A Recent trip to the UK

I recently spent two weeks in the United Kingdom - or to be more precise - England.

Now I must explain that my family – or branches thereof – have lived in South Africa for 154 years. Yet my parents somehow always thought of England as home. I was brought up on a solid diet of the glories of the British Empire, and British – nay - English heroes such as Wellington, Nelson, Clive of India, Saunders of the River, Gordon of Khartoum, the Light Brigade and Scott of the Antarctic. Added to this were English nursery rhymes :

Oranges and Lemons
Say the bells of St Clements..........
....When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch

and stories that were set in Sherwood Forest, Hundred Acre Wood or horror of horrors – on the moors and lost.

So on arrival in Blake’s ‘Green and Pleasant’ land I had a sense of deja vu. The names were all so familiar. Post boxes were painted red, buses said they were going to Kensington or Sydenham, Bobbies-on-the-Beat really exist and ‘Old Father Thames was rolling along’. In fact walking around Oxford felt like Durban of 50 years ago. It is clean, orderly and also safe to roam the streets and back lanes complete with cell phone, wallet and expensive camera.

But one self delusion was shattered. I soon found that I was not a transplanted Englishman who had spent a few generations in the Colony of Natal. I am a South African and wanted to be my usual gregarious self but this is not the native way. English people exist and move about in a clearly defined bubble of personal space. They defend this space by avoiding eye contact in the tubes or buses by simply averting the eye or hiding behind a newspaper. Oh how I wanted to babble away as one can do In SA to all and sundry in the local bank queue or supermarket.

But on the positive side it was nice to be in a clean and orderly country where people ‘keep the Queen’s peace’ by obeying and sticking to the simple rules. Thus there is little need to enforce the law as it comes from the people and is observed by them. People don’t litter, they keep to the right on escalators, queue and wait their turn and heed the warning to ‘mind the gap’ as the tube roars in.

Eventually the ‘huis-toe’ feeling begins to churn in the soul. The need for open space, less people and a more expansive world calls. I realised that there is a common South African identity that asserts itself when you are away from here.

On getting home one of the first I encountered was my neighbour Gretta. We exchanged the usual opening gambits of conversation and I ventured that she looked as if she had been working in her garden. “Man” she exclaimed, “I’ve only been grafting hey boet!”

“Nice to be home” I mused to myself “and to hear someone who doesn’t speak with an accent”

Lekker indeed!