In winter, the northern gales thunder across the peninsula, and rain cascades on the mountains, to feed the Silvermine River at their feet.
And strangely this ice cold amber torrent is typical of the mountain rivers of the Western Cape, for it leaches the organic salts from rock and mountain root providing the sweetest, purest nectar, all to waste in profligate fashion in the wintry sea off the Indian Ocean at Clovelly.
Summer draws to its lusty zenith at Christmas time. The Silvermine River becomes a stream of little consequence forming a clear, dark lagoon between the sea and the railway track, where it is nurchered until the Northerly winds return to our parched shores, and provide relief from the heat.
And this is where John Bell spent his Christmas, alone, but content.
Earlier that year he had relinquished his job at the (plessey) factory where he labored to connect a myriad of small wires and soldered spots on the telephone exchanges and electronic gadgets which his company manufactured under the strictest security conditions.
A quiet, gentle man of 35 years, his shy smile was easily drawn by anyone who took the trouble to greet him.
John was a dreamer. Not for him the cares and hassles of commerce and industry. His weekly wage provided him with his meagre requirements leaving enough to nourish his dream.
The only son of his mother, who lived in East London, John had no other relative.
The Silvermine River lagoon at Clovelly forms one of the sweetest stretches of Sandy Beach in the world, through the Fish Hoek Valley.
The "Cape Doctor", the South East trade wind is a frequent visitor to this shore in summer, providing relief from the brassy sun, and a trial to the older inhabitants.
No smog at Clovelly to pollute this little haven, separated from the Atlantic Coast by six miles of sand and scrub.
Here was the framework of his future, the bones of his dreams. John Bell dropped out of his work which taxed his nimble fingers but not his mind. Here, his little craft took shape.
Two small fiberglass hulls strapped together by a trellis of timber and resinned fiberglass to form a catamaran. For good measure, the cabin was a small dinghy, nine foot long, attached like an egg to two rashes of bacon. But snug it was!
On the Silvermine lagoon, he fashioned his sleeping quarters shrouded with a cocoon of plastic, flimsy but weathertight, cramped but snug, for a man who craved (welcomed) a spartan existence.
No bed for John, a board was his choice. No epicurean he, a vegetarian.
This is where the boys first met him during their summer vacation.
Already they had exhausted their holiday spirit, and were curiously eager to return to their desks.
He spoke with them, and his lack of material needs struck those chords which little boys always have, and much older boys never really forget.
Where was he going? Where the wind took him. Would it take long? He didn't know but hoped so.
The constable churned his way through the soft sand, well polished boots aslither.
"Complaints have been received" and "squatters may not stay more than two months". He had his orders, the fuzz had,... Craft and John must be gone by midnight.
Wanly John assured the young constable that he had only spent one month living on his craft. For four months prior to that, he had stayed with Mr and Mrs Hyland at Kalk Bay around the corner.
MIDNIGHT!
Gareth, Tammy, Grant, and Koo, were aghast at the tyranny of society. The craft had a flimsy mast, no sail or rudder.
Gareth was late home that night. He caught hell in fact! His soft eyed mother even allowed his Dad to lash him verbally unchecked.
They didn't understand, you see.
At a quarter to midnight, Gareth's concern and admiration for this gentle man had given the lad the courage to call at the Police Station and appeal for a deferment.
"Sure son", said the comfortable policeman in the lamplit Charge office. "But you see, that beach and lagoon are reserved for our Coloured people, their family and friends" ." It is only fair that we should not allow white people to squat on their place". "You know how we Whites like to stand up for our rights". "He'll have to move. Oh we feel sorry for him too, but go he must, and soon. We have warned him before, you know".
Early next morning, grunting, shoving and sweating, the cumbersome contraption was muscled through the sand down the beach to the high water mark. Thanks greatly to a nice coloured family whose Dad was such a friendly guy.
It took a long time though, and their legs and arms ached from the effort.
The wind whipped the sand about too, and it stuck to the eyes and mouth as if drawn by a magnet. Sun burned too!
Where do we go from high water mark with the wind blowing the wrong way? They asked. "We wait for the tide to come in", said John.
"He's such a nice chap, Dad," said Gareth. "He's not poor either though he does look a bit, well, You know he hasn't got a house and nice clothes to wear, and I suppose it's quite difficult to keep yourself looking tidy living on the beach. He's got plenty of money though and showed us a thick wad of notes".
"No sir, he's alright is John, and he's so decent. Why, you know he won't use a motor for his boat because he says it pollutes the ocean and kills plankton.
And he's jolly unhappy too. He says that if they break up his boat he will lay his head on the railway line. He says they must break up his home after all his work."
" He has a little bottle that he grows yeast in to make his bread. And a tape player with two speakers.. It must have cost a lot. Tapes and music, all classical you know. We Do like him. We really Understand him."
" But listen lad, there's no ways that craft is going anywhere except to be bashed up by the waves and washed-up against the rocks right there in the Clovelly corner. I really can't bear to watch it happen.
I'm old and know that dreams are for children, and he's a man...
Well, what about a sail? He's going to get one."
I saw the wreckage the next morning.. I glimpsed that frail dejected figure gathering his remaining few sodden possessions and placing them on the beach above the tide.
Later that day, the council lorry and fifteen laborers hefted the whole shooting match back across the railway track.
Very important they were.
Don't know where they dumped it all? But John had gone.
"Oh, he's a nice chap", Mr Hyland told Gareth. "No he hasn't come here yet. We'd be glad to have him back. My wife is ill and she misses him. Getting old you know." You know, he asked me to take all of the furniture out of his room so that he could sleep on the floor. He hung a length of seine net from the ceiling and made himself a sort of little hut of brown paper. Said it was sort of like sleeping in a cave. He should have been a hermit. He had a little gas cooker that he used to make his coffee".
"No, he was no trouble at all. And he loved his classical music, it seemed to make him so happy".
"Yes, I'll let you know when he pitches up". "You don't suppose he's drowned, Gareth?"
A soft smile from one who had completely identified with his older friend.
"Nooo, Dad, not John".
"He would like people to think that. Then they won't hassle him. But no, he won't have drowned".
"You see, I know a lot about him. Not only the good things. You know he smoked pot. Not much, but I think they put him in jail for it once?"
"No Dad, he has been out to sea on a raft before and had to be rescued".
"He gave me his tape deck and his precious tapes. They had been splashed by waves and he said he wanted me to have them before they got too damaged".
Well.... The lads are all back at school now. Gareth is at boarding school so we won't see him for a couple of weeks. Mr Hyland phoned to speak to him today.
The sea was calm and the wind had died. Very gentle it was when John Bell's body was found just below the high tide mark.
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