Going Back to Say Goodbye: A Boyhood on the Mine

by Kenneth de Kok

In Going Back to Say A Boyhood on the Mine Kenneth de Kok describes his childhood in Stilfontein, a small mining town in the Western Transvaal. Set in the late 1950s and seen through the eyes of the young Kenneth, the story immerses the reader in a world of bicycle races down dirt roads, adventures in the veld, kleilat fights, childhood pacts and seaside holidays. It’s a world of Post Toasties, chickenpox, pellet guns and catties – a universe populated by brothers and sisters, grown-ups, by Grandma and Grandpa. A sensitively written memoir about the relationship between fathers and sons, and about growing up.

144 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 1, 2016

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This little book certainly took me right back to my childhood and dropped me, barefoot, dusty faced and sun burnt into South Africa's past.

Behind the memory land of a simper time (for white South Africans) always must lie the knowledge of what was really going on.

de Kok speaks of the undercurrent as observed by a child. The danger when reading this book is to wax lyrical about how wonderful life was then, when for so many of the sub-characters in this book, it was truly monstrous. The reader can see, if she looks carefully between the lines, the things that so many of us, when looking back at our childhoods in South Africa, now view with squinted eyes and a sense of 'how did we not realise'. Like de Kok, I too remember news reports that spoke to so many dead people, and five blacks. I too remember domestic workers seemingly up all the time, ready to meet the family's needs. And like de Kok, I didn't know what it all meant when I was 8 or 9, but certainly do now.

I think that hidden within this memoir, this recalling of a childhood written after a father's death, is a much larger story de Kok is leaving for the South African white reader of a similar age to remember and create. The reader can decide if this is commentary or a gentle memoir of a dusty childhood.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A warm, gently humorous coming of age memoir. Think: a White South African answer to Clive James' 'Unreliable Memoirs' - with mines. School, siblings, domesticity and the odd dose of 1950s family social shame. I really enjoyed the cultural detail and insights into Afrikaner and 'English' relations (all your 'hairybacks' and 'kaffir boeties') too. Hard not to like, really.

[Christina’s Word · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful clear memories of a childhood I shared too. De Kok's voice is that of the child who sees things in crystalline clarity. Beautiful - but I would have liked more. It's too short, I'd have loved to read about high school and conscription, university and leaving SA. Perhaps there is more to come?