The CH Chemicals Family Day had been a huge success, and I found myself firmly in Neil Hellman’s good books. I decided the smartest move I could make now was to do my absolute best to turn his ideas into something real.
My official title was Project Manager. In reality, I was there to try to make the patents Neil had dreamt up — and already filed — actually work. What follows gets a bit technical, so feel free to skim it, but for the sake of the historical record, it needs to be mentioned.
The first patent involved solar panels. Instead of running a clear heat-exchange fluid through a black panel, Neil wanted a black liquid running through a clear panel. The logic, as far as I could tell, was that CH Chemicals happened to be agents for GE polycarbonate sheeting — clear panels with internal channels used for cladding buildings — and Neil assumed that if black liquid flowed through them, the efficiency would magically improve. This conclusion was not based on calculations, modelling, or physics — just instinct.
The next idea was to replace cement in mine rock bolts with polyurethane. Traditionally, unstable mine walls are stabilised by drilling holes, inserting rebar, and setting it in cement. Neil wanted polyurethane instead.
Then there were mine packs — huge sacks of concrete used to support collapsing hanging walls deep underground. Neil wanted to replace the cement in those with polyurethane too. His thinking was simple: use enough polyurethane, and CH Chemicals would make a fortune.
There was also a polyurethane-based explosive that could be injected into drilled holes instead of using dynamite. Why that would be safer or better was never clear.
And finally, there was a completely unhinged idea involving a kind of spaceship that relied on Bernoulli’s principle to generate lift. I didn’t understand it then, and I still don’t now.
As I set about trying to make sense of all this, I was given an office on the far side of the main open-plan area — an old lab. The walk from my car, through the entrance, up the stairs, took me past Sam.
I’d noticed her before. She was young, very pretty, and always seemed to catch my eye. I knew she’d been engaged — she’d been at the Family Day with her fiancé — but it slowly became clear there was flirtation going on.
I wasn’t exactly practiced at this sort of thing. I’d married young, stayed married for ten years, and had only had one brief relationship since. Looking back, though, I suppose I was a bit of a catch on paper: mid-thirties, decent job, reported directly to the managing director, my own office.
Then the emails started. Flirtatious. Light at first, then less so.
Eventually I said, “Why don’t you come to my office?”
She did.
“I thought you were engaged,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “That’s over. I’m single.”
I asked her to lunch. She said yes. I didn’t ask anyone’s permission — I didn’t even think about it. Later that week, I invited her to my basement flat in Lurgan Road. I cooked pesto pasta — an old favourite — and we ended up in bed.
Sam was 24. She was, frankly, stunning. Beautiful face, incredible eyes, great body. For a few weeks, we saw each other regularly.
I suggested we go away for a weekend to White River. Niels and Carey were away, my mother was in the retirement village nearby, and they said I could use the house.
We stopped in Dullstroom on the way. Walking into the Duck & Trout with Sam on my arm and bumping into old friends — Steve Adams, Steve Demeyer — did wonders for my battered ego. I won’t pretend otherwise. After the beating I’d taken, it felt good.
On the way back, we stopped at Harry’s Pancakes. And sitting at the next table were Terry’s mother, Mary, her uncle — a priest from South America — and a small entourage.
We greeted each other politely. That evening I got a text from Terry:
“I hear your new girlfriend is about twelve.”
That pretty much summed it up.
Looking back now, it’s obvious I hadn’t accepted that my marriage was over — despite being divorced and living in a basement flat. I wasn’t ready to fall in love with Rowena or Sam. Sam, especially, had everything going for her: intelligent, ambitious, kind, beautiful. I didn’t. And she sensed that. She ended it.
Around the same time, another reality became unavoidable: I could no longer afford the Lurgan Road flat. The divorce settlement made that clear.
I got back in touch with John Cartwright. His web-design business had collapsed when Fishy Pete’s went under, and he was living out in Fourways on Ian Campbell’s parents’ estate — an old house subdivided into cheap little units.
John showed me a converted master bedroom with an en-suite, a sliding door into a garden, and a garage. The rent was almost nothing. I gave notice on Lurgan Road and moved in.
That marked the beginning of the Lanceria days.
It was a strange setup, and it quickly became obvious that the commute was eating up whatever money I was saving. It also made my Wednesday night with the kids almost impossible. In hindsight, it wasn’t a great decision — but I was not in a good headspace.
The second Gulf War broke out around then. I wasn’t sleeping. I was drinking too much in the evenings. Trying to make meals, patents, parenting, and survival all coexist. Everything felt overwhelming.
One bright spot emerged when Neil decided I would represent CH Chemicals on a trip to visit Dow Chemicals in Switzerland. On paper, it should have been exciting. In reality, I was falling apart.
On the way to the airport, I phoned Mikey. Terry, the kids, and her family were all having lunch at one of our old favourite restaurants. I felt completely excluded from the life that had once been mine.
The trip ended, but I did meet Paul Clavel — head of Dow’s urethane division in Switzerland. A genuinely lovely man. He would later come to South Africa on sabbatical to work at CH Chemicals, and we became good friends.
But by then, I was exhausted — emotionally hollowed out.
And that’s probably a good place to end this chapter.
Some periods are harder to revisit than ot