Oranjemund's first resident dentist

[SandyB]

Recall seeing  one in my memory box , along with  some of the plays I have already posted ...  will look and scan............

[Michael Alexander]

Much appreciated!   

[Bob Molloy]

From Brian La Trobe's memoir.

THE BIRTH OF THE PINK PAN

When we as a family first started exploring our desert surroundings one of the first trips was to the beach - a ten minute trip by car from the town, and a visit to the Pink Pan. This was a quite a sight, some acres of pinkish water protected from the boiling surf of the Atlantic ocean by an extensive mound of dark sand which at first I took to be a natural dune but was later told it was the spoil dragged up from the base of the pan. We marvelled at this huge lake so close to the beach. The residual chemist in me from my General Motors days suggested a predominance of potassium salts leached from the original pan had a part to play in the colour.
Water levels were maintained by the pumping of seawater from a waterhole dug next to the beach. There was a very impressive club house at the southern end of the pan. In front of it was a circular basin to facilitate the launching of sailing dinghies of which there were a fair number of privately owned craft. As yachtsmen were in the majority water skiing was frowned upon. However, the club committee compromised under pressure but set a 25 horse power limit on power boat engines and permitted skiing only between yacht races. This effectively limited the sport to those young enough or skinny enough to balance on one or two water skis behind such a small power source.
This was the Cormorant Yacht Club, the equivalent of the mink and manure set of Tokai in Cape Town. It was originally named the Flamingo Yacht Club but that name had already been taken by a Free State club so the less glamorous fowl was substituted. The club house sported Members Only signs. Life jackets and nautical gear were standard wear and members were expected to know the port and starboard side of their boats. They also kept a knowing expression on their faces when the talk was of a fore and aft rigged vessel and never, ever, laughed at the commodore in his funny hat.
We La Trobe's were yacht club observers. There was generally a yacht race every weekend, over a course marked out by buoys. On rare occasions when I was home early from Sunday morning golf we would park on the high bank alongside the Pan and watch these weekend sailors. They showed surprising skill in battling with each other in freaky winds to gain line honours and silverware. My sport was golf. It being a serious and jealous mistress I had no time for sailing. With hindsight I now realise to my regret that golf is a very selfish sport. My leisure time was spent on God's little green acre a few kilometres further back up the river. Perhaps my wife and children would have had more enjoyment if I had taken more interest in yachting. Hindsight and old age are often a sobering combination.
However, I did later acquire a large fibreglass board with a vertical transom which came complete with a little one horse engine. In between yacht races the boys and I had great fun chugging around the pan. With our combined weight plus the motor the board would float just a fraction below the surface of the water. This created the impression that we were replicating an age old biblical fable, save that we appeared to be sitting instead of walking on the water. The upright chugging outboard motor, however, sort of spoilt the spell of the apparent miracle.
This unlikely fibreglass creation and its funny little Seagull motor had quite a history. I bought them from a club member but only later realised they had once belonged to Bob Molloy, the man notorious for his maniacal attempt to surf the raging Atlantic rollers that battered the coast. Legend has it that he made this attempt in full view of a stone memorial to two young German swimmers who drowned at that spot just prior to the Second World War. 
To put the surf conditions along this coast into perspective, it might help to relate the response of two experienced professional divers commissioned by the company. Their task was to survey underwater conditions as part of a preliminary investigation into the construction of an offshore fuel oil pipe line .Having flown out from England and arrived on site; they took one look at the tumultuous surf and resigned on the spot.
Bob, while well aware of this scenario, claimed he had spent many weekends studying the wave intervals and noted how they varied with certain wind directions. He observed a pattern during offshore winds when for a short interval the waves were not of tsunami standards and the undertow had less suction than a sinking ocean liner. He reasoned that all he had to do was wait for this window of opportunity to show that such seas were indeed surfable.
He didn't leave much to chance. He designed and built the board especially for rough conditions, extra wide for buoyancy, ultra long for speed and fibre-glassed to a mirror finish. This armed, he waited his chance. As luck would have it, all the conditions came together one bright Sunday morning just as he was rigging his boat at the yacht club. And that's about where luck deserted him. Just as he grabbed his board and was about to take off for the nearby beach the club commodore, Doug Solms his best mate, called a scratch race. As club champion for his dinghy class, Bob felt he could hardly refuse but reasoned it would be a "ninety minute jaunt" and then he could get back to the serious business of the day.
That wasn't quite the way it happened. The wind fell during the race and it was almost three hours before the last boat crossed the line. Bob took line honours. Stoked by his victory he went straight to Plan B only to find surf conditions had changed. The wind had reversed and was blowing onshore. That's when he should have called it a day. But, perhaps from a combination of adrenalin still flowing from his race win and ego in the face of the large entourage who had come to watch, he opted to "just paddle out for a look at the back line."
He had barely hit the first break and got a glimpse of what was beyond when he realised that the washing machine conditions heading his way were definitely not surfable, possibly not even swimmable. And that's when he made his second bad call. He would just "grab a shortie" i.e. jump a breaker and try to ride it in instead of taking the safer option and paddling back to shore. He remembers getting up on the board and moving at a helluva lick and then nothing more. Gawkers on the beach reported he wiped out spectacularly and together with his board disappeared in an avalanche of white water and boiling surf. Body and board were eventually dragged out by one of his supporters. He was carted off with haste to the mine hospital where the duty doctor stitched up his throat and scalp. Proof of this legendary exploit was recorded on the surf board itself. There for all to see was an exact outline of his lower jaw and forehead right where his head had smashed a hole in the board.
Barely a week later his wife caught him again studying the sea conditions with a faraway look in his eyes. She promptly put her foot down. The board, she said, had to go. No board, no surfing, she reasoned. They compromised when he added a fibreglass transom to the board and fitted a small outboard engine for his kids to use in puttering around the Pan. And that was the origin of the La Trobe underwater motor board, long since repaired, no longer showing a head-shaped hole but famous in its own right. 
Bob also pioneered skiing on the Pink Pan, except that he took it up before the water was pumped in. The pan was then mainly bright, pink salt with the odd pool of salt water over a bed of stinking mud. As such Bob figured it had excellent sliding qualities. A hitch behind a Landrover proved his point. The Landrover skirted the pan while the skier swung wide over the mud. There was only one rule: never fall. Those who did bounced over the surface with salt breaking off into the skin grazes and when they came to a stop, sank into the mud bed.
It was from one of Bob's former associates that I learnt the history of the yacht club on the Pink Pan. The pan itself might well have been the product of the slow process of geological evolution and weather patterns but the lake and what followed came about by more Machiavellian means. I came across the story after relating to this friend how I had manipulated senior staff and management by fair means and foul to ensure the building of the new Mule Derby track and pavilion.
I have previously mentioned the strict codes of the mine's social ethics ladder. On the one side, the invisible line between so called "daily paid" artisans who did all the construction work and on the other the "management" who made all the plans and supervised their execution. This group festered with all sorts of intrigue and cut-throat manoeuvres, usually carried out with a smile. Even the wives would sweat blood over the promotion of their spouses.
For them, not getting an invitation to what they regarded as an important mine guest house party with high ranking officials from head office was too devastating even to contemplate. And for someone below you in the pecking order to be invited while you were left out in the cold was a ball-grinding tragedy. At times it was known to arrest a wife's ovulation for months.
In this kind of atmosphere most constructive suggestions placed before management by daily paid employees tended to be looked upon with a jaundiced eye. For that reason mine workers with initiative who sat "below the salt" had long since made a creative art of management manipulation.
In those days the pan was really pink, almost startling in its colour and quite small due to the constant evaporation of the sea water. The residue of various salts gave the pan its distinctive colour. At some stage some bright spark had placed a dinghy at one end together with a makeshift jetty, more a joke than a real attempt at making use of such a shallow body of water. The sight always raised a smile so it achieved its purpose.
Then along came a mover and shaker by the name of Julius Katzke. Julius, who held a fairly mid level post in the survey department was an ebullient character, much liked by all and a magnet for women. He was a great host and entertainer who loved theatricals and played leading roles in many of the Oranjemund Players' productions. He proposed a yacht club for the pan, an idea that sounded plain silly at first until he pointed out that with minimal earthworks and a pumping station the pan could be enlarged and the water level deepened.
And here's where the story gets murky. It seems Julius was rebuffed at top level but got a better reception from a few keen artisans, expatriates from the UK who had done some previous sailing. Though he didn't get the nod, Julius understood he had a blind eye from management, a kind of out-of-sight out-of-mind attitude. In short order his artisan friends had "found" and restored an obsolete dragline which appeared one day at the Pink Pan complete with Ovambo crew. For the next few months it nibbled away to create the lake, then dug a waterhole nearby in which a pump appeared, all powered by an overhead line.
Almost overnight it seemed a sizable lake was brimming with seawater. Then, coincidentally with the arrival of the top brass on their regular inspection of the mine, both pump and dragline disappeared. A tour of the mine workings in the area also took in the pan. Legend has it that it was pointed out from a distance by management as "a natural lake that appeared with the recent Spring tides" but such a pity it will disappear just as quickly as it could be such a great water recreation spot. The point was taken up over dinner and by the time the last bottle of the evening was opened it was a done deal. Just put in a pump and keep up the water level, as one diner reported.
It was a piecemeal operation but within a year or so a lot more than that was evident. A purpose-built clubhouse had been constructed, a launching basin and jetty set up and sailing dinghies were being built in various garages. The Cormorant Yacht Club was a reality. The pan, once the home of flamingos, now churned with weekend sailors, water skiers and happily splashing kids.

[SandyB]

Mike  here the cover ...  it was in my scans .. will scan the content when I find it .....

[Michael Alexander]

Three pics from the Mule Derby this morning, that have relevance to the previous post...

[Michael Alexander]

Looking forward to the content Sandy!

[Michael Alexander]

I was always under the impression that Stan Devlin built the pan, One can only wonder if this pan will return to it's natural state?

@ Bob, It appears you misled me into believing that you were the quiet kinda guy and not the maverick surfer you actually were....Get on with those memoirs sir!

I wonder  if the pink pan and salt pan were ever one Pan.... and how many more meters one would have to go beneath the pan to reach diamond bearing bedrock?

[Bob Molloy]

From Brian La Trobe's memoir

THE CDM GOLF COURSE AND THE GOLF TOURS


The CDM golf course was situated on the northern bank of the estuary of the Orange River, quite close to the mouth. It was, at that time, Namibia's only fully turfed course. Originally it was only nine holes but was later upgraded to the full eighteen. The course was designed and laid out by Grimsdale, a well known golf course architect.
The club house was built on a small elevation that allowed sight of most of the holes from the club house lounge. This pleasing sight had a delightful background of the river estuary against the stark sands of Alexander Bay on the far side in the Republic of South Africa. It was a magnificent oasis in the desert for all the enthusiasts who followed the little white ball. There was plenty of water from the river to irrigate the grass. In fact there were times when there was a surfeit, times when the mighty Orange came down in flood. When this occurred the mouth was usually closed by a colossal sand bar causing the water to flood back upriver and onto the course.
To obviate this CDM would bring in a couple of huge bulldozers from the mine and these would eat away at the bar in an attempt to cause a premature opening of the river mouth. It was a good plan but tricky in its execution. Sometimes the flood waters burst through before the dozers could get out of the way. On one occasion the driver of a massive machine of about 20 tons had to jump for his life as his bulldozer was swept out to sea, never to be seen again.
If the earthmoving was begun too early the sea had time to reclose the bar before the flood waters arrived, causing the very crisis the dozer team had laboured so hard to avoid. In this scenario the golf course would invariably be flooded. The anxious golfers would plead with their mining colleagues to come to the rescue with their heavy duty pumps. About six of these would pump day and night to clear the course and to hell with the expense which would be hidden in some budget or other. No effort was spared to keep God's little acre well manicured and in pristine condition. The course was close enough to town for the real enthusiasts to have a quick nine holes after work, particularly on summer evenings. There were competitions every Saturday afternoon and Sunday mornings with extended hours at the Nineteenth Hole that often caused upsets to domestic bliss. Women, who had their own "Ladies Day" every Tuesday morning, could also play in the Sunday competitions.
If I have made the golf course sound like a utopian dream, let us not forget the wind.
At the height of its power it could drive grown men to tears. In common with our yachting brethren down the track we had similar problems. The golf course had roughly half the holes facing into the prevailing wind and the remainder down wind. The first hole was a downwind par five, over 500 metres long. If you caught your drive "in the meat" the wind would take it on forever, making your approach to the green a mere chip shot. A birdie was in sight coupled with delusions of grandeur. The second was a short hole of just 140 metres. The player would have to choke down a sand wedge to avoid going out of bounds behind the green.
The walk from the second green to the tee of the third hole was protected by a row of trees. If the wind was blowing, local players would stop, gird their loins, tighten jock straps and pith helmets, and only then step into the blast. At such times a ball placed on a tee would not stay in position long enough to be driven. Then a shout for "hose" would go up and players would produce 25mm sections of garden hose as a substitute for a tee. The more savvy players kept three or four different diameters of pipe to be used as the wind dictated, strung together with a piece of fishing line for easier selection. Sometimes the wind would carry this aid some distance behind the tee. It was bad enough looking for loss golf balls. Having to look for lost hose tees was an added trauma.
There are seven hundred and forty eight muscles in the human body. To hit a golf ball straight requires the synchronisation of seven hundred and forty six of these beauties. The view from this wind-blasted tee, seen through slitted eyes, was intimidating. Ahead was the green, some 500 metres away. On the left was the formidable Orange River in which a mud bank some ten metres off the shore line was well positioned to trap any wayward hooked shot. At such times it was frustrating to be able to see the errant ball and not be able to retrieve it. On any windy day the habitual hooker could with great ease contribute four or five balls to the formation of this mud bank before giving up in disgust. He or she would then walk to the green, fuming, having had to concede the hole to a grinning opponent. It is my belief that, over time, that damn mud bank consisted of more golf balls than mud.
For the hacker with a chronic slice there was more purgatory on the right side of the fairway. Here the rough consisted of a sand base covered with bessie bosse or berry bush. This iniquitous botanical misery may well hold a revered place in the annals of botany but it does so heaped with the curses of Oranjemund golfers. A hardy, drought resistant, profusely leafed ball trap it survives in conditions that would stop a Sherman tank. Add to that its attraction for mosquitoes who siesta by the billion under the leaves and hordes of spiders that solidly web the outside of this chest high bush, and you have a recipe for golfer's misery. If a player has the misfortune to land in a bessie bos it is often less traumatic to simply forget it and accept the penalty. Unwary visitors always searched meticulously and, once located, tried to drive the ball from its parking spot in or on the bush. The usual consequence was that the shot seldom dislodged the ball but did disturb a horde of angry mosquitoes the size of small pigeons which attacked in clouds and left lumps that itched for days after.
Even the gifted straight hitter could be defeated by the wind. It was normal to look up after the follow through and see the ball reach the zenith of its trajectory then travel back towards the tee, falling far short of the position it would have achieved on a calm day. This third hole at Oranjemund, played in the wind, was memorable indeed; in golfing parlance it separated the men from the boys.
Another quirk of the course was at holes seven and eight which were located adjacent to each other with little rough in between. Thus a golfer who sliced while driving from the seventh tee was a major hazard to a fellow golfer walking down the eighth fairway. George Glover, a gifted sportsman, had an easy flowing swing but a tendency to slice the ball. On one particular day I was George's partner. His great mate, Bill Fry, was a hole ahead of us walking down the eighth. As George hit his drive it travelled in an arc towards Bill.
"Fore," George shouted.
Bill looked up just as the ball hit him above his right ear. He went down like a pack of cards. His legs gave one spasmodic jerk then he remained still.
"I'd better play a provisional in case I can't find the ball" said George nonchalantly. He played his second drive before ambling over to Bill who by this time was sitting up, loudly profaning over George's doubtful parentage.
"Good morning sonny boy, you must learn to duck a bit quicker when I shout fore," was George's greeting.
"You could have bloody killed me," said Bill.
"Never," said George. "I hit you on the head."
Bill was one of those sportsmen who often seemed to get hurt; what Americans would call a "fall guy". On another occasion we golfers were having a cricket match against the cricketers. As to be expected the golfers lost a number of wickets rapidly. Bill Fry was next to bat. Our team had only three cricket boxes (genital protectors to the uninitiated) and Bill refused to go out to bat without one. The only solution was a hot box. So, when the next wicket fell the batsman pulled out his box and Bill, to the amusement of spectators, slipped it into his pants. Bill walked out to the wicket, took his guard and the speed bowler dispatched him with a delivery right between the eyes. He was carted off to casualty where his wife, Martha, was the nurse on duty that day. Poor old Bill got very little sympathy from Martha who was upset at this further demonstration of her accident-prone husband's tendency to get hurt.

[Nada Ulbrich (Rall)(RIP)]

And Bill Fry was the man who, in later years, fell off a horse at a Mule Derby!!

[Michael Alexander]

It seems Ol' Bill married an appropriate lady!

[toonfandangl]

Hello Bob Molloy.

Reading your great articles from Brian La Trobe's "Oranjemund's first resident dentist"  I do remember that in the back end of the sixties there was some trouble with the dental services in Oranjemund....... I had had  a back molar removed before coming to Oranjemund but the job had been botched and the root had been left in..I had put up with the pain for some time before attempting to see a dentist, and what I remember back then..... I was informed  that we did not have any dentists, this was by one of the doctors there a Scottish gentleman whose name eludes me at this time.... He also told me that two dentists employed by CDM had resigned and that it was himself that would remove the  offending molar or I would have to go to the nearest dental surgery in Springbok. Anyway the point I am making is was Brian La Trobe there in 1969 and does he remember the two dentists that resigned............ Frank.


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. 
 
This was another piece from Brian La Trobe's article's posted by Bob Molloy, anyone in my age group would shudder if they had experienced a visit to a hospital in the forties and fifties, they would remember this below.

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.

[Bob Molloy]

From Brian La Trobe's memoir

GOLF IS NOT A SPORT, IT'S A RELIGION, AND HERE'S WHY

Our grumblings at the vagaries of the local weather and the shortcomings of our golf course generally quietened after an away match at clubs elsewhere in Namaqualand or Namibia. One quickly realised how fortunate we were. The Port Nolloth course was a salt pan close to the village. It substituted as a rugby field, a soccer pitch, an air field, a cricket pitch as well as a golf course. The greens were made of oil and sand. Each green had a scraper provided to scrape a smooth path towards the hole. Local knowledge was a huge advantage. When carving a path to the hole, a slight slant of the hand on the scraper could make a small groove in the oil/sand mixture which would steer the ball directly into the hole. The fairways were delineated by rows of half buried car tyres. The rough looked identical to the fairway. A club byelaw allowed a player to tee up on the fairway but it was difficult to get a normal length tee to remain erect in the sand. The locals used donkey droller (donkey turds), which seemed to be freely available.
At O'Kiep Copper Mine near Springbok the course was named Klipdam (stone dam) and appropriately so. At Stone Dam the tees were concrete with a narrow groove filled with oil and sand for driving the ball. The rest of the course was flintstone. Sparks flew after every stroke. Fearing for my clubs, I tended to freeze at every shot and could never force myself to hit through the ball. The locals were well accustomed to the harsh conditions where golf clubs did not have a long life. This was one course where the divot marks were on the club irons and not on the fairways.
Our baptism of fire was when the Oranjemund club was invited to play in the Namaqualand Championships. This must have been in the early 1960's. We did not fare well as we had a too high a regard for our clubs. Nevertheless the hospitality of the people of O'Kiep Copper Mine was outstanding. As a result the prizegiving was a bit protracted and the Nineteenth Hole well patronised. 
The team had travelled to O'Kiep in three cars. I was allotted a seat in George Glover's car. George, being the social animal that he was, without fail was always the last to leave. We had to reach the gate on the south side of the Orange before it closed at 5pm. After that no excuses permitted entry; if you were late, tough. You either spent the night in your car or retraced your steps nigh on a hundred kilometres back to Port Nolloth - a dismal half-horse harbour town known ironically as Port Jolly - and booked in for the night at the local hotel. 
Despite George's camaraderie we managed to leave Klip Dam with plenty of time to get to the CDM gate but disaster struck at the top of the escarpment just before the Anenoes Pass. The pass was about six kilometres long leading down a winding dirt road to the coastal plain on the way to Port Nolloth. The road was deeply rutted by the heavy trucks that grated up and down it daily. We had a puncture just at the beginning of the pass. Full of the joys of spring and an on-board load of booze we all alighted from the car. George opened the boot and bounced the spare wheel onto the road. The rest of us were busy getting the car jacked up. The wheel bounced once then twice, remained vertical then started to careen down the inclined road.
"Don't worry," said a relaxed George. "It will fall over at the bend."
The problem arose when it did not fall over at that bend but continued, gathering speed as it went. By the time we realised what had happened the bloody wheel had a head start on us of over fifty metres. We all started to run but none of us had a hope in hell of catching up. We found the tyre about two kilometres down the pass in a ditch on the right side of the road. If it had gone off on the left side it would have dropped over a small precipice and been lost in the bush. So I suppose we had to be thankful for small mercies. It was a Sunday afternoon and the road was deserted, not even a Joel's lorry to come to our aid. Getting that damn wheel back to the car was a real pain in the butt. George had long since given up the chase, relying on us young bucks to retrieve it.
At first we tried to roll the bleeding thing back up the road. If you have never tried this, don't.  It's very tough on the hands and you get covered in dust. What's more, it's difficult if not impossible to gain momentum uphill. We ended up with two of us carrying the friggen thing, the third person lapping. It was a toss up as to who would be the first to drop from exhaustion. We finally got back to the car to find George fast asleep. With what little strength we could muster we got the wayward spare bolted back onto the car.
"Don't worry." said George. "I'll get you to the gate on time".
The idea set him off singing the tune made famous by Stanley Holloway in My Fair Lady of "Get me to the church on time." We young bloods were not impressed. We were exhausted, covered in good old Namaqualand dust and just wanted to get home. It was not to be. We nearly made it to the gate, missing it by barely ten minutes. The more sensible option would have been to accept defeat at Port Jolly and book into the Hotel. But no, the failed attempt meant retracing our way back to the old harbour town.
There were no mobile phones in those days. Getting a call to Namibia even from as close as Port Jolly was a mission. When I eventually made contact with Peggy she was relieved to hear we were safe (I think).When I told her our tale of woe over a crackling old fashioned type phone line she listened patiently. When I finished my embroidered and dramatised story there was a pause.
"Yeah, right," said Peggy (or words to that effect which I won't repeat here) and put the phone back on the hook.
After a very indifferent dinner George regained his second wind."Let's have a party to celebrate finding the wheel," said George, He had no takers. We just fell into bed.
Port Nolloth was a dreary little place, often shrouded in mist rolling in from the Atlantic Ocean. When the mist cleared the chances are that the wind will blow. The best view of the village was out to sea. In the days before the advent of Marine Diamond Corporation and its Chairman, Mr Sammy Collins, there were a few fishing boats who concentrated on catching crayfish, a small fish factory, an hotel and Police Station and not much else. There were, however, fourteen general dealer grocery shops. This was out of all proportion to the size of the general population. The reason for this over exuberance of the retail trade was IDB (illicit diamond buying). Most of those shops were fronts for trade in the so called "little stars". One had only to stand at the back of the store and look a bit nervous. Soon someone would sidle up beside you to enquire if you were trying to sell some stertjies (little stars). It would, in addition, help if you had just climbed out of a car with an Alexander Bay or Oranjemund car registration.
There were however two very fascinating inhabitants in the village. The local catholic priest was a fine old American gentleman. He had built a beautiful small church, no doubt with funds from his native land, which seemed to match his own pious serenity. Once the head of his order, this highly qualified and academic priest had spent years travelling the world to visit his priests and nuns in their various houses and convents. After he stepped down as head of the order he would regale his listeners with the detail of the mystery of how he came to be in such a remote spot as Port Nolloth. It seems it happened in response to a question by the new head of his order.
"In all  your travels around the world, Reverend Father, which was the most desolate and lonely of our churches in the entire world, where you would least like to work for the Lord?"
"Port Nolloth, in Namaqualand South Africa," said the good father without hesitation.  And so, when the dust had settled after leaving high office that is exactly where the new Superior of the Order sent the poor Father. And what is more he went, without a murmur. I suppose that's the true meaning of a vow of obedience.
By the time I met him he was physically very infirm and had to sit down to say the Mass but his intellect had not deserted him. For years he had been assisted by a French nun - Sister Madeleine Raphael, an Oblate Sister of St Francis de Sales – who had been sent to Africa as a missionary. She came to Africa in 1900 and died in 1962. A great deal of her missionary life was spent in Port Nolloth doubtless trying to promote Christianity amongst the heathen of the fishing community which must have been an uphill battle. After many years in Port Jolly she still spoke almost no English and certainly no Afrikaans. She was renowned for hitching lifts to Springbok and beyond with the hard-boiled truck drivers of Joel's Transport. As the good father spoke fluent French this old Nun was probably the only person with whom he could have any meaningful conversation. Her passing must have left a great void in his life.
I would always visit the dear old man when I drove to Kleinzee by car. He would invariably invite me to stay for lunch or even over night and would be desperately disappointed when all I would have time for was a cup of tea.
On the few occasions I could have lunch with him I would phone to arrange the date. He would be so appreciative. When we sat down the table would be laid with the top quality linen and cutlery.  Everything was precise and neat. I felt sure he had done it all himself. His choice of wines was always perfect. How he came upon his supply in such a desolate hole as Port Nolloth was always a mystery. The food was magnificent and had the touch and taste of Provence. I suspected the old nun was the chef, though she never appeared. The meal was presented as a splendid buffet. I cannot recall who could have helped him after she died.
For one who lived in such isolation his range of conversation was impressive. He obviously read widely and gained international news from his radio. His academic background was such that there was no subject he could not discuss with precision and insight. To me, the fact that this poor man's only reward for his life-long labour as a priest was to be sent to end his days in a place like Port Nolloth was unforgivable. His successor, a so-called Man of God, was without a doubt a man with a warped mind.  It was always my sincere hope that in the fullness of time he got his comeuppance, and hopefully sooner rather than later. 
The Luderitz Golf Club took the biscuit for attempting to make a golf course in moonscape conditions. The only thing missing was the vacuum. And to the members for even agreeing to play in such shitty circumstances I would have awarded a monthly medal. There were the usual concrete tees and oil and sand greens. The course was situated in between the sand hills outside of town. Tees were often elevated. A pole was implanted into the concrete of the tee. This enabled others in the fourball to hang on in the wind while awaiting their turn to tee off. Every club member had a pair of motor bike goggles in his bag to don when the wind came up.
The sand around Luderitz was micro fine and very abrasive. It could strip the paint off your car and frost the glass of your head lamps in minutes. I only have a memory of one particular shot in one particular round of golf in Luderitz; the reason being that I never played much golf ever again in Luderitz. My drive had landed in the sand on the fairway which was not unusual as the entire course had a sand finish. It was, however, sitting up quite handsomely. The green (and I use the term for want of any other) was across the wadi some distance away. Living dangerously I thought I could reach the pin with my two iron. There was a small complication, a vertical rock needed to be cleared some ten metres ahead. It was directly in line with the far off pin. I called for my two iron.
"Take a seven iron to clear the rock, you can still get there in two shots," said the caddy.
"Two iron," I insisted.
I hit the ball a tremendous blow.  It took off like a rocket. My arms were still high in a perfect follow through when it struck the rock and came straight back at us. Fortunately the caddy was young and had good reflexes. He managed to jump out of the way or the ball would have killed him.
"Where is the ball?" I asked. He pointed a sarcastic thumb up the hill behind us. After that traumatic visit to the Luderitz Club I never again complained of the weather in Oranjemund nor the condition of our wonderful course. After we left CDM and opened a practice in Luderitz I was thrilled to be invited back to Oranjemund to play in a weekend competition.
But the pleasure didn't extend to the CDM security department. Suddenly I was persona non grata and was not permitted to use the direct coastal route from Luderitz to Oranjemund of about 300 kilometres. When still employed by the company I had been entrusted with all the security gate keys to allow me to get to Alexander Bay and back to treat emergencies at night. That went on for a period of five years. At that time Security did not take kindly to being told to get out of their warm beds to accompany me over the river. On any of these occasions I could have taken a fortune's worth of diamonds and deposited them in a safe place to be collected later. The thought never entered my head. So it irked a bit to be trusted for over five years and then to have it switched off like a tap.
The shortest alternative route from Luderitz to CDM was via a lead zinc mine called Rosh Pinah which bordered the De Beers claim. There was an open drift across the Orange River in the vicinity. When I arrived at the drift the dear old Orange was about to come down in flood. I was determined not to miss out on the delight of again playing golf at CDM. I spotted a road grader on the other side of the river and persuaded him to pull me to the other side. The floodwaters were half way up the car doors but I got through. On the way home I was not so lucky. When I returned to Rosh Pinah the river was in full flood. I returned to Luderitz via Port Nolloth, Springbok, Vioolsdrift and Keetmanshoop - a distance of some eight hundred kilometres. A high price to pay for one round of golf on a good course but it was worth it.
Occasionally we would hold competitive matches against firms such as Barlows and Engen who were large suppliers to CDM. Their team would arrive on the Friday afternoon by chartered flight or on their company aircraft. In the beginning visiting teams were allowed to bring their own clubs. Our Security officials would be on hand at the CDM air strip when their flight landed. All their clubs would be held in custody and only returned to the players on the first tee the next morning. Security was again on hand to collect the clubs after each round over the weekend and would only be returned to each player just before the plane took off.  It was a nuisance but accepted by most with good grace in view of the potential for illicit diamond smuggling no matter how remote the possibility.
When a golfer arrived at CDM for employment, his or her clubs would be quarantined for some time. It was said that each club was weighted on a fine balance and stamped with a registration number on the toe of the club. This eliminated the possibility of any of us stuffing a fortune in diamonds into the shaft of the clubs to escape x-ray examination when we went on leave. A couple of days before we left on holiday we would have to hand in our clubs to Security who, no doubt, weighed again to check on any weight difference.
We would occasionally play return matches at the invitation of our visitors. These were great weekends. There was always keen competition to be selected for the CDM team. Our mode of transport from CDM was a Suid Wes Lugdiens (South West Airways) Dakota. The Daks were used for almost daily flights to CDM bringing new indentured Ovambo's to work on the mine and returning with others whose contract had expired.  An incoming Friday flight would be contracted to fly us to Cape Town returning early Monday morning. The entire charter used to cost us R950 .00 which was peanuts. As I recall the old Dak could haul about 38 persons. The numbers in our team would vary from ten to fifteen. To defray the cost the club would sell off the remaining seats to anybody who wanted a cheap weekend in Cape Town. There was always a queue for such seats.
When we did this for the first time no one seems to have told the pilot that in addition to his full complement of passengers and their usual luggage, each of the fifteen golfers had a heavy bag of clubs. In addition we had five cases of Windhoek lager, a gift from Uncle Sam Cohen from Windhoek so that the golfers would not get thirsty on the flight to Cape Town. As the plane trundled like a fat old lady down the runway, as only a Dakota could, some of the golfers were already working their way to the back of the aeroplane. These charter flights didn't run to the luxury of any air hostesses. We did notice while opening a beer that the Dak seemed to labour its way into the air and appeared to skim over the mouth of the Orange River. Suddenly the door from the cockpit flew open.
"Everybody back to his seat – IMMEDIATELY," screamed the co-pilot. We sensed his urgency and complied ASAP. We later learnt that the heavy load of golf clubs and beer at the tail end of the aircraft plus the assembled golfers standing at the back for a premature beer was upsetting both the pilot and the Dak. Even with all the power the two engines could deliver, its tail was dropping and the pilot was having great difficulty getting the old girl to climb. We returned to our seats. We had learnt our lesson. On all future charter flights we stored the beer against the bulkhead which separated the cabin from the cockpit. This solved the problem.
At the end of one such delightful weekend in the Mother City we found ourselves at 6am standing at Cape Town Air Port with our hosts who had kindly got up at that ungodly hour to bid us farewell. We were all more than a little fragile after 72 holes of golf and some intensified labour at the various Nineteenth holes. My first patient at the dental clinic that day was scheduled for 09:30 hrs. It left me just sufficient time after landing for a quick shower and change and a dash to the clinic. I was not looking forward to the day ahead which, considering my condition was not too surprising.

[Bob Molloy]

@Frank: I have a reply from Brian re your query on the Scottish doctor. Will post it shortly.
Regards.
Bob.

[SandyB]

As per  usual   interesting reading ..  keep them  flowing ...

[Bob Molloy]

Hi Frank,
                The Scottish doctor's name was David McCallum and the two dentists who resigned were Peter Viljoen and Brian La Trobe. Brian's reply, hilariously verbatim, follows.
Regards,
Bob.

"Peter Viljoen and I both left in 1968 so that's the short answer to Frank's question. The Scottish  medic who offered to remove the residual molar roots of his fractured molar was David McCallum. I recall him most vividly. He was a gentleman who did not lack confidence. I can well imagine he would have offered his services to coax the buried roots from their reluctant socket. He came to Oranjemund from being a medical officer at an Anglo mine, probably in Zambia. He came with a reputation as a fanny farmer who did hysterectomies via a vaginal approach, hence no incision or scarring. He turned many an Oranjemund matron into sports models. Non gravid uteri were borne out of local vaginas fast and furious until the novelty worn off. Eventually the local lasses crossed their legs and learnt to say "NO".  I recall even the usually diplomatic Matron Barnes showed her disapproval with an icy murderous scowl.
Anyway equilibrium was reached when the good doctor ran out of willing uteri or he found new interests in other forms of general surgery. I never felt threatened by him for obvious reasons. We played a lot of golf together, he claimed to be a 6 handicap until the coastal gales demoralised him.
I heard later he died of prolonged use of certain analgesic drugs for joint pains. Cause of death Agranularcytosis. What's in a name?"