Tony van der Meer

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Tony van der Meer

Tony Van Der Meer settled in Swaziland in the early 70's. He had been involved in 2 accidents on Unicorn ships - got his glove hooked in a wire that was running away during berthing and was badly hurt going over the winch drum. When he went back he was knocked into the lower hold of a ship while guiding a container into place in a tween deck. After this he decided that ships were not for him and moved to Swaziland.

He started a Stone Crushing business and farming there. The business was going well and he decided to improve the Quarry by building a loading gantry so 2 trucks could load at the same time. When I last saw him he had just a bit of work to do for the quarry to start operating again. He had just bought some cattle and was very happy with them. He had a daughter who was about 18 months old at the time. A few weeks later I got a call that he had been killed. The last big conveyor belt motor he was fitting slipped and fell on top of him - killing him. His death left a big hole in my life - he was a really good guy.

by Al Viljoen

I last saw him about 1969 - He and his wife visited Lynda & I in PMBurg. I think he was studying for his ticket.
We had been married about a year and Lynda's two boys were sick with measles at the time and his wife being a nurse helped us with getting them to take their medicine. You are right he was a great guy and really missed by us all. Brian Preiss laid a wreath for him at cenotaph in 1994 at our 30 year reunion.

I also had a visit from Mike Nelson, Peter Stacey & Clive Gibson around that time.

by Gordon Bain