We were within earshot of the noon-day gun on Signal Hill. The rule was that, if you heard the gun go off while in the office, you had to fall back with a large cry: “Aaahhhooooo!” Spectacularly, I did this, falling through the doorway into Camel’s office with a large cry: “Ahhhhhooooo!” while Camel was being interviewed by the chief mechanical engineer of the Western Cape for appointment on a large project. The chief engineer was startled, but Camel got the job anyway.

Back in those halcyon days, things were different. There was no real email and very little Internet. I had a cellphone but Alan did not. Professional teams had to meet more frequently than they do now. Drawings, when issued, were issued as hard copies. Changes to projects were much less frequent than now.

If the architect or client decided to have a meeting, the meeting involved the whole professional team and the whole construction team. Meetings were long and boring. Camel and I came up with a way of entertaining ourselves in meetings. We would play a form of buzzword bingo. Every time somebody used a buzzword, I had to make a clicking sound while Alan had to make a noise like somebody drawing in their breath quickly. If done together, we sounded like a cockroach being sucked up a vacuum cleaner. If one of us missed a buzzword, then the other scored a point. If you got to 20 points, you had to say, not too loudly: “Bingo.”

Buzz phrases counted as buzzwords. Thus, at any given meeting, a conversation such as, “At this point in time, going forward, the design impacting on the space requires us to think out of the box and come up with a new paradigm” would result in Camel pop-eyed for want of breath, while I sounded as if I was mumbling a greeting in advanced Bushman.

We did some strange and interesting projects together. One of them was a restaurant for a Scandinavian food chain. Since we were near to our first free elections, the owners expected a flood of tourists. The venue that the Scandinavians chose was very interesting. I discovered that, in the cellar behind the drywall, hastily erected, there were another two rooms that led to a staircase which emerged at the far side of the restaurant. The contents of the rooms left no doubt as to how they had been used in the past for the benefit of male patrons.

The Scandinavians, informed of this part of their premises, asked what the rooms were used for. I said for the storage of clothing, indicating various ladies’ skimpy outfits in a trunk.

I traced the wiring from the distribution board in the restaurant and concluded that the distribution board fed the lift of the building next door. I spoke to the next-door landlord but he would not listen. Thus, I switched the distribution board feeder off and, for three days, the occupants of the adjacent building had to trudge up and down the stairs.

On another project, Camel and I worked on the Board of Executors bank building. One of the electrical contractors found a cable in the basement and asked what it was. I could see it was not a power cable or telephone cable. So I told them to cut it. This disconnected the Board of Executors and four major banks from the JSE. It took Telkom a week to fix it. I passed a variation order for the electrician to not mention the matter.

But all good things end. The Internet and email arrived. Nobody had to work in the city centre any more. Camel and I moved on. He retired and I went home. It was fun while it lasted.