Tempus Fugit et Nunquam Revertitur

My Father was born 100 years ago today at Zwartkops outside Port Elizabeth in the Cape Colony.

When he was an old man he said to me that there is history in every persons life and in his there certainly was. His life spanned the time from the first powered flight to the moon landings. He lived through two world wars, the great depression and the demise of the British Empire. Royal dynasties vanished, dictators strutted, a King abdicated and communism reached its zenith. The world moved from the steam age, into the age of electricity, radio and television and then into the atomic age.

But these great events are a background to all. They are the markers of passing time. What my Father meant was history as experienced at the personal level; the unique events that are shared by few.

He stood on the Donkin Reserve in Port Elizabeth on the 31 May 1910 with other school children and received a medal. A medal to commemorate Union Day – the first Union Day. The day on which after long discussion South Africa became the entity it is today.

Later in 1914 he was on a train travelling near Fourteen Streams north of Kimberley when the Police and Army flagged it down. A ‘1914 rebel’ had been shot and wounded whilst trying to make his way to German South West Africa. He was loaded on board to be transported to where he could receive medical care and then, no doubt, to prison.

A little later my Dad was resident in De Aar that is a great railway junction and thus the local station was a place of unceasing activity. In those days the notables of the land travelled by train from Capetown to Pretoria and De Aar was a place to get out and stretch ones legs. Thus my Father as a child walked up and down the platform with the likes of Smuts and Botha as they took a break from their journey. Children can do this sort of thing and be tolerated!

Also whilst in De Aar Father spent much time wandering in the Veld outside town. On some occasions accompanied by Olive Schreiner’s husband who showed him the wonders of trap-door spiders and nasties such as scorpions and tarantulas.

In the 1930’s and in Durban the old Stamford Hill Aerodrome became a place of interest for Dad. Especially those early pioneering flights by Major Miller as he introduced the concept of ‘airmail’ and the foundation of the Union Airways - later to become South African Airways. Also at this stage 8mm cine photography became ‘the’ hobby with Dad an enthusiast. I can remember shots of three engined Ju 52’s, Catalinas and also ‘Empire’ class flying boats landing on Durban Bay. All irreplaceable precious memories now lost because of the unstable nature of early film. An eternal pity for me.

Looking back over these brief notes trawled from my own memory - which now and then sufferers from a touch of Alzheimer’s Lite - I wish I had spent more time talking to my Old Man. ‘In the living years’ and all that….. and been able to glean and record more of what he had experienced; for he lived in memorable times.

Dad died on 9 September, 1981.

I still miss him.