Friday 12th April 2013
I started out on this trip to Boggy Pond on Thursday 28th March – it has taken me two weeks to get here, and cost me just on R4,000. I wish I could say I’d had a rush of blood to the head and tarried at some of the fine Wineland hostelries, imbibing prodigious amounts of the nectar they produce while pondering the deeper meaning of Life. Unfortunately, my detour started with a trip to work at the Cape Town Film Studios on Thursday afternoon – or perhaps, very fortunately.
The huge American TV series we’re working on is drawing to a close, with most of the cast established, so I was looking forward to a five-day Easter weekend to get some maintenance done at Boggy Pond. Any production gets a little ragged toward the end though, and I had to put some male models on tape at the studios because they needed to be on set on Easter Monday. The decision about this thirty-second, non-speaking role had been deferred down to the wire for some unknown reason, although I suspect it was due to a power battle between the Director of the episode and “The Execs”, quite common on large American television productions.
Anyway, since the Studios are actually on the way here, I loaded up my tools, personal baggage and computers, and started out in my jalopy. The temperature gauge has been a little puzzling recently, but halfway along the Coast road, it started climbing to new heights. The usual trick of opening the windows and turning on the interior heater and fan to cool the engine didn’t help – leading me to suspect a faulty water-pump. I nursed the engine gently to within four car-lengths of the Studio security gate, where the motor simply stopped – luckily quite suddenly and without a hint of clanking and grinding noises. The engine churned easily enough when I tried to restart, but there was clearly “no fayah” in the motor!
With an equanimity that surprised me, given my recent state of tension, I simply pushed the car off the road into the Visitor’s parking, took my video and computer equipment from the boot, and set about the trudge to Studio Four to keep my appointment with the Director and six male models. I found myself remembering the late Alistair Cooke’s reaction to a VHS tape collection of his life’s work being destroyed by a combination of a New York heat wave and an air-conditioning failure. “There are some calamities so great,” he said,”that there is absolutely no point in remonstrating with Fate. One has to accept, mend what one can, and move beyond what one can’t.”
We taped all six models dodging imaginary moonbeams while carrying an improvised grenade, – don’t even ask – chose the only one with a brain and squeezed his essence across the internet to Santa Monica for approval. (What is the male equivalent of “Bimbo”, I wonder?)
I walked back to the car and quickly determined that there was indeed no spark at all reaching the plugs. I took the distributor cap off and churned the starter motor – the rotor didn’t rotate, indicating a snapped camshaft drive belt, which I was clearly not able to sort out with a claw hammer and a Swiss Army knife! It was now so late that I decided to defer rescuing the car until Tuesday – no point in chasing up costs over a long week end. Luckily the Production was kind enough to provide a Runner take me and my boot-load of tools home to Muizenberg.
I let Stephen know not to expect me that week end, and he gave me a contact for an old-time “Motor Macchie” he had used when living in Somerset West, so I left a message on an answering machine and settled down to enjoy a Hermit’s week end, determined to not even think about the impending repair bill.
The enforced leisure enabled me to start scribbling again… nothing likely to earn me a Booker prize, but at least something to get the fingers flexing again. I also set about finding and linking more of my earlier Short Stories and a Short Film script on my Writing web site. Reviewing work I had not read in several years did my confidence a lot of good. I’m wary of saying that, because I deal all the time with actors who are convinced they are better than they really are, but the passage of years gives one a better perspective.
At some point I twigged that I have business insurance on the ageing Opel Kadett , so on Tuesday morning I made towing the car to TS Motors in the Strand their problem. I received calls from the local towing contractor, which revealed that they had no idea at all where the Cape Town Film Studios were, but needed no direction to TS Motors. Unsurprising in a way, but one has to ask why they have not noticed two three-masted Galleons sailing across the fynbos a few hundred metres from a National highway. On the other hand, perhaps it puts the self important Film Industry into its rightful perspective.
My brother Christopher joined me on Sunday with the idea of going to “Navy Day” in Simonstown. During the bad old days of compulsory National Service he was lucky enough to be one of only three conscripts to serve on our then very new Daphne Class submarines. Unsurprisingly, he volunteered for an extra tour of duty, so was eventually the only conscript on the subs, since the experiment was discontinued. Now, he hoped to take a tour of one of the new Type 209/1400 (Heroine class) vessels. After a catch-up chat, I suggested that we take the train – that coast road is impossible during the week, so it would be murder on “Navy day”.
The Display was… disappointing. There were no signposts to the various sheds which contained trestle-tables carrying a few bits of what looked like dummy training equipment manned (or often not) by bored looking ratings who didn’t appear knowledgeable at all, judging by the minimal engagement they appeared to encourage with the public. The Navy displays were also almost swamped by stalls belonging to estate Agents, loan companies and purveyors of Safari holidays!
Christopher next to the bell on the sail of the Submarine now Known as the “Assegaai”
By the time we made it all the way around to the “Charlotte Maxexe”, recently out of dry dock after being crashed into the ocean floor, the visitor line was closed, so we charged around through the excess of food- and trinket-stalls to the other end of the dockyard to the “Assegai” Museum submarine, which Chris had served on when she was known as the “SAS Johanna van der Merwe”. The submarine is the last example of the Daphne class subs, and is maintained by a team of civilian volunteers.
The original inscription on the reverse of the bell. Chris served as chef on the “Johanna van der Merwe”
We were lucky enough to be in the last tour group and to have a guide who had also served on “The Johanna” and was still in the Navy. Chris entertained some of the women visitors to tales of cooking for up to sixty crew in a galley smaller than a porta-loo!
Chris used to coook for 60 men in this space – yes, his back is against the other wall!
An interesting aspect was the revelation that shortly after he left the Navy, almost the entire French navigation equipment was ripped out and replaced by a South African designed and manufactured system. The “Johanna” was the very first sea-going vessel of any kind anywhere in the world to have on-screen computerised charting! (Ya-haa Boet! Local used to be very lekker – sometimes!)
Been here before! Chris emerges from the escape hatch onto the casing of the Johanna van der Merwe / Assegaai
By the time we got out of the sub, the entire show had closed and we were hustled out of the gate by a gaggle of Military policewomen, and had to take a brisk walk to catch one of the last special trains laid on for the day.
******
I was back on the train again on Monday to pick up a rental car in Cape Town so that my pal Joe could help me recover my repaired jalopy from The Strand.
I discovered that Thys Schoonwinkel is an old-time “Motor Macchie” of the best sort. He repairs rather than replaces where possible, and takes into account the value of the vehicle relative to the cost of repairing it. He was also clearly very thorough, because when he phoned me to tell me that the cam belt had snapped because of a seized water pump, he pointed out additional maintenance that was worth doing at the same time, so I was quite happy to pay his very reasonable bill.
The rest of the week was quite “bitty”, involving half-days in the studio to cope with specific crises on two films, which rather scuppered my plan to come out here on Thursday afternoon. The next plan was to leave on Friday morning, but late on Thursday night Christa warned me to stand by to go into the studio on Friday! I packed anyway, and received confirmation on Friday morning for just ONE audition after lunch!
Of course, by the time I had encoded and uploaded the actor, I drove onto the N2 highway and sat in the Friday afternoon mobile car-park all the way to Somerset West.
Does anybody remember the gap-toothed grin of the Mad Magazine character “Alfred E. Neuman” back in the Sixties and Seventies? His catch-phrase was “What! Me Worry?”
That’s me these days…. I’m learning, slowly.