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In this issue: Then there was the hang glider which took off from the lagoon and proceeded to fly all over Fisherhaven. At one point when I saw him fly across my dining room wind and head for the mountains on the other side of the R43 I thought he was going to crash and raced to get my camera, but as luck would have it the flipping thing stuck and I missed what I thought was a certain accident. However Robin (as the pilot was called) flew off to safety and landed probably at the lagoon again. He hopefully will be at the Festival and you may be able to fly tandem with him if you are brave enough. You wouldn’t catch me up there with a lawn mower engine carrying me in to the big blue sky. Not on your Nellie. Trivial pursuit on Thursday did not go down very well as the questions I asked were too confusing. It seems so easy when you know the answers, but the questions did not make much sense I must admit Bill did a sterling job of trying to make light of a few tricky situations. Sorry, I take my hat off to all of you that have asked the questions before it is I think a difficult job. Anyway Grenville will be the quiz master next month. Pat, Pat Marie and I have been hard at work painting 144 table mats that will be on sale at the Festival and the other day we spent the morning Podging the pictures prior to sticking them on the wooden mats Marie’s sun room was decorated all over with wet sticky pics and Poplap her parrot decided to join in the fun and somehow stretched way across to a chair arm that held half a dozen such pics and proceeded to tear up with beak and claw one of the pics for his own decorative masterpiece. Great hilarity ensued and we hastily removed the remaining pics from out of his reach. As Easter approaches and the Festival looms closer and closer we are running around like crazy mad things to get everything done in time. Please don’t let us down your support on Easter Sunday will mean a lot to us. See you at the Lagoon on the 16th. OH MOST IMPORTANT: THE WARD COMMITTEE MEETING WERE WE MUST ELECT SOME REPRESENTATIVES FOR FISHERHAVEN IS TO BE HELD ON MONDAY 10TH AT 6PM IN THE HAWSTON SECONDARY SCHOOL. PROTECT YOUR INVESTMENT AND VOTE. ---------------------------------------------------------------- FROM THE CHAIR Enough of that boring (but necessary) stuff—I now wish to bring to your attention some of Fisherhaven’s unsung heroes. I must start with Roy Cheshire. This guy is (like many of us) “retired” and of course is an FRA member of many years standing, including time on the FRA Committee, and he takes it upon himself to monitor the well being of the lagoon car park, its surrounds and the wandle pad. Have you ever wondered how the swings and slide are kept in working order? No mystery—Roy uses his own time, tools, materials and money to repair as required, as well as sundry tiding up etc, and now he is lending a big helping hand in making things for sale in our Easter Festival. I say well done and thank you Roy—More power to your elbow. Have you ever wondered how our info kiosk is constantly being maintained and improved, well a number of Fisherhaveners are responsible. Our mystery person who has painted and cleaned it for the past few years. We have no idea who that person is but we say Thank You. Latest on this group are Robin and Pat Clacher, who took the time to clean off the walls and fix tiles all around. I reckon it looks pretty good, so guys Thanks. Also in this group is Wayne Laarks, who cuts the grass etc. all around the kiosk on an on-going basis—well done—the improvements to the area that sees many visitors is tremendous and helps to project a very positive image of our village Now for the Easter Festival, come on –let us see EVERY Fisherhavener support this event. Even if you don’t buy anything – your presence will help to provide the right atmosphere and who knows you may have an enjoyable day. Proceeds from the event will go to the FRA (no not towards the committee’s trip to the Rio Carnival) but to purchase some benches/ seats in the playground area and also to our Neighbourhood Watch. We the FRA, are hoping that this event will draw our community even closer together and of-course we hope that the children will have a ball. To the (mostly) ladies who have worked and worked and worked (I dread to see my phone account) a big, NO HUGE, NO BLERRY GREAT BIG THANK YOU. That it – see you at the FRA stall or the beer tent. Regards Bill was born in Quorn in Leicestershire (the home of the famous hunt) in 1938. Bill has memories as a child of German bombers flying overhead on their way to bomb the Midlands of England. He and his brother once came across an English fighter plane nose down in a ditch and they played on it until they were kicked off by the home guard. Educated at the local primary school and then on to Humphrey Perkins Grammar school at Barrow on Soar. He then went on to naval training college the price of Wales in Dover Kent. Bill joined his first ship in Newcastle on Tyne as a Deck Boy. His first foreign port was Las Palmas but his second one was Cape Town where he vowed to return one day. The ship then sailed on to Australia and returned to the UK via the Suez Canal. Bill stayed in the British Merchant navy for the next nine years and finally, reaching rank of third officer, left in 1964. During this period he circumnavigated the earth a number of times, visited most part of the world, including China and Russia which were not very healthy places to visit in those days. He recalls some hairy moments especially with the Red Guards in China. In 1964 Bill joined the Primrose Axel Company and was appointed their Eastern Countries Sales Manager. With this company he was very much involved in the design of the heavy goods trailers and was responsible for the final design for the refrigerated trailers operated by Summer County Margarine. His design was subsequently used by many other operators. In 1966 Bill got itchy feet and wanted to go travelling again. He applied for and got the position of Northern Regional Sales Manager for BEWAC (British East West Africa Corp) in Nigeria. His first job was to sell trucks in the northern lower regions (Lower Sahara) mainly to be used in the evacuation of the ground nut crop which was the big money earner for Nigeria in those days (3 million tons per annum). Unfortunately the National Emergency started almost as Bill arrived in the Country and he finished up organising convoys of sometimes 60 trucks, transporting the groundnut crop all the way to Lagos docks, a distance of some 800miles mostly on dirt roads. Originally the trucks would have been used to transport the crop to the rail heads in the north but the railways had collapsed. It was during one of these convoys that Bill met his better half Eve on a blind date at Ibadans’ nightclub. Eve was working not as a singer/dancer but for the Nigerian government as a Research Micro Biologist in agriculture. She lived in the town of Ibadan which was once known as the biggest town in Africa During this period the Civil War started in earnest which made life very difficult. Once while in the northern region Bill heard that the town of Ibadan had been captured by Ojuku’s troops (Biafrans). If this was true it meant that the whole of the north of Nigeria would be cut off. This was the intention of Ojuku. Bill decided to drive south (600miles) and see whether he could rescue Eve from town! Bill knew that Eve being a Government officer was not allowed to be repatriated as a normal civilian! As he approached the town he could see and hear artillery fire to the left of the town and came to the conclusion that the town had not yet fallen. He managed to enter the town. He drove straight to Eve’s house and found no-one. A neighbour who was also a Government officer suggested that she might be at the club. Bill drove to the Club and found Eve playing tennis. Bill was grounded in the town for the next ten days (shame) and nearly was dismissed from BEWAC, but not from Eve. The town was never taken by Ojuku’s troops although they came close. Bill and Eve were married in England in February 1968and returned to Nigeria where Bill had now been appointed Dealership Manager for J. Allen and Co, who were the ford agents. Their first child Mark was born (very nearly in a traffic jam) in Lagos in 1970. They then moved to Liberia in 1971 where Bill was appointed General Manager for the United States Trading Company, again Ford Agents in the country. During this period Bill learnt to fly small planes as this was the best was of travelling around Liberia. They both had harrowing experiences in Liberia one of which was public hangs outside Bill’s office every Friday morning and a severe gun battle around their house one night. They stuck the country for two years and then they had had enough. In 1973 Bill was appointed General Manager for Mandala Ltd in Malawi, Central Africa. To them this was paradise come true. The country, the people and the peace was totally alien to what they had been used to. In 1974 the daughter Fiona was born in a mission hospital. Progressively Bill’s responsibilities increased and he finished up Group General Manager looking after not only the operations in Malawi but also in Ethiopia and Rhodesia too. Bill passed his private pilots licence and continued to fly around Central Africa for business and pleasure. He also did Safari tours in his own designed 4x416 seater bus, often using Dave Broad (Broady), also a Fisherhaven resident now, as an expert spotter. During one of Bill’s visits to Ethiopia a revolution started and Bill finished up face down on the concrete floor of his hotel room with bullets hitting the outside of the building. He managed to bribe his way to the airport and again bribed his way onto an aircraft (Air France) and flew out. He didn’t care where he was going, but in the event he ended up in Cairo badly shaken and dishevelled. British Airways took pity on him and he finished up first class on their flight to London. When Bill returned to Ethiopia some six months later the regime had changed and the place was full of Russians and Cuban troops. Unfortunately the Cubans turned out to be better lovers than soldiers and every day a Cuban or two would be found with a knife in their ribs. Shortly after Fiona was born Eve was appointed lecturer in Biological Studies at the Polytechnic where Dave Broad was head of department. She stayed in this post happily for the next five years. After this Eve took over a run down ice cream centre and with strong arm help from Bill converted it into a restaurant known as the Regency. She later took over a snack bar café on top of a large supermarket in Blantyre. Both venues proved to be extremely popular with both the locals and tourists Eve and Bill left Malawi in 1988 to live in Durban where Bill had been appointed a director of a large car delivery company whose main operations was to deliver into Central Africa. Again Bill recalls many frightening experiences especially traversing Mozambique into Malawi. Cars arriving in Malawi with bullet holes in them were one of the minor problems. Bill’s experience in the design of heavy trailers came to fruition and quite a number of the locally made car transporter trailers were designed by him. Bill and Eve lived in Durban until March1994 when they decided to return to the UK, mainly because of aging family. They both started a water purification business which still runs today. Bill and Eve returned to South Africa in October 2004 and decided to build a house in Fisherhaven. They were well aware of the problems South Africa suffers from and found Fisherhaven a little piece of Heaven. Bill hopes that his involvement with the FRA will help to preserve the peace we live-in. ---------------------------------------------------------------- OUT & ABOUT IN FISHERHAVEN That means that there will be two empty shops at the Piccaninny Centre, who will fill them? Johan has taken over the running of the Piccaninny and has opened his Real Estate Office there as well. The Piccaninny is beginning to attract a lot of new Fisherhaveners to its cosy interior. It has been newly painted and looks very fresh. The service is great and the food is tasty and professionally presented. It is just a pity that on Sunday when we were without electricity no-one partook of the superb potjie that Sanet prepared. Of course the boot sale was also a complete waste of time. However we will persevere, it will succeed. The Haven Coffee shop is also becoming quite popular and Marie serves Sunday lunch as well. We are becoming spoilt for choice. I say alternate. Jackie’s shop at the PiccaninnyCentre offers discounted phone cards and pensioners discount on some other items as well. She is always willing to support the local community by putting up notices fro every one to see and is willing to be used as a collection and pick up point. Our local businesses need your support so please pay them all a visit you will be pleasantly surprised. BOOT SALE So anything you want to sell or buy, make a point of being there. WARD COMMITTEE MEETING DON’T FORGET. DURR ESTATES ONRUS WON AN AWARD BEST DURR ESTATE AGENCY AND YOURS TRULY TOP AGENT FOR THE YEAR. Imagine my surprise when my name was called out and I received a certificate, and an envelope, which was very welcome I might tell you. So folks anyone wishing to buy or sell property should consider using Durr Estates. We offer you the best honest reliable service, with great agents to make your transaction as painless as possible. See you there.
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