STILL A LEKKER PLACE
Paul Ash takes himself off to ‘Durbs’ for a bike-ride down memory lane
ITOOK a ride to Durban on the night train. Thirteen hours, which would become 15 after a two-hour dawdle in freezing Newcastle — I don’t mind because the platform is quite pretty in the glow of the sodium lamps and I can watch all the railway’s night moves from the warmth of my bunk.
At dawn we are easing down the grade to Lions River and the stated arrival time has evaporated like smoke. No rush — we are going to Durban after all. We might have hummed a few bars of Ag Pleez Deddy. Especially the bit about going to Durbs in the Shev-roe-lay.
There’s lots of sea and sand and fun, and fish in the acquareeeum ... And there’s the Blue Waters Hotel, which should be in some hall of fame somewhere for groovy hotels but isn’t, which is good because its present lack of fame means we can still squeak into a suite, even though town is full this weekend on account of the Transplant Games.
Our two-room suite is 11 floors up on the north side. From the balcony, I count 22 ships in the roadstead, which must be some record. I hope they have cargo they are waiting to unload in what is still our greatest port.
But the thing that really takes my breath away — even more than the graceful arched back of the Moses Mabhida Stadium — is the green swathe that used to be Natal Command. Now, I wasn’t long at Natal Command — the terrifying former Regimental Sergeant Major would have said that I, like so many others, was merely a drol passing through — but it was long enough to be spotted by the lifers who strutted the corridors. From the balcony, I can see the intersection of Stanger Street and what used to be Argyle Road, where I rashly pranged an army staff car into a civvie vehicle while a blister of military policemen laughed like hyenas.
All that’s left — apart from the chapel — is the beachfront office from which the RSM gazed out one glorious day and saw a troepie sitting on the beach, eating his lunch, beret by his side. According to legend, the RSM flew over the sands like Smaug the Dragon and gave the man an extra 30 days in the army for his insolence. Ah, good times.
All this puts me in a reflective mood. My fellow traveller — a decent, hardworking journalist who grew up here — and I forego the pleasures of the Golden Mile’s beach bars, rent cranky mountain bikes instead and clank off into town, looking for any physical reminders of a distant, well-spent youth.
“There,” he says, “that’s where Monk’s Inn was.”
“The Killarney Hotel,” I say. “Who could ever forget a sign that said ‘Steak, egg and strips’?”
We pass the doorways to lost bars. That was the doorway to The Med, where I took a girl to dance one night and was too shy to put my arm around her. And that was Yazoo — or was it, because it was 1986 and time plays tricks?
And that was Funky’s, where I learnt about JJ Cale and Eric Clapton from a bar band called Just Another Band. We drank Carling and ate fish and chips and I sometimes held the barmaid’s hand across the counter but nothing ever happened because she was Italian and her brother didn’t dig me hanging around, although I did get a vest — which my mother hated on sight — with “I Got Funked At Funky’s” printed on the front. Funky’s is still a bar but now it’s the Easy All Night Bar and Restaurant and it looks like the kind of place where sailors indulge in knife-play.
The nostalgia trails us to the harbour where we pay our R5 and clamber over the tugboats at the maritime museum. It’s the best R5 I’ve ever spent, I think, as we explore the engine room and stand on the bridge of the JR More. I wonder about all those men who stood up here and looked out at this bay, the green bluff, the quays and the cranes and the faintly decrepit buildings on the Embankment, and if they ever stop by to think about the old days.
We pedal back to the beach, hot now and panting for that cold beer. Some things never change. The buildings of the Golden Mile shimmer in the sea haze. A ship is coming in, pounding through the whitecaps. The beach curves away in a golden arc and a little boy runs along the sand. It’s like seeing yourself at five years old, I think. Good times.