Fishing into the wind
Tribute to Henry Samuel (Pixie) John (October 5 1935 to September 19 1999)
Ifirst met Pixie John when I was in standard 5 (grade 7) at Queen Alexandra Secondary School in 1956. He was fishing for a living, having built himself a boat out of marine ply.
He was a real character, loving to shock all and sundry.
As far as I know, he was the first man [locally] to grow his hair and wear it in a ponytail, and he was well known to locals in and visitors to Port Alfred at the time. He once described himself to The Sunday Times as a ‘beach bum’. Despite the front he always put on, I came to know him as a sensitive and caring friend.
Always willing to experiment, Pixie was the first person, as far as I know, to use an outboard motor [locally] thus having the fastest boat capable of reaching speeds of up to 12 knots when not crowded, using a Johnson 10hp motor. Later, Rex Harris, who ran the engineering works, built some steel boats with six cylinder and V8 engines.
I always thought Pixie was extremely brave, especially as he could not swim. In those days, the boats were without radios and the only means of signalling distress was through the use of flags tied to the mast or oar of the boat.
Flying a distress flag meant waiting out at sea for Manning Samuel’s boat, The Risk, to tow us back to harbour. In those days, to get your license you had to prove that you had at least three means of propulsion on your boat. In our case we had an engine, oars and a short mast and sail. Of course, often when in distress, we were mainly out of sight so we always went fishing into the wind to enable us to sail back in the case of engine failure.
On one occasion, while out in Ronnie Samuel’s boat, St Peter, the old inboard engine put a piston through the block.
We were quite far out and a strong offshore wind came up and despite putting out our anchor, were on our way to Australia. Pixie dropped the sump and while we tried to balance the oil in it he removed the broken piston and blocked up the hole with an oar, put the engine back together, and we made it home on three pistons quite a feat!
As I grew older, I could see that Pixie, after quite a few close shaves, no longer looked forward to going out to sea.
I suggested he move into my father’s storeroom [later Steve Venter’s Wharf Street Bottle Store], where he could open an outboard motor and lawnmower repair store. Being a general dealer at the time, my father stocked everything, and the storeroom was half-filled with coffins. We moved all the coffins to the back of the shop, and I can still see Pixie, having no work bench at the time, sitting on the floor repairing his first outboard motor.
Around this time, we started up a band with Pixie as manager. We called ourselves, rather aptly, the Coffin Kings, as we used the back of the store as practice facilities. Pixie was very proud of the band, and we would all have probably made a good living out of it, but the rest of us pushed off as soon as it became hard work.
When the building from which he operated was sold, Pixie moved into the old butchery in Wharf Street before acquiring his own building in Masonic Street [later PA Glass], which he sold to Dean Samuel. While in Masonic Street, Pixie had built up a stock of just about everything a fisherman could possibly need and also provided a 24-hour bait service, something for which he will be well remembered by the avid fishermen of the time.
It would be impossible for me to tell you of all the hunting, fishing, motorbiking and other adventures Pixie and I enjoyed over the years. Incidentally, not one of my five bikes ever saw the inside of a garage workshop, as Pixie always insisted on servicing them himself.
Ending on a lighter note, I must tell you about the time I saw Pixie walking on water. We had entered a fishing competition and Pixie was determined to compete for the
non-edible prize. We were fishing at night off the West pier using a whole cob for bait, with a 10-foot trace and Dacron line on Pen Senators — all we could do was to drop the whole lot over the side and feed it out to sea on an outgoing tide.
Eventually I had hooked a large ragged tooth shark and battled it for many hours. Finally Pixie, armed with a Coleman lamp in one hand and a large gaff in the other, followed my line into the breakers.
However, a lot of seaweed had collected on my line, forming a long loop, so the shark was actually between him and the shore. Suddenly the shark came to life with a tremendous amount of thrashing, heading straight for Pixie with its mouth wide open.
Pixie took off and reached
the shore before the shark got anywhere near him — the only time I saw him walk on water!
One of the proudest events in his life was when he caught an unknown species of fish which he sent to Professor Smith at the JLB Smith Institute [in Grahamstown] for identification and which was subsequently named after him. A photo of this fish was proudly displayed in Pixie’s living room.
This is but a short insight into the life of a true character which Port Alfred has lost. Rest in peace, my friend.
Note: Pixie was Henry Samuel John. His father was Francis (Frank) John; his mother was Hermina John, born Samuel. She was the sister of Manning Samuel, father of Ronnie Samuel, so Ronnie and Pixie were first cousins.