Thirteen Formative Years |
 EMIGRATING TO SOUTH AFRICA: We sailed on the Pretoria Castle from Southampton to Cape Town. Two of the things I can still vividly recall about the voyage were local lads diving for coins tossed to them when we stopped in Madeira, and the crossing-the-line ceremonies (i.e., crossing the equator ceremonies). The latter featured strings of sausages being pulled as if they were intestines from the bodies of “patients”, and the festivities (which took place around the ship’s swimming pool) terrified me. A fortnight after leaving England, we arrived in Cape Town and caught a train to Johannesburg, where we lived for the next thirteen-and-a-half years. |