Jislaaik, where have the years gone? One day we are young and fun the next day we are old and nearly cold. WTF?
One fine thing that happened last week is that Christopher finally joined the sexy 60 club that I pioneered on the 8 January. Ten days apart we celebrate seeing the light for the first time in 1964. He was born in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe and I in a small mining town called Blyvooruitzicht,Transvaal. How our stars collided is actually a love story of note.
The year is 1987 and I am teaching at a primary school where most of the teachers taught me as a youngster. It is a collection of relics and I am the youngest person there. I am back in the mining town where I swore I would never end up. It seemed to me that life was playing a cruel trick on me when I got word of where I had been posted to after completing my teachers diploma. Back to purgatory but with ideals to leave as soon as it was humanly possible.
Sometimes life opens doors and we have choices whether to proceed through the door or close it again. My door opened at the end of 1987 when one of the children in my class, whose parents worked at Sun City, invited me to spend the Christmas holidays working as a casual at the resort. They lived in a big house on the property that was allocated to them as part of their employment package and had a spare bed for me. Without thinking twice I accepted the offer as I would have spent the holidays moonlighting as an admin officer in the mine offices in any way. I had horses ( yes back there I was already infected by horse madness disease) and my teachers salary of R795 per month wasn’t making ends meet. Whilst everybody thought teachers do nothing in the holidays I could attest to it being a fallacy. We have horses so we work…
The last day of the term came and I was ready for departure to Sun City early the next morning. My parents were not charmed but this time I didn’t heed their recriminations. All I could think of was earning real money not being in the shadow of the mine dumps 24/7. It was an adventure an I was ready for it!
I know I listened to Annie Lennox and Madonna all the way there, driving my little Golf, windows down and sunroof open.Even today the songs on those particular albums evoke warm and fuzzy feelings.
I settled into the lifestyle of working nights and playing during the day quite well. In fact, I loved it. Small town girl in a great big world. Every day was the same routine but yet so exciting. I would wake up at 8, have a quick breakfast, grab my towel and make my way to the Cascades guest pool. There I met up with all the girls that worked with me and we would laze our days away in the sun, eating a bite of pizza for lunch and at about 4 pm we would make our way back to our respective homes. Come 6 pm we would gather at the Main Hotel entrance, all dressed up in our black and white outfits and at 7 we started our shifts. We were issued a float of coins and we had to “sell” them to the slots players sitting on the casino floor playing the machines. This was to ensure that the punters wouldn’t have to leave their machine to go look for coins. It was a three way win, we had been given the chance to earn cash, the casino got maximum playtime out of the punters and the punters didnt have to strain themselves to find change. When our entire float ( being held captive in a small apron like pocket worn around our waist) was sold we had to take the cash downstairs to the cash desk, balance our float and then be issued coins again in return for the notes that we had accumulated on the slots floor. Pretty simple and very effective in those days. In return for our “slave labour” we had access to the guest amenities, we were given a food allowance for a meal in one of the restaurants at night, we were paid handsomely for our work and we had the best social life. We were staggered in our starting times so we didn’t all finish at the same time. If you started at 7 you finished at 3 am, if you started at 8 you finished a 4 am but we all ended up in the staff pub, chatting away until the sun came up. I lived on no sleep and a permanent high as this life was so different to mine. I met the most outrageous souls that made me laugh and watched in admiration as the slurped up everything that life had to offer wishing I could be like that. In a way I was still a small town girl with a pink strawberry dress in her cupboard who would have to return to her old life once the clock struck 12.
Sun City staff consisted of a young, multiracial, multi cultural society where most of the people came from all corners of the world. There was no barriers and tensions and I made the most wonderful friends in that month. I felt like we were on a planet of our own, one where everything is beautiful, the gardens are manicured, the staff are friendly, the punters are too ( as long as they didn’t loose) and it just added to the entire magic feel of the month. The work ethic was very different as well. Everybody addressed each other by first name, there was no standing on any sort of formality.
I had been working nights for three days when my colleagues started telling me about this hunky guy that worked in the slots department. The girls had all met him as they had started working a week before me and he was on what we called ‘days off’ when I started. The permanent staff worked a month but they would have six days off in the month, pre booked on rota as so not to inconvenience the business levels. On days off you usually went home or went away just to have a break from the hectic lifestyle… Just joking, according to the employment act you couldn’t work ALL the time, not that I would call this work. So the hunky guy was on days off when I started. The other change girls, as we were called, told me that he was rather aloof. Apparently he had been working at Sun City for months but he had yet to be seen with a girl. So their attitude was he is fabulous but unreachable. I was intrigued but soon forgot all about him as the Christmas period was upon us and we were running. The slot machines were knee-deep in very needy punters and if I had been wearing my Apple Watch the I would have made 10 000 steps every night.
On my fourth shift I was standing with two other girls when suddenly the one said:’ Look! There he is! He is back from days off!” I remember looking up and seeing a very tall, blond guy standing with his back to me at a slot machine speaking to a punter. I remember the big bunch of keys on his right hip, his tight blue suit pants and white shirt. The fact that he was so tall immediately registered with me as I’m not short myself. The challenges of finding a tall guy and being able to wear my high heels was real so I must admit I paid attention. I never got to see him turn around as I was summoned for change and from then on it was never ending. I sold all my change and I was sitting downstairs, balancing my float when I felt somebody looking at me. I looked up and here I am today, 37 years later, still mesmerised by the same man, but let me not get ahead of myself…
We hit it off immediately, it was magic from the first hello. How quickly those shifts went. At first we just met up informally whilst on shift. I still made my way to the pool everyday meeting up with my friends as I am a sun worshipper. I never saw him in the day only finding out about his aversion to the sun much later on in our relationship. Our first real date came the evening we all gathered in Raffles for the staff evening. Raffles was a restaurant/disco and every Sunday night was staff night. Then the punters had already left in anticipation of facing work on a Monday and the staff came out to play. We ate, drank and danced the night away. I went to Raffles that night wondering if he was going to be there and our very first dance was to Rick Asley’s ‘Never gonna give you up…’
Oh my word I fell so hard for this guy. He who wore his “Don Johnson” jacket as we danced the night away.
Our romance lasted throughout the December holidays but I knew I would have to return to teaching early in the new year. Despite this I was swept away by the moment, the guy and living in a world where there was very little “ugly”. The mining industry and all that went with it was packed at the back of my mind. I was young, carefree and happy.
My new vampire boyfriend never joined us during the pool days. He hated the sun and refused to budge on the subject but I still joined my colleagues/friends everyday where we lay on the sun lounges watching the guests from behind our sunglasses. Most of the guests were punters and they also recognised us so we had a steady supply of drinks and food sent to us. It was glorious days.
One morning on our way to the pool my colleague Tracy asked me if I would mind a quick detour. We were both dressed for the pool wearing our costumes and shorts, towels over the shoulders. Tracy was an “import” from the UK, also doing part time work selling coins to the guests. She was a buxom girl and had metal studs in many places as well as an array of tattoos. I liked her. I liked her attitude to life and the way she embraced everything that came her way. We were very different people and that’s why we got on so well. Tracy marched into the Main Hotel where the admin offices were situated and announced herself to the secretary seated there.”Tracy for the interview with Gary” she said. I sat up straight…an interview? What the heck? Surely I am not allowed in these proceedings? I tried to make myself small waiting on the couch in the foyer but when the time came and Tracy was called in she made it very clear that I was to be included in the interview. I protested but even Gary who was doing the interview said:”Come on in”. Okay then.
I had never been present at an interview before and I watched everything with interest. Gary asked questions and Tracy answered. It looked like it was going fine until Gary said:”Tracy,I can’t give you the job you are not qualified enough. I will find you something else.” Then he looked at me and said:” But what about your friend? Would she like the job?”
Tracy responded by laughing and saying:” She is a teacher, she is only here for the holiday.”
Gary looked at me with renewed interest and said:” A Teacher? What do you earn at the moment?”
“R795 pm”: I replied
“What if I double your salary, give you free accommodation, a food allowance to spend in the restaurants and after three months I will review your salary?”
And that is how I became a Payroll Officer for the Casino staff.
To be continued…
