Happy swashbuckler
EVERY now and then a bonus comes one's way. As part of another project, I find myself reading The Happy Warrior, the story of TC Robertson, conservationist, Smuts confidante, raconteur and general roustabout.
The book (published by the TC Robertson Trust) is written by Shirley Bell and based in part on research by Sally Frost, who I think is still on the local university campus.
It brings to life a colourful character who enlivened conservation, politics and journalism over several decades. TC Robertson used to produce the most evocative writing in support of conservation issues – soil erosion especially - equally at home in English or Afrikaans.
Very close to Smuts, TC was like him a polymath with a grasp of a range of scientific issues and having a particular background in botany. Head of Smuts's anti-Nazi information services during World War II, he also fully grasped Smuts's pioneering philosophy of Holism (another such was Albert Einstein) and it dovetailed with his thinking on conservation and economic sustainability.
But it was an attraction of opposites. Where Smuts was aloof and ascetic, TC was one of the boys, a larger than life carouser and womaniser. I met him in the 1960s when he was Director of the National Veld Trust and Chairman of the Tugela Basin Development Association.
Years later in the press gallery at Parliament, there was a legend that, back in the 1930s, somebody from the press gallery had seduced a girl on the Speaker's chair in the House of Assembly (after hours, of course).
Reading this book, I discover it was none other than TC, then political correspondent of the Rand Daily Mail. Am I surprised? No!
Carnation
TC ROBERTSON had the most ribald sense of humour. The MEC for Education in those days was Major G Leonard Arthur, a man who was always immaculately turned out in pinstripes, a red carnation in his buttonhole.
When the politicians were taken on their annual tour of the Zululand game reserves, Major Arthur did abandon the pinstripes for khaki – but the red carnation was still there.
The bus stopped in Mkhuze game reserve one morning for the all-male party to relieve themselves at the roadside.
At which TC suddenly exclaimed: "I say, Major! Would that be the root of your carnation?"
Tugela Basin
AT THE time TC was promoting the Tugela Basin, everyone thought development of this natural resource was imminent; that we would soon have a local version of Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley project.
The Basin has a unique topography which allows its river system to be recirculated for hydro-electric and irrigation purposes. Geographers and hydrologists have earned PhDs studying the properties of the Basin. From 1946 to the 1980s the Natal Provincial Administration had a commission that minutely planned its development, taking into account environmental impacts, everything. The Department of Water Affairs identified more than 20 potential hydro-electric sites.
It was calculated that the Tugela Basin could produce the energy to serve several cities the size of Johannesburg. There were plans to augment it with waters transferred from the Transkei river system, which in itself would require a labour-intensive canal-building programme that would last generations.
But nothing happened. They call it government inertia. Now, instead of having a local equivalent of the Tennessee Valley project generating clean, green energy on a totally sustainable basis, Eskom are going for more coal-fired plants; pebble-bed nuclear reactors (with the possible by-product of crayfish that glow in the night). This at a time there is great concern about greenhouse gases and global warming.
Is it not crazy? The research on the clean alternative has already been done. The planning is there.
Or is it just me that's stoopid?
Tailpiece
A CANADIAN park ranger is warning some ramblers about bears.
"Brown bears are usually harmless. They avoid contact with humans so we suggest you attach small bells to your rucksacks and give the bears time to get out of the way. How ever, grizzly bears are extremely dangerous. If you see their droppings, leave the area right away."
"How do we know if they're grizzly bear droppings?"
"They're full of small bells."
Last word
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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