h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK as a start to writing the tribute to my father, I would like to write down my own memories of him - while I still have them! I will also get info about his youth from his sisters and brothers. He's told me many stories of his youth, but I can't remember them very accurately or put the right dates and places. So first ... my own memories.

I was born in March 1972 when my parents were living in Pretoria. My father was 27 years old at the time. Of course my real personal memories only start a while after that, when I was about one year old (I thought my first birthday was a really big deal ... one year old - I had arrived!! Nothing worth mentioning to achieve after that.) My dad had lost his father some time back, when he was 21, but my dad's mother was still with us, and lived close to my parents in the apartment building. Grandma Susan. She took care of me a lot when my parents were working. I still remember the metal staircase at the back of the building, and standing on it, watching for the light-blue VW beetle to arrive and park in the garage when my dad got back from work. (He drove a scooter for a while before we got the beetle … but was in an accident, and never drove a bike after that.)

My dad did a number of jobs around that time but finally settled as a librarian, working in the Merensky Library. At that time my dad already had his interest in literature. He had written some poems - some of which were published in a literary magazine - and was reading lots of books. Even before I could talk, he was reading poetry from the best Afrikaans poets to me ... such as, N. P. van Wyk Louw, and Dirk Opperman. He also got LP records of Afrikaans poetry - introduced by N. P. van Wyk Louw himself. I still remember us listening to those records ... we must have got them in the early seventies. We still have them ... I will go and listen to them again now. But to summarise, my dad read me good literature and poetry from before I could talk. I am absolutely certain that this helped form me into who I am today - interest in language, literature, reading, books, art, and knowledge.

My father's interest went beyond just Afrikaans literature. He read English poetry and stories as well. I can especially remember his interest in the writings of Ernest Hemingway. Except that when I was very small, and not knowing any English, I couldn't rightly hear or say the sound of 'Hemingway', and turned it into 'Hemi-hooi'. But I knew 'Uncle Hemi-hooi' so well that he was like a friend of the family to me ... I could imagine I had actually met him. I knew exactly what he looked like since my father showed me photos and also made some illustrations of Hemingway ... and prints as well, etches.

I also remember a sketch by him of the poet Dylan Thomas. At that age I thought these were people my dad knew personally. I guess, in a way, he did. He also made sketches and prints of Afrikaans writers and poets, like Breyten Breytenbach and N. P. van Wyk Louw.

You see now how into art my dad was. I remember from very early on how he made etches. He showed me everything: covering the plate with that black gooey, stuff, then etching the picture into it, then putting it in the acid so that the engraved bit can be 'eaten out', then cleaning it, then applying the ink, then pressing it onto the paper with an etching-press that we still have today.

Back then my dad made lots of such etching-prints ... we still have them. I will publish them on Webshots in time. Most of them are rather abstract, apart from the ones of people and animals.

At the same time he was working on a book, a set of short stories called 'Vir 'n Lewe' (for a life/for a living, as in 'what do you do for a living?') in which there are many autobiographical aspects, including some stuff based on my own very early youth. 'Vir 'n Lewe' was published in 1974.

Working in the Library of Pretoria University, my dad had a very good situation into which to find wonderful books. He brought me books from the library and I really took to, especially, books about animals – including books about prehistoric life. Especially, to my mind, two things are prominent. The first is a book (or perhaps more than one book – memory a bit hazy) about prehistoric life, illustrated by the wonderful Czech artist Zdenek Burian. His dinosaurs, prehistoric animals and humans were so realistic they might as well have been real.

I don’t remember exactly how old I was when I started getting really interested in dinosaurs … but my parents told me the tale (which like I said I can’t remember myself) that I was looking with them at a newspaper, when I was perhaps three or four years old, and there was a Flintstones cartoon. Being very interested in animals, and knowing a large number of different kinds of animals already, I asked what kind of an animal ‘Dino’, the Flintstones’ pet, was. My father (or mother?) told me it was a dinosaur. And I remembered the name – when I saw the strip again, I immediately correctly named Dino as a ‘dinosaur’!

Well from then on, my father brought me books with pictures and info about dinosaurs. Every such book made such an impression on me that even now I can remember most of them … some from the University library, some from the town library, some from school libraries, and some borrowed from friends … those books are more than thirty years in my past, but I can still see them and their illustrations before me. I wanted *everything* I could get about dinosaurs or prehistoric life.

But the book with the illustrations by Burian was by far the most influential.

Another book (actually, a series of book, belonging to an encyclopedia set), that made a huge impression on me, that my dad brought me from the library, was the Grzimek Animal Encyclopedia. My father brought me the German version, since they didn’t want the English version to leave the library's reference section. To my dad, it didn’t matter since I couldn’t read anyways – or so he thought! I actually picked up a few German words from that encyclopedia. The books I saw, were mainly the ones on mammals … there was also a book, dealing with evolution and prehistoric mammals, that I enjoyed a lot.

I’m sure my dad was a great librarian. He made friends there, and contacts as well … some people who knew him back then, still remember him.

My father also became a member of the Afrikaans Writers’ Guild, I’m sure it was back in the seventies. I will get more info on this when I can. But when we were living in Pretoria around then, he was friends with some prominent Afrikaans writers. I especially remember our friendship with Pieter Haasbroek and his wife Estelle, who was for a time my kindergarten teacher! (B.t.w. ‘Haasbroek’ is a rather funny Dutch surname that can be translated ‘bunny-pants’!) (‘Uncle Piet’ as I came to know him, recently re-established contact with us … just in time for the news of my father’s illness and death.)

I will get info about other South African poets and writers my father was friends with. He knew Chris Barnard, P. G. Du Plessis, and George Weideman, among others. There’s a heck of a lot of documentation here that my mom and I will go through, in time hopefully.

We moved to a house with a garden when I was just over three years old … my sister Maryke had been born a while ago, and my grandma Susan had passed away. The yard seemed immense to me … we had a grove of fruit trees, a sand pit (I think that only came a bit later though), and a few climbable trees including a tall cypress in the front yard. There was also a little outside house in which my dad did art stuff, often along with my sister and myself! I especially remember us making things from clay. We got a pottery kiln … I remember it was huge and heavy, and a giant of a man, a single labourer, carried it in for us! We had the kiln, if I remember right, in that little house, and my father, my sister and I, made objects of clay and then fired them in the kiln. My father made little animals … we still have most of them today … and my sister and I, made clay ‘masks’! My father showed us how the kiln worked. It was amazing … there was a stone one could slide out, in the centre of the front door of the kiln. My father would take it out periodically to show us how the oven heated up inside. The inside became orange … then yellow … and finally so hot it emitted a bright white light! Then there were little clay ‘horns’ … they really looked like the horns of a cow … and these, at intervals, would melt into wonderful twisted shapes, to indicate the ‘right’ temperature for our clay objects.

It was also wonderful to see how the glazing … like white powdery paint when we first apply it on the pottery and clay trinkets … became brilliantly colourful after the period of firing in the kiln! Patterns we couldn’t see at all, when my dad first applied them, suddenly appeared like magic!

This, I hope, will give you an idea of the kind of man, and father, he was. He showed, demonstrated, explained things to my sister and myself, as much as he could, in the process teaching us about art, about life, and stimulating our interest and creativity.

OK … there is so much more … I’ll just paste this, for now.

I have read and enjoyed, and you were lucky to have such man, who not only passed on his enormous knowledge but spent time with his children, something somewhat rare today.

I look forward to the next instalment, and I hope that you are finding some comfort in the writing.

Websailor

Keep talking. We'll keep reading...

What a fascinating person. (And you are, too - dinosaurs, indeed. You can certainly draw them. What a gift.)

What a wonderful tribute, Willem. Every word tells us from the love there was in your family.

Very dear willem,

How fascinating to read the life of your darling Pa.
And all those wonderful writers, Breyton Breytenbach,N.P vam Wyk Louw.
I must admit that the library at Stellenbosch University was also one in which I could spend hours and hours.....
I want to look up Merensky - I do not think I have heard of him. I have been trying to write the life of my Papa
"Oh!, mine Papa!" so I hope that reading yours will fire me to finish it. !!

Go well my dear friend,

Christiane and Keith (in absentia)
AlsoRan80

Monday 8/II/2010 8.00 GMT

Hello folks and thanks for your replies!

Christiane AR80, the Merensky Library is the library of the University of Pretoria. My dad, my mom, my sister and I all studied there. I've spent many long hours in that library myself, as a student. It was named after Hans Merensky, another fascinating person. Here's an article about him:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Merensky

Just a short quote:

"Hans Merensky (16 March 1871 in Botshabelo – 21 October 1952 in Westfalia near Duiwelskloof) was a South African geologist, prospector, scientist, conservationist and philanthropist. He discovered the rich deposit of alluvial diamonds at Alexander Bay in Namaqualand, vast platinum and chrome reefs at Lydenburg, Rustenburg and Potgietersrus, which led to some of the largest platinum mines in the world, phosphates and copper at Phalaborwa in the Transvaal lowveld, gold in the Free State and the world’s biggest chrome deposit at Jagdlust near Pietersburg."

Apart from the Merensky library, there's the Hans Merensky high school in the town of Tzaneen, and the Hans Merensky Nature Reserve a distance east of Tzaneen. I hope to soon post pictures from the nature reserve up, it's a fine place. My sister used to camp a lot at Westfalia, along with the Voortrekkers (I mean here the youth organisation, similar to the Boy/Girl Scouts).

I'll try and post the next installment some time today! AR80, I do with indeed that this will encourage you to writing of your own father! I'll be very interested to read your story.

Best wishes,

Willem

BTW Hans Merensky was born exactly 101 years, to the day, before me.