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Transcription of an MP3 Audio Diary, kept between Friday January 11th

and Saturday March 15th 2008. Part Six.

Thursday, 7th February


I'm in the District 6 Museum, standing in a kind of sound cone with distant jazz
bands all around me. I must find out what I can about 'Langarm'. (18/08/08
According to sites on the web, Langarm is an Afrikaans musical form played at
'Sokkies': dances where Afrikaners, i.e. white people, dance in their stockinged
feet.) Here in the museum, there are indications that langarm was jazz-like
music played by mixed races in Cape Town at roughly the same time as - or
earlier than - jazz was being improvised or formulated in New Orleans. Some of
the music has vocals, nothing in English, only in Afrikaans and, while Afrikaans
is the mother tongue of white Afrikaners, Cape Coloured people are also proud
of their own language: Cape Dutch or Early Afrikaans, the language developed
between the original Dutch settlers and the Khoikhoi, bushmen (and especially
bush-women) and Xhosa that they set up house with.
When I get home, I must try and find out which came first: the chicken or the
egg, i.e. white langarm or mixed race improvised langarm. (18/08/08 Opinions
are divided along strict racial lines !)
I've just spoken to a white-haired old lady who sells tickets here. She's quite
certain that langarm predates American jazz.

Joe SCHAFFERS, the guy whose video I bought ('District Six. The Colour of Our
Skin'), has been very helpful and, thanks to him, I might even be able to make
contact with an old school friend from SACS.
Hymie Reingold. And his cousin Benny. We were in the same class, so they are
about my age, so... I might be able to find them if they're still alive. The video
maker, a proud Cape Coloured man has pointed me in the direction of a shop
round the corner called Judaica that supplies the Jewish community with all its
necessarily paraphernalia, so there's a good chance I might find the Reingold
family, either the cousins or their children...

The owner of the Judaica knows the Reingold family. Hymie's wife died some
years ago and he now lives in London most of the time. My new acquaintance
suggested I called around in Sea Point (the Golders Green of Cape Town), but as
I shall be leaving tomorrow morning, I'll see if I can get in touch with the
Reingolds later in the year when I'm back in Switzerland; there's no real point in
chasing around with the prospect of 60 years of life to catch up on over a quick
cup of coffee!
Hop On the bus again and voilà, I'm at the base station of the Table Mountain
cable-car. It seemed like a proper mountain when I went up in 1948, but it's
actually lower than the green hills that I can contemplate from my balcony in
Bussigny.
Each car carries 65 people and it only takes three minutes from the bottom to
the top, or, one presumes, from the top to the bottom!
The cable-car system has a 100% safety record since opening in 1929. They've
taken up over 30 million people to date. It's maintained by three Swiss
engineers and is closed down for 2-3 weeks in winter, the low season, for
necessary servicing. The cable car is closed at the moment, so there's
obviously too much wind... they suspend service when wind passes 40kms an
hour.
Things just keep popping into my mind, things I certainly haven't thought about
for donkeys years...
I was thinking about Hymie Reingold and his cousin, Benny. They were my two
friends at SACS and I'd forgotten completely how this came about... I used to
get shoved around in the playground on a daily basis when I first arrived at
SACS. There were no pick-up games with the round ball during the break, so
joining in was not as easy as it might have been in the UK, where I played
soccer and rounders and swam a lot. This isolation and occasional bullying
went on throughout the first week or so until we had our first sports period. I'd
never played cricket or rugby before, but I picked games up quite quickly and
threw myself into everything (over-) enthusiastically. Whereas Hymie was quite
small and brainy, Benny was overly large and, I presumed, cliché, not quite as
bright, although I'm probably doing the man a disservice in retrospect... What's
sure, is that on the sports field Benny was a power to be reckoned with. And
after I'd tackled him round the ankles a couple of times, he'd decided that this
little English boy was all right.
Suddenly my life in class and in the playground became easier. Benny thought I
was somebody special and suddenly it was not such a good idea for other boys
to beat up Benny's new friend; this foreign person who spoke strangely wasn't
quite as odd any more.
Benny had a fascinatingly strange party piece in class... he used to stick long
needles and blanket pins vertically into his upper thighs without apparently
feeling anything... The two cousins were rather like junior versions of
Steinbeck's characters in 'Of Mice and Men'...

As there was no immediate possibility of going up in the cable-car, I stayed on


the bus and got off in Camps Bay.

Now I'm again sitting waiting for my order to be served in the restaurant of the
Cape Town FishMarket. My Hop-On Hop-Off bus ticket again covers either a
starter or dessert. The waiter has been quite chatty today, because there are
fewer customers. I asked him if there was a seawater swimming pool in Camps
Bay and what he described has left me very confused. He said that there is a
natural seawater swimming pool up to our left, that is, further south-south-
east... If so, it's probably invisible from the main road which joins the seafront
about 100m from where I'm sitting. After lunch I shall go and explore. It sounds
suspiciously like the one that I remember from 60 years ago which I was
convinced was in Sea Point. I did see a seawater pool in Sea Point from the bus
yesterday, but it didn't look as if it filled from the sea, whereas the one that I
remember had the sea coming in through a breach in the sea wall. In fact, I
remember a story about a small shark having entered the pool at high tide in
1948... I feel sure I'll recognise the setting when I get there...
Here at the fish restaurant, which, as I said, is part of where the Cape Town
FishMarket used to be, there's now an oval-shaped rotating serving counter in
the centre of the room. That's a Japanese lady in the middle and naturally
enough she is preparing sushi specialities. Not that I have had any, although
my meal was still exceptional. It was accompanied by bottled cider because the
draught beer was warm and they refused to serve THAT to anybody.
Quick digression: probably one big change in 60 years: if they don't serve warm
beer now, I'm sure they did in 1948 -- I didn't drink any, but I'm sure they
served warm beer then, so all the newly-arrived Brit immigrants would feel at
home: beer in the UK always used to be served just below ambient
temperature; we were well into the 60s before the concept of 'Ice Cold in Alex'
invaded Watney-Mann, Courage, Mitchell's & Butler's and the other major
breweries that were being taken over by non-believers... iceberged &
Carlsberged to flavourless death...

I'm drinking something very close to a cup of real Italian coffee, so it's a
moment to savour. Then I'm going to cross my fingers for luck and go to have
a look at this natural swimming pool, to see if it is, in fact, the one I remember
from 60 years ago.
There's nobody in the water on the beach across from the restaurant; a
fabulous beach, gorgeous, gorgeous sunshine -- I think it's about 29°C or 30°C
but the sea temperature, according to the hand-written billboard, is 9°C.
Nobody in the water, in spite of the fact that the waves might be interesting for
surfing...
The only time I ever tried to surf 60 years ago was at Muizenberg on the other
side of the promontory to the east. I seem to remember that I was far too light
to stay on the surfboard for more than a few seconds... yet the last time I tried
to clamber my 100Kg+ back onto my wind-surfboard at Lutry on Lake Geneva
about 15 years ago, I was so exhausted that I decided that enough was
enough; the excess kilogrammes never came off for any length of time and I
found that now I actually needed to work hard just to stay afloat in fresh water.
It was a godsend to be able to lie on my back in the Grey Fox pool and float
quite effortlessly... not much seawater in Switzerland...
Thinking about the beach at Muizenberg, I remember a game we used to play...
There were small, brightly coloured jellyfish... perhaps not jellyfish, but some
sort of small sea creature carrying a kind of rigid mini-balloon which was
uppermost. I remember red ones and blue ones, but there might have been
other colours. The trick was to burst these balloons by stamping on them...
half-stamping quickly and un-stamping even more quickly, in order to avoid the
sting that had been protected by the mini balloon but which was now exposed.
Although our feet were hardened from walking around barefoot whenever
possible, sometimes we did get stung. I remember we used to rub the place
with seaweed... similar kind of process to treating stinging nettle rash with
dock leaves. While describing this, I have vivid images of a crowd of four or five
of us hollering along Muizenberg beach, something I certainly haven't thought
about for at least 50 years.
(18/08/08 While transcribing this - and having mentioned it to a couple of
people in South Africa, I decided to try and find out what kind of sea creature
we were 'popping'. From a website: Deep-sea jellyfish are tiny - beautiful
creatures that look like miniature space-ships As the name suggests - they live
at considerable depths under the sea - 10 kilometres or more below the
surface - where it is completely dark and very cold. The deeper they live - the
more brightly-coloured they are. Their umbrellas' - which are about 5
centimetres across - can be bright blue - red - pink or any other colour. Very
few people have been fortunate enough to see deep-sea jellyfish because they
very rarely come near the surface. Were we eco-bandits destroying something
rare that had been washed ashore from the deep??)

I'm in the tidal pool in Camps Bay, which I'm now sure is the tidal pool that I
enjoyed so much in 1948. I've just spoken to a guy who was sampling the sand
in the pool here for the local council, using a similar hollow tube to the ones
that they use in Switzerland for measuring strata of civilisations on
archaeological digs... or the quality of Gruyère cheeses as they are maturing.
He said that there used to be a tidal pool in Sea Point, but nowhere near as big
as this one. The more I look at it, the more I walk round it, the more it feels
familiar. I'm on the sea-side inlet in the sea wall and I'm sure this is where I
used to stand watching the tide go out, all those years ago.
A young African lady has just slipped out of her high heels and walked along
the breakwater to ask me: “Are you the fugitive?”
??
Richard Kimble... ? The original TV series? David Janssen? The film? Harrison
Ford?
I said: “No”.
And she said: “ Oh, that's OK then. But you were just standing here and... it's a
game on TV and... I thought you might be the Fugitive. Sorry if I bothered
you”. And she skipped off back along the breakwater to join her friend on the
rocks above the sandy beach.
I made my own way back to the beach and stripped off to absorb a little
sunshine, leaning against a breakwater.
“Are you the Fugitive?”
I open my eyes. A turban peering down at me from the promenade above.
“I'm afraid not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I'm quite sure.” The turban doesn't withdraw. “I'm sorry.” A trilby joins
the turban and looks down. They both nod, say something to each other, then
disappear. I go back to my sunbathing...
In the next hour and a half, five more people called out from above, shouted
from the breakwater or sidled up close, very quietly, to ask:
“Are you the Fugitive?”
In the end I was quite tempted to say: “Yes”, just to find out what happened
next. But I didn't.
A body-builder in a leopard-skin pair of trunks sways towards me across the
sand, a large and noisy boom-box pressed against his probably stone-deaf ear.
The African Soccer Cup: Ghana-Cameroon 0-1.

The afternoon has flashed by in no time and I realise that I need to get back
into town to pick up the bus for Milnerton, hoping to pack and get an early
night; I'm not sure what to expect on the Jo-burg train tomorrow – if the worst
comes to the worst I might not get much sleep.

Unfortunately, I've been seduced by the sunshine, the situation and, perhaps, a
plethora of conflicting memories. As a result, the next Hop On bus will only
take me as far as the Waterfront, leaving a healthy (but rather too long) walk to
the central bus station. But I should still have plenty of time to pack...

I got hijacked! Well, sort of... I'd been resigned to walking across Cape Town
from the Waterfront, so I'd joined the shell-suited bunch of tourists at the bus
stop to wait for the Hop On. Then three of the minivan taxis pulled in to the
bus stop, a couple of young men jumped out of each of them and rounded us
up like sheep; quick-fire questions about our eventual destinations, then the
sheepdogs separated us from the flock, drove us towards the appropriate
minivan, 'penned' us inside... and we were off. All done in more or less the
time it took to describe it!
We went back over Kloof Nek, past Lion's Head, then cut through District 6 to
deposit 4 of us at the central bus station. And they charged the same as an
ordinary local bus ticket...
I'd noticed from my vantage point in the Fish Market restaurant that the cream
(and rather clean) minivan buses had very visible serial numbers painted on
their roofs. Others I have seen touting for hire over the past couple of days are
numberless and rather more disreputable-looking; I presume that those with
numbers have some form of official/quasi-official status, and the helicopters
buzzing overhead would certainly have little difficulty in identifying them.

At the central bus station, Stencilled along the side of many of the local buses:
S-I-B-A-N-Y-E. 'Together As One'.
I'm waiting for the Milnerton bus, where the queue is being entertained by a
couple of youngsters selling Mars bars, packets of Maltesers and other sweeties
that were new to me. 'Entertained', because they must have learned all their
sales pitches from TV & cinema and they are working the queue like a double
act, the pick-ups, internal references and in-jokes coming fast and furious.
Instead of applauding, I've bought a bag of min-Mars bars.

Back in the Formula 1, I've just finished my Cornish Pasty & Samosa supper. I'll
pack and shower, send off a couple of Emails, then have a look at the
gogglebox before having a relatively early night.

I've no idea when I'll get round to transcribing all this...


I took my de rigeur sunset photos, then got involved in a TV documentary
made in one of the townships. It's obviously one of a regular series with a 'star'
presenter, but, also obviously, he feels quite at home in the township.
An autistic young man has won respect in his community and the programme
encourages other families to get help for and give help to (previously
abandoned) family members with similar disabilities that could now be
looked at as abilities. The programme and the presenter/interviewer have a
nice approach.
Quite unlike the news and news-readerrr that followed, that told us about: “a
rEEble ASSSlt at the WEAKeneded in Kenya” (a rebel assault at the weekend);
in the financial news, he was talking about the French high Seas, which I
eventually translated as 'franchises'. Nothing, I think, to do with any dialect,
but much to do with (il)literacy...

Friday, 8th February


It's Friday 8th February. I'm packed, freshly showered, I've paid for my
breakfasts and I'm waiting to go into town to get the train to Johannesburg.
But in the meantime, I'm watching the opening of Parliament on TV... or rather
some of the parades that are scheduled before, during and after. At the same
time there's a discussion about what they expect to happen, now that President
Mbeki will have lost power and now that the new boys in the government will
be from the lower ranks, rather than the 'strong men' who have been there for
the past 8 years. The commentator sees this as a transitional phase towards a
far more integrated form of government. We shall see...

Watching the opening of parliament today, which was very colourful, very
attractive, very well policed with numerous road-blocks, I suddenly realised
that I might have some problems with the bus... taxi, or whatever...
So I went much earlier than I had originally planned and waited for the bus...
waited for the bus... waited for the bus... and soon it was a quarter to eleven...
By a quarter past eleven, I was really starting to think that I had to go back to
the Formula 1 to call a taxi (an official one), when a lady appeared at my side.
She asked me (with an attractive French accent) about the bus timetables and,
as she was from the Midi, I explained (in French) the possible traffic problems
with the Opening of Parliament. At half past eleven I decided to take the bull
by the horns... or rather respond to the medley of horns and insistent voices
from the 'private' minibuses. After nearly an hour of neck-ache from
continually shaking my head and maintaining a rictus smile to all the
invitations to 'come aboard' non-numbered minivans, the French lady, my
luggage and I clambered into one with stencilled numbers on the roof.
They took ZAR5 from each of us (nothing extra for my suitcase) and set off for
Cape Town. We thought.
After about 10 minutes, we pulled up behind two or three other minibuses-taxis
and the drivers proceeded to divi us up between them, depending on our
destinations. The French lady and I found ourselves in the same one and, I
must say, it was all very efficient and hitch-free; no-one even checked if we
had already paid, so this info was obviously passed on by our first driver, with
no intention of trying to milk us a second time. Like total strangers sometimes
do, we exchanged delicate information about the projects closest to our hearts:
I told her about my dream to go back to Viet naam to make a 3-part docudrama
about Alexandre Yersin, the Swiss doctor and researcher who had worked with
and for Louis Pasteur and who, when he died at the end of WWII, was
venerated as Uncle No.5 by the Vietnamese... Ho Chi Minh being Uncle No.1...

We were dropped off just beside the CT railway station, exchanged Email
addresses and went our separate ways (02/11/08 The lady, Maya Bracher,
contacted me after I came back to Switzerland and invited me to a conference
about Alexandre Yersin in Montpelier. Unfortunately, I only received the
invitation after the conference took place, but Maya sent me a post-conference
Email with details of the Vaud Cantonal Veterinary Officer based in Lausanne
who was at the conference and is a Yersin buff. He and I subsequently spent a
long afternoon together and are working out how he might become involved in
my Yersin docu-drama project).

I am now in compartment 1G of the Shosholoza Meyl to Jo'burg and Pretoria. I


must text or call Stuart to tell him which coach and compartment, although I've
no idea whether he will be allowed to come onto the platform in Jo'burg. Then
I'll have to wait and see who I shall be sharing this 4-berth sleeper with for the
next 27-28hrs.
It's now just on 12 o'clock, so I have 25mins before we leave. I'll switch off this
MP3 now and pop down onto the platform to see if I can pick up a cold drink. I
presume the restaurant car will open after we leave Cape Town...

Friday, 8th February (cont.) – on the Shosholoza Meyl to Johannesburg


(Michael & Charlie VO 61-71)
The fact is, I'm definitely harder of hearing than I used to be: I have most
difficulty when listening to my teenage son and his friends; it's very difficult to
follow their conversations, especially in rappers' French. And a Vaudois accent
is not the most attractive available or a particularly good selling point. If the
subject-matter turns out to be of little interest, I'm afraid I do what a lot of
people of my age do, which is 'switch off'. Perhaps it IS mostly psychological,
because certain interesting topics come over loud and clear...
But being aware of a possible hearing problem has come in handy here in
South Africa. While trying to re-attune my ear to the way they speak English,
I've sort of pleaded or mimed deafness, if you like, in order to get people to
slow down and articulate a bit more, which seems to work quite well.

I've certainly been able to follow the conversation between my two new
compartment-mates.

They've been arguing about dowries and, for me, it's been a fast track entry
into communication across a racial divide, where neither of the participants is
white.
Michael Quma is Xhosa (pronounced Co-za, with a 'click' in the 'C') and Charlie
Sprague is Cape Coloured and was born in District 6 before it was pulled to
pieces and flattened.
They were talking about dowries. For Michael, dowries are very important in
tribal lore and law... and Charlie is going to Johannesburg for his son's
wedding... They both agree that trust is of paramount importance.
Michael explained that you could make different proposals, either to the family
or to the girl that you were going to marry. Charlie said that he understood and
respected the traditions of the Xhosa, but that he's Coloured and has 4
daughters, so he wanted to know what would happen if Michael wanted to
marry one of them. “Do I come in for the windfall, even though I'm not
Xhosa?” As I said, Charlie is going to Jo'burg for his son's wedding at the end of
the month. But he's also arranged a 'surprise “do”' down in Cape Town, so, as
soon as the wedding and celebrations are over, everyone (including his new
daughter-in-law's extended family) will be transported to CT to celebrate all
over again.

Marriage & dowries... and then on to football.

Michael worked in Germany for 2 months and also visited a factory in


Switzerland for 2 weeks, so he's probably not the average black South African
that one might meet on a train. He got involved with English football 'fans' in
Bayern, which was not a pleasant experience, but he is sure that there will
mostly be real fans (rather than hooligan fanatics) who make the journey to
South Africa in 2010 for the World Cup.
Charlie used to be a sailor on smallish (50-60m) boats and was away at sea for
40-50 days at a time, so naturally enough we had an animated conversation
about his sailing experiences (many and varies) and mine (distinctly limited).
Michael had come aboard the Shosholoza Meyl with a dripping backpack that
appears to be full of cans of beer and melting ice, which he seems to want to
share between the three of us before the restaurant car opens for the evening
meal, though the way we're going, his rucksack will be empty before they serve
afternoon tea!

Charlie had been a sailor all his life, mostly on fishing boats.
He retired 2 years ago.
He went to Tristan several times. I am truly envious, Tristan da Cunha being
one of the out-of-the-way places that I have wanted to visit ever since I read a
short story in an Empire Youth Annual c.1946 and I was already very
disappointed in 1948 when I found out we wouldn't stop there.

Over yet another of Michael's beers, Charlie explained to us how he used to


catch lobsters by hand with pantyhose, which sounded much less scientific
than the way we caught them on the Findhorn during the war (tapping the rock
beside the opening to attract/irritate the lobster who would come out and grab
the tapping metal hook with one huge purple claw, refusing to let go, making it
easy to transport them to a waiting bucket), but much more laid back.

Saturday, 9th February


Michael pulled out a sheaf of photos from the time when he was in Germany
and Switzerland in 2001; as I said, two weeks in Switzerland, two months in
Germany, visiting different companies. From the photos, he was obviously a
member of an official delegation and, rather a surprise, the only black man
(14/11/08 Because I had close company, I didn't make many recordings the
previous afternoon or evening, but some of the later recordings refer back to
our first few hours together...)

For the moment I'm on my own; I must have dozed off again and the boys are
somewhere down the train. Last night was... Hey! The train is slowing down
and squeaking into a station. I wonder if they're going to get off...
Last night, the complete set of bedding (35 Rand) was really necessary
because of the plastic seat covering. It was such a nicely well-made bed, but
unfortunately I sweated so much that the sheets and blanket are still soaking
wet... I couldn't stay out of bed for very long, because my clothes were soaking
wet as well, but I did totter out of bed and onto the platform in Kimberley to
have a coffee very, very early this morning. The lads stayed some distance
away, as they needed to lace their coffee with nicotine... but neither of them
has even suggested smoking in our compartment or out in the corridor.
What else? Hmmn... my Sudoku and crosswords are wet, because of Michael's
ice bucket which was on the table with the beers in... the ice melted and some
of the water went into my plastic folder with all my printed stuff... so I'm drying
it out on the bed now...
It's ten to nine, we're about 20mins late, as far as the train's concerned. I'll
wait until we get closer to Johannesburg, then I'll telephone Stuart and tell him
we're a bit late, or a lot late, or whatever... It's a nice day. They say it's going
to pour with rain in Johannesburg, but of course we're 6hrs away, so anything
can happen, really... Six and a half hours away... or, if we stay as late as we are
at the moment, nearly 7 hours away.

The anthills are remarkable things.

Dawn was lovely. I took some photographs of flamingos on a man-made dam


(which apparently they're going to make larger) and this year was the first time
that the flamingos have bred there and... it was just a swarm of pink, which
was really rather special.

I only have photographs of those which were settled; the ones in the air... I
wasn't quick enough with the camera to be able to... or SHORT enough... to
actually take a photo out of the window; you need to be at least 6 inches
shorter than I am to comfortably look out of the window, otherwise you're
ducking and banging your head trying to look outside... but, all in all, it's a very
worthwhile train journey (14/11/08 Throughout this last piece, I wasn't able to
stop yawning and I have the impression now that I kept nodding off for seconds
or minutes at a time (leaving long silences), because in the meantime the train
had left the station, although Charlie and Michael had not come back to our
compartment).

Charlie told me another story about lobsters, which takes place in St. Helena
Bay, to the north of Cape Town. Apparently, it's a reserved & regulated
breeding ground for lobsters and you're not allowed to fish or set pots in the
area. Which is great. But it seems that once a year, lobsters kind of do a
'lemming' and the beach at St. Helena Bay is completely covered with
thousands and thousands of lobsters: everything from baby ones, 5 inches
long, to really large ones over 2 feet long, with massive claws and all the rest of
it. You're not allowed to pick them up and take them away, so they're all
hoovered up and turned into fertiliser. Which is rather sad, with that quantity
of nice, tasty lobster. But the law being the law, unfortunately, there's nothing
that can be done about it. It happens once a year, like the old Disney film
about the migration and 'suicide' of the lemmings... and nobody knows how or
why it happens at that particular time... as many as can, get onto the beach...
and obviously they can't all make it, otherwise there would be none of them
reproducing for the year after... but the percentage that ends up there, gets
turned into meal and fertiliser.

All around the semi-cultivated fields on both sides of the train, there are
anthills of this incredibly voluptuous red earth... but right in the middle of the
last two or three fields on my side of the train, there are earthworks of a
completely different shape, far more complicated and elaborate. I don't know if
they're termites, or what... but the construction is something like an inverted
telescope, the old kind of sailor's telescope, coming out of the ground... and
there are layers, like different floors in a tower block, but upside down so the
big ones are at the top... They must be colonies of something. I've seen
several of those, but they're further away from the much more frequent anthills
and there are usually two, side by side, one small and one larger... They're not
dissimilar to the piles or cairns of stones that you find in Malta that mark off the
hunters' territory for trapping birds, but these constructions are started
underground and are certainly not man-made.

A lady from Cape Town has dropped by to talk to Michael. She overflows the
doorway, cutting off quite a lot of available light, so I am glued to my tiny bit
of window, looking across the corridor and out at this amazing red earth: I
certainly have a wider (and higher!) view sitting on my 'daybed' than I would
have if I were standing up, because then the top of the windows are level with
my Adam's apple.
Two things... little birds that have long, long tails... they hover as well as fly and
when they do, the tail hangs down a ridiculously long way, being gently wafted
in the breeze as the bird seems to remain motionless... the tail appears to be
spelling words, or at least forming letters ! The breeze has lifted and turned, so
that I have just seen a geometrical capital 'G'... if I were any cop as an artist, I
would register a new computer font and call it 'Hummingbird Sans Light
Italic'... now it's like a streamer on a kite as the bird starts flying parallel to the
train...
We've just passed a township with houses roofed with corrugated iron,
aluminium or asbestos... but all of them, virtually all of them, have a very
attractive stone brick outside toilet. So regardless of the dilapidated state of
the houses, someone insisted that they have proper lavatories. The houses...
the roofs themselves are put together with bricks on top to hold the metal or
asbestos down... the houses are each on their own plot of land, which they own
I imagine, certainly rent if not own, but then its incredible... sort of velvet grey,
prefabricated toilets, house after house after house after house... the actual
houses are completely different: colour, style, or lack of either... but all the
toilets are exactly the same.
The vocabulary and sentence construction of Brenda from Cape Town seems to
consist of generalisations and pre-processed clichés. They are talking about
Moslems and I refuse to be drawn into the conversation. I think it's time to
stretch my legs and see if I'm able to call Stuart.

Charlie Sprague's grandfather was Irish and in the Royal Navy. His ship
stopped at St. Helena in 1927 to take people from there to Cape Town. He met
and fell in love with the lady who later became his wife.
But she was not white.
He jumped ship in Cape Town and they were living together in District 6. Then,
when Charlie's father was born, they moved out, bought some land about half
an hour outside Cape Town. When Charlie's grandmother died, the government
said: “Well, you have nothing to tie you now, you're a white man, you ought to
go back and live in a white community, or, as you've been living in a Coloured
community, you have to leave “God's Own Country” and go back to your own
country” i.e. go back to Ireland. But he fell down and broke his hip and,
because he had a heart problem, he wasn't able to travel. His doctor
supported him, made him as comfortable as possible so that, eventually, he
died where he wanted to die, in South Africa, beside his wife's grave.

Lion Something (Paw... Pawn...?) Town... I'll have to look it up if it's Afrikaans,
but it was Lion Something Town... the train went straight through the station,
although there was a station house that looked very nice, but that had
obviously been vandalised and half abandoned. And now we're beside a terrific
golf course... there's a church with a steeple like something out of the Thames
Valley, but... the train didn't stop or even slow down. The golf course is huge
and the greens are Hollywood green... I can see two twosomes, 4 white guys,
who are out there playing: plus-fours, Ben Hogan/Payne Stewart caps, hand-
towed caddies... but where it's close to, I have no idea. Very odd, very
strange... there's not even a hint of a township or an African village... just a
chunk of UK Home Counties, airlifted here midweek, in a particularly balmy
English summer.

Well, I've come across my first piece of real unpleasantness. In compartment


'H' next door, there's a grandfather, a father and a little boy who only speak
Afrikaans (or, at any rate, who refuse to speak or understand anything else) -
according to my two companions, it's 'pure, upcountry' Afrikaans, which they
both find difficult to understand.
And the kid is being used by the two adults to provoke Michael, who's black,
but especially to insult Charlie who, being mixed race, is worse than the lowest
of the low.
The boy is playing around the door to our compartment, pushing... pretending
to kick... someone... muttering to himself...

Michael explained that the parent and grandparent probably expect one of us
to smack the child so that they could reinforce their position; whereas, in
reality, from a political point of view, of course, all Michael has to do is make a
phone-call and the Afrikaners would be in serious trouble. One word to the
sleeping-car attendant, who is very friendly and has been in here quite often,
together with Brenda from District 6, and the people in compartment 'H' could
find themselves being put off the train at the next stop. But Michael and
Charlie agree that that would be petty and that some people would never
accept the 'Reconciliation' process. But it's been a very unpleasant situation...
I put myself out in the corridor, not just to 'rescue' Charlie and Michael, in fact,
not at all to rescue them, but to rescue me... I found I was getting more and
more angry... feelings from way, way back... when I saw black people being
treated that way and saw coloured people being treated that way and I was too
small to do anything about it. I won't tolerate it. I effectively blocked the boy's
way into our compartment, so he moved back outside 'H', talking to the adults
and looking back down the corridor. Then Michael said: “Let's go and have
something to eat, you want to have some lunch, don't you? Let's go up to the
restaurant car”.
Which is where we are now.
(20/01/09 We had to pass compartment 'H' on the way to the dining car and I
was left with the jubilant smile of the grandfather, whereas the father and child
were standing with their backs to the corridor on either side of the grandfather.
When we came back after lunch, we found that our compartment door was
wide open and the child was standing in our doorway on one leg, swinging the
other in and out of our compartment 'G'. I asked Michael and Charlie to sit
down and wait and told the boy to come with me. I took him next door and
made a very powerful, icy statement to the two men. If they really didn't
understand the words, they certainly could not misunderstand my meaning or
my graphic mime. The grandfather, who was about 10yrs younger than me,
had probably never been exposed to full, theatrical, sotto-voce voice
projection before and, as I got quieter and quieter, and ever more
commanding, I watched him, and then his son, shrink. I left them with a:
“Good day, gentlemen” in Dutch... and gently closed their compartment door.
We had no more visits from the compartment 'H' family, but a Swedish couple
that we had met in the dining car, the sleeping car attendant and Brenda from
District 6 all joined us for a final beer/fizzy water/cider as the train moved
through the Johannesburg suburbs.)

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