Category: memories

The Princess and Me

The media in the UK is in a bit of a froth and a frenzy over the Royal Engagement. In the midst of coalition woes, strikes, budget cuts, FIFA-fixing, cold weather, floods, not to mention Wagner, it helps the nation to have something positive to look forward to.

The merchandisers have been going overboard with enough commemorative Will ‘n Kate crockery to sink a ship. The first item I saw, which made me laugh, was a mug with two handles. I wondered if that was in honour of the father of the groom-to-be who has, rather unkindly, been described as resembling a VW with the doors open.

Image from thejjb.com

Typically, British bookmakers have been bursting with speculation about where and when the wedding will take place, who will design the wedding dress, what title the couple will take on after the wedding, who will be the best man, who will be the maid of honour, how many viewers will tune into BBC to watch the wedding live, what colour the wedding dress will be and – my personal favourite – the colour of the Queen’s hat.

All of which reminds me of Diana and me. Princess Diana was born one week before me. And honestly, if I had a pound for every time someone told me that I looked like her, I would be basking on my yacht in the tropics somewhere, sipping on an expensive, chilled cocktail, waiting for someone to peel me a grape, and enjoying the company of my gorgeous husband who, thankfully, looks nothing like Charles.

I can’t remember when it began. I didn’t do like Julie Walters’ client in Educating Rita and take a magazine photo of Diana with me to the hairdresser and say, “I want to look like that.” I guess I just do look like that. A bit. Or so some people think.

I think the first time was when I visited my new boyfriend’s family, who grew up to become my parents-in-law. They had a delightful, also Scottish, neighbour who was often, as my granny would say, full of hops. The more she tippled, the more slurringly talkative and tearfully sentimental she became. In a particularly emotional moment she wiped a tear from her eye as she looked at me and said, “Och, you’re affy like Leddy Di.”

From that moment on, I became Leddy Di. Even after the leddy became Princess. It was quite sad, really, that sometimes in her blurred reality, I became Diana. She gave me a beautiful, expensive bottle of perfume and said, “This is fer Leddy Di.” I thanked her and then told her to curtsy and in future not to speak to me unless spoken to. (Just jokes.)

She and her husband came to our wedding, and I’m sure she thought she was coming to a royal occasion, although it must have been a little confusing that this was happening in Bulawayo.

Another time, when my older son was a baby, we went out for Sunday lunch at our favourite Italian restaurant in Harare. When we’d finished our meal, my husband went to settle the bill and I went outside, our six-month old son in my arms, to wait in the sun for him. I happened to stand next to a giggly bunch of female senior citizens who had emerged from the same restaurant where they had enjoyed a few too many fizzy drinks with their lunch.

One dear lady approached me and asked me about my cute little baby. She choonched his cheeks, told me he was gorgeous and wanted to know how old he was. You know, the usual. As I was answering her questions, one of her friends approached me from the other side and said to her friends, “You know, she looks just like Princess Diana!”

She then took my face in her hands and turned my face to show her friends, “Don’t you think so?” she said. I kid you not.

At which point the baby-ogler asked me another question. So I turned my head to answer her, and as I began to speak, my face was again showcased in the other direction in the middle of two ageing palms. The ridiculous charade continued for a short while, my face going this way and that.

I guess I could have shouted, “LEAVE ME ALONE, THIS IS MY FREAKING FACE ALREADY!” but I couldn’t find those words, and, to be honest, it was really really funny. My husband came outside and rescued me from the face-grabbing aunties a few minutes later, and we both laughed as I recounted what had just happened.

A few years ago, I was shopping in a supermarket in Rondebosch in Cape Town. I noticed the cashier staring at me before I got to her to make my purchases. As I approached, she said to me,

“You know what? You look JUST like Prince Di-ANNE!”

I smiled coyly, as one does when you’ve been told that, I don’t know, a MILLION times.

The cashier was quite overwhelmed. She called to her colleague at the next till.

“Hey, Bronwen! Look who I’m serving. Prince Di-ANNE!”

Her friend looked across at me and said, “Yoh,” as one does, in Cape Town.

My cashier then said to me, “Are you related?”

To which I said, “No.” (I had wanted to say, “To Bronwen?” but I figured the sarcasm would be lost.)

She said, “Pity, hey? They got lots of money.”

People tell me almost conspiratorially that they think I look like Princess Di. And like they are the only ones who have ever thought that. It’s quite difficult to respond graciously, and to retain an element of fresh surprise when I’m thinking “If I had a pound…”

So Kate – all the best for your royal future in the spotlight. I tell you, it’s tough. And if I can give you some advice, steer clear of slurring aunties at Italian restaurants – they sure squeeze your cheeks.

Sunshine signing off for today.

Why I didn’t like record shopping with my older brother

Today is Art Garfunkel’s birthday. The curly-haired half of one of my childhood favourite bands turns 69 today. Bridge Over Troubled Water takes me right back to our home in Mufulira in Zambia. And to records. Remember them?

An awesome album

I loved Simon and Garfunkel. They were not wild like the Rolling Stones, they didn’t wear tight pants like Tom Jones did, they were just right. To a young girl living in Zambia, who didn’t like wild, or tight pants, they were super cool.

I remember two brothers coming to visit my sister and me in Mufulira. It was one of those complex situations that brothers and sisters can relate to – I liked J, he liked my sister, she liked R and R liked me. No win situation. Anyway, I told them both that I liked the song, Bridge Over Troubled Water and, maybe to impress J a little, I said that I especially liked the words. R said he knew them off by heart (show off) so he could tell me them. I got my pencil and paper at the ready. He proceeded to tell me the words, but I didn’t realise those were the words – I thought he was telling me a story. I listened, and I remember thinking, “Where is this all going? Tell me the song words already.” Was my face red when I realised what had just happened. Duh.

My husband and I were lucky enough to see Paul Simon on his Graceland Tour in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1987 at Rufaro Stadium. It was an amazing experience. But I couldn’t help feeling sad that he and Art Garfunkel had by then headed off in their own directions. I watched the DVD of their recent reunion concert and even all these years later, I can understand why I liked their music then. They were really pretty special.

So fast forward to Cape Town in recent years. My brother-in-law is as mad about music as his younger brother (my husband), and both have formidable collections of CDs and vinyl. Different tastes, but identical passions. In an effort to keep vinyl alive, we gave him a turntable for his birthday a few years back. Since then, he and my sister-in-law have had a series of vinyl evenings at their home. They invite about 20 people round to share a meal, a few beverages, and to bring along their favourite record.

The first time, we all had to bring both our best and worst track, and then each person had to vote for each track in turn. Which became increasingly hilarious as the evening progressed and we discovered how different everyone’s taste in music was. Nutbush City Limits by Tina Turner (along with Jennifer Rush’s The Power of Love) is on my top ten worst songs list, and it was played as someone’s favourite. One person had Tiny Bubbles by Dean Martin as his worst track of all time. He hated it so much he didn’t have the record, so his forfeit was to sing it to us. His rendition was far more memorable than it was tuneful.

My husband chose Bridge Over Troubled Water as his best track. No-one could say anything bad or negative about it. It shot to the top of the list and won the best track prize of the evening. I guess the song is like that. For me it’s part of the soundtrack of my life, and I will always love it.

The song that won the un-cherished award of worst track of the evening was Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep by Middle of the Road. If I’d still had that seven single (remember those? 45s?) I would have brought it with me for the same category. When I was about nine, I was given a record voucher (I think I might have called it a record vulture when I was that age) for Christmas. I was so excited because it would enable me to buy my first. record. ever. How cool was that?

My brothers, sister and I headed off into the centre of dusty Mufulira to the big departmental store to redeem our vouchers for stuff. I was beside myself. I had enough to buy an LP and a seven single. I chose a Springbok Hits album. If you are from the sub-continent, you will remember those hideous compilation albums of very badly rendered cover versions of current hits. I was thrilled. Come on, I was nine.

Now, on to the seven singles …. hmmmm, what to choose? What to choose? Along came my elder brother to help me choose. With his encouragement, which may or may not have come across as a threat, I bought Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. I can still feel the deep disappointment I felt at having to buy such an awful song. Those were my first record purchases. Pretty bad. And even worse.

Just before we left Cape Town last year, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had a farewell party for us, in the form of another vinyl evening. It was a really wonderful, memorable and special evening where we all ate well, drank better and laughed more than ever. The hard rockers among us insisted on playing air guitar and “dancing” (you have to air-quote there) along to their numbers; some played air guitar on their legs, another played air drums with two pencils just above a bald guy’s head, one shared stories of heartache at a high school dance, when he introduced his track of choice, and all the while our laughter provided backing for tracks like Radar Love by Golden Earring, Deep Purple’s Smoke on the Water and Neil Young’s Harvest. After a track-off, Neil Young emerged as the evening’s winner.

So, happy birthday, Mr Garfunkel. Thank you for the music and, today, for the memories.

Sunshine signing off for today.

You can find out more about these tracks at www.allbutforgottenoldies.com Seriously.

This blog’s seriously going south

It’s Friday and I thought it would be rude not to start the weekend with another little lesson in forrin! Grab your coffee, wine or beverage of choice and sit back and travel with me to Africa – it’ll be festive!

I’ll take you to the lands of my youth. So we’ll learn a little more Zimbabwean (the home of my high school days) and a little more South African (my university days, early motherhood and beyond). Some words will take my fellow sub-Saharans back in time, others will make you frown, but let’s just have fun. Let’s.

(My granny used to stay with us for a few months at a time when I was a teenager. She loved her chair in the lounge, and she loved watching TV. She would often say to me, “Shall we turn the TV on?” And I, cocky little teenager that I was, would say, “Let’s.”)

Starting in Zim: my brothers were party animals loved to go out when they were teenagers. (They are bothhhh older than me – seven and five years. Respectfully.) While I never heard all the detail of what they got up to (I’m the little sister, remember?), I would often hear them talk about a festive chick that they met or saw. This usually meant a girl who was easy on the eye, especially if the eyes were covered in beer goggles.

In contrast, we would all talk about graubs (grorbs), who are male or female, and just the opposite of festive.  We tried to avoid graubs at the school dances, because the goal was to get lucky and find someone to grapple with on the dance floor. Especially if it was a slow shuffle. Now even I am laughing out loud, because I haven’t even thought about those words for years!

I have some outrageously embarrassing stories about school dances that would send certain family members running for cover, but I will spare them and move on, swiftly!

So, the word graub leads me, phonetically, on to graunch. I know I used this word in my blog post on Monday, with reference to the doobie dude graunching his hubcaps on the kerb. No doubt you guessed, but it means to damage, scrape, or do grievous bodily harm to (caution: exaggeration at work) and its use is usually accompanied by a screwed-up nose and graphic noises and descriptions.

Here are a few Afrikaans words (I won’t overwhelm you with too many) that have snuck into everyday South African English. Well, into mine, anyway:

  1. Dof (dorf): dim, switched-off, not very bright or clever
  2. Onbeskof (ornbeskorf): cheeky, otherwise, difficult, facetious
  3. Deurmekaar (d’yearmakarr): all over the place, confused, disorganised
  4. Ingewikkeld (too difficult to explain pronunciation!): complicated, involved.

In South Africa, and I think again it has to do with the direct translation from Afrikaans, it’s not polite for someone to throw you with a stone.  This means to throw a stone at you. I find this turn of phrase hilarious, and it was made more so by a neighbour of my sister’s some years ago, in SA. She told my sister about her baby and how she had recently changed her baby’s diet. The new food regime was causing a, well, disruption to her baby’s usual digestive activities. With the result that my sister’s neighbour was concerned with the consistency of the result of said activities.

“Yoh,” her friend said, “it’s so hard, you could throw a dog dead with it.”

And with that, shall we end this ridiculous blog? Let’s!

Sunshine, dof, onbeskof, but always smiling, will see you Monday!

She’s mad about the royals

I had heard about his mother’s 42nd cousin, twice removed, and we were set to meet her and her husband in their home on the west coast of Scotland. I had heard hints of “royalist” and “talkative” but nothing prepared me for the day we would spend in her company.

We arrived at her wee croft that nestled on the water, sapphire blue Scotland at its finest. We picked our way down the steps to the front door where we were welcomed by a warm, effusive and enthusiastic Scottish woman. I’ll call her Betty. She hugged us and told us she hated what we were wearing. Look, it was the 80s but not everyone loved the big, permed hair, flowery pants and pink, plastic shoes of that era. And my husband, mulleted and moustached, was dressed in his Miami Vice best.

We were invited indoors and soon saw that “royalist” was no exaggeration. “Talkative” took no convincing either. Her little home was beautiful from the outside but sadly tasteless inside. The brightly patterned, textured linoleum flooring screamed in competition with the striped and floral wallpaper, and every corner of the house was filled to bursting with recent royal memorabilia.

The walls were adorned with framed photographs of the royal family, her kitchen boasted tea towels bedecked with smiling monarchs, and a glass-fronted dresser groaned heavily under the weight of her prized possessions. Charles and Diana smiled from mugs, plates, cups, scarves, towels and pictures, while Elizabeth and Philip, along with the Queen Mum, greeted us from more. Betty giggled with excitement at her forthcoming trip down to London for the wedding procession of Andrew and Sarah (Fergie, as she was fondly known).

“Ma frend’s go’ us a seat on the route,” she told us. This, evidently, was access to an office or apartment that overlooked the road along which the royal wedding procession would travel.

Betty talked. Non-stop. For the entire day. When she was wondering what to say next, she would think on her feet and say, “Och, well, so there y’are, well, I don’t know, so, tell me.” That usually stretched sufficiently to bridge her to the next thought, and so she would continue. Sometimes she would just repeat “Och, well, so there y’are ….” until another thought popped into her head. And that way no-one else could get a word in edgeways either.

Mr Betty arrived home from work at 5pm. He walked in the door and, without saying a word or greeting anyone, went through to his bedroom, undid the top button of his work-shirt, removed his shoes and replaced them with slippers, and returned to the dining room table. He sat down and waited for his tea (evening meal). That’s what happens every day. She took him his tea, talking to us through the house as she did so. He said nothing. He never does, apparently.

Betty returned to the sitting room and perched herself on the arm of the sofa, where my husband’s long-suffering aunt with whom we’d travelled that day, was sitting. Betty sat next to her and began her segue-monologue. While she did so, she took out her handkerchief from the cuff of her cardigan and, with a hint of drama, shook it out in front of aunt’s face.

“D’ye like ma perfume? …. It’s a new one. …. It’s called Fergie.”

Och, well, so there y’are …. the colourful tartan of my married-into family. I just love it.

Sunshine signing off for today!

Memories are made of this

Towards the end of the last century, I worked for a public relations consultancy in Harare, Zimbabwe. It was an amazing place to work and I loved my years there. The country was booming and there was much to share.

My colleagues and superiors generously shared their knowledge and experience. I learnt so much. Our clients shared good practice and news and progress and prosperity and hope. I learnt so much. We also shared more than our fair share of laughter. I laughed so much.

Our best laughs were with our wonderful receptionist who laughed until the tears ran down his face, no matter how funny things were! He was perfect affirmation and encouragement for any would-be stand-up comic (no names mentioned). He would have to take a few deep breaths before he could answer the phone when my friend and I were sharing stories with him at the front desk. Wiping the tears away with his handkerchief, he would say, “Ooh, you make me funny!”

I once had the task of gathering information from our local trade association. I called the association and explained to their receptionist what I needed. Very politely she told me that unfortunately their switchboard wasn’t working, she could therefore not transfer my call, and, with huge apologies for the inconvenience, asked if I wouldn’t mind calling back the next day. So taken with her courtesy, I said of course that would be fine, I thanked her for her politeness and attention to let me know what was happening. I then asked her, in light of the information I needed, who I should ask for when I called back the next day. She said, “Oh, you can speak to me.”

After a brief pause, I said to her, “So … do you think I could speak to you now?”

“Oh, yes, I didn’t think of that,” she said. I didn’t have to call back the next day.

One of our clients was the quasi-governmental body that handled the nation’s marketing of grain. They built some new grain silos in a small town outside of the capital, Harare, and we handled the official opening. We commissioned a jeweller to make a silver replica of the silos as an official memento of the event, we invited the media, we arranged the catering and entertainment, we sorted the logistics and the small, dusty town in rural Zimbabwe laid out the red carpet in honour of the occasion.

We got to the venue early and waited as the slew of dignitaries arrived. The media arrived, as did the local government officials, community leaders, businesspeople and others who considered themselves legends in their own lunchtime. The minister of agriculture was the guest of honour and he arrived amid fanfare and adulation from the gathered masses. The master of ceremonies welcomed everyone, outlined the morning’s proceedings and invited the local school choir forward for their opening number.

The boys and girls from the local primary school filed neatly to their spot at front and centre of the outdoor gathering. A few shuffles to the left and right and each one, not a hair out of place and not a sound uttering from their lips, took their place in the body of the choir. They watched in anticipation as their choirmaster strode out to take his place at front.

Nattily dressed in smart suit and tie, the wide centre parting of his hair matched only by the gap between his front teeth (the kind of teeth that can eat an apple through a tennis racket), the proud and grinning choirmaster’s moment had come.

His charges awaited his instruction, chins lifted, chests out, camera smiles at the ready. He lifted his hands in anticipation, eyed his gathered team and, as his hands began to flow, so the song began. With choreographed sways to the left and the right, hips swinging and fingers clicking in unison, the children began to sing, with all their hearts, “Sweet, sweet, the memories you made for me”.

I expected a traditional Shona song in honour of the gathered elders. But as the loud, beautiful and youthful harmonies rang through the dusty rural town, congregated and proud, I realised that Dean Martin’s classic was the perfect song. And I was grateful to realise, in that moment, that my best memories are made of moments like these.

Sunshine signing off for today!