So 1996 came to an end—and frankly, I was very happy to see the back of that year. When Terry suggested we stop drinking for New Year, I jumped at the idea.
Now, I have to tell you: the family I came from were always big drinkers—lots of wine in the evenings, beer but not really spirits—however, drunkenness or altered behaviour was never tolerated. It just wasn't something I grew up with.
I also knew, from my breakdown in my early twenties and my recent bout with depression and anxiety, that when I was going through difficult times, I shied away from alcohol rather than embraced it. Alcohol was always something for celebration—for happy times. And I knew deep down that Terry had come from a very different environment. I think she'd been exposed to too much too young by associating with my family. I have no doubt she wouldn't have succumbed to temptation and slept with Jonathan if she'd been sober.
So I was more than happy to give up drinking for New Year. It lasted all of two weeks. We were on a weekend getaway somewhere quiet in the lowveld and decided to share a bottle of wine over dinner. Things were really looking up. I was still very much in love with Terry—although, as you can imagine, I was still pretty shattered.
The end of January saw us at a farewell party at the Dullstroom Inn for Mike Hutchinson. Mike was a young fly-fishing guide from Natal who was heading home. He was well-liked in the area, and someone had decided to throw him a send-off. He will be back and take a darker role in this memoir, but I didn't know that then.
The problem was—Jonathan was there too. And with everything still so raw between everyone, the tension was thick. Terry kept drinking, more and more, and eventually she went over and tried to talk to him. He didn't want to talk to her. I said, "Come on, let's just go home. It's late, and Martine needs to be relieved."
Martine was the maid looking after the kids that night.
But Terry flat-out refused to leave. I'd had enough, so I just went home. I thanked Martine and she left. The kids were already asleep, and I got into bed, wide awake, anxiety chewing a hole in my chest. I lay there trying to figure out whether I'd done the right thing—should I have forced her? Stayed? Left sooner? I didn't know.
And then I heard the front door open. Some kind of commotion.
Next thing I know, Mark Drysdale bursts into our bedroom. Mark was this larger-than-life guy who ran his parents' stud farm outside of town. He was big, loud, the kind of bloke you didn't argue with. And over his shoulder? Terry.
He dumped her on the bed and said, "Now stay where you bloody well belong," and just walked out.
I looked at her. She looked at me. And then—without a word—she just left. There was no stopping her.
I just lay in bed for about an hour, staring at the ceiling, thinking: what the hell do I do now?
I decided I couldn't just sit with this. So I got in the car and drove to Jonathan's place. I had no idea what I'd find. Part of me expected them to be in bed together—something awful.
But when I knocked, Jonathan opened the door and looked exhausted. He said, "She's passed out in the spare room. She's completely nuts. I told her if she comes near me again, I'm getting a restraining order. I wouldn't let her in so she threw a brick through my window. I had to let her in."
So between the two of us, we carried her back to my car, bundled her in, and I drove her home. She was completely out of it.
The next morning, she was sober again. The kids hadn't seen any of it, thankfully. And here's the thing: that night has haunted me for years. Writing this down thirty years later, I ask myself—is there even a point in dredging it all up?
But I guess there is. Not to blame Terry. She was clearly going through hell. I don't hold any of it against her. If anything, I blame myself for not seeing the signs earlier. But I was fighting my own battles, struggling with my own mental health, just trying to keep the wheels from coming off.
But I knew one thing for sure: I wanted to keep our family together. I loved her and my kids desperately. And I was doing everything I could to hold on.
Things started to calm down after that, and I was starting to sleep again. My birthday was coming up—my 30th—and Terry was planning a major bash at Critchley Hackle, another hotel in Dullstroom very close to us.
And the other fantastic bit of news: we decided—on Terry's suggestion—to have another child. I absolutely doted on my little family, and I loved the idea.
My birthday was on March 16th, 1997, and I think it was a Sunday. The day started with a dawn ride at Mark Drysdale's stud farm. It was me, Steve Adams and his wife Les, Kim and Mark—and I have to mention an Afrikaans girl called Christine, who had made it abundantly clear from the moment we met, when we first arrived in town, that she was keen on me. She was really pretty, really sexy—and the first time I kissed her goodnight after a party, she stuck her tongue down my throat.
Now, it was nice to feel wanted, especially after feeling so totally rejected by my own wife—but I never acted on it. I think Christine was there that morning too, and we all went off on this ride.
Then Drysdale pulls a stunt. As we were saddling up and I'd just mounted, he says, "So, have you ridden before?"
I said, "Yeah, I used to ride a bit when I was younger."
"Great," he says—and then he whacks the horse on the arse, and off it bolts like a bloody rocket. I must have gone three or four kilometres before I got it under control. It took forever for the others to catch up. Mark thought it was hysterical. I didn't.
Anyway, that was the start of the day. That evening, there were forty or fifty guests at the Critchley Hackle. It was one hell of a party. Pete Becker came down from Johannesburg. There were fireworks. It was amazing. Terry got up and gave the most incredible speech about how much she loved and respected me. My brother stood up and made a speech about how awesome he thought I was. It was... really something. Life seemed to be back on track. Things were looking good again.
Soon after that, Terry confirmed she was pregnant—and with that, she stopped drinking. I must confess I was hugely relieved. Not only that the pregnancy had gone smoothly, but also that she was off alcohol. I knew that meant she wouldn't fall to temptation again.
As we moved into the latter half of 1997, Niels had decided to buy out his business partner, Søren. Poor Søren had suffered a nervous breakdown. I remember calling to chat with him, and I really felt for him. I didn't know him well, and I'm not sure exactly what caused it—maybe the stress of the business, maybe his son getting very ill—but I could relate.
By then, I'd been through the wringer myself—twice—and I had no patience for the way some people talked about it. Niels, for example, described Søren's condition to me in a pretty derogatory tone, and I remember thinking: people who haven't been clinically depressed just don't get it.
In fact, "depression" is the wrong word. It's more like anxiety: a relentless churning, thinking-about-thinking. You can't function. You can't sleep. You're not yourself. You don't feel like you're in yourself. It's just overwhelming. And as I sit here at fifty-eight, I'm 100% sure it's largely a chemical reaction that can happen to certain people under certain circumstances. And once it's happened, it's incredibly hard to come back from.
Anyway, during that period, Niels managed to buy Søren out and became sole owner of Clip-Lok—with its Lydenburg factory and over 300 employees.
He offered me a part-time job—basically as the accountant and IT guy. This was 1997, and they had one little computer not connected to anything. The internet was just starting, and I was already a CompuServe veteran and all over the first ISPs like a rash. I'd already networked Fishy Pete's with three or four PCs on a LAN.
Niels offered me the princely sum of R15,000 a month—which was a lot back then. I'd go in each morning before heading to Fishy Pete's, and I had my own office. I quickly networked the place, connected it to the internet and started digging through their bank accounts.
By then, I'd become quite a proficient accountant. Not something I was trained in, but something I clearly had an aptitude for.
After five or six weeks of doing the books, I went to Niels and said, "Your business is losing R300,000 a month."
He said, "That's not possible."
I said, "Yes, it is."
"Where's the money going?"
"Well," I said, "your debtors have gone from four million to two and a half, your creditors have gone from one million to two and a half, and your turnover has dropped from three million a month to one and a half."
There had been a lull in demand from the car companies for Clip-Lok's core product. And Niels really needed to take action—downsize, retrench. But he didn't. Instead, he turned that brilliant engineering brain of his to something new.
He saw a need for a variant of the Clip-Lok packaging system for the fruit industry—which is massive in South Africa—and set about developing that.
On my side, the Rapala orders were keeping us going, and with the income from Clip-Lok, we were doing very well.
I remember one incident vividly. I was in my little office at Wood Creations during lunch break. There weren't many people around. A pretty little Afrikaans girl called Gerda, who worked in the office, came in, closed the door, walked around my desk, and sat on my lap.
I was gobsmacked.
"What are you doing?" I said.
She just looked at me and said, "You know... how about it?"
I said, "No! I'm married."
She said, "So am I."
I said, "No, no, no—really. I'm not interested."
But still, it was nice to feel desired. The only person in the world I wanted to love me in that way was my wife—but she'd told me to my face that she was in love with someone else. So yes, it felt nice to be wanted, but again I didn't act on it.
And then there was the food. I was off antidepressants and sleeping pills, but I was eating too much. The tea lady used to bring these incredible vetkoek and other treats, and I put on a lot of weight. Looking back at photos, it's not pretty. I've always been skinny—my ideal weight's about 83kg—but I think I went up to 98. Mostly in the face.
Still, 1997 ended on a high. We had such big Rapala orders that, even though the factory closed for Christmas, I made takeaway packs for the ladies who wanted to earn over the holidays. They could just pop in and pick up bags of hooks, calf hair, and tie Rap-Tails at home. They loved it.
And the end of 1997? It was orders of magnitude better than the year before.
But I didn't know it yet: more clouds were gathering on the horizon in our time in Dullstroom.