Oh, to have shown Cuzzin Meghan my side of the Cape

THE photographs of my meeting with the Sussex royals outside the Dorp Street Mosque on Heritage Day have elicited various, mostly positive, comments.

There is the suggestion I had photoshopped that never-to-be-repeated moment in my tenure as Dean of Camissa. Other commentators suggested that because of the way my left hand was positioned in the photograph, that I was teaching Meghan how to jazz. The more musically literate ones believe I was showing her the harmony chords for Mannenberg.

These opinionades noted her slightly shocked expression was due to my happy humming of the melody of this cultural anthem.

The unkindest comment came from a fellow who I have since unfriended as a Facebook buddy. He inferred Meghan’s facial expression suggested she was quietly praying: “Harry, Harry come quick-quick. The lift doesn’t go to all the floors for Telly Savalas here in front of me”. The reference was to Telly of Kojak fame, the police-drama series of the 1970s.

On the occasion of our first meeting, Cuzzin Meghan refrained from inquiring after my absence from what must have been a highlight of the Cape Town end of her and Harry’s visit, that is the District Six Museum.

Apparently, she was overheard to have said, “Tell Mikey I am very disappointing that he keeps himself so

sturvie”.

However, what might have been perceived as anti-royalist aloofness was due to matters beyond my control. The Commissar of cultural events on the eastern edge of Camissa has noted that “The unfortunate part of including some is the downside of others feeling excluded”. She also added, rather unnecessarily I thought, it was not her party nor was it her guest list.

But I do think it would have been an endearing act of womanist solidarity if Cuzzin Elisabeth Verwey of Constantia East (Parkwood to those disinterested in the struggle for the return of our land) had been invited. After all, it was her celebrated resemblance to Tietie Meghan that re-emphasised our Sussex sister’s ties to our motherland.

I can only imagine the pressure the programme organisers of the Sussex Royal visit must have been subjected to. And despite being left out in the cold, as a pre-Marxist biblical communist (cf Acts of the Apostles 2:44) I accept that the Dean of Camissa should not be privileged.

In the proactive spirit that Madiba bequeathed us, I offered to take the royals on a conducted tour of Halt Road in my hometown of Elsies River. It would appear that my invitation never reached the desk of Nigel Casey, the British High Commissioner to South Africa. I chose Halt Road because it was along this historic route that Cuzzin Meggs’ late uncle, Holle Mama, was once chased by a panga-wielding member of the Tamatie Gang, an allsista group of roekers from Ravensmead.

Uncle Holle sought the safety of the Orient Bioscope where Mother India was being screened. The Cravenby Estate hipsters would later claim Uncle Holle as their own and baptised him Boeta Radhabaigee.

But our story continues at the moment when Le Arch, Desmond Tutu meets his namesake, Fuarchie. Mirrored in the face of the Sussex infant are the features of my great-grandfather, Louis Evon, when he was that age. My arrière-grand-père Louis, Beloved, was a French creole, a fisherman from Reunion. So, I’m what we call KhoiFrench and a republican monarchist of an anti-Brexit type.