It stalks you, then sneaks up on you. Suddenly, given the frequency, you start to notice that people around you are dying. OK, my parents died a long time ago and I have been an orphan for 24 years but, when my taxidermist of the last 40 years or so, Rodney Winston Kretzschmer – I didn’t know about the Winston probably because if I had I would have teased him about it – died a few weeks ago after a debilitating stroke, I started to tot up the names of people I knew who were no longer here. It came to a frightening number.
And then I remembered the advice of Michael Easter in his outstanding book, The Comfort Crisis, in which he advised us to think about our deaths every day. Well, that is becoming ever more easy as people I know keep on dying around me. Seemingly not a month goes by now that someone I know dies. I have long since stopped wondering when it will be my turn – I will be 78 in April – but there is not much more I can do about it.
I had originally been a client of Rodney’s Dad – he was a second generation taxidermist – when I first started keeping mementoes of the animals I hunted. In those days even a skull mount required serious thought as I could barely afford one of the flat skins he tanned for me and which, in time, covered the concrete floor of the garage which I converted to an outside study.
A collection of skull mounts on a circular springbok skin mat all produced by Rodney or his father.
I am not sure how or why I first visited Rodney in the offices he rented in Krugersdorp but I seem to remember he did my first shoulder mount, a mediocre Southern impala ram. It was not long, however, before he moved back to the family property in Muldersdrift and took over from his Dad, who continued to do the odd job for the business such as mounting feet and hooves and working the bronze to hold elephant tusks. I called him Mr Kretzschmer and he called me Peter, which explains who was who in this particular zoo at the time. He often asked me to call him by his Christian name but I simply could not do it. My Dad’s lessons – you addressed an older man as mister – were just too ingrained in me. It was either that or sir.
I immediately liked Rodney. He was passionate about his work. Skilled and creative, he also had a wicked sense of humour. When I moved my hunting mementoes from my cramped study in Johannesburg to our Bankfontein game ranch on the western edge of the Great Karoo in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province, Rodney and his wife, Lorraine, would usually visit once a year to deliver the latest works he had completed for me, stay over for a few days, give the mounts already there a careful inspection, clean and titivation – repaint noses for example – and refresh the naphthalene moth balls in the ears of most of the mounts. He would also borrow my foreman, the late Alfie Borens, and take a few days off to shoot two or three springbok for the venison, biltong and salami he loved to make. He was an oustanding shot and I never had any qualms about letting him loose on the ranch with only Alfie for company.
Rodney was an outstanding and instinctive shot and had a collection of over 50 rifles. It was always interesting to see which ones he would bring down. I remember seeing my first drilling in his hands but it didn’t seem to matter which rifles made the journey as he was deadly accurate with whatever he brought.
On one of these trips he towed a trailer behind his double cab Land Cruiser on which was a huge, full mount white rhinoceros wrapped in bubble wrap to protect it from the forecast rain and stones flung up by the tyres of passing vehicles. He stopped at a service station just past Bloemfontein to refuel and was surprised when a large, black lady came up to him and asked where he was taking the rhino. Quick as a flash, Rodney replied, “On holiday.” “Why?” she asked. “Well, don’t you take your pets on holiday?” was the answer which seemed to satisfy her curiosity. A few minutes later, however, she was back. She wanted to know, “Where can I buy one of them?”
The huge, old white rhinoceros put out for tender by Middelburg National Park, shot by Peter, skinned by Godfrey and mounted by Rodney.
As my hunting took me to parts of Africa and for animals not readily known in South Africa, Rodney developed a sheet of measurements for each animal I would have to complete for him as well as instructions for the photos he needed because there were no moulds for many of the beasts I came across. Rodney had to sculpt the animals in order to make the moulds he needed for taxidermy.
We also had many ideas of how we wanted to present the animals and had many discussion which often came up with novel, lifelike solutions – a lion chasing the hyena that had stolen part of its kill, a striped hyena attacking a Roosevelt’s sable and a rain forest diorama of animals clustered around a forest pool to mention but three.
It was Peter’s idea to have Rodney have the striped hyena mounted as if it was attacking this Roosevelt’s sable.
It was Rodney’s idea to have the hyena steal part of the lion’s prey.
A diorama of rain forest game from Cameroon. Clockwise – giant forest hog, red river hog, Peter’s duiker, blue duiker, bay duiker and yellow backed duiker.
No visit to Rodney was complete without a visit to his factory to see work in progress or newly completed. He was a true professional and never seemed to tire of showing people the handiwork of he and his staff, many of whom I also came to know well and, for example, Godfrey, his top man, came to Middelburg and skinned the huge white rhino I shot there.
He was a constant source of envy and inspiration and Rod never tired of answering my questions as we toured his factory yet again, “Oh my word, what does that measure? Where did the hunter find that? Who did he hunt with? What time of the year was it. Do you have his contact details, etc., etc.”
His own creativity and sense of humour produced a jackaloop, an Africa scrub hare with horns, with which he duped many a foreign hunter. And then there was his hunting lion, pictures of which showed Rodney riding a full mount, heavy maned lion with a saddle and bridle while armed with an old muzzle loader, and a bandolier of ammunition across his chest. It was his anti-poaching gear he would tell people.
But to me he was much more than a taxidermist. He became a good and trusted friend and a never ending source of valuable and accurate intelligence of where to hunt, with whom and at what times of the year when I was looking for a particular animal to hunt. Sometimes he came with me. I will never forget the epic job he did in skinning and supervising the care of the rain forest elephant full skin he took for the subsequent mount which now resides, along with its two 35 pound tusks, in the Iziko Museum of South Africa in Cape Town. It is the only such full mount of which I am aware anywhere.
Peter’s big rain forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) in the Iziko Museum of South Africa in Cape Town.
Given the position in which the elephant fell when it died – upright with its feet tucked underneath and resting with its right side against a thick, dark brown tree trunk – and the inability of my Baka Pygmy trackers to push it over onto its side – he had to skin it from the top down. He and his Pygmy helpers, ultimately 22 in number, took into the second day to skin it and carry it out of the rain forest draped over a tree trunk.
But that was just the beginning of the job as, given the torrential downpours and high humidity – in the Cameroon rain forests rain is measured in metres – the skin had to be taken and spread out each day in between breaks in the rain, the wet salt removed and replaced with dry salt, before being folded up and returned to the shed where it was kept. It was a major job but the results of his meticulous care are there for everyone to see in the museum where, I have been told, it is a major draw card especially for school kids.
I still have a copy of the front page of the local Afrikaans newspaper, Die Burger (The Citizen). when the carefully wrapped, full mount rain forest elephant was being hoisted by crane into the museum, The headline read, “Pakkie vir jou! (Parcel for you!)”
Unfortunately, the roof of the museum developed a leak and rain water dripped onto the head of the elephant for so long that, ultimately, the skin split. Rodney offered to fly to Cape Town to fix the cracked skin for free if the museum would cover his economy air fare and car hire but they could not or would not do so despite members of the museum continually flying overseas from one conference to another.
Peter’s last Lord Derby’s eland shot on the borders of Benoue National Park in Central Cameroon with Franz Coupe and mounted by Rodney. Today it can be found in the Iziko Museum of South Africa in Cape Town.
The last job Rodney did for me was a full mount of the last animal I hunted, a long sought after Bandit or lone Lord Derby’s eland bull, shot on my last ever hunt and guided by that professional hunting icon, Franz Coupe, he in his 80th and me in my 70th year. To me, it was all I could have hoped for on my last hunt. After nine days on its tracks, I killed the wonderful bull instantly with one shot from my venerable, 40 year old, Brno de luxe .375 H&H as it stood with head hanging and asleep at lunch time in thick shade at the top of a narrow, rock filled ravine, with a thicket of trees behind, the breeze from its rear and a clear view over the ravine to its front. The mount stands behind my rain forest elephant in the Cape Town museum.
In total, Rodney produced some 168 full mounts, 64 shoulder, pedestal and half mounts for me, plus he tanned a large number of flat skins and mounted numerous sets of horns, hooves and tusks on various plaques for me, the number of which I never counted. All of these are in the Cape Town museum but only about 60 are currently on display. This display took a number of years to effect so who knows when the rest of Rodney’s marvelous work will see the light of day, if ever.
Rest in peace old friend, you have deserved it.
Peter sitting in the museum on Bankfontein game ranch surrounded by animals mounted by Rodney.
Every mount and tanned skin in this photo of the main hall in the museum on Bankfontein game ranch was produced by Rodney.
Hello from Texas to my friend Peter.
Good read. I have several of your books and always enjoy reading the stories. I appreciate you help on recommending PH’s when I hunt Africa. I know it’s hard to lose a trusted friend in the hunting world. I am now 81 and still hunting. I wish you good health and may the Lord be with you. Dan
Very interesting Hope you are well Drop us a note when you have time
Hello Peter ,
It is always good to hear from you even under such sad circumstances as Rodney death .Thank you for paying such warm and telling tribute to a great person . I will raise a glass to Rodney this evening .
Warm regards to you and Jane,
Paul
Afternoon Peter,
Good to hear from you and to read this most interesting article.
Trust you are keeping well… at 64 I’m still going strong… God willing.
All the best to you.
Kindest regards.