A little fib can have consequences ....

Naas Steenkamp

Translated

Minister Eric Louw .... a wry sense of humour

When then Minister of External Affairs Eric Louw was in London in 1960 for the Prime Ministers’ Conference naturally I was his skivvy. One day when we walked out the door of South Africa House to the Dorchester Hotel he asked me, “Where is your hat?” As you may know, in those days everyone had to be armed with a hat. 

“In my office, Minister,” I lied. “Well, go and fetch it”, said Oom Eric. I raced back to the office cursing. What now? When would I learn that one should never, never to lie?

I raced up the stairs three at a time with my pulse rate at over a hundred. Coming from his office towards the stairs was the stately Kurt von Schirnding who could afford to have his clothes made in Saville Row, homburg in hand. I grabbed it and raced down the stairs with Kurt after me. But he stopped when he saw who I was with and walked on hatless, “unaccustomed as I am.”

Oom Eric looked at me quizzically as I walked next to him hat in hand. “Come on. Put it on,” instructed the Minister. “A diplomat never walks in the street bare-headed.”  I put the hat on my head, but it was a size or two too big and it dropped over my forehead like a suit of armour. I had to turn it a little sideways to make it fit.

It seemed that Oom Eric did not notice. At the hotel I saw him off, hat in hand. Then I went directly to Hector Powe’s with Kurt’s hat and asked whether they had an identical one for me, but in my size. 

I did not have any money with me and had to call in some diplomatic favours to get it on account.

The next day I again walked with the Minister along the same route to the Dorchester. The hat sat snugly on my head. Oom Eric glanced at me slyly. “Seems you have been walking in the rain. That hat of yours has shrunk.” And I always though the old grump had no sense of humour!