Cry the Beloved Country

Reading given at the 2025 Alan Paton Literary Festival UKZN

[I began this “talk” by quoting Moira Lovell, who told us, “You can break the rules when you know them.” I broke the rules by reading this out loud, as opposed to having memorised it, or presenting it. How many teachers told us not to read our orals/mondelings? It turns out, I can lecture and present… But, this I felt was a time for reading. Thanks Moira for giving weight to my decision so the audience didn’t think I was a charlatan.]

In Lasse Halstrom’s 1993 film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the opening sequence reveals a small, neglected midwestern American town, Endora. We’re shown Ramp Cafe, End-ora of the Line Drugs, Dairy Dreme, and Lamson’s Grocery, where the lead character, Gilbert, works.

Gilbert’s opening narration explains that the annual campervanners are doing the right thing, just passing through. He continues, “Endora is a town where nothing much ever happens, and nothing much ever will.” 

When I first watched the film, it resonated with me because that’s how I felt about Hilton, my home town. And for a lot of people it is just a place to pass through, or just drive past on the N3, or drive to, to drop kids off at boarding school. 

In the spirit of Gilbert Grape, I’ll walk you through my Endora. In 1983, my first home was the rondavel cottage at the Hilton Hotel. That’s where my dad worked. Further up the road, the Shell garage, the only petrol station in the village. In those days, Hilton was a village. Opposite the Shell, the Hilton Town Board Hall, where our folks went to pretend to look at our kak school art, while they drank beer and OBs at the annual Hilton Lions’ Fair. 

Hilton Pre-Primary is where I spent three magical years with crayons, finger paint, blunt-nosed scissors, and crusty Marmite sandwiches. Laddsworth is where I learned to love learning. 

The Fruit Basket, since demolished, is where we’d go after school… Or to the Spar, owned by the Footselars, for a Super Moo and chicken and mushroom pie. Often, we’d have to hang around in Hilton Drapers waiting for our mums to finish their “quick chats” and buy fabric to turn into matching primary coloured tracksuits. All the kids in Hilton were dressed in the same Butterick patterns… With either gumboots or Bata takkies from Kubela Stores. On Sundays, we’d head to the Hilton Tea room, clutching 50c coins to buy candy cigarettes and other guilty pleasures. The owners of the tearoom knew which parents had permitted us to buy the real Benson and Hedges Special Milds on their behalf.  

That was the colour of village life. Not quite Gilbert’s Endora, but still small. 

However, things were about to get bigger. Soon after Nelson Mandela was elected president, we started to hear whispers. The village grapevine, led by the Walkie Talkies (a group of early morning women walkers), had heard Hollywood was coming to town. 

Our village was summarily upgraded to a town. 

The proverbial “They” were remaking Cry the Beloved Country. Soon after, we heard They was actually South African filmmaker Darrell Roodt who was diving headfirst into the much-famed Madiba Magic by giving us the quintessential South African film. “And have you heard, big hitters James Earl Jones and Richard Harris are the leads?” Suddenly, Hilton Library’s copy of Alan Paton’s novel was flying off the shelves.  

These were the days when Cry the Beloved Country was a symbol of hope and reconciliation… Slightly precarious, sure, but we were heady with the allure of the new Rainbow Nation fragrance. This was well before social media – people hadn’t yet appropriated the book title in response to bad news about the state of the country… “Oh Good Lord! Cry the Beloved Country!” – the calling card of the disgruntled Facebook commenter in reaction to anything government-related. 

But, as with all things that happen in one’s childhood, it was over in a village moment. Hollywood came and went, and Hilton went back to being a village, the place where they filmed Cry the Beloved Country. That hotel became known as the place James Earl Jones stayed. That section of the Midlands… Where “They shot that scene from that movie… Oh, you know the one.”

Soon after the trains stopped running, and the abandoned train tracks became my teenage place for measured rebellion.  

We all have a favourite quote that we bring out whenever we can to sound smart. Mine, which I’m fast turning into a cliche, was introduced to me by Duncan Brown, in that building just over there, in a small classroom, during my honours English seminar on South African storytelling. 

“If this is your land, where are your stories?” 

In the same way that disgruntled Facebookers have appropriated Paton’s novel as a catchphrase, so too have I with J. Edward Chamberlain. 

If this is your land, where are your stories? The title of of his book on placemaking and connection.  

This quote is at the heart of my work and research, because the best way to change human behaviour is by changing the environment. Humans like to think we’re clever and not easily manipulated but just see what happens when a McDonalds rolls into town, or when bins get removed from parks, or when you walk into a library with a vuvuzela. 

My partner Jono and I focus on public space, because in this country social cohesion needs a bit of a nudge. And, developing equitable multipurpose public spaces, that become places, are how you start to see change.

So, how do you change public space?

Well, you just decide to do it.

Jono and I combine mural art, storytelling, and a lot of plants and fruit trees to activate places. We treat the land as ours, not Jono and mine, but the community’s and through investing in that we’ve shown the power of connection through belonging, representation, and inclusivity. Having free spaces is quite literally freedom. But it’s more than that, when people feel invisible its easy to forget them. Having access to public space means being seen, and being able to say this is my home too, I am here, I belong.  

Cry the Beloved Country is a story that, through its title, pages, and magnitude, tethers us to our local home, our national home, and our global home. 

Alan Paton wrote, “When people go away, even the ground cries out for them.”

Which, to be honest, doesn’t always ring true, as we’ve seen in recent news about 49 people who definitely use “Cry the Beloved Country” as a catchphrase to trash our country.  

But for those of us who are tethered, that’s the sum of Home. When we leave, the ground cries out for us. That’s our South Africa, in all its complexities.

I came back to Hilton five years ago, because I needed to be home. And, while I used to think that when Gilbert Grape says that “Describing Endora is like dancing to no music,” that was a bad thing, now I’m not so sure it is. For many of us, describing South Africa is like dancing to no music… It’s not easy, it’s difficult… But we do it because we love dancing and we love telling stories. As a continent of storytellers, stories are our heart. They’re how we say we are here. We claim this space. We are tethered. 

So, what can I tell you about the filming of Cry the Beloved Country? It turns out, not much, but I was invited here today because of a particular piece of writing. And because I’m a storyteller and a placemaker, I think I should stick to what I know. And because I’m not famous, most of you won’t have read this piece, but for those who have, you can use it as an opportunity to catch a snooze with zero judgement. 

Placeholders: In a Station of the Station

[originally published https://www.jackalandhide.co.za/2025/03/12/placeholders-in-a-station-of-the-station/]

My brother and I were furious and jealous when our fourteen-year-old cousin landed the prized role of an extra in Cry the Beloved Country. She was tall and mature for her age, and my older brother was the opposite– you could always spot him in the front row of every school photo, the designated spot for the short arses. Neither my brother nor I were even in the running for a look-in for a coveted extras spot, but that didn’t stop us from being disgruntled, and annoying our mother about how unfair it was. The whining was palpable. 

This is one of my most enduring memories of the Hilton Train Station – a backdrop for a movie, a place suspended in time, swarming with people wearing fancy hats and milling about. And, it also goes down as one of the most exciting times in Hilton’s history… We had celebrities in town and everyone was in a frenzy trying to catch a rare sighting of Richard Harris and James Earl Jones. That was another thing to be disgruntled and furious about. Why wasn’t our hotel (The Hilton Hotel) posh enough for them to stay at? Why were we the hotel for crew? More whining. To be fair, my mother led the charge on this particular bout of whining, as it’s no secret she’s long harboured a bit of a crush on James Earl Jones.   

I know there must be other memories of this central space from my childhood. If I really try, I can just about make out sitting next to my mother on a brown pleather bench seat. I’m not sure if some of the fabric has come away and was fraying or if that’s just the mystic chords of my memory editorialising. Torn and frayed pleather seats that snapped at bare legs were definitely in vogue for that era. In any event, my legs are stretched out in front of me, and there are a tiny pair of white patent leather shoes that I can just about make out. I’m on a train ride… I have no idea where the destination is, that bit has long faded. There’s another part of me that sees myself as part of a crocodile of Hilton Pre-Primary kids in primary coloured clothing snaking our way onto the train for an exciting excursion. Did this happen or is it something that seems plausible and has become a false memory akin to the “Mandela Effect”?  

And then suddenly, one day, the trains stopped. Bugweed crept in, weeds crept in, and sprawling creepers metastasised along the railway. That part of Hilton was gone, hidden… It became a place of “used to”. This used to be alive, now it’s abandoned until some intrepid teenagers or drifters rediscover it. Typically, it takes teenagers, drifters, or the homeless to re-occupy spaces that “used to” and breathe life into them again. These are the breaths that resuscitate the lungs of buildings and we see life through signs, symbols, marks, and abandoned artefacts (usually trash). But as they say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…” More about that in a moment.  

A months ago, my partner Jono and I were discussing public space, and the conclusion was that we’re woefully ignorant about what’s on offer around us. The irony and shame are not lost on us. But that’s how we ended up at the Cedara Station. We decided we need to explore. 

As our car drove up the dirt road to Cedara Station, I thought about all the rumours I’ve heard about the space over the years. 

“Cedara Station is going to become an abattoir.” 

“They’re going to develop it.” 

“Cedara Station is going to become the destination for a train ride to and from Hilton, like in the old days.” 

We park up and I feel nothing. Usually my memory is a magic wand that can get stories out of anything. But nothing. In the words of Gandalf, “I have no memory of this place.” I can’t imagine what it used to look like, it is all completely new and I have no frame of reference to pollute my experience of how it used to be and how it is now.  

“Fuck this is cool…”

We walk through the long grass towards the station. This is the old platform, and using my experiential geography I imagine that tickets were sold just through there. I wonder how much they cost? If you walk into the station, there’s a big chunk of floor missing and you can see into the basement. It’s a swamp of ferns, chip packets, sweet wrappers, new and ancient drinking vessels, and other detritus. I notice the skeleton of a VHS tape and smile. I wonder what’s on it. Cry the Beloved Country? 

The handwriting on the wall shows that brave teenagers have walked across the beams to leave their marks. The Hilton Boyz are a gang of eight names. I’m not brave enough to walk along the beams, and I don’t think peer pressure from teenagers would convince me otherwise. Meanwhile, Jono has spotted a wall, and he begins setting up his cans the way he always does, meticulous, pausing every so often to glance at the wall, step back, step forward. It’s a musical-less dance.

I explore the space, this Khazad-dum of secrets. There are stories to piece together… The Hilton Boyz who want change and to be seen, the invisible boys of postapartheid South Africa. The rebellious spirits who’ve drawn penises on everything, Shocking, you may think, until you go into the myriad of museums and see that phallic symbols never go out of fashion. There’s an odd drawing, a Rorschach Test asking if you see boobs, balls, or a squirly stick figure. Underneath reads, 

Fuck

Sex

Is this advice or a list? 

I move on, hoping young teenagers get the message, “Fuck Sex, fuck it.” Sage advice. And then as if they’re listening Bathini, Bona, Batchi, and Bek… (the last name is smudged) caution me, 

“Book Before Boys Because Boys Bring Baby.” This is written in chalk, and as if in a secret teenage pact, the girls have written their names below. It’s official. A clubhouse rule.  

I’m proud of these girls, I wonder where they are now. In the library I hope. 

I vandalise their space by spraypainting my name, Dr Jackal, onto their walls. Adults were here. 

I now have a memory of this place. Memories of this place. People have left their marks, told their stories, shared their secrets, made promises. It’s easy to dismiss graffiti and to bemoan trash. I hate litter, I try to do my bit, but sometimes you just have to see it as a part of a story. The things they left behind. I’d rather it was in the bin, but sometimes a reframe protects the mind from futility. 

Jono finishes his piece. And we leave. But we’ve left our mark. We will linger here at this place that represents the past, a place that’s never coming back, a ghost of the way things used to be. The old South Africa. 

As we get into the car, I think of one of my favourite poems by Ezra Pound,

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

“Shall we walk along the track now?” Jono asks. 

This is what we did as Hilton’s teenagers, but we are not teenagers anymore. 

We have permission, the space is no longer hidden.