Oranjemund's first resident dentist

[Michael Alexander]

This just says it all about our Oranjemund:

"I had to admit, which engendered a fascination within my soul that has never been entirely extinguished. Even now in my twilight years some four decades later friendships nurtured there have – even when dispersed to the ends of the earth – withstood the test of time"

[SandyB]

again interesting ..... more   

[Bob Molloy]

Brian La Trobe's memoir. Next instalment.

THE TREATMENT OF EDWARD

Everything said in the previous chapter is true in my experience, save for one very important caveat. Most paediatric patients, even nervous and bolshie little critters, can be conditioned with time and patience to become ideal dental patients. There is however a small percentage who, despite all your tender loving care and prolonged effort to allay their underlying behavioural patterns and primordial fears, are only treatable under a general anaesthetic. Only with experience does one realise when you are flogging a dead horse. A good old South African saying sums it up: "When you get a tiger by the tail, let go."
Some children shout and scream or cry. One can often break this cycle by screaming or shouting back at them. It's often better to see these patients without the parental presence in the surgery. Some children will react by pissing or crapping in their pants. Others will vomit, preferably over the dentist. This process is seldom repeated when they are made to learn the hard way that they have to clean the mess themselves.
The young and uninitiated dentist might take a few appointments to categorise his diminutive terrors into the appropriate pigeon holes. One such case was Edward who first entered my surgery backwards, dragged in by his mother with her arms under his armpits. There was no screaming or shouting, no kicking of legs, just Ghandi type silent passive resistance. I asked his mother the nature of the problem.
She just opened the flood gates of her heart. Edward was steadily driving her to total distraction.  The child hardly ever spoke and refused to eat fruit, meat or vegetables. From the time of weaning he had survived on spoonfuls of peanut butter, condensed milk, dry corn flakes, chocolate, toffees, boiled sweets and more chocolate. He would only drink Coca Cola. Mother was convinced this was pure rebellion at being taken off the breast. Whatever the psychology of Ed's fit of pique over the denial of his mother's mammaries his dietary preferences were playing havoc with his deciduous dentition.
True to form, he refused to open his mouth for me to have even a peek.  From his past history alone he probably had a mouth full of rotten baby teeth. He was, in fact a dental accident waiting to happen, His mother was instructed to bring him back at the first sign of any swelling of glands, increased temperature or pain. These cases are so tragic. It is sad that having not even reached the age of four, there was absolutely no hope of any conservative treatment for Edward possible. All those teeth would have to come out. Some early parental control could have helped.
Within a month Edward was back with a swollen lip and running a temperature. Probably one or more of his rotten teeth was harbouring a serious infection. I gave him a course of antibiotics, reserved theatre time and did the usual slum clearance of all his teeth. There was not one that could be saved.
A week later mother and rebellious child were back in the surgery for a post-operative check. Ed's silence was deafening. His black look of reproach could kill a mosquito at ten paces. He refused to open his mouth for me to check his healing gums. At three and a bit, Ed would have to survive edentulous until the age of six when his first permanent six year old molar would erupt together with his front incisor teeth. I thought that period was a bit too long for good nutrition and decided to make him a full set of dentures As far as was known at that time this would be something of a first. The idea was fraught with difficulty. Deciduous teeth were not replicated as false teeth. Each tooth would have to be individually made by my technician in Cape Town. In addition, to make a set of dentures there needs to be a modicum of cooperation and rapport between patient and dentist. ED was singularly lacking in this department. He was not the sweetest child in the village. However, I had youth and overconfidence on my side.
I hand-made upper and lower impression trays from models of a child's mouth I had from the Cape Town practice. Ed's mother was told to make an appointment for about three months hence when the lad's gums should have stabilised enough to take the impressions. This was also a ploy in the hope that Edward's father would perhaps have arranged employment elsewhere away from CDM or anywhere such as the USA.
On the day of the appointment both parents accompanied Edward. The air was electric with vibes of non-cooperation and distrust. Give him his due, Ed climbed up into the chair unassisted. Probably his father had softened him up with a couple of clops around the ear hole. As the poor little devil was only three and a half years old I allowed the parents, on this occasion to remain in the surgery and I turned on my best chairside manner. It had no affect on Ed. Hs doleful brown eyes never left my face. His expression said it all
What's he going to do to me this time? Last time he sweet talked me in the hospital and when I was not looking someone pricked me in the arm and I went to sleep. When I woke up all my teeth were gone. I strongly suspect that this arsehole did it. He won't catch me a second time.
I had my patter ready: "Now young man you see these nice little trays, I made them especially for you. We are going to fill them with porridge and hold them in your mouth for a short while until the porridge sets so that we can make you some new teeth".
Bad call: Ed who possibly hated porridge, clamped up his mush in an instant. The impression material set before we could get his mouth open. A dentist has a few tricks of the trade to get an uncooperative child to open his mouth. A little mild pressure on the nostrils between thumb and fore finger will usually do the trick. When they need to take a breath, you're in. Another is to get the child to say HAH loudly. When the lips open, slip the forefinger quickly to the back of the mouth behind the last tooth. A small amount of pressure will cause the mouth to open.
The method is fraught with difficulty. If the finger ends up between the masticatory surfaces of the last molar teeth the patient as a conditioned reflex will clamp down on the dentist's finger. It will then be necessary to get the patient to say "HAH" once again in order to get his damaged finger out of the mouth.  John Citizen seldom realises the coordination between sight and texture of the food to be masticated and the distance to be travelled by the working jaw. We have all experienced the pain when the tongue gets out of synch and gets the message a little late. The result is a painful self bite.
In estimating the texture of the food to be chewed, experience and conditioned reflexes all play a part to prevent shattering of the teeth due to excessive force. The muscles of the jaw and teeth are attuned to a very fine balance to prevent trauma when eating. Most of us can recall the jolt of biting onto an unexpected piece of lead shot when eating game food such as rabbit, duck or venison. Replicating the intricacies of the human biting pattern requires the meticulous placing of teeth on a new denture and the correct relationship of upper to lower teeth, all vitally important to the future comfort and well being of the patient. Accurate registration of the patient's "bite" is therefore essential. As Ed was not exactly giving much in the way of cooperation it was a major complication.
Ed's first dental appointment for his impressions was an unmitigated disaster for me and a total victory for him. Full ten times the nurse mixed the impression material and ten times it set in the tray before getting anywhere near his diminutive jaw bones. Each time he promised to open his mouth under the threat of drastic corporal punishment from father but as I approached with the refilled tray he would change his mind and clam up like a virgin oyster. In the end I think the little shit was actually enjoying himself. I was lining myself up for a coronary thrombosis, his father was on the verge of taking out his first born, his mother was in tears and dear Francis was having difficulty in controlling a very itchy right hand.
"Bring him back in a month" cried a defeated and demoralised dentist. The second visit was no better. By now we had wasted a tin and a half of expensive impression material. All we had was a near demented dentist, an apoplectic father, a distraught mother and a deeply religious nurse who never profaned saying "Just leave the little son of a bitch toothless until he is six and see if I care"
At the next attempt I stipulated no parents were to be in attendance. Francis, in no mood to be trifled with, took him to the chair, pointed to it and said "SIT" He obediently did.  I told Edward that both Sister and I had now had enough.
"Today we are going to get these impressions done even if it takes us a month and none of us are going home until they are done. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"
Ed was backed into a corner from which there seemed no escape. He looked at me with those doleful clear eyes and with but one heave sent a projectile of puke all over my chest. For afters he turned on an abdominal spasm that vented every last vestige of shit from his entire gut through his diminutive anus. Mother was called to take the small SOB home. I said to her. "Don't call us, we will call you" I needed time to re-evaluate the way forward.
I went home to have a shower while Francis wrote out her resignation which I refused to accept. While in the shower I could not but admire the little bugger but equally I could not admit defeat. There had to be a way past Ed's terrors. That evening I retired, hurt, to my study with large sheets of paper, pens and a bottle of old matured whisky. I was about to start an honest swot analysis of Ed versus Brian. Was it symptomatic of his family life? Why did he not shout and scream? What level of fear could have caused his extreme gut reaction? Should I have been more forceful or more coaxing? Were there similar zoological examples in the animal kingdom which would account for using this deterrent of spraying body waste to get out of a situation? A stressed octopus gives out black ink to cover his retreat; a pole cat sprays evil smelling urine to repel boarders.
All this maybe pertinent but what was this young terrorist's Achilles' heel? In a flash I had it: chocolate. I could visualise it: a dental bracket table loaded with large thick slabs of chocolate, a kilo of scattered crème toffees, a small mountain of multicoloured gob stoppers and marsh mallows.
And so it came to pass, at Ed's next appointment his chocoholic's eyes came out on stalks when he saw this wonderful array of sweetmeats. I interrupted his mouth watering thoughts by saying: "Edward, you let me take those impressions of your mouth and this lot is all yours". The job was all over in less than five minutes. Ed left the surgery with bulging pockets.  He also took home a post-hypnotic suggestion that he would get the same again each time he came to see me.
There was never any further trouble with Ed's appointments as long as the little incentives were there for all to see. For the rest of his treatment he was the epitome of cooperation. The wheels came off slightly when he got the dentures. Ed would not wear them, possibly because I took a picture of him and made a great fuss. Even Francis smiled. It was his nature to be a rebel and it would be out of character to get too close to the management.
I told his Mother to take them home and within the next few days arrange a party for Ed and all his young mates. I instructed her to get Ed to show how he could take his teeth out and put them back again. His pals marvelled. None of them could do that. Ed realised that he was different and basked in his uniqueness. Within 48 hours he could eat anything and chewed like a veteran.
A sequel to the story unfolded years later when Edward start to erupt some of his permanent teeth. I then started to use his dentures as space maintainers to guide his permanent teeth into their correct positions. I saw quite a lot of Ed in those days. He was still a quiet lad but no longer so rebellious. He and I had come a long way together in what was initially a love/hate relationship but eventually he was something rather special to me and I like to think that he in turn felt an attachment to me. When he eventually had his full set of permanent teeth and his well worn dentures were at last obsolete I congratulated him. His reply floored me.
"Uncle Brian, these new teeth of mine feel so hard and tight in my gums. I think I prefer my dentures."
After we left Oranjemund I lost all contact with Edward and his family, and have often wondered how he fared in later life. It is doubtful if our paths will ever cross again. I think of him periodically. Not often, but occasionally when I have a quiet moment of reflection on my earlier days of practice. When I think of Edward I have a fulfilling feeling of achievement and, yes, amusement at how we managed to tame him. And I'm sure that Francis, up on high, would nod agreement.

[Bob Molloy]

@Sandy,
              Just had an email from Brian. It seems he only arrived in Omund long after your sojourn with the baboons on the mountain. Re the infamous dagga plant, his reply as follows:

"Checked with Peggy and the PPJ story. I Have no recollection but she remembers it well. She says it was not a tomato plant; it looked more like a marigold flower. It was indeed PPJ who advised it was the dreaded dagga which she had so carefully been nuturing outside our front fence on 5th Avenue!
Brian."

[SandyB]

good  to hear  my recollection   of the    was correct .....

[Bob Molloy]

OTHER CHARACTERS WHO TOUCHED MY LIFE

Ronny Jew.

One day the receptionist called me to the waiting room to say someone wanted to have a word with me. I went out and there stood a muscular, cocky looking character with a broad grin.
"Hey, Doc," he said. "My name is Ronny Jew. I believe you play squash. I think I can beat the pants off you."
That was the beginning of a friendship that would last as long as we stayed in Oranjemund. Ronny was a fitter and turner by trade who held a supervisory post at the mine workshops and a scavenger of note. He could find just about anything on the mine Apart from becoming my permanent squash partner he was my most useful "finder of things" when we were building up the Mule Derby equipment for this annual charity event which eventually became my baby and sole responsibility, but more about that later.
Ronny was a great athlete. He was no mean squash player and had represented Transvaal, now Gauteng, at baseball.  He came close to being awarded Springbok colours. He was a very intense fellow with a constant smile and always ready to help his fellow man. We played squash twice a week for at least five years. We knew each other's game inside out. Ultimately the only way to win a point was to create some obstruction or do something that was on the borders of legality in the rules of squash. As an example Ronny would hit a shot to the wall and immediately get into my line of vision but just allow the ball to pass between his arm and body. I would eventually position myself behind him. When the opportunity arose I would aim a full-blooded forehand drive not at the wall but at his backside. He would bellow in pain. I would say sorry. He learned fast.
Squash is not a spectator sport but word got around that watching the two of us play raised a few laughs so we often had an audience. The old CDM squash court was attached to the end of the company main mess hall for single staff. There was a small gallery, the steps of which lead straight off the street. Ronny had a gammy knee which would occasionally dislocate during a game. It was painful and he would bellow in agony. I would get him down on the court floor, put his foot over my shoulder, grab his leg behind the knee and give it a violent jerk. As there was no place on the court for him to get a firm hold, I would sometimes drag him around the floor jerking the knee before it would click back into position.
On one occasion an old lady taking her afternoon walk passed the squash court and heard Ronny's cries of agony. She came running up the stairs to the gallery and saw me in the throes of trying to reduce his dislocation.
"Stop that, young man. Stop this fighting, at once, you are hurting that young man," she shouted.
Fortunately the next jerk reduced the dislocation. We both had a good laugh. The incident would be the end of the day's game. Ronny would go home and get his wife, Milly, to massage the injured knee with copious amounts of wintergreen oil, a remedy in which he had great faith. For the information of the young and the near young, winter green oil is powerful counter irritant; a sort of a powerful deep heat but much more potent. As when cutting up chilli you don't ever touch your eyes or your genitals without a thorough washing of hands or you do so at your peril. The same applies to oil of wintergreen but doubly so.
Milly and Ronny had a black Scottish terrier. Unfortunately it was terrorised by a neighbour's cat. All CDM houses had a laundry attached to the kitchen. In Ronny's house the laundry door had a small aperture covered by strip of leather thongs so that small domestic animals could gain free access to this room into the garden. Their Scotty slept in the laundry. Ronny would be constantly awoken most nights with the wails of anguish from the dog being filled in by this irritating cat. He would rush to the kitchen to rescue his timid mutt but each time would just be in time to see the tail of the bullying canine disappearing through the flapping leather thongs.
One night when his slumber was again disturbed by the feisty cat, Ronny who always slept in the buff, tried a different tactic. He jumped out of the bedroom window and ran to the outside laundry door while the fight was still in progress, tapped on the door to alarm the cat and, holding his hands like seasoned baseball catcher, caught the cat as it came flying through the opening door and held it to his hairy chest. It scratched like blazes but he ignored the scratches. He was going to teach the animal a lesson it would never forget.
He thought of his bottle of wintergreen in the bathroom cupboard. So, holding the squirming animal, he made for the bathroom and got a hand to the bottle. Ronny then tried to remove the cork from the bottle with his teeth. Alas, in the excitement of the moment he forgot that he no longer had his natural teeth but a denture. All he managed to achieve was to tip the entire content of the bottle over his lower abdomen and of course his crown jewels. His blood curdling scream woke Milly who rushed to see who was murdering Ronny. The released cat had long since scarpered with no other injury but its hurt pride while Ronny was in agony. Milly found him sitting in the bath with both hot and cold taps fully open, gushing a torrent of water onto his genitals. He turned a pain-wracked face to Milly and pleaded: "BLOW MILLY, FOR CHRIST'S SAKES BLOW.
When Ronny's private parts had sufficiently recovered our titanic squash court struggles continued. One day Ronny, looking concerned, confided in me that he thought he had cancer. It seemed that Milly had found a lump on his back. I didn't ask how dear Milly came to get a grip on Ronny's back but asked him to let me have a look. He pulled up his tee-shirt and bent forward.
"Please tell me if it's serious, Doc, as I need to make a will," said a very worried Ronny.
The swelling on his back was immediately obvious. It was well defined and quite soft to the touch. On palpating the swelling it showed no hard or indurated border. It had the typical feeling of a fatty benign tumour known as a lipoma.
"Is it serious, Doc? Do I need an operation?
"No, you daft ," I was happily able to tell him. "It's totally benign and definitely not a cancerous growth. You can leave it there or if Milly gets a bit squeamish about touching it have one of the medical officers shell it out under local anaesthetic. It's too far from the mandible to be in my field."
"Are you absolutely sure, Doc? Don't I need some tests or something?"
"Ronny, I lay my head on a block, it's not cancer".
His mood lightened. He was his cocky old self once more and showed it by beating the hell out of me in the next game and went home with a spring in his step. Shortly after I reached home there was a phone call from Milly.
"What's this larpaloma that Ronny says he has on his back?"
Perhaps because of our squash court antics interest in the game gradually increased to the extent that one court was inadequate. I pressed the Recreation Club committee to budget for a better facility and also kept nagging the GM. Eventually they both got fed up with my persistent pleading and a new squash complex was built, ironically at about the time we left Oranjemund. However, I had the pleasure of playing on these magnificent courts on a subsequent visit and still have the beer mug given to me when I was Club Captain.
We had only been in Oranjemund a short while when after an early evening game of squash I mentioned to Ronny that Peggy needed a wheelbarrow for use in the garden and wondered if they were sold at the company store.
"Doc, at CDM you don't buy a wheel barrow, you just borrow one from Rumbles, the local building contractor. I'll have one here for you in ten minutes".
True to his word, Ronny pulled up in his truck pulled up in a cloud of dust at our front gate.
"One wheelbarrow, compliments of Mr Rumble" he said, departing as quickly as he arrived.
It seemed that Mr Rumble considered wheelbarrows a bottomless pit. As fast as he ordered new ones the faster they disappeared into the community. Mr Rumble was not concerned about the phenomenon of the disappearing wheelbarrows because CDM was paying for them all and in any event wheelbarrows – or anything else that could conceal illicit diamonds - could not be removed from the security area which enclosed the town. I thought no more of it until about three years later when a general circular was issued to all houses in the village. Some clever dick in the accounting department had at last noticed that the mine was being charged for what was a vast number of wheel barrows which Mr Rumble could not account for.
The circular suggested that if all townspeople harbouring such an illegal garden implements would return them to the lawn between the swimming pool and the single quarters on an appointed evening, no further punitive action would be taken. Being slightly embarrassed by the situation, I waited until well after dark and trundled Mr Rumble's illegitimate wheel barrow up to the swimming pool. On the way I noticed figures leaving the pool area but they always slunk into the shadows nor did anyone offer a greeting. It was a classic Whiskey Galore situation.
The following morning as the new day dawned not only was the swimming pool lawn covered with wheel barrows but the entire road was blocked with wheel barrows as far as the eye could see. It took the Parks and Gardens and all their trucks the entire day to cart the lot to Mr Rumble's contractor's yard which became congested with wheel barrows, leaving no room for anything else. When I mentioned this to Ronny he said rather disparagingly: "It's only you honest okes who took them back. The rest of us just kept ours."

George Glover.

George and Gwen Glover lived two houses down the road from us. When we arrived in Oranjemund they had recently come to town after 17 years living in Elizabeth Bay, never once having taken any vacation. Elizabeth Bay was as remote spot in the Namib Desert south of Luderitz, a ghost town abandoned by a German mining company during the First World War. To go there was an eerie experience. Most of the buildings stood silent in the grinding sand. On the windward side of a house the abrasive sand laden wind would have abraded away the bricks, leaving a honeycomb of the wall's mortar. Chimney stacks would have the same appearance.
Wandering through it was an exercise in loneliness. A deserted recreational club with enduring painted murals on the interior walls left without human appreciation for 50 years; kegel bahns, (bowling alleys), still looking as if the players had just gone to the bar for another beer, and outside a mountain of empty green beer bottles, frosted not by the cold of refrigeration but by the punishing wind. Some of the bottles would be so worn by the sand laden winds they would have whole sides and tops ground away as if sliced by a knife. To visit there was an uneasy experience. Yet George, his bride and a team of Ovambos lived there in that Germanic ghost of the past for all those years. At least the Ovambos went home after an annual tour of duty.
George was one of a dying breed of old type prospectors, soon to be surpassed by academic snotty-nosed geologists or "klip doktors (stone doctors) as described by George. He and Gwen both originated from Kimberley. In his day he was quite a cricketer, famed for his left hand bowling. He was selected to play for Griekqwas and was very proud of his Griekqwas provincial blazer which he wore on all formal occasions. Unfortunately on his debut he blotted his copy book. While playing a provincial game being a tail end batsman he and some pals decided the more established batsmen would see out the day. They travelled hence to one of Kimberley's dens of iniquity for a few frosted ones. Unfortunately for George the opening batsmen all collapsed and when he was called on to bat he was sitting at a bar miles away. Needless to say he was never again invited to play cricket for Griekqwas.
He had many a tale of his days in Elizabeth Bay. He told of the old German recovery plant which tipped its rejected overburden onto the beach which included many semi-precious stones amongst discarded gravels.
He got his team of Ovambos down on their hand and knees in line, showed them a small diamond and told them to keep all such similar stones and bring them to him. At the end of the day he was disappointed as to how few they had collected. He said he expected more. The Ovambos said they had found more but they were all bigger so they turfed them back. I had no way of verifying this story. It might have been a prospectors tale but who knows.
A ship's life boat was once washed up on the beach at Elizabeth Bay. There were no oars but George fancied a trip around the bay as a preliminary to a spot of fishing at a later date. He had plenty of shovels in his prospecting stores for the Ovambos to substitute for oars. The Ovambos always considered the sea to be something to be looked at, not to go on, even in a boat. Where were the people who had journeyed in the boat?  George somehow convinced them it was perfectly safe. It was a calm day with hardly any waves so, against their better judgement and with fear and trepidation as none of them could swim, they shovelled out gingerly into the bay.
All went well until a shark suddenly bumped the boat. It matters not whether it was a great white, a ragged tooth or a hammerhead, nor whether it was the same length as the boat or twice its size. Such details could vary with the number of shots of whiskey George had consumed at the time of telling, but the two foot high dorsal fin that started to circle the boat was definitely not part of a 1958 Chevvy.
An Ovambo was never known to demonstrate any signs of excessive energy expenditure or the desire to move rapidly from A to B but that day, with no experience of oarsmanship, they propelled that large and heavy life boat with shovels back to the shore with such force that its entire keel was clean out of the water as it left the surf. What is more George was flattened to the bilges by their panic to be the first out of the boat. According to George, his frightened gang of souls were a lighter shade of black for at least a week after the incident.
Shortly after we arrived in Oranjemund Dr K resigned as the Kleinzee Medical Officer. The family had a magnificent Great Dane dog whose name was Sally, which they were going to "put down". It was still in its prime and I felt it was a shame to do this to such a magnificent animal. Her coat was of the black and white spotted variety. I offered to take her into our family. The first problem was getting Sally to Oranjemund as she suffered so badly from claustrophobia she could not be coaxed into a car. We had to consult a veterinarian in Cape Town as to what size dose of barbiturate was needed to keep a 90 odd kilogramme hound unconscious for some two hours. We had to trot Sally down to the mine stores to weigh her on a large commercial scale to get the dose right.
On the appointed day, I travelled down to Kleinzee in my trusted Pontiac with a CDM medical orderly, just in case the dog started to regain consciousness while I was driving. A security truck was on hand at the company garages to bring the dog to the town from the company garages. The trip was uneventful. Sally slept on our lawn for a further hour before she awoke to take her first groggy steps and sniffed out the members of her new adopted family.


I had purposely forgotten to inform Peggy that Sally's diet consisted of  3 kilos  of muscle meat, two litres of milk and a couple of eggs per day, just in case she refused to give the dog a home. Fortunately meat was only 25 cents a kilo from the company butcher shop, so it was no big deal. Everything about Dr K was on a grand scale. Sally was accustomed to a diet of steak. We slowly weaned her off such expensive fare to enjoy ox hearts and offal which was cheaper.
She soon came to enjoy the company of our children. One day she decided to leave our garden and explore the neighbourhood. Unfortunately the Glover's front gate was open. She trotted in to have a look around. Gwen looked out into the garden over the rim of her elevenses, a morning G&T, at the precise moment Sally placed her big paws on the wall while standing on the flower bed to look into the lounge. Gwen's shriek and the crack of her glass of G&T against the window startled Sally who cantered off to the safety of home. Gwen instructed her domestic Ovambo to check the flower bed for paw prints just in case she had imagined the scenario and if perhaps she should maybe lay off the booze for a week or so. He came back all wide -eyed and in a dither
"Meesus, it could be a leopard or a cheetah."
Gwen rang George: "Come home this instant, there has been a leopard in the garden and Johannes has seen the spoor. I have locked all the doors and windows."  George drove back from the mind to calm his wife. On arriving home he first checked the spore in the front flower bed.
"Jesus," he exclaimed. "It could be a friggin' leopard." Shouting to Gwen to stay in the house and don't move he rushed off to the Police Station get Sergeant PPPJ Kruger. Fortunately PPJ had been at the company garage on the day I arrived with the comatose Sally en route from Kleinzee.
"Oom George have you seen your neighbour's dog?" he asked. To settle George's nerves PPJ drove him to our house where they quietly looked over our fence. There was Sally fast asleep on the lawn. Problem solved.
We always knew when Gwen and George were having a party. George's favourite recording was very loud version of Ketelbey's "In a Monastery Garden".  I think it must have been one of the few records he possessed. As soon as the party started to hot up George would say:"Let's have a bit of Kettlebe" and the fun would start. The recording would be played louder and louder as the evening wore on. I can imagine how the ghosts of Elizabeth Bay must have enjoyed the quiet once the Glovers left that deserted town.

Chapter 30.

[SandyB]

Mmm that story of the " leopard " did get around the  town  ... I remember the great dane .. we kids with the fertile imaginations called her the "cow dog "  because  of her size and the  black and white  markings ,

[Michael Alexander]

Me thinks the shopping centre could have a run a special on wheelbarrows for a month on the returned stock! Would love to have seen a photo of all those wheelbarrows~!

Bob, please convey our thanks to Brian for penning all the history..... and Sir! i once again implore you, to write your memoirs..... those tales need to be preserved......

[Bob Molloy]

@ Michael,
             I have some pics from Brian to illustrate his material but am at a loss at how to transfer them from an attachment on an email to the body copy of this thread; would appreciate some direction on that.

Re my "memoirs": Oranjemund represented the idiot phase of my life during which I was an all-out adrenalin junky, achieving little other than a few unscheduled stays in hospital, loss of acres of skin, the odd punch-up or two, a couple of boxing and yachting cups, the record for the Cape Town to Omund road trip and a dawning realization I would eventually join a few of my friends in the Oranjemund graveyard if I didn't change my ways. In retrospect all very boring and much too self-centred to be of interest to anyone.
For that reason I felt the Oranjemund of those days would be best illustrated by posting a few of my freelance newspaper articles of the time and describing the exploits of some of the outstanding characters who enriched that period of the town's history.
The only things which change your life are the books you read and the people you meet. In that respect I was indeed fortunate. George Lovett was an early mentor. He was a larger than life character at a time when Oranjemund was filled with them. He is mentioned earlier in this thread. Brian was another. He arrived in Omund at a time when I nearing the end of my stay, considering full-time study at UCT but concerned at my ability to support a young family at the same time. He not only urged me to take the leap but also staked me to some time out from the grind of study and part-time work.
It was just the boost I needed. I am forever mindful of this and pleased that in later years I was able to pass on his generosity to others in a similar position. My only request was that they in turn pass it on. In this way I hope to keep the ripple started by Brian spreading further and wider. We live continents apart but have visited from time to time and kept in touch over the years. I was pleased hear he was writing his memoirs. They are intended for family only but using some arm-wrestling by email I was able to get his permission to post some selections here. Placed as he was at the centre of community interaction, he gives a very entertaining and all-round account of life in Sixties Oranjemund.

The next instalment follows:

[Bob Molloy]

THE OVAMBO AND THE DENTIGEROUS CYST


I would periodically hold a clinic for Ovambos who worked in areas some distance from the town. They would assemble at First Aid stations scattered around the mine. Acute cases were immediately transported to the town's hospital but non-urgent cases would be accumulated until my visit was due. On such a day I was confronted by a fit looking Ovambo who complained of a very mobile tooth on the left side of his lower jaw, which he wanted me to extract. He felt no pain but the tooth's mobility was annoying him. When I examined the patient his mouth appeared to be perfectly healthy. The offending tooth was, indeed, very loose. There was no sign of any infection and the surrounding gum was perfectly healthy. The tooth was so loose that I even contemplated trying to extract just with my fingers but fortunately the little man on my right shoulder rang his bell. I sent patient into the dental clinic for an x-ray. On checking this small dental x-ray there appeared to be no bone supporting the tooth and referred him back to radiology for a full lateral plate.
When this plate was delivered to me I nearly fell out of my shoes. The entire left side of his mandible was completely hollow, filled from the mid line of the lower jaw to the mandibular joint with a dentigerous cyst. The cyst was attached to the un-erupted third molar (wisdom tooth) which with the pressure created by the liquids in the cystic bag was now almost being pushed out of the mandible at the angle of the jawbone.   
In early embryological formation of teeth there is an invagination of surface cells into the underlying mesodermal layer. Teeth are formed from this invagination of epithelial cells. As the fully calcified teeth begin to erupt they have a covering sac of epithelial cells. In normal eruption this sac bursts with eruption. If something goes wrong such as the tooth becomes impacted, this little sac can start to grow.
It grows by osmosis. The liquid within the sac is more concentrated. Body fluids then flow into the sac via osmosis in an attempt to dilute the concentration of the sac content. As the sac or cyst grows it exerts pressure on the bone which melts away. A dentigerous cyst is a benign tumour, very rarely do they turn malignant. It does not produce new growth which will invade the surrounding tissue nor will it spread along the lymphatic drainage system or enter the lung via blood vessels. They cause no pain and are usually discovered on x-ray at routine dental examination. They are easy to remove with the offending tooth. Even if the cyst has been left to grow within the bone their surgical removal is simple and they seldom reoccur.
However this cyst was enormous. It had probably been left unattended for the best part of twenty years. The entire left side if the jaw was egg shell thin. The mere extraction of the tooth could have caused the collapse of that side of his face with a serious pathological fracture of his lower jaw. The un-erupted tooth could have in theory been forced out of his jaw on its lower border. However, he would probably have a jaw fracture in the first instance. If this had happened in his home in Ovamboland the mind boggles as to his disfigurement and the inability to even eat.
The biggest example of a dentigerous cyst seen in dental pathology books was probably roughly 25 mm in diameter. Even those evident in skulls taken from Egyptian Pyramids were maybe twice as big. Run your hand along your own lower jaw and estimate the length from the midline to the angle then up to the mandibular joint. That cystic sac could potentially have measured about 190 to 200mm in length. Its shape was atypical from the normal circular shape because it was confined to the shape of the jaw. Never again in forty years of surgical dental practice did I see such an enormous cyst.
My first impression of this frightening pathological phenomenon had nothing to do with international dental historical records but how was I to treat this urgently required surgical intervention. In six months the patient was to return to Ovamboland
As an emergency he was admitted to hospital. I took some full impressions of his upper and lower jaws. I sweated bricks during the impression of the lower jaw in case the mere taking of the impression caused a fracture, particularly when removing the impression from the mouth. The gods were kind to me on that day. I kept the patient on a liquid diet. The following morning the company plane flew the impressions to Cape Town for my dental technician to make metal cap splints which could fix his jaws in position with stainless steel wires in case of fracture. Two days later I cemented these splints over his teeth. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least if his jaws fractured now I had the means of localising the bone fragments.

In the two nerve-racking days while waiting for the splints to arrive I had not been idle. My books on dental surgery were of little help. I phoned Prof Lester Brown of the Wits Maxillofacial unit of the University and described the size of the tumour, "What on earth have you been smoking? I've never seen anything that size! Send him to me," said the Prof.
"Not possible," I replied. "His contract stipulates he cannot be employed or transported out of Namibia".
"Then your only solution is to marsupialise the cyst.
"Prof, I have never done one of those in my life before nor have I even seen one performed."
"Nor have I ever carried out one of the magnitude that you are describing. Have fun and remember to take some pictures." He put the phone down.
In zoological terms a kangaroo is a marsupial because it has a pouch on its abdomen where it keeps it young, transports them from A to B and is a cosy haven for the young sprogs to take a nap. In surgical terms, if the cystic tumour is too big to be removed or if the threat of weakened bone damage and fracture is a factor then marsupialisation is the approach whereby the surgeon will attempt to turn the cyst into a pouch. This will release the high pressure on the damaged bone. With the fullness of time the bone will regenerate to replace the damaged area and thus restoring its strength. That's the theory. The practicalities are a tad more complicated.
I realised that, daunting as the task would be, from an ethical point of view we were to a certain extent honour bound to preserve a record of the operation for future up-and-coming surgeons and for maxillofacial units. I was a member of the Oranjemund Photographic Society so I decided that best way to record the work was to make a 16mm film of the operation. Our cinema projectionist, George Magnus was the club's expert with a sixteen mm camera.
The film production was fraught with all sorts of difficulties. Lighting of the interior of the mouth would be a huge problem.  Camera angles were another. I had no idea if George would faint at the sight of blood and gore of the operation, particularly when he was perched on a table next to the operation table. We would have no mechanical arms as in the Hollywood productions. We were just rank amateurs with amateur equipment. Finally and probably the biggest obstacle to overcome was the theatre sister. When I first broached the subject she exploded.
"I'll not have any half-arsed cameraman in MY theatre spreading all his germs and cracking his skull on the theatre floor when he falls off the table in a faint."
I managed to sweet talk her into grudgingly changing her mind in view of the uniqueness of the pathology which we needed to record for posterity.
Before she had second thoughts I got George in for a few lessons on how to scrub and how to don a gown and mask under the overpowering glare of the theatre sister. Just because she had agreed to let accept him into her domain did not mean she had to accept him with open arms. Theatre sisters can be bitches of the first order. We also had George watch the removal of a couple of deeply embedded wisdom teeth as a kind of baptism of fire. In the beginning he turned a bit white around the gills but soon appeared to grow accustomed to the cutting of bone and the accompanying gore.
I spent many hours with him explaining exactly what I intended to do and made a number of diagrams of the various phases of the operative procedure. I explained that at each stage of the procedure I would stop to give him the opportunity to get his shots. I tried to talk with a confidence which I secretly did not feel. I remembered my days as a houseman with Mr Graham.  If only he could be with me now.

On the appointed day we assembled at the operating theatre in the Ovambo hospital. George was there long before me getting his perch, his power lines, lights and tripods ready. The Sister, bless her cotton socks, was browbeating him, by insisting he cover his cameras (Bell & Howell movie and Pentax still) with white linen sterilised covers.  I could see he was building up a sweat.
Dr Roley Bazeley had agreed to assist me and Dr Derek Radford was to administer the general anaesthetic. On the previous day the senior medical officer, Dr Dennis Johnson, called me to his office to discuss the operative procedure for the patient. He wanted me to realise that although he had agreed for his medical officers to assist me they would be of very little help if things went wrong. This was, in his opinion, specialised surgery for which they had no experience. The responsibility would rest squarely with me. Talk about being made to feel out on a limb. I thanked him for allowing Bazeley to act as an assistant as the operation needed more than one pair of hands. In the circumstances I had no option but to accept the responsibility which was always going to be mine anyway.
Next morning while Radford was anesthetising the patient I was quietly going over each step of the procedure I was about to follow. I would take each step one by one. There were four major pitfalls or complications, jaw fracture , severe haemorrhage, difficulty of suturing the cyst lining to the mucous membrane of the mouth  and major contusion or severing of the main nerve to the lower jaw and lip. I had anticipated the first complication but the rest would have to be dealt with as and when they arose.
I made the first incision on the outer side of the lower jaw from the mid line right back to beyond the last molar tooth all along the margin of the gum. This tissue was stripped away from the bone all the way to the ramus or outer side of the vertical section of the mandible. When the bleeding was arrested we gave George his first shot of the denuded bone.
The mobile tooth was extracted, George got another shot. Now came the first tricky bit.  I started to slowly cut a window in the bone behind to last molar tooth. I required a hole about 25mm in diameter. The tension on me at this moment was intense as the mandible appeared to be very thin. I took my time. When I considered the cavity to be sufficiently wide I prepared to wash out all the bone debris. George during this time had the mutters that he could not film because my hands were getting in his line of vision and there was not enough light in the area to be filmed. When cleaning out I was spraying water and Roley was doing all the suction of the water and bone fragments. Having used a swab there was the hole in the bone and just below it was the pure white thick wall of the cyst. Hallelujah! I lock on to it with two artery forceps. Making certain that the forceps were tightly locked in to position, I cut a 20mm opening into the wall of the cyst between the two artery clamps.
The internal cyst liquid welled up around the incision, thus the pressure of the cyst was released. George was screaming for more shots. I felt that the worst was almost over. I gave him the luxury of a few minutes of taking a lot of footage while the tension drained away from me. There was one a minor hurdle ahead of me. I began the task of suturing the cyst lining to the oral mucosa. The space was so confined. Roley was battling to retract the patient's tongue, the space was even further reduced by the position of the artery clamps and I was attempting to position the first suture to attach the cyst lining to the mucosa of the mouth. In future years I came across a needle holder designed by the wartime plastic surgeon, Sir Hugh Gillies. It was known as a Gillies needle holder. If I'd had one on that first and crucial day it would have made my life so much easier. In all future operations I never went into theatre without it. It not only held a needle but also had a set of scissor blades to cut the suture. One could tie the suture and cut the thread in one movement. Finally the suturing of the cyst wall was complete. George got some more footage. That small aperture into the cyst looked just great.
The detached gum tissue was sutured back into place. All that remained to be done was to pack the cyst cavity with what was known as Bismuth and Iodide paste on ribbon gauze. This helped to disinfect the cyst cavity and keep it patent. It took about three metres of this ribbon gauze.   With a great sense of relief I pulled off my rubber gloves. It had been two and a half hours since pulling them on. I was still on an adrenalin rush but poor George was almost falling off his perch with exhaustion. Standing on that table for such a long period was no mean feat. The patient was wheeled off to the recovery room and I felt exceedingly chuffed. Another step up the surgical ladder as part of my apprenticeship.  I was, indeed learning fast.
The next morning I had more x-rays taken. The BIP pack filled the cavity and the lower jaw was still intact. The patient was a bit bewildered as his jaws were wired together and would remain so for the next six weeks to allow new bone formation to begin to strengthen his mandible.  He would have to survive on a liquid diet until the fixation wires were removed. He looked at his x-rays with great awe.
There was no way of knowing how long it would take to fill the internal cavity of the bone. Each week the bip gauze was removed, the cavity irrigated and the shortened
bip gauze replaced. By the time he went back to Ovamboland the cyst cavity was all but reduced to a very small volume. The pack was removed for the last time before he went home. Through the interpreter I told him to make contact with me as soon as he returned for his next contract.
He did not come back for a full year. As soon as he arrived I again carried out a full radiological and clinical examination.   Bone regeneration was in satisfactory evidence. The aperture into the cyst had completely healed, He was cheerful and seemingly in good health. However one of his x-rays displayed a worrying feature. I called him back a month later and took another picture. It appeared that the internal cystic lining was starting to show signs of malignancy, a condition I suspected after seeing his first x-ray. I sent the film to Prof Lester Brown for a second opinion. He unfortunately confirmed my suspicions. It was a tumour that was locally malignant which would not spread via the lymphatic glands but malignant nevertheless and slow growing. This was going to be a huge disappointment to the patient and to me personally.
Talking to him through an interpreter was difficult at the best of times. It was not easy for him to comprehend why he would require another operation, particularly when it seemed to him that he was well on the way to recovery. I got the impression he thought I over-reacting. He showed great concern when I made it known to him we would have to take him out of Namibia to Johannesburg for an operation by the Professor at Wits Dental School. The only certain way of avoiding a recurrence of the tumour was to carry out a hemi-resection of his lower jaw and replace it with a bone graft from the iliac crest of his own hip bone. When he eventually understood the full meaning of what I was implying, the incredulous look on this poor man's face was a haunting experience. From his simple point of view he had come to me originally with just a loose tooth which wanted me to extract. On my advice he had been involved in a big operation where he had to endure having his jaws wired together for a long time with endless visits to have things packed in and out of his mouth. I could see his faith in me was slowly but surely receding.

I felt helpless as I was obviously not successful in explaining to him the full impact of his situation and decided to seek the help of Rev. Cawthorne. This pastor of the Anglican Church had spent many years in Ovamboland and spoke the language fluently. We arranged a meeting. After a long discussion with Rev Cawthorne the patient seemed more reassured.
First the Mine Authority had to obtain permission for us to arrange transport to Johannesburg. This having been procured, as they say in the classics, the rest is history. The day after arrival Prof Lester Browne conducted the operation. He graciously allowed me to assist. The anaesthetic was administered By Dr Speedy Bentel. Dr Bentel was a world-renowned anaesthetist who specialised in "hypotensive anaesthesia ". By means of certain drugs and positioning of the patient's legs the blood pressure could be lowered in order to be able to operate in an almost bloodless field.
In essence, during this operation all the soft tissue attached to the left side of the jaw was stripped free of the bone. In the mid line the mandible was cut in half with a surgical saw and removed. Next an incision was made over the patients left hip. A slab of bone was excised from the iliac crest of the pelvis of an appropriate size. The incision was closed with sutures. The bone for implant was then fashioned to the approximate size and shape of the removed section of the mandibular bone. It was then wired to the remaining section of the mandible with stainless steel sutures. Again both jaws were stabilised with interdental wiring. All the major muscles were reattached. The final sewing up was carried out but not before the patient's blood pressure was brought back to normal. The extensive wound was then observed to make sure that all the major blood vessels had been sutured and minor ones "tied off" to prevent the risk of post operative haemorrhage. And so it was done. A week later we flew back to CDM. After a month's recuperation the patient was placed on light duty and for the remainder of his contract he was in sheltered employment.
After six weeks I again removed the interdental wiring. By this time the poor fellow had lost a great deal of weight. The hospital dietician was entrusted with the task replacing his lost body mass. He also had weekly sessions with the physiotherapist. I gave him a simple clothes peg to bite on every day to help increase the strength of his jaw muscles. By the time he left for Ovamboland ten months later he was in pretty good shape. When he opened his mouth wide there was just a slight deviation to his right side. I promised to make him replacement teeth when he returned to CDM for his next contract.
He returned in little over a year. He looked in good health and had put on quite a few kilos, always a good sign. He refused my offer to provide him with some replacement teeth with a smile. I had the feeling he was suspicious of what chain of events might transpire the second time around. And who could blame the poor chap. He was, however, alive and well. I lost contact with him when I retired from CDM but like to think that he lived to a ripe old age. I will never ever forget him and I doubt he will ever forget me. I hope that he enjoyed "dining out on his operation" and that his friends looked upon him with awe. He certainly deserved it.

[SandyB]

Interesting ... never knew such a condition could exist ....  I recently lost a friend to cancer in the jaw , they  did the  cutout and   graft from the hip  but it  had  spread  into the body ,  did not  respond well to the  chemo and radiotherapy ...

[Bob Molloy]

Brian La Trobe's memoir.

THE MAKING OF THE MOVIE OF THE OPERATION

My team of film makers were all amateurs. We had a large footage of film in the can but it still had to be processed, edited and the sound track superimposed. I had written the script in the prescribed fashion, prior to the shooting of the film. It should have been relatively simple to coordinate and synchronise the film and voice over. But I had made a fundamental error. The film opened with a sequence of me talking directly to the camera to explain the purpose of the film and the technicalities of the operation.
This was well before the days of the computer and digitised film memory in colours which I still do not understand. In those days of yonks I put sound to 8 mm film on a magnetic tape. On 16mm film there was an optical sound system. Even that was too advanced for my cranial ability. Be that as it may, a full frontal shot of anybody talking required a process of lip synchronisation.
To make matters even more complicated we did not have the facility of a soundproof studio. A 16mm projector makes one hell of a clatter. There is no way that one can superimpose a sound track on a film in the same room as the projector. We cunningly overcame this difficulty by projecting the film on a screen in my study. The microphone and its wires were passed through a small hole drilled in the window frame to where I, the commentator, stood on a box in the flower bed watching the film through the window. Our best opportunity to carry out this work was at dead of night to obviate general traffic noise. As the process took place in the winter months the rest of the film crew were comfortably wrapped up in the study while I was outside exposed to the rigors of the climate with only a torch to read my script. I also had to keep to keep an eye on the film being projected inside to ensure synchronisation. It was a near impossible task.
Every attempt proved to be a failure. When you see your lips move on the projected film, you take a breath. This immediately puts the commentator's voice a half a syllable out of synch. After many, many failures I managed to train myself to take a breath a fraction of a second before I uttered the first sound. I knew the script backwards after attempts that extended over many weeks. I was worried that some of my helpers would grow tired and just admit defeat but to their credit they persisted.
The problem was even more complicated. None of us had any idea how to add the sound in sections. So even if we accomplished the initial voice section in sync, a later mistake in the latter half of the film meant that the whole sound track had to be done again from the beginning. I can't begin to describe how the tension built up during the many failures. I would perhaps get the most difficult voice sync part absolutely perfect and would immediately sense tension in the rest of the crew. Then I would get nervous. Please God, don't let me make a mistake this time. Within a few sentences of the end of the script they would slowly begin to rise from their chairs with knuckle white hands about to give the thumbs up sign. And I would falter over a simple word because of a bone dry mouth or just a tensioned and congealed tongue. Result: another failure.
I well recall when the sound saga of the film was at its lowest ebb. It was a Sunday evening. We had assembled for the umpteenth time for yet another recording session. Oranjemund was cold, misty and quiet as a used coffin. I climbed onto my perch in the flower bed and got the nod as usual from inside the warm study. The film started to roll, my timing and diction were perfect, the first difficult part was completed without a hitch and I could see the team start to tense up. We were well over half way to a long awaited success. Was this to be our evening of glory? I tried to calm the excitement in my voice while from the other side of town came the dulled but ever increasing crescendo of a Landrover with a blown exhaust muffler.
Would my commentary finish first or would it again be ruined? With the last few sentences to go and only a short piece of film remaining to pass through the projector the bloody Landrover roared past our garden gate, the driver blissfully ignorant of the shit and derision, mayhem and chaos he had caused us that fateful evening. If I'd had access that night to a 12-bore shotgun or preferably a G7 self-propelled cannon I think I would have happily blasted the driver and his poxy vehicle into eternity and savoured the moment. 
So near and yet so far; we had no stomach left to pick ourselves up and start again. It was another three weeks before I once again began to rehearse my unnatural conditioned reflex action necessary to achieve lip synchronisation. When I felt reasonably confident I summoned the team. Almost apologetically, I suggested we give it one more try. The first attempt was useless, the second nearly right and the third was perfect. Success was almost an anticlimax. As I recall there was little celebration; everybody was simply relieved to get the job done and have it safely in the can.
A while later an international dental congress was held in Paris. Scientific papers were called for. There was a section for films produced by practitioners on pathological subjects. I entered the marsupialisation film. With the typical lack of communication, which was even worse in those days of 1960's I missed the date and time of its showing. This was a disappointment but my short fuse exploded when my request to have my film back was refused.
I made the request in person to the French official in charge of the congress archives. I was on my way to attend a post graduate course at the Eastman Dental Research Clinic in Rochester New York State where I hoped to show them my case study. I was told that according to French law the film had to be sent back to its country of origin by mail as it had come into France without the payment of sales tax. This did not impress me at all. I threw all my toys out of the cot but the official, though very sympathetic, was adamant. To add rub salt into the wound the gentleman asked me for $20:00 for the return postage. Though my French was non-existent and his English rather basic he certainly got my message to go and suck eggs.
A month after I returned to Oranjemund the film arrived safely back in my post box. It contained two envelopes. The first had a note in French from the luckless official from the dental congress. Fortunately the company had a French-speaking helicopter pilot who did a translation for me. The gist of the letter was that he was sorry and understood my feelings of frustration at not be able to take the film from France. He had personally paid the air mail fee to get the film back to me safely and if I looked in the other envelope I would find the First Prize certificate that my film had been awarded at the congress. What an embarrassment!

[Bob Molloy]

From Brian La Trobe's memoir

THE MULE DERBY IN MY DAY

The Mule Derby was an annual charity event in aid of the Cripple Care Fund that took shape in the late Fifties, a few years before our arrival. Originally it was just a series of mule races using animals from the company farm at Beauvallon on the south side of the Orange River. The idea was first mooted by the farm manager, Danie (Polly) Pollard, who undertook to train a few of the Ovambo farm labourers as jockeys.
A site was selected in the desert scrub on the north side of town and marked out roughly as a race course. Race colours for individual jockeys were quickly run up by a band of dedicated wives and worn with great pride by each jockey. When the day dawned the townsfolk took to the idea with enthusiasm, dressing in Derby Day high fashion. A primitive tote system proved a great attraction for the punters, though God knows it must have been a very hit or miss process to choose the right horse from the collection of motley mutts that Danie had assembled.
The kids were entertained with trampolines and makeshift trolley rides. Food stalls brought in a steady stream of cash but nothing compared to the bonanza from the tote, all of it going to a very good cause. Each race was called over an amplifier by a hyped up commentator whose excitement wound up the crowds and kept the race-goers agog as they watched the action. 
In subsequent years Polly introduced a few animals he had caught and broke in from a feral herd of horses that had long inhabited the lower delta of the Orange River. Legend had it they were the survivors of a group of 20 animals which escaped when an early prospector drowned while crossing the river in 1913. Whatever their origin, they were a feisty bunch of nags who showed some hair-raising form in contrast to the ambling mokes from the farm. It was an idea whose time had come and the Mule Derby quickly established itself as a popular annual event
The track was roughly circular with some topsoil or clay condensed into the sand. It was demarcated with the odd petrol or oil drum some distance from each other. This was a distinct disadvantage as occasionally the leading jockey of the race would lose his way on a bend and career off into the desert with the rest of the horses following suit. But it was all in the day's fun.
When that happened the race would be rerun. It all added to the excitement. The racing tote eventually became a highly organised easy access system run by staff from the accounting department. By the time we arrived the event as a whole had taken on quite a professional air with side shows of tombola, white elephant stall, a shooting gallery and a coconut shy. The coconuts were especially ordered for the occasion and came all the way from Durban. The food stalls had proliferated and offered a wide range of food, including a special smoked sausage stall organised by the butcher shop. The recreation club had its licence extended on the day to provide a more than adequate bar at the site.
A train and track lay out was organised for the children, using an "obsolete" small-size diesel loco purloined from the mine to pull a set of coaches. The miniature open-air set of gaily painted coaches were the product of the engineering department and the carpentry workshops. And, as was typical of a mining bureaucracy, a mine railway inspector flew down from Windhoek each year to inspect the track and check the train driver's licence before giving official permission to operate as a passenger carrier for the day.  All in all it was a great fun day, the product of the combined voluntary efforts of a large number of people. I served on the Mule Derby committee for a couple of years before I was asked to assume the chairmanship.
Among other things, I felt we needed some extra joy rides for the children. This was where Ronnie Jew was an enormous asset. I envisaged a miniature carousel with little aeroplanes and cars for the kids but it all seemed very daunting when I considered that such a setup would need an electric motor and cables, control panel, transformer and a gear box with drive shafts and bearings. Ronnie assured me there'd be no problem in finding these basics somewhere on the mine. The canopy, suspension rods, planes and cars were easy to make in the well equipped company workshops, all done in overtime hours volunteered by the artisans. However, we hit what could be a major snag. Ronnie pointed out that the carousel needed a hefty supply of power, much more than that previously needed by the race caller's small, plug-in amplifier. He estimated that the nearest point to get power from the street lighting system was about 200 metres away but had no idea where the nearest transformer was located. I said I would handle this detail.
I made an appointment to see the Chief Engineer who fortunately was a race horse fanatic. He had been walking around with a temporary dental filling in his mouth for about two years. He was a man quite happy to meet socially and play golf with me but was abnormally petrified of my profession.
"Hugh, I need a three-phase connection to the Mule Derby site. It might need cabling of about 250 metres." His reaction was immediate, and negative. The conversation went something like the following:
."Are you bloody mad? Do you know what it would cost?"
"I know Hugh but I just thought you could hide it somewhere.  It's in a good cause."
"Piss off, Brian. You want your head read even thinking I could do such a thing."
"Hugh, how is that temporary filling I put in about two years ago holding up?"
"It's fine and it's staying that way until it gives further trouble."
"OK," I said.  "When the day arrives for me to replace it with a permanent restoration I can fix it in two different ways."
"What do you mean?"said Hugh, alarmed.
"Painfully or painlessly," I said with a smile. And while I had him on the ropes I added: "What about lending me one of those big earthmovers, a road scraper and a bulldozer with drivers for a few a weekends to cut a new race track. Oh, and I also need some fence posts and cabling keep the horses on the track".
"Get, the hell out of here you bloody chiseller," he yelled. I left, confident and quite shameless about playing on his phobias.
A couple of weeks later one bright Sunday morning I had a call to say I'd better get my backside out to the Mule Derby site pronto. What I saw was petrifying. There before my eyes were five giant earth movers each capable of biting tons of earth in a single load. Several bulldozers and two road graders lined up behind the earthmovers. The fuel bill just getting them to the site from their workshop had probably eaten up a year of my salary. I watched, fascinated. In one day the entire project was completed, including the stringing of a kilometre long cable between fence posts as a track boundary.
I should have been delighted but instead felt an awful sense of foreboding. The extent of work was far beyond anything I had envisaged. Even more mortifying was the fact that I had earlier asked the company for 50 old German prefabricated wooden houses that were in the process of being replaced. We had ideas of building a permanent Mule Derby pavilion with the sections of these houses. The entire thing was now completely out of control.
I howled a cry of anguish when I remembered that the GM was still away on long leave and I had not even broached the subject of this scheme before he left. Early next morning I got my nurse to cancel all my morning's patients.  A much chastened dentist went to the office of the Chief Engineer where I found him checking the proposed plan of the pavilion with the Senior Medical Officer.
"According to public health regulations the SMO says we cannot erect this pavilion without ten female toilets and wash hand basins and the same for males with the addition of two urinals. I cannot justify putting all this valuable plumbing equipment into buildings which have been declared redundant and ready for the scrap heap. That means we'll have to throw concrete slabs on each end of the pavilion and erect a brick toilet block at each end. Oh, and in case we want to use the facility at night we had better plan to have lighting in position."
I just wanted to lie down somewhere quietly and assume the foetal position. What was all of this going to cost and what would the GM say when he heard of this expensive project to which he certainly not given financial approval?
"Let's stop this madness," I said to Hugh.
"Can't," said Hugh. "If I leave the job incomplete I'll get hell for spending so much on your new race track. But don't worry, I'll square the old man" He brimmed with confidence, I was less so. I could visualise the end of my career with CDM.
I have always been a believer in Sod's Law: if a situation can get worse, it will. And so it proved. The GM was scheduled to return to Oranjemund on a Friday but was delayed in Cape Town, only reaching Oranjemund on the Sunday afternoon. The Senior Consultant from De Beers headquarters in Johannesburg - the equivalent in the company hierarchy of, if not God, at least the archangel Gabriel - arrived the very next morning. After initial chat in the office of the GM the consultant suggested they take a "look around the village".
"Right," said the GM. "We'll take a ride around the perimeter then go into the town to look at places of interest."
"Suits me," said the Consultant.
Comfortably ensconced in the GM's new Mercedes Benz they headed north then turned into the last avenue of the village on the edge of the desert where they espied our newly constructed pavilion with workman busily putting the finishing touches to the public toilet blocks. Beyond was the new race track all nicely fenced.
"What's this?" asked the Consultant.
"It's where we used to run our annual charity Mule Derby event. As to this new building I know stuff all about it but I sure as hell intend find out as soon as I get back to the office."
In no time at all the Chief Engineer and I had a command performance on the GM's luxurious carpet. Hugh, more accustomed to the ways of the GM than I, just stood there and took the tirade in his stride. I was quaking in my shoes. When the GM began to run out of steam, Hugh very diplomatically started his explanation to justify his and my actions, something about how the new pavilion would be a valuable asset to CDM and was a good public relations exercise.
"The pair of you have come bloody close to being fired," said the infuriated GM. "You know I encourage initiatives by my senior staff but you cannot go ahead with such major works without informing me about it."
"But you were overseas, Boss" said Hugh.
"I don't care if I was at the frigging North Pole" said the GM.
"Sorry Boss," said Hugh. I added also added a quavering "Sorry, sir", croaked from a very dry throat."
"Get out of here before I change my mind and fire the pair of you," said the still simmering GM.
With hindsight I understood his embarrassment. We had made him look incompetent in the eyes of his immediate superior. It had dented his ego, which was understandable. He liked to give the impression that he always ran a tight ship on the mine and in the town. The over-indulgence on cost of the project which gave me sleepless nights was of secondary importance to him. He was more concerned about the breach of protocol. The matter was soon forgotten and I, unaccustomed to the mega economics of a hugely profitable mine, breathed a long sigh of relief. By the time the next Mule Derby was staged the GM enjoyed himself as much as anybody else. When visitors admired the new facility and the unique race track in the middle of the desert he was not averse to taking the credit. At least he had the grace to give me a wink as the praise came in. Later he would even joke about how his staff had built the entire project without his knowledge.
The next Derby was pure luxury. All the stall holders had custom built stalls. The bar enclosure was a great success. The race commentator could sit up high above the crowd to relay progress of each race with our new public address system. Ronnie's new carousel was a hit with the children and the train worked to total capacity all day long.
The Ovambo jockeys, now skilled riders and resplendent in their jockey caps and racing colours, performed very professionally. All the horses stayed on track and not a single race was cancelled. As we were packing up at the end of the meeting when the last person had left the stands and the bar had tossed out the last drunk the GM came over to me, gave me a shoulder hug and said: "Well done. It was a great day."
"Thank you," I said. Praise indeed!
Two other stories about Derby Day are worth the telling. One concerned the mystery of the missing rum and the other had to do with Ronnie and a loaded coconuts. But first the rum story, no pun intended. One of our best customers at the Mule Derby bar was a rum drinker. I have no recall of him ever betting on a race but his ability to flatten a bottle of his favourite Myers was quite formidable, as was his capacity to handle his liquor. Despite taking on board what could render the normal drinker unconscious he was never seen to fall over and always left at the end of race day with great dignity. To ensure we did not run out of his one and only tipple I personally checked that we always had three bottles in stock, in case he was in the mood to break a record.
Before we had our new pavilion the bar was situated in a tent where stock pilfering was always a problem. Not that it was ever suggested that our amateur barmen were taking the liquor; too many people had access in front and behind the counter. In an attempt to keep this leakage to a minimum I counted the stock as the booze was loaded onto the truck or trucks (we did not mess about those days of our youth). I checked it again into the bar and took a final count at the end of the day. All was always more or less accounted for, except none of the remaining rum ever made it back to the recreation club.
After a number of years of this I was in danger of developing a facial tic from sheer frustration. In the end I was not only doing the stock checks with the aid of three or four professional storemen but I would watch the loading of the returns to the club and would also follow the truck back to the club store to make sure that no bottles were thrown off the truck or handed to an accomplice along the way. Despite my surveillance, the Myers would always vanish somewhere between the pavilion and its return to the Bottle Store. 
            This pattern continued for two consecutive years until I finally had an inspiration. I rushed back to the pavilion and entered the bar as dusk was approaching. I stood behind the bar. All the shelves were bare as I had checked not an hour before. This time my eyes fell on two drawers where the barmen stored their cash boxes, long since being safely deposited in the company safe for later counting and reconciliation. The top drawer was empty but there in the second in all its pristine glory was one unopened virgin vessel of rum and one with a few tots missing. Hallelujah!
            I had to know who the clever thief was that had kept me guessing for so long. A call to our ever cheerful pharmacist produced a powerful non-fatal tasteless purgative in liquid form.
            He asked the name of the recipient. I told him it was a secret between me and the local catholic priest. I was in a quandary about reporting the matter. The offender could have been anybody working behind the bar. We employed a number of Ovambos to wash glasses. If one of them were found to be guilty his contract would be terminated. Worse, he would be refused further employment with the mine as Ovambos were not permitted alcohol, a penalty I thought rather harsh. If it was one of the European workers such a theft would be little more than a blemish on his record.
            I opted to play God and deal out summary justice. I went back to the pavilion and laced the opened bottle of rum with enough of the medicament to create a severe case of the trots to even the most constipated of mankind. The following morning I returned to the pavilion to check the drawer. The bottles were gone.
            The next day, being Monday, while having a mid-morning cup of tea with my medical associates I asked if anyone had come in with a severe case of the trots. Only one such case had been seen, at the morning clinic at the Ovambo hospital. It seemed the patient had shown up so dehydrated he'd been immediately admitted and put on a drip. He told the interpreter that he was washing glasses at the bar at the Mule Derby and must have been given some bad food.
            After tea I went over to the hospital where I found a rather wasted looking patient on a drip. It was our industrious glass washer who had held the position for a number of years. I just smiled at him and wagged my finger. We never lost any hard tack again even though he continued to work in the bar on further contracts.
            One of our most popular stalls at the Derby was the coconut shy. The coconuts had to be ordered from Durban about two months before the day of the Derby. The previous year we'd had a serious run on stock to the extent that before the afternoon was over all the coconuts had been won. Someone it seemed had perfected the art of knocking the nuts out of their metal holders. On the day of the Derby Ronnie came to me with a look of triumph and a coconut in one hand.
            "Doc, this here coconut is going to solve our problem. Feel it."
            I put my hand out and could barely hold it. It weighed about three kilos more than I expected. Ronnie had turned it out of wood, spiked the bottom with a half ingot of lead and glued lots of coconut fibres to the external surface. It appeared to be absolutely real and bigger than any coconut we had ever purchased.
            "That's cheating," I told him.
            "No it's not," said Ronnie. "It's all in the good cause of Cripple Care."
                        Ignoring my protestations, he placed the outsized nut in the central position on the stall. Naturally everybody tried to knock it over but without success. We ended the day with a few nuts in hand. The stall made a nice profit. While we were busy packing up a customer, who had obviously spent most of the afternoon in the bar, came up to me looking very cross indeed.
                        "Listen, mister, I've spent about R100.00 trying to win a frigging coconut today. I reckon you owe me one." I gave him two of the remaining nuts. As he walked away I heard Ronnie say: "You can have this one as well, Mate," and tossed the lead impregnated coco nut to him. The surprised fellow had to drop the nuts he held in each hand to catch the whopper. Its unexpected weight caught him off balance and planted him onto the sand. The laughing Ronnie was the first there to pick him up. The joke was enjoyed by all including the recipient of the weighted nut.

[Ricky Barron (RIP)]

Ah, the mule derby and the coconut shy! From about a week before the event we would run around town selling mule derby programmes (for about 10c I believe), and whoever sold the most would be given a prize. Being rather entrpreneurial in those days, I would "hit' the main town office block on the day that the programmes came out, and was able to lift the prize in '64 and '65! Once it was a brand new camera (A Kodac Instamatic) and the other year's prize escapes me altogether. Each different department of the mine would name the horses and the names were always a source of great amusement.... names like "No work done", by Secretary out of Office! As for the coconut shy, I would save all my pocket money and "hog" the shy until I had enough to fill half a bag, that the nuts had arrived in, and drag them home (I lived over the road in 12th avenue). I don't remember if we ate more than two, but the thrill was what counted! As for the leaden nuts, they did work (and there were more than one), as when you did hit a real nut, more often than not it would crack or break, and you were given a fresh nut, which meant that they would end up with half of the stock "broken"! I also remember that the winning "jockeys" would receive a large bag of sweets, which they would often share with the children admiring their steeds!

[Michael Alexander]

Now I wonder where I can get me grubby paws on a Mule Derby Programme?