Stanford, South Africa: Endless Lunch With Our Men In Africa

We’re talking about writing, old style journalism. I’m sitting with three veterans of African journalism; two ex newspaper editors and one foreign correspondent. 

Right now it doesn’t matter what their names are, what matters is that their brand of journalism is little more than a wistful memory for those of us who followed after.

They’re tirelessly exploring yet another unofficial investigation of an old, very gruesome murder, sniffing around like old dogs. The new facts that have recently emerged cannot be divulged here but the FBI, the CIA and the notorious South African security organization BOSS are mentioned.

One of the editors is my father, Rex Gibson seen here with my "man in Africa", Michel Walter

You get the sense that these men have never stopped, that their curiosity and nose for ‘what really happened’ refuses to lie down and take a much earned breather.

They were a close knit, pen-toting band of fearless print warriors in those days, talented people from everywhere landing in darkest Africa to cover the juiciest stories, always exciting, often dangerous, facing impossible odds and deadlines to get information out to the rest of the world.

I sit back in my chair and give the local white in my deep glass a casual swirl watching the way the light refracts, thinking back on the good ol’ days when truth was still a prize worth fighting for.

We’re in the Art Café on the main street of a tiny little town called Stanford nestled in the Cape Overberg mountains a couple of hours from Cape Town.

We’ve done a quick recce, driving up and down the short, narrow streets looking at the beautiful Cape Dutch cottages, many of them lovingly restored, much as they were over a hundred years ago. Harvey Tyson used to be the editor of South Africa’s biggest daily newspaper but now, in the back seat, he’s the self appointed tour guide, sitting forward like a kid, pointing wildly: “Go here. Go here”.

We have the windows down so we can crane our necks and catch glimpses of quiet open doorways and warm wood flooring, curved antique stools and chairs at casual angles on deep stone porches. There’s even a grassy village square, says Harvey, eyes alight with a mixture of pride and wonder. We watch as a dark haired girl in jodhpurs fights to calm a spirited horse. If you look up above the rows of low, white washed houses you see the blue shadow of the looming Overberg.

          Peaceful Streets of Stanford, village time forgot, over the mountains from Cape Town

A stone church, hundreds of years old, stands sentry on a street corner, off the square, watching as the years slide by in a slumber and the people come and they go.

A year ago the town was rudely awoken by the crack of gunshots. The low slung Stanford Inn on the main street is open for business again but the proprietor is no longer there. Two gun-slinging robbers took his money and his life and disappeared with them into the night.

People still leave their doors open, unusual in South Africa, even before the murder. They still prop themselves up against the wooden door frames and survey the still air and the very occasional passers by.

                        Main Street, Stanford just up the road from the inn where the shooting took place.

For a town this size there are several choices for lunch, signs that the murder created only a momentary hiccup in Stanford’s transformation from it’s sleeping self into a modest little center for artists of all kinds.

This is probably why the fabled Peter Younghusband, gravitated here some years back. One day it might become just another self-consciously cool destination but for now it has its understated history set in this quietly magnificent landscape. Part of its attraction is the fact that it’s still a little rough around the edges, still oozing character.

So is Our Man In Africa. When I notice Harvey call him over from his position leaning against the dark wood counter, I’m embarrassed the way I always am when people make overtures I wouldn’t have the courage to make in their position. Maybe he doesn’t want to join us. I mean we’re cool, right, from my perspective, but he looks cooler, a lovingly crafted caricature of the type; literally honed, grooved and shaped by decades spent gathering scoops over drinks at hundreds, maybe thousands, of different watering holes across the continent.

But on the second beckoning he lumbers over, settles his large frame in a chair he pulls up from the empty table behind us.

A deep glass of cabernet for him too, we indicate to the English lass who has also found her way to this unassuming South African hamlet and is waiting on our gathering of ever more exuberant ex-journalists gabbing about old times.

Now its officially entertainment. I can’t sit back further but if I could I would. I’m taking notes, literally. These men have lived. They have done things I don't have the imagination to dream up. I remember, as a child, never wanting to go to bed when they visited, these correspondents. They had opinions on everything, even the few things they knew nothing about, and they’d throw their considerable intellect and unbridled passion behind them. They were born storytellers with a lifetime of material.

Harvey Tyson (right), with Peter Younghusband. Remember when...

In many ways nothing has changed. Decades have passed it is true. They are no longer working for newspapers but the memories transcend time. All of them in their late seventies, early eighties, all still writing, all having published several books between them.

And now my middle aged self can see more clearly than ever that they will never get old, that they’ll die before they do that. Life is still very much alive for them, they’re still prostrate at its feet, still arguing about every aspect, still lighting up with the sheer adventure of it, still drinking a river.

I see what it is I want to be when I grow up. I want this ageless energy, this enthusiasm, intellect and wit that has turned these men into people you just want to hang out with; all afternoon, into the night, drinking and talking and eating and laughing. Discussing, arguing, calling up life so that life cannot resist and meets us right here in this place where time has stopped.

The UK Spectator on Peter Younghusband HERE