Sandy Bannerman: Callum Scott- Growing Up in Apartheid-Era South Africa

Last Thursday's meeting was entertained to a fascinating talk by a former Hawick Drumlanrig pupil who, with his mother, father, two brothers and two sisters left Hawick for South Africa so that his father Charlie Scott, could open a new business there for his employers Pringle of Scotland, to enable that company to expand their market.  That pupil was Callum Scott who was at the time six years old, and he and his siblings were faced with the prospect of growing up in a foreign environment. Most people spoke a different language and of course the attitude of such a vast number of the population was also so very different, for these were the days of the dreadful apartheid regime. Callum and his brothers and sisters were helped within their much changed environment by their "maid" Esther who "came with the house" that Charlie bought in Johannesburg. She was a lovely lady who helped the family to learn the appropriate way of living. Esther became "one of the family'' and she stayed with the Scotts whenever they moved house and even when Charlie and his wife Anne retired and moved to the Garden Route. She played a large part in Callum's growing up.