Hello Friends
Hello friend, and welcome to the Toad in the Village. Like all the good things in life, this little pub in Noordhoek is part of a much greater story. In fact under this thatch roof, while you fill your belly with our fine food and quality drink and regale each other with your own stories, the latest chapter of my story is being written around us. Every bite, every sip is part of the narrative. To introduce myself, my name is Toad, although my ID book reads Ronald Mustafa Ponsenby McGraff (insert toad’s latin name). But my friends, my enemies and everyone in between, simply call me Toad. I came into the world between the two great wars of the 20th century, in the rain forest that hugs the Zambezi between Zambia and Zimbabwe. First born to an olde English railway engineer and his child-bride, my mother, whose oft-recited legend said that she was a stolen Moroccan princess rescued by my father from a loveless, arranged marriage to a diamond baron in Kimberley. She spoke a fluent French and a touch of Arabic, and my sister and I, never had cause to doubt her word. And so should it be for all family histories. My father himself, a belligerent old colonial brute with a moustache like a broom and hands as big as telephone directories; loved my mother entirely and toiled daily to provide a livelihood suitable to her royal lineage. At this he failed miserably. But lord, did he know the meaning of hard work. Not only did he calculate, measure and plan the route of the railway line North of South Africa through Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and eventually ending in Uganda, but he drove steel spikes with an iron hammer into those hardwood railway sleepers all day long.
At the time of my arrival on the planet, my father was constructing the bridge over that fearsome gorge downstream of the Victoria Falls. The same bridge the young people like to jump off with an elastic band tied around their ankles. Unfortunately for me, my younger sister, Trixie, happened to inherit all our mother’s good looks; olive brown skin, a long graceful nose, flowing dark hair. We both share the same piercing green eyes, although hers are a beguiling almond shaped draped either side by long lashes while mine bulge out of my face like I am being strangled. My skin is a type of leathery camouflage, mottled with freckles encompassing all hues between brown and green and the difference made up in pink splotches, add to this my wide mouth and thin lips and the fact that I was practically bald from birth and never grew much hair on my head and you will understand why from that very first day at school I was dubbed, “Toad”. For obvious reasons the nickname stuck. Luckily my mother always taught me that a person should never let their looks, good or bad, get in the way of living one’s life to the full. My father’s route was simpler, he taught me to box, Oxford Rules, from a very young age and he said, I can still hear his booming voice, “Toadie, my boy, you deliver a cracking jab to the chops for anyone who ever makes fun of your, er, rather, ahem, odd looks.” You see by that stage, he had even started calling me by my nickname. And I welcome you to do the same. Because the name has never bothered me, and neither do my looks. And besides, if you let little insecurities like how you look get in the way of what you want to do with your one short life, well then you’ve been tripped up by one of life’s first hurdles.
By the time I was in high school, I had blossomed into quite an athlete. I had long legs and the kind of compact upper body strength that made me a natural winger on the rugby field. I ended up playing first team at the age of 15. I was also quite talented in the swimming pool, in fact I think I still hold the record for the 100m Butterfly at my old school. By this stage we were living in the Midlands of KwaZulu Natal. My father was still building railway lines, criss-crossing South Africa. And while I inherited my father’s physique, my mother took it upon herself to ensure that her children were the very example of childhood geniuses. Every day after school she would force us to read Galileo, Newton, the old Encyclopedia Britannica collection, Shakespeare, Da Vinci, Newton, Camus, Mozart, Freud, Nietsche and the works of an extra-ordinary young physicist called Albert Einstein. And, now I don’t mean to boast, and I’d hate for you to think me vain, but it was a fact that because of our extracurricular studies, I was far advanced for my class. And as the pious tend to quote, “the devil makes work for idle hands”.
The one thing we never had a lot of when I was growing up was money. By the time I was 16, I owned one pair of shoes, a Sunday suit and a pair of civvy shorts and an old short sleeve shirt that was my daily uniform. Well when you’re 16, you get to see a lot of things you might like to own. And so, with nothing but time on my hands I started to dream up ways of making money. My first scheme was simple. Everyone at school was always hungry for some quality grub, so I struck a deal with a local restaurant to make sandwiches from their leftovers, and daily I would arrive at school with a satchel full of ‘the finest’ roast beef, mustard and gherkin sandwiches. Sometimes it was roast chicken, mayonnaise and lettuce. Anyway, that little business blossomed and soon I couldn’t carry all the sandwiches in my satchel so I enrolled the help of some of my friends. But soon enough my partners realised they could do the same thing, and by the next term there were about 5 different satchel sandwich vendors operating in the playground. I had learnt my first lesson in business. Ideas are only as good as their execution.
Next I bought a pair of hair clippers and started a small barber shop behind the bike shed, but this time instead of encouraging competition I actively sought to include anyone who showed any interest in haircutting in the scheme, setting them up under my umbrella and taking a cut of each of theirs. Soon I was earning a handsome weekly stipend for doing nothing other than having started the business myself. And I liked that. I had time to focus on other pursuits: such as music concerts, movies, grooming products and sure enough, girls. And just like that, I stumbled upon a yawning gap in the market. Many of my contemporaries at school had only the flimsiest understanding of the female anatomy, and being one who has always been interested in both uplifting those around me and making money so doing, I promptly ordered an array of suitably educational ‘erotic’ magazines from a mail order catalogue in Amsterdam. These I rented to my classmates for a few Rand a day, or night, and soon had a thriving rental magazine distribution business. This delivered hundreds of Rands into my pocket every week. Alas the rampant, wildfire success of this enterprise was to be my downfall. The headmaster soon caught a whiff and I was promptly expelled.
Now you can imagine that did not go down too well with the burly old colonial railway engineer. To put it mildly, he blew his top. He went absolutely berserk. Despite my mother’s protestations our confrontation soon escalated into a fracas. As a headstrong 17 year old, filled with the static excitement and irrepressible vigour of youth, and a pocket full of money, I was in no mood for apologising or acting contrite. I was in no mood for finishing my studies either. My father yelled and slammed his massive fists so hard on our dining room table as to crack the old railway sleepers it was made of. I, unmoved, packed my belongings into my old school satchel and set off into the night, to seek my fortune, and my future away from my father’s house.
At first the anger drove me into the night and up onto the highway. I stuck out my thumb and managed to hitch a ride up to Johannesburg in the back on old cattle truck. My wilfulness urged me onwards. Not wanting to return home a failure, I set myself up in a small hotel in Hillbrow. You must remember at this stage the centre of town was quite cosmopolitan. The New York of Africa, they called it. I started scouting around for opportunities. I took what little money I had and traded in everything from cigars to small bits of real estate to mining components and cheap Russian vacuum cleaners. I even sold several fistfuls of dusty stones to a dodgy diamond cutter in Jeppe street for a small profit. Two years slipped by as I fashioned a niche for myself trying to set up the big deal that would secure me a level of financial freedom. Alas a woman intervened. One night at the dingy little bar attached to the hotel lobby, I was surprised to find a rather sophisticated and attractive woman drinking alone. In between sips of her brandy, she would give a long sigh and sometimes a little whimper… Well to cut a very long story short, I approached her and asked if I could be of assistance. We got chatting and I soon discovered that not only was she incredibly good looking in a svelte, knockout, Bridget Bardo kind of way, but she also possessed a wicked sense of humour and a rather long, sad and complicated story about an unhappy marriage, an abusive husband, his infidelities and poor business sense. None of these details really registered in my mind, for as she told them she was deftly rubbing one of her exquisitely manicured toes against my calf. We soon tumbled into bed and so started a rather wild and passionate romance with Lizette Van Der Merwe, estranged wife to the city of Johannesburg’s chief of police. We kept our affair under wraps for a week or two before old Chief Inspector Van Der Merwe had her followed to the hotel for one of our regular mid-afternoon trysts. Needless to say, on my way to a business meeting I was bundled into a shiny black Cadillac and stuffed between two burly detectives and taken to see the chief inspector atop a mine dump on the outskirts of Benoni. Now the Chief Inspector was a relatively handsome ex-Springbok rugby player, if you could excuse his cauliflower ears. But yowzer could he throw a punch. In between a barrage of fists he explained that things between himself and his wife were in a “delicate” space and he couldn’t have her “gallivanting”, his words not mine, around own town with a boy half his age, and according to her confession, in skilful possession of a much larger todger. That little indiscretion of Lizettes’ cost me quite dearly on the next punch. He then drew his service pistol, pressed the barrel against my head, cocked the hammer and told me to leave immediately otherwise he would be forced to bring me back here, with shovels next time, and finish the job.
I really was quite compelled to follow his suggestion and leave Johannesburg immediately, but I was concerned for Lizette’s safety. She had recently started to talk about a future that involved a traditional white wedding followed by a house with a swimming pool in the suburbs and interspersed this line with a parallel murder fantasy of epic proportions. Between talks of wedding vows and honeymoons, she prattled on incessantly about how easy it would be to “knock him off” and drop his body down an old abandoned mineshaft near Carletonville. To complicate matters further I was on the verge of a rather promising business venture supplying a consignment of stainless steel urinals to the Department of Education. A deal which would have made me a very rich young man, indeed.
I came back to the hotel to gather my belongings and move Lizette and myself to a safer location while I figured out what to do next. As I marched through the lobby, I saw her long legs poking out from the telephone booth and was about to stick my head around the corner and give her a smooch when I heard her say:
“Yes, he’s such a silly doos. Your little show on the mine dump must have put the fear of god into him. Now just sit back and let me do my part…” She cooed into the phone using that sultry bedroom voice. “I’ll see you later tonight, my skatte-bol… And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to save most of my melktert for you.”
Well it was like another kick in the gut, I quickly side-stepped the phonebooth, shot up the stairs and threw all I owned into an old duffel bag. I took what little money I had saved from where I kept it under the floorboard and headed straight for the train station.
I soon found myself in Cape Town for the first time, rubbing my last few Rands together and wondering what I would do next. There was an old pub near the dockyards that served cold pints and good, fresh fish and chips, I quickly decided that a hot meal and soothing beer would cheer me up and allow me to think clearly about my next move. As I scoffed delicious mouthfuls of hake and vinegar slapchips, washed them down with ice cold beer, my attention was drawn to a poster for the Union Castle Line – which ran ships between Cape Town and Plymouth. Suddenly I knew what to do. I’d head to London and make my fortune there. The very next morning I was down at the Union Castle office and within a few minutes had talked my way into a job as a bell hop on the next boat, which just happened to be leaving that afternoon. Now the life of a bell hop on the Union Castle Line was a bit of a chore for an over-achiever such as myself. But there is a certain dignity in service, and an honour in hard work. Besides it was only a two-week trip.
And then my luck began to turn. One night, I had just finished my shift in the restaurant and heading for my bunk, somewhat depressed by my position in the world. As I rounded a corner on deck I happened upon an old woman and a man scuffling and leaning dangerously over the railing. The man seemed determined to push the old woman over the edge and into the frigid Atlantic, but she fought like a banshee. I quickly intervened, pulled her to safety and gave him a swift punch to the chops and a kick in the goolies. I now turned my attention to the old woman who was now lying crumpled on the deck sobbing. Suddenly she screamed for me to look out. I turned to see the glint of a blade slicing through the air in a wide-arc, thank goodness the boat lurched on a swell and I involuntarily staggered back so the knife only slashed my jacket and shirt, giving me the tiniest nick on my left nipple. As the knife sailed past, and the heave of the boat pushed him towards me, I instinctively grabbed the man’s elbow with my left hand and pulled his face into my fist. I think, without doubt, it was the hardest punch I have ever thrown. I felt a crack and ting shudder up my arm as the man staggered backwards and flipped over the railing aided by the next swell. There was a tiny plop, and then he was gone.
I quickly alerted the Captain that we had a man overboard. But it took so long for the boat to slow its momentum that it was impossible to find the man. I felt truly rotten. At the inquest over coffee in the captain’s cabin, I told my side of the story and the old woman I had saved from a certain death introduced herself as Dame Sophie Macomber. After sloshing a large tot of whisky into each of our mugs from an elegant silver hipflask she kept tucked in her bra, she recounted her sad story. Dame Macomber was the jovial and loving wife to the recently deceased Sir Francis Macomber who was widely revered as one of the greatest living hunters turned conservationists the continent has ever known. Old man Macomber had made a large fortune from animal skins, elephant tusks and rhino horns before realising that all this hunting could not be sustainable, and so turned his considerable fortune and profession towards establishing nature conservancies in Kenya, Botswana, Malawi, Zambia and South Africa. Alas, unable to finish his life’s work, he was out on Safari in a desolate corner of the Serengeti when he came across an ill-tempered buffalo bull that had been shot and wounded by a novice hunter some years ago. On hot days such as that one, the buffalo’s wound ached and throbbed ferociously, and poor old Macomber was unlucky enough to stumble upon the animal as he dismounted from his Landrover to take a pee on a nearby acacia. The buffalo took one look at the figure of the man, gave a low snort and charged old man Macomber, flinging him into the air like a flower and trampling him into the red dirt for good measure. Although Macomber made it back to the camp alive, he assured his beloved Dame Sophie that he would indeed die there, and that he felt it was his just dessert for all the animals he had shot and killed during his life as a hunter. He exhorted her to not mourn him long since he had lived a long, happy and wonderful life. He told her that he loved her more than life itself, and that she should continue the good work they started. Dame Sophie brushed a tear away from her eye as she recounted the story, I stifled a little sniffle and the captain was compelled to give her a hug.
But alas, things were not so easy after Macomber’s death, the great Dame continued. A family vulture soon started circling their fortune. You see old man Macomber was married before to a Polish socialite and from this unhappy union had produced a churlish, sullen and spiteful child whose only interest in his father seemed to revolve around getting his hands on his fortune. His mother had passed away from alcoholism several years ago. And ever since the death of his father, this young man, Alexei Macomber, used every dirty trick in the book; from fraud to guilt and a good measure of extortion in order to get his grubby little hands on old man Macomber’s loot. Even if it meant chucking his dear mother-in-law into the freezing Atlantic ocean. Despite the fact that Dame Macomber was en route to London with the rogue in order sell a very large swathe of the Serengeti in order to appease him.
Well the Captain, nodded solemnly and said there would be a full inquest on arrival in Britain, but that it seemed to him, from the facts presented, that a sort of justice had been served and no further action was needed on his part. From that moment on, Dame Sophie took to me like her only son. In London, I was soon deeply involved organising the Macomber’s affairs with regard to the conservancies in Africa. At that stage there were very few tourists to Africa and there was tons of potential in developing the Safari industry. Through hard work and ingenuity we built Macomber and Co. into the biggest safari outfit on the African continent. With the profits from the safari business I had a bit of luck on the stock exchange. In the safari business we relied heavily on an interesting little Japanese car manufacturer called Toyota that could be relied upon for the quality and economy of their engines. So I bought some stock in the company. We did all our accounts on a new computer system from America made by a company called IBM, and when they listed I decided to invest some of our profits in their stock. Soon after that I got a tip about a new computer software company, that although not a great product I had a hunch that it would become the global standard operating system, so I got in early with Microsoft – which I sold a few years back and invested in their competitor Apple. At around the time mobile phones were invented, I was in Finland for a spot of massage and sauna therapy with my girlfriend at the time and stumbled upon a small mobile phone manufacturer called Nokia. I bought a wodge of their stock. Needless to say most of these investments returned very well over the years, making Macomber & Co. a vastly wealthy company. With the proceeds we continued our conservation work in Africa, but also diversified into a global philanthropic funding network with projects in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe. When Dame Macomber finally shuffled off this mortal coil, I inherited the lot and it fell to me to continue the Macombers’ legacy.
Many, many years passed. Years of adventure, opulence and empire building. Along the way I have had my fair share of excitement: arrested by the Chinese in Tibet, kidnapped by terrorists in Somalia, tortured in Colombia for romancing Escobar’s girl and back home in South Africa for being involved in a spot of gun-running for the struggle. I’ve tracked lion in the Serengeti, ridden elephants in the Chobe and slept countless nights under the stars in the African sky. I’ve also rubbed marula bark on a million mosquito bites. I was there for Prince Charles and Lady Di’s marriage, climbed the Matterhorn, skied with helicopters in Alaska, Canada, Italy and France. I was a guest of honour at President Mandela’s inauguration. And recently helped Obama to come up with the “Yes we can” slogan. But it hasn’t all been hard work and tough times. Over the years I’ve sunned myself on many luxury yachts, scuba dived un-named atolls and been massaged by the bored wives of several Sultans and Sheikhs.
Alas, the world of high finance, philanthropy, adventure, luxury global travel and celebrity living can become a bit dull if that’s all you’re ever doing. And I had some unresolved issues with my family. Over the years I had been in touch with my sister and my mother, but my relationship with my father had soured, and remained so. One evening I was in Hong Kong, sewing up some rather delicate business with Greenpeace, when I got a call from my sister. It was near the beginning of the Japanese whaling season, and Macomber & Co. were covertly financing the Greenpeace and Sea Shepard fleets. At the same time we had just stitched up a deal to develop an eco lodge on a small uninhabited island in Fiji. As usual I was travelling with my close friends, the Le Dain sisters, two exquisite French lingerie models who often accompany me on my travels. Anyway, I answered the phone to hear the dear voice of my baby sister Trixie with the news that my father had taken ill, and that I should come home immediately. Well even though I was in the lap of luxury, and living the life most people can only dream of, there was an overwhelming, pervasive feeling of emptiness. When my sister phoned, I suddenly came to realise what was missing. Family. And with that thought the loneliness and emptiness evaporated like mist. I went straight to the airport and had my pilots fly me to Cape Town.
In the years since my departure, my sister had moved herself and my increasingly frail parents to a small holding in the Noordhoek Valley on the South Peninsula of Cape Town. She met a young buck by the name of Slade Van Tonder, a local surfer, crayfish poacher, tuna fisherman and general layabout and the two fell deeply, hopelessly in love. Well Slade met me at the airport in his laidback Cape Town way, in his old open jeep with a longboard tied to the rollbar. And we hurtled through the city to the South to see my father. I’ll save you the tears and drama, but needless to say there were many long hugs, wails and well-worded apologies. Despite the fact that his body was riddled with an aggressive cancer, my father, the old bull, lasted a few months longer in order, I believe, to reconnect with his long lost son. We had time to take many long walks on Noordhoek beach as well as many family meals and long summer evenings on the old stoep drinking fine ales, smoking the odd surfer’s cigarette, courtesy of Slade, and telling long, complicated stories, such as this one. It was only then that I truly realised that there was nothing more important than family. And when families get together they should eat and drink and tell stories. This, the first tradition, is as ancient as our species. Anyway, old man McGraff finally succumbed to the cancer, suddenly and all in one go. It took him just two days to go from the happy, robust old man with a pint in his huge hand and a story on his lips, to a frail ghostly apparition of himself. And then he passed.
Now Slade and Trixie were only just hanging onto the old smallholding as the gentrification of Noordhoek took place. Slade was never any good with money, he lives too close to the moment, you see. All his business ventures and ideas are thwarted by the next big swell, or the fact that the tuna are running, or because, “the vibe’s not quite right” to quote the man directly. Trixie is busy playing mother to their three children: Barnabus, Michaela and Rocky. And in her spare time she’s mothering and nursing my feisty old mum. And after experiencing the blast of warmth and love that only family can offer, it was very hard for me to imagine returning to my old life as a vagabond and altruistic playboy. Besides, I’ve already made more money than I would be able to spend in my lifetime. So I decided to stay and re-join the family, and maybe contribute in some small way to life on this beautiful Peninsula.
Now, like my father, I’m not one who believes in handouts. If Slade and Trixie were struggling to make ends meet, they couldn’t just look to me for a handout. They’d have to work for a living, like everyone else, but perhaps I would help finance the venture. One lazy Sunday afternoon we had just finished a delicious meal at Café Roux in the Noordhoek Farm Village, when I noticed the rather dishevelled looking pub next door, formerly known as The Nag’s Head. Well, that got my wheels turning. I’d always fancied myself as a publican and was excited by the prospect of creating a place, run by a family, where families could come to eat good food and drink refreshing ales for a reasonable price. I also liked the idea of encapsulating all of my life experiences on the walls of the pub. Not so much to boast or brag, but because I’ve lived a full and eventful life and posting it on the walls of a pub is far more interesting than having it wrapped up in the pages of an autobiography that lives in a bookstore or a library. Consider this pub, my living autobiography. A work in progress.
And so after a brief family meeting, a handshake and the exchange of a chunk of wonga, a few well calculated alterations and the arrival of a master-chef, the Toad in the Village was born. The menu reflects some of the dishes that most inspired me on my travels and our beer and wine menu is extensive, as it should be. Most of all we can assure you that the Toad will always strive to make you feel at home. We’ll only ever offer you the freshest food, fast friendly service and ice-cold drinks. So please come eat, drink and be merry and don’t forget to talk amongst yourselves.
