Preserve your history
Dear Bereaved ( whoever you are ), I am sorry for your loss of a loved one . But here ' s a bit of advice : In the turmoil that is your life following the death of a close relative , and the anger and sadness that is part and parcel of this difficult time , don ' t do anything rash . For example , don ' t immediately embark on a massive clean-up of the dead relative ' s stuff , notably his or her papers . Rather , wait a while and , when the immediate upheaval of the death and funeral is over , and you are coming to terms with your grief and sense of loss , then turn to the drawers , cupboard , boxes and suitcases and deal with them in a sober and sensible manner . Believe me , I know what I ' m talking about : When my own mother died in the 1980s , she left behind a lifetime of her writings . From an early age , long before World War 2 , she ' d carried on correspondences with friends and relatives spread far and wide , and in a number of professions and fields of interest . In the many times that she was apart from my father , a diplomat , they had a rich and intimate correspondence between them . And in her later life , as a widow she carved out a career as a journalist and , of course , in those days members of our profession were obliged to keep carbon copies of everything we wrote on little bits of paper called “ takes ”. ( The paper itself , cheap , absorbent , yellowing and thin , was called “ bumph ”, an allusion to the fact that one could ( and did , in fact , in emergencies ) use it to cleanse one ' s rear ). All of this material , as well as the manuscript of an unpublished book she wrote on the Gold Standard , along with menus , itineraries , invitations , postcards and all the written paraphernalia of her life , she stored meticulously , much of it carefully bundled with ribbon , in boxes and drawers in her capacious study . And two days after her death , my two sisters , anxious to “ spare me grief ” tossed the whole lot into a skip and it was gone . Gone , thus , too , was any chance of ever recording in a book , in any detail , what had been a quite extraordinary life . For without access to such material , all one is left with should one wish to write a biography of such a person , is anecdotal stuff , and the memories of those who had known her , many of whom are , too , now , pushing up daisies . I contrast this with the recently-published biography of Monica Wilson , arguably South Africa ' s leading anthropologist of the 20th Century . Why , you ask , would anybody want to write a
THE BACK PAGE
book on so obscure a subject and why , too , would anybody want to read such a book ? Well , the reasons are many . In my case , it ' s because of fleeting contacts I have had with the Wilsons . Monica Hunter grew up in Hogsback in the Amatola Mountains of the Eastern Cape , on her parents ’ estate , named Hunterstoun . An only child , she inherited it when they died and lived there till her own death , and her offspring still own and occupy the property . My wife introduced me to Hogsback on our honeymoon , and we have periodically returned , and we remember seeing Monica in her garden as we trudged up and down the Wolf Ridge Road . And , even at that early stage I knew of her family . Her eldest son , Francis , lectured me in first year Economics at UCT ( one of the few lecturers , I have to add , who made the subject understandable ). And more recently , at the invitation of a mutual friend , we dined at the home of Francis ' younger brother , Tim , in Johannesburg . They ' re an interesting family of high achievers who have all made their mark on South African public life . But there ' s another reason for reading a book such as this . Yes , it ' s a beautifully-crafted , richly illustrated , meticulously edited ( important , that , in today ' s often slapdash world of book production ) work of scholarship . Carefully researched , from Monica ' s correspondences , research and academic writing , coupled with face-to-face interviews and other material , it is a wonderfully gentle tale of a remarkable woman , highlighting her undisputed academic brilliance , but also laying bare , in a very gentle and balanced way , the human frailties that she , like us all , had in her personality and life . By writing such a book , the author has added to the rich tapestry of South African life . He wouldn ' t have been able to do so had Francis and Tim Wilson ditched their mother ' s papers when she died .
WRITTEN BY SMALLHOLDERS , FOR SMALLHOLDERS