Characters of Port St Johns - Tom Egling

A self-styled traffic cop, Tom Egling was in actual fact an ex-public prosecutor.  In his retirement, he decided to do something about the generally haphazard parking style adopted by Port St Johns residents.

“He was an ex-prosecutor.  He decided to start giving out fines to people for the way they were parking in the town.  Everyone was shocked when he gave his wife, Thelma, a parking ticket for parking badly in front of the bakery!”  (Gloria Keightley Daniel)

As a reaction to the above snippet about Tom Egling, Kevin Daniel has this amusing memory of Tom:

“I had to laugh when reading about Tom Egling, and seem to remember waving to him as he roared past on his scooter, and him waving back with his foot, not wanting to let go of the handle bars.” (Kevin Daniel)

“As a child, I truly believed that Tom Egling was a traffic policeman with sole power over us riding our bicycles.  We had to do a ‘bicycle driving test’ in front of him.  The ‘test’ entailed demonstrating that we could balance properly, knew how to use the brakes, and how to use arm gestures when turning left or right.  He even checked that the bicycle bell was working!  Looking back, I now realise that the ‘test’ had been arranged between our parents and Tom in an attempt to make us road-wise whilst on our bikes, but Constable Egling took it all very seriously and was suitably strict and officious during the 'test'. 
I remember having a deep-seated fear of him, in case I did the wrong thing while on the road, and constantly kept an eye open for him to appear on his scooter if I made a small bicycle-driving mistake!  I don’t know what I thought would happen to my precious blue bicycle with the basket on the front to carry my dog, but there must have been a worry that Constable Tom Egling would arrive promptly at the slightest traffic misdemeanour and confiscate my bicycle – dog and all! (Natalie Daniel Erasmus)

Tom Egling, the scooter, a dog, mbanga-mbanga and illicit liquor:

This hilarious incident involves our local Constable Tom Egling being chased off his scooter by a dog and becoming closely attached to lots of smelly weeds!

Picture the trading store at Undercliff:  directly across the road from it on the river bank was the old house that at various times belonged to Joseph Chiazzari, ‘Old Man’ Hacking, and ‘S.S’ Harrison.  At the time of writing (2013), it is the 'Spotted Grunter Resort'.   The amusing story is re-told here by Howard Daniel, who witnessed the event.  Constable Tom Egling probably didn’t see the incident as amusing at the time, but the events of the story would do well in a black-and-white slapstick comedy movie.

“The piece of land immediately to the bridge side of the Harrison’s house was an overgrown area covered by lots of mbanga-mbanga,  a wild, stinky weed that grows into a thick shrub, as well as white ‘Pith Trees’ and banana trees.  Next door to the Undercliff shop lived Tommy and Molly Handley.  Tommy was the owner of Tommy’s Garage, and at the time of this story, also owned a collie dog.

Constable Tom Egling lived further up beyond the bridge in the Tiger Flats area, and every morning, used to ride a Vesper scooter to get to work in town.  He worked for the SA Police and also acted as prosecutor for the state.  He was a veteran of World War II and possibly suffered from shellshock, but had a brilliant mind, very literate and well-read.  His parents were from Engcobo.

On this particular morning, Tom Egling was on his scooter and driving to town.  Uncle Tommy’s collie dog happened to be sitting in the sun at the gate to their house opposite the mbanga-mbanga field when Tom Egling came past.  The collie dog saw him coming, and it took off, chasing him and barking. Tom Egling took evasive action, and disappeared down into the mbanga-mbangas and bananas with the dog behind, barking at him!

 All you could see was one scooter and one Tom Egling down into the weeds and bananas!  He was unhurt, but the local Pondos all stood around watching and laughing.  He was known to them as ‘Jogimbalara’ (which means “to search for the illicit alcohol brewing stills”.  This name came from the fact that Tom Egling, as a police constable, was responsible for searching and clearing illegal stills in the forest that were used for brewing the ga-vin).  As a result, they thought he deserved being chased into the stinky weeds and bananas by a collie dog!