Who would have thought in those days of Polaroids and slides, when a film roll came with 20 or 36 pictures, that we would be looking at photographs on a computer screen? I have two computer folders of old photographs my father had scanned in, some from slides and some from prints. Each folder has…
Conversations with the Sun on My Back
I have slept late a few days this week. I woke at 5 am but then fell asleep again and only got to my writing at 5:45 am and nothing happened. Now some more time has passed, the cats have been fed, coffee has been made and the struggle continues. After all these months of…
Conversations with Mr Stander
I found a letter in the pile of personal documents my mother gave me. It was posted on 24 February 1958 from Warmbaths, then part of the Transvaal. The single small stamp looks like the precursor of a portrait of the stylised zebra that Investec has as its emblem. The envelope is addressed simply to:…
Conversations about the Resurrection
Xristos Anesti – Christ has risen in the Orthodox World. In a world crippled by corruption and greed, yet filled with passion and lust for life beyond any measure of sanity. Today is Easter Sunday for the Greek and Eastern Orthodox churches. There should be a candle burning in my kitchen representing the Resurrection service…
Conversations about Paraskevidekatriaphobia
My father was superstitious and spiritual. Sometimes the two became blurred and no logic or belief was evident. He would never sit at a table with thirteen guests. It is an easy superstition to explain: Judas was the thirteenth guest at the last supper, and it was he who betrayed Jesus Christ and tagged the…
Conversations about Calendars
The Jewish Passover celebrations began yesterday. The Passover commemorates God’s gift of saving their firstborn while the Egyptian firstborn were struck down in the plague. This Passover, in synagogues all over the world, the first born sons of Jews will recite thanks to God for saving their kind. It is an incredible tradition. The Passover…
Conversations on Photography
Just yesterday I was telling my mother that I was going to Namibia to do a photographic workshop. She was very happy for me, and reminded me of how my father loved photography and used to develop his own black and white prints, but he never pursued it. “Photography was not a career in those…
Conversations from the Inside Out
Writing is like photography. When you cannot think of a composition use one of the topics the camera clubs use to make a picture. Or tell a story. Today’s choice is “from the inside out”. I cannot imagine what my father would have thought about this idea. For me sitting at the typewriter (I wish)…
Conversations about Anticipation
My father was a master of anticipation, but would downplay it with a “God willing” or “if things work out at the office”. There were two events he really anticipated with childlike happiness and desire: his trips to Greece and his golf days as the director of Pandenaughty’s Golfing Promotions. His diary was cleared with…
Conversations about Calendars
Greeks live their life mapped out by a calendar that lists the saint’s days and other religious holidays. To this gets added some national holidays in remembrance of independence from the Ottomans or the rebuffing of the invasion by Mussolini’s troops. The calendars dot homes in three shapes. One is a pad the size of…
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