I left Rhodes at the end of 1959 with a fairly good theological and biblical grounding, but I’m not sure how confident I was about the work that lay ahead. We had received limited instruction in the actual practices of ministry, so the work of ‘caring for souls’ would have to be learned on the job. Nor, frankly, had there been enough emphasis on nurturing our own inner spiritual lives; that too, it would seem, was a DIY matter. But we had at least become a cohort of colleagues: the three-year journey had bonded us, and in my case, a couple of closer friendships had begun to penetrate my habitual solitariness. Yet I doubt any of us realised how poorly we were equipped for the ‘secular 60s’ that were almost upon us. We were about to enter a decade when confidence in religious belief would sink to its lowest ebb in 200 years. It was represented most sensationally by Time magazine’s famous April 1966 cover: large red letters on a solid black background, asking, “Is God Dead?” In ten years, the graduating class photograph we proudly posed for would be a bit like that of a World War I infantry company entering the trenches: half of those smiling young men would be gone from ministry, casualties of a seemingly unassailable assault on their faith foundations.
Meanwhile, a telegram from the Methodist Conference which had my life in its hands informed me that I was now the Probationer Minister appointed to Bellville Methodist Church, Cape Town.
8
Stumbling into Ministry
Probationer Ministers are Methodism’s apprentice clergy – partly cooked. Probation lasted six years, three at seminary and three inservice. The ministry was exclusively male in those days, and when entering we had to be single, assuring the Conference in the quaintly absurd language of the Church that we had no ‘secular encumbrances’, that is, wives. Probationers were also completely at the mercy of the Conference Stationing Committee and could be sent anywhere in Southern Africa. When Conference met in October, the number of senior students slipping into the Livingstone House chapel for earnest prayer increased. I recall one of them, James Polley, praying aloud, “Anywhere, Lord, anywhere – except Otjiwarongo!” But the Stationing Committee was not without compassion; they appointed me to be near my newly widowed mom and the rest of my probation would be spent in Cape Town – at Bellville for one year and then in Camps Bay and Milnerton.
As I hoisted down my suitcase onto the platform at Bellville railway station, a small man with a big smile strode toward me, hand stretched out in greeting. Rob Raven was one of the lay leaders and he loaded me into his car and took me home to lunch where his spouse Margaret had prepared a meal of welcome. I immediately warmed to this homely couple and their children and would find refuge there many times. After lunch we headed for the church. In 1960, Bellville Methodist Church consisted of a multi-purpose hall utilised during the week as a youth club, Scout hall, group meeting place, badminton court and whatever else came up. On Sundays it was converted for worship by introducing a pulpit and Communion table. The congregation was only ten years old and I was to discover that such communities are often a lot more fun than old established ones.
After inspecting the premises, we went off to get the key to my new digs at 10 Boston Street. A single room served as both bedroom and office. Squeezed into the small space were a bed, wardrobe, dresser, desk and chair. The bathroom was down the passage and I would eat around the corner at the landlady’s place. Other tenants were a newly wed Afrikaans couple and an engineering student who had a back room. He and I soon struck up a friendship over the old MG sports car that he tinkered with and sometimes got to go. Our landlady’s claim to fame was that she had been a Jehovah’s Witness. The JWs don’t give up their own without a fight, so she was something of a celebrity among the Baptists to whom she had defected. She would drop bits of her stock talk, “I was a Jehovah’s Witness,” into table conversation. “When I was a JW,” she said as she dished up our not very appetising supper, “I would have called you a goat because when we knocked on a door and got a hostile response, we would tick the ‘Goat’ box.” To earn ‘Sheep’ grade in her visitation book, people had to offer a warmer welcome. Her spouse was a quiet little man, who only came into his own when saying grace in sonorous High Dutch. For me the unusual thing was that it followed, rather than preceded the meal, which made total sense: depending on how edible the food was, I could opt in or out of thanking God.
Our third destination was a garage to pick up a battered maroon Puch motor scooter, which was to be my official mode of transport. After taking possession I went off somewhere quiet to learn how to ride it.
Although I had spent years just thirteen miles away in Rosebank, I had never visited Bellville. Cape Town’s snootily English Southern Suburbs tended to be divided from the Northern Suburbs by a ‘boerewors curtain’ beyond which Afrikaans and a more workingclass culture dominated. I soon found that my Youth Guild took a dim view of their new minister courting a girl from ‘the other side’ but once Elizabeth trusted me and the Puch enough to cross the curtain on my pillion they got to know her and made an exception.
After church on my second Sunday evening the youth leader named Alfie Schnehage told me that the group had arranged a welcome party at one of their homes. All I had to do was follow their cars, so I nodded and mounted the Puch while they packed into three 1930s-vintage Austin 7s and some other jalopies. It was drizzling, but having ridden the scooter for a few days, and been tested and licensed, I felt no concern; all I had to do was stick behind them. They had other ideas of course, mapping out a diabolical route with so many twists and turns that I was soon hopelessly lost. Things got worse when they veered off across a couple of wet fields, with me hanging on grimly, peering through mud-spattered goggles to make out the faint red of their tail-lights. I realised that this was a test I simply had to pass, so I gripped the handlebars, sliding and praying and skidding my way through – and back onto the paved road. When I finally arrived among the laughing youngsters I was mud from head to toe, but I was now one of them. Some remain firm friends to this day.
I had little training in church administration but Rob Raven and the other lay leaders helped me along. The congregation was used to junior probationers, “not broken in yet,” as ex-serviceman Alec Pawson used to say. They showed wonderful forbearance as I stumbled my way into ministry and into their completely unearned trust. Rough-hewn and straightforward, they were some of the finest people I have known. Their faith was simple – it was about living decent lives, working honestly, doing right by their families and trying to take God seriously. Factory foremen, fitters, train drivers, traffic cops – I found that I could move comfortably among them and enjoy the friendship they readily offered.
The year 1960 was of course one of massive political import in South Africa. It was the year of Harold Macmillan’s ‘Wind of Change’ speech in the South African Parliament, of the rise of Poqo, the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC), and the anti-pass-book campaigns climaxing in the March 21 Sharpeville massacre. Just nine days after Sharpeville, in Cape Town a 24-year-old Methodist lay preacher and PAC activist named Philip Kgosana led a march of 30 000 men from the township of Langa to Caledon Square police station in the heart of the city. That day Elizabeth was attending the Technical College in the same street that the marchers converged upon and she called me later to share her amazing experience: to get to her train she had to walk through the serried ranks of men besieging the police station and filling the adjoining streets. “I was really scared,” she said, “but the marchers were so disciplined. They stood in silence, and quietly made way for those of us trying to pass through. Not a single man touched me.” I silently thanked God for their dignity and also her courage. Kgosana was deceived by a promise that he and other leaders would be given an interview by FC Erasmus, now Minister of Justice, and on the strength of that he ordered his followers to disband. Amazingly, the 30 000 men left the city as quietly as they had come. The government then struck with lightning speed, declaring a State of Emergency the same day. Hundreds, including Kgosana, were arrested and the ANC and PAC were banned.
Langa and Nyanga townships were cordoned off by the military and some of my navy friends were now camped out with units surrounding the townships. I went to visit them, relying on my clerical collar and the Puch to get me through. It was troubling to see good friends and their men being used in this way.