My nickname in primary school was “Fatty”. Those who have seen me only in the past 45 years may think that was intended to be ironic. It wasn’t. I may not have been obese, but I was very definitely chubby. Through primary school I was one of the tallest in my class, but I had my growth spurt early and stopped growing (upwards) when I was about 13. At 13 I am sure I weighed more than I do today. I lost the “Fatty” nickname in high school, not because I lost the weight but because I acquired another nickname. I was comfortable with “Fatty” but hated the later nickname. That’s a story for another day though. I didn’t try to lose the flab until I was about 20. More on that later (in part 2).
Despite being chubby I was very active. Maybe that should be that despite being very active I was chubby. I played a variety of sports, whether organized sports at school or just with friends. My enthusiasm was sadly not matched by my ability. Success at most sports requires some level of basic speed and/or strength, as well as hand-eye coordination and an ability to “read” the game, none of which I had. For instance, in a sprint I was always the slowest kid in my class. Even much later when I was a reasonably successful runner, little old ladies with Zimmer frames would have been able to beat me in a finishing sprint.
We’ll get to running-related development in the second
installment, but first will take a long diversion into other physical
activities.
Primary school sporting activities
At my primary school most of us played various school sports, whether intra-mural or against other schools. In the two summer terms many of us played intra-mural cricket. In the two winter terms rugby was the primary sport, with there being several rugby teams involved in inter-school leagues across various age groups. For rugby, along with the rest of the outfit we had to have rugby boots (cleats, as they are called in the US). Partly because I wasn’t any good and maybe partly because I was growing quite fast, my parents were not willing to buy me new rugby boots. Instead I had to get secondhand boots from the school’s swap shop. The secondhand boots were generally ill-fitting and very uncomfortable. That didn’t improve my chance of playing well.
Soccer was not an official sport at our school. The school seemed to regard it as low-class, relative to rugby, Rugby was regarded as “a sport for hooligans played by gentlemen” whereas soccer was “a sport for gentleman played by hooligans”. (Whoever came up with that characterization couldn’t have seen a South African rugby game.) We were, supposedly, young gentlemen. Although not an official sport, many of us played pick-up soccer games during recess (and pick-up cricket games or various children’s games at other times of the year). Outside school, several of my classmates played soccer for various clubs in the city.
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Bicycle light dynamo (photo found somewhere on the Internet of one that looks in about the same condition mine would have been) |
High school sporting activities
Participation in official school sport was compulsory at my high school. There were a variety of sports to choose from, though soccer was still not one of them. In the summer terms those of us who weren’t good enough to make one of the school teams had to play intra-mural (inter-class) cricket. In the winter terms, if we didn’t make a team in another sport we had to run cross country. So cross country seemed to be regarded as the sport for losers, which may be why I didn’t do that. Instead I played for one of the lower ranked rugby teams. I think there were 4 under-13 teams (A through D), the same number of under-15 teams, and six “open” teams (1 through 6). In the first couple of years I played for either C or D teams. After I aged out of those I played for the 5th or 6th team. Once when there were a number of boys away for the weekend I made it up to the 3rd team, but that was the only occasion higher than the 5th team. (Rugby matches against other schools were on Saturdays.)
On the occasion when I played for the 3rd team, despite being the slowest on the team I played on the left wing. For those who don’t know rugby, the wings are usually the fastest players on the team. The right wing was Paul “Pawpaw” Liesching who wasn’t just the fastest boy on the team, or even in our school, but in the whole region, having set multiple age-group records for the 100m and 200m sprints. I once overheard a couple of girls about our age saying that Paul had very nice, shapely legs. Several years later I saw Paul at a marathon, a distance at which I was much more successful than he was.
Among many (white) South Africans, rugby was almost a religion. How the school’s first rugby team did was very important. (It still is – alumni get very upset when the first team is performing poorly and are quick to try to replace what I think is now called the director of rugby.) The whole school used to have to get together in the school hall for “Assembly” in the mornings. The headmaster would make various announcements and then after the Jewish kids left for their own separate observance there would be a Christian prayer and hymn. (No other religions were catered for, nor was lack of religion.) On Mondays, if the first rugby team had won, the headmaster would say something about the victory. If they had lost, he wouldn’t say that they had lost but instead that “We made friends”. (Did that mean that if we had won we didn’t make any friends?)
[I don’t know if sport is still compulsory, but sport is still important. According to the November 2020 newsletter from my old school, Grey High was ranked the “Top All-round Sports School of the Decade in South Africa.”]
Our school used to have a fives court (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fives) that later must have gone the way of the dodo, making way for new buildings. Fives is rather like squash except that one hits the ball with one’s hand rather than with a racquet. There wasn’t a school fives team, perhaps because no other local schools played it and so there was no-one to compete against. I sometimes played a pick-up game of fives (and in later years pick-up games of squash).
Many of us continued to play soccer during recess. Four days of the week we had a 20-minute
recess and a one-hour lunch break. The
fifth day (Wednesdays?) we didn’t have a lunch break and school ended at 2:10
PM rather than 3:20 PM. We played soccer
in our school uniforms (as we had done for games during recess in primary
school). We were allowed to take off our
blazers, but played in our long pants and the leather shoes that we part of the
uniform. In the lunch break we were
supposed to end all physical exertions 15 (or maybe it was 20) minutes before
the end of the break, so as not to be too sweaty when we returned to class. I didn’t need time to eat lunch as I had
always consumed my lunch surreptitiously in class several hours earlier.
Swimming
I learned to swim when I was very young. For a while when I was in primary school my mother took me to train with a swimming club before school. I don’t recall how many days a week that was or any other details. I don’t even recall whether I swam in any competitions while part of that group. Although our school had its own swimming pool, this club was at the St. George’s Park pool rather than at our school. I don’t think I did that for very long – either I lost interest or my mother grew tired of taking me there. During the two summer terms we had one class period each week in which we had to swim in the school pool. In primary school it was rather frustrating for those of us who were already proficient because the whole class had to do the same thing. We had to wear old inner tubes as flotation devices and practice kicking using wooden kickboards. We also had to pass various life-saving exams, both oral and physical. As part of the latter we had to learn to do “lifesaving kick” which is rather like a breaststroke kick but on one’s back and holding an object that one is pretending to rescue. We were taught “lifesaving kick” instead of butterfly. Butterfly is the most difficult stroke to learn, particularly for one as uncoordinated as me, and is best learned when one is young. It still annoys me that I wasn’t taught how to do butterfly. I can kinda sorta do it but can’t properly coordinate the arm action with the dolphin kick. (Our daughter, on the other hand, learned it when very young and can do it beautifully or at least could do it until she suffered several shoulder dislocations while playing other sports.)
The school pool was an unheated outdoor pool, so in the early part of the season the water was rather chilly. Also, we had to shower before and after swimming and walk through a shallow disinfectant bath on the way from the changerooms to the pool. There was no hot water in the showers! Apart from swimming class, on some days we were allowed to swim during lunch break or after school (but still had to shower before and afterwards).
South Africa switched to the metric system while I was in
grade school. At some point the school
decided to change the length of the pool to meet international (metric)
standards. I don’t recall when that
happened but do remember the pool being closed for a while.
In high school, through 11th grade, we continued to have one swimming class each week in the summer terms, still with the same instructor and still without being taught butterfly. (We didn’t have a swimming class in 12th grade.) I was a reasonably good swimmer, but not fast. If I’d been able to do butterfly I’d have been able to swim the individual medley, which I think was the longest event at high school level. Having good endurance might have compensated for my lack of basic speed.
Our high school had a very strong swimming team. I didn’t ever try out for that team. At the end of 11th grade there was a swimming competition between the four classes. As one of the better swimmers in my class, I had to swim the anchor leg of a 4-person relay. One of the other classes had 7 boys who had represented not just our school but our province, so they had two very strong teams. Their faster team had finished the race before I had a chance to start my leg!
Several years after I left, my old high school added long-distance open-water swimming as a school sport. That’s something I would probably have done, because I liked being in the ocean and my flab gave me built-in buoyancy.
Towards the end of my time in high school one of my friends, Colin Steyl, had swum 5 miles (in an Olympic size pool) as part of some fundraising effort. (See also the “big walks” once I get to the running-related stuff in part 2.) That sounded like an interesting challenge so I decided to do that in our backyard pool at home. I recall that as needing about 630 laps. A quick calculation shows that that must be about right as it assumes that the length of the pool was about 42 feet, which sounds correct. I have no idea how long that took me. (Aside: Colin Steyl is an unusual enough name that a Google search doesn’t find many results, with none of them being for the right Colin and I have never been able to find what happened to him. It is as if he disappeared off the face of the earth.)
When our family went to the beach I spent all the time in the water, body-surfing or swimming around. That was partly because I enjoyed being in the ocean but also because I was self-conscious about my flabby belly.
Several of my classmates belonged to surf lifesaving
clubs. Apart from providing volunteer
rescue services, surf lifesaving is a competitive sport involving several
different events, some entirely on the beach, such as beach sprints and “flags”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beach_Flags_(sport). Others are in or on the water, such as surf
ski races. Surf lifesaving had an event
called Ironman long before Ironman triathlons.
The surf lifesaving version is much shorter, though also involves
multiple disciplines, usually including swimming, surf ski, and paddle board https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ironman_(surf_lifesaving).
Presumably because I was a reasonably
good swimmer, my classmates tried to persuade me to join one of the clubs. I declined, mostly because getting to the
beachfront regularly would have been a hassle.
I would have had to take two buses in each direction. Driving was out of the question because in
South Africa one was not allowed to drive before turning 18. One couldn’t even get a learner’s permit
before that. Several of my friends had
mopeds (49cc motorcycles, for which one could get a license at 16). I had no interest in motorcycles and,
besides, my parents would not have allowed me to get one. That was because my father had been in a
serious motorcycle accident when he was young.
He continued to need treatment on his legs for the rest of his
life. In fact, when he died the
underlying cause of death listed on his death certificate was an infection from
one of the wounds on his legs.
Back to other sports and physical activities
There are various areas along the coast of South Africa that have large sand dunes. Our family sometimes picnicked near large dunes so that we could go sand-boarding. These days it looks like one can get quite fancy boards for this. Back in those days we would buy a thin rectangular Masonite board from a hardware store and use it without any modifications, other than waxing it (rubbing it with a candle) when the shine on the smooth side started to fade. What comes down first needs to go up. Sand dunes don’t have the equivalent of ski lifts, so one has to walk (or run) up the dune before one can slide down. And in order to slide down multiple times, one gets a fair amount of exercise as a bonus. (The photos are ones I found on the web recently or grabbed from Google Maps.) During one vacation a friend (Phil Williams) and I camped at Van Stadens River mouth for a few days so we could have plenty of time for sand boarding. Phil and I also each had a 50% stake in a surfboard. I didn’t ever manage to learn to surf though, partly because I am uncoordinated and partly, as mentioned above, getting to the beach was a problem, even more so if one had to lug a surfboard. Phil later bought out my share of the board.
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Waxing a Masonite board |
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Riding a Masonite board. Back in the day we didn’t pull it up that far in front. |
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Dunes at Van Stadens River Mouth. The campground was to the right of the road on the right. Some people used to walk across the pipeline on the far right to get to the dunes. I don’t think I was ever brave enough (or coordinated enough) to do that and went the long way around, off to the left in the photo. The mouth of the river was usually very shallow, with minimal water flowing into the ocean, so the long way wasn’t hazardous. |
Sporting activities as an undergraduate
My participation in rugby and soccer didn’t end with high school. In the first year or two at university I played both sports intramurally for my res (residence hall, i.e., dorm). Our res had an A and a B soccer team. When I was a freshman the A team was struggling to find a goalkeeper. I agreed to take on that role as long as I could also play in the outfield for the B team. At the same time I was playing for the res rugby team, which we called the Pink Panthers. So I was playing multiple games each week. One winter break the Pink Panthers went to what was then Rhodesia to play several games (and to socialize). I had initially planned to be part of that tour but later backed out for some reason, maybe because I wasn’t doing very well academically and needed to spend the break trying to catch up. Our res had a number of students from Rhodesia and also later a few from Zambia, Malawi and Botswana. These were all white students, this being at the height of the Apartheid era. I’m not sure whether I lost interest first or these teams faded away when key players graduated or moved out of the res, but I don’t remember the teams continuing to function in my later years there.
Apart from more formal rugby games, several of us also used to play pick-up touch-rugby games on the cricket field opposite our res.
Beyond the regular kinds of sports, at university there were opportunities to try more exotic pursuits. “Rag” is a tradition at many South African (and British) universities Rag (student society) - Wikipedia. One focus of Rag is on raising money for charity. Another focus is on having fun, in a wide variety of events, usually culminating in a procession through the city center, with decorated floats, including one for the Rag Queen and her two princesses. (I wonder if this is no longer politically correct, though Rag was certainly never about political correctness.) The procession was also part of the fundraising, with students collecting money from spectators.
One of the events in the “Rag Olympics” involved tobogganing down Jammie Steps, the steps in front of what used to be called Jameson Hall (now the Sarah Baartman Memorial Hall). The event is a relay. The first person in the team starts at the bottom – the sidewalk at the bottom of the photo below of the steps – runs up the steps with the toboggan, touches the top step with a foot and dives off, hopefully on top of the toboggan, and thus down the steps, where the next team member is waiting his (or her) turn. The black and white photo shows someone in action during the race. This “sport” is rather dangerous and there has been at least one fatality. I was never brave enough to enter the race but did go down the steps a few times – starting off lying on the toboggan rather than diving onto it.
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Jammie Steps – the steps used for the toboggan races (photo captured from Google Maps) |
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Tobogganing down Jammie steps (photo found on the Internet) |
Another Rag Olympics event was a pram (baby-jogger) race, a
relay from downtown Cape Town to the campus.
This was before real baby-joggers had been invented, so most of the prams
were contraptions built by engineering students. The “baby” was usually the lightest female
student who was willing to risk her life.
(Somewhat surprisingly, considering the era, most of the “babies” in the
photo are wearing helmets.) I competed
in this event once. From what I am
wearing in the photo it must have been in my second year. I am the one with a white headband. The top I am wearing looks like it is the one
our Pink Panthers rugby team wore. Rag
is early in the year and as rugby is played in the middle of academic year this
photo couldn’t have been from my first year.
I recognize at least one other person.
The guy behind the pram on the far left is Roger Cameron, who was
captain of the cross country team. The
one in the white T-shirt behind me may be Damien Burger, in which case that was
another team from our res. Behind the
pram on the far right might be Peter Whipp, who was one of the best rugby
players in the area and later that year played for the Springboks (the national
rugby team) against the touring British Lions.
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Waiting for the start of the pram (relay) race, from downtown Cape Town to the university. Solly Kamer’s was a chain of liquor stores, bottle stores as they are known in South Africa. At the time even beer and wine could be sold only in bottle stores, not in supermarkets or other stores. |
Not a Rag event, but a more serious one, or at least one
that some teams took seriously, was a pedal car race. There was a university pedal car race series
to which several major universities sent teams with very sophisticated
cars. If I recall correctly, each event
lasted for 6 hours. I don’t remember how
many were on each team. It may have been
six. The report below doesn’t provide
information about either the duration or the number in a team. The top teams not only had good cars and very
fit drivers, they had well trained pit crews.
Their driver changes were slick operations – the incumbent being dragged
out of one side of the car while the next driver hopped in from the other side. (I think drivers had to change after each
lap.) The race at the University of Cape
Town was around the university’s administration building, Bremner Building, in one
of the images below. Several of us from our
res managed to get a hand-me-down car from one of the teams of engineering
students. In the race the car developed various
mechanical issues. For instance, it had
10 bicycle-style gears but after an hour or two something failed and we were
stuck in one gear for the rest of the race.
A report on the pedal car race
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Yours truly in action. “Playaway” was the name of our sponsor. |
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View of the side of our car at rest, with some of the faster cars in the background. “Belsen” was the nickname of our res, a name given by students who had fought in the Second World War (more about that in part 2). |
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Bremner Building, University of Cape Town |
Proceeds from my life of crime
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