Does anyone remeber my pets that i had to leave behind.
Dog called Wolf ,who i think went to live with the family of the butcher...dont remember his name, but i cant remeber what happened to the cat, Smokey. from nov 1966
Outta curiosity , what kinda dog is that, a cross alsatian with ?
???
Not sure Mike, we came from the traasval (witbank) where he was roaming wild, he used to follow us home, where we would then feed him, when we decided to move to O/M we brought him with us
I think he was just alsation crossed with a mongrel.....he was a lovely dog.........we thought he looked like a wolf....hence the name.
My old dog blackie similar history to Bevs " wolf " my Mom and dad were in Germiston before coming to O'mund .. the next door neighbours just moved out and abandoned him on the property .. so he was taken in and also moved with family to the desert ...
I remember we had a st bernard great big slobbering oaf of a dog. The Damn thing used to get out the gate and calmly trot off to school and walk straight into the assembly hall . My brother and sister would quickly hide and i would have to walk him home
Was there a vet here in the mid 70's?
I think Gavin Gregg put our dog down.....
:'(
As far as I remember, a vet used to come up from Cape Town once or twice a year. Does anyone remember the building where the vet would see his patients? I seem to remember somewhere near the cricket club??
Debby, that same building is still being used by the Vet, who comes here , I think once a week from Rosh Pinah.... We also have Doy Van Zyl who runs things in between and off course Mile''s daughter Sweta who is leaving for Serbia with her dad in a few days..... :-\
Rex Barnes used to be our unofficial vet years ago ... when my dog Scampy got his leg broken first time he splinted it and it healed nicely .. second time round his leg got broken too high up and Rex organised the whole trip for Scampy to be flown to CT Blue Cross Vet hospital .. and then helped again with his healing when he returned .. A kind and remarkable man ..
Further on Dogs and cats ... what about your other pets .. ?? We had a whole menagerie .. Part of the menagerie ... watching on TV last night .. " be the creature " Meerkats brought back my memory .. we had a meerkat as a pet .. my dad brought home this abandoned baby from central fields workshop area ... he was raised with the rest of the animals in the home . Scampy .. blackie the cat who moved across from the barrats house next door ... Whenever the heater was on you had this squabble for prime position .. Krickie as he was called ( ate crickets ) would sit in the classical on his haunches position , he would stand his ground against the dog .. his diet consisted of raw eggs , raw mince and whatever garden pests he could rake up from the ground or on plants .. only problem was he within a week would start smelling rather high .. ( I suppose the acceptable scent for them ...a cross between blue cheese and other unimaginables ) so Michael or Rastus had to bath him once a week .. a humiliation he submitted to cos he knew he would be banished from the comfort of the house otherwise .. He was eventually set free again cos as he got older he despite his liking for the soft life also started to wander a bit too much .. obviously looking for a mate ... he would have been in danger in the town .. so dad took him out to the area he found him and let him free ... we were sad to see him go but it seems it was what he wanted cos there must have been more of them in the area ..cos he hesitated a bit sniffed the air and then just took off never to be seeen again .
does anyone remember dr barnes (us olivier kids saw him as the resident vet) - his wife i think was a sister at the hospital (in my minds eye i can see her in a nurses uniform) - he lived down 8th avenue (east side) and whenever we found a bird mauled by one our cats, or one of our cats run over by a car, off we'd go down the road to Dr Barnes with the bird/cat wrapped in a towel. as you walked into his garden he had these huge cages with hundreds of birds (okay, maybe not hundreds, but to a kid it seemed like it). he was such a gentle, kind man whom the animals seemed to trust. they would totally relax while he looked at them and he always promised to do his best to fix them up. to this day i don't know what his job actually was in town. can anyone tell me? was he an actual vet?
Hi Delia ,, No .. Rex was not a doctor .. His wife Monica was the Matron of the Hospital .. Rex was a registered male nurse to the best of my knowlege and he used to work at the hostel infirmary ... that was however no limit to his wide knowlege and abilities .. as we witnessed with his having the desire to help treat animals as well ... read my earlier posting on him .. and yes in our eyes he was the resident vet ..
Right Sandy, Rex was the chief medical officer for the mine and his wife was Matron for many years. She always reminded me of Nurse Ratchet from "One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest ", though she was nothing like Nurse Ratchet, she was much kinder.
They were both devout Catholics and I remember an incident concerning Father Eckerstoffer. Remember him? The crazy priest. He was a good friend of the family. Came from Austrian nobility. Loved his photography and one Christmas he was seen hanging from the steeple of the Community Church playing his trumpet. He was also often seen around town with his water diviner.
Shame, he got sent to Marien Hill in Natal coz he was a naughty boy. Last I heard of him he was in Kamieskroon which was just up his alley as he could then go wild with his photography. As a family we adored him. Another great Oranjemund character.
Rex was the driver of ambulance and other assorted jobs of medical nature unofficially. I don't believe he was a qualified doctor, but a nurse with immense ability.
thanks sandy, debby, barbs - that's cleared that one up for me about dr barnes. he was such a honey.
I remember Rex one night when working in the Metallurgy Dept at No 4 plant in +/-1977.
In those days we worked 12 hour shifts which was quite a shlep. This particular night we decided to give the main control operator a hard time, I think his name was Flooi, he was not very well versed in the
English language.
The whole night the rest of us phoned the main control room and gave him some hog wash in English, this eventually pissed him off. At about 3 o'clock in the morning we were all sitting in the main ops room having coffee and something to eat.
Flooi got up to go to the kitchen, in those days there were no "leds" as indicator lights for all the motors and pumps of the plant on the main display, there were small bulbs behind coloured lenses which were removable. The two main outlet pumps which pumped all 4 plants waste water out to sea, had to be on always.
One of the guys removed the two bulbs and screw the lenses on again, obviously no light on.
Flooi returned to the ops room with coffee and sat down and lit up a smoke and sat chatting to us while glancing at the control panel.
All of a sudden he jumped up and shouted "O my f#@ die pompe is af" and ran out to switch them on again. Needles to say when he got back he was cursing us all, we where killing ourselves with laughter.
About 4 o'clock the phone rang and Flooi answered it, he listened for a while and then said "Jy kan jou f#@$%& lyk vat en dit op jou gat steek" and slammed the phone down.
The following night when coming on shift we were all called into the ops room and the forman told Flooi to tell us what had happened to him during the day.
Flooi had been woken during the day and told to report to Harold Hestor's office, when he walked into Harold's office Rex was there.
Harold asked Flooi why he had sworn at Rex over the phone. Apparently there had been a genuine accident in the 4 plant area and Rex had phoned 4 plant and explained what had happened and asked Flooi to phone town for assistance. Flooi then explained what had transpired the previous night at 4 plant and why he had used such bad language and appologised. I think in the end there were a few smiles in Harolds office.
Sorry Flooi, where ever you may be now!
Richard 8)
Rex, taught many people on the mine their basic first aid.
He was good and from what I can remember patient when explaining, he had a lot of experience and many intriguing stories.
I remember being in one of his classes, not feeling well, the room was hot with little ventilation and he was talking about the circulatory system, blood pumping this way and that and how when one loses blood, goes into shock, sewats feels clammy etc, looking at me, pointed out the lack of colour in my face, the shallow breathing, the sweating and said I was doing a good demonstration for him. He ajourned the class, took me out side and had the windows & doors opened up to get some air movement in the room.
I swear that he hypnotised me into thinking I was going into some form of shock