Idlers I've known
IT'S the 164th anniversary of the first issue of The Mercury. The Idler's column is a comparative newcomer, being in only its 135th year, but it seems appropriate to recall some of my predecessors.
There was Dennis Henshaw, who the budgie-fancying fraternity wanted to lynch because of his insistence that budgies can't talk.
Dennis had a double stint in the Idler's chair. There was an American pop psychologist named Dr Murray Banks who used to tour South Africa psycho-analysing people in an amusing way.
Dennis went to his show in the Durban City Hall (not as Idler) and wrote a signed critique panning the show.
Next evening Dr Banks analysed Dennis's crit to a packed city hall, concluding – to gales of laughter – that Dennis was a repressed homosexual.
Now Dennis had a complicated sex life, but a homosexual he was not. He slapped a writ for defamation on Banks. Banks's passport was impounded and eventually he had to settle for some enormous amount - £10 000 or something like that, untold riches in those days.
At which Dennis resigned and went to the Greek islands where he set up a tourism/accommodation business on Skiathos. But every year when his successor took a month's leave, he would fly back (free on Hellenic Airlines) to write the Idler's column again.
The old 64 Restaurant, just off the Esplanade, had a wall on which celebrities put their signatures with a message. One read: "Stay adjusted – Dr Murray Banks". Below was another: "Stay compensated – Dennis Henshaw".
Many years later Dennis fell out with the Colonels – or whoever was running Greece at the time – and had to skedaddle. He came back to his old job as Idler.
Dennis was followed (when he went to the Greek islands, that is) by Jack Shepherd-Smith, who almost caused a civil war in the province with a brief paragraph; "They held a beauty contest in Ladysmith last week. Nobody won."
The Ladysmith town council called a special meeting to denounce The Mercury, while the rest of the province rocked with laughter. A bunch of desperadoes tried to kidnap Jack but they got the wrong car.
Things were beginning to simmer down when Jack announced a Miss Lucky Legs competition in Ladysmith that was won by the billiard table in the Royal Hotel.
Oh dear! Jack is in retirement in Pinetown today, still watching nervously for vengeful Ladysmith folk.
Then there was John Vigor (now living in the US), who drove the metrication police crazy with his use of "metric mile" for kilometre. He also discovered a place down the South Coast called Amanzimboginpingoburgh.
John also wrote a piece announcing that in future the Maritzburg-Durban canoe marathon would paddle upstream in alternate years, the same as the Comrades Marathon. It was lifted and used, dead serious, in a glossy government magazine that was distributed to embassies world-wide. It was a proud moment.
Then Colin Vineall, who specialised in the pun so agonising it was hysterically funny.
Colin and I once shared a company car to Maritzburg. We ended up quite late, having entertaining drinks with Frank Martin, equivalent of today's provincial premier.
We couldn't understand why our company driver was so agitated. It turned out we had the chief engineer's car and he had to go home in a taxi. Oh dear!
Next time Colin and I shared a company car, I was at the wheel and we were heading for a brewer's breakfast. We were laughing so hard at recollection of the previous occasion that I crashed into a pole in the parking area. And this was on the way to the brewer's breakfast. Oh dear!
Then Garry Brennan (now living in Australia) a pro to his fingertips with superb, effortless slow-burning humour. He signed himself Jon Penn (I never did work out why).
There were also other shorter stints in the Idler's chair – Esmond Caro, John Malcolm, Gary Eichorn and Greg Pearce. They all of them kept the boat afloat without faltering.
It's a hard act to follow. What would I do without the solace of the damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties?
Tailpiece
WHAT'S furry, has whiskers and catches outlaws?
A posse cat.
Last word
Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.
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