Ball-Buster Banks and the Journey from Steven Dlamini to Sheepcote

20. Fresh off the boat, there’s no such thing as credit. No bank will lend you a tissue, let alone the capital required to acquire a set of wheels. Even a crap bank for a skadonk set of wheels. We tried. We even tried asking the bank here to contact our bank in South Africa to verify our good standing and do a recce on our credit rating. But British banks are as unbending as their post office buddies. As staunch in protecting their pounds as the Royal Mail are their parcels. It doesn’t help to cry either. The British are as unmoved by tears as we are by repeated emails from Mohammed in Pakistan who’s declared us the heir to a hidden fortune for the small administration fee of $50. You’ve got to do your time on the Island – 6 months minimum – before you’re allowed to join the rest of the proletariats juggling one plastic with another. So purchasing a car when you've just arrived in the UK either means smuggling a wad of cash in your check-in luggage. Alternatively if you’re not a civil servant from the Tswane Municipality with access to the Rates budget, your only other option is to transfer funds electronically from South Africa. Unfortunately thanks to the drug trade sending our rainbow Madiba money through the proverbial wash so it’s nice and laundered, it really isn’t as simple as logging on to good old Netbank and clicking ‘transfer’. In fact, it’s akin to trying to get a visa to pretty much anywhere when you hold a South African passport. Collect shite. Do not pass go. Go to hell. It all but takes an anal probe for the privilege of converting a healthy set of zeros in South African Rands and watching it dwindle to a puny pile of Great British Pound Sterling. So a word to the wise…if you’re moving to the UK with kids, unless you’re planning on going council or gypsy (and this is more common than you think) you will need a car. You will need cash for the car. Plan ahead. Don’t be douchebags like us with the typical Durban-leave-it-to-the-last-minute mentality. You’ll be sorry and stranded. Mostly stranded.

21. While I was waiting for my urine sample to be analysed so we could buy our car. Ok, so not really a urine sample. But close. I did a lot of walking. My daughter and I and our Galaxy Lite, we hit the pavements hard. From my son’s school to the parks, the off-licence and the charity shops. We walked everywhere. Walking gave me the opportunity to take in our new surrounds and do a bit of voyeur house appraising. You know…. where you look at a house and in your head you add or subtract, update or obliterate, love or loathe, covet or cringe. It’s a girl thing. Another form of outdoor entertainment besides watching the locals, who loiter pissed at 11am outside the off-licence, is to make up stories with the street names. To me, there’s nothing that epitomises the British more than what they decide to name their streets. We’ve got a Maidenhead Road that’s parallel to a Dedworth Road. Sheepcote Road that’s close to a Wolf Lane and further along becomes Little Buntings T-Junction and then Hatch Lane. My little story goes like this. In a land far far away, there was once was a slum called Dedworth. Jozi's Hillbrow equivalent if you like. This area was teeming with desperate young maidens whose virtue fell prey to the charms of the sneaky kingpin wolf.  He was loaded and gave good gifts. He picked up maidens like Zuma does wives. Peer pressure was rife in Dedworth, so like sheep they all followed down the same path of disrepute. Little Buntings were often the inevitable result of such wanton behaviour and they were hatched in secret in a convent in Hatch Lane. The end.

I’ve clearly watched too much bad TV, but it appeals to my base imagination to conjure up such stories. We don’t actually live in the middle of a housing estate or in a carney rig. We live in a good area. So I know that Dedworth isn’t a slum and Maidenhead can’t possibly be as porno as it sounds. So for the benefit of a little local knowledge, I consulted the oracle of Google. Wikipedia reveals that Maidenhead's name refers to the busy riverside area where the "New wharf" or "Maiden Hythe" was built, as early as Saxon times. The name Dedworth is formed from the words 'Dydda', meaning a man's name and 'Worth', a Saxon word for enclosure. Dedworth was one of three Saxon villages (the other two being Clewer and Losfield) that Windsor expanded to encompass. A Sheepcote is an enclosure for sheep and Little Buntings aren’t illegitimate children, they’re a specific kind of bird. In my opinion, my version is way better. Boasts a lot more colour. In South Africa we know colour. Probably better than any country in the world. Look at our flag, our currency, our cabinet. Think of how much fun you could have with our street names: With Problem Mkhize Road or Magwaza Maphalala Street or Masabalala Yengwa Avenue or King Cetshwayo Highway? Kicks Wolf Lane’s ass. Just saying.