Robin Malan

I picked this up in South Africa over Christmas, a 40 Rand bargain in a second hand bookshop in Obs (Cape Town). I was drawn to it because of the different nationalities of the writers, perfect for the Olympic Challenge. The collection is a who's who of Southern African literature: Doris Lessing, Nadine Gardiner, Mia Couto, etc. I was also pleased to see some less well-known writers (outside S.A.) like RIchard Rive, the writer of Buckingham Palace, which is on S.A.'s Year 10 syllabus, and Achmet Dangor, whose Bitter Fruit I discovered a couple of years ago.
The best thing about this collection is the different perspectives and snapshots of life in Southern Africa: colour, race, religion, socio-economic background, etc. The stories are spread over thirty years, a period of time which saw a vast change in the region, such as independence, the end of Apartheid, and so on.

My favourites included Rain and The Hands of the Blacks.… (more)

Originally a 1972 David Phillips Imprint, and reprinted seven times in quick succession, this Jacana re-issue of a ‘Guard to Sow Theffricun Ingglissh’ brings back many memories.

Entertainingly illustrated with pictures of the late Yvonne Bryceland and author Robin Malan, the book is a walk down memory lane for anyone over 40 and an amusing curiosity for all those under 20.

My own impression is that Ah Big Yaws gained instant initial popularity thanks to a relatively small group of white upper-crust South Africans who prided themselves on their Received Pronunciation [ie BBC English] and regarded those with Sow Theffricun accents as being, somehow, vaguely inferior.

The South African English accent has never been regarded as a thing of any beauty by the rest of the world, even compared to the twanging of other Colonials such as Australians and New Zealanders, and we have entirely missed out on the romantic admiration given to the Irish, Scottish and Welsh accents.

But that was all before the days of Proudly South African: speaking ‘narsely’ is no longer the social prerequisite it used to be, and many youngsters are perplexed by the tongue-in-cheek explanations of phrases and pronunciations they consider absolutely standard.

Sadly, some of the entries are now so dated as to be irrelevant: does the ‘Arc Ay’ supermarket chain even exist any more? Schools no longer ram ‘The Grate Wreck’ down pupils’ throats as being the most significant event in world history, and cinemas have been without usherettes to call “Mine Thip Eightrons” for decades. Mind you, given today’s largely empty houses, the admonition would be redundant.

Of course, back in 1972 South Africa had no TV so despite the inspired vandalism of the ‘Sense Aboard’, visiting the ‘Barscope’ to see the latest ‘fillum’ – and get the latest copy of ‘Stay-Gins-Innemmer’, another publication gone the way of all flesh – was our primary entertainment.

While parts of Ah Big are as foreign today as the once eagerly read columns of Blossom of Bez Valley, Sow Theffricun Ingglissh has not changed much and with the abolition of Apartheid and the opening of the schools, it has gained millions of new users.

The Universal prejudice against white South Africans was such that 20 years ago actors were unemployable in their natural capacity overseas: remember that episode of The Golden Girls guest starring Marius Weyers in which the poor man was forced to pretend to be English? Or Merry Christmas Mr Laurence, a superb film of Laurens van der Post’s Seed and the Sower, where the South African hero and his background were rewritten to be set in Australia?

Even more recently God Forbid that films set in South Africa star actual South Africans: Cry Freedom, Cry the Beloved Country, Country of My Skull, Stander – all had foreign stars. But it wasn’t the nationality of the actors so much as the farce of the accent that infuriated many of us.

However, a new day may be dawning. Tim Robbins and, more notably, Leonardo DiCaprio have been praised recently for managing very credible Sow Theffricun accents. Uzzet? Nah Wayce! Yew Jerking! Stroo – go check the Okie in Blud Dahmund if you don’t believe me.

Ah wunner… is it just a coincidence that Ah Big Yaws was re-issued the same year those films were released? Someone should investigate if DiCaprio and Robbins consulted this book for help with their authentic accents. Ah’m Nippon Strauce to find out how they did it. Meanwhile, the all-purpose reaction to this little volume can only be ‘Narsay?’… (more)

The South African boarding school experience was not, it would seem, generally a happy one whether spent at a convent, the hallowed stone halls of an English-style ‘public school’, a mission school, or an Afrikaans ‘Normal’ school.

From the poshest to the poorest, boarders from Grahamstown to Polokwane were united in common misfortune by insufficient and substandard food, while most who attended catholic schools emerged with an abiding dislike not only of nuns but the Church itself.

These brief essays, some penned by obscure authors and featuring unknown [and in many cases defunct] schools make excellent reading: the book won’t take pride of place in many of the libraries of the institutions mentioned, but the accounts are fascinatingly compulsive – this work is a keeper.… (more)