Temp with an accent

My mum had the foresight, and the courage, to buy me a ticket to London. I had just finished my degree in Tourism Management and yet had absolutely no idea what to do with my life. I was not particularly taken with the idea of going to Britain: I would have been one of tens of thousands of South African adolescents to do that and I was not one for major conformity. My English was also appalling – the D I got in my final exams was a dark patch amongst the other As. And then, as a former colony, there was our cultural relationship with everything British.

Having been raised in a relatively liberal, albeit sheltered, way during South Africa’s apartheid-era, I remain to this day unnecessarily conscious of my language and my heritage: I am an Afrikaans-speaking Afrikaner, son of a farmer, a Boer. Irrespective of my own views on race, equality, and diversity, I firmly believed at the time that all English-speakers would always be more liberal, more emancipated, freer, and therefore also ready to judge me on who I was supposed to be on paper.

I did not belong in Britain, and I did not intend to stay very long.

Nevertheless, the SAA ticket mum had bought; I had to take care of pocket money and my attitude.

A keen musician, I wrote a short one-man piece that I performed over several evenings in village halls around my hometown to raise the cash. And so, I arrived in London on 6 May 2001: no work, no home, no idea but at least ￡500 in my wallet.

My parents had an inflated opinion of my self-sufficiency and resolve. That… or they spent nights on their knees praying me through this wild adventure. (Having lost them both in recent years, I often reflect and wonder at what point they realised I was not coming back).

In my quest to find a roof over my head, I responded to advertisements in the Loot newspaper for rooms to let. Here I had my own first real experience of racism when the landlord, upon asking after my accent and learning I was South African, asked me whether I was white or black. He agreed to a viewing when I said I was white. I never went to see the flat, and I always wondered what his response would have been if I said I was black!

Eventually one of the tens of thousands of other South Africans in London got in touch and I managed to secure a bed in a shared bedroom in Leytenstone; wallpaper peeling off the walls, a “lawn” as high as an elephant’s eye. Within a week I also landed a job as a travel temp at a Russian tour operator. At least I was not the only one with an accent…

Soon I saw why mum was confident enough to send me abroad – there were job opportunities aplenty and many of my friends from university in Cape Town were still struggling to find decent work. Within seven months of starting as a temp I was promoted to office manager and transferred to Glasgow. I felt instantly at home – it was greener and literally everyone had an accent, most of them far worse than mine (I say lovingly)! Living abroad really became the adventure I was hoping for which expedited me proposing to my girlfriend in Cape Town. Eight months later she married me and moved her life to Scotland with me.

We both learnt that Britain is a place where you can have a shot. Where, if you say “yes” and try new things, doors opened.

But an easy ride it was not. One day a female colleague told me to “f%$* off back to South Africa” and stop stealing British jobs. At the last count, since that conversation, I have helped to create 50+ new jobs in Scotland alone. And I worked hard to ensure we employ a wide range of nationalities, shapes, sizes, beliefs, and personalities.

I also learnt to my horror that I was actually not as tolerant and inclusive as I believed.

When I decided to bid farewell to leisure travel and applied for senior roles in the corporate industry, I made a huge error. I deliberately dropped the acute on the e in my surname for fear that it would look too Polish or Czech and would prohibit me from getting interviews. I only added that é again three years ago… hanging my head in shame. No-one noticed, no-one cared. But I learnt a major lesson about diversity and empathy.

Yet every time I thought that my integration in a new country was hard, I thought about my friend Makutsa. A smart, creative, and capable guy; a refugee from Kenya who endured countless hours waiting in governmental queues, waiting on some department’s responses and handouts, enduring a detention centre…

My opportunities however abounded and I figured if I got too homesick, I could always just slide back into South African life by moving back.

And then you go to a Rugby World Cup match at St James Park between the Boks and Scotland, and you find yourself rooting for the thistle because its yours. You know the Scottish team; they play for your country. And you realise Breyten Paulse has retired, and South Africa has moved on without you.

See, you reach a tipping point where that option of “just going back” kind of expires. Where you make friends, care about the job you do, the people you are responsible for, the thing you are busy building with your life. You start caring about the Scottish education system, Brexit, the Queen, Air Passenger Duty, and wild swimming in the Western Isles. And before you know it, you “naturalise” in the true sense, way beyond sitting the exam where you learn wonderful facts such as the number of Buddhists in the UK at the last count, or that in terms of sport, the UK is not one country, but four…

My wife and I eventually sat the test and became British. What an odd idea – to become a different nationality. Both our children were born in Glasgow and I found myself immediately applying for South African passports for them too. We grew into a family that is now a bit of both.

I suppose this battle between nature and nurture will always be with me. Looking back on two decades in the United Kingdom, I do call it home. I am proud to be Scottish. I often long for the best in South Africa and will eternally be pulled by the Mother City, her mountain, her food, and her people.

I suppose I am still a temp with an accent.

Aren’t we all?