Airman flies into four score and ten

After surviving the Second World War, being a single father to three children and overseeing some of  Durban’s most ambitious construction projects, Ballito resident Ivor Smith will celebrate his 90th birthday this Sunday.
Remarkably hale for a man of his age, Smith was also the Natal defence force Sprinting Champ in 1938, as well as a gold medalist in Natal gymnastics.
He spoke in an interview with the Courier on Monday about his time as an engineer aboard Ventura and Liberator bombers in the South African Air Force during war time.
“Strangely enough I was never once scared on those missions. I suppose it was because I was young I was 21 at the time.”
Smith said he narrowly escaped death at the airfield once when another man pumped oxygen into the wrong part of the plane.
“There was a huge explosion and the seat I had been sitting in a moment before shot through the roof of the bomber!”
Smith was based in Italy for a time, and even fashioned a house for himself while he was there, using rubble and debris left over from previous bombings.
An engineer to the bone, Smith gestured to the furniture in his home, mostly hand made by him.
After the war, he was commissioned by the government on a number of high profile projects as a structural engineer, among them the construction of the Westville Prison and Westville University, the construction of Durban’s old Supreme Court and the upgrading of the old Durban Airport, then called Louis Botha Airport, to meet international standards.
Smith retired in 1988 and moved to Salt Rock, and he has been playing bowls ever since, originally in Salt Rock and more recently at Umhlali Country Club, which he said “must be some of the best bowling greens in the world.”
Asked if he took part in the bowls competititions, he said, “I have always said I play when I want to play, not when I have to play.
“I have really had a marvellous journey. I have experienced things that not many people can say they have had the chance to.”
Smith’s son is coming from Australia to celebrate the 90th year of this man’s undeniably colourful life.