Electronics create tenuous global family links

SUZANNE BELLING

From the Belling Tower                     

My maternal grandmother immigrated to South Africa following the passing of her husband in Manchester, England, with my parents, my aunt and me as a tiny baby to settle in the “fairest Cape in the entire circumference of the earth”.

She always had a copy of the Yiddish paper on her lap on the rocking chair in the living room and her long silver hair was brushed 100 strokes daily and then wound into a bun. She told me stories about Mirele, over and over again until I had swallowed every last morsel of my hated cocoa or bean soup lunch.

My grandchildren are cleverer. They either refuse to eat it or pour the hated beverages into the nearest plant pot.

But at least we were a family – half in South Africa and half remaining in the UK –  with annual communication with relatives who spoke in funny accents which I couldn’t understand (especially the Scottish) and my parents and local aunts and uncles gathered around to take their turn speaking during the trunk call.

When the old black telephone rang and the operator would announce the long distance call, everyone would clamour for a turn. They never had a conversation. The tension was so palpable, all they could repeat over and over again was, “Hello, how are you?”

In my mind’s eye I pictured these people with their strange unfamiliar voices and wondered what they looked like and why they said it was so cold when the sun was streaming through our window.

Perhaps it is a good thing they were British, as opposed to American, because the apocryphal-turned-reality might have happened just as the conversation began – US operator: “Are you through?”

South Africans: “Yes!”

Click – phone goes down.

Today’s grandparents are different. They look younger, act younger, do lift schemes, use Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, selfies, Instagram and so on and so on.

Nearly all my friends and associates have children and grandchildren in Australia, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the four corners of the earth where our children emigrated to find whatever they thought would be a better life. And we communicate on Skype.

Fortunately I have three grandchildren here, but I also have a little English rose – not yet one year – with my daughter having gone full circle back to the land of my birth.

I have met the baby once. But she will have recognition from the little mini-me on the Skype screen – the same size as she as – and am fortunately able to monitor her progress: crawling, waving, standing and doing actions to the nursery rhymes.

When I see her again, hopefully she will realise the full-sized granny is a blow-up from Skype.

I am just part of the throngs of South African grandparents who communicate virtually and who commiserate daily, bemoaning the low value of the rand and the distances that separate us.

And, in spite of the miracles of modern communication and not having to miss out on the progress of our grandchildren, I know we would rather have them right here on our laps and tell them stories about The Little Mermaid or Madiba.