Photos are OK, but it’s sounds that you remember

WHEREVER I go, I find myself surrounded by photographers. Smart phones have turned us all into shutterbugs. Go into a restaurant and you’ll see diners photographing the food on their plates and the companions sharing their tables. Waiters are regularly asked to take a picture of the group at the table, which will probably be sent to relatives on the other side of the world before the diners have even finished their main course.

Drive along any of the Cape’s scenic roads and you’ll see groups of tourists busily photographing each other (or themselves) against the background of False Bay or Chapman’s Peak.

It seems we’re obsessed by visual images. We want to take the whole world around us and store it all in the little box in our pocket.

But there’s more to the world than scenic images. Many of my clearest memories are of sounds rather than scenes. I clearly remember many of the sounds from my childhood in the Karoo – the creak and clank of a windmill pumping water, the rattle of a clapper-lark’s wings in the veld, the chorus of a flock of sheep being rounded up for dosing, the click-clicking of shears at shearing time, the murmur of doves in the tall pine trees and the clank of milk buckets being brought to the kitchen in the early morning.

I read recently that the National Trust in Britain is making a collection of seaside sounds. People are invited to contribute five-minute sound recordings of their favourite beaches – the sound of feet walking over pebble beaches, waves crashing on the shore, seagulls circling overhead, a small spade digging in the sand and filling a bucket. Every seaside resort and every beach has its own set of sounds and these are being stored for future generations.

I wonder whether anybody in South Africa is thinking of storing some of the sounds that make up our diverse country. Many of those I remember have already vanished. We never hear the fish-horn honking in the market place any more, or the call of a small newspaper seller shouting “Argy, Argy”.

What a fascinating symphony of memories those sounds could be. Will future generations remember the sound of the scrap-iron collector’s horse-drawn cart clip-clopping through the suburbs, the continuous hooting of minibus taxis in Sea Point, the happy chat of patrons in a Khayelitsha tavern, the echoing announcements at the Cape Town International Airport, the seagulls screeching over the fishing boats as they unload their catches in Kalk Bay?

Quite apart from being a fascinating sound picture of Cape Town, just think what delight a library of the city’s sounds would offer to someone who is visually impaired.

Last Laugh

The assistant curator of the museum came to the head curator and said he had a few problems.

“Sir,” he said, “the Egyptian mummy is damp and getting mouldy. And the white mouse in the maze exhibit has developed dry skin.”

The head curator thought for a minute, then advised, “I know! Why not put your mummy where your mouse is?”

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E-mail: dbiggs@glolink.co.za