How I was offered the Order of the Bath

This one I am going to keep short, for I blush even now at the memory.

COMDT MIKE MALONE

Meintjeskop Courier No date provided

On arriving in Hong Kong as our first Consul-General in 1967, I found the Mainland Chinese and the British rulers - of that mini-Colony at loggerheads. 

The Chinese were in the throes of what they humorously referred to as the "Cultural Revolution" (which,as far as I could make out, consisted mainly in cutting off the heads of their opponents in a cultivated manner) and were not too happy at seeing "white-skinned pigs" - their respectful term for the British - in control of Hong Kong. Well, that was their concern and not mine.

However. it became my concern in an intimate fashion when, in pursuance of their anti-British policy, they craftily threatened to cut off the water supplies from the Chinese Mainland to the Colony. 

Sensibly deciding to nation supplies of that precious fluid, the authorities in Hong Kong turned off the water-mains for 23-1/2 hours of every 24. This meant that everyone had to rush home during the half-hour in question and fill every available container - bath (if any), basins and saucepans - with water. The result was that there wasn't enough water to have a proper bath - and this, I may say, was in the middle of the Hong Kong summer. Things did not look, nor smell, too good.

But  there was a silver lining to this cloud. A few British senior officials, whose duties required them to smell clean and sweet around the place, were granted unlimited water supplies. Among them was one whose name and title it would be tactless to mention. He was a good and kind-hearted man. 

Now, under these circumstances, the kindest gesture that he and the equally privileged ,few could make was invite friends to enjoy the luxury of a bath at his residence. And thereby hangs this tale

About a week after my arrival I happened to be in the spacious lift of the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel, which also happened to be be packed with American Naval personnel on leave from Vietnam. On the far side was my British official acquaintance, who recognised me.

 "Ah, Malone", cried this well-meaning personage, whose voice boomed across the lift, "how nice to see you. Why don't you drop in at my place and let me give you a bath?"

The thought was a kind one, but its verbal expression not quite as well-chosen as one might perhaps have wished. I still recall the look in some twenty pairs of Yankee naval eyes which plainly said, "Doggone it, a pair of genuine Limey queers - and so goddamned open about it, too. Jeez, I just can’t wait to tell the guys back on the ship about this. They'll split a.gut!"

Some of them, I suspect, are dining out on that story to this day.

A first visit to Antarctica - some impressions

SA Agulhas ... 31st \January 1983

Tom Wheeler

Meintjeskop Courier, March 1984

At the invitation of the Director-General of Transport, a group of government officials and SASCAR project leaders, including the President of the CSIR (Dr C.F. Garbers), the leader of the cosmic ray programme at Potchefstroom University (Prof P.H. Stoker), the leader of the cartography and eodesy programme at Surveys and Mapping Branch (Mr E. Fitschen) and representatives of various government departments with an involvement in the South African Antarctic Programme joined the SA Agulhas at Cape Town on 31 January 1983 for Voyage 28 to Sanae. As the purpose of the voyage was to bring the 1982 overwintering team off the ice, the scientists of the summer programme and the building artisans of the Department of Community Development in from the cold, it was to take only three weeks, a period which most of the participants, with their eyes tightly closed, could afford to be away from their desks.

Represented were the "providers" - the Treasury, the State Buyer, the Commission for Commission Administration and Community Development, the “monitors” – the Auditor-General’s Office, the  "teachers" - the home economist who each year instructs the over-wintering team in the art of feeding each other, and assorted others like myself - for seven years involved with Treaty matters without ever seeing the ice.

If the purpose was to show us the hardships endured by those involved in the programme, the sea and the weather literally rose to the occasion. For days on end the Roaring Forties did what they were famous for. The indicator on the bridge recorded several 43 degree rolls in each direction, but there seemed to be nothing up there to record the terrifying angles at which the bow went up and over the swells into the void beyond. Laurie Malherbe of the Weather Bureau mentioned in an awed but matter-of fact way that he had never before recorded such low barometric pressures.

Puma unloads cargo into the hold of SA Agulhas back in 1983

By the time we reached the vicinity of Sanae we were two days behind schedule and there was great excitement when a vast field of broken pack ice appeared up ahead on the evening of the ninth day.

Around midnight with the odd sight of the sun rising and setting simultaneously on the horizon ahead we reached the clear water of the bukta at the edge of the ice shelf. Only the thought that the next day was likely to be a busy one with a visit to Sanae, convinced many of the need to get some sleep.

As all the bay ice had disappeared, cargo handling and passenger movements to and from the ice had to be by helicopter. After all the preflight warnings about what not to touch one wondered whether it was safe to sit close to a  window or to move around. That was soon forgotten when we saw what photographs there were for the taking.

Perhaps the most awe-inspiring sight from the air as we crossed the edge of the shelf was the SA Agulhas out in the bukta, minute and overshadowed by the vastness of the ice and..:-the sea beyond. How insignificant we and all our life- support systems seemed.

The first impression of Sanae as a cluster of wooden huts, heavy vehicles, drums and wires was soon replaced by appreciation for what the engineers and artisans had done underneath to make overwintering possible and reasonably comfortable. The cheese and wine party laid on 8m under the ice at 70 degrees S seems incongruous only in retrospect.

Our only experience of surface travel was a bone-shaking 3 km over the sastrugi in a Nodwel to see the primitive conditions and the effects of ice pressure on the old emergency base. Again we took note of the trying living conditions of the team and the artisans.

For grandeur of location the new field station at Grunehogna, built in unbelievable weather conditions in the preceding six weeks, would be hard to imagine. At the foot of Mountain 1285 with its deep, clear, blue ice at the bottom of a 100m windscoop, it inspired several members to wonder whether the Treaty would allow for a ski lodge for tourists to be operated in the spirit of free enterprise! But then getting them there … !

The "Spirit of the Treaty” was clearly illustrated to us at Grunehogna. The station with its food supplies, equipment, diesel generators and fuel stands there unlocked, available for any traveller who might come across the ice and need shelter.

One could not but try to imagine the hardships experienced by Antarctic explorers as some of us flew across seemingly endless ice to a warm welcome at the West German base, Georg von Neumayer, 250 krn away. The engineers cast an interested professional eye over the place and wished the Treasury were there to see what could be done if the budget was generous enough!

The pressure from those who had been on the ice to get back to Cape Town was irresistible and from Georg von Neumayer we flew back to the ship already on its way out to the open sea. The flight took us over hundreds of kilometres of the ice edge with icebergs in the making enough for Saudi Arabia and patterns in the broken pack-ice enough to inspire a linoleum designer for the rest of his days!

As a final treat, the weather at Bouvet was unusually sunny and cear, although the summit was covered in mist. It was much bigger than most of us had imagined. More photographs to add to the reels already shot.

I regret though, that I saw no penguins and not one krill! But at last I have seen minke whales, animals that have engaged a great deal of my attention in Brighton and , retoria. Sanae, Bouvet, Georg von Neumayer now are real places, not merely dots on a map. One certainly has an appreciation of what it takes to run the Antarctic research programme. Back in Pretoria, you look at the map and cannot believe that the distances you covered across the ice are hardly measurable on it and that the part of the continent you did not see stretches on and on and on ...

An experience we will always remember and cherish, but one several of us would not care to repeat unless something can be done about the Roaring Forties!

Tom Wheeler was subsequently a member of the South African delegations to the Antarctic Treaty consultative meeting that adopted the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources in 1980. He also led the South African delegation to the 18th Antarctic Consultative Meeting in Kyoto, Japan in 1994.

South America ... everybody wins!

Meintjeskop Courier No 10, December 1990

No author specified

If ever there can be a contradiction in terms, South America is it. Argentina have just lost their second match in a row in the world cup soccer tournament but I can guarantee that there was jubilation in the streets of Buenos Aires. Then again, in 1978 they also lost their first two rounds. They then beat Peru 8 - 1 to take them into the competition proper and went on to win the world cup.

That's just the way it is in South America. Everybody is a dual or triple citizen. If Argentina wins, I am an Argentine. If they lose to Britain, I claim my British ancestry and celebrate the British victory. If Britain then loses to the Italians, of course my Great Grandfather on my mother's side was Italian. 

Take the Falklands/Malvainas war. There were parades by the British in Argentina  in support of the government, by the Spanish the Italians, the Germans, the Swiss, and so on. And just when you think there are no Argentines, Vilas and Cleg come home to beat the Americans in the Davis cup and those same people are back in the streets celebrating.

In South America, no matter where you go, your friends will pay more than your enemies. If I were to take you to a shop I know and introduce you, the price automatically goes up by 20 % because the owner knows - I must get a cut.

You find this same mentality in the traffic. Traffic rules, safety belts and indications are for visitors and the weak of heart. Right of way is simply determined by size, sometimes with slight variations. For example all one way streets are two way and some two way streets are one way- eg If you're driving a big old Falcon, all streets are two way, until you meet a bus overtaking another bus. 

The biggest streets leading into town become one way (17 lanes) from 8 - 11 am or thereabout and one way the other way for 5 - 7 pm. In between, it is two way. There are usually no traffic "cops" supervising this effort, it just happens- and at 120 km per hour. It is actually quite comical to see the bumper to bumper stream of traffic, and cars sedately passing the oncoming stream but then suddenly as if a river washes its banks the sedate oncoming cars rush for cover while the A's flood the road, each having to be the first at the next traffic light. Imagine also trying to cross this 17 lane wide 120 kph stream at a point where there is no traffic light. 

Fangio could have done it and certainly every Argentine is Fangio. He just didn't have Mercedes backing to become famous in racing but he is just as good, any day. And he is proving it every day.

What happens, you may ask. if the traffic light is out of order? Well, there are two options. If a traffic "cop" discovers it, there will be a traffic jam. If he doesn't it will delay the traffic no longer than 2 minutes. This noisy stream of traffic will flow by until the first man in the side street decides he's waited long enough (usually about 2 minutes). 

He engages first gear and, by quick semi-release of the clutch, makes the car jump little bits at a time. Some weak fool in the mainstream will actually believe this threat and hit the brakes and our hero "floors it". The mainstream, seeing this slowing, accepts defeat and halt. - For two minutes, when the brave front row repeats the exercise. Easy!

Ever seen a car or truck with a flat tyre in South Africa? Everybody is trying their utmost to get this obstruction to the side of the road where the driver or somebody will endeavour to change the wheel. Not in Buenos Aires. If a flat tyre occurs in lane 6 of the 14 lane road, that's where it gets repaired. Oh, he may find 2 or 3 cars trapped behind him for about 30 seconds, but that's their problem. As soon as they disappeared, he will be as lonely as an island in midstream with the traffic opening behind him and closing up in front leaving him in peace to change his tyre.

I mention the word lanes rather loosely. Avenida Libertado has painted white lines dividing the street into 14 equal parts. Initially one might expect this is to divide the traffic into 14 lanes. One would be mistaken. Libertador is a winding, twisting road, but you wouldn't believe that if you were to look at the white lines. 

They run straight - meaning that if you were to stay in one of the lanes, you will be bound to climb a curb within a distance of 5 city blocks. You would certainly only stay in a lane if you were completely lost and needed to get to the side of the road so you could ask your way around - besides, how can one stay in one of the 14 lanes if 22 cars race down the street simultaneously.Owning a car in Buenos Aires makes for exhilarating driving.

Now, if Buenos-Aires with its fairly good road conditions frightens you, consider this. You are driving along what we would call the N4, through the marshes of the Entre Rios province. Of course, the roads sag with rime, but the bridges, built on the more rocky river bed, doesn't. So every few years, they recast the ramp in the same place making it steeper. Now, if for some reason you were to hit this ramp say at night at high speed, you would bounce on the bridge just once and never touch the down ramp. You will literally fly the river. 

Now this form of adventurous driving can continue until, and this is certain to happen, you meet up with an old car, a donkey cart of a tractor showing no light and sedately driving down the middle of the road. If you don't frighten easily, it may take three of four occurrences to show that you do otherwise once is enough. You are then reduced to the speed of the above mentioned donkey cart or tractor while everybody else whizzes past you at 160 kph.

Once you reach Paraguay, a different phenomenon occurs. All steel is valuable, and that includes man-hole covers. They are more valuable as cash in someone's pocket than on the hole in the street. But Paraguayans are resourceful people. They either leave the hole uncovered, of they fit a tree trunk into it at the exact height of your cars lamp. In sure it is by accident because no one can measure it so correctly on purpose.

The same road rules apply as for Argentina, except that the cars, trucks and busses are older. So people allow more space in passing in order that the flapping mudguards and wire locked doors may pass unhindered. It is said that a roaring truck exists where busses are too old to use in Argentina and Chile are sold to Uruguay and Paraguay once these vehicles have passed the point of economical repair, that is. When the Paraguayans discard them, they are sold to Peru and Colombia.

When you want to catch a taxi in Paraguay, take 2 raincoats. One you wear to protect you from the elements above, the other you use to protect you from the water coming through where the floorboards were supposed to be. There is always water on the road.

Taxis in Peru are VW Beetles. You flag one down and then argue the price with the driver. If you cannot agree on a price, flag the next one down. Sooner or later you're bound to find one at your price.

Talking about Peru - three things I will never forget. One - on the road from the airport there is a huge municipal garbage dump. It is hollow underneath because over a thousand families have each tunnelled a cave into it and reside there. With every truckload of rubbish arriving, they swarm like ants out of their holes and dig through the load to rescue saleable items.

Also, quite cute, are the hundreds of trenches by the roadside, each guarded by one man with a wheelbarrow. One closer inspection this appears to be the local version of a "SPEEDY". You drive over the trench and the man slithers underneath to torch weld the damage. He has maybe four lengths of exhaust pipe lying on the ground from which he will cut just enough to repair the broken piece. No full exhaust job here.

The third is, on the bus from Machu Pichu to the station. This is a twisting hairpin road from the top of the mountain. The bus, usually beyond repair, descends at approximately 5 kph. On turning the first bend, a group of dirty young beggars run alongside shouting "Monieee". The bus outruns them. Rounding the next hairpin, there they are again, and again until you reach the station, a drive of approximately 1 hour. They keep sliding the bank to meet the bus. There's no escape. "Money"!l!

Conultants

                                                  By Andre Jaquet

Coordinating the efforts of professional lobbying firms hired by our Embassy in Washington in the 1970’s to try and stop sanctions on apartheid South Africa was quite a big job. Many Embassies use hired guns in the United States because in their three or four year postings, foreign diplomats cannot possibly understand, never mind manipulate the complicated American political process sufficiently to influence matters to the benefit of their country. As a result, those that can afford to do so, hire former US politicians and other spin doctors to guide their efforts.

At that time, South Africa must have been one of the countries that hired more lobbyists than any other state because there were serious divisions  back home between the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Information, Trade and Industry, Defence and National Security on how best to counter the call for sanctions against South Africa. If ever there was a stupid idea it was trying to sell segregation in the United States, which was still overcoming its own trauma of race division.

Nevertheless, various divisions in the Embassy hired several consultant firms to try to do so. The powerful Information section by-passed the Ambassador and reported directly to their Head Office at home. They took an aggressive, right wing line by hiring a lobbyist that was close to the most conservative of conservatives in the USA. The Department of Trade and Industry used lobbyists that tried to draw a distinction between trade and diplomatic ties. For our part, we at Foreign Affairs preferred a less confrontational approach and tried to reach the main trends of American opinion. These consultants were registered with the US authorities in terms of the law but I had more than a suspicion that there was a steady flow payments taking place under the counter. This was, to say the least, both unethical and unwise in an open society such as the US. The failure of this divided and at times illegal approach was predictable. There was a fundamental lack of understanding in the South African Cabinet about the nature of US politics which favours expediency over ideology.

The point of this comic/tragic little tale is that in the minds of politicians in South Africa and in most countries, international matters weigh far less than domestic concerns. How to balance the efforts of the state to extract maximum benefit for the nation from its outside contacts is a conundrum that has confronted societies since the first cave man used a club to assault an intruder who was encroaching on his area of influence. I suspect that the problem of paying politicians for favours will remain with us forever. At the time of writing, the New York Times carried an editorial about the illegal funding of Political Action Committees as a major concern.

Le plus ca change….