Oh, no! A tax on bachelorhood

 Hardly had I 'blogged' about poor defenceless youngsters of 35 and 40 who won't leave home, quite a social problem (for parents) in Britain, when news

arrived of another astonishing societal change.

Like grown-up brats clinging to mothers' aprons, it's astonishing that bachelors, lusty blokes, need the threat of a fine to prompt them to marriage.

Even the keyboard scarcely believes what I type, but the news is that in South Africa, bachelors will be fined if they remain bachelors!

Mature old me had been shocked by the strange social situation of grown-up kids who won't fly-the-coop.

 When I was sixteen, I couldn't wait and didn't. But to learn that fellows in a provincial corner of darkest Africa will be fined 50 rands every full moon, or year, or regularly, to encourage them to get hitched ... Is this still 2018! 

Daren't be ignored

The encouragement for men to do what nature intended comes from the local chief – iNkosi, in the lingo, apparently – and daren't be ignored.

Lucky local gals (perhaps) in that distant corner of northern KwaZulu-Natal.

The forbidden bachelor-status applies to all blokes 18 and over.

I could have done with that excuse to persuade the father of my desired bride, rather a long time ago. By then I was 20 – surely man enough, I protested. However, like an African chief, he overruled all arguments and forced me to wait a very long year.

Leaving home, ungrateful brat that I must have been, happened not long after my 16th birthday. I bunked the afternoon at school, drew the few pounds in my Post Office savings account, and took off.

A ferry ticket

First came a train journey as far north as it would go, and then a ferry ticket to the next island. On the other side, I used the remaining funds for a Fokker Friendship ticket to as far the money would stretch.

In the provincial destination, I claimed to an employment agency that here was an agriculture worker.

The next morning, before dawn, the runaway was getting acquainted with the art of fixing milking machine cups to larger boob bumps than even senior girls of Columba College back in his hometown might flash. These belonged to pleasant critters in a Jersey herd.
Continues on the blogs for my ocean sailing adventure book, Sailing to Purgatory, at SailingToPurgatory.com