I think he should have been a Colonel in the British Army (when they were in India, you know). When I was a shy little thing at the age of 12, back in 1976 in a former British colony in southern Africa, also something of a backwater, we had a lesson once a week given by the Headmaster, a grey-bearded fellow who always carried a cane when he did his imperious school walkabout. Light grey suit, burgundy or navy blue tie with thin diagonal white thread of a stripe. Dark brown lace-ups, with the toe polished to a high shine. Perfect for pipe-smoking, but my memory fades, so I cannot attest to that last detail.
The lesson was called Creative Writing. We were issued tiny exercise books, about 15 cm across and 10 cm deep, with about ten ruled lines per page.
Now, bear in mind, this was the class with all the clever kids, about 28 of us, if memory serves. I never achieved more than 15th place in the once-a-term grades. This inculcated in me a healthy disregard for competition.
The fact that I only ever came 2nd in running of all distances on the athletics field—which we did barefoot, by the way—only served to reinforce the notion I grasped at that young age that you can only be, neither more nor less, what you are, and that trying to be the best at what you are has nothing, really, to do with anyone else.
Each week we were given an assignment. What we call a “writing prompt” these days. We had already done three or four of these when Mr Man decided that the title of our next piece should be “The River”.
I was so excited, because I knew exactly what I was going to write.
The weekend before, our family had gone, along with almost every other family in the city, to the spillway of the local dam, which was full at last. Thank God for the rain! So the municipality had had to open up the gates and let a lot of water out into the river below. We went to visit the river side of the dam wall. What a sight it was, with all the natural detritus. You could see the level the water had reached on each of the river banks, before flowing away downstream.
Lying on top of all the dead branches were a surprising number of large, dead fish. After several days in the hot sun, the stench was quite overpowering, but all the kids wanted to go down the fairly steep banks and pick one up—of course, they were just out of reach—either floating on the water or marooned on the dead branches, and all the parents were telling them not to. There were also bits and pieces of rusted iron, an old tyre, and litter in the eddies, already rich green with algae, and mosquitoes hovering above the water. We came home muddy, smelly from the mud, happy, full of chatter and tired. You get the picture.
Not only did I know what I was going to write, I knew that I would have to squash my words together so that I could fit them all on one page. We could only write one page, no more. So I wrote my description on a separate piece of paper first, then rewrote it, and then finally copied it into my exercise book, all squashed up and neat. My first drafting process! Who knew?
I did not keep that exercise book, but I do remember some aspects of my description of The River.
I used the word pollution - how old tyres and rusty bits of iron lay stuck in the mud, the smell of the dead fish floating on murky brown water. I used the word environment. I described the litter—old bottles, soggy newspapers—which I made sound much worse than what I had actually witnessed the weekend before.
That was about it. Everyone else, without exception, had described bucolic picnic scenes, babbling brooks, trees giving shade at the peaceful river banks, sun shining, and so on. Mr Man used to hand back to each kid their exercise book and make an appropriate remark. My surname starts with a W, so I was last, or next to last, I cannot remember. Finally, I saw my exercise book in the teacher’s hand.
“Is this your own work?” he said, still holding on to my book, waving it about. I was bewildered. I said that yes, it was. I could see he did not believe me. He continued his interrogation. “Did anyone help you with this?” I replied no. I wrote it myself. He raised his eyebrows, again in disbelief. “Pollution is a very unusual word to use. Define pollution”.
I supplied him with a twelve-year-old’s understanding of pollution, which was correct, in broad terms. I loved the bush, wild animals, the tall grass, scrambling on rocky outcrops, watching army ants on dirt roads, that sort of thing. Ecology was another word I already knew, for in addition to the anti-litter campaign in the city, there was a nascent nature and wildlife conservation movement, and I read everything in magazines and newspapers about it.
“Hmm, incredible, I still have my doubts,” he said gruffly. He took out his pen, and marked the bottom of the page, next to the word pollution, with a tick. No “good” or “V. Good”. Just a tick. I did not care so much about that. But I was close to tears that he had not believed me. It was indeed all my own work.
I told my parents about the episode. I showed them the assignment. They liked it. My mother explained that I had a larger vocabulary than Mr Man assumed I had, and said I should try not to be upset, and other nice things.
From that day on, I wrote whatever I liked in that little book. But I always made sure I used a few big, interesting words. Like contradictory, for instance. All my own work. Even when we had to do an extra assignment in the classroom, like a “test” with Mr Man watching us. That was the time I discovered that the word was not “avaidable” but “available”. An honest mistake. My friend and I laughed and skipped around the playground saying “avaidable” after the lesson.
That was a helluva long preamble. I have told the story before. But this time, I told it slightly differently, which enabled the insight that the first time I put real effort into creative writing coincided with the first time I received harsh criticism. I find that amusing.
The less mature side of my nature now, in 2025, thought, “I should have told him to fuck off”. Fresh chuckles, because I did not even know that swear word at age 12 nor did I possess anything faintly approaching the notion that it was possible to have the kind of attitude you need to say such a thing with conviction and just the right intonation to indicate just who is in charge.
I did, however, show in action—in assignments—subsequent to that day of incredulity on the part of the teacher that I was in charge, in command of what I wrote, regardless of what he might think. That was the lesson from then. I’ll keep it in my back pocket in case I need it again.
I haven’t answered the questions posed in
's #meetthewriter Day 13 prompt yet.Here they are in brief:
Where do you get support for your writing?
— From friends who have been reading my blog posts and social media verbiage for years, and from friends I have made online through blogging and comments.
Which communities do you belong to (online or in real life) and what difference does that make?
— No formal community in either sphere, although I notice that four months into this Substack lark that gravitational pulls here and there are starting to knead a few of us into a ball of dough. I did attend a MOOC about ten years ago, as did a handful of my Facebook friends, after which we formed a very small group to hone our craft. Both the MOOC and the informal group helped me to see which patches of writing needed tidying up, and how everyone’s response to any given piece is different. For now, I am happy enough to be on the periphery, until I have written more.
Who has been a particular support?
— I have an eclectic handful of friends who occasionally write me a private note or say something, and two in particular who have caught on to some (un)wittingly employed techniques I am fond of. One recently sent an article to me about an established writer saying she saw in that article parallels with the way I write. I find such gestures enormously supportive and motivating.
—I also have to confess that I am an ardent fan of YouTube interviews of authors on book tours. Yay, YouTube.
—That will do, unless you want me to wax lyrical about the canine at my feet.