Richard Dowden talks to Norman Mlungisi Mhkize, a black South African from Durban,
who ended up rebuilding the pianos ofleading pianists and orchestras in London.
| 1 | 1 | Norman is rather sniffy about the f9,000 grand piano in his shop window. It's only | |
| 2 | six years old and Norman does not really approve of pianos made in the past 40 years. | ||
| 3 | Norman's shop is in Islington, North London, and he is one of Britain's leading piano | ||
| 4 | restorers. He is also a Zulu who grew up in poverty on the outskirts of Durban in South | ||
| 5 | Africa. | ||
| 2 | 6 | It is not easy to find out how Norman, a black boy in apartheid South Africa, has | |
| 7 | be come what he is today. 'I think Mr Dowden here needs a fact or two,' said his English | ||
| 8 | wife, Catherine. She spoke in the tone of one who, many times, has seen Norman display | ||
| 9 | his brilliant repertoire of characters and places, successes and failures, incidents of love and | ||
| 10 | luck . She knows the magie of it and loves it and its creator. But she sensed my frustration | ||
| 11 | when Norman began every reply a long way from the question, bounded off through | ||
| 12 | several anecdotes, doubled back through a couple of hilarious memories (giving on the | ||
| 13 | way his fierce opinions on good manners and the future of Sou th Africa), and seldom | ||
| 14 | ended up anywhere near the answer. | ||
| 3 | 15 | So I do not know how old he is (neither does he), nor when he came to Britain, nor | |
| 16 | how he came to own the Islington Piano Galleries. But I do know that he was raised in | ||
| 17 | strict Zulu tradition. 'My aunt brought home a gramophone. I thought there were little | ||
| 18 | people in there so when she went off to work I took it apart. But I was too little to put it | ||
| 19 | together again.When she came home it was in pieces all over the floor. I was beaten - past | ||
| 20 | the point when you know there is pain. Being brought up a Zulu is like being locked up in | ||
| 21 | a cage, it's very strict, very dogmatic.' | ||
| 4 | 22 | Norman was named Mlungisi at birth; in Zulu it means 'the one who fixes things'. He | |
| 23 | began his career by taking the family clocks apart. But he attributes his success to his | ||
| 24 | school and his mother: 'When people ask me how a black from South Africa can set up a | ||
| 25 | piano business in London, I see Loran school and my teachers and then I see my mother | ||
| 26 | sitting like the Queen of England telling me what to do and teaching me respect.' | ||
| 5 | 27 | He worked in a Durban theatre for a man named Cecil Hayter who later paid | |
| 28 | Norman's fare to England. 'He was one of the most important people I have come acrossand | ||
| 29 | he taught me everything about pianos.' | ||
| 6 | 30 | Working in the theatre meant that Norman was often out late at night in the white | |
| 31 | part of town. For that he needed a special pass, but sometimes he forgot it or the police did | ||
| 32 | not believe it was genuine. Time and again he ended up detained at a police station or in | ||
| 33 | prison overnight. He decided there was little future for him in South Africa. | ||
| 7 | 34 | After 23 years what does he say about racism in Britain? He laughs. 'What happens | |
| 35 | is this : I answer the telephone, "Norman here", and someone says, "I've got a piano which | ||
| 36 | needs to be restored", So we discuss it and make an appointment. A couple of days later I | ||
| 37 | knock at their door and someone opens it and says, "What do you want?" And I say, "I've | ||
| 38 | come to talk about the piano".Then there's a gap - you can count one, two, three. Then | ||
| 39 | they say, "Ah ... they've sent you". So I say, "We spoke on the phone.t' Then it comes:"Oh, | ||
| 40 | you must be Norman! '" He collapses in laughter again. | ||
| 8 | 41 | Has he ever lost business because he is black? 'Sornetimes, but I don't care, I don't | |
| 42 | need their business. But on the whole England is full of clubs with signs outside which are | ||
| 43 | not written.You can embarrass yourself badly by walking into a place only to find out you | ||
| 44 | are not welcome. But it's all class really - nothing to do with race.' | ||
| 9 | 45 | Last year Norman went back to South Africa for the first time in 23 years and took | |
| 46 | Catherine and their three children. He says the whites' treatment of blacks has changed | ||
| 47 | immensely. 'In the old days I was hit by a white man just for walking on the pavement. | ||
| 48 | Now my niece tells me she sometimes walks along the pavement and deliberately bumps | ||
| 49 | into a white person just to hear him say 'Tm sorry".' |