Oranjemund characters

[Bob Molloy]

A marathon pipe crawl



Doubtless every period in Oranjemund history had its share of characters who stood out as personalities, but my recall is that the Fifties and Sixties was particularly enriched by such people who, by comparison, made the rest of us appear mundane.

One such was John Heather, a true-blue Namibian long before such sentiments were common, who arrived in Oranjemund in the early Sixties as an employee of the company building the offshore fuel pipeline. Until the pipeline was installed all fuel arrived by road tanker, an expensive and on occasion not too dependable method of supply.

John was a handsome, muscular individual with a challenging stare from ice blue eyes that stopped most male opposition in its tracks. Women tended to melt when he was around but that's another story not suitable for a family website.

He later went on to a successful career in education, holding the post of principal at several prestige schools until head-hunted by Anglo American to run managerial training for both whites and blacks, a rather courageous innovation in the apartheid years. As in most things he ventured, he was inordinately successful and pioneered many training techniques that later featured in a text book. He was later recruited by Shell to help them kick their management team into similar shape, leaving them a few years later to start his own company which he operated internationally until retirement. Still a convinced Namibian, he and his wife now live in Swakopmund where doubtless he continues to indulge in his taste in good Scotch, a yen for the ultimate fishing trip and the odd backhand comment about the New Zealand All Blacks. .

I first came across him on his 21st birthday drinking alone at Casey's Bar having just hit town, no doubt feeling a bit morose and wondering just what the hell he was doing there. We hit it off immediately and, from very hazy recall, we had quite a convivial evening. That was nearly 50 years ago. Though in different fields and often continents apart we have maintained a friendship ever since.

All that is just a preamble to the story I was going to tell of his volunteering to crawl through the full length of the pipeline to thread it with a rope. Once threaded, the rope was used to draw through the steel cable that would pull the pipeline off the land into the sea.

I should explain that the pipeline was built on site, welded in sections mounted on bogies (the undercarriages of old coco pans) carried on a rail line built especially for the project. As each section was welded it was moved forward on the rail line, the aim being eventually to have the full pipeline ready for pulling into the sea. When complete it was 800 yards long (those were the old days of imperial measure).

To get some idea of the difficulty of this feat, imagine crawling on hands and knees along a 36 inch (less than a metre) diameter pipe for 800 yards (more than half a kilometre) unable either to stand up or go back, while up ahead all you can see is a tiny white dot of light at the other end. The pipe, I should add, was in full sun and hellishly hot; certainly not the job for the faint-hearted or the claustrophobic.   

At this stage my memory of events was so patchy that I thought I'd contact John just to refresh me on the details. His reply, typically humorous and self-deprecating, gives the story in full and is worth running just as it is:

Hi Bob
The real hero of the pipe crawl, as I learnt later, was a welder called Jimmy Stevens.   While I slept after my effort the rope broke as it was pulling in the cable so Jimmy completed the crawl in half the time with a heavier rope!  I spent too much time waving my arms inanely in the dark ahead of me convinced that a snake had crawled into the other end of the pipe.
The pipe was 800 yards long and 36 inches in diameter and was to act as a sleeve to protect the actual fuel line, a smaller 12 inch pipe, from the surf.   The Company was Land and Marine, a joint venture with Murray and Stewart and Consani who built the large fuel tanks.  The idea was to pull a pipe line out to sea where it could be plugged via a flexible hose into an oil tanker, thus saving the journey to Cape Town and back by road tankers. This was in 1962.
I was employed to x-ray the welds between each section of pipe using a uranium bomb almost guaranteed to render the user sterile.   This job was organized for me by a director of Murray and Stewart in Cape Town whose daughter I was dating.   The idea of me sterile and 700 kilometres from his daughter seemed to please him.
I was only marginally successful as a weld x-rayer and, having escaped sterilization, was propelled into the role of Bogey Wrencher.   This consisted of wrenching bogies off the rails being used to guide the pipe into the sea.  An offshore tug provided the motive power. As the pipe entered the sea the bogies fell away. They had to be hurriedly thrown onto trucks and taken back to where the long lengths of pipe welded together were being lifted onto the rails by crane. As the bogies weighed in excess of 100kgs the word exhaustion began to take on a truly new meaning.   The process of pulling the pipe into the sea took some forty hours - forty sleepless hours!
Because of the urgency of the project at that stage various CDM departments allocated personnel to help out where required. One of the people who volunteered as a temporary truck driver, a dilettante of Irish extraction called Molloy, found the physical collapse of the bogey pullers highly amusing.    He was however forgiven when he later pitched up in my room with an ice cold lager in each hand just as I wakened from a deathless sleep.
Land and Marine was headed by a huge Dutchman called Gert Groenhoff; a "can do" engineer whose previous role was salvaging wrecked vessels in storm-ravaged seas. His idea of safety would not have earned him a top Nosa grading.   Before the pipe launch started he quite seriously asked me to swim into the raging surf as far as I could while hanging onto the cable attached to the winch vessel some 2 kilometres from shore to see if there were any "obstructions" that would inhibit the pipe pull!   

When I emerged, violently battered by the surf and half drowned after barely managing 30 metres, his only comment was "I thought you were a good swimmer!"
I'm sure you would have more interesting stories regarding yourself, Stumpf and Cundill however they are probably unprintable.
Regards
John

[joco Mueller]

Hi Bob, You did not mention the original plan of towing the pipe to its deatinaion.: The idea was to attach a huge plough to the front of the pipe. Due to the strong current it was feared that - according to divers big stones were floating in the water just like tennis balls - the pipe soon be damaged. Therefore the pipe should be burried into the furrow soon be covered i.e protected in the seabed.From one of our engineers I was told that Marines now threatened our mangement to cancell their contrct with CDM,rather pay the heavy fine,since now the feared that towing the pipe plus the plough was just too much for the ship's winches.They also feared that the ship ,firmly anchored, would lose the anchors (I think 4 of them) due to the vehement up and down of the motion of the sea.Finaly the plough idea was abandoned Bob,there was the roumor that the pipe was layed right next (downstream) to the Ghost Train for at least some protection.George Magnus filmed all this on 8mm for the company. I assisted him and recorded a lot of sound effects on one of my tape recorders.Privately taking some slides as well.The photo of tanks in the forum is one of them.

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Joco,
           Good to hear from you and thanks for that input. I'd forgotten the argy-bargy between CDM and Land and Marine on how to protect the pipeline. It went on for quite some time and, yes, L&M threatened to walk away at some stage.
True too about the large rocks that rolled around like cannon balls in the sea. One diver came out so terrified that he refused to go back again until the sea had calmed a bit.
Re the ghost train, I imagine it will have been pretty well smashed up by now though it would be interesting for someone - on a calm day of course - to go in with scuba gear for a look and perhaps get a picture.
Regards,
Bob.           

[John Creedy]

Now there's an idea.  It would make a great topic.

[Bob Molloy]

Frikkie Nel - Undertaker

Oranjemund - cradle to the grave: that was the concept in the days of CDM. Theoretically it was possible to be born there, primary schooled there, trained there, enjoy lifelong employment there, and eventually be interred in the local graveyard.
The hospital took care of the cradle side and OPS the primary schooling. After that it was necessary to leave for secondary and tertiary education. Many came back for technical education and on the job training as apprentices. Thereafter, as long as you didn't blot your copy book, you could depend on lifelong employment.
For a few whose lives were cut short there was the option of a sandy grave on the north side of town.
That's where Frikkie - a most unusual undertaker, came in. He was anything but the usual concept of the funeral director. A jolly, joking character, fond of his beer and definitely one of the boys, Frikkie really only moonlighted as the undertaker. He was normally employed as a carpenter but when needs must he switched jobs to coffin making and grave digging.
An Oranjemund grave, I learned from him, wasn't the usual hole in the ground concept. It had to be carefully dug, and well watered before the first spadeful was taken. The reason being that damp sand held its shape better. Anyone who has ever tried to dig a hole in dry sand will understand why you couldn't get far without a collapse. The edges also had to be covered with planking to ensure the funeral party didn't follow the coffin into the grave.
Frikkie's coffins were works of art. He spared nothing to ensure the deceased had a beautifully finished product in which he or she could be farewelled. They were also produced in short order, often in a single day if there was urgency.
Apart from a few of the more naive Namaqualanders who tried to avoid him in the bar, he was a popular character. His favourite joke was to sneak up behind one of the more superstitious of these, pull out his tape measure and take a reading across the shoulders of the unsuspecting drinker. The usual outcome was a howl of distress, if not a leap in the air and spilled beer. Sometimes the unhappy target took off into the night, not wishing to risk being any closer to the man who had just measured him for a coffin.
These pantomimes were repeated often, always to howls of laughter from those in the know. At times Frikkie only had to enter the bar for the more tender-minded to leave.
Not sure who does the job today but I doubt if he would be as flamboyant as old Frikkie who, I see from the calendar, has long gone to meet his own measurer.
Regards.
Bob.

[Michael Alexander]

 

Great Stuff...... I know that a third section is now in use at the Graveyard.... Section 1 was filled way back and I see sometime in the mid 70's the 2nd section was added, which has most of the mid 70's - 80's graves. The 3rd section, where my mum is buried, is from the 90's onwards and has about 15 graves.

One cannot help but notice how many more children's graves can be seen in the 1st section as opposed to the other two sections. I put this down to medical advances?

Not to sure who organises the digging of graves these days.

There are a few graves that have jackal holes (dens) dug into the corners... Somewhere on this forum are a few pics from the graveyard.....

[Diana Rudd (Boehme)]

Enjoyed that story.
As kids we spent quite a few hours wondering around the graveyard. The second section probably had about 2 rows when we left in 1980.

[Andrew Darné]

Please point us to any other posts on the Ghost Train, or tell the story if there's time.

Thanks

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Andrew,
               Re the ghost train: go to page one of this thread.
Regards,
Bob.

[Bob Molloy]

Interesting point you made about those children's graves, Mike. There were indeed a large number of child deaths in the early Fifties and doubtless before that.
An abnormally large number of deaths in general in those days was due to cancer of one form or another, in children generally lymphoma. The suspicion was that this was due to having to pass through the X-ray so often when heading out for a weekend or on leave.
I had an inkling from the nurses that the medical department was already way ahead on this and heard that screening was later restricted. People still went through the process of standing spread-eagled in front of the large screen while on the other side the scanner could be heard buzzing up and down but it was seldom turned on, possibly only for characters who for one reason or another were under surveillance. The point was that one never knew whether the screen was on or not, so the rogues were not tempted to try anything.
This was confirmed to me by the radiologist years later, after I had left Omund and he had retired. He told me that he too had been worried about the radiation levels some people were being exposed to and had advised the company to reduce screening rates.
There did appear to be a drop in cancer rates thereafter but if statistics were kept they were certainly never published and the company didn't encourage discussion of the subject.
Regards,
Bob.

[Gerda Cloete]

I remember the undertaken Jan Nel who took care of my dads funeral.. is Frikkie a relation?

[Bob Molloy]

Re Jan Nel: going back over 40 years now and memory is now too hazy to say whether Frik and Jan were related. It's also possible I got the first name wrong.
Regards.
Bob.

[Bob Molloy]

Award for courage
An incredible act of bravery by one of Oranjemund's best known residents of the Sixties made the national headlines and caused CDM to strike a special gold medal to mark the occasion.
Sadly - during moves to various parts of the world - some of my newspaper files of the era have been lost including the eyewitness report I wrote of the incident. I'm sure if somebody dug around in the Advertiser or the Cape Times archives they'd find the reference but it was in pre-computer days and I doubt if the contents of those old libraries would have been digitised.
From memory I can reconstruct most of it. The event happened during one of the regular Orange River floods, with the exception that this flood eventually took away a large piece of the Oppenheimer Bridge, wrecked miles of the river bank and destroyed several fairways on the golf course.
It was a raging torrent spiked with tree trunks, fence posts trailing barbed wire, dead animals and birds, bits of wrecked cars and everything the river could plunder from some hundreds of miles of farmland along its banks.
It wasn't just a torrent, it was a maelstrom, a raging, watery hell that repelled and fascinated everyone. Virtually anyone who could beg, borrow or purloin a car came down to the river to get a glimpse of this mother of all floods.
Unfortunately for the bridge - designed to sit a comfortable three metres above the highest flood level ever reported - this flood made nonsense of such human falliblity. It came down higher than previously known, just enough to lap the bridge surface but not enough to clear the debris as it flowed over.
The result was a massive build-up of tree trunks and other wreckage that strained the bridge pillars. CDM declared an emergency and a team of workers and machinery was rushed to the bridge to help clear the flotsam. The smaller pieces were handled manually by groups of Ovambos while a couple of draglines lifted the larger tree trunks and other material across the bridge to the other side, allowing it to flow freely to the sea. For months afterwards the beaches as far north as Mittag were littered with the jetsam.
I had the easiest of jobs, ensuring power for whatever tools were used via a quick cable job and array of outlets hooked off a nearby transformer, plus a diesel-electric generator as a standby. Most of the time I stood and gaped. And there was lots of gape at; the flood held such menace that it was terrifying. Added to that was the thunder of the flood which seemed to shake even solid ground, and not least the bridge which shuddered and groaned at every blow.
Every so often the river would throw up a vicious roiling, debris-laden wave that chased everyone away from the water's edge - including me leading the rout. The first time it cost me several coils of extension cable and other gear, including a prized box of tools and some expensive test equipment, all of which joined the mad dash to the sea. For weeks after I checked the northern beaches but nary of a sign of my lost gear.
It was during one of the wave fronts that an unfortunate Ovambo lost his footing and with a terrified scream went into the water on the sea side of the bridge. By the time I heard the sound he was many metres away, only his head visible bobbing among muddy waters. He seemed to be making no attempt to swim, most likely he couldn't as in those days few Ovambos could.
Dave Lineker, one of the supervisors in charge of the gang, barely hesitated. Pausing only to strip off his oilskins, he dived headfirst into the river and took off swimming strongly after the now faraway Ovambo.
None of us gave either of them a hope, mainly because they were being buffeted in a lethal soup of mud, rocks, huge trees that struck the riverbed at intervals as they rolled over and over, flailing their branches and sometimes up-ending metres out of the water to crash down again, and all of it laced with what seemed like miles of barbed wire that the working groups had to cut from where it had wrapped itself around the bridge rails trying - in the end vainly - to free the flow.
Nothing or nobody had a show of hell of surviving even a few minutes in that cauldron. Never the less a bunch of us with an armful of light ropes raced along the riverbank trying to keep pace with them. Unbelievably, not only did the terrified Ovambo stay afloat, which seemed like a miracle in itself, Dave managed to reach him, spoke to him to calm him and, gripping him from behind, kept on swimming strongly with one arm towards the bank. When close enough, half a dozen pairs of hands eventually dragged them out. The only damage was to Dave's forearm and one leg which must have snagged something, duly stitched up later by an adoring nurse at the clinic.
The relief at their rescue was palpable. Everybody cheered. As the flood waters continued to rise the situation was reassessed and the work area was declared unsafe. All workers, machines and equipment were withdrawn and the bridge was left to its fate.
At a special ceremony, held in the Rec Club attended by the whole town, General Manager Stan Devlin awarded Dave a certificate of a bravery and a special gold medal struck for the occasion.
Dave, a very modest man, in a brief speech, insisted that he only did what anyone else would have done. I sat there in that hall and thought back to the occasion, my only recall a feeling of being almost paralysed by the sheer horror of it all. I was a fairly strong swimmer, as were most of us, but I doubt if anyone fancied their chances in the Orange River that day. Fortunately, thanks to Dave's quick-thinking, we were not put to the test.
It is not given to many to stand in the presence of real courage. When it happens, you know deep down what a gift you have received. I feel privileged to have had that opportunity. Dave Lineker, a very courageous human being, a man who showed us what common humanity really means.
I have no idea whether Dave is still with us. I searched for his name in the list of lost diamonds but couldn't find it so presume he is alive and well. If not, I'd be grateful to Mike if he would give him a special mention in that Roll of Honour.
Bob.

[Michael Alexander]

Dave Lineker is still alive and living down in the Cape, in fact I believe he attended the ex Oranjemunder pension lunch in SOmerset West last week.... his daughters Susan and Patricia are both members on this forum.....

Bob, on another note, I do believe that i am not the only person on this forum, but we implore you to put a wee book together on these tales of yours.... your writings are indeed captivating......

[Mike Voden (RIP)]

Yes, Dave was at the Pensioners get together on 3rd June and looking very well I might add. In fact he lives not too far from us here in Gordon's Bay.