UNCLE "CAREL" DE BEER

My uncle KJ De Beer, who's names I also carry, was a builder per excellence. He, like his other two brothers, Flippie and Willem, was very talented in designing, creating and building of new things in life. Their works are all over the Free State and Transvaal provinces, from passenger coaches to furniture and railway bridges and stations respectively. Uncle Karel, in this photo, carried originally the name "Carel" with a "C". He changed it to Karel with a "K". He was a very individualistic kind of man who played rugby and loved all kinds of sport. I can still remember how he lifted me on his bicycle to rugby matches at Springbok Park when I was still a very young boy. He was a family man and a church going person, however, the best part of him was his love for the veld and hunting. He coocked every kind of animal that he could hunt with his whippet dogs. From hares to pocupines ! I enjoyed the few trips that I went with him to the farms in our Bloemfontein district. Whether at night time or early in the morning, it was always excting to see how the dogs track and hunt their prey. A man to remember around the camp fire...