The first trip back that I can remember with any clarity was when I was about eight years old in the early 70’s. We flew over in December to spend Christmas in Yorkshire. We left in the heat of summer and I can remember being confused because my mother insisted on us carrying our winter coats and having jerseys in our bags not realising that we were travelling into the teeth of winter. I can clearly remember being highly upset that I had to wear long trousers, warm socks and shoes to travel in, telling us that it would be cold when we got to London was not really a concept we understood.

We arrived on a cold sleety day to warm, happy reunion with Grandparents, and a huge family we had all but forgotten. It seemed as though the entire village was either related to or friendly with my extended family. The warmth of the welcome embraced us and we felt a bit like the return of the prodigals. We were home from foreign parts, you have to understand that my parents were the first in either of their families to travel and live anywhere other than the local surrounds, some of the older members of the family had never even travelled as far as London. Africa was considered extremely remote and “foreign”, South Africa had to be looked up in an atlas to make sure where it actually was.

After the welcome came the disbelief at how we sounded.

I was used to being called an immigrant in South Africa and being told that I spoke funny by other kids, I kind of used being English as a talisman against the alienation, that was where we came from and was where we belonged. It was a bit of a shock to the system, to be told by my cousins that I spoke funny and was not English anymore either!

My brother and I were treated like peculiarities by our aunts, uncles and cousins, being pointed out to perfect strangers as being “All the way from Af-ri-ca” almost as though it was the other end of the universe. Every time we opened our mouths to speak we were stared at because we sound so different. We were spoken about as if we were prize exhibits. The comments went along the lines of:
“Have you spoken to Our Ian’s two?”
“Don’t they talk funny?”
“Why do they talk so posh?”
“Wot yuh talkin’ posh fo’ ?”
All in broad Yorkshire accents, I had thought I sounded just like them!

It was very disconcerting and disturbing for young kids, who had been told for months that they were going “Home” for a visit. Even more disconcerting was the fact that my parents slipped straight back into the local accents and did not even realise that they sounded like strangers to us.

How could this be home when no-one sounded like us? Some people can be so inadvertently cruel, young children have ears and can understand a lot more than you give them credit for. I think this was my first perceptions that I did not belong anywhere in particular and is a feeling I have carried with me for most of my life since then.

Eventually the novelty factor wore off and we were accepted back into the bosom of the family and had a wonderful Christmas, it even snowed and my dad had the pleasure of following the snow plough down to the local pub on New Year’s Eve. We were also suitably spoilt with toys and clothes that had to be carted back to South Africa in an extra suitcase. I was very sorry to leave my Grandparents but was equally happy to be home in South Africa.

As an aside, the term”Rooinek” derives from the times of the Boer War when Afrikaner referred to immigrant Englishmen, whose white necks were particularly prone to sunburn. I have no idea where the term “Rock-spider” originated but sounded good as an insult at the time.

I’m afraid that with those inauspicious beginnings my introduction to learning this particular language was apathetic to say the least. Our poor teachers faced an uphill battled to convince a bunch of English kids that Afrikaans was a worthwhile language to learn, but learn it we did.

My biggest learning curve in mastering the language happened when I worked as a switchboard operator at a bank in a little town called Westonaria. It is a blip on the Far West Rand and English was only spoken by a few foreign miners. I very quickly had to learn to field staccato questions fired at me by customers who had no time for an inept telephonist who only spoke “Engels”. My favourite memory of that time is an old Oom who used come in once a week and systematically greeted each and every lady in the branch with a doff of the hat and a very serious “More Dametjie” (Morning little Lady). What a gentleman!

I have found that a lot of Afrikaans speakers think it is hysterically funny to listen to a foreigner trying to speak their language. I have lost count of the number of times I have tried to carry on a polite conversation with someone and they burst out laughing because my pronunciation or syntax is a bit odd to their ears. For some inexplicable reason, my English accent is more pronounced when I speak Afrikaans than when I speak English.

The worst case of this was when I visited and old uncle of my husband’s on a farm in the depths of the Free State. I had been told that the Oom did not speak much English so I did the polite thing and spoke to him in his own language. Imagine my embarrassment when after trying my best to have a conversation with the old geezer, he turns to my hubby and asked “Wat sê sy?” Well, the entire clan fell about with hoots of laughter. Needless to say, after that I gave up and only spoke English to the entire family and even now, my children and I are referred to as “Die Engelse Niggies” (The English Cousins).

These days I generally speak very little Afrikaans and if necessary, I start the conversation in Afrikaans and then switch to English as soon as I can with a gentle “Ek’s jammer maar ek kannie so baie goed Afrikaans praat nie.”

At school things were fine as we were all in the same boat of being at the only English school in the town. There was a real conglomeration of people in that little school, we came from all over the world especially Europe, there were Italians, Portuguese, Greeks, Dutch and English folk besides the regular South African English kids. There was also a substantial community of Jewish people – we loved the Jewish holidays as the school was half empty and we couldn’t do any work so it was essentially a free day.

The strange thing was that we all kept out nationalities, almost like badges of honour. We used to share out lunches as there was always something different on offer. We had pretty cosmopolitan palates for little kids, tzadziki, lasagna, matzo and cheese sandwiches got traded with relish. So we never seemed to consider ourselves as South African even though we all grew up in this little Highveld town we had our own little United Nations.

As I got older I still considered myself to be an English immigrant, and this was entrenched when directly after Matric I went back to the UK to visit my Grandparents. When I came back home to South Africa I had picked up a long buried English accent which has stayed with me to this day.

The first time I really felt truly South African was probably when I went to my first Johnny Clegg concert held at the Market Theatre in about 1983. A group of us piled into my old skedonk of a car, I vividly remember one very tall chap was behind the back seats in the boot area as it was the only place we could fit him. Anyway, off we drove to JHB, with a good supply of red wine and beer of course. The vibe at the concert was absolutely mind blowing and Johnny and Juluka had us dancing like maniacs. We danced and drank and danced some more, we sang along to every single song at the tops of our voices, we acted like people possessed and in a way I suppose we were. The times were troubled and this was a celebration of being young adults in an uncertain world.

It was a moment to savour, I did not go to many concerts and I relished the occasion. It was the music that spoke to me, it screamed to me that this is South Africa and I understood every beat of it. At that moment I knew, I WAS a South African, it didn’t matter where I was born, or where I had grown up. This was what I was and nothing could change that or take it away from me. South Africa had gotten into my very bones and I was a child of this land no matter what happened in the future.