I shall always remember that Christmas morning, some years ago now. I was woken by the clattering sound of our dustbin lid just under my bedroom window. It turned out to be a lovely alarm on such a glorious sunny day -- it was indeed gloriously sunny and hot because, being Summer, the sun had already risen to some height by that time -- 5 a.m. I was past sleeping and had to investigate what it was which had so dramatically interrupted my repose.
Fortunately, I was still in the Teaching Profession and mildly audible imprecation would meet with little, if any disapproval from my Grandma in the adjoining room; she would have been woken by the same rude interruption. I gingerly eased my way out of bed and tip-toed to the window where I shamefacedly peeped through the blinds. At first I could not see anything really remiss; then, moving a little aside, I espied it…..My! My!…
It looked like a pair of tiny bare-bottoms just about the edge of the rim of the bin; through bleary, but gradually clearing eyes, I perceived two spindly legs dangling in an effort to retain some sort of indecorous balance. I was hard-pressed not to burst out laughing…but the sight was extremely funny, were it not so sad and tragic. (Thankfully, the puritanical and less sensitive were not around.)
I drew my wife’s attention to what was happening and, while she donned a dressing gown, I sneaked to the kitchen door, shortie pyjamas et al.; the starving little pikkanin (young boy child) was too busy scrounging in the bin to be disturbed by anyone until…..he was jolted into reality by the close proximity of a large presence -- to him, a monster. It is hard to explain what happened when a black waif was caught raiding dustbins at that hour of the morning…any morning, let alone a Christmas morning. He was literally clad in a tattered oversize shirt - that was all. I had quite a job keeping him from running off and wailing for dear life. For that little urchin to be caught there, in such circumstances in those days, would have meant a thrashing…never mind that he could not have been much older than five or six. He was terrified. The little lad could never have known that I had already decided what I was going to do…he could never have guessed; he only knew fear.
Having taken him into the kitchen, filthy as he was, unwashed; his dark terrified face threatening to nauseate, my wife and I experienced, first hand, what it must have been like to be rejected ’at the INN’….let alone by the society in which we lived.
(To be concluded…)
