After less than six months at Pietermaritzburg University, I’d basically bombed out. I was feeling like a total failure when I went to Mallorca—and truthfully, I was. I hadn’t knuckled down to my studies, I’d gone completely out of control with drinking and partying, and I’d had a nasty experience with someone I can only describe, in hindsight, as a sexual predator. It was my first real brush with adult-level anxiety.
Anxiety had been there my whole life, but mostly in the background. Those few weeks, though—just before I made the decision to leave university—were a different beast. Thinking about thinking, endless feedback loops, paranoia about my own thoughts. I can’t describe it properly, but it was horrible.
I was barely off the plane in Mallorca when I told my dad how unhappy I was and that I didn´t want to continue. My dad, to his credit, was incredibly kind. He just said, “You can change course if you want to change course.” I was grateful—but I also felt guilty. I knew how privileged I was to have that kind of flexibility.
Suddenly I had this overwhelming need to prove myself. To contribute something. To stop being a pathetic, anxiety-ridden 18-year-old virgin drifting through life. So when Sidney Spargo (close friend of the family and my de-facto godfather) offered me a place at RJ Spargo Pty Ltd—one of two they gave out each year—I grabbed it. The deal was: six months of practical work in Alrode, about 40km south of Johannesburg, and six months of study at Technikon Witwatersrand, working toward a National Diploma in Mechanical Engineering.
I’d be earning R600 a month. Not much even then—when petrol was R60 a tank—but it was something. My mum immediately said, “Right, you’ll be paying rent now, it was a nominal amount but my mom was a lady of principle.”
But before I could even get stuck into the new plan, I had to face the thing that terrified me most: telling Niels.
I’d flown back from Mallorca dreading it. Niels—my older brother—was someone I idolised. His approval felt like life or death. At the time, he’d just dumped Jenny, who I absolutely adored, and replaced her with Carey Pearce, a new girlfriend from Natal. I’d never met her, but I’d heard all about her through letters and phone calls from my mum. My mom had been really positive about her so I was looking forward to meeting her.
Soon after I got home, Niels rang. He was living in a cottage on the Nooitgedacht farm in Lydenburg while building a new plywood factory—closer to the timber supply. One of the first things he said was, “Great, you’re back. Can you pick up my new girlfriend, Carey. She’s in Yeoville. Bring her down for the weekend and you can do some fishing”
So I drove to Yeoville and picked up Carey. She was dark-haired, blue-eyed, slightly freckled, very pretty, and sharp as hell. We drove down to Lydenburg together, and somewhere along the way I spilled everything—about flunking out, changing direction, dreading telling Niels. I swore her to secrecy because I wanted to tell him in my own good time.
She told him that very same evening.
I felt completely betrayed by someone I’d only just met, which is a bit of a joke in itself. But Niels just looked at me and said, “Well, at least you’ll learn something.” (referring to the practical training I´d be getting Spargo's).
RJ Spargo Pty Ltd was a serious company. It was also the South African Linatex franchise at the time—a heavy engineering outfit supplying the mining industry. Centrifuges, Prosser pumps, serious gear. My first day, I got kitted out like a proper journeyman: toolbox, vernier, micrometer, spanners, etc and a set of badly fitting blue overalls. Start time? 6:45 AM. Which meant leaving home by 5:45.
Sidney, who owned the whole business, quietly asked me not to tell anyone I knew him. He didn´t want my tenur tainted by any thought of favouritism.
The hierarchy was mad: a few white English-speaking guys, more white Afrikaans-speaking guys, and a large black South African labour force—most from the homelands. There were characters everywhere, and I didn’t really fit into any of the camps, which suited me. I talked to everyone.
There was Andy Annandale, the old-timer who helped me engrave my micrometer. He chain-smoked at the end of his bench and taught me without ever making me feel stupid. And then there was “Bosman” (Bushman)—no idea what his real name was—who worked the paint shop. A tiny little wizened black fellow. He sprayed lead-based paint all day long and over the years it had got so ingrained into him that you couldn´t tell where the paint stopped and his skin started. God knows what it did to him. He was always friendly. I’d ask how he was, and he’d say, “Blue Monday.”
Tea break was at 9:30. The siren would go, and everyone would eat lunch. The whites sat in one room, the black guys split off into tribal groups. It was apartheid South Africa. Rigid. Ridiculous. But normalised. Lunch was 30 minutes at noon and everyone just lay on their benches and slept.
My journeyman was Danie Roussow—big-hearted and built like a tank. Strong didn’t even begin to cover it. There was this German guy, Hans Hoffinger, who used to deliver gear in his little white bakkie. One day, Danie quietly lifted the back axle off the ground while Hans was trying to drive off. Hans had no idea why his car wouldn’t move—kept revving it, changing gears, getting back in and out—and Danie just kept holding it up. Only when he finally dropped it did Hans launch off like he’d been shot from a cannon. That was Danie.
After work, the white guys drank free beers at the on-site pub. Blacks weren’t allowed in. Full-size snooker table. Very 1980s. Very South Africa. I didn’t question it enough then. That was just how it was.
Someone decided we’d throw a surprise party for Danie's birthday. A stripper was hired. I told my mum I’d be late at work and headed to some guy’s house where we gathered around his little bar. Then the stripper arrived.
This was 1986. She was petite, Afrikaans, completely confident. Toys and a banana were involved. It blew my mind. I’d seen topless women on the beaches of Mallorca—but this was the first time I’d seen the other half. In public. With props. Up close.
Then she pulled Danie—yes, Danie—onto the stage, stripped him naked in front of his peers, and proceeded to demonstrate… well, a few things. His poor little wiener definitely didn´t rise to the occasion. It was just as well she hadn´t picked on me because I was ridiculously turned on. That night left no doubt in my mind about my sexual orientation.
And so that’s how I began my journey into mechanical engineering: with an issued toolbox, a barely suppressed panic, a crew of gloriously unpredictable teachers—and a very specific mental image I’ll never quite unsee.