My dog & cat

[Richard Opperman]

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)

[Clive Symes]

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