So here I go rambling on about my idyllic childhood and telling stores of cakes and homesickness and eccentric characters and nuns and convents and there is something I never address. How did I grow up in this idyllic world and never mention the disease that must have affected every breath we took? It went by many names-apartheid / separate development/ separate and unequal/ racism? I have really thought about it and tried to rationalise it but I think I will use this blog as a sort of “getting to the point eventually” mechanism.
Like most people I know or think I know well, I had a very happy childhood. I was a miserable and sulky teenager and a confused and slightly hysterical twenty something but my childhood was a long comforting procession from the horrors of the convent boarding school to the delights of polo tournaments and falling in love with the dashing South Americans who were the only people to visit South Africa in the apartheid days.
I want to write this down, not because I had a very special childhood- my mother did not walk with a cheetah in elegant parks in London, my sister and I did not have a secret language and we did not play intense fantasy games in dark cupboards. Neither our father nor my uncles were either paedophiles or glamorous military men and we were not the prettiest nor the ugliest girls- I want to write it down to explain to my children and ultimately to myself how we were born with and not only tolerated but never questioned the status quo of apartheid..
As a child I was aware of poverty and the difference between our house and the staff “huts”. We had sandals for summer and gumboots and stout winter shoes whilst the kids(piccanins) on the farm went barefoot and had ragged clothes. We slept on beds in between crisp white sheets and I knew they slept on sacks and blankets around a smoky fire. We had a daily bath and indoor toilets – they went in the veld behind the huts. We all lined up for cod-liver oil in the winter- my sister and I , the farm kids and the newly weaned calves were all lined up and given 2 tablespoons of the foul mixture. Eventually my dad introduced a thick tasty powdered soup which boosted everyone’s immunity to the biting East Griqualand winter .
Albertina was my mother’s most favourite gardener- she was to my mind an ancient old woman (probably mid 40’s ) and she lived in the location. We lived on the border of what became a small part of the Transkei when the concept of homelands were introduced to the South African Republic. She wore faded blue shweshwe dresses and walked the steep rough path back to her home barefoot . I loved Albertina and knew she battled so I used to fill her pockets with sticky brown sugar and coarsely ground mealie-meal. I knew she needed it but it was done secretly and as a game beetweeen her and I . When we went to the cattle sales at the Swartberg Farmer’s salegrounds, there was an awkward space between the Davies and the Napiers and the other farmers. My father always went to talk to Mr Davies and Mr.Napier but I noticed the unease and the separation. The explanation for that was that they were classified Coloured as they were descended from Griqua stock. They were landowners but only for their generation .
The police too were a puzzle – they were sweet , good people (kind to my Granny Ticky who became a lonely widow and loved feeding up the beefy sergeants) but brutal to an innocent African walking on the road. We distrusted them and watched as the police van cruised past our farm.
Then onto school we went and in Standard 4 we peripherally experienced the Soweto riots. We had no television and did not get the newspaper so we relied on day girl accounts of what was happening. One day we heard about school kids rioting and the next, we were practicing bomb drills in the classroom!
In high school , a few black kids were admitted. Elegant Busi with her tiny waist and perfect posture and innate grasp of maths. One day we went into town together and I suggested a milkshake at John Orr’s. Busi reminded me she could not go in there as she was black and so we went to Juicy Lucy instead – they turned a blind eye. We thought it daring when we rolled Busi up in a rug and hid her on the floor of the school bus so we prefects could all go to Drive In together. By then , we got the daily newspaper and politics were discussed but in a cloistered boarding school, the world felt a long way away.
Rhodes University was different but no less puzzling: the wild eyed left were strange to me in their ragged clothes and strident tones. Nadine Gordimer spoke to the student body in the Great Hall and made clear her contempt and disdain for the white students. I remember thinking indignantly :”But I cannot change the colour of my skin now lady! Tell me what I can do on a practical basis.” Grahamstown is a poor and economically depressed area and it was a shock to be assailed by the poverty of Fingo village and the constant stream of beggars (mostly little kids who begged for 20 c for bread).A siren used to ring at about 5.30 in the evening and I saw john and Stanley, the dignified waiters in our Hall of Residence , running down the street to vacate white town before the curfew. I wanted change but my natural inclination was to stay out of trouble. Cowardly and unforgiveable but I had no wish to end up in prison and so whilst I attended marches and protests I would never have put myself in the front line. The division between black and white students grew hard and unbreachable.We were no longer at school together and we knew too little about each other or we had been effectively poisoned by the years of apartheid to find in each other a common humanity. Our law classes were attended by intense black students and there was nothing to bind us together. I never subscribed to racist talk or thinking but I never challenged the status quo- I was a happy and frivolous student most of the time and debates about apartheid and the franchise for all were kept to reasoned debates.
As an articled clerk, I was slave to a lawyer who represented Inkhata Freedom Party – they were supported by the police and were at the root of many assassinations and shootings and violence. I protested against my involvement and was told to put up or go. I stayed.
In my digs , a girl involved in the ECC was followed by Security Police and our phone was tapped. I left the digs. I did not want to end up in prison.
So this is in essence a sad confession of apathy and fear – what could one person do against the might of the SA government and if I were to do something , would I end up in jail? I think I am a kind person and I try to do positive things now with the money and time at my disposal, but when I watch a movie about the Jews or refugees in some war-torn country calling for a brave individual , I judge myself and find me wanting. There is so much more to be said but it is a sad and silly confession and achieves little. I did not join the army, I never voted for the Nationalist Party and nor did my family but we were white and the sun shone on us. Mea Culpa….
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