Builders’ skills rare

BEN Smit described how an efficient team of builders displayed their rare skills and agility while shaping a double-storey house in Melkbosstrand (Cape Times, September 19).

Having seen this extraordinary display of what could have been a circus act, his question is: why in the world is there a shortage of jobs in South Africa?

His letter brought back joyful memories of my youth in Oudtshoorn, witnessing these skillful builders performing while we as children watched in awe. They passed bricks like skillful rugby players and cast “dagha” (cement mix) into the air with such precision to a point where, higher up on a scaffold, the plasterer with his plaster board caught it without spilling a drop.

This truly was circus acts for the children of our poor neighbourhood in Bridgeton.

Sadly, none of my childhood friends went into a career in the building industry. Today they are mostly teachers and I work as a psychiatrist in Oudtshoorn. However, I am always renovating and doing extensions, DIY style, to the three houses on my farm, while a prominent part of my collection of books include books about DIY home renovations and extensions.

The dynamics behind my “obsession” with reading these books is so much clearer: those skilled performers bringing joy though their acts?

I believe Smit will know what pleasure it was to see their skills. Clifford van Wyk Oudtshoorn