When I was small people called me clever

Luky
WHEN I was small, I often heard people call me clever. Adults are silly that way: they speak like that in front of children, who are deemed to be clever enough not to get a swollen head. I confidently expected to become a genius one day, and was sorely disillusioned.

"The wisdom of Solomon", I heard my mother whisper to my father one day when the owner of a shoe shop to whom we were strangers had, at my suggestion, allowed me to take one shoe home on appro to show that it fitted me.

No paragon
Well, the wisdom of Solomon didn't get me very far. I have never been anything more than an also ran. Nobody has ever had reason to compliment me on my cooking, housekeeping or baking. No one has ever said: "How lovely your children always look", or "How do you manage to keep your weight down?" And even the little I have achieved has taken the greatest perseverance.

Little by little
Like an ant, moving little by little, carting a tiny piece of straw, so I have seen myself moving through life. All of it has been hard work; harder, I sometimes think, than that of some of my friends, who seem to have dumped in their laps things that I have to struggle for. Or does this only seem so because I am looking at them from the outside?

To get identity books for my family, I had to go to Pretoria seven times, which, since I had no transport at the time, meant fourteen nocturnal train trips. The immigrant in me, however, displays a tenacity which does not take no for an answer, and the seventh time I was lucky.

Two ways
My daughter got her driver's licence not without a good deal of trouble. On the other hand, my son got his learner's licence after one or two attempts, and no sooner got behind a steering wheel than he could drive. Aren't boys amazing?
 His sister and I had had to spend hundreds at driving schools before we knew what we were at. He parallel-parked at his first try, stopped the car on an incline and started it again without hassles, also the first time.

I said to him: "When you reverse around a semi-circle, turn your wheel the opposite way to what you'd expect." It had taken three full lessons to teach me that particular principle.

Saturation booking
He obediently turned his wheel opposite to the way he expected and went into the kerb. But when he turned it the way he expected it to work, he circled that semi-circle backwards with more expertise than I've attained in twelve years of driving. He had been away at school and his learner's licence was due to expire the following week, so I telephoned the provincial traffic inspectors and made three appointments for him.

"You haven't much confidence in me, have you?" asked my son; but then he doesn't have my experience of red tape. His father was more optimistic. "When the cardinals elect a new pope", he told our son, "the first sign to the people in St. Peter's square is white smoke coming out of a certain chimbley. It tells the throng: Habemus papam" (we have a pope).

Quirks
Don't ask me why he calls them chimbleys. It's like a colleague I once had, who always wrote Recieved in her cash book. I persuaded her to write Received instead. She did so for a while, but then reverted to her habit of writing Recieved. "It looks wrong the other way", she explained. Anyway, my husband went on: "While I am at work today, I won't know whether you've passed. Promise to light the fire, so that when I enter the street I can see the white smoke and know: Habemus licentiam."

First hurdle down
The first time my son did his test, he never got behind the steering wheel, because he failed the written test. The second time, history repeated itself. In vain did his father look out for the proud plume of smoke. On the day his learner's licence was due to expire, he felt more confident. He had sat up all night learning his work, and had found another instruction booklet which contained answers to the questions he hadn't been able to answer before.

However, again there was no fire, this time because my son had mislaid his learner's licence. They told him they could not issue a duplicate at this late stage, and seeing that his learner's licence expired that night, they could not make him another appointment. That night my husband forgot to be tactful. "Please, if ever you do pass, don't light the fire", he begged.

In the bag
However, perseverance was rewarded in the end. My son sat again for his learner's, and passed it with flying colours. Then he sat for his driver's written test, passed that too, drove splendidly (I know - I watched him anxiously from the traffic office window while praying the Prague rosary), and got his licence without further ado. That was in the morning. I couldn't wait to see his father's face in the evening when he arrived to find a white plume of smoke curling upwards from the chimbley. Habemus licentiam!

Catherine Nicolette
Oh the saga of us all getting our driver's licences! Before I went to the driving school that Mom knew of, Dad had been my driving instructor. That episode of the annals of Whittle history ended ignominiously when I got out Dad's yellow and white minibus in tears in the middle of traffic and walked home, because we got into an argument while he was teaching me. I walked all the way home, and it was an awful long way.

A young and proud eighteen year old, I put my pride before my comfort. I would show him for shouting at me ... many miles later with dragging and sore feet, I trundled miserably up our home driveway. The minibus was not yet home. I was not to know until many years later that Dad had trailed me in the minibus all the way home, hanging back in traffic so I could not see him, to make sure I got home safely. One lesson I learned was not to get into an argument while in a car; the way home was so long...

Anyhow. I digress. I was doing a three hour module end of year exam in the morning, hopping into Mom's car at lunchtime and spending the hour taking my driver's licence test; then Mom patiently drove me back all the way just in time to catch the afternoon three hour end of year exam for the next module. After three days of this, I eventually got my driver's. After all these years and looking back, I can confidently advise anyone thinking of doing the same thing that it is not entirely stress free trying to do end of year exams and pass your driver's licence at the same time. Rather do them both at different times...

Well. So I had my driver's licence. I arrived home to Dad, waving the paper in the air. "You see? You see?" I said. "I got it!" Dad who was an ardent supporter of women's rights, and ensured all his daughters had education, drivers' licences, the best of medical and dental care, looked at me. "Well you know, Nog, what men say about women who drive," he said. I, who should have known better, replied, "No, Dad, what?" "Well, it's like this. A woman driving a car is like a woman riding a bicycle. It's not how well they can do it, it's just amazing that they can do it at all".

Outraged eighteen year old feminist to the core, I opened my mouth to give indignant reply, when I saw Dad's Irish eyes twinkling over his spectacles under his bushy eyebrows at me. He was pulling my leg! Underneath, he was as proud as punch. So I laughed, took myself and my proud piece of paper out of the kitchen, and left him to listen to "Jack of Diamonds".

Many years later Dad told me he truly believed in flyfishing. Again, unwary, I fell into the trap. "Why, Dad?" "Well," he said, "In conversation you cast your fly out before the fish in the water, and wait to see if it will rise. Many people will hang back, cautious, and not snap. But you always rose to the bait when I cast it before you! It used to make me laugh so much."

I know. What didn't make me laugh so much is that, respectably in my fifties now, I found myself doing the very same thing in conversation last week. It is true - I am turning into my parents ...

*Photograph of Luky and little Jos at Tante Ton's wedding 
*Catherine Nicolette;
Mom told me that my uncle, little Jos at that time, had the most beautiful golden curls that had grown quite long. My great-grandfather, who was seemingly one of the short back and sides haircut brigade, persuaded my grandad to take Uncle Josje to the barber, and get all the curls cut off. Ouma was not charmed to say the least, when the two returned from the barber whence they had gone without her knowledge. Ouma then got Uncle Jos' hair permed for Tante Ton's wedding... Oh the 1940's; - life was lived with such panache.