Authors of ‘From Sydenham to the World’, Les Fabre, centre left, and Raschardt Williams, centre right, display the book alongside Saleem Adams, far left, and Shayleen Ashvy, far right, who aim to rejuvenate volunteer sport and life coaching. Picture: Duncan Guy.
Durban - HMP, which has been associated with various sports clubs in Sydenham, helped many residents through apartheid, reducing the “utter futility of everyday life” that they experienced.
Over the years, it has stood for “health, motivation, performance”; “humility, motivation, perseverance” and “honour, motivation, preservation”.
“It’s an acronym that captures a culture of interacting, of bringing about transformation and life to we coloured people in Sydenham in the desperate time of apartheid,” explained Les Fabre, who with fellow legendary sports coach Raschardt Williams co-authored “From Sydenham to the World”, launched last weekend.
“HMP is grounded on a simple saying, which is from the Book (Bible), ‘freely you receive, freely you give’.”
Williams added: “I’ve never coached people to become world champions. It was never my goal. My goal was HMP. I don’t care if you’re an Olympic champ or in a wheelchair. If I can make that person healthier, inspire him to be motivated and carry on, that’s an achievement.”
The spirit of HMP lives on: free circuit training takes place twice a week at Bechet High School, where it has its roots; athletics coaching takes place at lunch time at Charles Hugo Primary to accommodate children who commute from as far away as uMlazi and KwaMashu.
But the area still faces the social ills of youth unemployment, drugs and gangsterism.
Along with the recent launch of the book, which documents the successes of HMP locally as well as in corners of the world former Sydenham residents have taken it, is a move to revive the concept.
One of its drivers is Shayleen Ashvy, who won colours for softball and hockey, from the South African Council on Sport, an organisation set up as “the sport wing of the liberation movement”.
She recalled its heyday: “Two or three buses left Sydenham from Currie’s Fountain every Friday with all the children and parents. On a Friday night those grounds were packed. We had awards, trophies.
“We would take part in all the events. Even if you can’t throw a javelin, we were throwing the javelin for points for our club. So, it was all about points and great competition.
“We don’t have that anymore, so the children are losing interest.”
However, recent fun runs organised by the Sunshine HMP Club have shown that the talent is there, but they miss out on being scouted and lack access to training.
Ashvy also lamented that the spirit they experienced at Currie’s Fountain was lacking now because athletics had become too commercial.
“(There’s) a lot of money involved. And you don’t need money to be a great athlete. You learn that from the Jamaican sportsmen. They come from the little towns and you don’t need money.
“But in this country, the way they structure sport among the schools, they focus more on the semi-private schools. There is a lot of class in sport, race is still there and then there is money.
“If you have more money, your children have better opportunities. I feel that in sport, we shouldn’t do that.”
Fabre pointed out the significance of a chapter titled “Where to from here?” in “From Sydenham to the World”. While stressing that all life is political, he highlighted the importance of conversations among sports leaders facing the challenge of “discerning when their political beliefs, or those of their charges, are in conflict with the expectations and behaviours of the HMP ideal”.
Using photographs available from the times, often not the best quality, the book celebrates the achievements of Sydenham athletes, some of whom also became coaches: Winston Masters, Andre Rankin, co-author and later coach Raschardt Williams, Everard Brooks, Vick Eckersley, Belinda Sharpe, Gillian Daniels, Tony Stringer, Barry Otto, Gail Whittle, Gillian Daniels, Coreen Isaacs, Mike Fillis, David Guston, Sharon (Page) Williams, Wade Fraser, Zanamani Khumalo.
Then there’s Mohammed Ally, who was appointed chairperson of the Athletics SA Coaches Committee in 2021. In 1991 he broke the KZN and SA Schools’ record for 100m in a time of 10.56 seconds.
Ashvy recalled how Ally had been “the first non-white to run at Kings Park and compete with the big guns”.
“It was a great achievement for us at Sunshine HMP. We watched one of our runners live on TV because we never had that exposure in the apartheid days. When we ran at Currie’s Fountain, it wasn’t in spikes. We ran on sand, so for us to have spikes, that was a big deal. We were very proud to watch Mohammed run. He’s now been to the Olympics. He coached athletes and took them there.”
The book also includes HMP having been taken way beyond South Africa’s shores.
Fabre emigrated to Australia after the 1976 Soweto uprising. Eight years later, as a deputy principal, he was instrumental in the transformation of his school’s academic programme. He included sport and outdoor education.
“Early morning before-school training on the front oval was a clear and open signal to the community traffic passing by of the HMP type culture becoming prized by the fledgling school,” he wrote.
He also used HMP as a volunteer to the South Bunbury (Australian Rules) Football Club.
“Many stars in the national league ‒ men and women ‒ who came from Western Australia, were coached by him in sprint, physical presence and tackling as U18/19s.”
Everard Brook and his wife, Hazel, literally sailed away from apartheid to a new life in Barbados where they set up the Sunshine HMS Barbados club.
He had built his boat, Sunshine, at his home in Sydenham.
Arlene (née Cain) Simadari, now living in New Zealand, contributed a memory to the book: “At Bechet High we would sit in what is known as the science lecture theatre. We could see out the windows into Evvy’s backyard where a boat was being built. I would wonder which ‘coloured’ people dared to build a boat? Who were these dreamers? Where were they going? What made them think so differently and dream so big? And then one day the boat was gone.”
The book reads: “When Hazel and Evvy sailed out of Cape Town and the land of South Africa faded in the background, Evvy felt an overwhelming sense of freedom.”
The Independent on Saturday