The divine right of kings in Stanford, South Africa

Since the day I first walked into a library, I wanted to be a writer. A writer whose name was known to children the world over. It hasn't happened... yet. Instead what did happened was I wrote a newspaper piece for a local paper here in Stanford, my local town here in South Africa that everyone loved and enjoyed. I think of that accomplishment as a sprout that never got watered. I worked in the gardens for my mom, tearing down old dead parts of bushes in the properties of wealthy clients.

They never once saw a writer in me. Instead, they saw my class, and I wasn't part of their world from their perspective. I remember once lady whose name was Lexi (sexy Lexi as the village called her.) She wore a white latex garden suit in front of my 20 something year old eyes, waiting for me to take in a bawdy glimpse. I didn't and she didn't take interest in my literary career when my mother mentioned it to her. She was an English snob, the type who can afford to read all day. She preserved the divine right of kings to her and her class.

I even worked in a bookshop once, one of the best in the country. It had the sense of magic about it, and I traveled very far to work there. But instead of being fed and watered as all budding plants require, I was instead insulted to my core. It came to light that I had severe depression and I was allowed to work there only two days a week. My shifts were cut down from 5 to 2 days. The woman who was to inherit the place had heard this from people in the village and she wouldn't allow me a full-time role.

There is a prison that people construct for you, the walls of which you may not transgress. For someone who works with their hands in the mud and dirt, they will allow no right to improve their lot in life. That is what I like to call the "divine right of kings" and it's true of places like Stanford, Greyton and many other British villages here in South Africa. Once,  while my mother was cleaning up a garden for an elderly client, the British woman, Jane Dowie-Dunn who was using their washing line told my mother: "You don't know what good linen is."