I have always felt quite at home in an aeroplane. It’s one of those times when you feel no guilt at doing absolutely nothing except stare dreamily out of the window, take your shoes off, and drink champagne. That is until I was on my latest South African visit and spending a night at the airport hotel in Johannesburg.
Now there are absolutely no opportunities for spending an interesting evening at the airport hotel in Johannesburg, so I turned on the TV, and that’s when it all started.
In no time at all, like it or not, I was hijacked into a program called “Ten reasons to be terrified of flying”. For the next hour I was taken through the countdown – just like those programs about what was the most popular TV advert of all time – starting with number 10 – Mechanical Failure. Then 9 – Economy Class Syndrome, 8 – Attacks On Pilots. And on to Clear Air Turbulence; Exposure to Radiation; and Panic Attacks. What on earth was number one going to be? How could it get any worse? Of course we had to wait until after the adverts to find out. Then they told us, the number one reason to be terrified of flying in 2002 is Air Rage! In a strange way, I found that quite comforting, but it didn’t stop me from suddenly re-appraising my whole South African schedule. South Africa is a large country, so if you have to switch to Avis, it has quite an impact on the itinerary.
Anyway, now I’m on my way by plane again to Cape Town. Fortunately I find that all it takes to get back to my pre “Ten reasons to be terrified…” state is a large gin and tonic, although I do harbour a few suspicions about several of my fellow passengers, who I am convinced I recognise from the TV program.
I’m still like a child when it comes to flying. I always have to have the window seat, and no matter how many times I have seen it all before – like flying into Heathrow over central London on a clear summer night – I still have my nose pressed up to the window. So it is with flying down to Cape Town. It’s so interesting to see the South African countryside from the air. It’s mostly desert-like, but then there are outlying pockets of cultivation almost always in circles with a perimeter road and divided into segments. Sometimes four, sometimes eight. The whole countryside looks like it was mapped out by one of the great mathematicians – Pythagoras or Leonardo da vinci perhaps. Circles, triangulations, more circles within trapeziums (I would have written ‘trapezia’, but Microsoft Word puts a squiggly red line under it) of various sizes, constructed in alternate directions. The colours are variations of autumn red, amber, pink and brown, and then suddenly a mining community surrounded by carefully planned pyramids at various stages of completion, constructed from the mine extraction waste.
I am reminded of a nice little story told to me by my driver in Soweto. When he was a boy he lived in a house at the foot of an enormous hill. He went away to school, and when he came home at the end of term, the hill had disappeared. It was only then that he learned that the ‘hill’ that had been there throughout his childhood had never really been a hill. It was the mine extraction waste that had finally been removed. (I wonder where they relocate hills?)
In Cape Town I have the usual set of training courses to run about Recipe and Quality Management, but on this occasion I also have something a bit different to look forward to. I have been invited by Dr Charlayne Vosloo to give a guest lecture to the Consumer Science department of Stellenbosch University. Charlayne is a senior lecturer in Foods and Didactics and totally dedicated to giving her students the widest possible range of learning on their course.
I drive over the hills north of Cape Town and into the heart of the famous Winelands. Stellenbosch is an attractive city, with tree-lined avenues, sidewalk cafes, and a European layout centred on the village green. More than anything else, it’s a University city – arguably the most prestigious educational institution in South Africa – and the high proportion of students does much to enliven the atmosphere.
I am not quite sure what to expect. I haven’t lectured at a University before, and I am wondering how I can make my message interesting to a student audience. I put myself at ease by convincing myself that it’s probably going to be a fairly low-key affair. But then I arrive at the University building and read the billboard at the imposing front entrance. “Derek Pickles Lecture – 18:30 – Large lecture theatre” and I wonder what I have let myself in for. Arrows displayed along the historic corridors and wide staircases ensure that no student can have any excuse for not finding their way to the ‘Derek Pickles lecture’, and I realise that there’s no way out. I could not claim to have lost my way and missed the appointment.
Charlayne greets me like a long-lost friend and ensures I feel immediately at home. The students start to file in, and soon the room is full of fresh-faced enthusiastically expectant faces, looking my way. The male chauvinism part of me is satisfied to see that virtually all the students in the food department are female, and I think I can say that I have never before presented to such an attractive audience. (Apologies to all my customers and potential customers!)
I start to lecture, and I am soon enjoying it. I realise that in a way, I am learning as much as the students (probably more!!). Having to present to a very different kind of audience, I have had to question what my message is, and what it will mean to people who are about to embark on their careers in the industry. It’s a refreshing re-appraisal of what I know about the food industry, the direction it is heading, and the part that we are playing in it.
I conclude the lecture, and the students file out again, virtually every one giving me a personal, polite and friendly ‘thank you’. Fortunately not at all similar to the way we used to treat our lecturers at University in Liverpool.
My visit takes me on to see customers in the Winelands and eventually back to Cape Town. For the whole time I have been in South Africa, it has hardly stopped raining. So although I am sad as always to be leaving this beautiful country, at least on this occasion I have the unusually mild British weather to come home to.