In 1994, I was a committee member of the Plettenberg Bay Business and Publicity Association and my portfolio was community involvement and development. I used to go to Cape Town quite often promoting the Garden Route and my Backpacker’s Lodge in Nature’s Valley. When I’d go to Tourist Rendezvous, the main tourist information centre in the Cape, I’d always park outside the Capetonian Hotel in Adderley Street because there were these ‘street people’ and they knew exactly who was coming and going and they would ask you to wait; and then after about five minutes you had a parking spot. I found this very convenient and a tremendous service as I didn’t have to drive around the block a hundred times trying to find parking. They would also offer to feed the meter, look after your car or wash it and when you came back you tipped them.
I went up to them one day and asked them what they did for a living. They said they were unemployed; I said but they earned an income from showing people where to park. They said yes but it wasn’t a job. I interviewed the motorists using their services and asked them who those people were. They said that they were bergies, beggars, thieves, the homeless and the unemployed.
I went back to Plettenberg Bay and had two hundred tee shirts printed with ‘Welcome to the Fairest Cape - Parking Directer - self-employment project’ written on them. I drew-up a code of conduct and a presentation and came back to Cape Town and handed them out to the ‘street people’.
My first gratification was when they put the tee shirts on; their whole demeanour changed; they stood proud and confident. When I went to the motorist and asked them who those people where; they said after reading their tee shirts: ‘Parking Directers’. A week later I went back to the ‘street people’ and asked them what they did for a living. They said proudly pointing to their tee shirts that they were ‘Parking Directers’. I had started a vocation: my objective being to create employment, offer hospitality and service to the motorist and to bring down the car crime rate.
In six weeks I travelled the whole of Southern Africa promoting; Parking Directers, Bib’s International Backpackers and The Garden Route. I told everybody I came into contact with about my Parking Directers concept. I planted the seeds and then I sat back and watched them grow. Due to the increasing car crime in South Africa at the time it first became know as ‘car watch’ and then later as ‘car guard’. Today I estimate that there are at least fifty thousand car guards that no longer have to break into cars or steal to survive and they prevent many more from doing the same.
Last year (2000) I decided to get physically involved with the project, it was starting to get a bad name: drunk and disorderly, bad mannerisms, hard-handed tactics, no control etc. I found a derelict parking site where people parked their cars and went for walks in the forest or up the back of Table Mountain. The forest is called Cecilia, after Cecil John Rhodes (it’s actually a mismanaged pine plantation) and it’s off Constantia and Bishop’s Court, two of South Africa's elite suburbs. The people who come here to walk are: plastic surgeons, judges, lawyers, heart surgeons, politicians, diplomats, editors, celebrities, the non-employed wealthy etc… and mostly their wives; I look after their cars while they go for walks, as well as I offer assistance and information. Initially the site was not viable at all, an average of ten cars a day; some days I slept in THE KOMBI because I didn’t make enough money for petrol to get home. The people had stopped coming here because there used to be an average of twenty-eight break-ins and at least two cars stolen every month from this site; as well as it had not been maintained for at least fifteen years and you almost needed a 4X4 to park here anyway. When it started becoming viable I investigated other similar sites in the area and I started training the unemployed people I found. Abiding by a strict code of conduct, I trained and placed them at: Rhodes Memorial, Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, Newlands Forest and Constantia Nek - seven permanent and three relief Car Guards, ten in all. I pick them up in the morning and drop them off at home at night. They are quite a handful. They are now all earning fairly decent incomes and can support their families and live normal lives. We, as Parking Directers, now protect the whole of the back of Table Mountain and there has been no crime whatsoever in our areas while we’ve been on duty, for over a year...
Want to read about my adventure? Go to: http://carguard.byethost7.com