'Son of a Preacher Man' with Gavin Evans

On this episode of Nongcebo McKenzie: The Podcast, the guest is writer and journalist Gavin Evans, author of Son of a Preacher Man. In our conversation, Gavin shares the journey behind the book, the personal stories that inspired it, and the insights he’s gathered along the way. Join me as we explore themes of family, identity, and how those early experiences continue influenced the person he’s become. 

Son of a Preacher Man is a story about a loving but fraught relationship between a father and son in apartheid South Africa.

The father was Bruce Evans, a Jewish-born, evangelical Anglican clergyman who became Bishop of Port Elizabeth. His children grew up in the 1960s and ’70s in a world awash with chapter-and-verse ‘born-again’ Christianity that included ‘talking-in-tongues’, ‘divine healings’ and exorcism.

Gavin, his middle son, who narrates the tale, eventually broke with the religious beliefs he’d inherited and threw himself into the ‘struggle’ for democracy while keeping his father at arms’ length. But they reconciled shortly before Bruce’s death from motor neuron disease in 1993.

The book delves into the psyches of both men and examines how it played out in the 33 years they had together. SOURCE: LOOT.CO.ZA

The Podcast:
Camera: Mluleki Dlamini & Siyabonga Meyiwa
Sound: Sibusiso 'Dust' Nkosi
Editing: Mluleki Dlamini & Kwenza Trevor Masinga
Co-ordinator: Phumelele Khambule
Host: Nongcebo Vukile McKenzie

Contact: info@nvmckenzie.co.za
View episodes on YouTube : Link ➡️ https://youtube.com/@nvmckenzie?si=y8ZcaOQ0yYqjGhA8

Disclaimer:
Some content may include sensitive topics and discussions, listener discretion is advised. The intention is not to offend but to provide information. Proceed only if you are comfortable with potentially sensitive topics. The content on this podcast does not constitute financial, legal, medical, or any other professional advice. Users should consult with the relevant professionals for specific advice related to their situation.

The Podcast is not responsible and cannot be held liable for any damages resulting from reliance on the content provided through the channel's content. All content is provided without warranty.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:20

Our guest on this episode of the podcast is Gavin Evans. He is the author of the book, Son of a Preacher Man. In this extraordinary memoir, he tries to piece together the world of his father, Bishop Bruce Evans, the disintegration of their relationship, and the journey to love and healing just before the bishop's death. My name is Nangaebo Vugile McKenzie. Ngiawamgele. Welcome to the podcast. My guest on this episode of the podcast is Gavin Evans. Gavin is the author of the book, Son of a Preacher Man, one of 11 books. Am I correct, Gavin? You've written 10 books and this is your 11th

SPEAKER_02: 1:09

book.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

I'm always amazed. I wouldn't know where to start if I were to write a book and you've written on different topics. I wouldn't know where to start and I always ask myself, how do you know when you've finished? How do you get to a point where I've expressed every thought and every feeling about this topic and I am now done?

SPEAKER_01: 1:31

With a book like this, you never really finish until the book is published because... I mean, just the process of writing is one where, if you think you've done, then you, just from experience, you know you've got a long, long way to go, because this belongs there, and that belongs here, and you haven't said this, and this hasn't, this doesn't feel real. And, you know, I mean, so there's a lot of to and from, And you have people like your best readers.

SPEAKER_02: 2:11

So

SPEAKER_01: 2:13

I sent bits of that to members of my family because I needed to do that. But also to my wife, Margie Allford. I sent her bits of, what do you think of this? And she would make suggestions and they'd make suggestions. And then, of course, one has an editor. I don't really know the answer to that except that when you get the draft copy of your book and then you think, oh, my God, I should have said this, that, and the next thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:50

I found a piece from your book quite interesting in the context of one, your upbringing, but also the title of your book, Son of a Preacher Man. That's page 207. Wow. All of this was part of the realm of the supernatural that I had once accepted without question. It proved harder to cast off than the idea that the Bible was the word of God or that God created the heavens and the earth or that we went to heaven or hell after dying. Quite simply, I had grown up believing in miracles, believing in magic really, and this was hard to drop. But when I thought about this, about miracles, divine healing, premonitions, about death and illness and the like I came to realize that there were always more rational explanations than those involving the supernatural or special powers and I found that intriguing because a lot of people who have grown up in whatever faith I mean obviously your father was an Anglican bishop but a lot of people who grew up under whichever denomination they tend to carry threads of of that through their life, especially yourself. I mean, you were involved with youth groups, scripture union and all of that. And I always find it interesting that, you know, and I read this somewhere once where a person was talking about, well, they'd written about the importance of introducing some level of faith-based teaching belief system in your children and they said give your children something to believe in so that when they face the hardships of the world they've got something to come back to and lean on and so you'll find people really carrying threads of that through into their lives and they'll come back to that in hardship and joy in precious moments but I was curious about that.

SPEAKER_01: 5:02

Yeah, and it took quite a while. I mean, I separated myself, I suppose, when we were putting it from Christianity, when I was 17. I mean, I describe it in the book. I was on an airplane on the way to Texas to be an exchange student, and I sort of broke. I'd broken with my father in a way at that point, and then I broke with my idea of God. But I, for a long time, I was really an agnostic. What I would say to myself and to people who were close to me was that I really don't know. And so I don't have a positive belief in God, but I don't have a disbelief in God either. But gradually as I went on, and the more I read and I immersed myself really from the 2000s onwards in science, and initially mainly biology, but I also started thinking of the cosmos and so on. And the idea that there was a god or gods or a realm that was different from the physical, emotional realm, spiritual in the emotional sense rather than in the physical, more and more ridiculous to me. So eventually I got to the point where I thought, well, I'm actually really not an agnostic. I positively don't believe in God or gods or spirits or anything else. I just believe that we are animals. And when we die, we die, and that's the end of us. very strong sense of that when my father died and I saw his body. I mean, for a lot of people, they hope that they'll be able to see their loved one again. But when I saw his body, I realized that there's nothing else there. That's it. It's over. And so part of that was coming to terms with the idea that there is no... and that's the end of us. And I started to think of it as a kind of general anesthetic, which I've had four operations under general anesthetic, and you know nothing of what happened there. And then I started thinking of, well, before I was born, I didn't exist. Why should I exist afterwards? And I've got my peace with that. It doesn't worry me anymore. It took me a long time to get to that point. And part of it was what you said, was that background that I had and that kind of core belief that I had from year dot, from when I was born almost, was inculcated into me. And so it took a long time to be able to kind of shape that off.

SPEAKER_00: 8:32

Put it so succinctly, you separated from Christianity because, you know, when you say that, the imagery that comes to mind is that you were joined to the faith in practice. In your entire upbringing, you were the son of a preacher man. You are the son of a preacher man.

SPEAKER_01: 8:54

Yeah, that's very true. The... In the kind of Christianity I was brought up, which was evangelical Christianity, you're still required to have that moment of personal faith, that moment of being born again, as they put it, of asking Jesus to be your personal saviour. And that happened when I was eight years old. So, yes, I was raised in it, but I did have that moment where I believed that I was now...

SPEAKER_00: 9:27

So when you say you separated from it, it's like, as I say, the imagery is sort of like Velcro. When you separate Velcro, that's what comes to mind. That's a very

SPEAKER_01: 9:37

good analogy.

SPEAKER_00: 9:38

Yeah, because as I say, it's different from somebody who has some big moment of realization. Of course, as you explained, you did go through that, but it's different for somebody who's maybe been on the wayward path. whatever reason and then at 25 or 30 or at 40 they then say oh you know what I've discovered God you know I interpret it differently and I'm curious though as to the relation between that and your relationship with your father

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

So the two work in a way bound up together. I describe in different scenarios, different kind of anecdotes about my relationship with my father, which was a very loving relationship, but was fraught. And certainly when a teenager, those kinds of conflicts often come to the fore. And there was a moment which I described in the book when I was 14, where he kind of beat me up. And that sort of created a fissure between us. But to break from, I needed some separation physically. And so in an airplane on the way to Texas where I made that decision to break from God. And once I'd made that decision, then all sorts of questions that had been lurking under the surface started popping up.

SPEAKER_00: 11:16

So the moment at 14, and it wasn't the only incident, the moment when your father beat you up. You know, there are people who grow up in homes where corporal punishment is the norm and for them it's not something that would ever create a rift between them and their parents and there are people who grow up in such environments and like you make the decision to never lay a hand on their children there are people who grow up in homes where there's discipline and it's strict not over the top strict but it's strict to their rules and they decide on a different way of parenting you know we all experience our parents differently and we all interpret how they choose Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 12:15

Okay, and I think you've put it very well there because, for example, I mean, I was regularly beaten at school, particularly when I was at junior school.

UNKNOWN: 12:24

I was running my junior school and they beat us relentlessly and ruthlessly.

SPEAKER_01: 12:30

So I was not unaccustomed to beating. been beaten but it was from my father and my father had been the loving one the warm one in the family for all sorts of reasons my mother was more was more distant and I had a more distant relationship with her I really my relationship with her actually really only developed after my father died but um with my father there was so there was this kind of trust um And he had never hit us. My mother used to slap us and shake us fairly often. But my father had never done that. So there was a sense that my father was the loving, warm one. And that was broken. And, you know, to me at 14, it was a kind of a breaking of trust. because He had done something that to me was wrong, and he had done it to me, and I didn't understand it. I didn't know what I'd done wrong, but I didn't think that that could ever be justified. So it was a profound experience for me, which when for other people, it might not have been an experience that was significant at all.

SPEAKER_00: 13:56

I think I understand. I mean, you described the shaking, and I think the incident where your father punched you in the book. Obviously in the book, you know, things are written in a linear fashion, but we obviously don't live life in a linear fashion. So there was sort of like a parallel drawn between how your mother used to shake. And I think on the occasion that you made an example of was when she shook Michael, your older brother. And then we continue in the book to the part where your father, as you described it, punched you for whatever transgression had transpired at the time and so I think I understand what you're saying that when your source of comfort when your source of love I mean you describe from birth from infancy the difficulty in attaching with your mother because of your you know your sphincter and not being able to feed and not being able to spend sort of that time with your mother and you know the endless crying and all of that so it made sense how you describe it because there was a question for me where I was like I wonder why it was so significant and so significant that it would sort of drive this wedge for you that took such a long time to repair but also you do a lot of justice to him in the book by making reference to a lot of the times where he did express that he loves you, where he did show up. I mean, he came to Texas and he slept on that little sofa. It's all those little things where I was like, oh, okay, I wonder why this moment was so significant that it overshadowed all his other attempts.

SPEAKER_01: 15:44

Yeah, the two coexisted. And you're right. I mean, he always had our backs. And I mean, particularly in our kind of anti-apartheid activities, he was always kind of, he was always there for us. I mean, the one incident I give, which I didn't discover the full, fully what he had done, all he had done was... when the, I was, the security police, when I was staying in Port Elizabeth, the security police came to house, they realised that I hadn't gone to the army. Yes. I'd just been, you know, because the white boys had conscription and I'd just been, I'd had jaundice at the time because we had to fill in the forms so I didn't do that. So I'd managed to kind of sneak out of it. And then the security police came and they said, look, unless you cooperate with us we're going to make sure that the military police come and get you at work and I said get out of my house and then the military police came to my work and my father kind of sprung into action and he wrote to the minister and he wrote to this one and that one and managed to get me to registered for a course I could get I could get out of the army by just carrying on studying accumulated all these all these degrees as a result of as a result of that but it was his I mean he he And I mean, he wrote to the army and he said, we never had guns in our house. And we never even let the children play with guns, which wasn't true at all. We used to play with guns. I used to shoot everybody and tear guns and all sorts of things. But anyway, he went all the way to do his utmost. And I mean, that wasn't just a one-off thing. That's just one example. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:54

Interesting that in the book you refer to your parents by name, Joan and Bruce.

SPEAKER_01: 18:01

I mean, nowadays, my mother's very old and she has dementia, but I still call her Joan because I think as adults, once one gets to know them, I wanted to get to know them not just as my parents, but as adults that I could relate to like I would any other adult, except it's an exceptional relationship because they're my parents. And so I would call them Joan and Bruce, and they liked that. It was a sense of intimacy in a way, being able to call them by their first name rather than this kind of honorific title.

SPEAKER_00: 18:44

It's quite interesting and this is the beauty of engaging in conversation with people and getting their perspectives because it's easy to interpret that as disrespect it's easy to interpret that as disregard it's easy to interpret that as a continuation of your desire to disassociate from them whereas for you it's actually getting to know your parents as people and it's That's right. life into your parenting journey into your other relationships into your friendships into your perception of the world and then at some point you meet them as who they are right now but you've formed an opinion and shaped your life based on your experience of who they were when you were growing up so you are meeting them through a version of their lens but you can't go back to that you can't because if you and this is just you know the easiest example if you are still experiencing and feeling some resentment based on an incident when your father was 14 and again 17 and you know those are the incidents that I'm focusing on because those were deeply articulated in the book by the time you meet your father as Bruce those have happened and you've rationalized them you've felt angry about them you've either forgiven or not forgiven you've got some residual feeling about that but you can't go back into who Bruce was when you were 14 and how he was experiencing being the father of a 14 year old and you know the whole perception of how a bishop would conduct himself of how a white man would conduct himself in apartheid South Africa of how a Jewish Anglican bishop would conduct himself and you then meet him with all of that caught up in the ecosystem of your relationship but you're beyond that now that's amazing

SPEAKER_01: 21:13

to me in a way it relationship with my father was much more fraught than with my mother because it had been in a more overtly loving relationship and so there was more emotion involved in it but I mean the one incident in the book that I do describe was not long after my first daughter was born and we went to stay with them on a holiday for a few days and we we kind of got talking, and I can't remember how it came up, but there was an incident when I was 17 where we kind of went nose to nose, and he had walked away, and I said, it was a good thing that you walked away, because I said I was... I would have fought back. And when he said, well, you know, you wouldn't have had a chance. And then he realized what he had said. And I said, I reminded him of what happened when I was 14. And he remembered it, of course. And my mother remembered it when they were there.

UNKNOWN: 22:19

And I said, you know, you did that.

SPEAKER_01: 22:21

And I said, come on, and you just stood by. And she said, well, basically, you know, we grew up with this idea that you must always stand by your man. And he thought about it. And then the next day we had to go, so we were going back, we were due to go back, but he wrote to me and he said he'd spent the whole night up and he realized what he had done and he apologized.

UNKNOWN: 22:50

And I wrote back to say that I fully accepted his apology and that I loved him.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

And that meant that our relationship started to, you know, that little fissure in the relationship because there was so much that was good in it already but that little that thing could close in a way and it wasn't very long after that that he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease and within a year after that after the diagnosis he died so I mean I wish we had done that earlier but at least it was that, the reconciliation over that. With my mother, it was less much less fraud. It was just that after my father died, she came into her own, like so many wives from that era. It happened, I don't think she's the only one. And she discovered... her own abilities. I mean, when she was young, she was into woodwork and she was a sports person and she went to teach in Soweto in the early 1950s, which nobody had, you know, and she did all sorts of things. But for a long time, she was just the minister's wife and later the bishop's wife. And I think that there must have been a lot of subliminal frustration in her and it just came off when my father died. She started, she got hugely into gardening competitions. She went to Kailitsha and started helping an AIDS orphanage and then also teaching the nursery school teachers because she'd been a nursery school teacher. So she would go out there for at least a day, a full day every week. She wrote a self-published memoir. She made speeches. She told jokes. She and I engaged. We'd sometimes argue, but we'd get on. It was a real relationship that developed. I accepted she was who she was and who she'd been, and I had some understanding of why she'd been that way, but It was like creating a new relationship, really, with this person. And that was a really good thing. I mean, it was something that I think both of us relished.

SPEAKER_00: 25:37

I love how when she gave you the gift of one of the three stools and then she took it back and then she said, no, Gavin won't mind. He and I get each other like that. And I thought that

SPEAKER_01: 25:50

was so sweet.

UNKNOWN: 25:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:52

It was very funny and very sweet. I mean, she was really in the early stages of dementia then, but not... And she said, I want to give you a gift, you know, because you live in London and I can never give you anything. So she said, I've got these three lovely rimpy stools. And she said, I want you to have one of them. Now, I mean, actually flying with a rimpy stool is not the easiest thing, but of course it was a gift. So I said, that's wonderful. Thank you. And then I think the next night we all went out for dinner and she said, no, she wants it back. So my niece said, you can't, Joan, you can't, she said, you can't take a gift back. She said, and as you say, she said, no, no, no, it's missing, that one's missing its friends, and they're missing it. So she said, no, no, Gavin will understand. He and I get each other. He'll understand. I said, yes, I do understand. That's fine, and I laughed. I didn't mind at all.

SPEAKER_00: 26:55

I think for me, What really landed is sometimes we perceive some relationships to be easier. As you say, the relationship with your mother, and I'm saying easier in parenthesis, was easier because there wasn't as much of the emotional intertwinement. Whereas with your father, I wish more people would hear that. Let me put it that way. Because sometimes we think a relationship is difficult because we do not understand each other, especially in a parenting relationship. I can't imagine what it must be like raising three children, two of them boys, in that era. You know, I can't even begin to imagine. And we face completely different circumstances now in our country, throughout the world. I mean, we're facing different challenges and our children are exposed to different things. And we... Thank you so much. that's always there and I suppose we never really know the moment when we break our children's trust I suppose we never really know the moment as this is what is important for their heart to feel nurtured of course we know as parents what you know my child loves hugs my child loves banana pudding like your mom knew you love banana pudding and you love cottage power of course we know and of course we know what hurts them of course we know those things but they're also coming into their own and they're also learning what's important to them in the world as you're saying for you being physically struck was something that was fundamentally wrong and That is what for you was that break in the trust between you and your father. And I think that's what landed. Because in parenting relationships, and I suppose this would go for other relationships, there are these micro tiers that we create in relationship. Simply because we maybe do not understand the depth of the connection and how that micro tear actually then becomes a full-blown wound. And sometimes the relationship that we perceive as easier is easier because there isn't that much emotion there. And it's easier not because you get along more, not because the other person is easier. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. dense part of your heart and I think that for me really landed from this discussion that we're having now and really understanding because that was a question for me I was like why why why why why did this change the dynamic of your relationship so much and I love how you then reflect on your own relationship with your daughters and this is beautiful I felt bound to my children far more than I was to their mother or to my career. I wove my work and life around the needs and wants of my daughters, writing, broadcasting and editing on a freelance basis while my wife worked as a sub-editor at The Guardian. What it meant was that my self-definition was less as writer, academic, lecturer, husband and more as a father, parent, carer. My career's But I felt I was doing the right thing. I'm sure there are many men who would identify with that, but haven't had the opportunity to try and explore that as much as you have. But I'm also sure that there are men who would be scared to even admit that, that I didn't. I love you, you're my wife, you're great, you're wonderful, but it's the kids, man. It's the kids, you know. Yeah, I found it such a tender thing to reveal about yourself.

SPEAKER_01: 31:21

Yeah, I mean, it was. And in a way, I wanted to... I mean, part of it, I guess, like in retrospect, was... I'd been deeply involved in Christianity and not broken as that. I had been deeply involved in the struggle and in Marxism and in the ANC and the Communist Party and all these things. And I'd become cynical about it. I'd lost that faith as well. And so it came at a time when Tessa, my first child, was born in 1990, where... I could devote myself to this and this is what I wanted to be. I didn't, I had all these big job offers and I didn't want any of them. I wanted, this is what I wanted to do. And I saw it as a kind of my mission in life. I mean, it sounds quite odd. I mean, now I've got a grandchild and my relationship with him is very easy and, you know, and lovely. And by the way, he also calls me Gavin. I said, no, I can't. My daughter said, do you want them to call you Grandad or Grandpa or Opa? I said, no. I mean, everybody calls me Gavin, so he can call me Gavin as well. I much prefer that. So, yeah, I'm sorry. It's a long answer to your question.

UNKNOWN: 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:00

It's the light and shade of the experience. So the long answers are very welcome. But what I found interesting about what you've just said, everybody calls me Gavin, so he can call me Gavin. Whereas at some point you were Hoppy, at some point you were Johnny. So coming into Gavin was quite a journey in itself. And look now, your grandchild calls you by first name, which a lot of people would be like, but again, for you, it's that intimacy.

SPEAKER_01: 33:31

Yes. I mean, he could call me anything he wanted, and because I was, when I was little, I kept on trying to change my name, I've had a great sympathy for anybody else who wants to change their name, and so many people do nowadays, and I never like, I look at that in a way of, okay, that's great, that's what they want to be, because that's how I was, but yeah. I mean, it's obviously a very, a different relationship with your children and a grandchild but the relationship with a grandchild is also a lovely one or can be

SPEAKER_00: 34:14

I find it interesting what you've just said about how you immersed yourself in your role as a father and why that was so significant to you but contrasting that against the backdrop of your disenchantment with your other experiences with the other aspects of your life And you were obviously involved in the political struggle and you left that life because of some observations that you made that were against what you believe in and what you stand for. But I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like, firstly, living in apartheid South Africa. I cannot imagine what it must be like sitting at the same table as people people that we read about in history books now that have got monuments built in their name there are statues of them all over the world all over the country streets are named after them and these are people that you sat with but i also can't imagine living in a world where you have to watch every single word because how many times did you discover that somebody in your immediate surroundings, in your immediate, you know, one, two, three degrees of separation was a spa?

SPEAKER_01: 35:41

Oh, that, yeah. I mean, in organizations that you're involved with, you just knew that there were going to be spies. And, I mean, sometimes you found them through, they made mistakes, and then you had to work on how to deal with it. But you would also, I mean, the other thing on that is that, yeah, people you knew well, and then you would find them making a kind of unconsciously... racist remark, which they weren't even aware of what they were doing. And I mean, of course, that happens everywhere. But in South Africa at that stage, it was just more overt. And I mean, I guess in many ways, and this was the result of my father, and I do bring this into the book, Michael and Kari and I had a different upbringing because mean he was always against apartheid and um uh but also within the church. We regularly had black clergy staying in our house, which wasn't kind of a done thing at that stage. And then later as a bishop, we had lots of kind of political people coming to stay with us. So I was exposed to things that I guess many white South Africans, most white South Africans at that stage were not exposed to. And partly as a result of that, I became much more sensitive to kind of... I found any expression of racism, even subliminally, quite abhorrent. I mean, my other books I've written, a lot of them have been on the subject of race and racism and so on. But I think my father there, his influence was huge.

SPEAKER_00: 37:48

So reflecting... and reflecting on your experience and reflecting on, I wouldn't say... wouldn't say how far we've come but I would say if we contrast the two worlds because you had the benefit of experiencing the world in a less whitewashed way if I can put it that way because obviously there were messages that were out in the media there were you know what people now refer to as the good old days was heavily sanitized and it was heavily restricted and it was heavily regulated and it was heavily planned to be a certain way and to look and feel a certain way and you obviously had the experience as you say from your immediate environment in your home, through your father, the exposure to that world, but then also how you, without hesitation, when you were asked, would you like to join the ANC? And you said, oh, yeah, sure, by all means. And you then obviously had that experience. And I sometimes get the sense that your generation and people that were involved had a cause for South Africa had a reason whether they were on the other side because some people wanted to keep it that way but they had a cause Was their cause right or wrong? I mean, history has told that story many times. But they had a cause. This was their South Africa that they wanted to keep a certain way. And on the other hand, people like yourself, your father, the people that you were involved in the struggle, you also had a cause for a different South Africa. And I often ask myself, you know, the things that we look at now and we say, you know, and we lament certain things. And I often wonder, is it because we... maybe don't have a cause?

SPEAKER_01: 39:57

I think that, I mean, we grew up in a way for the, it was something, apartheid was something absolutely terrible. And so if one had a conscience of any, one had to, one thought one just had to be involved in ending it. And one only needed to have a glimpse of of how awful it was for the majority of people and to feel like you had a duty to get involved. I mean, I think it's why, I mean, I know a lot of people in South Africa who instinctively recognize what is happening in Israel and Gaza as an apartheid situation. And they recognize apartheid when they see it. And many of those many of them, they're my friends, are Jewish people, but they recognize that what is happening in Israel and in its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as something akin to apartheid and they feel motivated to oppose it because they recognize it's part of that collective memory and they recognize that when they see it. So So, I mean, I think for many people, what is happening there has become a kind of cause that they feel they, again, must be obliged to, in one way or another, say something about, at least. And I mean, for many other people, it's what's happening to the climate that they're throwing themselves into. But it's much more difficult because... climate, the weather and what is producing that is a much more less definable enemy than the apartheid regime.

SPEAKER_00: 42:07

When you look now at this is weird with life because we we fight battles that maybe we didn't need to fight but in the moment we feel we need to fight them and sometimes in retrospect we look back and be like really I shouldn't have spent my time and energy had I known what I know now I would not have done xyz and when you look back and you say this in the book also that you know you needed to go back and verify the accuracy of some memories and I found that very interesting because we tend to hold on to our memories. We tend to believe that our version of an incident is is the version that exists we might welcome another opinion but we might not want to verify because even if they saw it that way even if they recalled it that way that's fine they can view it that way and recall it that way but this is how I recall it and I find and I found it quite interesting that you went back to your brother and sister just to just sort of do a fact check and a reference check on your memories and how you'd articulated some things when you look back now at your life, at your journey, your parenting journey, your journey with your parents, your political journey, your academic journey, all of it. Is there anything that you would have done differently?

SPEAKER_01: 43:34

Oh, gosh, yeah. I mean, there's a huge amount I would have done differently. I think that I would have still been involved if I had retrospective knowledge, which of course one never does, but I would still think if it was today and I was in the situation there, I would still have got involved in anti-apartheid activities in one way or another because I think that one couldn't not if one had a conscience. But yeah, I mean, the things in my relationship with my parents, the things in my relationship with my children, the things that I've done in relationship with life, which I wish I hadn't done. I mean, it can't be otherwise. And I think that One has to just not spend too much time living in regret, living retrospectively. One has to try and live in the present and to kind of relish that time. the present and to do as much as you can in the present rather than drag this heavy weight of regret behind you. It's a difficult balance I think sometimes to keep.

SPEAKER_00: 45:10

What I found interesting also is how you tend to reach out. That was the perception that I got from the book. And regardless of whatever rejection that you might or might not face, you come across as somebody who will reach out. And I must say I was quite hurt when I read the part about how you... reaching out writing letters and that's another thing that just you know blows your mind when you read books that reflect on times back then if I can use that term the writing of letters and the waiting for the letter to be delivered I mean we whatsapp people we send them an email so it's always yeah because the intimacy in writing a letter You know, you make a mistake, your tip picks it out or you decide, oh, this is not the letter. You don't just press the delete button, you start all over again. And you would reach out in letters and you would reach out to people. And one of the people that you repeatedly reached out to was the young lecturer that you were with in the car. when you were supposed to be traveling to Botswana, but you were not supposed to be traveling to Botswana, but you didn't know that you were no longer supposed to be traveling to Botswana. So you landed up on this trip that obviously did not end well and how you kept trying to reach out to him. And obviously, you know, after some time, there were no longer any responses. Were you ever able to reconnect with him?

SPEAKER_01: 46:49

No, I wasn't. I did try a phone as well, but I completely understand that. When you've been involved in an accident like that and it's affected you so profoundly, you don't want to go back. And what I recognized was in writing those letters and that that was for me, in a way, I mean, it was that if that person didn't need and didn't want to engage in that, of course, that was completely up to him. And after a while, I realized the countess

UNKNOWN: 47:34

I carry on writing letters.

SPEAKER_01: 47:36

It's almost like harassment. I can't do that. So, yeah, I mean, and you, you know, obviously when you, when you, when you asked me about regret, it was one of the things I, I thought about was I wouldn't have gone on that trip. Yeah. And I mean, the other letter writing thing, which it must be strange to digital natives, as they call people who grew up with social media, was with my father. And there were letters, the letter where he wrote to me to say he was sorry and asked for forgiveness. The letter I wrote back saying I accepted his apology. And then just before he died, I wrote to him again and I expressed my love for him again.

UNKNOWN: 48:29

But very sadly, that letter arrived two days after he died. Because, of course, international letters take a week to, or then took about a week to arrive.

SPEAKER_01: 48:41

Nowadays, they take months if they do arrive. But, yeah, so the letters, it is a very different kind of way of communication, obviously, than sending a WhatsApp message. Mm-hmm. You would think about what you wrote. You would maybe rewrite it. It was a process that took time. I'm not saying it was better or worse. It was just different.

SPEAKER_00: 49:17

Speaking of the letter that came two days too late, the delivery, it's amazing how... Some things, they seem to happen by chance, but their timing is almost otherworldly because the delivery of the CDs that your father had asked for came with the postman when you were planning his funeral. And I thought to myself, oh my goodness me, the pain of that, but also the timing for me, it seemed almost poetic.

UNKNOWN: 50:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 50:10

if I can say that because there was this gift that he had specifically asked you for and that you had sent and then you'd gotten the phone call and you had booked and just after booking you then get the phone call that he is no more and all he had wanted was to see his son Gavin and he had wanted these CDs and there is Gavin and they are the CDs but your father is no more but it all still arrived before he was put in the ground before you know the funeral sorry he wasn't buried he was cremated before all of before the ceremony of his transition had been performed if I could put it that way and I just found it Isn't it amazing that things land up where they're supposed to land up in the manner that they're supposed to land up?

SPEAKER_01: 51:04

Yes, it is. Although I always wished that it had arrived sooner. a few days earlier so that he could at least see it and not the CDs that perhaps was less of a thing but the letter when I told him I loved him but you know death you can never predict you can never say okay there's time to do this better next thing because death doesn't take a part of your best laid plans and in this case it certainly didn't.

SPEAKER_00: 51:48

Gavin, as we end our conversation I think the book is entitled Son of a Preacher Man and it's about your journey and your experience all tied together in that context of yourself being the son of a preacher man and you obviously touch on your experiences with your siblings and with your mother and all the different aspects of your life in the context of all of that People walk around carrying those things and another person would say, oh, because I'm the son or the daughter of a man of the cloth or a woman of the cloth, there is so much that I can and cannot do. There is so much that I feel obliged to do. There is so much that I have... not been able to sort of come into because I need to conform. And there is so much that I would want to explore about my life and, you know, do and really come into my own. But I wear the hat of the son or daughter of a man or woman of the cloth. And in reading the book, you lived life Gavin's way, right? You completely lived life Gavin's way. And a lot of people... Don't get the chance to do that. How did you do that?

SPEAKER_01: 54:06

I guess in a way, once I'd broken with Christianity, I did kind of feel like I was, you know, applying my own furrow kind of thing. So that every decision I made from now on was mine. I mean, and I didn't, you know, it was like, that I was entirely self-reliant, which is kind of, I mean, from nowadays, we've seen quite young. I mean, I got no money from my parents, so I had jobs at university, so I could pay for my fees and pay for my living expenses. So I didn't feel tied to that. Now, I mean, maybe that's just the relation, the kind of family that I had. And I know, obviously, there are many other different kinds of families where people would feel that intense... that intense obligation but it just didn't it didn't weigh on me but I think that in a different way I have more respect for the church than many other atheists do. I have more respect actually for faith, for religious belief. I'm not evangelical at all in my atheism. I'm very happy when people, if people believe. And I guess in a way that's the carrying over of what I saw in the church, in my family. there were a lot of positive things that this gave them and so in a way it's like I mean I've gone in the opposite direction from them but the residues of that have stayed with me.

SPEAKER_00: 55:56

Gavin, thank you so much for your time and thank you for the book and I say that because as I said earlier and I've probably said this two or three times already in our discussion the points around your experience of your father and the experience of that bond that trust that fracture that rebuilding that understanding of your mother that understanding of how your mother's relationship came to be the way that it was and the rebuilding of that is a conversation that a lot of people do not have and it's something that people would generally write about in the context of a parenting book or sharing their experience but you've woven it so nicely into the experience of your life overall and I think although the book touches on many many points of obviously that, you know, there are different takeaways. I think for me in reading the book, that was so profound. And I deeply appreciate that articulation from your part and how eye-opening it is. So thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01: 57:07

Oh, thank you very much, Longtable. I really appreciate it. It was lovely speaking with you.

SPEAKER_00: 57:12

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the podcast. Remember, you can like the episode and share the podcast link as well as listen to more episodes on the channel. Subscribe to the channel for more. Thank you for listening.