A shot echoes around the country ... and a boy’s new life begins

IT WAS summer. Wednesday, February 4, 1945, was probably an ordinary day in Sea Point. Little William Rowland, four years old, was picked up from Loreto Monastery's nursery school at lunchtime by his mother.

The kindergarten was close to their block of flats, Ithaca, on Kloof Road. Ithaca still stands today, though it has been modernised beyond recognition over the decades. The monastery was razed to the ground in 1980.

He and his mother made their way up the street to their abode on the hillside. Safely home, William wanted to play with his friends. There was Bettie, waiting on her family's balcony, while Linda was sitting on her living room's windowsill.

He and Bettie were laughing and fooling around. Then Linda's mother, Mrs Varrie, appeared behind her daughter in the window. Did they know it was “baby's" first birthday? she asked.

Didn't they want to come and play? He and Bettie told their mothers they were going to Linda's. They ran over to her flat.

There they were taken to a back room by Linda's mother where she kept a big box of toys. Mrs Varrie went out of the room and when she returned, she mysteriously held something behind her back.

“Close your little eyes and count to three," she said. “I have a big surprise."

William did so, but when he took a peek, she was simply standing there, motionless. She told him to close his eyes again and count to three.

He couldn't remember hearing the shot but suddenly Bettie was lying next to him in a pool of blood. There was a hole in her head. She would later die.

Linda sat on her bed, frozen in fear. It was the last scene he would ever see again, for Mrs Varrie pointed the gun at him. He turned his head and she shot him through his temples.

The bullet went right through his head. His optic nerves were severed. He would never see again.

Shocked the country

This year William Rowland turned 84, so has been blind for 80 years of his life. To say this incident shocked the country would be an understatement. The residents of Sea Point, then still a smallish neighbourhood, were shaken and traumatised.

It was all over the media, on the front pages of newspapers, on the radio every day. Mrs Varrie had no motive, and everyone wanted to know: How could she do such a thing?

Readers will have to find out for themselves what happened to her. William's life was wrapped in darkness from that day forward.

He had to learn from scratch how to walk around their flat, on the street, on the promenade, when he went swimming. It was like having had two lives.

He adopted a small tortoise that pitched up in their large garden; the news spread through the community. Soon concerned Samaritans brought more tortoises for the boy with the white-framed sunglasses. His parents had to put a stop to it by the 32nd one.

He used to caress them and each had a name – there was a Harry and a Gillian, among others. When his mother called, they “quickly" ran to her to get fresh lettuce leaves.

He learnt to swim at the Sea Point pool, neighbours read him stories, and he mastered braille. When he started school at the School for the Blind in Worcester, he could already read the tactile letters.

Here he excelled in chess, cycling, wrestling, debating and folk dancing. He obtained his National Senior Certificate with distinction, and the highest marks nationwide in Afrikaans and English.

After school, he went to London where he trained as a physiotherapist at the Royal National Institute for the Blind. He was a handsome fellow and flirted with the girls. The theatre was a major attraction.

During his studies, he started a three-man pop band. After all, this was the beginning of the Swinging Sixties.

After his studies, he worked for a while in England to earn enough money to tour Europe. He travelled to Rome with his girlfriend Maisie and hiked through Ireland.

On his return to Cape Town by ship, he was unable to see Table Mountain, but he says a sense of wonder vibrated through him – the sounds of seagulls, the lapping waves, the salty smell, the feeling of the wind running through his hair.

A new life began in Cape Town. He stepped in as a physiotherapist at the Lady Michaelis Orthopaedic Hospital in Plumstead. This required him to catch the bus at 07:00 in Sea Point, then the train to a station near the hospital. He walked from there, sometimes using a white cane to guide him.

He was reunited with old school friends and they enjoyed a busy social life. An important plot twist came when he met Hélène Scholtz and fell in love with her, especially with her beautiful voice. She could sing and received the Mimi Coertse scholarship for voice training.

Beach proposal

She had been participating in radio dramas at the SABC since the age of 12. On William's first date with her, they went to a party in Clifton, also attended by poet Ingrid Jonker.

They were on a beach in Blouberg, tanning and holding hands, when Hélène suggested that he ask her to marry him.

They got married in the Groote Kerk and moved into St Martini Gardens. (Poet Sheila Cussons would later live in this block of flats across the Company's Garden for years.) Hélène worked diligently on her radio work and began performing in operas at the old Nico Malan Theatre.

It's a small world: Her sister Cornelia Stander was the mother of a schoolfriend of mine. Cornelia performed at The Space and was also an artist. During this time, William moved in creative circles and met the likes of actors Babs Laker and Suzanne van Wyk.

He was the first blind person to climb Table Mountain, he started bowling, took up chess again and got involved in tangible art exhibitions where blind people could touch the artworks. At Kirstenbosch, he got involved in introducing footpaths where blind people could stroke certain plants guided by braille notices.

William also published a debut collection of poems in 1974, Die huis waar ek woon (The House Where I Live). He composed music, wrote children's books, launched a radio show and enrolled for a BA at Unisa. He completed his PhD with a dissertation titled “Being-blind-in-the-world – a phenomenological analysis of blindness". This thesis was distributed in more than 20 countries.

He gave up physiotherapy and became a liaison officer for the South African National Council for the Blind. He worked himself up to CEO of the board. William would go on extensive trips around the world representing South Africa, including visits to over 70 charities in 14 countries.

In part two of his book, he elaborates on his activism for people with disabilities which later led him to work with former president Nelson Mandela. Madiba recognised their plight, seeing it as part of the struggle for human rights.

I met William one day at the Vineyard Hotel in Newlands. We drank Irish whiskies. He spoke softly and distinctly and wore dark glasses, dressed in a tailored suit.

It felt like I had met him already. I was lying in the dark one night listening to the radio. Margot Luyt was presenting a programme about people's sharpest memories. I heard a man with a lovely voice talking about Word War 2. All the windows in Sea Point had to be darkened at night for fear of enemy ships out at sea.

He was small and used to lift the black blind and look up into the starry sky. What stayed with him as a blind man were the twinkling lights up there. It was beautiful. He still thinks back to it a lot.

I contacted him to ask if I could write about it in a column. When he came to the Cape one day, we got together and drank that strong coffee.

He mentioned he was on his way to Sea Point to “look" at the sea. “Yes," he said, “I watch the sea by listening to the waves, smelling the day, maybe even pressing my hands into it."

The sea sings its own song

Yes, the sea sings its own song, even if you don't see it. I never go out on the promenade again without using all my senses.

William writes with a stripped maturity and dignity in Journey to Ithaca, the way he is in real life. He tells his life story in a series of short chapters that mark important stages and events in his pilgrimage.

There were challenges and achievements in equal measure, often interwoven with ironic humour. What comes to mind is that his blindness has not defined or limited him.

In the latter part of his book, the telling of his life story switches to a light, minor tone. Today he is an older William, his wife has passed away, and he is going on a journey back to his past.

He revisits the School for the Blind at Worcester. In Sea Point he finds that The Loreta Monastery is long gone. He returns to the Anglican church he attended as a child, the Church of the Holy Saviour.

This church was the place of worship for the Coloured community who lived just around the corner on Tramway Road. As a child, William played with many of the children on this street.

Tramway Road is among the first places from where people were taken to be discarded on the Cape Flats under the Group Areas Act. He thinks of them with nostalgia when he arrives at the church. Like the Loreta Monastery, they are no longer there.

Everything has changed ...

He stops at Ithaca, where he was shot in 1945, where his new life began, and where he has now come to say goodbye. The new owner of the flat invites him in, but when he crosses the threshold, he knows everything has changed.

A staircase now connects the ground floor with an upstairs flat. The simple two-bedroom flat no longer exists. Then he and a friend go to the flat next door, to the room where the shooting happened.

He asks if he could be alone for a while. It's quiet. In his mind's eye, he sees Mrs Varrie standing in front of him with the gun. Bettie in a pool of blood, a hole in her head. Linda with dread on her face. So long ago, he thought. Yet so immediate.

The journey ends where it began. Did his light dim in that room? Or did it start to shine brighter that day? Read the book and decide for yourself.

May our country never forget people like William Rowland. I salute him.

Journey to Ithaca can be ordered from UJ Press.

♦ VWB ♦

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