ED’S LETTER
In every issue of this magazine, there are stories and photographs that echo each other or intersect briefly – usually by chance. Most of the time, these moments go unnoticed. Here’s an example: A photograph of a little bee-eater appears near the front of go! #132. Fifty pages later, there are full-page pictures of two more little bee-eaters flapping their wings. Something as innocuous as this barely raises an eyebrow. There are times, though, where a coincidence makes you ponder; where two stories intersect and strike a nerve. It happened to me when I read Toast Coetzer’s story about Namibia (p 32). Toast quotes Lawrence Green’s Lords of the Last Frontier (1952) a few times, and each quote adds valuable context to a heartfelt story. The next morning in the office, I read Erns Grundling’s story about the people of Fraserburg (p 98). There, in Erns’s first paragraph, Lawrence Green pops up again! This time it’s a quote from Karoo (1955). Erns’s desk is a few arm lengths away from me. “What’s going on?” I called to him. “Why are you and Toast channelling Lawrence Green this month?” I read Toast’s quotes to Erns and Erns shook his head. He asked if quoting Green bothered me, and if we should change one of the stories. It doesn’t bother me. In fact, it makes complete sense that two of our best writers would quote from Green. Lawrence G Green was a journalist who wrote the “Wanderer” column for the Cape Argus for many years. He was a sensitive observer of people and places and his stories were accessible to the average South African. His book Tavern of the Seas (1948) about Cape Town and its people, food, wine and weather (of course) was one of my favourites as a youngster. Green, the unassuming wanderer, eventually went on to write more than 30 books that sold more than 750 000 copies. Howard Timmins, Green’s publisher, might have shut up shop soon after the writer’s death in 1972, but you can still find many of Green’s books in good second-hand bookshops. I paid R125 for a beautifully preserved copy of Tavern of the Seas in Clarke’s Bookshop in Cape Town. It was a joy to read again, like travelling in a time capsule to another world in the company of an articulate and well-read tour guide. Who knows, in 70 years from now, people might say the same thing when they read go! #134. I certainly hope so!