Thandisizwe joins the team
Thandisizwe, the inaugural winner of the Green & Blue Scholarship, finally joins us in London from South Africa. He will be working with us for the next year, mainly in East Dulwich but occasionally in Clapham too, learning anything and everything about wine.
Thandisizwe, the inaugural winner of the Green & Blue Scholarship, finally joins us in London from South Africa. He will be working with us for the next year, mainly in East Dulwich but occasionally in Clapham too, learning anything and everything about wine. Thandisizwe looking terribly serious in the shop. Mind you, he is a pretty serious young man - but not all the time, thankfully.
It was last September that I first posted something about our Green & Blue Scholarship, a scheme we launched then which was all about bringing a young person over from South Africa to work with us for a year and learn as much about the international wine trade as possible. Jude and I had done interviews with 12 short listed candidates last August and had decided that we wanted to award all 12 a place on the scheme. That was the initial reaction to the incredible enthusiasm and passion that we found but clearly it was not an idea with any future as we simply could not afford it, nor would we have employment for all of them. Not yet anyway – perhaps in a few years.
Difficult as it was then, a decision had to be made and thankfully it was unanimous – Thandisizwe Meyi, a young man originally from the Eastern Cape who had lived in Cape Town and worked at Spier Estate for five years was the front runner and will, we both firmly believe, go on to a glittering career in the wine trade in South Africa. We left greatly excited by the whole thing and the thought that come early 2008, Thandisizwe (or Tyson as he likes to be known – he is a great boxing fan) would be joining us in London.
How naïve we were.
Being Green & Blue and with our 2007 luck, the process immediately ran into problems with the revelation that Tyson was not eligible for a working holiday visa which so many young South Africans travel on as to get one of these, applicants need a to show bank statements with unfeasibly large balances. That would explain why so many previously disadvantaged young South Africans don’t travel then.
It soon became clear that our only option was to apply for a work experience visa – an amazingly convoluted and beaurocratic process. This took huge amounts of time and was a minefield of frustration but we got there in the end. It was finally granted about 3 weeks ago and when I phoned Francois at Spier (the manager of the wine centre where Tyson has been working), to break the news, he told me that Tyson’s case was packed and he was ready to go.
And so he was.
There was quite a frantic flurry of activity with us sorting out a flat for him and Tom to share while he is over here but finally, almost a year after we first met him, he touched down on a cold and rainy Tuesday almost two weeks ago. This means that this posting is hardly amazingly topical and hot off the press but everything seems to be happening at once at the moment, so this pace seems to be the best that I can manage.
It was actually his birthday the day after he arrived, on Wednesday the 9th, so he came up to The Grove (one of the hotels I consult to) for a wine dinner I was speaking at which was really quite a fabulous experience for all of us – Jude was there too. That he has a talent for wine is really obvious and although the task of taking on Europe must be incredibly daunting, he is meeting the challenge with great fortitude. We talked over dinner about all the different career paths he could take in the world of wine although there is absolutely no pressure on him to make any final decisions in the short or even medium term.
We also had a small birthday party for him in East Dulwich on Sunday night where we drank Mas de Daumas Gassac Rose Frizzante, ate really good carrot cake and did some knitting. Well, I did some knitting , everyone else just got slightly drunk. I wouldn’t have minded getting slightly drunk myself (in a terribly responsible way, of course) but it was a Sunday night and I was just too tired to.
We had bought him the following for his birthday :- -
two tickets on the London Eye-
An A – Z-
Time Out’s guide to London-
A barbeque-
A bag of wood chip things for the barbeque
The latter was so that he wouldn’t get homesick although he was given very strict instructions not to wait for a nice sunny day to use it as we would probably be able to return it in a completely pristine condition come November if he did that. He has promised to do a braai for us all one cloudy, nippy summer day soon and we are going to hold him to that. Apparently he makes really good pap which I am very excited about. Explaining pap to someone who is not South African is a complete impossibility. Firstly, the word sounds utterly unappealing in English (it really does sound a lot more appetising in Afrikaans) and, truth be told, it does taste somewhat exactly how it sounds. In Afrikaans, it is pronounced ‘Pup’ although I am pretty sure that isn’t the spelling of it. Of course, saying that you are longing for a bowl of pup leads to even more awkward situations than professing a similar yearning for pap, so I learnt to get over any complications associated with trying to describe my passion for it years ago by not even attempting to explain. When I think about it, the reasons for my love for it are completely unfathomable but there you go. The heart wants what it wants and mine (along with my stomach) frequently wants proper pap.
We have done a tiny bit of filming and hope to have our first ‘Tyson TV’ clip out very soon although Director of Programming (Emily) is experiencing very bad technical difficulties. She does not yet have her new Mac and basically, my PC is complete rubbish at editing but we will perservere, so please keep an eye on the web site.
It was last September that I first posted something about our Green & Blue Scholarship, a scheme we launched then which was all about bringing a young person over from South Africa to work with us for a year and learn as much about the international wine trade as possible. Jude and I had done interviews with 12 short listed candidates last August and had decided that we wanted to award all 12 a place on the scheme. That was the initial reaction to the incredible enthusiasm and passion that we found but clearly it was not an idea with any future as we simply could not afford it, nor would we have employment for all of them. Not yet anyway – perhaps in a few years.
Difficult as it was then, a decision had to be made and thankfully it was unanimous – Thandisizwe Meyi, a young man originally from the Eastern Cape who had lived in Cape Town and worked at Spier Estate for five years was the front runner and will, we both firmly believe, go on to a glittering career in the wine trade in South Africa. We left greatly excited by the whole thing and the thought that come early 2008, Thandisizwe (or Tyson as he likes to be known – he is a great boxing fan) would be joining us in London.
How naïve we were.
Being Green & Blue and with our 2007 luck, the process immediately ran into problems with the revelation that Tyson was not eligible for a working holiday visa which so many young South Africans travel on as to get one of these, applicants need a to show bank statements with unfeasibly large balances. That would explain why so many previously disadvantaged young South Africans don’t travel then.
It soon became clear that our only option was to apply for a work experience visa – an amazingly convoluted and beaurocratic process. This took huge amounts of time and was a minefield of frustration but we got there in the end. It was finally granted about 3 weeks ago and when I phoned Francois at Spier (the manager of the wine centre where Tyson has been working), to break the news, he told me that Tyson’s case was packed and he was ready to go.
And so he was.
There was quite a frantic flurry of activity with us sorting out a flat for him and Tom to share while he is over here but finally, almost a year after we first met him, he touched down on a cold and rainy Tuesday almost two weeks ago. This means that this posting is hardly amazingly topical and hot off the press but everything seems to be happening at once at the moment, so this pace seems to be the best that I can manage.
It was actually his birthday the day after he arrived, on Wednesday the 9th, so he came up to The Grove (one of the hotels I consult to) for a wine dinner I was speaking at which was really quite a fabulous experience for all of us – Jude was there too. That he has a talent for wine is really obvious and although the task of taking on Europe must be incredibly daunting, he is meeting the challenge with great fortitude. We talked over dinner about all the different career paths he could take in the world of wine although there is absolutely no pressure on him to make any final decisions in the short or even medium term.
We also had a small birthday party for him in East Dulwich on Sunday night where we drank Mas de Daumas Gassac Rose Frizzante, ate really good carrot cake and did some knitting. Well, I did some knitting , everyone else just got slightly drunk. I wouldn’t have minded getting slightly drunk myself (in a terribly responsible way, of course) but it was a Sunday night and I was just too tired to.
We had bought him the following for his birthday :- -
two tickets on the London Eye-
An A – Z-
Time Out’s guide to London-
A barbeque-
A bag of wood chip things for the barbeque
The latter was so that he wouldn’t get homesick although he was given very strict instructions not to wait for a nice sunny day to use it as we would probably be able to return it in a completely pristine condition come November if he did that. He has promised to do a braai for us all one cloudy, nippy summer day soon and we are going to hold him to that. Apparently he makes really good pap which I am very excited about. Explaining pap to someone who is not South African is a complete impossibility. Firstly, the word sounds utterly unappealing in English (it really does sound a lot more appetising in Afrikaans) and, truth be told, it does taste somewhat exactly how it sounds. In Afrikaans, it is pronounced ‘Pup’ although I am pretty sure that isn’t the spelling of it. Of course, saying that you are longing for a bowl of pup leads to even more awkward situations than professing a similar yearning for pap, so I learnt to get over any complications associated with trying to describe my passion for it years ago by not even attempting to explain. When I think about it, the reasons for my love for it are completely unfathomable but there you go. The heart wants what it wants and mine (along with my stomach) frequently wants proper pap.
We have done a tiny bit of filming and hope to have our first ‘Tyson TV’ clip out very soon although Director of Programming (Emily) is experiencing very bad technical difficulties. She does not yet have her new Mac and basically, my PC is complete rubbish at editing but we will perservere, so please keep an eye on the web site.
