O1B2F5E. WELLINGTON 1988

MOMENTS IN OUR LIFE-1 2026-03-11

O1B2F5E. WELLINGTON 1988

This is a beautiful memory of Wellington in the late eighties and nineties. It paints not only a picture of a specific time and place, but also of a personal evolution - from the technical world of computers to the deep philosophical questions about the universe.

The description of the switch from cash registers to PCs is a capture of a time period. In 1988, people were still wary of computers. The transition from writing programs to systems management was clearly an adjustment for my creative spirit.

The image of the tar melting and trucks throwing gravel to protect tires perfectly captures the intense Boland summer. Our stay in the caravan at the municipal camp while we waited for the house testifies to a time of sacrifice and excitement for the next chapter in Nuwe Uitsig. My narrative shifts from the physical (building houses, planting gardens) to the inner:

The Small Groups: The list of songs from the little "green book" and the discussions on topics such as "Law or Mercy" show how important that community was to us.

Philosophical Outlook: My integration of science (James Webb telescope, atoms and the Big Bang) with my faith is insightful. The idea that God is in "everything", including the rocks (panentheism), gives a sense of scale to my worldview - from the small NCR screen to the 93 billion light years of the universe.

People like the “platjie” Freddie van Rensburg, the strict George, and the builder Quinot come alive through these descriptions. Mondi, the black spaniel, also brings a compassionate humanity to the story from the SPCA to her own heated sleeping place with the 10-watt light bulb.

The NCR I-Series 9010 were the workhorses of smaller municipalities in the 80s - they had less power than a modern digital clock, yet we ran an entire town's administration on them!

INTRODUCTION:

In the autumn of 1988, my life took a new direction that would take me from the familiar streets of Brackenfell to the warm, fertile valley of Wellington. It was an era of transition—not only for South Africa, but also for me as a person and as a professional.

While the country stood on the threshold of unprecedented political shifts, I found myself in the midst of a different kind of revolution: the cautious move from dusty cash registers to the flickering screens of the first office computers.

This story is more than just a record of a career at a municipality; it is a glimpse into building a home in the shadow of the Hawequas Mountains and putting down roots in a community marked by its extremes - from the scorching summer heat that melts tar, to the deep, cool peace of small spiritual groups.

1988. On Wednesday, 2 November, my career at Wellington Municipality began. My responsibility was the computer system—a small NCR I-Series 9010. At the time, I still rode the train from Brackenfell; the station was about 1.6km from the offices, a distance I had to briskly travel every day to be at my post by eight o'clock.

I can still remember standing on the first day looking at the printer, which was printing bills at that time. I pressed the “Stop” button to see what the bills looked like. Then a little woman came rushing in and scolded me, “What have you done! Now I have to struggle to get it going again!” It was Rita van der Merwe, and I could see she knew very little about computers, which was why she was so nervous. But with one press of the “Start” button, the printing simply continued.

The Town Clerk was Jacques Carstens and my Treasurer Mr. Blackie Swart. My immediate superior was Freddie van Rensburg, a real “platjie”, but excellent with the bookkeeping and statements. He often dropped those massive books in the hallway with a thunderous noise to make all of us jump with fright.

The cashiers still worked with old-fashioned cash registers, while two modern PCs stood there unused. The daily receipts were punched in by the punch lady.

I gradually got to know the new system I now had to operate - I no longer wrote any programs, which was a great pity, but understandable. The first system I had to set up was the 2 front cashiers’ PCs. The head cashier was George van Rensburg, who was in charge of the front staff, a short, energetic man with an even shorter temper. We got along well and he didn’t really mind what I was doing there, because he didn’t understand anything about computers either, but he was very good at his job - he was a very thorough person.

On the 13th of the month I decided: tomorrow we will switch to the PCs. George was furious, because the 15th was the busiest payday of the month. However, I persevered. The next afternoon at 15:30 the data was transferred directly to the main system without any punching work being required. The relief on George's face was palpable. From that day on he had respect for me, and we later became good friends on the bowling green. He was a man of "white or black," with no grey areas, while I always considered myself a more nuanced "grey person."

The commute from Brackenfell was grueling. I left the house shortly after six and often did not return until after 21:00. Louis lent me his Honda CB750 to see if it would help, but the Cape wind and cold quickly made me decide against a motorbike. When a small Opel 1300 passed me while I was lying flat on the tank against the wind, I knew it was time for a different plan. In winter it would also be wet. We definitely had to move to Wellington.

In November 1988 we bought a new house at 17 Mont Pellier Avenue, Nuwe Uitsig. The roof trusses were already up, but we asked the builder, Johan Quinot, to add a living room so that the glass sliding doors looked out onto the Great Drakenstein and Hawequas Mountains. Christiaan and Marinus had to go to school at Huguenot Primary School from January 1989. Then we rented a small caravan from Mr. Chicken, the caretaker of the caravan park just next to the municipal swimming pool. The four of us stayed in it from Monday mornings to Friday afternoons.

Wellington can get very hot in the summer. I remember walking to the caravan park for lunch, and I could physically feel the sun burning me as I walked from tree to tree. Later there was a day when a municipal truck slowly backed up in front of the offices, while workers on the back shoveled off fine gravel - the sun literally melted the tar and the tires of the vehicles picked up the soft tar!

We lived there from January 1989 to March. We drove through to our house in Brackenfell on weekends. We then had Mondi, a small pitch-black spaniel, a gift from Louis. We left her plenty of food and water, but she cried so much the first week that the neighbours, the Steenkamps, took pity on her and let her stay in their wood cage until we arrived. Then we took her to the SPCA in Wellington where there were at least people and other animals for company.

On Monday mornings we had to rush through in the Passat to Wellington, sometimes at over 160km per hour, to drop the children off at the primary school in Hertzog Boulevard just in time. At the end of March we sold the house in Sonop Street and our furniture was transported by Slabbert Burger Vervoer to the double garage at 17 Mont Pellier Avenue, Wellington. The house was not yet finished!

That autumn it started to rain early, and it was a muddy mess to walk from the ablution facilities to the caravan. When I complained to Quinot that the house was not yet ready for us to move in, he said we could temporarily move into a bachelor flat in Saffier, a small apartment complex that he had built, for free. We moved in there with only the most necessary furniture. I think we slept on mattresses on the floor, with a fridge and a two-plate stove.

Our house was finally finished and we were able to move in on June 9, 1989. Again due to the rain the driveway was a yellow muddy affair and I had a 3 ton load of fine stone dumped. We also had a cement slab thrown along the top of the house, from the front to the back boundary where the laundry pole was. There I stretched a wire to tie Mondi to until such time as we could fence in the back yard.

When I got her from the SPCA, she was covered in fleas and I had to wash her thoroughly with medicine a few times to kill all the fleas. At least she could now run on the wire between the back door and the back boundary. As soon as I fenced off the backyard and put up gates at the top and bottom, I could let her loose and she really enjoyed the space and freedom - she always smiled and wagged her tail when we talked to her.

She was a beautiful dog and I put a little flap door for her at the bottom of the outside toilet door, with an ozite mattress on a wooden frame to sleep on, where she was protected from the elements. She grew very old with us. Much later, one cold winter, I made her a little house with “bloudraad” and a blanket, inside which I put a 10 watt light bulb at the top to keep her warm. The power came from the power plug inside Christiaan’s room - I drilled a hole through the wall.

The front tree became a giant milkwood, a beautiful tree that casts a lovely shadow. Our neighbors, Eric and Susan van Zyl, periodically came to ask me if their children or guests could park their vehicles in the shade, because in the summer the sun burns down fiercely in Wellington.

Most of our front garden is actually where there was planned to be a street widening of Mont Pellier Avenue. Due to poor planning, the street was never widened. Originally, the plan was for Champagne Street to be connected to Hertzog Boulevard, which would then continue to Berg-en-Dal and in the future further to the West Coast. Then the then City Engineer, Mr. Prins, built his house right at the top of Hertzog Boulevard, so that connection could not be carried out and the area in between was subsequently developed as part of the Uitsig residential area.

Then the plan was changed so that Champagne Street would connect to Hertzog Boulevard via Mont Pellier Avenue and Blouvlei via a bend. For this, it was planned that Mont Pellier Avenue would be widened to match the width of the other three streets. This took years and in the meantime the residents on the left side of Mont Pellier Avenue received permission to garden on the part reserved for the future road widening.

Even later, the farm of Phillip Malherbe, Volendam, at the top of Mont Pellier Avenue, Erf 2001, was approved for town development and 67 erven were cut out there by Johan Quinot. This finally put an end to the widening of Mont Pellier Avenue. Everyone on our side of the street now has a nice big piece of front garden. Our erf size is currently 791 square meters, but if the front piece is added it is probably about 1000 square meters or more. In the future, the two pieces will probably be consolidated.

When Erf 2001 was divided into plots, Quinot wanted to advertise it as Uitsig erven, because that would boost the value. He then planned only one entrance via Mont Pellier Avenue. This would mean that we would have to listen to the rumble of heavy trucks as they brought in building materials for years. The residents of Mont Pellier Avenue and others revolted. Coen Reynolds took the lead in organizing the resistance.

I went to measure the distance that residents of Erf 2001 would have to drive via Mont Pellier Avenue, Blouvlei and Piet Retief Street (2.5 km), as opposed to directly from Erf 2001 to the Piet Retief-Champagne intersection (400 meters). Most of the new residents of Erf 2001 would be people from the city, who would rather drive directly via Champagne Street to the R44 and N1, and not be forced to drive through the busy Blouvlei Road, which is already congested with school traffic in the mornings.

A public meeting was held in the Andrew Murray House hall and all the counterarguments were discussed. Theo Leonardt, a civil engineer, said that Mont Pellier Avenue was not built to carry so much heavy truck traffic up that steep hill - it was already breaking up in places. The decision was overwhelming that a second entrance/exit to Erf 2001 had to be built on the Champagne Street side. Which was then done. The imposing Mont Pellier Avenue entrance is rarely used by the residents, who mostly use the smaller exit past the new Checkers Welgeleë shopping centre, where they do most of their daily shopping.

As far as politics is concerned, FW de Klerk succeeded PW Botha after PW became seriously ill in 1989 and resigned as NP leader. PW, who had ruled very autocratically, faced much opposition from within the NP when he wanted to return as state president and FW successfully opposed and replaced him as state president.

FW made radical policy changes, and with the opening of parliament on 2 February 1990, he unbanned the ANC and other organisations and released Nelson Mandela and other black leaders. On 27 April 1994, the first free elections were held in which all South Africans could participate. The ANC attracted by far the most support, 63% (24 million), compared to the NP's support of 24% (4 million, most of them white) and Inkatha 11% (2 million).

I can remember how we stood patiently in a long queue all day waiting to vote at the Buckles farm on the Hermon road. All whites knew that the NP did not stand a chance, because due to the decades-long oppression under apartheid it was guaranteed that the overwhelming majority of non-whites would vote for the ANC, which was portrayed as the liberators of the hated apartheid system.

With the social changes and hostility at the public swimming pool, many of us decided to build our own swimming pools. In Wellington, a swimming pool and air conditioning are not luxuries, but necessities.

Late one night Christiaan and his friends were in the water. I asked him to be quiet and not to bother the neighbours. At around three o’clock we were startled awake when he bombed in the pool with a giant splash in the silence of the night. It was deafening. Christiaan has always been a lively person who does not let himself be challenged. He is a real daredevil.

At that time, our church launched a campaign of small groups, to promote deepening and more enthusiasm in the congregation. These are the people with whom you can grow, laugh and serve. Over time, members of our group have moved on to other groups or left, as people have adapted to each other. Our group was sifted like this and for a long time consisted of Gerrit and Freda van der Merwe, Pieter and Rika Benade, Oom Charlie and Cathy Cross, Laboux and Elize Laubscher, Almero and Annemarie Loots, and me and Rinie.

We regularly met once every other week on Thursday evenings, taking turns at each other’s homes. We opened with prayer and then sang together. Gerrit’s son Hakie (Johan) played the guitar for us and everyone could choose one of a number of popular songs that were later included in the Songbook, which we then sang at the top of our lungs. Some of our favorites were: “Ons is almal hier tesaam. Majesteit. Jesus, groot bo almal. U goedheid Heer kan ons nie peil nie. Loof, loof die Here. Genade, onbeskryflik groot. Soos ‘n wildsbok. Doen slegs U wil Heer. Wat ‘n vriend het ons in Jesus.”

These songs and many others were in a little green book and the singing together was the heart of our being together. One time when we were at Annemarie's and wanted to sing a song, two people started singing at different pitches, which was so comical that a few of us had difficulty suppressing our laughter. I think Annemarie took exception.

In turn, each person got a chance to recite the week's message. When it was my turn, I prepared a piece from my Journal or Prose files and enjoyed compiling the pieces and printing a copy for each person, although they were often not religious but rather spiritual: Dependence on each other. Searching for the Truth. The Law or Mercy. My own Faith. Are you living or are you just existing. Are we changing or are we staying the same, and so on. Most of the others offered excerpts they liked from Solly Ozrovech's popular books. Then we all prayed out loud going around the circle. This was followed by tea or coffee, with snacks served by the hostess.

I think we all looked forward to these get-togethers, which was of course the purpose of the small group gatherings. In such a small group, people have the freedom to each express their opinion - most people feel intimidated to stand up and say something in the big church. Our small group was very successful and existed a long time - we became friends with each other. Each one had his or her own character and we learned from each other, also to tolerate others with different views.

In later years my conversations with friends like Chris Erasmus and Billy Phillips became even deeper. I think one or two couples from our original group were also there at first. We became great friends. Chris and his family are deeply religious, so much so that they drove to Somerset West on Sundays to listen to Theo Geyser from the group Prophet. Chris is very enlightened, and our conversations when we got together often became very deep later in the evening. It often happened that we did not get home until after eleven at night.

Billy's view that God is in EVERYTHING—even in the rocks—resonated with me. As science unravels the universe, from the smallest quark to the billions of galaxies that the James Webb Telescope sees today, my faith does not diminish, but grows. This is still the case now.

Billy is also very enlightened - he and Marlene come from the Pentecostal/Charismatic churches and think much more broadly than our conservative Reformed churches. He has many interesting opinions, such as that God is in everything and everyone. I can completely relate to that. Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism and others - For me there can only be one God, no matter what each religion calls Him. I think all people have a feeling that there must be a Supreme Being, who controls all life. Perhaps this stems from ancient times, when people, out of fear of the forces of nature, thought they had to appease this supreme being with sacrifices, as atonement for their supposed transgressions.

As science continues to develop, the boundaries of what we know are being pushed ever wider. What used to be the smallest, the atom (a million times smaller than the diameter of a human hair), is being split with further research into a nucleus and electrons. A good comparison of the size of a nucleus to that of an atom is like a pea in the middle of a racetrack. Later protons and neutrons. later ions and isotopes, later even smaller quarks. It is completely beyond our comprehension.

Then if you go bigger than our world, the earth, first there was our solar system with better telescopes. Then later our Milky Way, then our galaxy. Later they realized that there are many galaxies, and today they estimate that there are billions of galaxies in the universe.

With the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) it is now possible to look much further back in time, almost to where everything came from. The idea of ​​the Big Bang theory is that the universe originated from an infinitely hot and dense single point, which then expanded at an unimaginable speed over the next 13.7 billion years, into the ever-expanding cosmos we know today. Everything is still flying apart at an unimaginable speed.

This is completely compatible with our view of God, who created everything in the blink of an eye. The earth is 150 million km from the sun. The universe is infinitely large, 93 billion light years in diameter. The earth is a small planet in this vast space. If we scale down the universe so that the earth and sun are an inch apart, then the next closest star is 7km away! There is only one God who created all this and controls it with His natural laws. Billy's view that God is also in the rocks makes a lot of sense to me - He is in EVERYTHING that exists. Luke 19:40 states, “Jesus replied, ‘I tell you, if these people were silent, the stones would cry out!’”

CONCLUSION: A BIGGER PERSPECTIVE

Looking back on those years in Wellington today, I see a clear pattern of growth. What began as a technical challenge to modernize an outdated municipal system eventually culminated in an expansion of my own spirit. In Mont Pellier Avenue, we built not just a house of bricks and cement, but a vantage point from which to view the world and the heavens.

Wellington, with its extremes of heat and its splendor of mountains and trees, was the backdrop against which I learned that few things in life are truly "black or white." While I admired people like George for their unwavering certainties, my own path led me through the "gray areas"—those rich shades of humanity where understanding, tolerance, and wonder flourish.

The journey from the small NCR computer to the unimaginable vastness of the universe that the James Webb Telescope reveals to us today is a continuous line for me. It confirms that the God we sang about in small groups cannot be confined to a building or a dogma. He is present in the atom, in the melting tar of a hot afternoon, in the faithful eyes of a dog like Mondi, and in the billions of galaxies that are still moving away from us at a staggering speed.