Luky
ONE OF THE JOYS OF LIVING IN A HOUSE RECENTLY BUILT WAS THAT THE COCKROACHES AND THE ANTS HAD NOT YET DISCOVERED WHERE WE LIVED.
I'm philosophical about goggas.
Living in South Africa, you have to be.
That's not to say I don't wage a relentless battle against them, but I have no hard feelings about them.
They cannot help being alive.
If I were a cockroach I'd feel about Mrs Whittle the way Mrs Whittle now feels about the cockroach, namely, that it is the least prepossessing creature in the world.
No foxholes
In our new house there were not yet cracks and holes into which insects could crawl and hide themselves.
Any battles which were waged between us were carried out on open ground, no trenches anywhere about.
Armed with my detergents, disinfectant and spray insecticides, I'm a formidable opponent of any cockroach or ant rearing its head.
And so, they skulk off, leaving for fresher pastures where the lady of the manor isn't so fussy.
One intruder
The only kind of insect we did encounter in our new house was a species with which I had not previously been personally acquainted, the fish moth.
If you don't know this chap, you may wonder how it looks.
If so, stop wondering and keep your fingers crossed lest you ever find out.
For no sooner will you set eyes on your first fish moth than you will realise "This must be it."
And once a fish moth has decided he fancies your place, he and his progeny (numerous progeny, I should say) dig their heels in and stick around.
Small fry
We had an occasional spider too, but those I fixed without a worry, having had my baptism of fire in Zambia.
The spiders there were as big as the palm of your hand and crawled up the wall, gazing at you balefully as you tried to punctuate their existence with a full stop.
They had solid little legs which ran left as you swiped right and vice versa.
After them, Welkom's skinny little specimens failed to frighten me.
Effective staff
We had discovered a brand of insecticide which spells death to the fish moth and we kept a container in each room.
Some winter mornings I have been known to spray some on my hair, drowsily believing it to be lacquer.
But no matter, I'm still not bald.
The effect upon fish moths, however, is instant, and I love it for that reason
I don't like the fish moths to suffer, feeling mean enough as it is for killing them, even though without inflicting pain.
Action stations
We had developed what was tantamount to a firedrill.
Someone would spot a fish moth and yell: "Fish moth!"
My husband would yell back, "Insecticide, insecticide!"
Even when the stuff was close at hand, he didn't see why he should feed a wife and six children and still have to go looking for insecticides himself.
The children would run in, hand him the insecticide which he proceeded to spray, fish moth died, and everyone would troop out.
Sudden death
One day he wasn't in when my youngest daughter spotted a spider.
She ran for the insecticide and brought it to Catherine Nicolette who was reading a book.
"Quickly, a spider spinning woobs", she announced importantly, and led the way to the unsuspecting member of the class arachnida.
Briskly she directed operations as Catherine obediently sprayed and exterminated the spider.
Catherine went back to her book, but by now my youngest had entered into the spirit of the chase.
Pointing at a black dot, she said: "There's a baby spider, kill him too."
Sermonette
Catherine could see it wasn't a spider, and anyway she hated to see her godchild turning vindictive, so she said, "No, shame, I won't kill the baby spider.
Why do you want me to kill a little baby like that?
I can't believe it."
If she hoped to shame her sister, she failed miserably.
My youngest yields to no-one in her mastery of any situation, whether advantageous or the reverse.
Turning horrified eyes upon her sister, she accusingly replied: "So why did you kill de fahder, den?"
Catherine Nicolette
The sequel?
When my little sister challenged me, I was struck to the heart.
I looked at the sad little remains of the spider who had so inoffensively tried to run for safety, and felt as heinous a taker of life as ever there could be.
Why had I killed it?
Because that was what I knew.
I then thought: what if I was the little spider?
How scared would I have been?
Subsequently I came into contact with friends of the Hare Krishna and Jain movements.
They have utmost respect for the sanctity of all life, from the smallest to the largest.
Jainism is a religion which prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings without exception.
Suffice it to say that I no longer number insecticide among my household cabinet necessities.
* goggas - insects
No, says LUKY WHITTLE
But some people are inconsistent
A lady was telling me about a man, who,in her opinion, had behaved rudely to her.
"What do you expect?" she sighed, as she finished her narrative, "The age of courtesy is dead."
I disagree. The age of gentlemen kissing ladies' hands' may be dead and no self-respecting male bows to a woman with his hand on his heart these days (such a pity!) but as long as there are daffodils in spring and small babies are born to delighted parents, courtesy will live on.
I do agree, however, that there are a number of misconceptions governing courtesy.
My first dance
The first time I went to a real dance I was beside myself with excitement.
I wore a new dress and when my partner fetched me in a borrowed car I was determined to do him credit.
It was a dinner-dance and when he led me to our table, I was thrilled to see that he helped me into my chair as if I was fragile or something and couldn't manage myself.
When he pushed my chair in behind me I felt so grown up that I hardly tasted the delicious food.
The next day I was walking home from town when he passed me on his bicycle.
He might not look quite as glamorous in his overalls as in a tuxedo, but to me he looked good anyway.
He pedalled slowly next to me as we made plans for our next outing together.
Only when I arrived home, panting after battling to keep up with the bicycle, did I realise that he had not even bothered to get off it and walk me home at a more sedate pace.
Contradictory
Since then I've often noticed similar manifestations of upside-down courtesy.
At work there was a man who could not bear to watch the boss' pretty (and quite healthy) secretary carrying an armful of files into her employer's office.
"Let me help you, my dear," he'd say thoughtfully.
Yet this same man would give his wife the key to the boot of his car and tell her to bring in a battery he had bought, so that he could test it before putting it in.
On the short bus ride from town to the suburbs men often used to vie for the privilege of getting up for young women.
Yet on a long non-stop train ride you may find a jaded-looking middle-aged woman, obviously a factory worker, or a pregnant girl, leaning patiently against the partitions whilst scores of men sit around reading their papers.
Of course they may be tired too, and evidently they take the view that if women want to work like men they have to take the consequence, but they might shift up a little to allow them a part of their seats also.
Father's example
Youth is constantly under fire for not being courteous, but what can you expect from a young man who never saw his father offer his mother the first cup of tea, or stand back to allow her to pass through a door first?
He may one day learn which fork or spoon to use in a hotel at a table laid for a banquet, but his good manners will always remain a surface trait, discarded whenever it suits him.
I admit with regret that I have never attained to the sophistication and patience of ladies who remain seated until their escorts have walked all the way around their cars in order to open the door for them.
At the same time I never cease to be amazed when a car pulls up in the neighbourhood, its driver gives two sharp presses of the hooter and while he is lighting a cigarette, his girlfriend comes running out from the front door and breathlessly gets in next to him.
I believe that courtesy and good manners are not mere superficial qualities but simply subdivisions of the virtue of love.
Wife's birthday
One of the most courteous men I ever knew always forgot to send his wife flowers on her birthday.
The one time he remembered he had them charged and she found the account in her post-box at the end of the month.
Yet he was always unfailingly polite, gentle, cheerful and kind to everyone, not only to his superiors at work, but also to his colleagues, workers, his wife, my mother, and us, his children.
Catherine Nicolette
'Sound the horn and stop the chaise.' I think of these words every time I find myself drawing to a stop at a tollgate ...
Born free
Dad didn't believe in paying tolls.
An ardent Tramore Irishman to the core, he maintained stoutly that any free Irishman was born to live free. And that didn't include paying money at tollgates.
We siblings sat and nodded dutifully as he waxed eloquent about the perils of Toll Payments, of course not understanding one syllable of what he was saying.
But he, our Dad, was our ultimate Hero.
So what Dad said, went without question.
Freedom
Mom and Dad had a trip planned across country.
Dad was determined not to pay any tithes, so he went out and bought a National Roadmap Guide.
It took ages at night for him to plan an alternative route past the tollgates.
With us all watching, he carefully drew lines on the maps which diverted into byways every time we came within hailing distance of a toll.
So in the Spirit of Freedom we set out on our journey.
And thus it was that elaborate detours through village areas and small dorps to bypass the tolls made a four hour journey into a ten hour marathon.
But Dad wasn't daunted.
They weren't going to get an Irishman down by making him pay for what should be free - his right to travel the world.
I wasn't too sure who 'they' were, but My Hero had Spoken, and I Was Behind Him.
Until we got lost.
Country Roads
The car was bumping over rutted country roads, it had started miserably drizzling, and Dad kept on stopping to peer at the map and try to look wise.
We were, royally, lost.
At one stage we were going through a farmer's pastures.
Every time we came to a farm gate, I would get out, trudge to the gate, slip off the twisted wire gate handle - drag said gate open - try not to listen to the mooing of the cows in the pasture - wait for Dad to drive through - trudge back to close the gate.
Dad was giving me great encouragement by the eleventh gate, telling me sure what a great girl I was, and how he could depend on me.
Morosely I sat and stared out through the windscreen.
I Didn't Want To Be Depended On.
I Didn't Want To Trudge Through Farm gates.
I wanted to go through a nice paid toll on a big road which went quickly home to a nice hot dinner.
Eleventh Gate
At the eleventh gate I got out.
Inured to the routine, I didn't watch where I was going and sank ankle high into fresh farm manure.
There was no place to wash.
I gloomily scraped the manure off with pieces of twig and veldgrass from the by now thoroughly damp siderows, before climbing back in The Bug.
We finished our journey in The Bug with my siblings hanging out of the windows to get as far away from me as possible, and Dad's cheeriness slightly dampened by his having to remain in the driver seat well within range of my malodorous footwear.
"At least we saved the money on the toll," Dad announced brightly as we came home.
Heart Hammering
The last time Dad tried to evade the toll, we were hours behind schedule on a cross country trip.
Tired of our moaning in the back seat, he was going about 2 km over the speed limit on the completely open road with no traffic in sight either way, when a police car came out of nowhere.
Dad courteously drew to the side of the road, and I sat hunched in the back of the car, my heart hammering.
Were they going to arrest Dad? What was happening? I was terrified.
Dad was handed a little piece of paper, and we all finished the journey home very quietly.
He had saved a few rand on the tolls, and paid about a hundred times that on the speeding fine.
The next time
The next time we went through the tolls . . .
