St Clement's gets in the swing
WHAT better way to get into the swing of 2017 than an evening at the regular arts soiree at St Clement's. On the programme last week was retired judge Chris Nicholson, launching his book, Permanent Removal: who killed the Craddock Four? (Wits University Press).
Now this is a very sombre book. Chilling is probably a better word. It is an investigation of the activities of the apartheid hit squads. So Chris lightened things up a bit with some anecdotes from his days when he practised as an advocate.
He was practising in Windhoek and had as a client a Rehoboth Bastard who had been charged with drunken driving. (Namibia is a weird place. It actually does have a community who to this day call themselves the Rehoboth Bastards).
This fellow had been driving along, pretty tanked up, with a puppy on the passenger's seat. They came to a police roadblock. Before the cops could reach his car, he slid himself across into the passenger's seat and put the puppy behind the wheel in the driver's seat.
The cops didn't buy this one. They breathalysed him and charged him with driving under the influence. But in court Chris pursued the same line. His client had been found in the passenger's seat. How could he be charged with driving under the influence?
Did this mean the puppy had been driving the car? That was another issue, Chris argued. The court had to concentrate on whether or not his client had been found by the police at the wheel of his car.
The magistrate didn't buy it either. But he was amused by Chris's argument. He told Chris confidentially that he was going to give his client five years in jail.
Five years? For being over the limit? This was monstrous!
But then the magistrate gave him some confidential information. This was in the days when South Africa still administered present-day Namibia as a League of Nations mandate. The Department of Justice in Pretoria was about to announce an amnesty for all prisoners serving five-year sentences.
Sure enough, Chris's Rehoboth Bastard client was released next day. The Rule of Law prevails. And St Clement's provides insights to more than just the arts.
Nuggets
THE above somehow recalled a faction fighting case heard in the College Road court in Maritzburg in the 60s. A witness was describing the build-up to the clash in the Msinga district.
"We went to Khumalo's kraal."
"And what happened there?"
"We drank beer."
"And what happened then?"
"We went to Mkhize's kraal."
"And what happened there?"
"We drank beer."
"And what happened then?"
"We went to Khuzwayo's kraal."
"And what happened there?"
"We drank beer."
The judge: "This sounds like a kraal crawl."
Ah, these nuggets of judicial humour.
Press gang
I WAS gratified to learn that during his sojourn in Windhoek Chris Nicholson encountered some of my journalistic colleagues there.
There was Angel Engelbrecht, editor of Die Suidwes Afrikaner, a Bloedsap paper that was still valiantly fighting the struggles against the Nats of the 1930s and 1940s. Also Hannes "Mal" Smith, editor of the Windhoek Advertiser, the only man I've known who would literally tear at his hair when agitated, which was most of the time.
Hannes was tearing at his hair in the courtyard of the Kaiserkrone Hotel one evening. PW Botha, then Minister of Defence and leader of the Cape Nats, was opening the Nats' South-West Africa congress next day. They knew and loathed each other. What would be a good put-down?
A colleague and I reminded him of how, when editor of Die Transvaler, Verwoerd had totally ignored the royal visit of 1947, apart from a front page paragraph on a traffic jam caused in Johannesburg by "foreign visitors".
Hannes stopped tearing.
Next day his paper had a front page paragraph: "There was no traffic jam in Windhoek last night when a guest speaker arrived from the Cape."
This was his total coverage of the Nat congress. Vatso!
Namibia is a very different kind of place. Always was and I'm sure always will be.
Tailpiece
"TELL me nurse, how is that boy doing, the one who swallowed all those 20-cent pieces?"
"Still no change, doctor."
Last word
From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put. - Sir Winston Churchill
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