Chamber pot collection
I WAS enjoying my lunch – a terrific curry – at the Salt Rock Hotel on the North Coast last week when a fellow shoved a chamber pot under my nose and demanded I put money in it for not wearing a tie or displaying other insignia to indicate what school I went to.
I protested that I was merely a drop-in luncher and had nothing to do with the bunch of drunks all about me, but he was having none of it and I had to part with some folding stuff. That chamber pot was full of cash. You get away with nothing at the Traditional Schools Lunch.
Yes, it was that time of year again when some 200 or so hearties from the great schools of this province get together, ranging in eras from the rinderpest to the recent past, to quaff vast quantities of beer and tell each other jokes, using language for which they would have their ears boxed by their wives and girlfriends. It's a great safety valve.
Joint guests of honour this year were Ian McIntosh, former Natal and Springbok coach (who took Natal to winning the Currie Cup for the first time ever) and Gary Teichmann, former Natal and Springbok skipper and currently bossman of Sharks Rugby.
The format was a sort of question and answer discussion between Ian and Gary, with questions from the audience. It was all very good-humoured and I'd tell you more in detail, except it would consist mainly of a series of bleeps.
But Ian Mac did make one serious – indeed emotional – statement. He said the Traditional Schools Lunch exuded the spirit of Natal – the same spirit he had detected in the players when he coached them to victory in the Currie Cup. He thanked the people of the province for giving him the opportunity.
Great stuff. And the lunch produced the possibility of another significant get-together. I encountered there (as I always do) a Kearsney old boy who I was with in the navy. He accused me (as he always does) of showing bias in favour of Maritzburg College. With us was another College boy who had served in the navy.
The Kearsney fellow said it was time we had a lunch of all the fellows who had served in the navy in our era. What a splendid idea. This could be a real razzle-dazzle, all kinds of yarns.
Like the way we performed a top secret operation that tipped the strategic balance in the Indian Ocean. Our beach landings were enough to strike fear into the heart of the enemy.
We would be towed in our whalers and cutters to a place called Danger Bay. Then we'd take the craft in through the surf to drop off our marines. People in the dunes would be firing at us with machineguns and things, using blanks (we hoped).
Seabirds – gulls, gannets, cormorants and one or two albatross – would wheel above us in confusion and alarm.
A small field gun (of Crimean War vintage) would be brought ashore from a cutter. A shot would be fired from it – absolutely deafening, the flash would light up the gloom.
And at which the seabirds above would, as one, evacuate their bowels. 'Twas a most hazardous operation.
Yes, a razzle-dazzle lunch of naval types lies ahead (No seabirds invited).
Bewildering
THE Free State Cheetahs Currie Cup match was a four-point game for long stretches, and a four-point victory for us it turned out in the end.
Three rolling maul tries to the Sharks from line-outs. Is this a record? But some silly buggers stuff when we camped in the Free State 22 for long periods, without scoring.
Credit to the Free State youngsters though. They kept us from a runaway, their senior side playing over in Ireland the same day against Munster in the PRO 14 (and taking some punishment).
Two of the Munster players, Jean Kleyn and Arno Botha, are South Africans. Contemporary rugby gets more bewildering by the day.
Tailpiece
GIVE a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will sit in a boat drinking beer all day.
Last word
War is much too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military.
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