Growing up, no matter what generation, comes with its own nostalgia.

However, any red-blooded South African growing up in the 80s and 90s will attest that our childhood trauma lurked in the medicine cabinet.

I’m not referring to any medicine that has since been withdrawn from the market due to ingredients that have since been found to be harmful or potentially addictive.

No, it was an unassuming brown bottle with a fearful orange and black label.

You can already smell it; the dreaded Borstol, which oumas and grannies across the country swore by.

I must admit, I was fortunate to dodge the bottle countless times, but I did witness my small group of cousins fall victim to its vile lingering taste, until one fateful winter’s eve.

Visiting my grandparents in Primrose was always a joyous affair; you would be greeted by the aroma of freshly baked bread cooling on the kitchen table, a milktart sat comfortably chilling in the fridge, Oros made a little sweeter than Mom would allow, and a packet of cheese curls sat tucked in the corner of the cupboard, just waiting to be discovered.

There the rules flapped on the washing line next to crisp sheets.

One evening, during a sleepover at ouma and oupa’s house, the unthinkable happened.

Sleeping in the somewhat creepy ‘klein kamer’ (small room), as we dubbed it, I was overcome with a bit of a coughing fit.

Quietly slipping off the steel spring frame bed, with my pillow gripped against my mouth, in an effort to mask the bark, I turned to the monster under the bed, begging it to make space for me in its dark nook.

Each cough caused my head to bounce up against the springs, its coils ripping tufts of hair from my scalp.
Consumed by fear, I watched as the door creaked open, a foreboding stretch of light announcing impending doom.

I smelled my fate before; I spotted the slippers poking ever so slightly under the bed where I lay, desperately trying to swallow another cough.

With a defeated smile and shrug of the shoulders, my new monster friend watched as I crawled from my hiding place, steeling myself, preparing to meet a spoon of black tar that smelled like the chemical concoction that was mixed before Ouma’s perm was applied.

Trying my best not to let it linger for too long, I gulped the spoonful down, sheer horror consuming every fibre of my being.

Then I heard the gurgling as another dose crawled into the spoon.

“You must take a spoon for everything lung,” said Ouma, her curlers resembling Medusa’s vipers resting under a pale pink ‘doek.’

The second dose was far worse than the first. So, so much worse!

It makes your knees buckle, and I swear your eyes can actually smell the trauma, searing the incident into your brain like a brand.

For a week after, all you can taste or smell is Borstol; your body has actually erased the cough reflex from its index of bodily functions, and each spoonful comes with eternal dread of the consequences should you ever hack again.

Yes, my brethren and sisters of the 80s and 90s, we may have lived through different childhoods, but united we stand in the shared horror known only as Borstol.

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