MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

A Fistfull of Dollars

By

Greetings Alan,

It is not often that I do not find something of interest in MyPE, but every now and then you dish up a fistfull of dollars. Today’s is something special – for me at any rate. I am a rally buff (longtime member of the SCC under Tubby Bennett) and have marshaled on that rally. If Patricia Dlamini delivers on the promises made in her very well worded presentation, then that certainly bodes very well for the region. Good luck to her.

The pic (indeed any pics) of Schoenies brings back a flood of memories for me. My late wife and I used to drive to Schoenies 3 or 4 times a month and she used to sit and just relax while I walked the trails. We always used to go home with a few of the wild flowers of the area and we had two circular beds about 15ft in diameter that were a riot of colour all year and held only plants from Schoenies. Passers by used to stop and stand at our fence and admire the display. Many dear memories – thank you.

The Baywest item deserves to be made public nationwide. A really great success story.

Insofar the SAPS story, let me just say that things are bad – and very much the same – nationwide! My own analysis of three (potentially fatal) incidents that I have been subjected to in my own home in the last 18 months has let me to believe that the single biggest problem is that the vast majority of police members simply are not policemen at heart – it is just another job for which they turn up at around the time they go on duty and go home at around the time they knock off. At this point let me state very emphatically that I have the greatest admiration for those policemen that are trying to do the job correctly under very trying conditions and very often without much support from the ranks above them – God bless them! I found in my analysis that the defining cause of police failure in those incidents of mine, was a total catastrophic breakdown in communication between the people in the charge office and the responding officers that were sent out to deal with the crime.

In the latest incident I was on the phone shouting over the noise of two bastards smashing the burglar guards off the windows with a gum pole, yelling that the bastards were INSIDE my house. This info was simply not passed on to the guys manning the response vehicle. They came toddling down the road, blue lights flashing, parked neatly on the pavement, got out casually and retrieved their briefcases from behind the seat and stood outside the gate waiting for me to go out and open for them. They were flabbergasted that they knew nothing of the emergency and were suitably embarrassed that I had had to fight off two young black males in my house – who ran when I fought back, the bloody cowards. They obviously did not expect that from a 70 year old mlungu.

Now that I have got mad all over again, let me go and make myself a double coffee. Have a good day, Pal, and congrats again on a very good issue that I have already passed on to two mates up here who are also Eastern Cape ex-pats.

Regards

Lance

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Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.