It’s better to laugh – tales of an Eastern Cape Family is a good humoured collection of anecdotes gathered over a lifetime enjoyed in the area today known as Cacadu.
It’s better to laugh – tales of an Eastern Cape Family is a good humoured collection of anecdotes gathered over a lifetime enjoyed in the area today known as Cacadu.
It is almost certain that author James McNaughton regularly tells tales of his early life at family gatherings. He has probably always amused younger generations with stories about his pranks and the mischievous behaviour of his closest friends, collectively known as the Rat Pack.
It is equally certain that many of the family members present at the gatherings kept telling him “to write it all down”.
Well now he has. The greater part of the book is about McNaughton’s life on a farm in Graaff-Reinet and at St Andrew’s School (now St Andrew’s College) in Grahamstown.
The first few chapters reflect on the lives of his grandfather and his father and how they established themselves in the Eastern Cape.
He often links their exploits and yarns to incidents in his own life. For example, he writes in this typical passage about his first encounter with a maths teacher known as Drac:
“’McNaughton, do you see that doorstop?’ he asked, pointing to a large cast iron weight standing on the floor.
‘Yes Sir’, I answered glancing around. ‘Do you see that it has a chip off the corner?’ This was quite evident.
‘Well, it got chipped when I threw it at your father’s head!’ he shouted.
Anyone who is familiar with the adage it’s better to laugh will enjoy this book and probably laugh out loud even after reading some chapters a second and third time.
The light-hearted flow as one story easily moves to the next will certainly be enjoyed by anyone who has experienced the ups and downs of living in a boarding school, but it will have special meaning for the many young boys who have gone through the St Andrew’s system.
It is a good honest collection of amusing stories that has absolutely no pretension of being anything else.
