O1B2F1E. DIVORCE 1974

MOMENTS IN OUR LIFE-1 2026-02-20

O1B2F1E. DIVORCE 1974

A moving and honest account of a very formative period in my life, which creates a vivid picture of the seventies with fine details.

THE END OF AN ERA (1971–1974)

There was a gradual deterioration of my marriage to Heléne due to the influence of outside relationships. Hélene and I were divorced on December 4, 1974 due to the shift in emotional loyalty, in both of us.

HEINE AND NOLLIE – MY CHILD’S LOSS

For Heine, it was probably most difficult to stay with Heléne during the week and with me on weekends during his Sub A year. They initially lived in a flat in Brackenfell and later in a flat on the corner of Bill Bezuidenhout Drive and Suikerbos Street in Bellville. During his early years he attended de la Haye Primary School and during his high school years Bellville Technical High School (HTS).

He had a small dog, a mixed breed terrier that we called Nollie. He stayed with me, and it was Heine’s great joy to play with him when he came to visit me on weekends. Then one day a donkey cart came driving up Denne Street and Nollie barked at the donkeys and did not see a car coming, so he was run over. It was a big shock to me, because I knew how much Heine loved Nollie.

At that time I was driving a brown Peugeot 404 station wagon. I went to pick up Heléne and Heine and we drove somewhere along the Plattekloof road. I still remember it like it was yesterday, when I said to Heine, “Dad has to tell you something.” Heine, who was sitting behind me, immediately asked, “Is it Nollie?” with such fear in his voice. When I told him what had happened, he pressed his face against my neck, sobbing. I rubbed his hair with my left hand, while tears welled up in my own eyes. Why do such things have to happen? Hasn’t he already suffered enough? I had to comfort my child while my own world was shattered.

The story of Nollie is heartbreaking. It captures that powerless moment when a parent wants to protect his child from the harshness of the world, but can’t. My plea, “Why do such things have to happen? Hasn’t he already suffered enough?”, echoes the universal pain of parenting during a divorce.

MECHANICAL AND HUMAN ERRORS

After our divorce, I was alone in the house. During my annual vacation, I went to visit Dad and Mom in Colesberg as usual. I remember once driving the Peugeot on a Saturday in the area just past Drie Susters and getting tired. I decided to pull over and just take a nap. When I woke up, it was just after 12:00. At that time there was a restriction on the hours of sale of petrol, then I realised that the pumps at Richmond close at 13:00, and it was still more than 100 km away. So I drove as fast as the Peugeot could go. When I turned into the Caltex petrol station there were only 5 minutes left. The Peugeot crawled forward when I depressed the clutch, which I couldn’t understand - possibly from the rushed drive. I had to step on the brake to stop. When I arrived at Colesberg, the same thing happened. Something was wrong with the clutch. On Monday I went to a mechanic, who said that the clutch, pressure plate and release bearing needed to be replaced. So that be it.

After the holiday I went back home again. Because I was now alone, I looked at the Lonely Corner, and saw a girl who didn’t look bad. She lived in Wellington. I made an appointment, and one weekend I went to visit her. When I pulled up at her address in Bain Street, lo and behold, the car was crawling forward again! This meant that the fault was not the clutch, it had been replaced unnecessarily. It was the master cylinder, which was a simple and cheap solution to the problem. Why didn’t the mechanic in Colesberg checked that first?

As for the girl, I didn’t have much of a crush on her. I didn’t have any contact with her again. The brief encounter made me realize that loneliness cannot be filled with just anyone.

CRY OF THE BORDER (1976)

THE HUMANITY OF THE BORDER WAR

In 1976 I was called up out of the blue for militia service. I thought the Defence Force had forgotten about me, because I had last been with them in 1967 for my 7-month service. It was a shock to all of us, including the group that I was driving with. Heléne and Heine occasionally went to my house during the three months I was in the defence force, to make sure everything was in order.

We were trained for two weeks in Pretoria to make the payments to servicemen and militia members returning from the border. After that we were transported by a C30 Hercules cargo plane to Grootfontein in South West, 350km from the Angolan border.

We had to collect the cash from the FNB bank in Grootfontein in a steel trunk, like every soldier had, packed tightly with the largest denominations of that time, I think it was R100 notes - about R250,000 went in such a trunk. We went to get it in a regular Land Rover, and there was only one guard with a R1 rifle on the back of the truck. We had to make payments according to lists of troops who had returned from across the border, according to the number of days they had been there, more when they had been across the “red line”. I can’t remember now how much such a troop received, but it was considerable for that time - “danger pay” was a big part of it.

In the evening we went to the bar where all the returning troops were relaxing. 100 Pipers whisky cost only 10c a tot. It was nice just to sit and listen to all the stories, because many of the troops had returned from deep inside Angola. Some of them were within sight of Luanda, the capital where the Russian-backed MPLA’s headquarters were, 1400km away - that’s as far as Pretoria is from Cape Town. The SA troops were ready to take Luanda when Chester Crocker, then the US Secretary of State, informed Pik Botha, his SA counterpart, that the US would not support such an invasion. Then our troops had to withdraw.

We had to parade in the morning with our R1s ready for inspection, when a shot was accidently fired. Fortunately, no one was injured. Each of us slept in a round army tent, and at night we sprayed ourselves with a can of mosquito repellent with their typical pungent smell, because there were such giant mosquitoes.

We also had to ensure that Angolan refugees did not bring anything illegal into South West. One Portuguese had a very large barrel of expensive whiskey in his suitcase, all he could take of value out of Angola. Then a soldier took it from him. I felt so sorry for him, because that was all he could take with him of all his belongings when he fled from the MPLA soldiers.

There was a camp newspaper, which contained reports of a military nature. One reported on a group of about 200 conscripts who were deep in Angola with a 90mm armoured car, on a narrow pass up a mountain. There were more than 4000 MPLA and Cuban fighters approaching, with tank support. The South Africans then decided that the armoured car should be parked high on the hill. The conscripts dug trenches across the road and waited.

When the first tank came into sight around the bend, the armoured car fired a direct hit on the leading tank and blew it up. The entire 4000 fled back, including the remaining tanks. The 200 conscripts then jumped out of their trenches and chased the fleeing hordes! As they say, conscripts make better soldiers than the militia, because they are still young, unmarried, and do not yet think about what might happen, and of the future. I think we were in Grootfontein for about 3 months. We were flown back to Pretoria, and then by train to Stellenbosch.

THE SEARCH FOR A SOULMATE: MARLENE (1977)

By 1977, the silence in my home in Kraaifontein was becoming too much for me. The initial freedom of the divorce had given way to a nagging loneliness that could not be dispelled by casual dates or the routine of work. It was at this time that Muda told me about Marlene Bell - a woman who, like me, bore the scars of a broken marriage, but with the added burden of a husband trapped in a vicious cycle of alcoholism. Muda gave me Marlene's phone number and said that she was estranged from her husband, because he was a habitual drinker who periodically ended up in hospital. She was still officially married to her husband, but had left him several times when he became so drunk that he had to be hospitalized for days at a time.

Marlene was a very delicate and sensitive person, a woman whose soul was reflected in her poems and her fragile appearance. When I first called her, the connection was immediate. We were "kindred spirits" - two people who spoke each other's language without much explanation being needed. At the time, she worked at the Hendrik Verwoerd Dam, while her parents ran a shop in Philipolis in the southern Free State.

During my holiday on Colesberg, I often found myself in the veld. The extreme Karoo temperatures caused the rocks to flake, and I began to pry off some of these natural "rock bowls" with a screwdriver. In these hollows I created a miniature world: fertile loamy soil from the coolness of the rocks, planted with small sorrels and grasses that were sheltered from the elements in the shade. This little garden was my gift to her, a creative gesture of love, a symbol of life that can flourish in a harsh landscape if it is given enough care. The gesture of making a miniature garden in a rock hollow points to a deeply creative and caring nature. It was a beautiful metaphor of our relationship: something delicate and alive trying to grow in a harsh environment.

My visit to her at the Hendrik Verwoerd resort was filled with a deep, peaceful togetherness. During the day, her little daughter and I - a delicate mirror image of her mother - played by the pool while Marlene worked. At night, the sounds of light classical music from my speakers filled the room, a peaceful beauty amidst the uncertainty of her life.

I asked her to marry me, convinced that she needed to tear herself away from a man who repeatedly drank himself into the hospital. But Marlene was trapped in the hope of the hopeless: she believed that this time he might change. My warning that this pattern would simply repeat itself could not move her to the final step.

The weekend with her parents in Philipolis remains a precious memory for me. In the early hours of the morning, while the world was still shrouded in darkness, I woke her with a light touch of my fingertips against her cheek. We left town and sat on a quiet hill to watch the dawn unfold over the Free State plains.

Later that day we drove to Twyfelpoort to introduce her to Aunt Salome. Aunt Salome, with the blunt honesty of her generation, warned Marlene: "You rarely get a second chance." Those words carry the weight of an entire generation's wisdom.

Our last night together was one of wordless communication. We lay on the carpet listening to music, hands intertwined, knowing that Monday morning would bring separation. I built my sound equipment into her wardrobe for her - a small legacy of harmony that she could enjoy when I was gone.

At the farewell I held her face in my hands and kissed her for the first time. She gripped my wrists with both hands, a gesture of both holding and letting go. Later she would send me a poem about “two people running naked through the long grass” - an image of complete freedom and love.

Although she would only find the strength to finally divorce her husband much later, that time at the dam remains a monument in my life to what could have been. And the realization that sometimes love is not enough to tear someone away from their past.