16
MODERN QUARRYING
October - November 2013
that very time to leave Monty standing.
On level ground it would not have been
a problem for him to catch up, but the
line went downhill quite rapidly and the
train sped up considerably from its nor-
mal sedate pace. Monty eventually man-
aged to catch up and reboard the train,
which definitely called for some more
refreshment.”
A notable memory of that confer-
ence was an evening trip around Algoa
Bay harbour on one of the last remain-
ing coal-fired tugs in service. Luckily the
weather played along and the water was
like a mill pond, which Lynne says, was
fortunate after all the drinking done ear-
lier that day.
Another conference was held in
Naboomspruit with a site visit to Buffalo
Fluorspar. The conference and accommo-
dation was held at De Oog – one of those
large resorts with rows and rows of iden-
tical chalets. One of the delegates, who
five years back, was chairman of a junior
mining house, returned to his chalet after
a night’s partying, unlocked his door and
stepped into an
empty room and
t h o u g h t t h a t
h e h a d b e e n
robbed. It was
far too late to
do anything at
that stage, so
he went off
to sleep and
in the morn-
ing reported
the theft of
his luggage.
He was suit-
ably embar-
Photographed at the 8
th
Annual Dinner/Dance in March 1977: From left: Mr and Mrs Dave
Bezuidenhout and Mr and Mrs Gerry Pedder on the left (Courtesy Newsletter).
rassed when he found that his luggage
was actually in Chalet No 19, and he had
slept in a chalet a row behind his one.
“We held a more recent conference
at the William Humphrey’s Art Gallery
in Kimberley, with a site visit to an allu-
vial diamond operation at Sydney-on-
Vaal,” Lynne recalls. “Normally security
was extremely tight, but somehow our
delegates were allowed into the sorting
room and helped to sort out the gravel.
Whether it was fake or not, it was a great
thrill to find a large yellow diamond in
the pile that I sorted, but unfortunately it
wasn’t a case of finder’s keepers.”
For many years, a leading explosives
supplier hosted the executive commit-
tee to a dinner at the Durban Club, and
in those days women were not allowed
through the front entrance of the Club,
and had to use a side entrance. Lynne
once jokingly remarked to Raimund
Weber, who was host member at the
Durban Club, that she didn’t believe it
was right for the women to go through
the side door, and that she would prefer
to go through the front entrance. That
year, as the bus drove down the Victoria
Embankment, the front entrance had
been barricaded with chairs that were
normally set out on the front veranda.
“Did they really think I would carry out my
threat?” she asks.
Another of those dinner functions was
held at the Elangeni, and the comedian
entertainer was really below par. When he
realised that nobody was laughing at his
jokes, he walked off in disgust. “In typical
Institute fashion, we took charge of our
own entertainment, taking turns to tell
jokes. One of the Elangeni waiters was a
natural and became an instant hit. We all
agreed that he should move permanently
into the entertainment business.”
The Government Mining Engineer
and a variety of inspectors would attend
conferences regularly, providing mem-
bers with a great opportunity to discuss
compliance requirements and difficulties
on an informal basis; something that was
really appreciated by Institute members.
During Monty’s chairmanship, Ed
Gezernik was Education Sub-committee
chairman, and between Monty and Ed,
the Institute of Quarrying Opencast
Education Trust was initiated. This
involved a huge amount of work lobby-
ing initially to convince the Department
of Education that a surface mining and
quarrying qualification was needed; and
then to ask industry to provide funding
to support the courses with students;
and finally, persuading the educational
institutions of the day to develop these
courses once funding was available.
“We managed to raise substantial
funding and sourced and managed writ-
ers of material, leading to the develop-
ment and implementation of the N Level
(up to what is now Grade 12) and M Level
(post Grade 12) courses in distance learn-
ing format,” Lynne explains. The N Level
was phased out several years ago by
the Department of Education and more
recently the M Levels or Diploma courses
have been incorporated into the B.Tech
syllabus. Regretably this has left gaps for
sorely-needed qualifications for the sur-
face mining/quarrying industry.
In the late 1990s, there was a move
to break away from the Institute par-
ent body in the UK. However, this was
resolved with intervention from both
the UK and Australia, resulting in the
reformation of the Institute in South
Africa from the Institute of Quarrying –
South Africa Branch, to the Institute of
Quarrying Southern Africa. “This created
a more professional institution with more
autonomy but still within the interna-
tional family, which I believe was a good
move in this fast-shrinking world of glo-
balisation,” she says.
There were many characters in the
industry, one of these being Bryan
Rookledge, who resigned as a direc-
tor of the Institute only last year. “Bryan,
who was living in Cape Town at the time,
was invited to join the executive. He had
a habit of turning up to conferences in
FACE TO FACE WITH
LYNNE MONTGOMERY
