TEN YEARS - DISA

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standpoint), what impressed me about his interest in history was the practical,
everyday orientation which allowed him to talk about century old events as
if they had happened yesterday, and happened to him. As a driver for a big
company, he travelled around the country a lot. It helped him, in all matters
associated with the concept of hospitality, to know where his nearest relative
could be found. His search was a branch of 'people's history', a subject that
is no longer short of advocates and programmes. In this field, as in others,
I think Staffrider can aim to play a supportive, universalising role. It can be
one of the places in which information about activities and projects can be
found, and a vehicle for sharing the subject with general readers (who will
sometimes turn out to be pursuing historical enquiries of their own).
The life experiences of organised South African workers have from time
to time held a special place in the pages of the magazine (often under revealingly
trite banners such as 'Staffworker' — the outcome of attempts to integrate
working class material within a predominantly populist milieu). Now
institutional forms such as 'cultural locals' within the organised working class
have laid the foundations of a distinct and unique literature. The challenge
to Staffrider, I would think, is to discover (in collaboration with the cultural
activists of the working class) the format which would enable the magazine
to play its part in integrating this development within the new national culture
as a whole. This raises some intriguing questions, not least because 'working
class literature' is already distinctly 'national' in terms of the immensely creative
way in which it has 'remade' traditional forms such as the praise poem.
Instead of addressing these questions, I am going to circle them by means of
an anecdote which will allow me to bring this exercise in selective memory
to a close.
I once helped out on a worker newspaper, and one of my assignments was
to interview some people who had participated in a strike. It soon became clear
that one person in the group, an old man, would do most of the talking. I had
prepared a list of questions designed to lay bare the dynamic of this affair and
relate it to the typology of such conflicts, of which I was then an eager if somewhat
inexperienced student. To the first of these questions the old man embarked
on a long reply which began by outlining the circumstances under which
he had been hired by the firm. I listened, not very well. The tape recorder
whispered quietly on the table between us. Whenever he paused I inserted
another question, trying to find one which seemed likely to switch him on to
the right track. After this had gone on for a bit he stopped and looked at me
in a way which made it difficult to think of any questions at all. Then he started
again. It struck me that the sentences he used, and certain favoured expres-