Changing jobs is a good time to consider the effect your stay has had on your fellow workers...
GAUTENG, the heart of darkness, beckons. Let the dogs bark, the caravan moves on. And as I prepare to move into an entirely new career in the newspaper business I've been thinking about what I'm leaving behind.
When I last left Natal Newspapers (and South Africa) shortly after the declaration of the 1986 State of Emergency, I was political reporter for Post.
I also spent 9am to midnight every Saturday as branch correspondent, revise sub-editor, copy taster, and general dog's body on the Sunday Tribune. (Then, like today, one could not really function on a journalist's salary without moonlighting.)
George Parker, the first editor of this newspaper, was Chief Sub-editor. William Saunderson-Meyer was News Editor.
And Aubrey Howard Jacobs, of indeterminate age and origin, was a sub-editor on the Tribune.
With a name like Aubrey, it was not surprising that he preferred to be called Snooky. He introduced himself to me by cornering me at the tea trolley.
"Hey Kanthan, what's more important? Your size, or the way you do it?"
I looked at him somewhat bleary-eyed. "The way you do it?" I ventured.
"Another poorly endowed bastard,"1 he muttered and fled.
A few days later, Snooky looked up from the sub-editors table where he was working. "Say Kanthan, do you have 50 cents?"
I flipped a 50c piece in his direction. He in turn slipped me a business card which said: "Congratulations! You have just been f**ked out of 50c and are now a member of the dumb f**kers club!"
A persnickety company stalwart was once having a pleasant ponder on the porcelain at the old Daily News building.
Snooky burst into the loo, switched off the lights and hollered "Fire!" He then flung a flaming wad of toilet paper over the door into the occupied cubicle. He followed this up with bucket of water, then ran for cover.
The victim emerged wetly, and Snooky was nowhere to be seen.
Strangely enough (for his victims were many), we allowed him to live. His puppy-dog grin could disarm even the most furious of tempers. Even when his antics bordered on the insane, his sheer chutzpah left us speechless in grudging admiration.
Back in the newsroom, stories would occasionally almost sneak into the paper purportedly from our Paris Bureau. (There never was a Paris Bureau.)
George Parker told me one such story featured a trapeze artist crossing a raging torrent in the jungle and discovering halfway across that his fly was undone, at which point a frog jumped in.
The Tribune carried a comic strip called The Dropouts which starred two beatniks who lived in a hut on a desert island. Every so often, the hut would mysteriously acquire a television antenna.
I wrote a Showbiz column which carried my picture. Halfway
through the run,
Snooky explained quite earnestly to David that he had been trying to tailor the look of the column to identify more closely with its target audience. "What did I do wrong?" he asked with Bambi eyes. David surrendered.
For Snooky's page layout and design was always innovative, never tired. With scissors and glue, he worked wonders with pictures. Except when he was hungover...
It was one such morning when he called the staff cafeteria and asked brokenly for a toasted sandwich. What did he want on it, they asked.
"Bacon and eggs? Ham! Cheese? Onion. Tomato!"
And so it is that if one visits the Natal Newspapers cafeteria today, one can order a Tribune Special, the original cholesterol killer with bacon, eggs, ham, cheese, tomato and onion, invented by Aubrey Howard Jacobs.
It's been a few years since Snooky died of cancer. And while the innovations I leave behind will be washed away as technology changes, I'm fondly hopeful that someone, someday, when ordering that sandwich will ask: "Who on earth invented this?"
And Snooky will have the last laugh.
- 1. Actually, he said "Another short-pricked bastard", but George thought we should tone it down. I concurred.