Key moments in a life well lived
“God,” I said to myself philosophically, “works in mysterious ways.”
It was one evening over the Easter weekend and I was alone reminiscing while sipping a cold libation on the balcony of my first-floor flat here at Berea Gardens overlooking the suburb of Stirling to the mist-shrouded ocean beyond.
Content and at peace, it occurred to me that had it not been for two seminal events I would not be sitting here on this lovely autumn evening.
The Lord had placed me in East London in the month of March 60 years ago next year. Of course I didn’t know it at the time, but He had, as He has for everyone of us, a plan for me.
In a tin trunk somewhere in the flat is a large brown envelope containing important documents such as birth certificates, passports etc, and a letter of appointment to the Cape Times.
At that time I was on my way there to take up a position as a compositor with that newspaper after several stints at other newspapers in this country and the then Rhodesia.
I had off-loaded my sole possessions (in an old suitcase) in so-so accommodation at the old Clontarf Hotel in Inverleith Terrace on the Quigney after a successful spur of the moment decision to try and secure a temporary position at the Daily Dispatch in order to make petrol money for my old Morris Minor for the onward journey to the Cape.
In the adjacent, equally tatty, room was a young man called Alan Joseph who had also recently joined the Dispatch as a reporter.
One Friday evening (it was my night off as I recall), Alan came into my room and asked me to accompany him to the old Windsor Hotel where he had been assigned to cover an art exhibition. It was ironic really, as at the time Alan was the reigning Free State heavyweight boxing champion and here he was being asked to report on an art exhibition of all things!
Anyway, I went. There, unbeknown to me at the time, was my future wife Naomi Guy. She was with a friend, who happened to be the bureau chief of the Port Elizabeth
(now Gqeberha) Weekend Post with whom Alan was acquainted.
I was introduced to Naomi, a vivacious little thing whom I learned was a travel clerk on loan to the local Union-Castle Line from Durban. Her smile was like the morning sun rising from the ocean. It lit up her face and the whole room for that matter.
And those eyes... They sparkled like diamonds framed by a halo of auburn hair. I was absolutely captivated.
Within a few months we were married; I never saw Cape Town or the Cape Times and Naomi has looked after me through thick and thin, with the British tenacity from where she hails, ever since. God willing we will soon be celebrating our diamond wedding anniversary.
We are into our 80s now and Naomi’s beautiful smile and sparkling eyes, perhaps dulled somewhat now by the passage of time, still melt my heart - my darling wife who trusted her life to me all those years ago and gave me three wonderful and accomplished sons who learned early in life not to mess with their mother whose green, half Irish eyes would flash with a very different kind of fire if provoked.
Her friend, by the way, was
Elizabeth McPherson an accomplished journalist, now retired and living in Australia. She later married Tony Rider, once editor of the Daily Rep in Queenstown and later a strong contender for the position of Daily Dispatch Editor which went to the incomparable Donald Woods.
Tony was killed some years later when covering the Ian Smith-Robert Mugabe upheaval in Zimbabwe for the Rand Daily Mail.
What happened to Alan Joseph, tasked by the Lord to be the catalyst to transform my life forever, I do not know.
And the second trial set by our heavenly father, I firmly believe, to keep me in East London happened a little later on. I was taking an afternoon jog in Southernwood where we lived when a red Ford Zephyr slid up alongside me.
It was Len Beacom, newly appointed Daily Dispatch technical director who had scoured the neighbourhood for me after being told by Naomi what I was doing.
“Charles, I want you to take the shift tonight,” he commanded.
“But I am just an ordinary compositor,” I whined to no avail. The rest is history.
The passing years have been kind and I have met and worked with some wonderful, talented people over the years, many of whom are no longer with us. Perhaps I will be privileged to tell you about some of them sometime in the future.
Indeed, the Lord works in mysterious ways!
❝ I was taking an afternoon jog in Southernwood where we lived when a red Ford Zephyr slid up alongside me. It was Len Beacom, newly appointed Daily Dispatch technical director who had scoured the neighbourhood looking for me