Cometh the hour, cometh the man. Just as the author was slowly coming to terms with the shock departure of the country’s first citizen, Dr Hage Geingob, a long-time close buddy and unselfish bloke with whom we shared the same outlook on many aspects of life in general, including a distaste for tribalism, another sad episode unfolded with the passing of my former colleague, mentor and bandmate Lindsay Scott.
The latter lost a hard-fought marathon battle with a bacterial infection that left him confined to a hospital bed for several months. In the beautiful words of his widow, Nuala Scott, she described her departed hubby as a funny bloke, intelligent, artistic and challenging—a man she loved so dearly, and will miss every single day.
Lindsay was more than just an astute sports commentator; the brother was a jack of all trades in the true sense of the word, a brilliant scribe, and a mentor par excellence. Many upcoming scribes, including this author, are chief beneficiaries of Lindsay Scott’s intellectual generosity during his tenure as news editor at the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).
Admittedly, the likes of Da’oud Vries, Surihe Gaomas-Guchu, Ted Ndopu, Rino Muranda, Menesia Muinjo, Christa Oas, Celia Stephanus, Nghidipo ‘JJ’ Nangolo, Rosa Hamukwaya-Tobias, Eliah Haipare, Bertha Amakali, Florence Noabes-Haifene, Richard Swartbooi, Kazembire Zemburuka, Catherine Gowases, Franklin Thomas, Gotty Uamburu and many others all drank from his well of wisdom.
A brilliant tutor of the English language, there was no margin for error with ‘Bro’ Lindsay. He would always shout loudly at the top of his sharp tongue that no ‘Namlish would be entertained as long as I’m in charge of this department’ during his stint as the designated Editor-in-Chief.
To the ‘Kangaroo Rose’, as the author would always refer to the Australian-born Nuala, please accept our sincere condolences as you bravely navigate the grief of losing a loved one, which is never easy to digest. It’s now my distinct honour to pay tribute to my longtime buddy, a man who shaped my entire life through his selfless mentoring, played live music together, and went through a lot of great and bad moments, some very scary, so to speak.
L
indsay Scott was born on 7 March 1954 in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the United Kingdom. After completing secondary school, he began working in a local bank, but received a tempting offer to go down south to London, England, to do some gigs as a professional session muso with various bands and orchestras.
A bird of passage, his next stop was Germany, where he worked as a ship-building design draughtsman while continuing to play live music in the evenings. As fate would dictate, he met a gorgeous bird of Dutch origin, and she convinced him to trek downwards to South Africa. But the whirlwind romance soon dried up, and the pair went their separate ways.
Bro Lindsay was obligated to play live music for a living, and it was in Johannesburg that he met fellow muso Theo Schoeman. The latter invited him to come over to Windhoek. He found a job at the South West Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SWABC), occupying the portfolio of music compiler for the newly-launched National Radio Station before being promoted to the position of radio announcer.
A multifaceted dude who excelled in almost everything he laid his hands on, the ponytailed hippy-looking humorous muso quickly anchored himself as an instant hit amongst his colleagues. ‘Bro’ Lindsay was very popular amongst black employees at the corporation, much to the chagrin of some of his conservative white colleagues.
Lindsay, a noted multitalented instrumentalist, played fiddle and violin for the Scottish band JSD, featuring on David Bowie’s first single version of ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’. Like many young men his age at the time, he wanted to explore the world and left his native Scotland, only to resurface in South West Africa (SWA—Namibia) after abbreviated stints in both Deutschland and South Africa.
He was a prominent member of the Johannesburg-based Silver Creek Mountain Band, where he fronted the ensemble, soothing the nylon strings of the fiddle. During his amazing lodging in his adopted country (Namibia), the ponytailed Lindsay was a founder member of the first truly multiracial live music performing band, Telefone.
He also played for the local band Likkerstil Stringband alongside eternal buddies Frank Jooste (banjo), Theo Schoeman (double bass), and Duncan Meyer (guitar). Unknowingly, Lindsay escaped death by the skin of his teeth. A potentially deadly bomb exploded underneath the stage at the Mweshipandeka Secondary School in Ongwediva in 1984. Telefone was the opening act for the touring South African pop band P.J. Powers and Hotline.
A large group of South African soldiers attended the live gig, but left before midnight. Little did the unsuspecting revellers and band members know that the men in camouflaged uniforms had sinister motives. The soldiers cunningly planted a bomb underneath the stage, but by God’s timely intervention, it only went off at 04h00 in the morning, exactly two hours after the live music gig.
Off the stage, Lindsay Scott was a dedicated political activist who never shied away from confronting the system of racial segregation and commercial inequality among the citizens. He was among a group of Caucasian men and women who openly challenged apartheid alongside other hardcore rebels including Dudley Viall, Katja Becker, Anton Lubowski, Mark Verbaan, Gwen Lister, Henning Melber and a few other resolute ‘larneys’, who bravely put their bodies on the line for restorative justice.
And who can ever forget that fateful night at his backyard flat in Uland Strasse? We were having a whale of a time partying and listening to loud music, and later switched gears to acoustic entertainment through the sounds of freedom songs.
Agitated residents in the posh neighbourhood were not taking kindly to the seemingly ‘irritating’ lyrics of the songs, and summoned the cops for “divine intervention.” Pandemonium broke out as the jolly partygoers dug their heels in the sand, refusing to be intimidated by the trigger-happy men in blue uniforms.
Regrettably, most of the blokes who sacrificed their freedom and gave up white privilege never really enjoyed the fruits of their sweat, as many of them were systematically cold-shouldered and laterally thrown under the bus by the new regime. Lindsay worked as chief mobiliser for the ruling party SWAPO, alongside the late Hidipo Hamutenya, ahead of the hotly- contested parliamentary elections in 1990.
Back in the studios, the likeable big-frame Scottish dude kept listeners on their toes with his vast knowledge of current affairs. He was later transferred to the NBC TV Sports department, occupying the plum portfolio of Executive Producer, a position he held with aplomb until his resignation after resolving to retreat to his native land, Scotland, with his newly-wed beautiful bird, Nuala Scott.
The author can write a book about ‘Bro’ Lindsay, not forgetting the day he asked me to be a witness in a maintenance case after his part-time live-in bird, Ronel Grove, dragged him to the magistrate’s court for child support.
The uncompromising Scot would have none of that, and retaliated vehemently, insisting that the claimant was indeed indebted to him for overnighting at his flat on weekends without paying rent, let alone enjoying free meals and drinks. But what left me in stitches was when he insisted that Grove polished his entire block of expensive cheese without permission. That was ‘Bro’ Lindsay for you.
Lindsay, a proud holder of a master’s degree in mass communication from the University of Leicester, England, and a diehard Glasgow Celtics fan, settled in Falkirk. His wish was to spend his final days in his adopted Land of the Brave (Namibia), but this was not to be as death intervened. Lindsay Scott will be sorely missed by those he rubbed shoulders with. Go well, ‘Bro’ Scott. See you on the other side when our paths cross again in heaven. Rest easy, ‘Ou Bees’.