London Letter: Who says it’s in the blood and the genes?

Out of my ‘greater’ extended family, five of us work on newspapers. So you would think that there would be some ink in my brats’ DNA.

But you would be wrong.

I discovered this last month when the one brat was in Paris with his girlfriend not far from where terrorists attacked the Charlie Hebdo magazine office, killing most of the staff, as well as a Jewish supermarket.

To make matters worse, on that awful day our phone calls to Paris went unanswered for the simple reason that the brat had forgotten to charge his cellphone.

After several hours of ominous silence, management frantically sent a text to the brat’s girlfriend asking what was happening.

As fate would have it, the brat had also forgotten to buy travel insurance and his last conversation with management was her instructing him to phone an insurance company and put this right ASAP.

Seeing the text from his mother, the brat grabbed the phone and sent one back pretending to be his girlfriend saying, ‘Cameron has just fallen off the Eiffel Tower. But don’t worry, he has travel insurance.’

Neither had any clue that there had been a terrorist attack just a couple of kays away – the main thing that I wanted to ask him about.

If nothing else, that’s a bit of a clue that he would not make a great journalist.

When I eventually got through on his phone, he had at least discovered that Paris was on high alert.

‘I’m okay,’ he said. ‘Just got a bit of shrapnel in my back from shielding Hannah (his girlfriend) and a broken hand from arresting some guy with an AK47.’

I thought that was quite funny, but management did not and told him so in no uncertain manner.

It later transpired that they had been blissfully unaware of the attacks for most of the day, although the brat did say there seemed to be a lot of cops around and ‘some sirens wailing’.

Comparison

Compare that to when I was sent to cover a terror attack on an Eastern Cape golf club in the 1990s.

I arrived that morning, within hours had interviewed survivors – one a young mother – and was about to fly out when I heard there had been another bomb blast at a steakhouse in Queenstown.

I quickly hired a car, sped off to the town about 80km away and as luck would have it, arrived to find the restaurant owner standing outside, covered in soot.

As I was interviewing him, a SABC film crew came running up and stuck a camera behind me, recording the interview for the evening news.

I was working for a Sunday newspaper and knew my interview was ruined, so immediately phoned our sister paper, a daily, and gave them the story as they went to print in 30 minutes.

My news editor was not happy, but to me as a reporter, the byline was paramount. And I wouldn’t get a byline for something that had been all over TV news 48 hours beforehand.

I then missed my flight home, spent almost 10 hours in the East London airport trying to find a Sopworth Camel going my way and dictating copy to the newsroom in a callbox with a howling echo.

I arrived in Durban the next morning after 24 hours without sleep.

That, I said to the brat, is having ink in your veins.

He looked at me as if I was demented.

Even if he had witnessed the Paris attack, to waste time talking to newspapers while holidaying in the world’s most romantic city was barking madness. Who would want to do that?

So yes, even if he ever aspired to be a journalist, he would not cut much mustard.

But who is the crazy one?

Once he’s finished University, he is likely to be earning triple my salary.

He also won’t live a life of caffeine, juggernaut deadlines and fermented hops.

He won’t have slaved all weekend for no overtime just to see his name in newsprint that wraps fish and chips the next day.

Maybe it’s me missing something here.