Op 1 Oktober is ek ‘n majoor. Ek kan vir een maand in Port Elizabeth aanbly om al my sake in orde te kry. Daardie tyd gebruik ons om goed wat nie elke dag gebruik word nie in te pak, te reël vir ‘n moontlike huurder vir ons huis en vriende en familie te gaan groet. Ons dink daaraan om in Oos-London weer ‘n huis te koop maar omdat ons die plek nie ken nie kan ons nie eintlik beplan nie. Hannie en Baas is in hulle noppies dat ons daarheen kom en beloof om uit te kyk vir n geskikte huis. Einde Oktober neem ek afskeid van die personeel in Port Elizabeth en ek vertrek na Oos-London. REMINISCES OF A RAILWAY POLICEMAN Keith Alfred Adolf Blake •
Body Builders We received complaints from ship agents, Railway quay-foreman and ship captains that on the quaysides while ships were offloading, boxes of calamari that thieves were stealing during the offload process. I and my colleagues were given the task of catching these thieves.
I first arranged for Railway overalls and my colleagues were sent in undercover on the quayside at J berth, Table Bay Harbour, while I went out of the harbour to the Customs House and there on the vehicle parking balcony, I watched J berth with a pair of binoculars. There were lots of stevedores, Railway workers and foreign seamen and they were loading the 10kg boxes from the ship onto the quayside. I could also see my colleagues standing at different places and remember those days we all carried radios not like today cell phones. While watching through my binoculars I saw three suspects walking away from the quayside and they were wearing overalls. What caught my eye was that these three gents were very broad chested and their backs were also unusually broad but the legs were thin and I still thought that hard work must have developed those broad very broad chest and back muscles. They walked towards the undercover colleagues but then to my amazement the one suspect moved his chest to the left and right and then I REALISED what was happening. I GRABBED my radio and told my colleagues to stop the three suspects which they did and they said: 'Hulle het niks by hulle nie sersant hoor". I responded that that must see on their chests and backs which they did and lo and behold the suspects had on their backs and chest tied by two thin ropes not home-grown muscles but 2 boxes one in front the other on their backs weighing 10 kg each of pure frozen calamari. The "body builders" were arrested for theft.
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"Kat” in my Lunchblik
One morning I heard on my handradio in my office that Willemse needed the patrol van to pick him up at KL berth. A short while later Willempie walked into my office and in his hands, he had a fat huge tunny fish. He told me he was given this fish by a fisherman. Willempie who is a very big person, was sweating and his cheeks was blood red and he sat down on a chair and uttered the following words: "Sersant hierdie tunny was swaar om te dra maar ek gaan lekker van hom eet maar my vrou kan nie pickle-vis maak en die tunny is net reg vir pickle-vis". As we were talking one of the female constables came in that worked at the admin. Willempie asked her if she could make pickle-fish and she responded that she cannot but her mother was an expert. The two came to a deal that he would give her the tuna but he wanted a large bowl of the end product, pickle-fish. 125 Nongqai Vol 13 No 2
