The Younger Years of Lee Hoyle: An Autobiography

By Lee Hoyle

You may not yet have heard of Lee Hoyle. You soon will. This collection of anecdotes, memoirs and general musings will almost certainly have you laughing, and often bring a tear to the eye. Lee's unique style of writing adds to both the humour amd the drama of the chapters of his life and often enhances the emotion of the moment. This is a must-read biography from an interesting new character, with praise heaped on chapters such as 'Breaking into a factory' and 'Addicted to Pepper Spray'. Lee also describes in detail some of the locations he has grown up in, including some beautiful - and some not so beautiful - locations in South Africa. Once you get this book, you won't be able to put it down. Not for the faint-hearted...

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: Jul 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781849891400

Book preview

Daddy

Addicted to Pepper Spray

Our house in Gerretsfeld consist of three levels; the ground level; the upper level and the basement, known is German as Keller. While the ground level is more the dining room and kitchen area and the upper level is the living room and bedroom areas, the basement is more washing area, storage area and also my bedroom.

Next to my bedroom, through the sliding doors is the storage area which we devided in two areas, namely the guest bedroom and at the back the storage area. In fact, that combined areas; the guestroom and the storage area used to be an indoor swimming pool with showers and toilets!

One day in summer I was downstairs bored out of my head and my friends where at school while I stayed at home being sick; had the little sniffles and my head was pumping like a pneumatic drill.

I was lying down on my couch watching RTL on TV and was watching Li-la Launebär and Löwenzahn and some cartoons too. I could hear the Hausfrau (Maid) Gertie doing some food and see her doing the laundry in the laundry room, which was near my room.

And when I didn't watch TV, I play on my computer; the Commodore Amiga 500 and played some games such as Indiana Jones; the Secret of Monkey Island and Turrican and so forth.

After a time I think I played too much computer and was bored again. I had nothing more to do and was talking to Gertie and begged her to do those famous pancakes (Pfannenkuchen in German) she always does.

Unlike normal pancakes, the pancake she makes is always thick and also has ingredients within them. The one pancake she makes have apple slices within them and another pancake consist of pieces of bacon.

I haven't seen her for nearly 2 decades now and I still remember her and her pancakes. Just wished that she came to South Africa and make those yummy pancakes; I wonder if she's still alive!

But coming back to this story now; after I've eaten my delicious pancakes, I went down to my bedroom and played a bit more. I continuously have an eye to the guestroom and the storage room.

What's in the storage room? I wondered. I put my Lego gently down (I also had a big box full of Lego blocks) on my table and went nervously into the other room. I was nervous, because below the floor of the guest room and storage room is an empty space.

That concealed room below the guest room and storage room gives me the shivers when I think of it, like what could be down there and had some nightmarish thoughts of it!

The storage room and the guest room are like I said is divided with a wall and a door with curtains. While the guestroom has a while light; the storage room's only light is the light from the outside peeping through the opening near the ceiling with its bluish glow making it a ghostly room.

That room consists of many boxes and other objects, such as a ship in a glass box and many cobwebs and old clothes and so forth!

I then went to a box that continuously has my eye's attention and opened it carefully, so as not to scare the spiders, as I have a BIG fear of spiders big or small. I searched the box with my hands and came upon a small orange spray.

What type of spray is that? I wondered and proceed to press it quickly. Shortly afterwards I felt a burning sensation in my eyes and I had some tears. The burn; the burn is too much. I then went to the bathroom to wash my eyes out with cold water!

I promised myself to never do those stupid acts again, because I've learned from that; never play with an object that you don't know of. But did I honestly listen to me… Nope!!!

Nearly everyday after school and once I've eaten lunch I would go down to my room and when I finished my homework, I would go to the storage room and pick up the small spray and take it to the bathroom, so when I spray myself, I can quickly rinse my eyes out with water.

In fact I remember that once I called my little sister Zara down. She was only about 6 or 7 years old. I told her to come with me into the storage room because I have something interesting to show her. She came with and I told her that when I spray that she must sniff it; she agreed.

She put her face near the spray, with her nose very close to the spray itself and I told her to count to 3!

1… 2… 3… and I sprayed the can into her face. She suddenly was crying and yelling at me that hear face was burning and ran towards her bedroom; she hated me for that, but the hatred had subdued after a short time and I promised that I'll never do it again!

I would still do it on me; just like a jackass. I continuously went into the bathroom and sprayed it into my face; was I addicted to the burning sensations and the coughing, followed by the burning tears in my eyes?

I did it for a few short weeks on every other day; not every day, so that I can relax my eyes from the burning pain!

Once I did it for too long and my eyes were burning so much that I screamed. Later that day my parents came home from a busy day at work and my mom saw that I had red eyes.

She asked me what was wrong and I explained to her about the spray I found in the storage room and she yelled at me You stupid boy; that is for self-defence and is not a toy. I hope you learned your lesson!

Shortly afterwards, they threw the cans away and any self-defence weapon, they would put it out of my reach. Did I learn a big lesson here; don't play with anything that you don't know of!!!

Advancement of Computers

How computers have evolved in such a minute technological time span relating to lifespan of the human existence. In this chapter I'm going to tell about just +- 20 years about computers in my life!

The Commodore C64 Home Computer

I had an older computer than the Commodore C64 which I think it was an old Atari computer, but that was too long ago for me to remember. I used to love the Commodore C64 computer, because then to me it has brilliant graphics and was fun to play with.

I remember playing games such as Paperboy, Tetris, Chiller and so forth. I thought; geez it is fast and it had brilliant sound. I still remember where I lived when I had it; it was Thelenkamp in Mönchengladbach-Hardt in Germany.

My friend Marcus often came and played with my Commodore. I had a colour monitor, while Marcus had also a computer, but it was older and uses a Monotone computer. The colour was green; black and green and it was a big monitor. At that time I don't think that CDs were invented yet; there weren't even disks for the Commodore.

It played with normal cassette tapes, so each game had a cassette and I thought that the computer was fast, because it had 64 kilobytes, hence the name Commodore C64!

The Amiga 500 Home Computer

When I moved to Neuwerk, which is also a suburb of Mönchengladbach. I moved into a bigger house that has a bar; a pool; a gym in the basement in Asdonkstraße, there I got a much faster computer.

While still being a Commodore; it is a Commodore Amiga 500; meaning it has the power of 500 kilobytes, which is virtually ten times faster than the C64. I was quite impressed with the power and the quality of the monitor is unbelievable, which has more colours and much smoother than the monitor of the C64.

The Commodore Amiga uses Stiffy Disks, making it faster than using normal cassette tapes. My father upgraded the computer into an Amiga 1000, where you have 1 megabyte of power to play with. My computer was so powerful that some friends got jealous with me.

I then moved into Gerretsfeld in Viersen-Heimer and still had the computer with my big plastic box of games. Man, I had over 100 games for that computer, such as Wings of Fury; Zak McCracken; Fighter Bomber and I even had my favourite game Secret of Monkey Island version one and two.

I loved that game so much that I bought the new version now, called Escape from Monkey Island; that using a CD and have more 3D Graphics. I then download the first version of that game and the difference is unbelievable.

the first one uses a 16 or 24 colour video card and the quality isn't that good and now the latest one uses a high quality video card that uses millions of colours and the graphics is so smooth and highly detailed.

I took the Amiga 500 down to Cape Town and gave it to my friend eventually, because you have Pentium Computers with far more power and you use CDs. My friend eventually scrapped it, because it was too antique!

The Pentium Computer

I then got a PC computer that uses a much higher quality video card and is packed with far more power than the Amiga. That PC uses many megabytes and also had a CD player as standard and also a standard Stiffy Drive.

In fact I remember the old PCs used to take the floppy disks, which are large and flat. I forgot the memory size of those disks, but it's much smaller than the stiffy disk.

I used to remember putting in +- 124 Meg ram, to make it run faster. Nowadays I don't think you get that small amount!

The media has revolutionized to such an extent, its unimaginable what type of media has in store for us in the future, or even the near-future. I remember how it progressed in my time; firstly the cassette; then the floppy disk; then the stiffy disk; then the CD; then the DVD and now even the Blu-Ray, which has the capacity of many DVDs, while the DVD holds about 4 CDs!

Nowadays the Stiffy Drive is replaced with something more powerful and faster; the USB Flash Drive, which you can get in various sizes too. You get 124Mb (Megabyte); 250Mb; 500Mb; 1 GB (Gigabyte) up to me think maybe 20 GB or even more!

Now you also get memory cards, which are so minute, but it can store many Gigabytes and there just little smaller than the size of fingernail!

Now I'm thinking what games will be out in the far future; it's actually frightening!

Aunty Sandra and Uncle Noel

I had an uncle and an aunt who lived in an area just outside Manchester in the U.K. in a farmland area surrounded by fields and a stream and a hill over the horizon. The scenery is like an old English setting set in the countryside.

I have a few memories from the area and from my uncle and aunt. My Aunt Sandra is related to my father Andrew and therefore has the surname Hoyle and my uncle Noel who had a beard and who was rough looking and he loved greyhound racing. He also had a peculiar nickname; the nickname Know All which sounds like Noel, but he seems to know everything, although sometimes he's wrong, but in his mind he's always right!

The one holiday, we decided to go on holiday to England with our mobile caravan, so we packed our stuff at home and decided to go on a journey from Germany to England.

We left home saying good bye to our neighbouring friends and went on the Autobahn towards Holland. It was a nice ride to Venlo; the border town between Holland and Germany and then drove to Rotterdam. The landscape what I saw of Holland whenever I looked out of the caravan window was so flat; in fact it was flatter than flat!

Several hours later we reached our destination; the destination Rotterdam where the ship North sea Ferry was awaiting not only us but many people until the required passenger quantity has been reached.

It was early evening when the ship has sailed from the Rotterdam harbour for its journey to England. Before it got so dark, I went outside to see the mysterious North Sea. It was so dark and mysterious; what creatures could lie beneath these cold waters?

We all had supper and decided to head for bed as it's getting late. I remember the round porthole windows with its orange curtains. I just stared outside and could see the darkness of the North Sea with the moonlight reflecting and shimmering on the rough waters. I then went to bed listening to the calm waves of the sea!

Morning arrived with the light of the sun shining upon us, so as to say Wake up; you've reached your destination. We looked outside the window and could see England in the near distance; the port town Hull to be more exact.

We've arrived and got our bags and headed to a rent-a-car office to rent a car for the period we're staying in England. What I've noticed is that people drive on the opposite side of the road compared to Germany, so I was a bit nervous but I trusted my father as he is from England.

Driving several hours from Hull to Rochdale just north of Manchester I noticed that the landscape was greener and hillier than Holland; I'm a person who loves mountain sides with the variable horizon.

As far as I remember; Rochdale was a size of a small town with three prominent flats at the near edge of the town. I saw that when I went to Burger King in Manchester and was looking north!

When we got to my aunt and uncles house; it was a triple storey farm house near the main road on a farm. Luckily we came in our caravan and stayed in the caravan rather than their house.

To me the house was a low class house with full of old furniture and plenty cats roaming the house. My uncle also had some greyhounds in the back. You see, he rather races greyhounds than horses and is a big fanatic of greyhound racing, anyway…

My sister Zara was a small and cheeky baby and when she got into their house she complained so much that it embarrasses them so much my parents had to calm her down. She said that she rather live in the caravan than the house!

Like I said, my uncle was a gambler with his greyhounds and sometimes I went along with my uncle to the races. All I can see and hear are people shouting to support their greyhounds.

After a lengthy greyhound race and my Uncle had a few drinks we then went back to his place. I still remember getting a bath in their old bathroom on the first floor. I t was a standalone bath.

My uncle also had a few other dogs on his plot and I sometimes walk with the dogs in the nearby farmlands. I still remember the one day; it was a cool and cloudy day with the grey clouds spanning over the green hills.

One day I went to a nearby hill with the one dog and was climbing the hill and got higher. You see, at that age I wasn't afraid of heights, but nowadays it's different!

We climbed so high that the house was way below in the distance, nestled in between green hills and farmlands. As we got higher it got a bit colder but we managed to climb anyway.

We sat down on a rock in the land and the view was like out of a storybook. A view that I'll never forget, even now at thirty I'll never forget the site!

The site I'll never forget are the rolling green hills below with the lights of the house and some small farm towns and in the distance the city lights of Manchester!

I had some experience in England where I visited other family folks than just uncle Noel and Aunty Sandra, such as Barbara and my grandma and grandpa. The vistas of the English landscape are quite different to those in Germany with their towns and English pubs and so forth!

On the day of departure we drove back to Hull to go back to Germany!

I still remember my aunt Sandra with her funny smile; how I miss them as I haven't seen them now for about ten to 15 years when they came to South Africa for visit!

Being Stoned

I remember the first time that I was stoned; it was with Jacques and Jason in Jacques's Honda. It was in Panorama and we also had a bit to drink and decided to visit my Principal one night and made a quick scene such as stopping in front of his house and hoot and do a wheel spin on his front lawn.

Thereafter we went for a drive to Somerset West mall and checked it out. It was a nice long drive of about hundred kilometres or so. After Somerset West we drove home, driving past the airport and the Cape Flats.

You see; the Cape Flats is infamous for all its gangsters and the crime-ridden flats. Ironically a song came on and that song I love even now due to the sounds; it's called Gangster's Paradise by Coolio. The crime in the Cape Flats is large. After that we went home to Plattekloof and Panorama!

I sometimes also smoke with my friends Mario and Anton, either by their place or in the park and were laughing our heads off. Mario is in a zone when stoned and me likewise. I was laughing my head off!

When I lived in Bothasig when I was married, we had some more friends who also smoke pot. My friend Mario will also come and smoke a joint and my other friends Dean and Michael.

We often smoked at the back of the house when braaing and have a few drinks. We were laughing so much and it was loud, that the neighbour's complained due to the noise level.

We also go to the nearby park just opposite Dean and have a joint and laughing. We hid when the police do their hourly patrols through the neighbourhood!

I and my ex often go to Cheslyn's flat in Blouberg for a coffee and especially at night often had a joint. We were laughing so much and listening to music for the stoners; I forgot the band's name but remember the one song This Monkey's going to Heaven. That song I'll never forget.

Also sometimes we had foreplay when stoned, such as kissing and fondling; it was me and my ex and Cheslyn. I somehow had a crush on her and sometimes we go further when my ex isn't watching. There was a connection between us!

Sometimes I go for a drive with my friends down the highway in the evenings and go to the town of Paarl and we go up the old pass and have a joint up the mountain and looking down you could see the town lights of Paarl. The view is amazing for such a small town in the Drakenstein (Dragon stone) area.

Also having a joint up the Paarl Rock is also nice with the view of the valleys and in the far distant the metropolis of Cape Town, where Table Mountain is a tiny dot on the horizon!

I and my ex on some occasions visit the campsite in Ceres and we live in a small chalet close to the river and near the mountains. We often go on the quiet trail that leads into the mountains alongside a river and many trees and sit down in an isolated spot and have a joint and were laughing our heads off and also appreciate the beauty of the landscape with all its mountains

Ceres is the place where my ex-wife asked me to marry her. I remember that evening; we were at Spur in Ceres and my ex-wife stood up and kneeled down and asks me to marry her; I said yes and the whole Spur was clapping. It should've been the opposite way round, but nevertheless I said yes!

One weekend it was me and my ex, Cheslyn and Jackie; we drove towards Tulbagh for a weekend; a stoner's weekend to be more accurate and stayed in a nice cottage with an amazing view that goes across the dry valley.

On the evenings we smoked a joint and were laughing so much. Lucky me with three girls. Having sex when