616
ANGUS WILSON
veldt childhood these men often allowed themselves expressions •
of a savage racialism that they would have been ashamed to
show in their new urban life. Inevitably, too, with a large family
of English South Mricans, who have little contact with Afrikan–
ers, I met a great many more "ordinary" English South Africans
than "ordinary" Mrikaners. Through the distinguished Afrikan–
ers whom I contacted, however, I was taken to see some "ordi–
nary" Mrikaner homes, but inevitably my hosts were more on
their party manners than were my family and their friends.
Strangers meeting inquiring foreigners will disagree, even feel
it
necessary to show that they are not out to please, but they
will
do so mostly by design; whereas relations will do so out of
im·
patience, pique or unrestrained habit. Despite this, I met some
fierceness from angered Mrikaners and many of my family
had
prepared themselves to avoid controversy more carefully than I
had anticipated. It will no d6ubt be apparent, too, in my sub–
sequent observations, that unexpectedly I found myself preferring
the Afrikaners to the English; but this preference in its origins
is
not without interest.
As
a boy, like most middle-class English children, I
was
often posed the serious moral problem: which do you prefer,
the Walrus or the Carpenter? The model answer, of course,
is
- neither, each is equally bad. Yet I always persisted in pre–
ferring the Walrus. I preferred the exotic to the plainly human,
and possibly a certain snobbery assimilated from my parents
made me aloof from the humble carpenter. I am sure that
in
my
preference for the Afrikaners can be found both elements. The
Mrikaner, to an educated Englishman, is immediately very
exotic. The interest of English South Africans is much more
subtle; at first sight he (and especially she) seems identical
with
the most tedious sort of wealthy English suburban commuter; (
the shades of difference, in fact, are fascinating, but they reveal
themselves only slowly. Then the traditional relationship between
the English South Mrican and the English middle class is one
that excites every element of snobbery (and there are many)
in
