We English-speakers have been getting the short end of the stick for far too long.

When the Nats were running the country, it was payback time for the Boer Wars, so the donderse Engelse had to look out for themselves. Afrikaners made sure they were top dogs in all State enterprises, like the civil service, defence force, railways etc. But did we complain? Never! We maintained a stiff upper lip at all times. Even when, like in the army, the drill instructors used to scorn us English as souties and rooineks and make us do extra pushups. (Never mind, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger).

Now Donald Trump says he wants to rescue Afrikaner farmers to emigrate to the US of A. What nonsense is this? Once again we are out in the cold!

I suppose I could claim some kinship since my son-in-law is Afrikaans. If there’s a language test I could get through with lines like “Gee die botter asseblief” and “Hierdie boerewors is baie lekker”. But I don’t have a farm, so still don’t qualify. Damn!

So I’ll just have to stay here. Mind you, look on the bright side. Where would I live in the USA? In Florida? Nope, too many tornados. California? Wildfires in my lounge. Anywhere else? School shootings daily. No thank you, I think I’ll just stay where I am!

***

There are many things I have to thank my parents for, one of the most productive being the discipline of saving. I think I was six when I told my parents I wanted to buy the bicycle a neighbour was selling. It was a Raleigh with 26 inch wheels – a real big boy’s bicycle! The price was 20 guineas.

This was back in 1958 or so, when our currency was based on British sterling. It was a bugger of a system to learn. The smallest coin was a farthing, one quarter of a penny. Yes, you could buy stuff with a farthing, like one bubblegum. Next up was a halfpenny, then a penny, then a curious coin worth three pennies, called a tickey. Then a sixpence, two sixpences in a shilling. There were 12 pennies in a shilling, 20 shillings in a pound, or 240 pennies. A crown was five shillings and a half crown, two and a half shillings. Got all that? There will be a test later.

By the way, it was 64 years ago last Friday, Valentine’s Day in 1961, when South Africa changed to the decimal system of Rands and cents. Whew, what a relief! We also changed from pounds weight to kilograms and feet and yards to metres but I confess I sometimes still think in feet and inches. Old habits are hard to break.

Back to my story. The guinea wasn’t a real coin. It had been a gold coin 100 years earlier but was phased out, while the name remained to describe the amount of one pound and one shilling.
So my parents said okay, you can have a bike, but you have to buy it yourself. For every pound I saved, they would put in a pound. So I had to save 10 pounds and 10 shillings. But that wasn’t like R10 and 10 cents today. No no no no. A pound was a big deal. Google says the value of 20 guineas in today’s terms would be about R2 500.

Saving that money was painstaking work. I was paid a small amount for chores around the house so I mowed lawns, washed the dogs, that sort of thing, for a tickey a time. Two and a half pennies. Wheee! I collected Coke bottles in the veld and took them to the shop for the deposit money that you could get back then. A penny a bottle. A lot of Coke bottles!

My grandmother, my mother’s mother, would give me a whole crown, five shillings, on birthdays. On the other hand, my grandfather, my father’s father, would slip me a half crown acting like it was a whole pound. Tightwad!

I had extra helpings of Christmas pudding to get the tickeys and sixpences inside.

Anyhow, it took forever – maybe about 18 months – to save the money. It was a momentous day when I took possession of my very own bicycle. Victory, and a lesson never forgotten!

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