HUMPHREY TAKES A TUMBLE

The year is 1968. Caroline Street, Hillbrow.

A run-down block somewhere between the Old Fort (a prison at the time and now the site of the Constitutional Court) and the Hillbrow Tower. It is home to some oddball, eccentric types who seem to have flocked together in this netherworld of deteriorating flats that date from the early 1900s. Not yet a slum, but rapidly descending into dodginess.

Humphrey Duffy, a postman who never married, resides in a bachelor pad on the fourth floor. An affable fellow much loved by those along his route through the streets of Johannesburg, he whistled his way through his daily trudge, exchanging pleasantries with those along his merry way who chose to engage with him. His favourite tune, The Bridge on the River Kwai, was a sure indicator of a letter and a solid pile of junk mail on the way. The jovial tune belied the horrors of war as much as it hid the squalor in which this inveterate hoarder eked out an existence. Despite his living conditions and his footslogging job, he remained upbeat for most of the thirty years he had been doing it.

On the ground floor in a two roomed apartment lived his sister Priscilla, with her husband Gus and nine children. This pan flute family was not uncommon, presumably given the absence of television in South Africa at the time. The scruffy children ranged from toddlers to teenagers, nine months and three seconds apart. Priscilla was a tad loud as she belted out admonition to the kids and sometimes conducted a conversation with her brother on the fourth floor from her balcony that doubled as a laundry dryer – also not unusual at this block of flats. Underclothes waved merrily to passers-by from most of the balconies. Her husband, Gus, was a porter in the South African Railways who worked at Park Station. This somewhat sheltered employment, although low wage, had the fringe benefit of tips. Often Gus would rake in tips that would put some CEOs to shame, so to speak. Apart from the many mouths to feed, the tips were sensibly saved. The low rent and small accommodation concealed a very handsome bank balance.

An electric milk van did the rounds in those days and delivered bottles of pasteurised milk and other products from the dairy to the doorstep. Empties with coupons in their necks for the next delivery were collected and replaced with full bottles. Seldom were bottles or coupons stolen. The worst experience one might encounter would be a naughty kid having taken a swig out of a bottle of milk before the flat dweller took it inside – but theft was rare. It was a system that placed a premium on reuse and recycling long before the tree-hugger lobby got on their high horse about that generation destroying the environment. Occasionally a bottle would break and spilt milk would start on its journey to malodorous sourness. No-one would bother much about the clean-up and this whiff would waft in the air for days. Nevertheless, most residents had the hint of poverty surrounding them, yet were thoroughly decent citizens doing their neighbours no harm.

Priscilla would herd her kiddy Sherpas on a weekly shopping round. They would buy bread at a bakery, or corner café and meat at a butcher, and never use a plastic carry-bag. Paper bags, cartons and carriers brought from home would be lugged along from the shops – unlike later generations that liberally contributed to plastic in the oceans and plastic shopping bags on tips and in landfills masquerading as South Africa’s national flower. Berated for their ostensible contribution to climate change, the mid-twentieth century citizenry in all likelihood were not quite the villains they are accused of being. Much of the mess that occurred at that time was out of the immediate control of the ordinary chap – industries and power generation facilities belched out smog largely because the technology was not available yet to limit the damage.

On the day Humphrey fell, Mr Dickens, the Superintendent of the block was away for the day. Mr Dickens was the all-round handy-man and viewed it as his personal responsibility to help particularly the ladies who resided there, with odd tasks such as the fitting of an electric plug, repairs to a socket or replacement of an old-fashioned fuse wire (no trip switches in these flats). He would disappear into a flat and re-emerge some time later with a smug expression which was the fuel of gossip and cordial banter among the residents. Rarely did he attend to the cleaning and other more important chores that fell under his purview. Yet, he was quite adept at keeping hobos from the premises, declaring that he, too, was financially embarrassed – no knocking on doors and being a general nuisance on his watch. Allowing clientele access to the hookers who plied their trade from these quarters, not so much. He doubtless took a healthy cut out of the business activities in cash or kind in exchange for safe passage for the “Johns”. 

On that particular night in the winter of ’68, as residents settled around their portable wireless sets or “gramophone” radios to listen to Squad Cars or The Men from the Ministry on Springbok Radio, Humphrey’s neighbour returned to his flat. At the door he realised that he had locked his Yale lock key inside his apartment and now had no way in other than from the balcony – but that was four floors up and there was a fair distance between balconies on the street facing side of the building. Also a rather long drop to the sidewalk! Notwithstanding the danger, he gingerly knocked on the door of his generally cheerful neighbour. He was greeted by Humphrey a trifle more cordially than usual, thanks to copious amounts of alcohol having made its way down his throat. Alcohol infused Dutch courage in Humphrey and a ladder borrowed from the unlocked store room seemed a perfectly sensible bridge to traverse the gaping chasm between balconies. 

That was the night Humphrey fell. Some days later he succumbed to his injuries in the Johannesburg General Hospital and his ashes made it into an egg-timer in Priscilla’s kitchen. In a manner of speaking Humphrey is experiencing life after death as a working fellow on his sister’s kitchen shelf.

©Paul M Haupt