1960-1968 Jenny & Tony

Meeting and getting engaged

Jenny and Tony met at in the University of Natal Mountain Club in 1965. The specific moment of 'meeting' was when Jenny fell off Shepard's Pie (an F2 climb at Craiglee) which Tony had just led. As she swung into 100s of feet of space, Tony expected shrieks, instead of which there were peals of laughter! "Mmm,", he thought "must be a lass worth getting to know", so he invited her to join him on an upcoming Mountain Club Berg trip to Cathedral Peak.  

The trip was to the Hut in the Tsketske Valley below Cleft Peak. A group of the men climbed Pyramid while Jenny and rest went up the snow streaked Tsketske Pass. Three days together camping in rough conditions, is a 'stress' test equivalent to many months of 'normal dating' - it either ends there and then, or one is even more sure one has met 'the one'.   I was sure I had met "the one'. But cJenny was exceptionally beautiful, and I felt she must be way outside my league. So I proceeded cautiously and took a year before I dared take the plunge and pop the question "will you marry me".  Jenny's tart response: "what took you so long"!

This was June 1966, but we told no one and were secretly engaged for 18 months. It was delicious! Why?  We were both still students and felt it was only right and proper that we should be working before we announced it.  In Dec 1966 when we were in downtown Durban we popped into a jewellery store and selected an engagement ring. As I had no money (I only started work in January) I asked them to keep the ring until the end of January.  "No problem," said the owner (he was a bowling friend of Dennis and Lil) "you can take it now".  So we got engaged on tick! Ah well, we thought, we have the ring, so let's go to the Natal Mercury and place the engagement notice, to appear on Christmas Day. 

Unfortunately, and most embarrassingly, the newspaper got it wrong and published the notice two days early, before we had a chance to tell either of our parents!  We were very, very unpopular and had to beg forgiveness.   I don't think we were believed until I extracted a letter of apology from the Mercury. 

Some more relaxed trips to the Drakensberg.  There were many,. We used to drop Doug and Sue with grandparents in Kloof and head up to the 'Berg for 3-4 days. Bliss!

Many trips up Sani Pass were made to service the weather station that I installed there. Some  rather hectic... and all either cold, very cold or bliksem cold (<-24 deg C). The weather station was in the Black Mountains near the top of the Kotisphola Pass. In Sotho, Kotisphola translates literally as 'very cold place', or more colloquially as 'f.....g cold place'! 

The story about the Jeep 

 We needed a Jeep to establish and service the weather station that we built in the Black Mountains at the top of the Sani Pass. Three of us were in the project together: Dave Jaquet, Otto Hirzel and myself. Dave, who was a mining engineer with Anglo, got the Jeep as a mine surplus vehicle in 1970 for R2 000.

The Jeep went up and down the Sani Pass many times. It was an excellent work horse although not the easiest vehicle to drive. It had only a three speed gearbox, with no synchromesh on first gear, no power steering and no power brakes, so it was a real monster to drive. 

We had chains to use on all four wheels to use when it was wet and snowy, which was often because we particularly needed to go up in winter. Fastening chains is difficult at the best of times. Even worse was when they snap off, which was all too often. First one had to scramble around in slush and mud to find them, then lie down in the muck and fasten them back up with frozen hands - with ice and mud dripping in one’s face. And we did that for fun?

Besides commuting up Sani Pass, the jeep was also our work horse at the farm for 20 years from 1979 to 2000.  It carried all the building materials to build both houses. This heavy work put a strain on it and it was slowly ‘fading’.  It needed repair, but parts were difficult to obtain for a 30 year old vehicle. 

The very last time I used the Jeep, the brakes failed as I arrived at the Lesotho Border Post at the top of Sani.  The handbrake had failed some time before, so I ended up running into the wall of the Border Post!  After finishing up my work, I set off down the pass - with no brakes.  I did this very slowly, using just the gears.  But about a kilometer from the lower Border Post there was a loud grinding noise indicating something wrong with the gearbox or differential. Faced with the prospect of no brakes and no gears,  I just drove into the ditch, jamming the Jeep against the bank. I walked down to the SA Border post and called a tow truck. I was not going to drive it any further! 

We subsequently sold it for spares in 2000 for R5 000!