Are We There Yet? (17 page)

Chapter 9

High Tea if it Kills Us

Her name was Juana Maria de los Dolores De Leon. The last three words of which might have been a suitably exotic title for a town named after a Spanish beauty described by her countryfolk as
muy picante.
Unfortunately Juana Maria had the misfortune to be married to a former Cape Governor named Sir Harry Smith – who famously annexed a swathe of Xhosa land, informed the respective chiefs of this decision without bothering to dismount then concluded the meeting by giving them permission to come forward and kiss his feet. As a result of this union, the welcoming burgh that bears her name is known as Ladysmith.

Just before the turn of the twentieth century Ladysmith was thrust into headlines as the scene of a siege that gripped the Empire. Having fled British rule and established the independent Orange Free State and South African republics, the Afrikaners' worst fears were realised when English interest in incorporating their land reached suspicious heights following the discovery of gold in 1886. Three years of wrangling, veiled threats and intimidation followed.

On 11 October 1899, with British troops massed on the borders of the South African republic, a 5pm deadline for withdrawal issued by Paul Kruger expired along with hopes for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Britain believed the bands of ill-equipped Boer militia would crumble by Christmas but, as Rudyard Kipling noted, they were to give Queen Victoria's best “no end of a lesson”.

Determined to rid themselves of the Brits, the Boers decided to not merely defend their land but push the British soldiers back into the Cape. The wily Afrikaners got the better of their adversaries at Dundee and captured a well-stocked military supply train at nearby Elandslaagte to boot, then pursued the retreating Brits to Ladysmith and took scores of prisoners.

Most military historians agree that had Boer general Piet Joubert decided to take Ladysmith – so to speak – she would have yielded with all the resistance of a lonely nymphomaniac. With the Port of Durban foll owing shortly thereafter. However, in an act of gallantry tantamount to a spectacular tactical blunder, he refused to allow his commandos to pursue the defenceless Brits. “When God gives his little finger,” he famously – and in hindsight moronically – told compatriot General Louis Botha, “you don't take his whole hand.”

The story of what happened next is evocatively told in the winding corridors of the Siege Museum which commemorates a bombardment that lasted from 1 November 1899 to 28 February 1900 when British forces relieved the town. Two hundred and twenty-one soldiers were killed, but it was dysentery and typhoid that were the real enemy.

Despite their circumstances, however, the people of Ladysmith remained defiant. The local newspaper continued to pump out a fresh edition every day and the banner headline on 23 December screamed: “LADYSMITH BOMBSHELL. THE CONVENT IS NOW EMPTY. NUN LEFT.” So proud were the locals of their defiance that when the town hall was damaged during the deluge, they didn't bother fixing the hole in the clocktower until 1923 and instead wore it like a proud battle scar.

Another of these battle scars occupies display number 21 in the museum. The envelope-sized piece of skin bearing a small tattoo is all that remains of a soldier burned to death during the nearby Battle of Spioenkop. It claimed the lives of so many Liverpudlian troops that the town's football team named the most parochial section of its Anfield stadium “the Kop” in their honour. Several generations of museum staff have reported that, during quiet periods, they have seen the reflection of a forlorn, dishevelled soldier peering longingly into the cabinet.

Where other towns in the region capitalise on their history through hard facts, solemn memorials and mordant battle sites, Ladysmith adds to the hard data of its turbulent past with a supernatural soupçfon. The otherworldly encounters that have been matter-of-factly discussed by locals for years are now a bold element in Ladysmith's tourism drive.

One of those behind the strategy is Fifi Meyer, who works for the local council and was instrumental in establishing the town's ghost tour. There are certain people you encounter on the road that you instantly warm to and Fifi was one of them. In my exper ience, women with this name divide neatly into two categories. The first are prissy princesses who “relate” to
Sex and the City
and believe they regularly mingle with the working classes because one does their pedicure every week. The second are garrulous types who wear bold prints, can hold their Scotch and if pressed can generally complete limericks that begin, “There once was a girl from Nantucket”. Fifi belonged squarely in the latter category.

Although the spectral circuit is a self-drive affair, Fifi couldn't resist getting me started with a personal tour of the town hall. Built in 1883, it consists of a Renaissance Revival facade atop which sits a clocktower. The midsection of the building is given over to a Tuscan portico with half-a-dozen council offices on each side. Beyond this lay a grand civic hall with a parquet floor, soaring walls painted in a dignified burgundy and under whose patterned plaster ceiling hearts were broken and romance blossomed at scores of dances.

“There was often an uninvited guest though,” whispered Fifi. “Guests would frequently be heard muttering about the obviously intoxicated violin player who they thought was part of the orchestra. He would be glimpsed clowning around amid the guests and his favourite party trick was climbing the balcony wall, staggering, swooning and pre-tending to fall onto the dancers below. There were even instances when the orchestra leaders were reprimanded about his conduct, but they responded by saying that they had no violin player who even remotely matched his description.”

Fifi's eyes flickered with intrigue at the conclusion of the tale. Sensing that I had chosen to merely wade into it as opposed to dive in headlong as she had, Fifi checked herself with the most endearing half-apology that has ever been thrown my way. “I really get intoxicated by the exuberance of my own verbosity,” she smiled before equipping me with a map for the remainder of the tour.

La Verna Convent sat on a ridge overlooking the town and was now its primary hospital. It turned out that the area also functioned as Ladysmith's top make-out spot and the area was lined with a handful of vehicles whose shock absorbers emitted rhythmic sighs while the occupants within did likewise. Shrouded in a pearly mist, the hospital was all creaking doors and echoing corridors. It could have been the setting for one of those horror movies in which busty trainee nurses are transformed into catheter-wielding zombies by a demonic surgeon. The spirits that apparently roam this former nunnery are somewhat kinder. Numerous patients have emerged from fevers with a request to thank the pretty nun who straightened their bedding during the night. However, the only habits that have been in the hospital in decades have been confined to the detox unit.

The next morning I wandered into town in search of a cappuccino. With froth on my nose and sun on my back, I'm not ashamed to say that I developed somewhat of an infatuation with Ladysmith. Its slumbering streets were edged with whitewashed homes topped by pitched corrugated-iron roofs in mint green. Many of these were guesthouses peeping through French doors onto rose gardens and rugs of kikuyu.

People chatted with the easy familiarity of those who had pretty much the same conversation the day before. On the main street I browsed in shop windows made all the more intriguing by a universal reality of country retail: the charmingly incongruous display. With a modest population to service, many family-owned establishments are understandably wary of specialising too narrowly in terms of the stock they carry and instead opt to be all things to all people. Call me old-fashioned, but I like the fact that there are some shops where you can still pick up luggage, a bicycle and some cookware and have the staff address you by name without having to read it off your credit card.

Unlike Dundee, which lives somewhat in its past – albeit graciously – Ladysmith has a quiet modernity which has been achieved without compromising its sense of small-town snugness.

It is also the home town of South Africa's most successful musical export. Led by the honeyed tones of Joseph Tshabalala, what started as a backyard a cappella group became Ladysmith Black Mambazo, the group that transfixed audiences around the world after they collaborated with Paul Simon on his
Graceland
album. What makes the group unique is that, unlike those globally successful artists who their countrymen think of as cheesier than a
quattro formaggio,
the locals can't get enough of them. In South Africa they have outsold the Beatles and Michael Jackson. When Nelson Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993, he took them along to belt out a few numbers at the ceremony.

A hall in the town's cultural museum is given over to the group and their remarkable story. Their style, known as
isicathamiya
, is not strictly a derivative of gospel but more a product of the harsh labour system of South Africa's mines. Working six days a week, the poorly paid miners would fill their desolate compounds with sounds of joy into the small hours of every Sunday morning. The singers referred to themselves as
cothoza mfana
(tiptoe guys) because of the softly-softly dance steps they choreographed so as not to attract the ire of the mine security guards. When the miners drifted back to their homelands, the sound went with them and local towns soon pitted their groups against one another in competition. These contests continue to take place in YMCA halls and church basements throughout what was once known as Zululand, and sometimes the traditional prize of a goat is still awarded.

With a posse consisting of his brothers, cousins and friends, Tshabalala entered the fray. But before a note could be sung, the group needed a name. The Ladysmith component is self-explanatory. Black refers to the type of oxen regarded as the strongest animal on the farm. Mambazo is the Zulu word for axe and stems from the group's proclivity to chop down the opposition. After a time they were so dominant that they were forbidden from entering competitions but achieved a large local following. A bootleg tape sent to a Los Angeles DJ eventually found its way to Paul Simon and six million albums later the group ranks alongside Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela as keepers of the sound of South Africa.

With a newly purchased copy of their Grammy-winning
Shaka Zulu
album blaring from my car speakers, I drove out of Ladysmith and into the misty valleys that rippled towards the distant coast. Hoping that my proximity to Durban meant that I'd finally escaped the saccharine clutches of Jac-aranda FM, I scanned the radio dial. Perfection comes not in stretches but snatches and I experienced precisely four minutes and forty seconds of it. Best of all, it came with an Australian twang in the form of Powderfinger's “My Happiness”.

It was the bespoke musical backdrop to a landscape which felt like a perfectly measured collage of sapphire-blue sky, vast sugar cane lakes and dark conifer forests that pressed into the road on both sides like a lecherous uncle on a blushing bridesmaid.

At times cairns of stones would appear at crossroads. The Zulu refer to them as
isivavini.
In traditional culture, when a man set off on an important journey he would stop at the first junction and search for a generously sized stone. Holding it to his forehead and closing his eyes, he would then make two wishes. The first was intended for those who had walked this road before him and conveyed the hope that their journey had been fruitful. The second featured the same sentiment but was reserved for those yet to travel this path. The stone would then be placed on the pile by the side of the track. Thoughts of personal good fortune played no part in the process as, according to this practice of Ubuntu, your needs are covered twice over by those who have gone before you and those who will follow.

The
isivavini
is just one manifestation of a tribal culture that is equal parts savage and enlightened. The country's other major tribal force, the Xhosa, who think of themselves as far more cerebral and form the bulk of the ANC's brains trust, often deride the Zulus as dim and aggressive bully boys who stab first and ask questions later. The descendents of Shaka, however, now refer to the power players in South African politics as the “Xhosa Nostra”. Pretty smart if you ask me.

When it comes to friendliness, the Zulus don't exactly go out on a limb and greetings are returned but rarely offered. That said, their courage, sense of self-worth and pride in their heritage is palpable at a distance – and intimidating close up.

Nowhere was this more evident than on the freezing night of 20 February 1917 in the middle of the English Channel. The commandeered liner SS
Mendi
was carrying hundreds of black South African troops – the overwhelming majority of them Zulu – to Le Havre from where they would head to the front line at Flanders.

War-time regulations forbade the use of lights on ships and another vessel crashed into the bow of the
Mendi
. To a man, the troops raced to deck from below, formed ranks and awaited further instructions. Having been briefly addressed by a Zulu clergyman on a black and lilting deck, the men stripped. “Barefoot and naked, the way their ancestors went to battle, against the noise of the wind, crashing seas and creaking plates of the doomed vessel,” wrote Roger Webster in
At the Fireside,
“they began stamping their feet in the death drill, celebrating their onrushing doom with the war songs of Shaka. It was a scene, the survivors declared, that would be burnt into their memories forever – those singing men slipping into their cold grave in the English Channel.”

Boer war general, staunch Afrikaner and South African prime minister Louis Botha moved a motion of sympathy in parliament for the mourning relatives. No sooner had he finished than the entire whites-only assembly rose to their feet and bowed their heads in silence. It was the only time black heroism was honoured in this fashion.