GOODNESS gracious ... great balls of fire .... The lyrics of Jerry
Lee Lewis came to mind the other evening at the Beachwood
course of Durban Country Club.
The clubhouse looks out onto a practice putting green, then
magnificent rolling fairways. 'Tis a most salubrious place to take
ale and talk about rugby.
Evening was falling. But as it got darker, golfers were still
sauntering out to practice on the putting green or tee off.
They had with them brightly luminous golf balls – red, yellow, lime-
green, orange and white. I'd never seen or heard of such a thing
before.
They're proper golf balls, yet they give off this bright luminosity.
The fairways themselves are marked with glowing lights, like
landing strips. I understand the bunkers and greens are similarly
marked.
Because of their aura of luminosity, the balls look larger than
normal golf balls as they roll across the green, but that's an
illusion. These are the genuine article. And it's almost impossible
to lose them in the rough.
I suppose there's the risk of a plane mistaking Beachwood for
Virginia and following the strip lights to land on the fairway, but it's
an outside chance.
Apparently night golf is all the rage these days. Golfers with balls
that glow in the dark – the mind, senor, she boggles!
,
Old Transkei
BARRY Payn, of Port Edward, confirms my recollection of a red-
haired fellow named Geoff Allen who used to put over place kicks
barefoot at Maritzburg College in the 1960s. Also that he was from
Lusikisiki, where his parents ran the Royal Hotel.
"I was from Flagstaff and I used to travel with Blue and Geoff."
(Blue was Geoff's older brother)
Yes, the old Royal Hotel, Lusikisiki. Blue and Geoff's dad was a
retired doctor. Above the bar was his old brass nameplate – Dr
Allen FRCP (Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians)
And underneath that were the initials: "WYBMADIITY."
Newcomers would ask what they stood for. The barman would
reply: "Will you buy me a drink if I tell you?"
"Okay."
"Well I've just told you." The barman would then read it backwards:
"You think I intend drinking a mineral but you're wrong!"
Yes, as Barry says, some strange stuff came out of the old
Transkei.
A READER who calls himself Hughbythesea sens in another variation on the Jack and Jill nursery
rhyme.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
to fetch a pail of water
Jill came down with half-a-crown
She was no parson's daughter
.
FO Stanford
DOES anyone know anything about – or better still have a photograph of – a Flying
Officer Nicholas James Stanford, who was from Greytown, KwaZulu-Natal, and died
on May 4, 1943, when his Royal Air Force Lancaster bomber was shot down in a raid
over Friesland, the Netherlands.
Colonel Maryna Fondse, South African military attaché to the Benelux countries,
is anxious to include a photograph of FO Stanford in an information board for a
memorial to himself and his crew, all of whom also died, in the cemetery at the town
of Workum,
She needs it for the Remembrance Day ceremonies on April 16.
FO Stanford had a cousin, Felicity O'Grady, who died in Cape Town in 1990. She in
turn had a daughter, Teresa Ethelwynne O'Grady, of whom the air force can find no
trace, though she is thought to have had the married name Nash but was divorced.
Can anyone out there assist?
Tailpiece
AN ENGINEER branches into quack medicine. A
sign at his clinic reads: "Any treatment R500. If
treatment unsuccessful, refund R1 000."
A doctor puts him to the test. He goes to the
engineer's and says: "I've lost the sense of taste."
"Nurse, please bring medicine from Box 22. Put
three drops in the patient's mouth."
"This is petrol!"
"Congratulations! Your sense of taste is back. That
will be R500."
The doctor comes back a couple of days later:
"I've lost my memory, I can't remember anything."
"Nurse, bring medicine from Box 22 and put three
drops in the patient's mouth."
"But that's petrol!"
"Congratulations! You've got your memory back.
That will be R500."
The doctor comes back yet again: "My eyesight
has become weak."
"I don't have any medicine for that. Take this R1
000."
"But this is R500."
"Congratulations! You got your vision back.
That'll be R500."
Give that engineer a Bells!
Last word
Scepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana
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