11 Marin View 1970-1972

My experience of the move was that I went to Jewish Summer Camp hosted by our Temple youth group leaders, in Margate, near Durban in among the sugar cane fields. I met my first ever girlfriend at camp. Simone Sylvester, who I used to go to movies with when we got back home. I remember our first date was to see the move “A Man Called Horse” and we sat in the front row because even though it was a matinee, and even though the theater was empty, those were the tickets we had, and there was an usher who literally stood two rows behind us watching us for the whole movie! Only 12 years old, we were so shy and innocent that we took pains to pretend we were siblings so people wouldn’t think badly of us.

Going to camp involved a two day train journey to Natal. There is something magical about train travel during those days. The clack-clack, clack-clack sounds that became a rhythm that persisted. The smell of train coffee, so sweet, in the morning. The passing wilderness that changed constantly given South Africa’s scenery. The puffing of the steam engine. There is nothing quite like falling asleep to the rocking rhythmical sway of the train as it steamed through the darkness. Waking up in Natal, tropical temperatures, palm trees, sugar cane fields….made the arrival special. I remember pulling into the station in Durban, and in the excitement having to wake up the deaf kid in our compartment because he slept through it all and was going to miss the bus ride to camp.

Camp itself was fun too. There was a meal Hall, where meals, and singalongs, and movies were shown. The campers camped in canvas tents, 4 to a tent. There was inspection every morning and the tent had to be spotless, every article of clothing perfectly folded. I hated inspection. The camp counselors always found some small defect to punish us for. Punishment tended to be carrying a big log back and forth across the soccer field for an hour while the other kids had fun. I hated that, and I seemed to be unable to avoid punishment literally every day for the duration.

One night, I woke up literally covered in ants. My cot had sunk one leg into an ant colony and I ran screaming from ant bites to the shower and washed millions of ants it seems, from my body. I was traumatized by that experience. The trip home seemed really long. The train stopped for no apparent reason in the middle of nowhere for ages. People, mostly Africans riding in the less than luxurious third class cars, would get off the train and play soccer nearby till the guard blew his whistle, and then everyone would clamber aboard as the train slowly gathered momentum.

Sadly though, when I returned from summer camp, a two week stay, we had moved from our home to this second floor apartment in Glengazel.  The biggest impact on me was that my dog, Sandy, had been given away. I was devastated. The apartment, a 3 bedroom two floored apartment, was about three quarters of a mile from the high school, and the bus stop was on our corner of the apartment, so I could roll out of bed, grab a slice of toast with fish paste on it as I walked out the door, and jump on the bus to get to school in minutes. I had a harder and harder time getting out of bed as I grew into my teens, and catching that bus always seemed much harder than it should have been.

Anyhow, that first day, I put on a brave face and went off to school at Northview High school. I was a little scared and a little excited for the new adventure.

High school was actually very scary at first. It was big, much bigger than the primary school. We moved around between classes. There were both lots more kids and most of them were bigger and older kids. It seemed like every older kid was a bully who bullied younger kids. For example, on my first day at school, I went into the bathroom and there were about 10 big kids in there smoking (actually giant kids in my eyes).

“Hey kippie , come here” an ugly giant kid said

I walked over to him shaking in fear

“You gonna tell anyone you saw us smoking?”

Me: “no”

“You better not or I’ll fuck you up, understand?”

Me: “yes”

He looked at me standing there shaking in my brand new school uniform. Spotless with a shine on my shoes. I looked at his scruffy jacket, stained shirt and threadbare tie. Then he reached down and buttoned my jacket, suddenly and forcefully he pulled my jacket down over my shoulders so my arms were pinned. He picked me up (I think I weighed about 80 pounds dripping wet at most) and he hung me on the hook on the back of the bathroom door.

The boys all were guffawing as they snuffed our their cigarettes and left me alone hanging on the back of the door.

The school bell rang and I could hear feet heading down the hall to class. Then it was quiet. I had tears in my eyes as I looked around the empty bathroom thinking about what I should or could do.

I was about to yell for help when the door swung open and the gym coach,Mr. Bam, came into the bathroom. I didn’t know him as the gym coach or even his name yet.  I caught his eye and he gently took me down.

“Who did this?” He asked kindly.

Me: “I don’t, I don’t know sir. It’s my first day” I stammered trying not to cry.

“Ok laddie, go to class”

“Yes sir” I brushed away my tears and went off to find my class.

High school scared the shit out of me.

The game the school played was rugby. There was no soccer team. The rugby coach, who was our PE teacher,  said “this is a rugby school, don’t even say “soccer”, understand?” It was intimidating but we learned how to play rugby during PE. I liked the contact although I was small, and I took to the position of scrum-half in part because of my size and in part because I got to run the game. The PE teacher was also the rugby coach, and he told me to turn out for rugby.

The school uniforms were different too. At primary school we wore short pants, a short sleeved shirt and a tie. In high school we wore long grey pants, a long sleeved white shirt, a navy stripped club tie and a navy blazer. Being 12 years old in the same school as 18 year olds wearing the same uniform was very intimidating. I literally walked around terrified.

We were placed in a class and we had 2 years to get oriented. Standard 8 was the first year you could get school colors (like a letter for a sport). All the blazers were navy blue, but “half colors” were illustrated by a yellow striped navy blue blazer. Full colors was represented by a white blazer with a ribbing of yellow and navy string. Very few students had either half colors and fewer had full colors.

In addition to a class, we were assigned to a House. In primary school the houses were named after antelope there was Roan (red), Kudu (blue), Eland (green) and Sable (yellow). In primary school the big house rivalries were track and swimming. At the track meet the tug of war was the most fun to cheer for.

In high school, the houses were named for great men of science there was Lister (blue), Edison (green), Newton (red) and Fleming (yellow). In high school the houses competed for everything it seemed. I was assigned to Lister. Blue. I had been in Roan in Primary school. Red.

You got a small colored pin to wear to denote your House. The House used to meet occasionally to learn cheers and establish team spirit .

There were so many things I was interested in. All new for me, I played rugby and cricket and field hockey, I did gymnastics and track. I fenced and I joined the cadet band playing the bugle. I sucked at the bugle, so I switched to the snare drum. Thats where I learned how to do a double diddle. I never really was able to do a real drum roll. When my kid got a drumset later in life, I marvled at his ability to do that. I am still very keely aware of drum solos in rock bands. I listen to them with a mixture of awe and amazement. In any event, we used to form up and learn to march and play every Friday morning. Plus we had to wear a cadet uniform. We were literally being trained to be in the army.

I turned out for fencing. It seemed magical. Those trippy uniforms with that wire mask and we got to fight with swords (foils)! Loved it. I got quite good at it too.

I joined the chess club. Weekly tournaments against other schools and a weekly meeting to learn new strategies.

I turned out for cricket and actually was a reasonable off-spin bowler. I took extra coaching in a batting cage to become a better batter and bowler. Mr. McCorkhill was the cricket coach. He was the groundsman who took great pride in keeping the fields immaculate. Its hard to emphasize this enough. The way the school was organized was that you had the buildings at the top of the hill, then there was an embankment with steps down to the cricket field. The cricket field doubled as the track and also as the hockey fields. At the far end of the field as you sat on the embankment,  was the tuck shop to the right. The tuck shop was upstairs and there were change rooms downstairs. To the right of the Tuck Shop was the swimming pool. Below and down the hill of the Tuck Shop were the two rugby fields oriented end to end. On the left side of the cricket pitch were the practice nets and the maintenance shed. It was common to watch the workers, often Mr. McCorkhill himself, mowing the lawn to keep the pitch in perfect shape.

Mr Mac, as we called him, was a Scott with a thick accent, and he could not pronounce my name easily, so he just changed it to “Hole-in-the-ground” or “chasm” variously depending on his whim. He was a good cricket coach who encouraged me to develop my spin bowling. Through the years, I played on the A and B teams variously depending on who was there and who was missing.

I was low in the batting order on the A team and a late game bowler. In cricket, the fast bowlers generally bowl first and the spin bowlers later as the batsmen are less skilled. My best batting outing on the A-team was to score 38 runs to win the game coming in 7th in the order, and my best bowling outing was to get 3 out in 4 overs to win the game. In my senior year I was on and off the A-team and when I was on the B-team I captained it. In one game, we literally got the entire side out for 3 runs. We got lectured for being too gleeful for our celebrations on getting the whole side out for only 3 runs at the next practice.  Sportsmanship and all that.

I joined the photography club. The club was organized by Mr. Bowie, the Biology teacher. He was an excellent photographer who was nationally recognized. We used to enter slides into a slide club that was judged by experts each month. I fancied myself as a fashion photographer and my friend Isabel Gariezzo was my model.  In the club itself, we met weekly but had monthly black and white competitions with judging of images from the shooting assignment and guidance for composition and contrast. We were also strongly encouraged to submit slides for the judged events. It was out of this participation that my friend Eddie and I put in dark room at my brother Derrick’s house in their servants quarters (they didn’t have servants.)

I turned out for gymnastics. The tryout was in the Hall, there wasn’t a formal gym just then, but one was being constructed. There were lots of kids at the tryout.

They had us trying out doing some basic tumbling tricks. Hand springs and head springs for example. All of this was easy for me. Then he asked those of us who could do do flick flacks (backward handsprings) and only a few kids would even try. Of course I nailed it.

Gymnastics was coached by John Bam on the men’s side and by Lynne Boardman in the women’s side. The tryout was being managed by some of the older kids, and it became pretty obvious right away that I stood out. Pretty soon the coaches and all the senior kids were watching me execute the tumbling passes. After the try out the coach came to me, and he recognized me from being the kid was hanging on the back of the door, and he said “hey Kippie, you going to come do gym?“

I nodded, and that was the start of my gymnastics career really. The gym club met every afternoon after school for a couple of hours, and the practices were with boys and girls. Once the new gymnasium opened, we used to go at recess and either do some practice, if an event was coming up, or are we used to play one-bounce over a volleyball net with a soccer ball. My friends Errol and Eddie and Jeremy and I used to play soccer or do gymnastics pretty much every recess. By the end of my high school career when I was a top-notch gymnast representing Southern Transvaal and South Africa,  I would  often have several girls come to watch me practice, which I found kind of enjoyable. I was as bit of a show off. I’ll have more to say about gymnastics later but suffice it to say that gymnastics was an important part of my life in high school.

There was built in fear turning out for rugby. We felt tough pulling on the jersey but there was definite nervousness too. I remember the coach who called rookies “Kippie” saying “when that ball comes out, hit him kippie, wrap him up” – I was trying out for scrum half – number 9  – the link between the forwards and the speedy backs. Kind of like a quarter back to the fly half – the central back who ran the team.

I enjoyed youth rugby. I liked the contact and enjoyed the strategy, and I was smart enough to run the game. I remember one game, our first match with another school, and I was the scrum half on the A team.

In rugby, one weird thing is that when the other team scores on you, the restart is to give them back the ball in good field position.

We got our asses handed to us by the other team. It was like 60 to 0. We got humble very quickly, and our fly-half, Clive, broke his collar bone. He was a tough guy too and it spooked all of us!

The first two years of high school were uneventful. I figured out pretty quickly that I didn’t like French or Latin and so I went into the sciences. The track I chose was the Math/Science track. This meant that over the final three years of high school, I took a year or algebra, a year of trig and a year of geometry. I also took a year of botany, a year of physiology and a year of zoology. I also took a year of geology, a year of meteorology and a year of physical geography. In addition we had to do English and Afrikaans which included literature. composition and vocabulary. Additionally we had to do both South African and also world history as well as physical education.