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| "THE BACK ROOM BOYS" "BACK ROOM BOY" GRAEME YOUNG AT MARAISBURG |
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| Welcome to the “BRB GRAEME YOUNG AT MARAISBURG” webpage of The Pumamouse Website. The following letter was kindly written and provided, along with two rare photographs, by Graeme Young in memory of Springbok Radio. The letter and photographs are included here with Mr. Young's knowledge and consent. Special thanks to Mr. Young from The Pumamouse! |
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| Were you or was someone you know one of “The Back Room Boys”? If so, please contact The Pumamouse! I would be delighted to read your recollections and, with your consent, perhaps include them here for others to read and enjoy! |
| Hi MaryAnne, My name is Graeme Young, and I worked for the SABC for about a year at the Maraisburg transmitter. I returned to England in 1956 when my parents decided to return home at the end of my father's contract. Working for the SABC was all fun in those days. Shifts at the site started at 0500 hrs, as Springbok went on the air at 0600. The English and Afrikaans Services followed at around 0700. The powerful Rand thunderstorms played havoc with the transmitters. On one occasion, we had a group of visiting VIPs at Maraisburg when a thunderstorm blew up from out of nowhere. Lightning struck the mast that radiated all three medium wave services, and a large capacitor, about the size of a Jerry that goes under the bed, blew apart. Of course, the programme went off the air, but with some resourceful metal bending, a substitute capacitor was fixed in place of the damaged one, and within three minutes, Springbok Radio went back on the air with the usual recorded apology. The VIPs were impressed, and we had a word of appreciation from Mr. Welleman, the Corporation's Chief Engineer. I knew Paddy O'Byrne and Peter Cockburn quite well as they moonlighted at Alpha Film Studios. I went to work there after leaving the SABC. Fond memories! They were good days out there at Maraisburg. I used to get soaking wet running the 50 meters from the bus-stop to the station entrance, and I'd change into white overalls whilst my clothing dried in the blower room, in the hot air coming off the transmitters. I remember "My Friend Mike" in particular, a concept that later became "Candid Camera" on British TV, and the adverts...Black Cat and Apie Peanut Butter, and Dr. McKenzie's Veinoids. ("For sciatic, rheumatic and muscular pain, take Veinoids at once and feel right as rain!"). On hot nights, with the transmitter hall windows open, we used to get an amazing variety of flying bugs come in. Some used to get through the air intakes on the Short Wave Transmitter for the Afrikaans Service, and they were incinerated in a shower of sparks. We had to run and remove the cremated corpse and get the transmitter on the air again. Some of the big bugs used to crash into our power intake console and land struggling on their backs. I used a tennis racquet to re-launch them from the main entrance! The engineer in charge was a Mr. Pfau. He smoked a horrible pipe, and one day, on the late shift, we decided to play a prank on him. We emptied the pencil sharpener on the control-room desk into a saucepan, added sawdust from the workshop, and small pieces of rubber cable insulation, pieces of shredded string, and a quarter kilo of "Kaffir Tobacco". (Sorry if this is politically incorrect, but that is what they called it at the time, 1954.) We boiled it all up together and pressed it under the heaviest transformer in the stores for a couple of weeks. When the night shift pattern repeated itself, we retrieved the "tobacco", sliced it up, and put some in Mr. Pfau's jar. He smoked the lot, but spent a considerable time trying to track down some overheating wiring from which he could smell the burning rubber! My colleagues there were McNamara, McGregor, and Van der Merwe - a great crew, and very loyal to the Corporation. Snakes would get in during the colder weather to find warmth. They'd come in via the under-floor ducts and find their way into the motor-generators for the Short-Wave English Service. There, they'd get wrapped around the commutator of the filament supply generator and put the English Service off the air. We had to remove the remains, the blood and gore from the generator, and shine up the commutator with a sheet of emery paper tacked to a specially hollowed piece of wood - another piece of country-style resourcefulness. I was the guy who used to play the waveband change announcements and service interruption apologies. On maintenance nights that lasted until 2AM, we used to play records to test the transmitters, and the records were mainly requests from the nurses at Johannesburg General Hospital! Thanks for some great memories. I was 18-19 years old then. Attached are two pictures from a lost era: the old Springbok Radio medium wave transmitter at Maraisburg - YES, it really IS the one - and a shot of the station buildings. Hou die blinkkant bo! Graeme January 2003 |
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| A FOOTNOTE FROM THE PUMAMOUSE The Maraisburg transmitter was the last medium wave transmitter owned by the SABC. It was reportedly sold in 2001 to a Chinese community radio station, which was still broadcasting from there at the time this webpage was created (1 February 2003). The Chinese community radio station has since gone off the air. Sadly, the Maraisburg transmitter has fallen into disrepair, and is no longer being used. |
| The Springbok Radio Medium Wave Transmitter At Maraisburg, Circa 1954 |
| The Springbok Radio Station Buildings At Maraisburg, Circa 1954 |
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