Ha! Bart Simon's latest Denise, it looks as though I was right (in a previous sequence which I have since deleted) about the political correctness bit. The notion, that anyone should be able to keep secret for 100 years such a harmless piece of information as the fact that he or she was baptised on a particular date into a particular denomination, is ludicrous. It is could perhaps be remotely embarrassing if the baptism concerned is of an adult, as an adult has some say in the matter, but Mugabe's certainly was not such, as an RC he would have been baptised as soon as possible because of the RC belief that unbaptised people would infallibly go to Hell, which was roundly castigated by C S Lewis among others. Certainly the infamous Mugabe had no compunction, when asked as a courtesy to open the World Council of Churches meeting in Harare, in sounding off about the infamies of the Christian Churches and in particular the Roman Catholic Church; Mandela, on the other hand spoke, gently but firmly, and pointed out that most of those present who had a decent education, including Mugabe and himself, owed an incalculable debt to the Church missions who provided it when the Governments concerned were not interested in doing so. He received a rousing cheer from all present, whereas Mugabe's outburst had been received in stunned silence. My wife happened to be present during this exchange, along with my youngest brother, a Presbyterian Minister in South Africa (now retired); both were of course fully conscious of the fact that my father and his was a Presbyterian Minister of some repute, who had also been a House Warden at Fort Hare, and had read Greats at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, followed by Divinity in Edinburgh. His sojourn at UCT, on the strength of which he got a privileged chance at the Rhodes Scholarship, was possible partly because of his own efforts and partly his parents' sacrifice, but also partly good luck as the pendulum of the criteria for entry had swung towards pure academic prowess and away from "all-round" excellence (meaning good at sport), where it was when our own egregious Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, gained his Rhodes Scholarship (also through attendance at a prestige school). He's rather thick but replete with cunning, and resembles Vladimir Putin and George Bush the Lesser in making his muscles, bandy-legged cowboy gait and general cocky attitude his trademark attributes. (If Abbot were just a bit younger he would qualify for my son's name for such people: "Mamils": "Middle-Aged Men In Lycra", and has in fact been like that ever since he gained prominence in politics, only the acronym hadn't been invented then.) Such men have no shame, but a disturbingly large proportion of the public fall for it. Perhaps my outburst was ill-experssed in one respect, though: in the paragraph after point 2 I should have stayed with corruption, rather than fraud! Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com On 11/04/2014, at 5:43 PM, Andrew Rodger wrote: > Hear, hear! But there are two possible explanations: > > 1. Sheer boneheadedness manifested in a combination of idleness, incompetence and fear of doing anything wrong, or > > 2. Corruption. > > No doubt these are also connected, as idleness can be overcome with sufficient incentive . . . In other words, incompetence breeds fraud. > > My wife sent money to Pretoria when the Consul-General's office in Sydney said it couldn't help her (because all such matters had been centralized) and never saw a thing for her money. As it happens, we were in Cape Town a little while after that, and sat in the Cape Town office (which I think was then just behind the City Hall), shifting up periodically in a sedentary version of the regular Airport snake-queue until we were called, and she then laid down the law to the hapless counter-clerk to such effect that he was cowed (or shamed) into giving us redress, even to the extent of not charging us the normal fee. But that was many years ago, I think around1992, and we found things progressively worse on successive visits, culminating last year in a refusal to sell me a railway ticket (apparently because I was past retirement age, and that conflicted with the quite different rules about non-residents!), and would not even sell me a full-fare one. So we jumped on the train anyway and 'fessed up in the central station in town and paid for a return ticket for each of us. In another office, I forget whose, I was told that I couldn't enter into a non-resident transaction because I could not prove that I had ever emigrated from SA -- even though I proffered my Australian Passport as evidence. And this applied in spades to my wife who, for sentimental reasons, has retained her SA passport, but has a permanent residence visa-stamp in it from the Australian Immigration Department in it -- and has been on the electoral roll, and holds an Australian driver's licence, and has been a registered proprietor (jointly with me) of the real estate in which we live since 1963, which has all the hallmarks of permanence about it. > > If this story sounds garbled or just plain daft, that's because it is -- but it is true all the same. So don't get your hopes up! > > Andrew Rodger > rodgera@audioio.com > > > On 11/04/2014, at 8:00 AM, Paxie Kelsey wrote: > >> >> I have been waiting for more than two years for one copy Helge and I think >> it's a big fraud system ... take the bucks and never deliver! >> Paxie >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com >> [mailto:south-africa-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Helge Pretorius >> Sent: 10 April 2014 09:07 AM >> To: SA List >> Subject: [SOUTH-AFRICA] Vault copies of birth and marriage certificates >> >> Dear Listers >> >> I wish to obtain vault copies of the birth certificates and marriage >> certificates of my grandparents and my husband's grandparents from the >> Department of Home Affairs (South Africa). The earliest birth was in 1908 >> and the earliest marriage in 1934. Has anyone had any luck obtaining such >> records? >> I have contacted them telephonically and they said that if the person did >> not have an ID number, it would be very difficult (almost impossible - their >> words) to find the records. I do know that such records are kept in the >> archives in Rosslyn (Pretoria). >> >> Kind regards >> Helge >> >> ____________________________________________________________ >> South Africas premier free email service - www.webmail.co.za >> >> Cotlands - Shaping tomorrows Heroes http://www.cotlands.org.za/ >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to >> SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the >> quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >> >> ------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SOUTH-AFRICA-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >> >