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

and Saturday March 15th 2008. Part Seven.

Sunday, 10th February

I'm now in a B&B in a Johannesburg suburb that looks rather like a leafy road in
Earlesdon in Coventry. The barbed wire and security cameras & alarms are
quite startling, but from what I've heard, Coventry isn't too far behind !
First of all, a quick recap.
Yesterday, Stuart and his girlfriend, Charmaine, met me at the station and
drove me home. Or rather to the Drifters' Inn, a very nice B&B that they had
booked for me. I dumped my stuff in my room, then they took me back to their
apartment
I footled around a bit on the Internet, until Stuart's mother, my half-sister
Jenetta, came home.
Then we all went out to eat at a kind of conglomerate called 'Monte Casino'.
The food wasn't very good. I didn't think so, anyway. A bit like bad English
mass-produced pub food; but you could find and buy almost anything you
wanted... and Jenetta said her meal was very nice. I had a lamb rack or lamb...
whatever the word is... shank, that's right, which was terribly over-cooked and
most of the taste was absorbed in a thick, rather gungy sauce over the top of
it...
Then we went back to their place. I transferred the accumulated photographs
from my laptop onto 2 CDs, so I was able to liberate my camera and free up the
USB key to which I'll now be able to transfer pictures again. Then I went back
to the Drifters and crashed out.

I woke up really very early this morning and listened for the unfamiliar sounds
from outside. Then when my alarm went off, I went downstairs to have
breakfast. I said “Hullo” to everybody and the next thing I actually said was
(phonetically) “'N'guete mittenand” to a couple who had started to speak
Swiss-German. They turned out to be from Pfäffikon (Pfaffeche) on the Lake of
Zurich. They have just spent 3 months in Australia, a short stop-over here,
then they're off to the Seychelles in a couple of days' time. They're staying
there for two months because that's where his origins are (?!? That's what he
said). So, a little bit of Swiss-German, then they asked me where I came from...
and we had the rest of the breakfast in French, which was nice... and kind of
them.

It turns out that Neil, Netta's 2nd son started work here. The Drifters Inn is a
sort of base camp for people who are going off on safari. Neil started his
career as a game warden here and is now up-country near Botswana, with a
position of responsibility on a large game reserve that hosts eco-tourists from
all over the world. I've no idea if we shall meet while I'm in S.A... hope so,
because everything I've heard about him sounds very positive; he sounds my
sort of person. He would seem to have a lot in common with my son David, as
well.

Stuart, Charmaine and Jenetta are going to pick me up in a while and we're
going to a game park. A small game park, obviously quite close to Jo'burg,
which has quite a lot of game but not... what did they say... not The Big Four...
there are no elephants or anything like that, for example, probable no lions.
But it should be a nice day out. And then tomorrow morning, Stuart and I (and
I don't know if Charmaine's coming or not... but I hope she is)... we leave early
for Hilton. I spoke to Charles and Wynne last night during the meal, which was
a bit difficult, shouting down Stuart's telephone. We'll arrive in Hilton about...
well, it's a 5hr trip, so we'll arrive some time in the early afternoon, I expect.
Then we'll see where it goes from there...

The Drifters Inn serves a very nice English breckie...

At 09:30 I met the trio, then we went to pick up Jenetta's daughter, Catherine,
and so I met her father, Netta's ex, David Barry. Oddly enough, we met in a
parking lot, like a scene out of a Michael Caine/Harry Palmer thriller,
compounded by the fact that we were quickly accosted by security guards, who
informed us that we had to get our cars out of there.
So it was a very short meeting with David. Perhaps we'll meet again when we
take Catherine home to him this evening...

There were some of the Big Four in the game park, because it's called
'RenosterPark & Leeu' – Rhino & Lion, 520 Kromdraal.

I insisted that the day was on me, so I offered all the entrance fees, lunch, etc..

At one point, Stuart pretended that his car was a 4x4 off-road Hummer, so we
had a couple of hairy moments where it appeared that we might have to get
out and walk, which wouldn't have been very clever, as my photos of near-by
wild animals show quite graphically. However, we made it back onto a more
recognisable roadway and were able to approach several of the animals –
staying in the car, but occasionally rolling down the windows, not always at the
appropriate moment (there's a shot of my shocked mishap with hyenas).
The lions and rhinos roam free, but the tigers (YES, Bengal tigers) are behind
high fences, although questionably close to the 'Children's Zoo'.
Lunch was good, simple fare and the serving staff pleasant and efficient.
It was a very nice day out and I am very grateful to the whole 'family'.

I'm now in Stuart & Charmaine's house, all by myself. And locked in.
We came back from the game park, had a short discussion over a cold beer
about what to do this evening, then everyone else left. As we decided to have
a barbecue (a braaifleis) this evening, Stuart & Charmaine went to do the
shopping and Jenetta took Catherine back to her father. I'm busy finding out
what it is that Stuart does for a living...
Charmaine is a teacher who decided to give up her job, being unable or
unwilling to deal with the escalating aggression in the classroom. She's some
years older than Stuart, but they seem to be a well-balanced couple,
complementing each other in their relationship.
Since I arrived in Johannesburg, I've had it drummed into me how important
and how precarious safety & security are. To come into their wire-fenced
compound, you have to activate the large gates at distance... and the groups of
(mostly) men on nearly every street corner are hardly reassuring. But it's still
rather bizarre, to be locked into an empty house like a dangerous mental
patient.

I'm back in my room in the Drifters Inn. I've packed everything ready for
leaving in a few hours, but I really must go over what happened this evening...
I was quietly minding my own business, when the front door bell rang. What to
do? Pretend the house was empty and hope they'd go away? Call out from
behind the door (because it was locked from the outside, and I couldn't unlock
it) and ask them to call back later? If it was someone trying to break in, would
they be able to get in from the back garden? What's the law about defending
property, or reacting to threats to life and limb?
Whoever was at the front door was very insistent, so I decided to talk to them.
When the ringing and knocking stopped, I asked who it was and what they
wanted. A voice said that he was John and that he was a mate of Stuart's and
could I let him in. I explained that I didn't know him from Adam and that,
anyway, the house was locked from outside and he would have to wait until
Stuart and Charmaine came home.
He said that he'd been invited for the 'braai' and started to suggest places
where I might find a spare set of keys, to unlock the door from the inside and
let him in.
I still had no idea how many people might have been outside, but 'John'
obviously know the internal layout of the house better than I did, so I looked in
some of the places he suggested in the lounge and kitchen. But I had no
intention of nosing around the bedrooms, so suggested we try to contact
Charmaine and Stuart by phone...
John was indeed Stuart's 'mate' and the resulting barbecue was a good
opportunity to 'reach hands across the sea' and learn more of my new nephew
from his good friend. Nice food & drink and the evening became quite jolly.

Stuart brought me back to the Drifters Inn and we arranged for them to pick
me up very early (too early for breakfast!) tomorrow morning.

Monday, 11th February

An 05:30, start for Hilton with Stuart AND Netta. That was a nice surprise. But
Charmaine hasn't come with us. I think she had to work today.
Jenetta and Stuart shared the driving and we made the most of their change-
overs to have a motorway breakfast and a late morning tea/coffee break.
Quite a pleasant drive, where the terrain only really started to change after we
left the plateau and started to descend. I had to take the Drakensberg
Mountains on trust, because the distant mist shrouded the Dragon, or the
'barrier of spears' as the Zulus call the mountain range. But they marked my
passage from (Orange) Free State Province into KwaZulu-Natal.
As we drove into the Midlands, I had quite a shock. Although place names were
often very English (22/03/09 'Nottingham' was somewhere that I drove back to
with Wynne and her friend Shirley to have lunch some days later), the
landscape was surprisingly similar to the Canton de Vaud. And we passed a
road sign proclaiming: Swissland Cheesemaker. It was only when there was an
outbreak of the shockingly red earth that the Swiss illusion was broken.
As we approached Hilton, the Canton de Vaud gave way to leafy Warwickshire
glades and country roads.
Then we pulled up outside Charles &Wynne's bungalow...

Monday 11thFebruary (cont.)

We arrived in Hilton just after midday. The emotional charge was so heavy for
Wynne, Charles and myself, that we did the usual English thing of pretending
that it was a perfectly normal, every-day, happening and quickly set about
doing normal, every-day things.
I unpacked, went for a walk round the garden, sniffed at by their two dogs, then
Stuart and I cobbled together a shopping list of 'essentials' a) for a late lunch,
b)for Charles' and Wynne's computer, c)for an electrical adapter and other
electrical wiring gubbins, then we set off in Stuart's car again to visit the
appropriate shops.
A two-man electrical suppliers... and then we made for the shopping centre
built around, inside, above and hanging over a disused quarry.
Stuart showed me where he used to stand and contemplate the old quarry and
the new building work when he came back to his grandparents' house from
Maritzburg College in Pietermaritzburg, then hunger got the better of us and we
made a bee-line for the delikatessen counter in the supermarket. English-type
chicken & mushroom and steak & kidney pies (piping hot), 6-packs of beer for
Stuart and Hunter's Dry cider for me (ice-cold), then, only stopping long
enough to scoop up 4 bags of winegums, we went straight 'home' to share our
late lunch.

(20/03/09 In the first couple of days in Hilton, it was next to impossible to

record anything. Stuart and Netta stayed over before going back to Jo'burg,
Charles lives a waking 24hr day, liable to want information, company and/or
entertainment at any time of day or night... and Wynne is having to deal with
this elderly man who is her husband's elder son, with all the baggage that that
entails. You'll find some photographs from those early days on
www.wuzzy.smugmug.com , but there are very few recordings to transcribe.
There may be a great temptation to fill in the gaps, but that will have to be at a
later date, when I've transcribed the rest of my journey that brings me back to
Rotterdam over a month later, on 13th March 08.)

Late afternoon, early evening, there was a kind of family council of war. Jenetta
is intending to go back to Kenya and the conversation turned around the
Worrod family's history up there, especially Charles' involvement with
politicians at the time of Kenyatta. I remember hearing years ago that the
reason that Charles and Wynne came back to South Africa was because their
friend Tom Mboya (later murdered by rival politicians) told them that, while
Charles and Wynne might be able to live out their days in Kenya, there was no
way that any future could be guaranteed for Alaric or Jenetta.
The pros & cons of Charles' struggle for copyright and recognition are well
documented on the web, where you'll find many stories and anecdotes about
Charles' involvement with music in general and his own Equator Sound Studios
in particular and where, certainly financially, he did not come out the winner.
When he and Wynne came to visit us in Bussigny in September 2001, I gave
him back some old 45s of African Twist music, as well as the unofficial Kenyan
National Anthem, Harambee (one of his numbers that had been 'nationalised'),
Malaika and Hulule-Hulule, which was later picked up by Brian Poole & the
Tremeloes.
(20/03/09 Some days later, I encoded some songs by one of his 1960s
protégés called Hank Barclay; he's rather better-known nowadays as Roger
Whittaker. Which takes me off on another of my convoluted memory trips...
When I did 'Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris' for Florence Rep,
one of my company, Saleem Ibrahim, who came from Nairobi, asked me on 3
different occasions if I wasn't really Roger Whittaker. I told him I couldn't even
whistle, but I DID used to do an imitation of him in my cabaret act that also
included Ralph Whiteman, Paul Robeson, Kathleen Ferrier and Johnny Mathis).
The family discussion started off as 'a worry' about Jenetta's safety and social
standing when she returned to work in the city where she had spent much of
her childhood, but it quickly turned into a discussion about 2 old men in
Nairobi, battling for political power, and 1 old white man in Hilton Kwa-Zulu
Natal, still resentful of the fact that he couldn't be there to berate them about
the real meaning of togetherness as expressed in 'Harambee'.
After his experience on the web, with the divergent reports of his relationships
with musicians and politicians, Charles is particularly worried about 'Facebook'
and the appropriation of personal information by people of evil intent. But I
think my sister will go where she wants and do what she wants, regardless of
outside pressures. Since her daughter, Jenny, committed suicide 2½yrs ago,
she has suffered a lot of pressure about how she is expected to behave, a lot of
it very guilt-provoking. I just hope that she and her three remaining children
can be as self-sufficient, self-reliant and mutually supportive as possible, in
order to live, rather than simply survive.

The closest I came to their favourite country was in 1972 when Charles and
Wynne came to Rome and we recorded a promo travelogue for East African
Airways... and then in 1995, when I wrote and recorded a series of
documentaries about Kenya in the 'Destinations', 'Discoveries' and 'Cities &
Wonders of the World' series.
Funny evening. It's been a very long time since I took part in a 5-way
conversation where each person held and stuck to a point of view, while
seeming to listen to the opinions of the others. Well mannered stonewalling...

My father, at 95, is still gadget-mad. It's very interesting... he loves the whole
concept of the internet, but hates the concept of people being able to take
information which is put there and then change it, which has already happened
to information about him; so you find derogatory and laudatory articles, talking
about more or less the same situation. And there's nothing he can do about it,
which is what he finds frustrating, of course. But you have to live with it.
Gadget-mad... to the extent that, for example, he 'discovered' microwave
cookers. So he insisted, much against his wife's better judgement, to buy 3.
And he threw out the perfectly good, if rather old, conventional oven. So
Wynne was left with the situation where, yes, she could cook things and do
things in the microwave, but she couldn't do what she'd been used to doing
before with cookers, like keeping things warm, using a built-in toaster, an eye-
level grill and so on. Oh, they have 2 or 3 toasters, 2 of which are broken.
That's the other thing... I hate to say it, but he's probably an absolute product,
far more than me, of the reverse-side of consumer society, whereby you buy
things, they break... but you still squirrel them away, just in case...

...he can no longer repair them himself (he can hardly see)... if you think... on
his computer screen, the font-size is 40, but then he also has a huge
magnifying glass and he's right up close to the screen to be able to read little
more than one word at a time. I can only guess just how debilitating that could
be... but he spends hours and hours and hours in front of the screen...
He's still crazy about Coventry City Football Team. He came rushing/tottering
in to me to tell me that yesterday the City's manager or the trainer had just
been fired, which, after the beginning of this season when they were possibly
going into bankruptcy and receivership won't have helped matters too much...
but this weekend they're playing in the Cup; last week they drew with Cardiff
(Cardiff are right near the top, Coventry are 19th, close to the bottom), but
they're playing in the Cup on Saturday, so we'll see what happens then.
The strange thing is, I used to go and watch Coventry City with my (maternal)
grandfather... I don't think I ever went to watch a football match with my father.
Perhaps, when he left England for South Africa in 1947, I was 8, perhaps he
thought I was too small to take to a soccer match... I don't know. But I was
already playing in goal at Folly Lane... and when I went back to Folly Lane
(that had changed its name to Gosford Park in the meantime) in 1948, I was
playing soccer all the time, and within a year was goalkeeper for Coventry Boys
Junior Team, and Warwickshire as well... which (side-tracked again, Worrod) is
when I first met Pete Clark, who I then met up with again at Bablake when we
were both in Shell Z... In spite of being a thalidomide baby and only having 1½
arms, he was my partner years later when we did our life-saving exams. That's
a convoluted way around things, innit? Grasshopper mind...

Tuesday, 12th February

I spent most of the day with Wynne. Talking, sitting, listening. Shopping. Twice.
It's really so important for her to get into her car as often as possible. Not
necessarily to go somewhere, but her face changes completely when she gets
behind the wheel. The lines of pain smooth away (except when she turns
round to look out of the back window when reversing!) and she perks up no
end. I wonder how they would react if I suggested buying a car seat and
installing it in their living room?!?

Wednesday, 13th February

So difficult to find -or make- the time to write. Now my sister and her son
have gone back to Johannesburg, I am very much in demand by both my father
and Wynne. Today we have moved into the realm of reminiscence and the
(sometimes very) different memories of the same situation. At 95, my father is
physically very frail, but mentally remarkably clear. Unlike many people of his
age and even my age, his memory of recent events is as clear as those from
his youth and childhood. And he's a compendium of experiences, encounters
and fresh starts... when Charles and Wynne have rubbed shoulders with many
celebrities...

The first time I met Wynne was in Charles' car in 1948. I've no idea how often
we were together in Cape Town; either once, perhaps several times, or I've
concertinad the times together into one. I remember the pair of them were
trying to entertain me with a revue sketch of overlapping radio programmes:
gardening, cooking, baby care, fashion etc, where the switch from one
programme to another created the comedy.
I must have spent quite some time day-dreaming out of the side window,
because I remember looking to the front and screaming – inside my head, or
out loud, I have no idea. I was convinced we were going to crash. There was a
car driving straight towards us on our side of the road !
We didn't crash, of course. The other car was a 1940s Studebaker, where the
back was more or less exactly like the front...
When they took me back to the Harmony House Hotel, Charles asking me if I
wanted to stay with him and Wynne, even though my mother would certainly
gain custody in their divorce.
He said: “We used to be a happy family” (although I can see now that that was
not true) and I replied: “We were once”. A 9yr-old's judgement. I felt my mother
needed me more. A 9yr-old rescuing his mother...
Charles remembers one of his visits when I kept bouncing a tennis ball, which I
think he interpreted as an expression of my attitude, rather than a repetitive
action which helped to keep me calm...
Wynne told me that she met my mother in Coventry in 1950 and asked if they
could take me to the Festival of Britain with my new (half-)brother, Alaric. My
mother told Wynne that I HAD SAID I never wanted to go anywhere with them,
which was just not true. I wasn't allowed to see them when they were in
Coventry... but I remember cycling (to Clay Lane?) to where they had a shop, in
the hope of seeing my father and my baby brother.
But memory often plays tricks...
Wynne talked about the time they came to Rome in 1972. She remembers that
we went out to dinner: Charles & Wynne, Roger & Marinella and... my mum &
dad ! If this DID happen, then it must have been such a traumatic experience
that it's a memory I locked away so completely that 'it never happened'. I
must ask my first wife and good friend, Marinella, for her input.

When I had some time to myself, I 'chatted' on Skype with Netta... and then
with my younger son Manoel, in Switzerland.

(in retrospect) Thursday 14th February 08

Wynne had an operation on her back 6 or 7 years ago, but it didn't seem to
help; too many years of the constant strain of full-time dancing -shows, classes
and choreographing- have taken their toll. Like many professional athletes,
the adrenal charge of an explosive performance in short, sharp bursts had kept
the show on the road, but when the adrenaline is no longer at work, the body
suffers terribly.
This morning provided the first sizeable chunk of sunshine since I arrived in
Hilton. The time to stroll around the garden with Wynne naming and
anecdoting each of the trees that she had planted and tended in the past 29
years. With the help of... 'indigenous gardeners': the comical tapping the side
of her forgetful head after she used the now forbidden term 'boys'.
Margaret, the... maid, will make her once-a-weekly call tomorrow, from 7:30
until 3pm.

There was also time to bring a chair out onto the terrace and for Charles to
man-handle his zimmer-stroller across the threshold. 29 years ago there were
no trees, no fence, no alarms or razor-wire... The house sat boldly on its acre of
land; today, it does its best to duck behind the hedge.

Wynne took me into Pietermaritzburg by car in late morning. We drove around

this very strange town. And drove around. And around. She obviously did not
want to stop, so my view of landmarks was severely restricted. I snatched a
couple of photos through the car windscreen, but am unable to convey any
feeling of the town.
The only stop we made was inside the grounds of Maritzburg College, where
Stuart went to school. He hated school in general and, in spite of being
'Shooting Captain' in 2000, Maritzburg College was not a happy time of his life.
(18/02/09 So much for my first attempt to record my impressions of the State
capital !)
************
There's a teacher here (at Maritzburg College) called 'Skonk' Nicholson. Skonk
is a Zulu word. But I don't remember what it means. When he came back to
South Africa after WWII, he wasn't sent back to his old school in Durban, but
was sent here to Pietermaritzburg, much to his annoyance. But ever since, he
has been coaching. Cricket, but especially Rugby. He coached many young
players who eventually played representative sport, including a recent star,
Jonty Rhodes... and he is still coaching. At the age of 94. There's a
presentation for him here at the school in half an hour (18/02/09 That must
have been at 11:00a.m.).

The school building looks so much like... very similar to... Bablake. It's really
rather strange and spooky. Some of it was built in 1887. According to the
plaque on the wall.
Wynne's back and hips are extra painful this morning, so she's back in the car
(the only place where she says she can sit comfortably) while I've taken a quick
spin round the other buildings and the sports ground. The kids are all wearing
school uniform, although the way they have their ties 'adjusted' would have
meant an immediate detention in our day at Bablake. But the youngsters have
been very polite. They also seem to relax into smiles rather more easily than
the adults that I have met, most of whom would not have been out of place in
1950's Britain...
I'm going to rejoin Wynne and we're going off to a shopping mall. The school is
the only place where we have stopped the car in Pietermaritzburg. She really
didn't want to stop anywhere out in town. And I'm not going to be responsible
for getting her banged over the head, or even allow her to worry about the
possibility. We'll go and have something to eat in the shopping mall which,
apart from the odd armed robbery, seems to be a relatively safe place to park
your car.

We had a pleasant lunch at the shopping mall, but, after buying a few little gifts
for Charles and Wynne on the way back to the car, we then had to go and 'do
the shopping' in the Hilton supermarket for this evening's meal and tomorrow's
breakfast.

You're buying stuff in a supermarket and you arrive at the cash desk and the
lady looks up at you, smiles and says: “Leckerpecker?” At least, that's what it
sounds like. I know 'lecker' is 'really nice', 'lovely', 'sweet', 'great' or whatever,
in Afrikaans... and 'pecker' in English is something you keep up, one way or
another...! But, actually, what she's asking is if I would 'like a packet'. I don't
know why she calls plastic bags 'packets', but ... “Leckerpecker?” Fun.

Today was the first time I've been away from Hilton since I arrived last Monday;
I took some photographs of the college... as I said, it looks like Bablake. But
obviously, very obviously, Wynne didn't want to stop anywhere else in the
town, so we drove around... I didn't take any other photographs at all, except
for a couple of disasters through the car window... we went to the shopping
mall and had lunch there. Then I bought her a DVD-player for her own room
(as Charles squats the computer and she's rarely able to listen to or watch her
own CDs/DVDs). I bought him a new headset for the computer and later on this
afternoon he listened to the first half of my 'Under Milk Wood' in surround
sound, then we had a technical discussion about the latest developments and
possibilities, which was really very interesting... and worthwhile, absolutely
worthwhile. (18/02/09 It only clicked with me today that I could date the
above retroactively by looking at the photos in my iPhoto albums. The digital
info is embedded, so I can say with certainty that Wynne and I went into
Pietermaritzburg on February 14th 2008, where I took my first photo at 09:56
a.m..)

When Charles decides he wants something, it's really like the Spice Girls' hit
from some years ago: “I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want.... I
wannit... I wannit... NOW!” So sometimes it's very frustrating. Not just
material things, but the simple logistics of resolving a problem or developing an
idea into reality can take a relatively long time... Although I can understand
that if you believe that time is one thing that you don't have much of, then
you're likely to become impatient. Perhaps that explains the behaviour of the
elderly in supermarket check-out queues...

I had contact with home, tonight. Just time to say hello and check that
everyone was well, send my love and wish Hannah well for her exams.

Friday 15th February 08

It's Friday 15th, just before lunchtime. News from King & Sons: the Grey Fox is
now due in Cape Town on the afternoon of 25thFebruary, so, so far, they've
recuperated a day. My phone call to Captain Böckmann on Monday 18th will be
crucial.

Margaret the maid came today. In spite of the new laws, she still insists on
calling Charles 'master'... or should that be a capital 'M' ? She spends her
lunch-break reading the newspaper in the sun and eating the boiled eggs,
bread, bananas, and 'boy meat' (another anachronism – 'boy' is outlawed as a
form of address, yet the meat paste sandwiches etc usually prepared for them
by their {usually white} employer is called 'boy meat').

We're going up to Howick waterfalls, which are... well, from the pictures I've
seen, they look quite impressive... and we're going to have lunch up there. We
asked Charles to come, but he decided to stay at home...

We drove out into the 'Swiss countryside' around Hilton and Howick; I think I
shall slip a few snaps of the Canton de Vaud into my Kwa-Zulu Natal
photographs and get the people at home to differentiate between them.
The falls at Howick are only 100m high, but the effect is still impressive. There
is surprisingly little water, considering the bucketing downfalls we have had in
the past few days, added to the deluges of the previous two weeks.
A great lunch in the Red Fox pub; Wynne's lasagne was so large that she
brought 2/3rds of it home in a doggy bag. My lamb chops, rice and cauliflower
were excellent, all of it for R113 (€10) including drinks.
We drove home by the back roads and I took a couple of photos of the plaque
erected on the spot where Nelson Mandela was arrested before his 27 years in
prison. Sadly, together with the Howick Falls that we visited before lunch,
Mandela's 'shrine' is a black spot for bag-snatching and muggings... they tell
me... and “don't even think about PMB station!”, which is supposed to be even
more dangerous...
I wonder if I will be able to get back to Pietermaritzburg (PMB) to see the
railway station where Gandhi/Ben Kingsley was thrown off the train by a white
official/Peter Cartwright (an actor who was at RADA with me) ?

Back home, I took a few photos of the house and garden, trying to avoid being
tripped up by the dogs who were delighted to have a new playmate-cum-
obstacle. Then Wynne continued where we had left off in the morning: looking
at photos, programmes and play-bills of the shows she had been in in the 40s
and 50s.
I shall make copies of a photo of a very young Alaric being 'Directed in a Picture
by Alfred Hitchcock' and another with Maurice Chevalier. I don't think I'll bother
with the one of Danny Kaye...
This weekend I have to put some RCA plugs on the old turntable so that they
(and I !) can listen to and record from some of their 'Equator Sound Studios'
master recordings. Charles used to daisy-chain electrical wires and machines,
but, as there's no way he can get down on his knees anymore, I shall try and
simplify the connections, in the need for safety as much as for cohesion.

Charles is still frustrated that he can't get BBC Radio the way he would like i.e.
the way I can on my laptop. Unfortunately I let him listen to BBC7 and BBC
Coventry & Warwickshire on my Mac iBook, but, when I tried to get it for him on
his PC, we kept losing the station because 'there wasn't enough bandwidth'.
However, I think it's more a matter of basic memory. He has a total of 256Mb,
while I have 1G on my laptop (and 4G on my iMac at home). I've had a quick
look and, as far as I can see, there seems to be a lot of his precious 256 being
hijacked as soon as the PC is up and running. Now comes the delicate task of
convincing him to jettison applications that he hasn't used for years and, above
all, to take them out of his StartUp Folder; he only has about 50Mb available at
the moment. Apparently, Stuart had already asked him to get rid of some of
these programs that weren't really being used, because if that much is already
spoken for before the computer is actually functional, then something needs to
change. I've no idea how greedy Windows is/are for memory... That's a job we
should start tonight. Probably the one benefit of Charles' emphysema and
inability to sleep in anything other than a straight-backed chair, is that he can
do things... start to do things... at any time of day or night. So we'll have a
bash sometime after the last retransmission of The Champions League, La Liga,
The Premiership, Serie A and the French & German Cups fade away on the telly
in the lounge...

The countryside around Howick, the huge scenic reservoir and the roadside
memorial to Nelson Mandela is remarkably similar to the part of Switzerland
that I live in, even down to the tribute to Suisse-Romande English, proudly sign-
posting 'Swissland Cheese'.
Wynne, bless her, is worried that the sun was in the wrong position to take a
good photo of the memorial, so she is already planning when we can go back
there, when the sun would be over my shoulder !

Saturday 16th February 08

Sitting on the terrace eating my breakfast mango, I half expected Meryl Streep
to push her way through the thicket hedge.
Wynne is sure that yesterday's photo of Nelson Mandela's plaque (into the sun)
can be improved upon, so off we go again. Next Tuesday, she has to apply for
her driving test again... not sure if I hope they are lenient, or not, but then, I'm
hyper-critical of car drivers...
I've managed to recover enough memory, bandwidth and speed available for
Charles to listen to last Wednesday's edition of the Archers on BBC7. We shall
find out at 4pm or 5pm if we can listen to Coventry City's FA Cup match with
West Brom.

Wynne and I have been across the road to see Shirley, the neighbour who
came and helped Charles when he fell down the last time and cracked his hip...
and the mystery and mythology are now clearer: he did NOT have a complete
hip replacement, as we had been told, he had a pin put in. It was still pretty
remarkable that he was up and about so quickly, but it seemed pretty
miraculous after a replacement.
But it's kind of strange, to simply presume... do doctors not inform you what
they are doing/intend to do/have done? Or is it still an old throwback to the
British doctor-patient relationship, where we held them in awe and never/rarely
questioned them? I used to get a right ear-bashing from my Swiss wife when I
took that attitude with me into the doctor's surgery; it was only the threat of
her coming 'to hold my hand' (and asking all the pertinent questions that I tried
to avoid) that forced me to confront one of the more unproductive behaviours
in UK society - hopefully things have improved since I left the UK in 1968.

I took some photographs of Shirley's place; she has a very strong South African
accent, but obviously considers herself to be truly British. I photographed
inside her house as well and... all of these houses, my father's, her house,
another house I peeped into yesterday... they're all, obviously, of a certain
age... the early 20th century home-making mind-set, I mean... they all have the
same sets of photographs on every conceivable surface... and what it reminds
me of, is going into houses owned by the Brits who created Chiantishire in
Tuscany i.e. the Brits who left India in '48 and after, couldn't and wouldn't go
back to the UK... some went off to Kenya and other Stations of the British
Empire cross, but others went to Tuscany, ringing the city of Florence. Most of
them bought 'case colonniche' – disused farmhouses – did them up (they're
now worth a fortune, of course, but at the time Italians wouldn't have been
seen dead in them), and it was great for them: they had came back from the
subcontinent with very few resources, but, having lived with servants all their
lives... and they set up house in Tuscany. The same kind of sideboard bric-à-
brac, photographs and so on, that I've found here, I remember seeing in the
Tuscan houses when I went to visit them.
An interesting little story: a guy who'd been living outside Florence since 1948
or thereabouts, I met in the British Consulate in the mid-70s... or rather, I saw
and heard him in the Consulate; not really the kind of person I'd choose to
meet, particularly. Anyway, he'd lost his dog. And he'd wanted to put an
advert in 'La Nazione' newspaper, but his Italian was... rather limited, in spite of
about 30 years of residence. He knew that a 'dog' was 'carnay', which sounded
rather more like 'meat' (carne) than 'dog' (cane), so someone had pointed him
in the direction of the nearest butcher. Appalled at the idea of eating his dog
and unable to get his message across, he'd driven into town to find someone
who could translate for him. He seemed to personify a whole charabanc-load
who had been dropped off at isolated spots across the Tuscan hills. Most of
them, if they'd been back in the UK, would really not have been accepted into
the 'class' that they had enjoyed on the Indian subcontinent. The slightly
Estuary-English that 'went abroad' and became 'somebody'... it used to be
vaguely echoed, when I lived in London, by top-of-the-range second-hand car
salesmen... and this guy was trying to explain that his “'carnay' had ran
aiway” and he “ebsoluely ed to geddim back”.

And to a certain extent, many of the ex-pats that I've met since I arrived in SA
have fitted into the same shoes and shoe boxes.

Wynne is something of an exception to this rule. She speaks, I think, quite

fluent Swahili from her time in Kenya and the other morning she was
apologising that her Zulu was not really very good, but she speaks to the
gardener and to Margaret (the lady who comes once a week to clean and iron)
and replies to anyone who speaks to her in the street in Zulu. So this is a
different kind of ex-pat... she was a soubrette, dancer & singer, in theatre years
ago... in the 1940s in England and then in South Africa. Then she started her
own secretarial college in Kenya... opened another one in Cape Town when they
moved back to South Africa... a get-up-and-go lady... We were talking about
what she'd like to do now and she said that the only thing she feels
comfortable doing, i.e. physically comfortable, is driving. She can't walk, she
has great pain, even sitting down is not normally very comfortable for her, but
when she sits in the car, she's comfortable. So she said she'd love a job, if they
still had them, of transporting cars, lorries, pantechnicons, containers,
whatever... from one side of Europe to the other, one side of Africa to the other.
Just to sit there and drive; she would love to do that. Now. She's 10 years
younger than my father, so she's 85½.