Oranjemund's first resident dentist

[Bob Molloy]

Brian La Trobe's material on Oranjemund is quite lengthy and may need to be posted in several chapters. His recall of being headhunted by CDM for the post and his first impressions of Omund are hilarious.
But more intriguing and I'm sure of great interest to Bertie is Brian's account of setting up the first fulltime dental surgery in Omund. He offered a very high level of dental care, including maxillo-facial surgery. Most of you who were children in Oranjemund in the Sixties and early Seventies would have been treated by him. At least one of his cases was presented at an international medical conference in Paris as a world first. Indeed a man for all seasons, he was an avid poet and published several booklets including poems on Oranjemund.
He was also a great community activist and among other things was behind the setting up of the Mule Derby and the associated children's playground. After Oranjemund he served several terms as mayor of Grahamstown and went on to international fame as one of the first eco-activists in the waste management field.   
Among other achievements he designed and built SA's first energy from Waste Project to produce electricity and developed a process to treat human waste by forced aeration composting. He also created processes to treat animal waste. and developed a patented waterless odorless sanitation system which is manufactured in South Africa and Ghana.
His work in this field attracted a swathe of awards including the very prestigious Gold Award for the best Innovation and Contribution to Health Care in Africa by the Organisation of African Union and World Intellectual Property Organisation, the Terra Nova award for Land
and the Intel Environment Award presented at the Tech Museum Awards held annually in Silicon Valley, California. His 'Enviro Loo' was one of 580 nominations representing 80 countries considered for the Tech Awards.
In his acceptance speech Brian explained that half the world's population – some 3-billion people – did not have access to fresh water and sanitation. His invention is a dry sanitation system that requires no water, chemicals or electricity for its operation.
If anyone is interested in reading further on this aspect Google The Brian La Trobe Foundation for a backgrounder.
Brian very kindly gave me permission to reproduce the Oranjemund period of his biography on the website. The first few chapters follow below.


HEAD HUNTED
I received a message late one afternoon to call a Dr Johnson as soon as I had a moment. I returned the call at the end of the day. The doctor introduced himself as the Senior Medical Officer of the Consolidated Diamond Mines of South West Africa as it was known in those days. The territory is now Namibia. As chance would have it we were going to the theatre and were looking forward to it, not having been out together in the evening for ages because of the children. A baby sitter had been arranged. Now this Dr Johnson was suggesting that he and I should meet for dinner. At first I turned down the invitation. He put down the phone but, on reflection, this chap had come all the way from SWA to see him and maybe it was a bit mean to turn him down. I called Peggy who was not amused to have her much awaited evening out cancelled. I rang back to Dr Johnson and agreed to have dinner with him after all. The decision would change our lives.

It appeared that I had treated a member of staff who worked for Consolidated Diamond Mines in Oranjemund. I never did find out who it was. However this person recommended me to fill the post of the first Dental Officer to be appointed to the Oranjemund hospital. Dr Johnson was checking me out for the post. A few days later I received a formal invitation to apply for the position. Once more our lives were turned upside down. We had barely settled in our new home, I had worked so hard to establish my first practice in an area of Cape Town where I was reasonably happy to spend the rest of my professional life. Now we were faced with a rethink of all that. We were invited to fly to Oranjemund as the guests of Consolidated Diamond Mines to ascertain if they were interested in the position. The offer placed us in a turmoil. For nights we hardly slept. In the end we decided to accept the invitation of a weekend in SWA and at the end say thanks but no thanks. 

The flight to Alexander Bay courtesy of SAA lasted about 1.5 hours. Our first glimpse of that Godforsaken place on the northern banks of the Orange River was not a welcoming sight. The river, which originates in the foothills of Lesotho 1,500 kms to the East, was busy regurgitating a gigantic mushroom-shaped gob of brown alluvial soil into the blue waters of the cold, mean and misty Atlantic Ocean.

A stark diminutive hut, an apology for an airport building, stood naked on a concrete apron. The only appendage to this desert tabernacle was a free-standing set of steps on wheels powered by two muscular but disinterested Ovambos. These gentlemen trundled the steps forward as the plane came to a halt. We, by now two very apprehensive travelers, alighted and took a closer look at our surroundings. The company's chief medical officer, Dr Dennis Johnson, was on the apron to meet us.
"Don't worry "he shouted to us. "It gets better as you get nearer to town."
I glanced over at Peggy. Her expression told me not to bet a rat's she would agree stay in this place.

The 10km ride into Oranjemund started with a 1.6km ride across the Oppenheimer Bridge, possibly one of the longest in Southern Africa and strangely constructed with a distinct kink about a third of the way across. It spanned the Orange River just a few kilometres from the mouth. Dr Johnson explained that repairs after a major flood had damaged the bridge columns and this was the result. Peggy was not amused.
On reaching the northern bank we were confronted by a large number of windowless concentration camp type barracks, enclosed by a high fence of barbed wire. Dr Johnson hastened to add that these were rows of garages that housed the private cars of all the employees of Consolidated Diamond Mines (CDM).

Oranjemund was a closed town. Private cars were a high security risk for concealing diamonds. All vehicles used within the township were the property of CDM and were kept within the confines of the diamond area. When a company employee went on leave he and his family were picked up in a security bus and taken to a high security facility. There, each individual potentially could be searched or x- rayed to check if they were concealing any diamond which belonged to CDM. To avoid embarrassment the thoughtful company had both male and female searchers on hand.
Once they were considered "diamond clean" the holidaymakers were transported in another bus to the company garages where their private cars were housed. Here, by previous arrangement, their car batteries would be ready and waiting having been trickled charged for the previous week or so; all services supplied by CDM of course.  Having finally packed their bags into the car they were off like a dirty shirt across the kinky bridge, heading for freedom and normality past the Alexander Bay Outer camp. There was a final security check some 10km down the road, south towards Port Nolloth
Here you handed in your security pass from CDM which gave you permission to leave the area. There was a more sinister explanation of the necessity for this final security post that will become more evident as the narrative unfolds.

Any employee of CDM had to sign and agree to these luggage checks and body searches and be subjected to X-ray if and when required. Dr Johnson explained all this in a cheerful manner and made light of all this necessary security effort to limit the illicit flow of diamonds from the company fields. Despite his light-hearted manner our sense of gloom deepened. It certainly went against the grain. Could we live and be happy under conditions which seemed to undermine one's basic rights and freedoms?
Oranjemund had no hotel but it did have a very well-appointed guest house. The cheerful Dr Johnson suggested that we have a rest and be ready for a guest house party at 7pm.
"Oh, and by the way, the general manager and his wife will arrive at 7.50 to make your acquaintance".
How bloody formal could you get I thought. When they got to our room Peggy turned and said: "If you ask me now the answer will be an emphatic NO; so don't ask." I knew how she felt.

On the dot of 6.50pm the general manager and his chain-smoking wife entered the guest house lounge. Dr Johnson made the usual introductions. After a minimal amount of small talk the GM moved our small party to the entrance of the lounge. We could hear the subdued murmurings of the guests outside. Precisely on the stroke of 7pm the guest house front door opened and in came the first guests. We were introduced as they entered into the lounge in a continuous stream. They must have all being standing in a line along the verandah of the guest house. By 7.10 all the selected guests were assembled. The wives scattered around the room in small groups chatting aimlessly while their spouses were getting drinks from the bar. I made a mental note. The GM was a stickler for punctuality.

Peggy and I ended up at opposite ends of the room chatting to many different groups. Each seemed hell bent  on telling us what a wonderful place Oranjemund was and how Consolidated Diamond Mines was really just one big happy family; all this while attempting to balance a plate of delectable buffet food with endless glasses of fine vintage wines.  After a while we gave up trying to remember names and where each was employed in the company.
At precisely 8.30pm the GM glanced at his watch. This was the signal for the last gulps of drinks to be swallowed, for wives to say gosh is that the time already how the evening has flown, accompanied by a casual throw of gossamer wraps over well-padded shoulders and a stampede for the door to avoid being last out. We could only look forward to a disturbed night of contemplating what the future would hold if our small family relocated to Consolidated Diamond Mines.

Next morning as we entered the dining room for breakfast it dawned on us that we were the only guests and therefore had the full attention of CDM's head chef, Otto Verfuss. Otto had been a chef on the SS Watussi, a German Africa liner which had been caught out by the outbreak of World War Two and been sheltering in the neutral East African port of Lourenzo Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique. She had on board 43 passengers and 155 crew, and no one knew where she was bound. The ship's captain, after weighing up his chances, decided to make a run for it and vanish into the wide open spaces of the south Atlantic in the hope of making it back to Germany undetected.

Fat chance: the Watussi was detected by a South African Air Force reconnaissance aircraft 100 miles south of Cape Point. A couple of bombs dropped ahead of her persuaded her captain to alter course for Simonstown. A few hours later she was seen to be on fire and listing with her crew and passengers nearby in the lifeboats. The battle-cruiser Renown and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal which were searching for the Admiral Graf Spee arrived soon after, and the Renown sank the blazing hulk by gunfire as darkness was falling as she threatened to become a danger to navigation. The survivors were taken to Simonstown.                                                                                             

Otto spent the war in a prisoner of war camp in South Africa. During this time he met and courted a young South African lass. They say that love will always find a way but one wonders how an interned German seaman managed this almost impossible love twist. In any event they were married at the end of the war. In those days Namibia was an old German Colony known as South West Africa. All Germany was then a disaster zone and it was the natural choice for a young German lad who otherwise had no place to go. Otto was a great chef who cooked on a grand scale. Every dish was swamped in butter, every soup enriched with lashings of cream. If he could not be given ingredients such as truffles from France, the best caviar the Volga could produce, wild salmon from Scotland, king crabs from Alaska and cream by the gallon he would sulk. It was said that CDM was the only company that could afford to employ him.                                                                When we first met him for breakfast on that fateful morning in 1960 it was a definite milestone in my appreciation of the culinary art of cooking. During our first few years in Oranjemund Otto taught me the finer points of preparing crayfish and crabs, how to cook trout wrapped in damp newspaper on coals. The latter became my braai (barbeque) masterpiece. The fish was gutted then filled with (what else) lots of butter, zest of lemon and a splash of double cream. After that it was wrapped in copious sheets of newsprint, dumped into a water-filled basin until saturated and placed on the coals with tender loving care for ten minutes either side. At the end of the process the package looked like a burnt offering but when opened the fish, poached by super heated steam, was cooked to perfection.                                                                                                                             

I remember that first Oranjemund breakfast as if it were yesterday. Otto, in his chef's white coat with double row of white buttons and classic blue checked trousers, pirouetted with all the grace of a big man on a dray horse and came to the table with a great silver salvo on which was an array of bacon, sausages, mushrooms, delicate wafers of fillet steak, kidneys cooked in cream and brandy and lamb's liver. There was also a great mess of eggs, scrambled and fried by the dozen, and omelettes. When I accepted only two fried eggs his ample face took on a pained expression that only turned into a smile when I took a third. That platter had enough food to feed twenty people and only two of us to be fed but, as we later came to appreciate, was Otto Verfuss just doing his normal thing.
After the herculean breakfast I had an appointment to tour the hospital and meet the staff. Dennis Johnson was assisted by three other doctors. The rest of the hospital staff consisted of a pharmacist, physiotherapist, a medical technologist who looked after the medical and pathology laboratory, an ample supply of well-trained and experienced nurses and a team of Ovambo orderlies. There were two hospitals, one for the Ovambo mineworkers and the other for European employees and their families. The medical and nursing personnel staffed both facilities. The Ovambo orderlies were superbly trained in the art of first aid.

The company's huge mining area spread over a distance of some 180 kilometres northwards along the coast which required medical clinics at various intervals to act as first aid centres. These were intended to treat minor ailments which did not require hospitalization and provide first aid to victims of mine accidents before transport to the main hospital in Oranjemund.
There was a dental surgery but on Dennis Johnson's own admission it was ill equipped. If I accepted the position my first task would be to build and equip a modern dental centre to serve not only the dental needs of the company's 10,000 Ovambo contract workers but also the entire European township which in those days numbered about 5000 people. The Ovambos were employed on a year-long contract before being rotated back to Ovamboland. Most were employed on the mine but some served as domestic workers in the town.

Many who lived in the town at that time will recall their family domestic workers with great regard. The Ovambo adaptability to a new and strange environment was quite remarkable. Their home culture was one in which the women did most of the manual work. The children tended the domestic beasts and the men either hunted or spent their days in constant indaba with other men, sitting in the shade and occasionally drinking beer, made and served by the women. But it was a cashless economy, hence the attraction of work on the mine particularly by the younger men who needed to find the money for a bride price and a few head of cattle to set them up for life.

On coming to Oranjemund on their first contract they were assessed in a proficiency department which ascertained their aptitude for further training, whether this be as a hospital orderly, chef in the mess hall, a domestic worker, workshop labourer or driver of one of the company's fleet of locomotives, bulldozers and giant earthmoving machines. Should the tests showed little evidence of potential skill or initiative the recruit would be employed in the lashing gangs, the pick and shovel crews who cleared the bedrock after the machines had removed the sand overburden. I once submitted myself to this proficiency testing to see how I would fare as an incoming Ovambo employee hoping to drive one of the enormous 600 horse double-engined earthmoving machines. I failed miserably. As I hated washing dishes I would probably have been employed in the lashing gang.

All mining at CDM was open cast, in other words there was no underground tunneling and most of the mining was concentrated within a two kilometre strip parallel to the coast. Prospecting teams sampled this area at defined intervals along the coast. Wherever the data indicated diamondiferous gravel the earthmoving machines would move in and strip off the sand overburden which varied in depth between two and ten metres. The underlying gravel would be scooped up and taken to a screening plant where the larger rocks and fine sand would be screened out, leaving a much reduced gravel load for the final recovery plant. Here, at a central location, the gravel would pass through further treatment to finally separate the gem stones.

Back at the mine, the original bedrock of the ancient marine terrace would now be exposed. This was very rugged with clefts and crevices between the rocks which could still contain gravel and diamonds. The theory was that the diamonds were originally washed down the Orange River eons ago. Over the centuries the river mouth wandered up and down this coast depositing its gravel load and the accompanying diamonds on the bedrock. As diamonds have a high specific gravity they tended to deposit beneath the gravel at the bottom of the rock cavities. The company suctioned out these ancient deposits with a type of giant vacuum cleaner.

The final treatment was by the lashing gangs who went in there with a small brush and dust pan to sweep up any remaining precious stones. It was said that when the gangs were finished with a particular area you could eat off the rock and not consume a speck of dust. Originally each worker in these teams was given a flat bonus depending on the number of stones collected. This worked well until some bright spark discovered that a whack with a rock could easily break up a larger gem stone, thus increasing the number handed in and pushing up the bonus payment. After that demonstration of initiative the bonus system was quickly changed to avoid the rash of broken gems. Each worker was issued with a tin, similar to a child's moneybox, in which the stone could be dropped but not removed. Boys will be boys.

WHAT WAS ON OFFER.

I was told that within reason I could chose whatever equipment I wanted and build whatever surgeries I needed. In addition it would become company policy to spread the dental service to Kleinzee, a company town further south, and to Port Nolloth. The State Diamond Mines at Alexander Bay were also interested in having my services. This I would be allowed as a private practice for a limited amount of my company time (a day every two weeks). The prospects were getting better and better. It was beginning to look enticing from my point of view.

I had already noticed on a ward round that some patients showed gross dental pathology. Dennis informed me that new Ovambo employees had probably never in their lives been examined by a medical doctor or dentist. Clearly there was huge potential for pathological research. I was also looking for more experience in trauma surgery of the head and neck which was an interest of mine and was not getting much opportunity in Cape Town. The ongoing mine accidents could potentially give me further scope in the field of maxillofacial surgery. At CDM these cases were normally flown out to Johannesburg at great expense. If I could handle them it would be of great benefit to CDM and certainly give me the surgical experience of a lifetime

The initial monetary reward was not great but coupled with a free furnished house, a company car with fuel and service, and free education for the children to senior school level it was looking better. The conditions also included six weeks holiday a year, six months leave after five years service with an additional six months study leave on application, making it possible to study uninterrupted for a year plus the opportunity to attend postgraduate courses at local University on an annual basis.

While I was mulling over how I would adjust to full time hospital service, Peggy was being given the grand tour of the attributes of life in Oranjemund; the hairdressing salon, the company store, the library, churches, sporting facilities and the social club. When I rejoined her at the guest house in the late afternoon I could sense that my day had been more successful than hers. That evening we had a quiet dinner with Dr Johnson and his medical officers. Everybody seemed content with their working environment and all the hospital staff appeared to be a happy working team and enjoying their social life in the community. Still our doubts persisted.

Deep down we both loathed the idea of giving up the Cape Town practice for which we had both worked so hard. It would mean leaving all our newly-made friends in Pinelands where we were very happy. Mark had been born there and it was where we had just moved into our first house after years of apartment living. Now this seemingly marvellous career opportunity meant making some tough choices. Early the following morning we flew back to Cape Town. I had been given a two week period to make my decision. The company, under pressure from the local community, was in a hurry to get the dental service going.

Oranjemund was a young community with a high number of children, many presenting with dental problems. We had picked up in the gossip that some of the husbands were proud of the fact that apart from Egypt, Oranjemund had the highest birth rate in Africa. The cause for this claim, according to the wives, was the power station siren. This was blown at 6am every morning to ensure that the workers would not miss the buses which transported them to the mine. Another contributory factor, it seemed, was that there was no television. If a child had a dental problem the only alternative was to travel to Cape Town, costly for the parents and not efficient for the work place. An itinerary dentist paid a visit every two months or so which was not satisfactory.

The following two weeks were charged with tension, indecision and lack of sleep. My dental partner in the practice was more than a little upset with the thought of my leaving the practice at such short notice. He demanded penalties which according to our agreement he had every right to expect. Big brother CDM said come, we will pay.
Still we dithered, the deadline loomed and finally we had to choose. We made our final decision by tabulating all the advantages of going back into hospital service and a life in Oranjemund in the left hand column and the disadvantages in the right hand column. The list showed a long list in the left hand column and only a few on the right side of the page. The die was cast.  We were off to a new life in Namibia with still some fear and trepidation; were we making the right choice?

LIFE IN ORANJEMUND

To make life even more complicated our friend, Kay Hartle from England, decided to visit us at this time. As it turned out she proved to be very useful in helping us in our packing and preparations to leave. Mark had been born a few months earlier which limited Peggy's ability to cope with the demands of giving up our Pinelands home. Fortunately there was little to pack apart from our clothes as we would be moving into a fully furnished home. Our few sticks of furniture were disposed of by private sale. It was decided that Peggy and young Mark would fly to Oranjemund while Kay, Chris and I would make the journey by car. By this time we were the proud owners of a big, lumbering two-tone black and white Pontiac. The idea of leaving it dormant in a garage for most of the year was a depressing thought but this was compensated by the offer of a brand new company car awaiting me in Oranjemund - at zero running costs.

I cannot recall the sequence of our arrival. I have a feeling that Peggy and Mark got there first and were met by the Johnsons They spent the night in the company guest house left to the tender mercies of dear Otto's gastronomic extravaganza. We arrived the next afternoon to a hive of activity in our designated 5th Avenue house. Peggy was overwhelmed by the generosity of our new neighbours and hospital staff members. The kitchen fridge was filled with meat, fresh fruit, vegetables, beer and wine. There were fresh flowers all over the house with a stack of welcoming cards. Before I could catch my breath a garage official pulled up. He called for my signature on a clipboard and handed me the keys to a brand new car, parked outside the front gate. The generosity and wonderful sense of belonging to the community was beyond belief. Even a cooked hot meal was delivered by a thoughtful neighbour as the sun went down.

The geologist Hans Merensky predicted in 1909 that diamonds would be found on the west coast of what was then South West Africa and also south of the Orange River. He went on to prove it 17 years later by discovering the diamond deposits at Alexander Bay and said that further riches also lay north. His discovery made him a millionaire but his assertions of diamond fields on the north bank were contradicted by a renowned German geologist who came to investigate. He dug investigatory trenches and took samples but found nothing. He pronounced that there were no diamonds on the northern bank. Geologists are by nature a very categorical group. The world believed him.

That is everybody except Sir Ernest Oppenheimer who rightly surmised that what had happened on the southern bank must surely have also occurred on the north side. He backed his hunch by taking a mining option on the northern bank all the way up to Luderitz some 180kms to the north. His company Anglo American, closely linked to De Beers Diamond Mines, has always been very secretive. We can only surmise the mining rights had not been expensive. Anglo sent in their own team of geologists who quickly discovered that the trenches opened by the German expert had missed one of the richest diamond gem stone discoveries of modern times by a matter of metres.

How this diamond mine was eventually developed is another story. It only remains for me to describe the town as we first found it in 1960. Viewed from the air it was a square in the Namib Desert a few kilometres north of the mouth of the Orange River not far from the coast. The cold Benguela current which arises in Antarctica brushes the shore line here and gives the town a temperate and sometimes damp climate. The southern side of the square is protected by a few rows of Port Jackson willows, a botanical species of small tree robust enough to withstand the adverse windy conditions that prevail in the area.

The first row of houses inside the protected border was First Avenue. There were 14 avenues from west to east. I have forgotten how many there were in a north/south direction. Roughly in the centre of the town was the power station which at that time was reputedly the largest diesel power station in Africa and possibly one the noisiest if you lived in close vicinity. At that time the senior staff - the mine elite - lived in Fifth and Sixth Avenues. If you had a house in either of these you had "arrived" according to the mine class distinction. The assistant general manager lived in No 1, Sixth Avenue. At the time of our arrival the incumbent of this august post was a man with a wife who was as deaf as a post. After a surgical operation her hearing was restored. Her house of privilege located as it was within hearing distance of the power station gave her sleepless nights so she resorted to ear plugs.

When the La Trobes arrived, never previously having lived on a mine, we could not have cared a tinker's toss about who lived where. Five years of being down and out students and the struggle of making ends meet during the initial years of practice building had knocked the stuffing of any delusions of grandeur we might have had or notions of our own importance. All we wanted was acceptance in the community to rear our growing family and to make friends with whom we chose.

One day Peggy came home from the Ladies hairdresser very amused. She just mentioned in passing to the lady under the adjacent hair dryer that she had been surprised with the delivery of a new hard rubber dust bin to our house. The lady's immediate response was "that's obviously a staff dust bin, we only get a metal bin." A sequel to the high decibel power station and the town's reputed high rate of birth was that the wives petitioned the General Manager to delay the early morning sounding of the power station siren from 6am to 7pm. This would effectively give their husbands less time to catch the transport to the mine. This request was agreed to but it was doubtful if it altered the birth statistics in any significant manner.

The overburden of desert sand over the diamondiferous gravels varied from two to perhaps ten metres deep. This was usually removed by massive caterpillar earthmoving equipment, working in teams of six or seven machines. These machines had replaced the prewar use of rotary bucket excavators imported from Germany. The rotary excavators or scoops had stripped the overburden at 600 tons per hour. Each carried its own electricity supply in the form of an onboard engine room with a diesel generator. As such they were highly efficient though by the mid-Fifties they were worn out and had been replaced by the American equipment which was less effective. When postwar German engineering reached full swing by the Sixties it was turning out a giant format of the original rotary bucket excavator for use in open cast coal mines, the difference being that the new model did not generate its own electricity. Somehow that slight detail was overlooked. The engineering consultants to the mine nevertheless ordered a trial machine.

Built in Lubeck and colloquially known as the Lubecker, the scoop finally arrived. When assembled on site it was certainly a gigantic piece of earthmoving equipment. Oops, it didn't have its own power supply but no matter, just hook it into the power station. After all that's what the power station is for, to supply power, right? Unfortunately the extra load caused a power shortage in the town and all the housewives were instructed to switch off their stoves. Few were amused. A quick heads-up arrived at a solution: throw out all the electric stoves and replace them with gas. So said, so done in short order. Within a few months the great machine was doing its thing out in the desert and every home in Oranjemund had a gas stove, complete with a set of exterior reserve gas bottles. Only a company the size of CDM could afford such expensive mistakes.
When we had been at Oranjemund for a few months Peggy quite innocently asked the General Manager at a guest house party:"Why do we all have gas instead of electric stoves?"  There was a deathly hush.

The CDM office was adjacent to the main office block. The guest house, hospital, school and sports grounds were all in the same location. The single quarters and its mess and squash courts were one avenue to the east followed by the main business centre which housed the company store, bank, library, the bars, recreation club, cinema, photographic club, post office, hair dresser and butcher shop all bunched together. The bowling greens were in the same vicinity but the golf course was some distance out of town along the banks of the Orange River. The sailing clubhouse was at the "Pink Pan" – so called because of its colour as a former salt pan but now much expanded in area and kept at high level by constant pumping of sea water - some distance past the golf course and next to the beach. This was a great spot for weekend socializing.

The entire town was double fenced with the outer gates locked at sunset. These were some way from town so there was never any feeling of being locked in. It had to be said that the facilities were well above the average standard for a town of its size. Crime was non-existent but we had a SA police station. The station commander was a sergeant who led an idyllic life. If you wanted to get him worried, you would inform him that you had heard he was to be transferred. It was, indeed, in the main a very happy and satisfied community. 

Life in Oranjemund as its dental surgeon.

The next day I went to the hospital where I officially met all the medical staff and nurses at a welcoming morning tea. There were already people at the old dental surgery trying to make appointments. A dental nurse had been temporally appointed. The dental surgery was ill-equipped but we did what we could for those with acute problems. There were a surprising number of children suffering from infective and decayed deciduous teeth that were beyond repair.

After consultation with one of the medical officers I decided to admit the worst cases to hospital to carry out these extractions under a general anaesthetic. The dental health was so bad that one could only describe the operation as a slum clearance. On that first theatre list we attended to five little children. No wonder management had been so keen to appoint a permanent dental officer.
The medical officer who administered the anaesthetic during my first morning's work in theatre remarked that if I thought the standard oral hygiene of children's deciduous teeth was poor in Oranjemund I had a shock coming when I visited Kleinzee, a company mine town on the coast about 120 kms to the south. Two days later I flew down to Kleinzee on the company plane piloted by Jack Campbell who turned out to be our next door neighbour in 5th Ave.

There I met Dr K for the first time; a mountain of a delightful Irishman. To get some idea of his size I took his stethoscope off his desk and plugged it into my ears. The business end of this diagnostic aid fell onto the floor. His car parked at the Kleinzee gate was a rare Bristol coupe which he drove around the dirt roads of Namaqualand like a madman. I was the house guest of Dr & Mrs K that evening. Next morning I was awoken by the pop of a bottle of champers which Dr K brought to my room with biscuits from Fortnum & Mason, Piccadilly London. This, he claimed, was a better starter to the day than coffee and in any case Namaqualand water was only fit to be turned into holy water by a priest.

I tipped most of my champagne into the toilet, bearing in mind that we had about a dozen mice in the trap (as Dr K described the children who had been admitted to the small Kleinzee hospital the night before for my attention.
The hospital did not have a surgical theatre and a labour ward was to be used as a substitute. A small field type of mobile theatre table, light and Boyles anaesthetic machine had been arranged. The nursing staff had organized and sterilized all my instruments. K and I entered the labour ward suitably clothed in green surgical clobber. All these little boys and girls who had had nothing to eat or drink since the night before and full of apprehension of what was to happen to them were not in the best of moods, to put it mildly. There was much weeping and gnashing of rotten teeth.

The first poor little soul arrived in the arms of a nursing sister who last saw the inside of a surgical theatre in her probationer days at nursing college, probably twenty years before. The pleading desperate call for "Mummy" set off all the other pediatric mice in the adjoining ward where the bawling was rising to a crescendo. Things were getting out of hand and I knew it. Three nurses finally got the terrified little patient flat on its back on the table. Dr K, seemingly unflappable, was busy spraying ethyl chloride onto a surgical gauze throat pack. He managed to get a mason gag between the gnashing teeth to hold the kid's mouth open and then placed the freezing throat pack at the back of the patient's mouth. After about three breaths all resistance ceased. Dr K turned to me and said: "Get going".
Never had I worked so fast to complete a surgical procedure. Fortunately there was little bleeding. Within a minute the decayed teeth were extracted. Once all the debris had been removed I slipped out the throat pack and got the patient on his side as quickly as possible. I breathed a sigh of relief when the child coughed and started to cry again.
"Let's go back to my office while they get ready for the next one," said Dr K.
"If it's alright with you I am going to cancel the rest of today's cases," I told him once we'd reached the office. "With respect I am not happy with the use of ethyl chloride as a safe anaesthetic and would rather refer these patients for treatment in the surgical theatre in Oranjemund where we have the experienced staff for these surgical procedures."
"I've been using it for these cases for thirty years with no complications, "said Dr K, slightly stung.
"I accept that," I said. "But I don't think I would be as lucky as you". 
I knew that ethyl chloride had been known in some cases to result in cardiac arrest.
Dr K retired within a few months. He was of the old school, had served rural communities in various parts of the world for most of his medical career and looked after the needs of his patients to the best of his ability. In his day a doctor would give an anaesthetic with a linen mask over the patient's face, a bottle of chloroform in one pocket of his white coat and a bottle of ether in the other. It was a bit of a hit and miss affair. They had grown accustomed to taking their patients to death's door in order to ensure muscular relaxation and felt no pain when under going surgical procedures. However, times had changed and I had been trained differently. It was time for Dr K to move on.

In the fullest of time these little ones were brought to the Oranjemund hospital where their ordeal of being anaesthetized was a little more humane and less traumatic. In Oranjemund legend had it that an old Scottish doctor in earlier times attempted to give an anaesthetic to an overweight British expat said to be suffering from appendicitis. The old Scot put the mask over the patient's face and told him to start counting. Both ether and chloroform are quickly absorbed into fatty tissue hence it took quite a large amount of these drugs to render such a patient unconscious. The story goes that when the patient had counted to eighty he decided enough was enough and sat up on the table.
"I'll go to Cape Town to have the frigging thing out before you buggers have to me again," he said, tearing off the mask.

During the war an old German doctor was required to work at the Oranjemund hospital in lieu of internment. He was remunerated for this work on a piece meal basis by the company. Nature being what it is the old man developed a predilection for doing appendectomies on Ovambo patients. Anybody who complained of a gut ache lost his appendix to the scalpel. The doctor also had a theory that the wound would heal faster if the sutured incision was kept under the weight of a building brick. In his era it was normal to see an entire ward of Ovambo patients all lying on their backs, each with an eight pound brick on the right side of their abdomen. Even fifteen years later when I was in Oranjemund some of the older Ovambos with a bellyache would come to the hospital and ask for "the brick".

In my time there was an eccentric medico at Alexander Bay who had a thing about patients who complained of a headache. He saw all headaches as a lead-swinging excuse for missing work so he had the mine workshop make a special chair to his design which he kept next to his desk in the consulting room. It had all the trimmings of an American penitentiary electric chair, with straps to retain arms, legs and abdomen. Over the back of the chair was a frame that suspended a pulley about two metres high. The end over the chair held a harness to hold the patient's head snugly below the patient's lower jaw. The harness was connected to a nylon rope that went over the pulley and down to a car hydraulic jack under the desk which the doctor could pump with his foot.

The first unfortunate patient who complained of a headache after the chair was installed was fitted with the head brace. The crusty old doctor then gave the car jack a good pump that lifted the patient into a state of cervical suspension with his bum levitating just clear of the seat, then left him in this state for a good ten minutes. Within 24 hours no one, but no one, ever again complained of a headache. That remained the situation until he retired from the Mine.

The same doctor believed that a surgical incision, be it an inch or twelve, all healed in the same time. On one occasion I was waiting to go into theatre at Alexander Bay to repair a mine accident jaw fracture. The crusty surgeon was busy carrying out a caesarian section on a local lass, assisted by one of my medical colleagues from the Oranjemund Hospital. I was waiting my turn in the adjoining doctor's room just outside the operating theatre. Suddenly the door from the theatre flew open. In came my associate tightly holding a bleeding index finger on his right hand.
"The old bastard has cut me" he said, hurriedly trying to remove his rubber glove to staunch the flow of blood.

The old boy always made incisions wider than expected. Assistants soon learned that if you did not react in time to get your hands out of the way you paid the price.  While on the subject of eccentric practitioners I might as well recount the trials and tribulations of the itinerant dentist who worked in the area prior to my appointment at CDM. I never met the gentleman. What I know of him are events and stories as related to me by some of his ex-patients.

His main dental interest was prosthodontics, the art of making false teeth. By the same token he must have had little interest in conserving decayed teeth or maybe it was that his Namaqualander patients were not interested in keeping their teeth. The fact was that the average resident at Alexander Bay had little evidence of dental decay in his or her mush. Namaqualanders did not travel. Few strayed far from their place of birth. Most of the area's water supply contained high levels of sodium fluoride. A content of fluoride at 2 parts per million (ppm), reduces the rate of tooth decay dramatically. In fact, as a public health measure, many communities around the world artificially introduce small quantities of sodium fluoride into their drinking water to inhibit the spread of dental caries.
Water in Namaqualand and adjoining Namibia is a chronically scarce commodity that comes mainly from bore holes or underground rivers. This water has a high content of sodium fluoride averaging around 12 ppm with a concomitant high level of ordinary salt

In Cape Town one could always spot Namaqualanders in a restaurant; they add salt to their coffee. While they develop little tooth decay, the high level of fluoride stains the enamel of their natural teeth with unattractive deep brown spots. Until I came along they'd never heard of the crowning of teeth so the only remedy for them was to have all their teeth extracted and have dentures made which was tragic but it was right up the street of the itinerant tooth jockey.

With the diamond mines along the coast of Namaqualand and Namibia the art of IDB (illicit diamond buying) was prevalent. Even predikants of the Calvinistic Dutch Reform Church preached from their pulpits that it was not a sin to gather these precious stones and use them or sell them for a profit. After all, if God had put them in the ground and man took them out how could this be a sin? The moguls of Kimberley thought differently and therein lies the rub.

This tradition is borne out by the fact that a young girl from Namaqualand will not even entertain a proposal of marriage from a suitor unless he has, at least, been suspected of IDB. Another interesting custom there was that in order to look pretty on her wedding night the girl would have a full dental clearance and get herself a set of teeth, which like the stars, came out at night.

This then, was the bread and butter of the itinerant dentist. The story goes that on his first visit he took loads of impressions of many patients. From these impressions his dental technician cast plaster of Paris models and hot footed it back to Cape Town to make the clackers. Little did the dentist realize that among Namaqualanders with their inherent lack of interest in travel there was a fair amount of in-breeding. In fact in the entire territory there were only four main surnames. .

Imagine the quandary of the dental technician when he ultimately discovered he had eight full dentures for the Van Zyls, six for Van Wyks, ten for Van der Merwes, four for Goosens and one for a Meneer Burke. Mr Burke who could not speak a word of English turned out to be descended from an expat, an Irish stowaway put ashore in his birthday suit by an irate sailing ship captain around 1842. He obviously met the girl of his dreams and multiplied.

The itinerant dentist was a resourceful man. He packed the dentures in separate boxes under each family name and mailed them to the manager of the Alexander Bay Social Club. The manager was requested to put an announcement on the club noticeboard that teeth had arrived and were ready for collection on a certain evening. Each individual box was to be placed on separate tables from where the various toothless cousins could find a set that fitted. The rest of the club members must have had a hilarious time watching the operation and Mr Burke who always thought he was something special had his notion confirmed. His teeth were in a box all on their own.
Had the itinerant dentist but realized, the resident of Alexander Bay had long ago sorted out a means of identification with the use of nicknames.

Life in at Alexander Bay was further complicated by the fact that there were two living areas, dubbed the out and inner camps. The outer camp families lived relatively free of security problems as they never went into the mining area. Only their husbands went into the mine to work. They were the privileged few; managers, engineers, geologists, doctors etc.
The rest of the community lived in the mining enclosure in their state-built houses and remained there unless they came out to go on leave. The mine hospital was situated in the inner camp which was of significance to me when I was called out at night to attend to mine facial injuries. Both mines normally operated a night shift.

So there was no confusion in the community as to which Goosen or Van Zyl etc was referred to. It didn't matter in which camp he or she worked or lived as long as you had the correct nickname. For instance my nurse at Alexander Bay was a Mrs Hettie Van Zyl. There were perhaps ten other Mrs Van Zyls in the area which would have been rather confusing if it hadn't been for the fact that Hettie's husband was a tall blond gentleman with the name of William (Willem in Afrikaans). His nickname was "wit Willie" (white William). So she became Mrs Wit Willie and their three children also bore the same name. The English translation is a bit of an embarrassment as Willie signifies a diminutive William; white willy speaks for itself. This was not a sensitive issue at Alexander Bay for nobody spoke English. Even a Burk with an "E" couldn't understand a word of it. They were distinguished from other families of Van Zyls.  The head of another house of this family had a very wide mouth. His nickname was "Waenhuis Bek" or Wagon House Mouth.

A new arrival at Alexander Bay would rapidly be branded with his or her nickname. A new young doctor who was almost two metres tall was appointed to the mine hospital. His nickname was "Hemel Besem". Freely translated, it was heaven brush. My nickname was never used in my presence. It changed from time to time. I was usually referred to as "Tang" (Pliers).

[SandyB]

Wow  Bob ,, most interesting reading ,,, knew the La Trobes ,  most interesting info  about his  eco  innovations that  we  were not aware of  , I have been considering the  composting toilet for my upstairs bathroom ..
a humorous story about  the La Trobes I recall was a very nice prolific  bush Mrs La Trobe was lovingly caring for  in flower  bed in  front of her house  ,, leaves vaguely resembling  tomato , was  kindly told by PPJ  that it was in fact a         plant ...  how the seed got there is a mystery , via the  compost or someone throwing away pips after cleaning  their stash ?? 
This  story  could well  be one of the  Tall Tales  that circulated the town , but yes  it went around

[Michael Alexander]

Wow! Thanks Bob & Brian,

I know a lot of people on this forum, get a fright when they see a long post like this and then skip it....... IF YOU REALLY ENJOY TALES OF ORANJEMUND from YESTERYEAR....... Take the time to READ THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I actually read half at work this afternoon and could'nt wait to get home to read the rest....... All I can say is WOW!  what a flashback and a laugh!!!!!

[SandyB]

Michael , nothing frightening  about it ,,,  its hard reading it on the screen ,, what I normally do is  print  it out
( on previously used paper on the other  side .. i'm pretty anal about that one ,,, my staff are only allowed to use  one side printed paper   for stats etc  .no fresh paper supplied ,,)  and then I read the hard copy .. been too busy today to completely read  over and over , but yes fascinating reading ... actually wonder if the doc La Trobe was around at the time of my mountain expidition ..  Bob if he still around  does he have a recollection ... ???

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Sandy,
                Will certainly pass your query to Brian. There's a lot more to come but the feedback suggests it is being posted at too great a length. Will cut future posts shorter.
Regards,
Bob.

[SandyB]

@ Bob  you got the newspaper  clips on site from the  boy on the mountain post them to him ...  I just have this  fond remembrance of Dr La Trobe  and family ...    as said  I print out and read at liesure ... no need to  shorten too much ...

[SandyB]

Come  Bob   ,, we waiting  for more  ////

[Michael Alexander]

Indeed we are..... 

[Bob Molloy]

THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE TOWN AND ITS MENTALITY

The pride and joy of the town's Park's and Gardens Department and the town hub was an oversized circle of grass in front of the Consolidated Diamond Mine's office on its west side. The throbbing power station was situated on the south side. Beyond the CDM office towards the coast was the security office. Further than that was verboten territory on the way to the mining operation. To the north were the guest houses, the hospitals, Catholic chapel, the school and the Mule Derby track and pavilion. Finally to the east were the interdenominational church, the swimming pool, amateur theatre, squash courts, and single quarters. The bars, social club and cinema were all on the main drag as were the company store, post office, butcher shop, gents and ladies hairdresser etc conveniently clustered together; planned and orderly.
The town planning had been ideal. Of necessity it had to be so. Most of the work force had no transport so all the facilities were all within reasonable walking distance.  Oranjemund had facilities above and beyond those expected of a town of its size. It needed to be so in order to attract employees to leave city living for life in a desert where sometimes the climatic conditions were not ideal. This cradle to the grave support (yes, the town had maternity facilities as well as its own cemetery) helped buffer residents against the profound psychological effect of being fenced in and confined. The majority, it seemed, coped well.
What really stuck in the craw of the average miner and artisan employee was the lack of personal transport. Though he might be the proud owner of the latest American or European wheels, they were languishing and rusting in the company garage some 7km away on the other side of the security fence. At times when carting home a heavy basket of groceries this, quite naturally, burnt the butt of many a wife. Likewise it was not easy to explain to a child why Daddy did not have a company car while others had this benefit. Even with all the advantages of living in a cashless society this must have been difficult to accept.
The benefit of never having the need for cash in one's pocket could at times prove embarrassing. After a few months in Oranjemund I flew to Cape Town on a private matter and walked through the arrivals section heading for the Avis car hire.  I put my hand in my pocket for my wallet. No wallet, not a bank note, no coin, not a brass farthing. I had to suffer the ignominy of appearing like a down-and-out confidence trickster trying to bum a ten cent piece to make a phone call. The first few attempts were brushed off. Finally someone took pity on me and gave me a rand. I had never been so totally embarrassed in my life. I got some change from a tobacconist stall and phoned a dental supplier to fetch me from the airport. He thought it was story of the week. He still continued to laugh when I informed him he would have to fund my stay in town until I could organise a refund from my bank.
"That's OK," he grinned. "I'm going to dine out on this for a month."
My company car was serviced every two weeks. It would always be filled with petrol before it was delivered back to me. When we went on our first leave from CDM I filled the car with petrol in Springbok. The astonished petrol attendant was shocked when I just drove off without paying. I realised my mistake on the outskirts of the town and drove back to the garage full of apologies.
"I thought so; you are from Oranjemund," was his only comment.
Times have changed. Today Oranjemund is an open town. All personnel can have their own cars in the town. The fence is now between the town and the mine which must be a huge improvement.

For anybody who grew up on a mine the strict class distinction might well have been seen as just the normal run of things but we found this hierarchical way of living quite constricting. We were both products of families who still remembered the hardships of difficult economic times of the 1930's. At the squash courts I met some wonderful players and potential friends. In the beginning after a great game I would invite my opponent home for a beer. I was mystified when he would demur, if he was a so-called daily paid worker, in case his boss was at our house. The problem eventually sorted itself out but in the beginning it was very upsetting.
Likewise there was always tension within the senior staff establishment. Who got invitations to guest house parties and who did not was a major issue, particularly if top brass was coming down from Johannesburg. And if the Oppenheimers were to attend, well......  Wives were particularly jealous of their husband's path of promotion compared to others in the same department. It was shades of my days at General Motors so many years before. However in Oranjemund the situation was more extreme. Everyone was labelled by their job description but we were in a unique situation. I was one of a kind and not in competition with anybody. I had no designs on a post at 44 Main Street Johannesburg.
Although the town was unique for its security aspects it was also, despite being just a few square kilometres in the desert, uniquely situated on fertile soil. The mouth of the Orange River had shifted up and down this coast over aeons of time, delivering not just a treasure trove of diamonds but also a covering of rich alluvial soil from the hinterland. The temperate coastal climate was ideal for growing a wide range of crops; just add water. The company did that in abundance (no water meters measured anyone's consumption). The results were amazing. Though Oranemund was famed for its diamonds, few beyond the gardening clubs knew it was also famous for its roses. The company's Parks and Garden's department played a big part in softening the harshness of the desert with shelter belts, tree planting on all streets, and small parks here and there, not forgetting first rate sports grounds and if not a world class cricket pitch at least up there with the best. Fifth Avenue was planted with olive trees which in later years bore a rich harvest. In most home gardens it was fascinating sight to see Mediterranean fruits such as grapes growing cheek by jowl with tropical mangoes and avocadoes.
At Beauvallon, on the opposite bank of the river, the company threw a fortune at a farming project with a profusion of the latest agricultural equipment for contouring, ploughing and preparing the land for production. It soon produced enough vegetables and fruit to keep the town self sufficient. The farm manager was Danie Pollard, commonly known to one and all as Oom (Uncle) Polly. This perhaps minor position belied the fact that he was a world authority on desert succulent plants. A visiting German botanist was very impressed with our Oom Polly when he showed him nearly four hundred of these fascinating plants that he never knew existed.
Polly's other claim to fame was his method of collecting wild antelope, particularly gemsbok, for the De Beers game farms near Kimberley. He would follow the buck at a gentle pace over the plains until it stopped from exhaustion and sat on the ground. His gang of labourers would cover the long antlers with a thick blanket thus securing the head of the beast while Oom Polly administered good slug of South African brandy to the thirsty buck. It was then loaded onto a truck with care and secured for the ride back to the farm. There it would be held in a camp with adequate grazing for a few days. Oom Polly had a way with wild game. Within a matter of days he would have them coming to the camp fence on his call to get their daily shot of cognac. Before the flight to Kimberley he would give them a double dose. Within a half hour they would be ready for loading. He would quietly lead them to the truck and then the plane talking to them all the time. Once secured in the body of the fuselage on comfortable blankets he would give them a farewell shot of the hard stuff and send them on their way. They apparently slept like babes all the way to Kimberley. On arrival they were still bemused enough to be led docilely to a holding pen. Captured game is always highly excitable and stressed by the trauma of the chase and ultimate capture. Tragically some die as a result. I believe the Pollard method never resulted in a fatality.

[Bob Molloy]

Here is the fourth instalment of Brian La Trobe's intriguing memoir. It covers the setup of the new dental clinic and introduces some characters of those days.


THE BUILDING AND EQUIPPING OF THE NEW DENTAL SURGERIES.

I soon learnt at CDM that if something was required urgently all associated departments of design, engineering, construction and supervision by a clerk of works did not mess about. It got done. I also came to learn that once the general manager had made a decision he did not want to be bothered with detail. After the initial design discussions for the dental clinics were completed and plans were drawn for approval I pointed out that as the garage for the very smart Mercedes Benz ambulance would of necessity have to be moved. I also added helpfully that it might save some expense to incorporate part of the concrete slab and roof into the new surgery. The chief engineer looked at me as if I'd just crawled out of cheese.
"Listen Doc" he said. "The boss man said I had to finish this frigging job ASAP. So do me a favour, you stick to teeth and let me get on with the job."
To the Clerk of works he added: "Bulldoze the frigging garage, throw a new slab, build a new garage somewhere else and get on with it."
I got the message and concentrated on ordering the equipment. It took a while to grow accustomed to this attitude of don't mess about, get things done and to hell with the expense. The reality was that the cost of a couple of dental surgeries and equipment was, in the overall context of the mines colossal turnover, small cheese indeed. When I mentioned this to Dr Johnson he recalled an incident when he first arrived at the hospital He had noticed that the meat truck which brought meat from the abattoir to the butcher shop had a slightly tatty canvas cover. Putting on his public health hat he stormed into the GM's office demanding an immediate new cover for the meat truck. The GM, Stan Devlin, who was busy writing a letter never even looked up from his writing pad.
"Buy a new truck. Good day," he said.
Johnson left, totally deflated. The GM had a reputation that he was always accessible but heaven help you if you disturbed him without either notice or good reason. Needless to say the town got a new, fully enclosed, meat truck.
I now set about the utter luxury of acquiring the best type of dental equipment money could buy. The company plane flew me first to Cape Town and then to Johannesburg to consult with the dental supply houses to see what was available. The methodology for making a reservation on the company plane had a very fixed set of rules. There were two aircraft stationed in Oranjemund. The largest was a twin engine De Havilland Dove, a six-seater with cockpit for both pilot and co-pilot. It had an on board toilet at the back of the aircraft. The engines were water-cooled and designed with the oil sump at the top of the engine. Oil flowed through the engine by gravity and was then pumped back to the top sump. It was an extremely quiet aircraft.
The second plane was a twin engine air-cooled Beechcraft Bonanza which seated three or at a pinch - four passengers and the pilot. It was a powerful aircraft with a lusty roar, typical of air-cooled engines and the faster of the two.
The De Haviland Dove was the GM's and his wife's plane of choice. It was only available on rare occasions but one could catch a ride if the "old man" happened to be going to the same destination as you. On occasion the Anglo American Gulf Stream turbo jet stationed in Johannesburg would fly to Oranjemund bringing the company's chief consultant and his entourage. Such visits were akin to the Second Coming together with all the angels and archangels. In the eyes of some an invitation to a guest house reception for such exalted visitors was to die for. This sublime and almost orgasmic fulfilment was only surpassed when the Oppenheimers headed up the list of visiting dignitaries.
It happened now and then that the Oppenheimer's crème de la creme aircraft would be in Oranjemund with some spare seats back to Johannesburg. On one occasion the entire plane was totally empty when I needed to get an Ovambo patient to Johannesburg for complicated surgical treatment. If I was gobsmacked by the occurrence the Ovambo must have thought he was going to Heaven. As he could not speak English I had no way of getting his verbal impressions but his facial expression indicated he was on his way to his eternal reward. When this luxurious turbo jet ascended into the sky the exquisite look of wonder on his face demonstrated in no uncertain terms that he thought he was going to meet his Maker.
As you entered this plane there was a long bar down the one side. Various expensive bottles of the hard stuff nestled in cushioned pods to prevent movement during take off and landing. Seating was arranged in batches of four. Seats turned towards each other at the flick of a switch. Hit another button and a table came from nowhere for card games and exotic meals. Mrs Oppenheimer was very fond of this particular plane. Years later when her husband Harry was given the freedom of the city of Grahamstown I was Deputy Mayor at the time and found myself seated next to Mrs Oppenheimer during the celebratory luncheon. I enquired of the whereabouts of "Sport" Van Heerden the Anglo Chief Pilot who had just retired. We were bosom buddies while I worked for CDM. On visits he would while away his free time in the town, between flights, in my dental chair cashing in on some high class crown and bridge work which in Oranjemund came free of charge.
Mrs Oppenheimer reminisced about this plane with genuine appreciation of its comfort. When it reached the end of its useful life in the mid 1980's the Anglo Board because of a temporary downturn delayed its replacement. Bridget was not amused. On a subsequent flight with the Oppenheimers in this aging but still much loved plane Sport was about to start his approach to land. The plane's flaps refused to drop. He reported the malfunction to his august passengers and reassured them that all would be well. They need not be concerned. He would just have to land the plane a bit faster than normal. Mrs Oppenheimer related to me that the landing was a "bit hairy". When the plane had come to a halt she said she turned to Harry and said "To hell with the Board, Harry. Just buy the new one yourself." He probably said "Yes dear." At the time the replacement costs would have been about $30m.
I recall that when we landed at Johannesburg international Airport with that over-awed Ovambo so many years ago we had a lift into town with Sport in his Mini Minor.  While zipping down the highway dwarfed by large trucks and monstrous pantechnicons the mini hardly came up to the height of their large screaming tyres. Sport philosophised that in the air while flying the Gulf Stream he was a Greek God. He looked around at the crush of traffic and added: "Down here in the mini I'm just a goddamn Greek."
Much later a De Havilland 110 jet aircraft joined the Anglo Stable. It was nothing like the luxurious Gulf Stream. It was faster but could not reach Oranjemund in one hop and needed to land in Kimberley to refuel. Sport flew to the UK to do an upgrade on the new jet and was at De Havilland for three months on the familiarisation course. The poor chap was hugely embarrassed on his first visit to Oranjemund in the new aircraft when he was unable to restart the jet for the flight home.  A technician eventually had to fly from Johannesburg to get it going. Sport was not amused when a week later I mailed him a primus picker, the old-fashioned type with a fine wire tip at right angles to the metal handle, used to unblock the paraffin jet when clogged with carbon. My note suggested that every competent jet pilot should carry one of these in his top pocket.
If you had a regular need for an aircraft such as my twice a month visit to treat patients at Kleinzee it took priority. If no aircraft was available one had to slum it and go by SAA. If someone else's need was considered greater than mine for Kleinzee I would have to go by company car, about a 200km return trip. In the early days of establishing the dental clinic I seemed to have an additional priority on the plane, probably the directive of the GM. I felt like a king. The word soon got out amongst dental suppliers that the newly appointed dental officer to Consolidated Diamond Mines was in the market place for some serious dental equipment. They soon surrounded me like moths around a flame.
One of the rather over-eager salesmen who has long since been pushing up daisies assured me if I placed the entire order with his company he would arrange two buxom ladies of different hue in my hotel room for the duration of my Johannesburg stay. In addition with some fancy foot work with the invoicing I could make a nice pile on the side.
"And if I did that, "I told him, "I would be in your back pocket for the rest of my life. Get lost".
On return to CDM I informed Stan Devlin about the offer. The GM's only comment: "Just as well you told me. If I had found out later from another source you would have been fired."
Ultimately all the necessary equipment was ordered. Some came from local stock with the rest on order from the UK, Germany and France. Meantime the building of the new clinic was progressing at an acceptable rate. I was kept occupied with Ovambo clinics and treating dental emergencies with the available equipment. One Ovambo patient brought back an echo of my training days in the UK. He was referred to the hospital from a clinic out on the mine, and presented with a hugely swollen upper lip. An x-ray revealed a large abscess over one of his upper incisor teeth. The offending tooth was completely black and long since dead. He was admitted to hospital, given a shot of penicillin and starved overnight. The following morning he was taken to theatre to drain the abscess. This required a quick incision to get rid of the pus. In those days I had an anaesthetic machine which delivered vinesthene - a rapid-acting, rapid dispersal anaesthetic. The surgeon had perhaps a 30 second window of opportunity to incise the abscess and relieve the pressure. It was ideal for short procedures when operating alone with no additional help.
The patient spoke no English. Through an interpreter he was told that to make his lip better it was necessary to open the abscess. As this would be very sore we were going to "put him to sleep" for a short while so he would not suffer any pain. The mask was placed over his nose. The interpreter told him to breathe normally. Three breaths and he was gone. The incision produced a great emission of pus. Within seconds the patient opened his eyes, conscious but bewildered. He asked the interpreter where the doctor taken him. It was very nice this other place and could the doctor please take him back again? Ovambos came to work at CDM on a year's contract. This man had been away from home for almost that period. He'd had a vivid dream involving some Ovambo female, poor chap.
The day came when with the kind cooperation of Joel's Transport a series of wooden crates of dental equipment arrived in Oranjemund. Dental technicians from Cape Town and Johannesburg flew in for the installation. Everybody was smiling. I was smiling at the safe arrival of the equipment and the technicians were smiling for having landed the most valuable order of their careers and in anticipation of hefty bonuses to come. Within ten days the Oranjemund Dental clinic and the Kleinzee surgery were ready for business. One surprise was that when the packing cases from Germany were opened each contained a well wrapped earthenware bottle of Steinager schnapps; a good marketing ploy to ensure further orders for this enterprising Germany company. This marked the beginning of a lifelong habit: chasing a beer with a glass of ice cold schnapps, the notorious kleine kleine. The earthenware containers served superbly as hot water bottles for many winters to come.
The general population of both Oranjemund and Kleinzee were intrigued and curious at all the activity surrounding the building of the new dental clinic and the arrival and unpacking of the crates. Many made examination appointments just to take a gander at the new dentist and the interior of the clinic. At the same time I decided on a new dress code. After years of seeing nurses in white uniforms I thought it time for a change. The new dental nurses were given a choice of style and four different colours. The colour of the day was left to their discretion as long as everybody pitched in the same colour. I ordered new high necked dental coats in blue with matching pants. In the usual white dental jackets I had always felt like a donkey looking over a white-washed wall.
The first day's patients were intrigued with the new fangled dental chairs that looked more like beds. They explained to their curious neighbours and anybody who would listen that when you sat down the dentist pressed a switch and the back of the chair fell slowly backwards until you were lying flat. The dentist and his nurse sat on either side of your head on little stools on wheels. There were new drills that they seemed to pull from nowhere and the newfangled lights were brilliant and very fancy. As a result of all this propaganda the dental waiting list increased dramatically.
An amusing incident at this time was created by a seven year old child. The mother was German, from Berlin where they are proud of their pure dialect. The father was British-born within the sound of Bow Bells. The little girl took one look at the new styled dental chair and said " Yesus, Ma, kyk net at die lekker stukkie plestik (Jeez Ma, just look at that lovely piece of plastic)."  She was referring to a fitted plastic cover to protect the grey leather of the bottom of the chair. It tickled my sense of humour that both German and Cockney parental influence on the child had lost out to the local Afrikaans dialect.
I also recall an appointment made by the wife of the chief mining superintendent in those early days. The husband was considered to be "rather big cheese." I had met the good lady during our guest house party prior to our arrival in Oranjemund and remembered that she volunteered the information she was a great lover of game biltong, (jerky), and just adored chocolate peppermint crisps. Her dental complaint was that she had no toothache but a very sensitive tongue and her mouth seemed to have more saliva than usual. She had been to see the medical officer who referred her to me.
At the time there was a serious pandemic of foot and mouth disease in the cattle population of the territory. On examination there was little evidence of any clinical disorder in her mouth but there was a mild swelling of her lymph glands at the base of her lower jaw. I enquired if she still ate a lot of biltong. She was surprised that I still remembered her habit but her answer was very positive. "Every day and lots," she said. I told her I was going to take a swab of her mouth and pop next door to the medical laboratory to have it checked out for foot and mouth virus.
"It's rare in humans but it can happen. But don't worry. It's a serious disease in cattle and game but  not in humans, just stop eating biltong for about a week and the symptoms will gradually disappear."
She laughed but within the hour I had a call from a very irate and upset chief superintendent. "How dare you imply that my wife has foot and mouth disease," he ranted. I tried to assure him it was only a possibility and that we should wait for the laboratory tests to come back before passing judgement. The test came back positive. The lady still thought it was a helluva joke and the husband had the good grace to apologise for his behaviour. She stayed off the biltong for about a month then went back to her old habits.
Another incident at Kleinzee a few weeks later amused me but created mayhem for the locals. The night before my planned visit I received a phone call from the mine manager. He had just fractured a front crown while having dinner.  He was to attend a De Beers board meeting in Kimberley the next day. In fact the plane taking me to the mine was scheduled to fly him to Kimberley and pick me up on its return. A few pertinent questions made me realise the crown was an old fashioned one called a steel facing. The back was made of gold with a grove that carried a ceramic front section which had to be cemented into position. I recalled seeing some spare facings from the old dental surgery. The colour might not be a prefect match but anything would be better than nothing.
Next morning we duly arrived in Kleinzee. It had been decided that as I would only visit this mine every two weeks a waiting room would not be added to the dental surgery. Benches in the passage outside of the surgery would suffice.  When I arrived at the hospital there were already two benches full of patients waiting to see me. I explained there would be a delay as I had to carry out some emergency treatment for the manager prior to his flight to Kimberley. Everybody was very accommodating and willing to wait.
As Sod's Law dictated that day, as soon as the manager was seated in the dental chair the power went off in the section of the hospital where the surgery was situated. There was however still power in the maternity ward some 50 metres down the passage. With great presence of mind I phoned the electricity department to quickly bring over a long extension lead and a small Black and Dekker drill. As the manager was involved they arrived in a flash. One electrician rushed down the passage with the extension lead and plugged it in to a socket in maternity. The other came into the surgery with the Black and Dekker and closed the door. He then rushed out again and shouted to his mate. "Is the cable connected?"  "Yes, the doctor can go ahead," was the reply. He came back into the surgery and closed the door.
I fitted one of my small grinding stones into the Black and Dekker. While the electrician held the drill on a small stainless steel trolley I managed to trim away the excess ceramic material. After a number of trimmings it was a perfect fit. The facing was cemented into position. With grateful thanks all round the manager was whisked off to the awaiting plane for his Kimberley flight. I was all pumped up with elation to have displayed great initiative in unfavourable circumstances and been of service in a time of emergency. When the electricians had removed the mess of cables and the Black and Dekker I asked the nurse to bring in the next patient. She went into the passage but quickly returned, looking confused.
I'm afraid there is no one there any more, Doctor, "she said.
Only then did the reality of the situation dawn on me. I was totally naïve not to have realised how the unusual events would have been perceived by patients awaiting treatment. Potential dental patients are nervous at the best of times. Today they had witnessed a situation where there was no power for the specialised surgery instruments and the fool of a dentist was willing to substitute a Black and Dekker drill to work in the mouth of the general manager. Who the hell appointed this idiot? Without a word they took to the hills. This maniac was not going to work in their mouths.
I now had a free day. I knew the rocks off the coast were alive with crayfish and asked the nurse if she knew where I could borrow a crayfish net. She called Fred Rich the foreman carpenter. It was a fortuitous occasion as Fred and I became great friends. Fred was a true Namaqualander of huge proportions; just over two metres tall and weighing 180Kg with not an ounce of fat. He could never find shirts long enough to fit him. As a result his shirt tails were always flapping in the breeze. His hands were the size of tennis rackets. When I admired his physique he said his sister was bigger than he. In contrast his wife was a little piece of Dresden china who tipped the scales at no more than 55 Kg.
Fred was born in Kamieskroon and was fifteen years old before he first saw the sea at Hondeklip Bay some 35 kms distant. As previously mentioned Namaqualanders are not great travellers. He had only been to Springbok, 50kms from his home, on one occasion and had never seen Port Nolloth (110km) but was planning to spend his long leave there to do some serious fishing. He had three great passions: fishing, darts and drinking beer. He could caste a line almost out of sight. I never once saw him use a gaff or net. He would play the fish to exhaustion close to the rocks then stick his banana-like fingers into its gills to throw it up onto the shore.
He was a terror at darts. His huge hand would totally envelop the dart and deliver it with huge force while his great height and forward stance placed his hand well forward of the white line.  A quart beer mug in his hands looked like an egg cup. Fred was a carpenter of note. He did some exquisite wood work for the hospital dental surgery. Sometimes I would overnight in Kleinzee and, after closing the surgery, we would head for the rocks to do a spot of fishing. Even if I had only flown in for the day we were not averse to slinging a quick hook during the lunch break He showed me all his favourite fishing spots along the coast.  Fred was such a gentle giant. I considered it an honour to have known him.
On one of my first visits to Kleinzee I met Fred Carstens, the assistant mine engineer. And thereby hangs a rather tragic tale. 

[SandyB]

Aah the days of old  ... the  expense was not the issue ... good reading ... now more ......???   

[Bob Molloy]

Instalment Five from Brian La Trobe's memoir.

FRED CARSTENS, A KLEINZEE TRAGEDY

Fred, the assistant mine engineer, retired a short while before I had taken up duty in Oranjemund. I asked him how long he had worked at Kleinzee.
Quite a long time", he told me.
But said it with such a wry smile that I wondered if there was more to the story. He was not forthcoming. I later heard he had written a memoir, a short run edition no longer in print, and made it my business to track down a copy. Months later I found one in Cape Town and was pleased I had persevered. It was a wonderful and illuminating read.

In his youth Fred had been the old type of prospector, the loner who went out into uncharted territory in search of riches. One day, on a hunch he pitched up in Port Nolloth, bought a couple of donkeys, loaded up with provisions and headed south along the coast. Alluvial diamonds had been found to the north at Alexander Bay at the mouth of the Orange River. He reasoned that similar geography existed to the south and there was a good chance that diamonds could be found in the estuaries of the dry river beds along that coast. For months he had no success but when he was about to give up for lack of funds he came upon the dried river bed of the Buffels River. He dug a couple of prospecting trenches and hit a rich lode of alluvial diamonds.
Fred rushed back to Port Nolloth as fast as his donkey would carry him to register his interest. As soon as the formalities were complete he hurried back to his claim to start developing the site.  Little did he realise he had found one of the richest deposits of alluvial diamonds of gem stone quality in the world at that time. Being a loner he had great difficulty in working the diggings and protecting the site when he had to travel to Port Nolloth to gather supplies. Closemouthed, like all prospectors, Fred said nothing to anyone but his very behaviour was attracting interest. He sent his first parcel of gem stones from the Port Nolloth Post Office to a diamond sales agent in Kimberley. Imagine doing that under present day South African conditions. In all probably they would not get past the post master's office. Even if they did they would most certainly be "lost" along the way.
            When the parcel arrived in Kimberley the agent was astounded at the pure quality of the stones. The story soon got around that someone had recently found a rich
strike of gem stones somewhere in Namaqualand. One of the pillars of Kimberley
society was among the first to hear the news. He was also the first to get on the
road for Port Nolloth. It took him little time to find Fred.
            "Just walk south along the coast. He's down there somewhere," they told him at Port Nolloth.
            Acutely aware of the hordes of fortune seekers in his wake, he wasted no time in finding Fred and putting a proposal to him. Sketching a picture of the storm of publicity that was about to burst around him, he pointed out that now more than ever Fred needed an honest partner well versed in the ways of the world that would look after his interests in the cutthroat town that was Kimberley. For a modest fee and s small share in the equity he would he would perform that service while Fred continued to work the claim. Fred was delighted to have someone looking after sales in Kimberley. A man of instant decisions, he agreed.
             "Let's go and see a lawyer to sign an agreement."
             "Good God, man. Surely you know. MY WORD IS MY BOND".
             Fred's resolve faded in the face of such transparent honesty. The deal was done on a handshake. The gent went back to Kimberley and Fred Carstens went back to the claim with the intention of making them both rich. He took some time to assemble the next parcel of stones and delivered them, as usual, to the Post Office in Port Nolloth. He had estimated the value of the parcel at about £75,000.00. That done, he went out and bought a Kimberley newspaper. To his horror he read that his partner had sold his claim to De Beers. A distraught and disbelieving Fred rushed back to try to retrieve the parcel he had just mailed to Kimberley.
The Post Master refused to give it back. It was already in the custody of the South African Postal services. If he could have retrieved the parcel, he could at least have sold the diamonds to another agent. Not only had he foolishly given away his valuable claim without a binding legal agreement, he did not have the funding to legally contest the actions of the partner and his high-powered Kimberley friends.
The man who claimed that his word was his bond did show Fred some compassion. He arranged for Fred to be offered a permanent position at the mine. As he did not have a mining degree he could not hold the post of chief engineer but instead was given the sop of assistant. Demoralised and almost broke, Fred had no alternative. For the rest of his working life he watched powerlessly as the mine each month delivered a small fortune in diamonds to swell the coffers of the internationally famous company which now owned it. Apart from his monthly salary not a cent of these profits came his way.
The mine was situated on a sub section of the farm known as Kleinzee (small sea). The title of Fred Carstens's book said it all: "A FORTUNE THROUGH MY FINGERS ". To me, the story is so tragic it is difficult to comprehend. How did this poor man suffer such personal torment and sense of loss, year in and year out for the rest of his career? It hardly bears contemplation.

[Michael Alexander]

I am really really enjoying this!

The book mentioned,  Fortune through my fingers!, is still available at The Springbok Cafe in Springbok. Not sure what the price might be!
So much history in this west coast diamond Saga....

[SandyB]

Indeed a  tragic  happening ... they say the wheel is  round .. I trust the universe took care of ensuring the  wheel turned for the   dishonest person...

[Bob Molloy]

From Brian La Trobe's memoir

THE OPENING OF THE DENTAL CLINIC


There was no fanfare or official opening day. Management were just thankful to have the service available. There was simply relief that a resident dental officer was available to deal with problems which would save the company a great deal of potential loss of working time when staff had to travel some 800kms Cape Town to alleviate the pain of an aching tooth. In fairness to CDM it had provided a quite magnificent standard of public health care in the form of its four medical officers and well equipped hospital. The need for a dental surgeon probably did not cross the collective mind of management until the size of the town and the mine warranted such an appointment. When the need became obvious they reacted albeit a tad slowly.
Just prior to the opening of the dental clinic the rumourmongers started to work overtime. Most of them were variations on the theme of CDM spending millions on new dental equipment for staff members only while daily paid employees would be treated with old equipment left by the last itinerant dentist; the new dentist was half blind; he had an attractive wife with very naughty kids; the dentist himself was bloody ugly.
The origin of these rumours was always a mystery. After a while I began to suspect that most of them originated from a small workshop – a large, starkly unpainted, corrugated iron shed out in the desert at a desolate spot surrounded by dunes and scrub called Mooimeisiesfontein. Freely translated, the name means fountain of beautiful girls, an example of the sardonic humour of its workforce. The site, far removed from any other habitation, had been set up to service earthmoving machines at a nearby mining area. The artisans there were very savvy ex-pats who kept themselves sane in their arid surroundings with endless quips at the isolation of their wilderness workshop. True, the desert did have a stark beauty of its own but this spot, long stripped of vegetation and criss-crossed by sand tracks, became a howling wilderness when the East wind blew like a breath of Hell from the Kalahari. Interestingly, morale was high perhaps because of their refusal let the sand win.
The few who couldn't cope developed a condition known as "sand happy" in which the sufferer either drowned himself nightly in booze or more sensibly left for more attractive working conditions elsewhere. Their rumour machine was just an extension of their very dry sense of the ridiculous. It combined with an most effective form of  bush telegraph in telecommunications as I found when a couple of years later a new  nurse, whose husband worked at this workshop, came to the dental clinic. On occasion when a new patient would barely have been admitted to hospital he would phone his wife to tell her that so and so had been admitted suffering from such and such a condition. His information was always right on the button. Yet until he rang, we at the clinic right there in the hospital complex would be totally unaware while he was about 10kms from town.
The dental clinic's first nurse was a retired theatre sister who had grown accustomed to fighting the good fight against all bugs and germs. Prior to a surgical list starting at 7am Francis would be in the theatre, boiling and sterilising everything in sight and sluicing down the theatre walls with absolute alcohol. It's a mystery why the theatre block never caught alight on her watch.
In the dental surgery she tried to follow the same regimen. I got a black look every time I picked up an instrument without donning rubber gloves. This, of course was in the days before HIV& AIDS. I had to give her a personal seminar to explain that it was a biological toss-up as to which cavity, the human mouth or the human anus, had more micro organisms, fungi, yeast cells, viruses and pathogens in the form of staphylococci,streptococci , pneumococci and any other cocci to name but a few. In dentistry we were only interested in preventing cross-infection from one patient to the next.
She gasped when I told her about a dental practice bucket shop in the east end of London which only extracted teeth and nothing else. The old practitioner told me that he used the axial rub method to sterilise forceps between patients. This comprised of placing the used forcep into the arm pit of his not so clean white coat, closing down his arm on the blades and wiggling the forcep north and south, readying it for the next patient. I enquired of the bucket shop dentist if he had ever heard of a steriliser. He said he was averse to them as they made the forceps too hot to handle. Dear Francis was appalled. I did not have the heart or temerity to tell her I was pulling her leg.
She had a pretty face, a sort of cross between a Madonna and a Mona Lisa, strong arms, a formidable bosom and a wide child bearing pelvis with ham-like thighs. Part of her early nursing training was undertaken at Woodstock Hospital Cape Town.This was in the heart of the old District Six, a tough area. There one learnt the fundamentals of nursing Florence Nightingale style plus the art of self defence. We had only been in business for a matter of days when a young man appeared at the surgery without an appointment. He had been cooking up an abscess under a front tooth for a couple of days, had not slept the night before and had just spent three hours in Casey's Bar, the single men's pub in town, building up sufficient courage to come to the clinic. Francis told him to wait and he would be fitted in.
No doubt the alcohol he consumed knocked out some of the lad's cranial inhibitory centres or perhaps life as one of several hundred single men in a town with few single women had emboldened him. Either way, his amatory skills left a lot to be desired. The next time Francis passed his chair in the waiting room the young man slipped his hand under her skirt onto one of her very adequate thighs. Her reaction was swift and devastatingly accurate. A blow to the chin sent him clean over the back of the chair. When she told me of the incident I asked her if she wanted to take the matter further.
"Oh, no," she said confidently. "He won't touch me again. If he ever tries it I'll moer (clobber severely) the hell out of him."
It was a totally chastened, very apologetic and nervous young man who slumped into the dental chair. Francis's gaze could have frozen steam. On examination, the Francis blow had burst the abscess. I gave him a shot of penicillin and told him to come back in a week for root canal therapy. Before he left the surgery I told him he had been a very stupid fellow in doing what he had done to the nurse. He was also fortunate as Francis had graciously decided to forget the whole incident. The matter was closed and would go no further than the surgery. So much for my grasp of the Oranjemund rumour mill; within hours the story had spread around the village. Francis became a legend as someone not to be trifled with. Not sure what happened to the young man but I imagine he would have had a hard time living it down.
Before the clinic opened I had spent much time thinking over my own position. How could I best serve the community and what could I best derive professionally from the appointment? Part of my terms of reference was that I to provide free dental treatment to the company's employees and their families. In turn, the company did not stipulate the standard of the dental treatment I was to provide. That was left entirely to my discretion. It was this side of my contract more than anything else that had lured me away from a potentially very good dental practice in scenically beautiful Cape Town to bring my young family to the Namib Desert. A desert and the people who lived there, 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.
In Cape Town, as a newly qualified dental surgeon with only a couple of years of experience, I had been fast becoming frustrated by a number of facts. Patients confronted with cost of dental treatment would often opt for the cheaper alternative; a partial denture as opposed to more sophisticated crown and bridgework. If the need arose for treatment under general anaesthetic I would battle to find operating time in nearby private hospitals even though the teaching hospital, Groote Schuur, was virtually on my door step.
Many of my associates had overcome this problem by arranging with an anaesthetist to carry out the operation in the dental chair. This I steadfastly refused to do. In addition, I found my rather youthful appearance was against me. If a mature patient was going to agree to an intricate and expensive crown and bridge course of treatment they would, I felt sure, would be more comfortable with an older and experienced practitioner. I did not agree with the concept but grudgingly had to admit that I still looked a bit wet behind the ears. Such were the frustrations of youth, despite a rigorous course in the training hospitals of London, a number of academic awards, a dental degree with honours but no suspicion of grey hair or even the odd facial wrinkle to look the part.
The Oranjemund appointment was thus tailor made for me. Although the salary was not exactly a fortune, the house and car were free. There was the opportunity of free attendance at post-graduate university courses at local dental schools and the further chance of future long leave study leave. There would later be free schooling for the children and all sporting facilities were free for the taking. My favourite sport of golf had been denied me since qualifying. For one I was too busy trying to build the practice and in any case could not afford the entrance fee to gain club membership. In Oranjemund there was a magnificent, fully turfed, nine hole golf course along the banks of the Orange River where I could play to my heart's content outside of surgery hours. There was also a squash court often available within walking distance of the surgery.
I was determined to use the job to provide the best dental service to the community of Oranjemund. I would also ensure that my time at CDM was well spent in honing my dental and surgical skills. The cost of dental treatment was no longer an issue. Provided I could convince the patient of the benefit of sophisticated treatment it would not affect his pocket, nor would the company, within reason complain. I was only obliged to work normal office hours and if I needed to take two hours or an entire morning to prepare a patient for a particular dental process, it mattered not. My salary was fixed. I could thus afford to repeat a procedure until it was concluded to my satisfaction. I was never pushed for time.
The same applied to mine trauma, jaw fracture surgery and pathological conditions of the head and neck which came my way. The latter was particularly pertinent in the case of Ovambo employees who had probably never before been examined by a dental surgeon. In the surgical department there is no better way to learn and improve one's experience when you are confronted by a new and pressing surgical situation on the operating table before your eyes and the nearest specialist in the field is two thousand kms away on the other side of the country. In such circumstances one learns fast.
I was also determined to partake in all facets of small town community life and was soon involved with the Cripple Care Organisation. This was the community of Oranjemund's main fund-raising effort of the year. Most of those funds were generated by the annual Mule Derby in which the entire community participated.
As I had never forgotten my own traumatic visits as a child to the dentist in Port Elizabeth I was determined gain the confidence of all children who came to me for treatment. Memories were burnt into my brain of that dour old Scot with the ginger haired banana fingers who never gave me the time of day when I came for treatment, so petrified and ready to wet myself. He just got on with the job in hand. I cannot recall him ever saying a word directly to me. He just talked over me to his dental nurse, as if I was not there. His Scottish brogue was so broad it could have been a foreign language. If the old bugger had just told me what he was doing I might well have been a more cooperative patient.
I resolved such a situation would never occur at my clinic. A very few of the children came willingly, some were mildly apprehensive, the majority affected by fear to a varying degree. It was a long term project. I began with the pregnant mothers. To them I explained that the crowns of their baby's milk or deciduous teeth were already formed and calcified at the time of birth. In fact the child's first permanent molar tooth, which would only erupt at the age of six, was already beginning to calcify at birth. I tried to dispel the notion that baby teeth were expendable and did not require treatment, a concept that was quite prevalent in my early years of practice.
I encouraged young mothers to make individual appointments for young children from the age of two years. This was just to get them accustomed to the visit to the dentist. I still kept an old type dental drill with the belt drive, not for use but to amuse the children. I would attach two wads of cotton wool to the belt about a foot apart and ask the child to "watch the bunnies and see if the back one catches the front one". Their little eyes would gyrate to the tempo of the speed of the cotton wool wads around the belt's trajectory, almost oblivous of my probing and prying in their mouths..
We would also take them for a ride in the dental chair and show them how the drills worked, the noise they made when operating and how they sprayed water which my nurse would suck out of their mouths. We would polish their teeth with a small brush attached to the drill. Time spent in this fashion paid dividends later. When the child developed a small cavity he or she was already familiar with the dentist's armoury of drills and the method of filling a tooth. The removal of the dental caries and the placing of a filling was almost stress free. Contrary to popular belief milk teeth lack any sign of nervous tissue in the pulp of such a tooth. Expose a pulp or so called "nerve" of an adult tooth accidently, without an anaesthetic, and you will have to scrape your patient off the ceiling. And the chances are that once he or she leaves the surgery the dentist is unlikely ever to see this unfortunate customer again.
In contrast the exposed pulp of a deciduous tooth can be tweaked with impunity with no reaction from the child, thus nature has devised a brilliant method of conserving milk teeth. Such teeth never need an injection of local anaesthetic for a filling; hence time spent on preparing a child for future dental treatment is well spent.
It was always my experience that any child well prepared for future dental treatment in the manner described would react favourably. In most cases a child who has confidence in his or her dentist will often endure more protracted dental treatment than an adult. By contrast, a child who comes to the dental surgery after being awake all night with toothache is never going to be conducive to treatment in a room full of strange bits of equipment and a dentist he or she has never met. Parents of such children often make the mistake of promising them a treat on the way home if they are "brave" at the dentist.
The child immediately thinks he or she is in for something that needs courage, thus putting the dentist on the back foot before he even sees the patient. Children of this age group have a limited vocabulary. They tend to interpret every word literally. Parents need to choose their words carefully when speaking in front of their children. Fortunately, today's parents seem to be more aware of this. In times past many people enjoyed bragging about their "operations" and often went into the gory details, actual and imagined, in front of their children. They seldom realised how much of this is stored in young minds.