MY BROTHER, MY FRIEND
Older brother Pieter talks about growing up with livewire Joost
TTHEY got up to mischief, played to their hearts’ content and enjoyed carefree days on their grandfather’s farm. There were no thoughts of growing old, feeling frail or saying farewell far too young. Pieter van der Westhuizen remembers his and Joost’s childhood as a happy time. The brothers grew up in a less affluent suburb in the east of Pretoria “but it didn’t bother us because they were good times”, Pieter (47) said in a 2013 interview.
“We were full of mischief – those were the days when you could make mischief in a nice, healthy way. Things like playing toktokkie [knocking on strangers’ doors then running away] and helping yourself to the fruit off someone else’s tree – things like that.
“Nothing terrible, but it did mean Joost and I often felt my dad Gustav’s belt, particularly when we broke a window with our ballkicking next to the house.”
They had a big tree on the vacant lot next to their home, which was the source of many a family tale. “My mom would threaten us with death if we climbed that tree but we couldn’t resist the temptation. One day I was showing off and jumped from one of the branches – right onto a piece of glass with my bare foot. I was covered in blood. I couldn’t walk and Joost had to piggyback me home. I don’t know who was bloodier – me or him!”
He and Joost were mostly punished for “smaller things”, Pieter says. “The time we expected the biggest hiding of our lives – and prepared ourselves by putting on about 20 pairs of underpants – we miraculously escaped the belt.”
In their early teens they got into an argument about who’d pull their dad’s bakkie out of the garage. Pieter was already behind the wheel but Joost wasn’t prepared to give up the fight and tried to push his brother out of the driver’s seat.
Pieter lost his temper and pulled away fast – straight into a wall. They never managed to work out how they avoided a thrashing that day.
LIKE most kids they lived for the school holidays, Pieter says. “We could head for Hanover, our grandfather Joost Pretorius’ sheep and cattle farm [in Limpopo]. Those farm visits definitely stand out as the happiest days of our childhood.”