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THE
GRAIN AND OILSEED INDUSTRY
OF SOUTH AFRICA – A JOURNEY THROUGH TIME
ႄႈ
Comical incidents that will be remembered
for a long time must be one of the charac-
teristics of large gatherings with thousands of
visitors. The annual NAMPO Harvest Day is no
exception in this respect and
SA Graan/Grain
asked a few veterans of the agricultural family
to share a few of these anecdotes.
O
ne of these that many of the guys can remember very well
is the true story of the cute blonde in her snow-white cat
suit.MrBullyBotma, formerChairpersonofGrainSArecounted
that it was one of those years when it rained much more than
usual at the Harvest Day. The water rapidly dammed up in
certain places and the Harvest Day goers had to seek shelter
at stalls.
Near one of the sheep pens and the sheep shearers the
water stood a good 15 cm to 20 cm deep and people tried to
find shelter under the roof of a pellet machine. One of them
was a pretty blonde in a snow-white cat suit. She wanted to
look more closely at the sheep shearers’ skills, but did not
really want to take a chance with the deep water. One of the
guys who was busy around there started talking to her and
then decided that he would see what he could do. Just like
a man carrying his bride across the threshold, he gathered
her in his arms and started walking through the puddles.
The blonde objected at first, but the strong arms of the
farmer quickly put her mind at ease and it seemed that
she was starting to enjoy the treatment.
Things went well with the carrying part – up to the
last step that was already covered with water
at that time – and just then our gallant friend
missed the step and he and the blonde took
the fall together. Soaking wet and with her
white suit now covered in brown mud and
her expensive hairdo of the morning now
clinging to her face, the visitor quickly departed
– furious. Where and how she became dry and
clean again they do not know, but they did not
see her again.
A few weeks later the Harvest Day Committee
received a letter from her in which she insisted on
compensation for the damage to her clothes, and
probably also to her honour and status. They had
to let her know that it was not in the gallant gentle-
man’s job description to carry out such duties and
that the Harvest Day management therefore could
not take responsibility for that. It seems that
it was especially the rain that caused many
funny stories.
M
r Kobus van Zyl, grain producer who has
been involved with the Harvest Day for years,
remembers the guys using the pub for cover against the
torrential rainoneyear – sometimes for longer thannecessary.
At one point he stepped out on the stoep to see how hard it
was raining and there was one of the chaps with a fishing rod
that he had found goodness knows where. At the end of the
line he had secured a banana and he was joyfully fishing in
the water that made a good 10 cm deep puddle on the Free
State plains.
It was – and probably still is – the habit of volunteers to sleep
in the caravan park in tents and caravans. Van Zyl recounts
that one year they were
braaiing
something after a hard
day’s work when a visitor, who should not have been in the
grounds any more, walked over to them. When they asked
him why he was still there, he slurred that he just wanted
to ask their advice. Now what kind of advice does he need
that time of the night, they asked. No, he just wanted to ask
in which direction was KwaZulu-Natal. If they could point
him in the right direction, he would manage by himself. It
transpired then that the man had come from northern
KwaZulu-Natal with a busload of friends and he had missed
the return bus, which had departed early that afternoon.
‘I waved him in an easterly direction where I thought Kwa-
Zulu-Natal lay. We just heard maize stalks crunch when he
disappeared more or less in that direction through the maize
fields. What became of him we do not know to this day, but
we never heard from him again.’
HAVE A LAUGH WITH THE HARVEST DAY
By Thys Human, published in SA Graan/Grain, April 2010