THE GIFT THAT GROWS
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Woensdag, 14 November 2018 | Tel: 021 910 6500 | e-pos: nuus@tygerburger.co.za
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Black Friday is coming Kaperjolle saam met honde
FORMER DRUG ADDICT: NOW HELPING OTHERS
A message in his ‘mess’ of a life CARINA ROUX
H
Bryan en Lucinda Viljoen van Edgemead en hul hondevriende, Max (voor) en Lemmy, het Sondag aan die Muddy Puppy-hindernis-pretloop op die volstruisplaas langs die N7-snelweg deelgeneem. Nog foto’s op bladsy 8. FOTO: CARINA ROUX
e’s got nothing to hide, for in his ‘‘mess of a life’’ there is a message, says Allan Rehbock (51) from Ruyterwacht. And if you listen to his journey to the present, one can’t help thinking he’s got more lives than a cat. Often people with children involved in drugs and gangsterism think there is no way out, he says. ‘‘Families are so at wits’ end, they don’t know what to do.” But there is hope, and Allan says he is living proof that it is possible. Allan, born to a mixed-race couple in the ’60s, grew up in Simon’s Town. He says he first got involved with drugs at age nine. “By age 11 I was certified a juvenile delinquent for selling drugs at school.” He was sentenced to a place of safety in Wynberg and transferred to Die Bult Industrial School in George. Here things just escalated, he says. With his dad being a “coloured” man, Allan says he was not fearful to enter the so-called coloured areas to obtain dagga and other drugs. “This, he says, elevated him to have that power of authority over others – “not because they were scared of me, but because I could get the product [drugs] they wanted.” He says he used to get some of the boys to break into shops in town – “especially the suit shops because in the ‘African’ areas where I got the drugs from they wanted suits. “They paid me ‘richly’ for the suits.”
Eventually Die Bult could no longer deal with him and he was sent to Tokai Reformatory. From here he would repeatedly run away and often found himself in the gangand drug-infested areas. Things progressed, and Allan became a driver for a gang figure, picking up and dropping off drugs or money. With anything in life, whether good or bad, there are consequences, says Allan. He was in and out of prison and spent a total of 21 and a half years behind bars. He had a son born while he was in prison who he met for the first time at age six in 1991 when he came out of prison again. Allan picked his son up from the boy’s mother one day and says they drove around between areas like Lavender Hill, Mitchell’s Plain and Grassy Park. “As I was a driver/bodyguard I became a bit of a wanted figure and they used to open up fire on my car quite regularly,” he says. On that fateful day Allan’s son got shot while he was in the car with him. His anger at his son’s death manifested in Allan becoming more violent himself and having many a close encounter at death’s door. In a long list he mentions his hip being blown off by a shotgun, a shot in the knee, metal plates in his face after losing part of his cheekbone, his car being driven off Ou Kaapse Weg, 89 days in a coma, months in hospital... He lifts his shirt to reveal a scar on his stomach and shows the elevation on his hand where a bullet still rests. V To page 2.
17 NOV
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