What I hated most about these holidays was being separated from my mum and sisters. Yet legally I had no say, and continued to go until I was thirteen. I knew I had a say by that age, and following an especially disastrous holiday, where the alcohol abuse led to very erratic and painful behaviour by my dad, I decided not to see him again. It would be six years before we saw each other again.
In the meantime, I started school in Lochnerhof Primary in the Strand. I remember my first day vividly. Having had enough practice of going to visit my dad, there was never even the slightest option of tears. I was nervous, but in control. I was a bit disappointed in the first day’s schedule and could not understand why we did not have more academic work. But I settled in fast and from the second day I cycled to school on my own, even though I was not quite six years old.
In January 1975, my second sister, Nadine, was born – while I was on my annual holidays with my dad. I was almost eight and was beyond myself with excitement for months. Not being able to be at home during this time upset me bitterly. Philip collected me at the airport a few days after the birth and took me to the hospital, where my mum was recovering after a Caesarean section. At least this time I could go into the room – although the babies were kept in a separate baby room, so again I could only see my little sister behind glass. My sisters and I were always, and remain, very close, even though I am quite a bit older than them.
Shortly after Nadine’s birth, we moved to the nearby town of Somerset West. My mother finally got her escape from the Strand, which she so despised, and built a beautiful house on a hill overlooking False Bay in a new development called Heldervue. At that time there were only about 30 houses in a very big area and there were still guinea fowl, chickens, snakes and the occasional fox.
I started going to De Hoop Primary School, a dual-medium school – which meant that all assemblies and announcements were in both Afrikaans and English. Of course it was all-white, which did not strike me as strange at all. The dual-language policy helped to improve my English at an early age, which was a huge gift.
Something else that improved my English was ballet lessons. I had started ballet two years earlier, in the Strand. For two years, once a week, I would go to the stern and very English Ms Liz Millington. I immediately loved ballet and practised non-stop. When we moved to Somerset West, I was more worried about finding a new ballet school than anything else. Luckily we found a lovely, warm and creative woman, Beverly Luyt, who was an extremely talented teacher, and I would go to her two or three times a week for classes.
Living out in Heldervue was lovely, but being a bit outside the town meant taking a school bus and then walking twenty minutes from the bus stop. This was fine in winter and I never cared about walking in the rain, but in the scorching summer heat it was terrible.
I did well at primary school and was elected prefect in my last year. I was very proud when I won the cup for best bilingual student at the prize-giving. I never did much sport, focusing on ballet instead. I tried out for netball, but gave up after a teacher laughed at me when I missed a ball. After overhearing her comments, I believed for years that I had no ball sense. I played recorder and socialised with friends. I also became involved in church activities. Like most Afrikaners, my parents belonged to the Dutch Reformed Church and we went to church on Sundays. After the service I would join other children in Sunday school, where we would get more lessons. We also had youth groups in the week.
Fortunately, the one thing my mother resisted was ‘Voortrekkers’. An Afrikaner version of the Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, it was at that time ideologically driven, race-conscious, nationalist and religious. My mum flatly said no, arguing that she had no intention of ironing silly brown uniforms or driving us around on Friday evenings (which was when meetings took place). It was only later that I realised that she had far bigger political concerns, but protected us by not expressing them.
During these years, the political situation in South Africa started to penetrate my world. We had a lovely coloured lady who helped with cleaning once a week. Sometimes we would drive this very dignified older woman home. Going into the Coloured areas was like a different world, even though, as I would discover years later, conditions in the coloured areas were generally better than in African townships. On the drive back to our house, my mum would become upset and talk about how wrong this was. It made a deep impression on me. We also had an African man, Ernst, who helped in the garden once a week. Ernst and I would chat for hours, and when I discovered that he could not read, I was shocked.
One rainy night, our doorbell rang. It was late and I heard urgent and upset voices at the door. I went to have a look and saw Ernst and a woman, whom I assumed was his wife, standing in the door with a baby in a blanket. They were drenched and looked very distressed. My mum did not see me behind her, but when she pulled the blanket back to look at the baby, it was clear from everyone’s reaction that the baby was dead. I must have gasped in shock, since my mum turned around and rushed me back to bed. I was upset for days about what had happened. My mum explained that the baby had died from a chest infection. Nadine, who had croup a few weeks earlier and had to be hospitalised, was now fine, so I could not understand why Ernst’s baby had died. My mum explained that they had no money for the hospital and that, as they were living in a shack, it was too cold and wet in the winter for small babies. I was struck by the injustice of it all. I kept remembering the little lifeless bundle and could not sleep properly for weeks. Maybe if I can teach Ernst to read, it would make things easier, I thought. I quietly gave Ernst all the money from my piggy bank, but I still felt infuriated by the fact that I could not do anything about the situation.
A similar but much bigger sense of injustice was to result in a turning point in South Africa’s history during this time. On 16 June 1976, thousands of schoolchildren in Soweto marched in protest at the enforcement of a long-forgotten law requiring secondary education to be only in Afrikaans. The protests were peaceful, but when they met a large police presence on the way, some children threw stones. One policeman, a Colonel Kleingeld, drew his pistol and fired a shot, causing panic. The police then opened fire, and hundreds of young people were killed. These killings sent shockwaves through South Africa, and large-scale riots broke out everywhere.
The army was deployed, but the military presence only escalated the anger and violence. Even though I was only nine years old, I was aware that something was going on. I would hear anxious conversations between my parents and their friends. Philip was asked to join the local community watch, and would leave at night to stand guard. I did not know where he went or what he did, but I knew that my mum was always anxious at night, and we became more security-conscious. I felt a deep sense of insecurity and found it difficult to sleep; the slightest sound woke me. Luckily, things calmed down towards the end of 1976, although it took a lot longer for my sleeping patterns to return to normal.
By 1980, my mum was also working at the University of Stellenbosch as a computer programmer. Between the music lessons, ballet lessons and working forty-five minutes away from home, all the driving became too much for my mum. Reluctantly, she agreed to move to Stellenbosch, even though she loved Somerset West and would never really settle in our new home. I was about to begin high school, Melissa was also in school, and Nadine was about to start school.
Stellenbosch is a very different place from Somerset West, even though the two towns are geographically close to each other. It is more class-conscious and snobbish. Stellenbosch was largely Afrikaans. Politically and ideologically, Stellenbosch was strongly nationalist, and with the help of the university, which would provide an intellectual justification for apartheid, it became the bastion of Afrikaner nationalism.
This was evident in the high school I attended. Bloemhof Afrikaans Girls’ High is the oldest Afrikaans girls’ school in the country. Even though it was a state school and therefore had no tuition fees, it was steeped in the traditions associated with exclusive British private schools. The impressive buildings were surrounded by even more impressive gardens, sports fields and, of course, an Olympic-size swimming pool. There was a strong sense of exclusivity, reinforced by the fact that we only rarely engaged