was soundly smitten and was even prepared to become a Christian for her sake. I arose early each day to attend Mass at 6 o’clock just to be there with her even though she sat with the school girls on the one side and I had to sit on the other. More than that, I arranged to have sessions with the priest to learn about the religion but that didn’t last — I was a rank unbeliever and nothing he told me made any sense so I quit after the second visit. But I didn’t give up on Clee. I am not sure how much she loved me in return. She had her eyes on her intended career as a nun. My attentions must have made things very difficult for her.

One of the more vivid memories of my time in Estcourt relates to diving into rapids in the flooding Bushman’s River, one of the two rivers that converge below the town, and another relates to a climb with three friends at Cathedral Peak in the Drakensberg Mountains. The flooding of the rivers was always quite spectacular. One of the men who had grown up in the town showed us the trick of diving into the flooding river above a rapid and being washed down between and over the rocks without being banged against them in any way. Having read the short story I published earlier with the title “One For Gcina”, you will now recognise it as combining this later experience in Estcourt with the episode from my childhood on the farm. As to the experience of hiking up the Drakensberg, following the course of the Tugela River toward its source, only those who have done any hiking up mountains will know the heady pleasure of being at a high altitude. I like being high up in the mountains but I haven’t got a head for heights so I didn’t do the last stage up the chain ladder to the summit, but where I stopped was rewarding enough. And the ice-cold water of the young river at that height is unforgettable. As this history is also my ‘confession’, it was one of my regrets that, while I had wanted Clee to come with us, I could not afford the accommodation for her, and she had little money of her own.

Clee! — Any attractions Estcourt had for me came to a sudden end the day Clee announced to me that she was leaving, and so soon as the next day!. She wouldn’t tell me at first where she was going but I eventually got it from her that she was going to a convent in Johannesburg. She left on the train without giving me an address to write to. I don’t remember clearly, but I think I asked the nuns at the convent where I could find her but their lips were sealed. Clee had left Estcourt — or been sent away by the nuns — to get away from me. All I knew was that Clee had gone to Johannesburg and I needed to follow her. It might even have been the next day after her departure that I asked the bank manager, Mr. Maltby, about the possibility of a transfer to Johannesburg, and within mere days after that he called me into his office to tell me there was a vacancy at a branch in Johannesburg. I don’t remember the detail but I think the proprietor of the hotel let me go without the usual month’s notice so in no time at all I was on the train to Johannesburg and reporting for work at the Stock Exchange Branch of Barclays Bank (Dominion, Colonial & Overseas) in Hollard Street.