42. Giving 'Voice' to our malice.

We got to know a number of rock bands and singers during our sojourn in Cape Town. Ronnie Singer to name but one. Ronnie 
had a residency at the Clifton Hotel where he would pack in the crowds. We got on really well with Ronnie and he invited Lea
and I to join his band on a tour of South Africa but we turned 
him down. I believe Billy Crauser went on ahead of the band 
to promote the tour. 

Another beat group who we were friendly with and played 
regularly at the Navigator’s Den at the time was the Couriers. 
Well we were friendly with all but one member of the band, 
the singer. Who called himself, 'The Voice’. I mean, it wouldn't 
have been cool to call himself 'The Voice' even if others had 
started calling him that...but they didn't. Nobody had. The 
douche bag came up with 'The Voice' tag all by himself - 
which kinda makes his comeuppance even more enjoyable.  
Here goes...

One Sunday afternoon after our lunchtime session we were 
invited to a pool party cum barbecue at a house in Constantia. When we arrived we found the Couriers were already there and surprise, surprise, their singer, The Voice, was sounding off on 
his favourite subject, himself, or more particularly his amazing
vocal range...all very cringe worthy. 

Later on after consuming many brandy and cokes - the bands favourite tipple - we all chilling out by the pool when it was 
brought to our attention that the ‘Voice’ had lowered his guard 
and dropped off to sleep on a sun lounger in the shade. 

We remembered a joke we used to play on 'friends' when along with half the Rhodesian youth population, we descended on the coastal town of Beria in Portuguese East Africa. 

We asked the host for a newspaper and scissors - which was 
duly provided and we immediately set about cutting the sentence “Cut Dotted Line”... a paper pair of scissors was also cut out ... 
oh, yes, and also paper bikini top, a pair of paper spectacles 
and the name 'Dick'. Then came the 'piece de resistance'... 
but I'll come to that later.

Ever so carefully we carried the sun lounger together with it's occupant ‘the Voice’ out of the shade and into the blazing South African sun where we undid his shirt and exposed his chest and stomach. Very gently as not to wake him, we placed a line of 
paper dots horizontally across his throat before adding the 
paper scissors and the the words “cut along the dotted line”. 
Then came the the paper bikini top.

The spectacles were next up and placed over his eyes to give 
him that permanent Buddy Holly look...and the letters D I C K
were added to his forehead... and last but not least  our ‘piece 
de resistance’, a paper outline of a large pair of buttocks which 
was gently rested on “the Voice’s” stomach incorporating his 
hairy belly button as the A-hole. 

All very childish I agree but  to a bunch teenagers who had 
downed a fair quantity of 'Mellow Wood' Brandy, it was way beyond hilarious.

We then sat in the shade and watched for the sun and paper 
to do their work. 

I'm pleased to announce it was one of those rare cases when expectation was surpassed by the actual result. The vivid 
contrast in skin colour was dramatic. The words and designs 
stuck out clearly. The Dick, bikini top, cut along this line, the spectacles and buttock and would live with The Voice for months...and with us for years. In retrospect we were 
practitioners of permanent body art way before our time.

41. Blind Man's Bluff a way of getting into the bio-scope for niks

Playing six nights a week at the Grand Prix Night Club left us with time to kill during the day. A couple of afternoons were taken up rehearsing new material but that still meant we had a lot of spare time to fill. Mac, Lea and I found the perfect solution, the bio-scope. As there were an inordinate number of picture houses in and around Cape Town we could quite easily enjoy a different film every afternoon of the week. But here's the thing, the enjoyment didn't just come from actually watching the movie, no, at least half the fun came from trying to wangle our way in free...and during our time in Cape Town we came up with many a ruse to avoid paying but there is one that stands out - simple yet ingenious.

We arrived at the picture house on that particular afternoon armed with the essential props...sunglasses. Both Mac and Lea donned a pair.

We approached the ticket booth. I smiled at the cashier sitting behind the glass fronted panel as I passed my 50 cents into the money tray. “One ticket please”. 

 She looked confused. “One...? But there’s three of yous”.

 “My two friends never pay to get in”, I gave a condescending smile. “Never”.

“Why not? What’s so special about those two?”

I lent close to the glass panel which had a circle of holes drilled in it to speak through and whispered, “Those two, ma’am, are blind...they can’t see the screen but they can listen to the soundtrack...” I added, “Please don’t make a big deal out of it they find it extremely embarrassing”.

“Oh! ...Sorry, I didn't realise...No, no, of course...” She looked suitably chastened as she took my 50 cents and handed back the single ticket, plus two comps.

It had worked. Our simple ingenious ploy had worked to perfection and it continued to work at the same movie house on a further two occasions. 

However, as the late great showman P.T. Barnum once said, and he could have been talking to directly to us, “You can't fool all of the people all of the time”, and we certainly couldn't fool the picture house manager all of the time. I don’t know what aroused his suspicions but halfway through the trailer - before the Pathe News, cartoon and main feature had even started - he appeared out the darkness with two usherettes who trained their torch beams on Mac and Lea who were watching the movie and hence not wearing the sunglasses. Taken by surprise Lea held up his hand in front of his face to shade his eyes from the glare and without thinking called out, “Do you mind! I’m trying to...” realizing what he was about to say, he added, “...listen to the movie”. The slight pause was fatal. The game was over. We had been rumbled. We were escorted from the auditorium and told to never set foot in the movie house again.  

Although we tried our scheme out at a number of other cinemas none of them fell for it, I guessing the word must have got round. The days of Blind Man’s Bluff were over...we’d have to come up with something new.

40. Our combi is possessed...what goes around comes around.

The saying ‘what goes round comes around’ impacted directly on us.  I have to say when Lea and I scared the B’Jesus out of our mate with our 'haunted car routine' (Blog 19) never in a million years did I ever think that a few years later in Cape Town we would fall victim to the same 'ghostly paranormal activity' in our combi.

It all started when we were driving over to the Grand Prix in the combi for a band rehearsal. We were making our way along Beach Road to Sea Point when Lea suddenly sat bolt upright and told everyone to ‘ssssh’ as he had heard a ghostly voice. Mac pulled over to the curb and switched off the engine. We sat there listening for a voice but all that could be heard was the sound of passing traffic. We waited for Lea to crack up but he didn’t. He was serious – convinced he had heard a voice in the combi. We waited a couple of minutes but hearing nothing we continued to the Grand Prix. We had just pulled up outside the club when we all heard a voice mumble something...we looked at each other in astonishment... there was no doubt about it a phantom voice mumbled something in Afrikaans...and it was coming from somewhere in the back. We got out and trooped round to the back of the combi and opened the back door. There under a pile of clothes, amp covers and cymbal covers was a bearded man.

Unbeknown to us the bearded man, a saxophone player down on his luck, who had been sleeping rough in a cave somewhere on the lower reaches of table mountain had taken to sleeping in our Combi. It turned out that Billy had bumped into the said musician, felt sorry for him and Billy, being a kindly soul, suggested the could crash in the back of the band Combi. He had taken up nightly residence in the back of the combi for a week or so before we finally discovered him that morning.

39. Our Garret in Loop Street - Cape Town

                                                                          Sea Point

Billy had secured us a residency at the ‘Grand Prix’ night club in Sea Point - an area of Cape Town situated between Signal Hill and the Atlantic Ocean. 

                          Me and Mac Sea Point Post Office 

Lea and I setting up at the Grand Prix...note the Chequered flags and crash helmet on the wall behind

The Grand Prix was owned and managed by an ex racing car driver from Johannesburg named Mimmie Demetrius - hence the name of the club. We were booked to play from 8 p.m. to 1.00 a.m. Monday through to Saturday with Sunday off. I can’t remember how much we got paid but I’m sure it wasn't much. But we had a residency which was the main thing. Also Billy had also managed to rent us a cheap place to live, an attic in a large three storey Victorian town house on Loop Street - in the old part of Cape Town. 

A guy named Roly Woods had bought the place as a derelict wreck for a dirt cheap price and single-handedly converted it into the "Woodsville"  boarding house.

All three floors were set out the same. Each had a corridor running the full length flanked by bedrooms and a communal bathroom and toilet at the end...not many hotels and boarding houses had en suit bathrooms in those days. 

Along with the bathroom and toilet the far end of the third floor corridor there was a set of rickety stairs which led up to up to ‘The Chequers’ garret - attic.

Roly may have converted and refurbished the rest of the boarding house to a passable standard but he had stopped at the attic – there was no reason to 'tart' it up. I’m sure it had never entered Roly’s head to actually rent it out until he was approached by Billy.

For starters there was no door at the bottom of the stairs or at the head of it for that matter, which meant anyone could wander up to our attic room as they pleased. 

No proper flooring had been laid just bare boards with the odd patch of lino. Hours before our arrival five beds were hurriedly installed, wedged between roof joists, chimney stacks and pipes, wherever there was space which meant we required a high degree of athleticism and suppleness to actually access them...oh yes, and I kid you not the beds also had grass growing under them. God's truth.

Then there was the mold, various genus of which clung limpet-like to the walls... it gets better in a bad way. Above our heads, forget a proper ceiling; there were the exposed original Victorian slate roof tiles pinned to strips of wooden crossbeams. A large 'curtain-less' dormer window missing most of its glass gave a panoramic view over Loop Street and through which the Coca Cola neon sign on the roof top of the ‘Ace Of Clubs’ rock venue opposite flashed metronome –like throughout the night projecting a pulsing red glow on the attic wall. 

However, despite all this and much, much more - or maybe because of it - we loved our garret home, and not just loved it, we were actually proud of it. Maybe living in such squalor gave us a certain bohemian kudos...least in our minds anyway, though saying that, members of other rock groups were rendered speechless when they checked out our groovy pad. 

The street outside the Woodsville boarding house had its own professional beggar and I use the word ‘professional’ advisedly. The guy was at the top of his game, a highly skilled practitioner. Skilled in as much as that although he appeared to be suffering from innumerable disabilities there was absolutely nothing wrong with him...with the possible exception of his moral compass which was definitely out of kilter. In other words the man was a professional charlatan.

Every day without fail would find him out on the pavement plying what appeared by the volume of the coins deposited in his begging bowl, a lucrative trade. He would never let a passerby pass by without adding to his pot... or making a donation as he put it. He would plead, sweet-talk, flatter, embarrass, humiliate, abuse and berate them into handing over their loose change.

We never knew what we’d find when we stepped out the boarding house. One day he would be blind the next he’d have no arms, on other occasions one or both legs would be missing. He wore clothes which cleverly concealed limbs. He had also acquired props to help substantiate his disabilities, white sticks, crutches, callipers, I even remember seeing him in a rusty old wheel-chair.

If you saw “Trading Places” the con man character Edie Murphy played in the movie is our man. We knew the guy was an immoral cheat and who prayed off people’s emotions ... but we couldn’t help having a soft spot for him. He was certainly a character...but once we moved out the boarding house we never saw him again. 

38. On the road again in our 'Time Machine' Combi

For some reason Billy Crauser had to leave just as soon as we finished our final session in Jo'burg. I’m guessing the major factor behind his immediate departure was he didn’t want to hang around to help pack up the gear. Packing the gear up at the end of a  four or five hour session was always a complete bind...no wonder bands got roadies as soon as they could afford them. Anyway, as Billy’s Hillman Minx was speedier and decidedly more comfortable than our...I'll try not to mince my words... beaten up, rust bucket of a combi, Jack and Frankie were quick in offering to travel down to Cape Town with Billy...to keep him company...yeah, right.

After arranging to meet the following night at the Navigator’s Den in Cape Town they disappeared leaving Lea, Mac and I to pack the gear into the van.

It was 1:00 am or there abouts when we finally set off on the seven hundred mile journey. The three of us decided on a strict rota. One hour sleeping in the back, one hour sitting next to the driver to make sure he didn’t fall asleep, then one hour behind the wheel driving. That was how it was supposed to go. Sleep, sit, drive. One hour of sleep every three hours. However, unbeknownst to Mac, Lea and I had other plans...namely a plan which on our drive down to Cape Town would mean we'd end up losing...and I kid you not...three whole hours! I don’t remember who came up with this 'time warp' idea but come up with it we did.

Okay, so here's what happened. After Mac finished his hour behind the wheel, from 1:00 a.m. to 2...it was all change – along the lines of musical chairs when the music stops. Lea who’d been sitting beside Mac, took over the driving and slide across behind the wheel. Mac clambered into the back to sleep while I, who had been sleeping in the back, clambered into the front seat and sat beside Lea while he drove to make sure he didn’t drift off.

Lea and I waited for a few minutes then asked Mac a question. When he didn’t respond I climbed stealthily into the back and ever so carefully so as not to wake him, moved the hands on his wrist watch forward an hour - from say five past two to five past three. Slipping back into the front I moved the hands on the dashboard clock forward an hour, then trying hard not to laugh, leant over and shook Mac awake telling him the hour had past and it was Lea’s time to sleep. I slide behind the wheel. Lea clambered into the back Mac joined me in the front to keep me company while I drove. After I completed my hours driving, Mac took his second stint behind the wheel with Lea sitting beside him and me sleeping in the back. When Mac completed his second hour behind the wheel it was all change again and Mac crawled onto the back seat and fell immediately asleep. Once again we moved his wrist watch on an hour changed the combi clock and shook him awake.

Mac gave a plaintive groan, “Yissus, man, it feels like I just closed my f****ing eyes”.

And so it went on...Lea and I each getting a hours sleep every two hours whilst Mac got absolutely zilch. It was only when he realised that it still dark at 10 am that it dawn on him something was amiss...he was not a happy bunny.

It had taken sometime but I had had my revenge on Mac for the 'Phantom Hand' (Blog 26). Revenge is definitely a dish best served cold.

The rest of the drive down to Cape Town was pretty uneventful...well uneventful for Lea, Mac and I that is, not quite so for Billy, Frankie and Jack. Billy’s Hillman broke down. We drove past them just as the sun was coming up somewhere in the middle of the Karoo, a semi desert region in the Cape Province. The thing about deserts is they got brutally cold at night. 

                                                                              The Karoo

Jack and Frankie were hunched over the open hood fiddling with the engine. Their breath formed frosty plumes as it hit the freezing air. There was no sign of Billy; he was fast asleep in the back huddled under a blanket. We did stop but Jack and Frankie said they had thought they had it under control. We didn’t wait around to ascertain the accuracy of that statement and with, “see you at the Navigator’s Den”, continued on our way to Cape Town.

37. We get ‘stung' retrospectively in Jo'burg...Ouch!

After two weeks of alternating sessions between Archie’s Club and The Flying Saucer it was decided we would continue down to Cape Town. Cape Town had always our final destination. 

The band got paid nightly, somewhere in the region of thirty to forty Rand a night. We would peel off a few rand for the next day’s food & skayfs and the rest we would put into our ‘War Chest’, a briefcase which was left locked away in the hotel’s safe. 

                                              Slightly OTT but you get the picture


Incidentally we had paid the hotel up front...two week in advance.

It was decided we would drive down to Cape Town immediately after our final session at The Flying Saucer. So before we set off for the club that night we packed up and checked out the hotel. However when the receptionist handed over our ‘War Chest’, aka briefcase, from the safe it was completely empty...well completely empty of cash. All our money...every last cent was gone. 

When confronted the hotel manager he immediately phoned the police.

Ten minutes later a middle-aged man entered and introduced himself as Detective Sergeant Somebody-Or-Other from the Jo’burg C.I.D. We explained what had happened. He checked the briefcase. Had a quick word with the hotel manager then turned to us and with a shrugged said he was sorry but there was nothing he could do. It was only our word that cash was missing from the briefcase...there was no actual proof. So that was it...Ouch! we got stung!

...at least three hundred rand down the pan. 

The few rand we had on us was shared out and still had to be paid for the  final session...we reckoned we would have enough to make it down to Cape Town.

That episode illustrates just how naive we were. It never occurred to us, until later, that the whole thing could have been a set up – a ‘sting’, ‘scam’.  The detective sergeant never actually showed us any identification. For all we know he needn't have been with the police force at all...and the whole thing could have been cooked up by the hotel manager. 

36. The Hunt for a headless body in Zoo Lake – Jo’burg...the G-Men keep shtum.

It was at the rock venue called the 'Fire Station' that we met up with the G Men, Johnny Kongos’ backing group. I remember the drummer’s name was ‘Doc’ and there was a Welsh bass player I think went by the name of Welsh Jack.

Anyway, one night after a session we were sitting round drinking when someone mentioned that a headless body had been found in Zoo Lake...

Zoo Lake was a large man-made lake fifteen minutes from the centre of Jo’burg.

I'm guessing we must've had a couple too many because we decided in our inebriated wisdom to try and find the head and reunite it with the body...well Lea, me, Mac, Doc, and Welsh Jack did, our singer Jack and Frankie didn't.

For some reason and again this points to excessive alcoholic consumption...we thought the prospect of reuniting the head with the body was hilarious...the funniest thing imaginable.

Chortling away we drove to Zoo Lake, scaled the perimeter fence and dived-in fully clothed.

Cold water has a sobering effect on even the most inebriated and within a few minutes we started to have misgivings, least ways I know I did. Ironically the cold water poured cold water on our little adventure. Hilarity had been replaced by acute foreboding. The prospect of actually coming face to face with a headless torso – for want of a better phrase – was horrifying.

Just as we started wading ashore, two police cars, siren blaring, roared out of the night and drew up beside the lake. We immediately ducked back in the water and hid amongst some reeds.

Someone had obviously reported us to the police who began working their way along the edge of the lake sweeping the surface with their torches.

It was at this moment we discovered all those movies where a fugitive would break off a reed, leap into a river and hide under water using the reed as a makeshift snorkel was just so much hokum. It just doesn't work. Reeds are not tubes with single hole running its length.  It's compartmentalized, made up of a series of separate hollow compartments. You can suck on a length of reed with such ferocity your cheeks and eyeballs disappear down your throat but you won’t extract any air. We know this to be a fact because we all tried and almost drowned.

Thankfully the police didn't hang around too long and left. We waited five minutes to make sure the coast was clear before clambered soaking wet from the lake.

We couldn't remember where we parked the combi so Doc and Welsh Jack who lived nearby said they’d walk home and left us to try and locate the van. 

The story of our ‘Hunt for the Headless Body’ would have ended there if the police who were coming to the end their shift hadn't spotted a line of wet footprints on the pavement adjacent to Zoo Lake. 

They followed the soggy trail and picked up Doc and Welsh Jack who were charged with breaking into the park, swimming in the lake and being drunk and disorderly. Although questioned as to who they were with when these misdemeanours were committed, in the true ‘espirit de corp of rock musos’ they remained shtum. Good on ya G Men.

35. Jo’burg and our exposure the culinary delights of Russian sausages

The three hundred mile drive from Beitbridge to Johannesburg was uneventful. It was finding an elusive Mister Billy Crauser once we got there that proved difficult. 

We spent hours driving around the streets of Jo’burg trying to locate his address. Around 1 a.m. we decided to call it a night, pulled into a deserted car park to get some sleep. 

Early next morning we woke cold and hungry. Shops wouldn't be opening for hours. 

A milk delivery wagon drove past, so we started up the combi and followed at a discrete distance.The milkman reached the start of his round, parked up his float and criss-crossed his way down the street leaving bottles of milk on doorsteps. After he disappeared round the corner we waited a for a few minutes to make sure he wasn’t returning then slipped furtively from the combi and ambled nonchalantly past doorsteps stopping momentarily to tie our shoe laces – although there’s no shoe laces on Chelsea Boots – and under the pretext of tying our bogus shoe laces, slipped bottles of milk under our coats. 

If any insomniacs that morning and had happened to look out their windows as we made our way down the street they'd  be excused for believing they were witnessing the world’s first ever shoe lace tying epidemic. Five blokes stopping to tie their shoe laces, continuing for a few steps then stopping to tie them again...and again...and again.

Once we had a couple of dozen bottles secreted on our persons we drove back to the car park and consumed our liquid lactose breakfast with relish. Milk never tasted so good...well the first two pints never tasted so good after that it went downhill.

It was on this very same morning we were introduced to the culinary delight known as the ‘Russian Sausage’. Across from the car park a cafe cum corner shop opened its doors and we ambled over to see what culinary delights were on offer. The guy behind the counter recommended we try a spicy Russian Sausage. I don’t know if having nothing but milk for the past twenty hours had anything to do with it, but I cannot remember eating anything so delicious before or since...and at 10 cents a sausage they were cheap. Delicious and cheap, now that’s what I call a winning combination. The Russian Sausage is extremely versatile. It can be eaten cold or as was our preference on that chilly Jo’burg morning, fried in a deep fat fryer. Not only did we end up eating four each that first cold morning but we returned every morning for the rest of our stay in Jo’burg to chosser away on a breakfast of Russian sausages.

For those interested in sampling the delights of the Russian Sausage – I won’t be ordering any as I’ve since become a vegetarian – I just checked on the internet and there is a South African company selling, ‘South African Russian Sausages’ – how crazy’s that ‘South African Russian Sausages’. It’s like selling ‘French Scottish Salmon’ or ‘English German Lager’. And why were they called Russian Sausages in the first place? Bizarre.

We eventually made contact with Billy Crauser who had been busy hustling away on our behalf and managed to set us up with a two week engagement playing alternative nights at ‘Archies Club’, ‘The Flying Saucer’ and the ‘Fire Station’. 

34. The border crossing at Beitbridge - a small step for mankind - a giant leap for The Chequers.

For the Chequers to get into South Africa we needed proof that we had a job to go to, written proof in the form of a signed contract.

If we turned up at Beitbridge, the South African border post, in a van filled with musical equipment on the pretext that we were five guys going on holiday, they’d say “On your bike”, or in our case, “van”...or the equivalent in Afrikaans, "Op jou fiets".  We needed a signed contract from a hotel or club – but without an agent – we had failed dismally in our attempt to secure Don Hughes – it was going to be difficult if not impossible. We were in a desperate situation and desperate situations call for desperate measures.

The solution when we finally came up with it was as simple as it was clever. I would even go so far as saying it was ‘ingenious’.

Enter stand up comedian, Billy Crauser, who would become our manager.

Billy lived in South Africa. We contacted Billy, told him of our contract dilemma and made our request. Within a week a large manila envelope dropped through the letter box at 146 Victory Avenue... and within a month ‘The Chequers’ had turned pro, left the Rhodesian side of Beit Bridge and were driving across the Limpopo River in our VW Combi van packed with instruments and suitcases to the South African Border Post.  Drawn on the side of the van in pink lipstick was a gigantic pair of boobs inscribed with the words ‘Cape Town or Bust’...we thought our ‘take’ on the phrase was hilarious...not everyone was to share our sense of humour. 

Unfortunately turning ‘pro’ meant a change in the line-up. Hodge who was in his final year at university decided, to our complete horror and utter disbelief, to put his education before rock music and continue  with his studies. This left us having to find a last minute replacement. Frankie Brennan didn’t actually fit in with the rest of the group, for one thing he was older, but he played lead guitar was prepared to give up his day job and throw his lot in with The Chequers. Without a lead guitarist the Chequers weren’t going anywhere so Frankie was welcomed into the fold.

Back to Beit Bridge...  

Jack, Mac, Lea and I together with new band member, Frankie, drove across the Limpopo clutching our passports and a signed contract for a three month residency at the certain South African hotel and pulled into the parking lot outside the South African Border post. 

I better explain how we managed to secure the contract. Billy Crauser had manage to get his hands on a half dozen sheets of headed note paper from a certain South African Hotel which he posted up to us. We then typed out a contract on the letter-headed paper stipulating pay, work times, food and board and other clauses we thought added authenticity to the contract, such as the standard of behaviour the hotel expected from us and so forth.  All in all we were extremely happy with the result. It looked legal, plausible and binding. We all signed it and added the hotel manager’s real name in the unlikely event that a suspicious immigration officer checked up the hotel... better safe than sorry.

So we drew up outside the South African border post, a large white-washed single story building, climbed out our Combi with a pair of boobs and ‘Cape Town or Bust’ inscribed on the side in pink lip-stick... 

                                                               
                                 CAPE TOWN OR BUST

... and sauntered up the steps with our passports and fake contract in hand.

It was at this point my confidence in the fake contract completely evaporated.

A sour faced man sat on the steps of the customs post smoking. He shook his head disdainfully as we passed...I think he had a problem with our slightly longish hair which we had let grow since the prospect of us turning professional had entered the frame - but I hardly noticed of him. My thoughts were focussed on the dodgy contract.  Some eagle-eyed South African Immigration Officer was bound to question its authenticity and that would be that. Game over. The Chequers would be driving back to Salisbury in shame. But I was wrong.  It turned out no one so much as looked at the dodgy contract...it was the least of our worries.

The customs hall was empty. We wandered over to the counter and rang a bell – the type found at hotel receptions in the old days.

Nothing happened so we rang it again. The door opened and the sour-faced guy who had been sitting on the steps smoking came in. Taking a peaked customs officer’s hat from a hook on the back of the door, he pulled it on and crossing sat down behind the counter directly opposite where we were standing. Smiling we held out our passports. He ignored them completely and started reading a magazine.

To coin a 60’s phrase, we stood there like lost farts in a thunder storm. After a a couple of minutes one of us piped up, “If it’s not too much trouble do you think you could serve us...we need to get going” .

Without looking up the custom’s officer mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Yous (yous is a plural of you) bloody animals are not going anywhere”.

“Our passports...do you think you could check them?” asked Lea.

Flipping a page of the magazine the officer mumbled, “There’s no way yous are coming into my country. No way”.

“Come again?”

He studied the magazine intently, “I said there’s no way I’m allowing any of yous into South Africa”. He continued checking an article for a moment before closing the magazine. He looked at us like we were something he’d scrapped off the sole of  his shoe. “You might as well take yourselves back across the Limpopo to Rhodesia because you’re not welcomed here”.

“But we’ve got a job to go to in Jo’burg” blurted out Mac. “We’ve been booked to play...we got a contract”.

“Tough”, was the reply.

So that was that. We climbed back into the Combi van and drove back across the Limpopo.

The Rhodesian border official was nonplussed when we told him we had been denied entry. “What do you mean he won’t let you in? Why the hell not?”

We shrugged, “He didn’t give a reason”.

“That ludicrous...He has absolutely no grounds for stopping you guys entering South Africa.  No grounds at all.” He checked all our documents then, in case he had overlooked something he checked them again, but everything was in order. He shrugged, “I don’t get it”. Shuffling our papers and passports together he slid them back across the counter. “Go and ask him why he’s denying you entry”.

We clambered back into the Combi and for the second time drove the quarter of a mile or so across Beitbridge to the South African border post. 

The sour faced customs official greeted us like we’d just mugged his mum.

“What the hell are yous doing back here?” he snarled at us from his side of the counter. “Are yous deaf or something? I told you there’s no way yous are entering South Africa. No way. Entry has been denied. Do I make myself clear?”

“On what grounds are you denying us entry?” asked Lea.

“On what grounds...?” his sour face puckered up like he’d sucked a lemon. “On what grounds...?”

“Yes, I believe we have a right to know,” Lea continued.

“That’s right”, “Absolutely”, “We have a right to know”, we all started chipping in.

The sour-faced official held up his hand for silence. “Yous wanna know why I’m denying yous entry? Okay I will tell yous why. Yous are denied entry because yous are undesirables”.

“Undesirables? Us? Says who?”

“Sez me!” hissed the twat in a cap. “I call the shots round here. Understand? No one crosses this border without me stamping their passports. And there is no ways on God’s earth I’m gonna stamp the passports of a bunch of long-haired degenerates who are out to corrupt the morals of the South African youth... Now get outta here...bleedy animals!” 

Okay, I know we had a faked contract and were trying to get into South Africa under false pretences so it is hard to hold the moral high ground...but the contract hadn’t come into it, the sour-faced official hadn’t even asked to see the bogus contract. No, we had been denied entry because the sour-faced official had taken exception to our hair which was only slightly longer hair than the customary short back and the sides of the time...possibly the pair of boobs we had drawn on the side of our combi had also played a part.

Once again we climbed back into the combi and drove across Beitbridge to the Rhodesian side and explained what had happened. The Rhodesian customs officer was at a total loss.

“I don’t know what to suggest. Obviously you can make a protest but I know how these things can drag out. It could take weeks before you heard anything and you haven’t got weeks, right?”

“Right”.

“When are you actually supposed to start the engagement in Jo’burg”?

Mac didn’t need to check. “Two days”. 

“Well my advice is you contact the manager at the...where are you supposed to be playing?”

“Simons Hotel”, Mac had it off pat.

“Well contact the manager at the Simons Hotel”, continued the Rhodesian official, “I’m guessing he booked you...”

We nodded.

“... and get him to put pressure on the border agency”.

“Good idea. We’ll definitely do that”, we lied.

“Or if you like I could phone him on your behalf”.

“No!” we almost shouted in unison.

The custom’s officer looked slightly startled by the vehemence of our collective response.

“No, no, no, you’ve been more than helpful”, added Lea hurriedly, “we’ll – uh – dig out the – uh – telephone number and give him a call tonight...from the – uh – hotel...when we – uh – book in...he doesn’t usually get in till much later”.

It was getting dark when we finally left the border post. We booked into a nearby motel for the night and phoned the folks to tell them what had happened. We said we’d start back to Salisbury in the morning. We went to sleep that night really down. The Chequers professional career was over before it had begun... we had had fallen on the starting-line; we hadn’t even managed to get to the first hurdle. However, unbeknown to us whilst we slept actions were being taken on our behalf.

Early next morning we were woken by a banging on the door. There was a phone call for a Mister Lea Heather. It was dad. He had spoken to some people and that as soon as the South African border post was open we should try and make the crossing again. He assured us there wouldn’t be a problem. After the previous days experience we found that hard to believe.

When we arrived at the South African border post we were greeted on the steps by the sour-faced official...except he was no longer sour-faced. Overnight the twat in a cap had been transformed into a friendly, smiling mister nice guy who welcomed us if not with open arms, with a shake of the hand. If that wasn’t hard enough to stomach the smiling benign nice guy looked us straight in the eye and without a hint of embarrassment asked who it was that had called us “animals” and “degenerates”. When we pointed out it was either him or his identical twin brother. With the solemnity of a vicar at a funeral, he told us that he would never, he emphasised the word ‘never’, have used such words. “Yous must’ve heard me wrong, because I would never call yous animals or degenerates, I swear, as God is my witness.” Without waiting for the Lord on high to smite him down, he led us into the custom’s hall to stamp our passports. This completed we were ushered to the door and sent on our way with, “Safe journey, guys, and good luck... I’ll be rooting for yous”. How the mighty have fallen.

Apparently dad knew the South African High Commissioner in Salisbury. He got on the blower and explained what had happened.  I don’t know what the high commissioner said but whatever it was it worked.