Extract Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a much-loathed ogre whose sin was that he stole time. The villagers hated him, and never more so than in November. Sim Sala Dim (all my father’s characters were called this), the monstrous one-eyed giant, was particularly hated in November. With just one month to go till Christmas, the ogre took great delight in speeding up time. My father, the storyteller, would pause for dramatic effect, scaling down several octaves as his rumbling, gravelly voice began the countdown. Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Then he’d growl and turn into the ogre threatening the end of time.
I’d burrow deeper into my parents bed and pull the thick, multicoloured Kantha quilt over my face — the idea of this time eating monster was terrifying. At this point my dad always said, “Time’s up. Bed time,” and then roar at his witticism.
It was a favourite in my lovely dad’s repertoire of home-made stories told with great relish to us four children at bedtime. Sim Sala Dim was an unlikely keeper of that precious commodity, time.
When I grew up and wondered aloud why my dad chose an ogre to be his time eater, he explained the provenance of the tale.
Apparently my mother used my impending birthday and the blossoming of the heady-scented Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow bush, with its lilac flowers and thick leaves that grew outside our kitchen window as her barometer for time.
She examined the crows feet under her eyes, her softly sagging chin, the wrinkled skin on her hands, and sigh, telling my father she was shrivelling up. I’m turning into the Ogre’s Bride she’d say referring to a children’s story that was popular at the time. And so the time stealing ogre was born.
November for my parents was a time of reflection and anticipation. The imminent end of another year and the rapidly encroaching December holiday always filled them both with a sense of dread. It was their way of measuring the passing of time.
Every year, time sped up and the year was over almost as soon as it had begun. Every year they got a little older, my dear parents. As the years sped past, they were a little slower.
They’d always seemed old to me. My mother at my age, a month shy of 60, was old. She thought like an old woman, dressed like an old woman, and became more rigid every year, like old women of her time were supposed to become.
My dad used to say he and my mother mourned the passing of time. When we were babies, they couldn’t wait for us to be toddlers, then pre-schoolers, then teenagers.
When we were at university they couldn’t wait for us to be independent and not reliant on them for money and sustenance and protection and security.
Then, when we were grown up, he realised the time had flown past so quickly that he hadn’t had a chance to enjoy us at every stage. He’d never get that time back. What a waste, he’d say.
Patricia De Lille, who has resigned her position as Cape Town’s executive mayor, and her membership of the DA, has finally called time. And what a waste her fight has been.
It’s the end of the road. After an exhausting year and a half of holding off members of her party, refusing to be bullied into leaving, this week she cried enough.
After all this time; after acres of columns of space given to the story; after countless interviews on radio, television, podcasts; after bitter battles on social media… I’m still unsure what the root cause of the political infighting within the DA was. I can’t work out what De Lille’s sin was.
Time must have gone very slowly for De Lille, who has my sympathy and my respect for holding her ground, for so long.
She’s been battered and insulted and accused of a host of wrong doing by people from her own party. She’s had to go to court to defend herself.
Time has taken its toll on De Lille. Time has been an ogre for this beleaguered woman who has valiantly fought to defend herself.
Luke Waltham, law student and human rights activist who is chair of the United Nations Association SA at Stellenbosch University, resigned from the DA where he was an active member.
He wrote in a column this week: “The party's strict control over members' perspectives always rose [sic] its ugly head while I was a member. It tended to prescribe what members and leaders could post and share on social media, with members who signed up as "brand ambassadors" receiving e-mails detailing the exact content they should be promoting on their pages and profiles.
“Moreover, the culture that tended to exist among DA members and groups, on social media in particular, was exceptionally problematic. While the DA refers to its members as ‘democrats’ and openly encourages freedom in its mandate, ‘freedom of speech’ and ‘freedom of thought’ are often shut down on platforms.”
My sadness for De Lille is that in the end, it has been a monumental waste of time. It has been a gruelling fight taking on the entire political organisation that is the DA.
I think she knew she was unlikely to win, to stay on as Cape Town mayor, to continue to be a member of this party.
The ogre got to poor De Lille and stole her time, valuable time that could have been better spent on more constructive things. Isn’t it strange that this all happened in November? My mother would say that was a portent.
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