Renewing my passport

At the beginning of the year I realised my passport had expired and a trip to the local Home Affairs Department was imminent.
Based on previous experiences of inefficiency and unpleasantness, it was not a prospect I relished.
Memories of standing in long lines for an hour or more, only to have the window get shut in my face just as it was my turn to be served, or being told I was in the wrong queue and "should be in that line over there" that hadn't moved for the last two days, are still vivid.
For days I hesitated, trying to find a way around it. Perhaps I should use a service that does the queuing for me, I thought.
"Don't be silly," said Mrs White Ou, always the voice of reason. "We're not millionaires and it's not as though you have much else to do any way."
I couldn't argue on either of those points.
"In any case, I've heard things are a lot better and while you're there, get renewal forms me and also for Kevin (my youngest son.)"
And so it was that I found myself, early on a Monday morning, at the beginning of the year, at the offices of the Department of Home Affairs in Randfontein. The doors had just opened but the queues were already significant.
I joined the line waiting to be served by a man behind the "Enquiries" counter.

Building true unity

It is claimed that the World Cup will turn out to be this country's greatest ever unifying force. While I agree the whole affair put us in party mood and, for a while, we forgot our differences and banded behind the national team, it cannot compete with the unifying experience of visiting a government department.
Now that really builds true unity. People from all levels of society, who normally would not give each other the time of day, become bound by shared suffering, induced by inept officials and a system designed to screw you around.
Linked in our common misery, we individuals rapidly become a common mind, swapping stories of previous experiences at the hands of not-so-civil servants.
It becomes a competition to see who has been screwed-over worst.
A coloured woman with a toddler hanging on her skirts and peering at me from between her legs, struck up conversation.
"How many times have you had to come back?" she asked.
"It's my first, I just have to get some forms for a passport," I replied.
"This is my fourth. They've been fucking me and my husband around every time. First it's this and then it's that. Then they want something else. My husband can't come any more, he's got to work. You know how hard jobs are to find these days..."
By the time my position in the line had advanced two yards I knew pretty all there was to know about her family... how her husband enjoys a drink or six on the weekend, that she'd voted ANC but probably wouldn't do so again in the next elections and a lot more.
If we'd just thought of it, we probably would have exchanged telephone numbers and even ended up going on family outings together. (The last part is not true, I just said that to impress foreign readers.)
She, in turn, knew about my kids, how difficult it was for them to find work and my solutions for South Africa's problems and world hunger.
When it was my turn to be served at the "Enquiries" counter, I felt all warm and cuddly -- new South African!

Can't take them out of the building

"I need three sets of passport application forms, please," I said to the guy manning the counter.
"You'll need to fill them in here," he said. "We no longer allow people to take them out of the building."
I was taken aback. Surely he was joking.
"But I need to get photographs done and I'm sure there are other details that must be filled in," I responded.
He was not joking.
"There's a man outside who'll take the pictures and you only need complete a few details, the rest we'll get from the computer system."
"But what about my wife and son?" I asked.
He stared at me with a look usually reserved for people who've suffered head-traumas. It was just so damn obvious and I couldn't see it.
"They'll have to come in," he sighed.
"But they work and can't take time off."
"We've thought of that too," he replied, "that's why we're open on Saturday mornings."
Behind me the people in the line were growing restless.
But I was not easily swayed.
"This is ridiculous," I huffed. "Tell me why I can't take the forms home, fill them in and bring them back."
"Because people don't bring them back," he replied. "And, because of that, I get given a set number of forms in the morning and a reconciliation is done in the afternoon."
"That is simply nonsense," I said, in the most indignant tone I could muster. "I'm not like that. I will fill them in and be back."
I scooped up the forms and marched defiantly out of the building, expecting any moment to be beaten senseless by the bemused security guards but nothing happened.
Earlier this week, while watching television, Mrs White Ou suddenly turned to me.
"Did you ever get those passport forms?" she asked.
I thought for a moment.
"I did," I replied. "They're sitting on my desk, I just haven't got round to giving them to you yet."
"We really should fill them in," she said, and turned her attention back to the television.

Hester Green – working for seat in heaven

Over the weekned I became engaged in a robust and at times heated internet forum discussion about the merits or otherwise of South Africa hosting the Soccer World Cup. I intend to write about why I think we're all being taken for a ride and are burying our heads in the sand in a later posting but was struck by a point made by one of the contributors. He said he is sure God is really to be found, not in the Jacob Zumas, Julius Malemas or Sepp Blatters of the world but rather in ordinary people few of us will ever hear about.
It was a profound statement that increasingly made sense the more I thought about it.
Coincidently, just last week I met one such person in Toekomsrus, a predominantly coloured area in Randfontein. I thought I'd share her story. She is a nominee in the Randfontein Publicity Association's "We Salute You" campaign.

Toekomsrus resident, Hester Green (59) is working for a place in heaven.
Every year the former teacher, mother of three and founder of Women Against Women Abuse (WAWA) helps around 3 000 desperate people save their families and marriages -- and she has done so for the past 11 years, with very little financial support.
Born and raised in the Eastern Cape, she came to Randfontein in 1977 where she worked as a teacher at the Toekomsrus Primary School. In 1998 she was medically boarded and has since lived on the modest pension she receives.
“I soon saw the effects of alcohol in my community and how it led to the abuse of women and children,” she says.
“I saw the impact it had on the kids at school and their families and knew I had to do something.”
At her own expense, she signed up and went for training with a number of counselling organisations.
“Once I had the training I needed, I opened my home in Arrie Street to women in need,” she says.

People came

She spoke to groups of women at the library, visited churches and schools and spread the message and, as the word got, out people came.
Little did she know what she’d let herself in for.
“They came at any time of the day or night,” Green says. “It was a huge adjustment for my family and, without them, I could never have done it.
“On occasions, just as we sat down together for a family meal or to watch television, there’d be a woman running and screaming for my help in the front yard.
“That meant the family had to retreat to their bedrooms so I could counsel and comfort the scared woman. It was very difficult for them but they stood by me through it all.”
And all the time more and more people came.
“In 2002 WAWA had to find other premises,” she says. “My furniture was broken and worn out from all the traffic in my home. I couldn’t use many of my dining-room chairs – I still can’t.
“I knew there was a disused building at the back of the Toekomsrus police station and approached the station commander who gave us permission to use it.
“We moved in with two chairs. There were no tables, filing cabinets or anything -- just those two chairs.”
But that was not going to stop Hester and her small team of volunteers.
“Although we got absolutely no financial assistance at all, we somehow, with God’s help, kept the work going.”

Jackie Selebi

Later that year, the then Police Commissioner, Jackie Selebi visited the station and asked how he could help.
“He organised furniture, cupboards and beds that allowed us to set up a shelter,” Green says.
It’s been a long hard road.
“Men in particular were suspicious,” says Green. “They thought we would automatically take the woman’s side and get them thrown in jail.
“But that is the last thing we want. We believe in rehabilitation and keeping families together where ever possible. Our approach is to get the woman and children out of immediate danger and to allow the situation to calm.
“Then we work on getting the family members together to talk, work through their problems and find lasting solutions. We are there to save relationships and marriages, not break them up.”
Although based in Toekomsrus, WAWA serves all communities of Randfontein and the current economic downturn has seen dramatically increased demand for their services.
“Many men find it difficult to come to terms with the fact they are no longer able to provide for their families,” Green says, “and their frustration and anger easily boils over.”
Nowadays WAWA receives a small stipend from government but it is not nearly enough to meet expenses.
Green’s own husband and children are out of work. Her dining-room chairs are still broken and she has to find ways to stretch her meagre pension even further. There are attempts by some political factions to hijack the project she started more than ten years ago.
But in the face of this, the ex-teacher from Toekies, simply sighs and shrugs her shoulders.
“You’ve got to have hair on your teeth to do this work,” she says.
“At least I can still help someone and maybe God will have a nice velvet chair for me to sit on at his dining-room table in heaven!”

Living with scary critters in Randfontein

When you move to the countryside -- even though my piece of countryside is only 11 kilometres out of town and not a very attractive town at that -- you end up sharing your life, space and home with all sorts of critters.
Some are nice, like the hedgehogs that make occasional rare appearances in our garden. Or the chameleons that take up residence in the trees from time to time.
There are many birds out here -- I counted 28 different species in the space of an hour on one occasion.
And on sometimes at night we hear the call of jackals or the hoot of owls.
It sounds as though I live a little corner of paradise. My own private game reserve.
My northern suburbs friends become all misty eyed when they look across my 21-acre estate, watching the sun set and then, right on cue, the dogs spook a rabbit and go whooping after it across the gold-smeared fields.
"Oh this is just so wonderful," I remember one particular Sandton resident saying. "I'd move here in a shot, if I had the chance."
Of course she'd do no such thing. Living in a gated-community on a golf estate allows her to do the important things in life -- like playing golf and bridge with her girlfriends and lazing by her pool to tune up her tan before the annual Plett holiday.
She does like wildlife. Hell she and hubby have a Pajero and go to a lodge in Botswana every year. But she likes it at a distance, preferably with a tall, ice-frosted glass clasped in one of her well-manicured hands.
And she likes only cute critters.

Life's not like that

But that's not the way life is out here.
When you live on a farm -- I like to call it a farm. It sounds more posh than telling people I live on a plot -- you share your space with more varieties of bugs and biting insects than you knew existed. Rats, in particular, find your home and ceiling especially attractive.
They seek warmth wherever they can find it, sometime taking that quest to ridiculous levels.
Like the time Mrs White Ou asked me what I wanted for breakfast.
"Just a slice or two of toast, please Dear," I replied.
From the lounge I could hear her open the bread bin and a few seconds later yelp as a loud explosive, electrical flash took place in the kitchen, tripping all the power in the house.
"I'll check the breaker outside," I said.
I reset it and she switched the toaster on again.
The blue flash that arced from the toaster to the plug was mighty impressive, as was the gunshot-like crack when the power tripped again. This time it was accompanied by a strange smell -- a cross between hair burning and chicken cooking.
"I think there is something wrong with the toaster," she said, peering into it a moment before she let out a shriek I'm sure the neighbour on the next "farm" heard.
There, in the bottom of the toaster, wedged between the heating elements, eyes popped with smoke emitting from its mouth and twitching like an inmate strapped to an electric-chair, was a large, grey, Norwegian Rat.
Lest I convey the impression that Mrs White Ou is afraid of scary critters let me place on record, she is not.
For example, the colony of bats that has set up home in an air-brick in my office scares me shitless but, for some unexplained reason, my dear wife finds them cute -- especially when they fly in tight formation around her broom.

Snakes

Even snakes do not bother her much and, over the years, we have had our share of encounters with those creatures!
The two types most come across are the puff adder and the rinkhals, neither of which you want to meet in a dark alley, or anywhere else for that matter. Yeah, I know the "they're more scared of you crap..." that gets spouted by greenies who only ever encounter them on the National Geographic Channel, but when you have a metre-long, seriously pissed-off, puff adder in your kitchen, you tend to be less sanguine and understanding.
Which is exactly what happened on one occasion.
Both Mrs White Ou and I were away from home but at different places. When Mrs White Ou returned she found the Maid standing outside, acting more weird than usual.
It seems a puff adder had crawled into the kitchen alcove and she'd pushed the pet bull terrier in with it and locked the door.
Fortunately, both the maid and the bull terrier were blessed with the same level of intelligence, which is to say, almost none.
I don't think the dog even knew the snake was there and the reptile slithered into a corner from where it spent the next hour hissing at the none-the-wiser dog.
Mrs White Ou was faced with a dilemma. In previous snake-encounters she simply used her broom to sweep the serpent into a box and then released the critter in the veld "so it can help keep the rat population down and not upset the delicate balance of nature." (Funny how there's never a snake around when you really need it -- like when a rat tries to warm itself in your toaster!)
But this puff adder wasn't of a mind to simply be swept aside.
There was no alternative but to shoot it, which was easier said than done considering its foul mood and the fact it was hiding in a small room.
Then there was the small issue that the only firearm almost suited to the task was a single-shot, target .22 pistol.
But Mrs White Ou was not to be deterred. Twelve shots later, along with a number of bullet holes in the wall, a punctured dog's food-bowl and gooey bits of puff adder liberally scattered about, the job was done.
It might have been dirty -- nothing like a hit by the Calzone Crew -- but it was impressive and didn't go unnoticed by the dim-witted maid whose productivity suddenly doubled.
I too took note. She's scary. I mean... if she could do that to a critter she actually thought was important in the greater scale of things...

Combat notes from the Heartland

I've been asked why I live in Randfontein, a place I've at times described as "the armpit of the world", "God's worst practical joke" and "the pimple on the devil's hairy butt". As Bill Bryson said of Des Moines: somebody had to.

This story explains it. It was published in Living Africa in the early 90s, a couple of years after I moved here.


How to get ahead in the world of Dude-farming.


Ask people what impressed them most about Woodstock and they will tell you it was the sight of Country Joe MacDonald teaching 300 000 wiped-out, rain-sodden, muddied hippies to spell the word "fuck". For me it was different. I already knew the spelling. But I was moved when Max Yaeger brought the hippies to their feet with those immortal words; "I'm a Farmer."
Somehow I always knew I was destined to be a farmer. But the final decision was made after a weekend my wife and I spent with friends who farm in the Dundee district. This was how life should be - earning a living from the earth, space for our kids and clean air to breathe.
In short order we decided to lift anchor from our firmly-embedded suburban life-styles and set sail for greener pastures, so to speak. The fact that my experience of farming was confined to paging through old Farmers' Weeklys in a doctor's waiting room seemed irrelevant.
Our little slice of Agro-Eden turned out to be about eight hectares on the border of Randfontein, a town not known for its tourism potential or liberal ideals, and where the air is fresh - except on days when a nearby factory makes dog food or peanut butter. Then the air either smells like a wet Labrador or a pre-school snack break.

Recruiting staff

First item on the agenda was recruiting staff for the chicken and strawberry farming operation we planned to start. Word that we were hiring soon brought a motley crew of locals, all with an impressive list of credentials. How fortunate it was that all these people were available and ready to start work immediately. I later found that, Mieta a woman employed to work in the house, had spent a few years locked up in Krugersdorp Prison on a murder rap. She cleaned and polished well, perhaps the result of good training by the Department of Corrections.
"It'll never work," said a neighbour, when I told him I intended to set up incentive schemes based on production levels. He is a staunch conservative - he makes Eugene Terreblanche look like Jane Fonda, in political terms of course.
My neighbour's abiding, over-the-fence mantra was: "The only thing they understand is a good thrashing..."
What did he know? I thought, ready to prove him wrong and show Randfontein what progressive farming was all about.
Chicken farming has absolutely nothing to do with the Farmer Brown ads we used to see on TV. That jolly chap in the sterile barn with the happy hens, who ho-ho-hoed about the chickens tasting "so good 'cos they eat so good" is a fraud. Poultry farming is about chicken shit that sticks to your boots like epoxy and about theft and rising feed bills. Whoever coined the phrase, "chicken feed" obviously never had to buy the stuff.
But we persevered, chicken guano and all. The first batch of cockerels we laid in really didn't eat that much. But they took seventeen weeks before they were big enough to slaughter. Then, one mild spring afternoon their intense cannibalistic tendencies were brought to my attention.
I saw a runty looking cockerel wandering around his coop space, mindlessly minding his own business and pecking at the dirt. Meanwhile his fellow fowl had organised a mob hit on him. They attacked in pincer formation, surrounding him until he was carefully edged into a corner. Then they simply pecked him to pieces. They surgically broke him up into a Kentucky Fiver.
"You chose the wrong strain," my father advised. "Get one of the new hybrids that grow much faster."
I did and they do grow faster. In fact in six weeks most were so heavy their legs could not carry them. They would have won medals in the Pig-Out Poultry section of anybody's county fair.
These little beauties ate five times (in six weeks) more than the others had done in seventeen.
In terms of personal gain, my poultry production was nothing to crow about. But my farm labourer was smiling - when I worked out my losses due to theft, he'd made four and a half times as much as me.

Labour relations

It was, however, in the area of rural labour relations that I really shone...
I had this vision of happy little Trojans busily working away like kibbutzniks, with productivity the only thought in their minds.
Instead I ended up living on the set of an Alcoholics Anonymous 'before' advert. Weekends were the worst. I watched in fascination as the kitchen maid murderess - whose job included chopping up vegetables in my kitchen with a large carving knife - went after her brother's wife with an axe. When the dust settled and everyone was disarmed, the dispute turned out to be centered around a single box of Lion matches.
I took a knife off a visitor who had come to the farm to embed it in the chest of my labourer, and I watched some pretty impressive fights.
"Please guys," I begged the labour force, "let's make this thing work so we can all earn some money and live together in peace."
"Yes, Baas," said the Chief Shepherd and belched some beer fumes into my face.
"It'll never work," said my AWB neighbour, shaking his head and chins sadly. "All they understand is the whip..." - the mantra again.
My Damascus Road conversion came one Friday evening when I returned home just before midnight. The locals were in full swing with another party and by the sounds of breaking glass and blood-curdling screams, a gracious good time was being had by all.
"The natives are restless tonight," I said to my wife Joy. I took a less than sanguine approach to the disturbance. One of the main reasons I'd moved out to the country was to get away from the 365-day-a-year bash the next door commune held in my old city neighbourhood. I have a natural intolerance for 'neighbour noise', and this party was the last straw.
"To hell with it," I thought. "This will never work. Perhaps all they do understand is the sjambok."
Now, one thing I pride myself with not being, is stupid. If I went in with only a whip against that bunch, there could be only one result - my delicate, wrinkle-free features would be rearranged. So I did what any self-respecting, white conservative farmer living in the Wilde Weste would do. I pulled on my boots, kissed my wife and armed with righteous thoughts, a biblical passage and a Colt 45 with two spare clips of ammo, I took to the trail.
In the dim light of one of the rooms I could see Mieta - the maid with occasional murder on her mind - playing host to a bunch of guys arguing the merits of her charms. At the sight of my Snake Slayer and furious face, they left the room. At speed. Kind of like a six-pack of rats with a ferret on their tails.
"Shoot him, Baas! He's a rubbish!" screamed Mieta (she is a fine connoisseur of crooks, you understand and knows when to cross the floor) as one of the shebeen patrons flew over the adjoining barbed-wire fence and took off at an easy lope across the eragrostis-sown field, confident that the "mhlunghu" wouldn't catch him.
I banged off three .45 slugs over his head and he flattened out and hit somewhere near 45 km/h at the other end of the field. I had a momentary pang of worry at the prospect of three heavy-calibre bullets ending up in my neighbour's sitting room.
"I'll sort you lot out later," I yelled to Mieta and her party, who at this point had all sobered up. I jumped into my car and sped off down the road, knowing I would catch the fleeing man when he crossed the fence.
I caught him, and limbered up for the reading of Big Hilt's Riot Act Class One, when my car stalled and absolutely refused to start again.
"It's okay Boss, I'll push you back."
Somehow, I find it extremely impolite to chastise a guy who pushes your car a kilometer on a dark farm road after midnight on a Saturday morning...

Sheep farming

When it was becoming clear I was not going to become rich from chicken farming I decided to have a go with sheep and bought a small flock from a breeder who lives nearby. This was where my hard-honed streetwise negotiating skills would come into their own. Maybe I was a bum chicken breeder, but I knew I had championship potential when it came to haggling.
And boy did I teach that country bumpkin a thing or two! He didn't know what hit him. I beat him down to R300 a sheep. I left the site of the transaction satisfied, paying little heed to the faint strains of laughter from the neighbours. It was only later - after my cheque had been cashed that I discovered the going rate for my sheep was R140 a head.
But for a while, things seemed to be going well. The ram appeared to be keeping the ewes happy. We discussed playing soft mood music in the sheep shed at night, but we never moved past the stage of punning about "sheep music" written by "Baach". In fact there's probably more bucks to be had in publishing '1 000 World Famous Sheep Jokes' than in farming the damned things. But, it was nearly Christmas and the arrival of a batch of lambs was imminent - it would be perfect for our Randfontein Nativity Scene down on the farm.
"Come quickly!" yelled Joy, one Saturday afternoon. "I think one of the sheep is giving birth."
I rushed outside to where a ewe was lying on her side, eyes wide and staring. For a while we stood around waiting for the miracle of life to happen.
"I'm not sure this is right," I said. "Do they give birth with all four legs in the air?"
We lost a lot of sheep after that. They would appear fit and healthy, but suddenly keel over and be dead in less than thirty seconds. Plummeting sheep may be great for a Monty Python skit, but it's real farmer-nightmare stuff.
The vets postulated about the cause and asked that we bring in a carcass when the next one died. This happened on a Monday morning just as I was leaving for an appointment in town. I was already dressed in a suit and tie and running late. I was in no mood to carry a snuffed bit of mutton around.
"You'd better take care of it," I said to Joy and left in a hurry.
Randfontein is a small town with a rural atmosphere. It has probably seen some unusual sights before, but I am told that a woman driving a Renault down the main street with a dead sheep hanging out of the boot still turns heads.

Innoculations

The cause of death was eventually diagnosed after a pathological sample was sent to Onderstepoort, the University of Pretoria's Veterinary Faculty, for testing. They prescribed an inoculation programme.
"Inject the sheep with this and your problems will be over," said the vet.
And so, one fine summer's morning, Joy and I set about vaccinating the sheep. The idea was I would catch and hold them and she would inject them in the hip.
Simple. I caught the first ewe and held it firmly while Joy jabbed the needle into its rump and pressed the plunger down, forcing the serum into the animal's body. The sheep looked at me with those big, sheep-like eyes only sheep seem to have, shuddered once and fell over dead at my feet.
Experts figure that one pair of amorous houseflies can produce nearly 400 billion offspring in a single sultry season. I reckon that Randfontein is the Love Boat of the housefly world, and that my farm is where all their children come to live.
Experience has taught us the best method of controlling the insects is with a fly trap that uses a disgustingly obnoxious protein to entice the pesky creatures into a container from which there is no escape. The little bastards, once in the trap do not simply die with a modicum of dignity. No, they take literally the instruction: "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die." They see it as an opportunity for further sexual dalliances and soon the container is swarming with maggots that feed on the bodies of their deceased parents.
At first the fly trap hung in a tree some thirty meters from the house. For days my family and our pack of Rhodesian Ridgebacks gave each other those well-known "you've just farted" looks. Then the fly trap was moved to the sheep shed and all was fine for a while.
A few days later in a rush to get to an editorial meeting, I walked into the sheep shed to take a quick peek at the new lambs. As I turned around my head bumped the bottom of the fly trap, spilling its loathsome contents over my hair and down my shoulders. I can vouch for the efficacy of the muti in the trap. In seconds, every fly in the known world was onto me...
Farming is not what I thought it would be. I didn't get rich. Hell, I didn't even qualify for government drought-relief aid and I'm poorer now than ever I was.
But I've got open space, my kids can breathe clean (if a little scented) air, we often have rabbits and owls popping in for visits and there's a pioneering spirit you won't get in a Brixton semi. I've learnt skills that would look good an any CV - I can now castrate a ram and dock a sheep's tail along with the best of them. I've learned how to plough.
Maybe next year I'll figure out what the devil I should plant in those fields I've harrowed...

The spirit of PJ van der Bergh finally dies in Randfontein

I live in Randfontein, a town that during the apartheid-era was a bastion of conservatism.
The town owes its existence to gold mining although nowadays, most of the mines have shut down, leaving abandoned offices and buildings, many of which are occupied by squatters.
The mines may be closed, but a rough, mining spirit still lives on in some quarters.
The white miners that lived and worked in this town in the 60s, 70s and to some extent 80s had a reputation for being hard-drinking, quick-fisted, fiercely conservative characters, who punched first and asked questions later.
Predominantly Afrikaans-speaking, most belonged to the Mine Workers Union, headed by the neo-Nazi-like, Arrie Paulus whose dream was to unite all white South African wage-earners and to do everything possible to keep non-whites isolated and out of the mainstream.
"You have to know a Black to realise that he wants someone to be his boss. They can't think quickly. You can take a baboon and teach him to play a tune on a piano. But it's impossible for himself to use his own mind to the next step. Here it's exactly the same," he told the New York Times, of 3 June 1979.

PJ van der Bergh

Apartheid and white supremacy was deeply-rooted in this community as illustrated by an incident that took place deep underground in the workings of Randfontein Estates Gold Mine in December 1962.
A shaft timberman, PJ van der Bergh, was working in a blocked orepass. He was attaching cord to a fuse when the plank he stood on dislodged, sending him tumbling 60 metres down the orepass where he ended up on a pile of rocks on the level below.
Van der Bergh's boss boy, a Shangaan man named Gaumine Quibe, without hesitation, climbed down a rope and helped van der Bergh reach the level above. He knew that, at any stage, new rock could be dropped down the orepass from the levels above that would instantly kill both of them. For this Quibe was awarded the Chamber of Mines Golden Hat Award for bravery, as well as a gold watch.
But, at the ceremony, van der Bergh, who owed the man his life, refused to shake hands with his boss boy, while posing for a photograph. He said 'it was against his principles!'
There are many of PJ van der Bergh's ilk still in Randfontein and I thought I had come face-to-face with one recently.
I was in the bank, standing in a line, waiting to be served, when a giant of a man came in and stood behind me. He was the living version of what I imagined PJ van der Bergh must have looked like...a real-life, cartoon character of a racist, conservative Boer.
He probably stood around 6' 5", sported a moustache, had nicotine-stained fingers, wore white PT shorts, rugby socks and velskoens and had on a faded, slightly tatty, red T-shirt with a white slogan on the front that read:

Fuck the Rhino
save
The White Ou

I couldn't believe it, it was as though I'd been sucked back into South Africa 1972 except, back then, he would probably have been arrested for sporting a T-shirt with the "F-word" on it.
I tried, with some difficulty, not to stare at him and noticed some of the black customers and tellers were decidedly uneasy.
Then his wife came in. She too fitted the image perfectly. She was fat and her old-fashioned floral dress did little to hide the two rolls of blubber surrounding her midriff. These were poor Afrikaners, no doubt about it. Conservative, nigger-hating Afrikaners.
But what made the whole incident bizarre and surreal was, hung over her left shoulder was a large, pink, diaper-bag and on her right hip she held a baby. A black baby!
The youngster must have been about six months old.
She passed the child to her husband while searching for something in the diaper-bag.
And, this giant of a man held the little girl gently in his arms then kissed her on the cheek and tickled her with his sausage-like fingers.
Her squeals of delight and giggles produced another flurry of kisses from him.
At that point his wife took his position in the queue and he went and to sit on a chair where he cradled the child while she hungrily sucked on a bottle.
That's the thing about South Africa. Every time you think you have it sussed, it does something to surprise and astound you. It has a way of shattering long-held prejudices and beliefs. Here, truth, really is, often stranger than fiction.
The fact is, if government and sleazeball politicians would just fuck off and leave us ordinary folks alone, this country probably would truly become the Rainbow Nation and the spirit of PJ van der Bergh would finally die.

I've been asked if this story is true. Yes! Absolutely! 100%! The people are described exactly as they were on that day -- that is what made it so noticeable.