Sidney Birkill’s Story
Written by his mother, Deidre Birkill and reviewed by Sidney*
(*to make sure that mom had written the story as seen through his eyes).
This short story began one day in May 2023. My 7-year-old son, Sidney Birkill and I visited Nampo Bothaville Landbou skou, with his grandparents. My parents are farmers and have visited Nampo many times before, but this was Sidney’s first Nampo experience.
Within the first hour of us walking through the many stalls, Sidney’s attention became focused on the Mohair South Africa stall. He kept returning to the Angora goat stall, asking one question after another. The Angora goat farming process and the world of mohair was love at first sight for Sidney! This is where we he met the incredibly passionate Beauty Mokgwamme.
Beauty immediately recognized a young boy’s admiration for her knowledge and passion for Angora goat farming and she took the time to explain the process of combing and washing the mohair. I ended up leaving Sidney with her whilst roaming around the neighbouring stalls. Each time he would return to me with another nugget of information and was very excited to get to our accommodation, as he wanted to wash and groom the hair.
Upon returning to our accommodation at Die Stal Bothaville that afternoon, Sidney had one goal: to wash and comb the mohair! He was up past midnight using soap and my hairbrush to wash and comb the hair until it was clean and soft. He returned to Beauty the next day to share his work and she was so amazed by his passion that she invited us to visit her at the International Mohair Headquarters in Port Elizabeth.
After returning home to Pretoria, Sidney carried around his bag of mohair to show his friends and family. During the following months, Sidney would remind me many times of Beauty’s invitation to visit and eventually we decided to make the trip.
Beauty arranged an incredible morning visit for us at the mohair headquarters. We started our visit at the office to see what the finished products looked like. Sidney and I were amazed at the exquisite scarves, jerseys, and blankets to name a few. We spent the rest of the morning meeting some inspiring people in the industry. At OVK, one of the main mohair brokers, Karla Esterhuyse showed us around and at House of Fibre, we met the General Manager, Pierre van der Vyver who took us through the Angora goat farming process.
Unfortunately, we had to cut our visit short as we a long drive home to our family farm in Natal. That evening, at our night stay over in Trompsburg, Sidney proudly shared all the facts that he learnt during the visit. He wanted to ensure that I knew South Africa produces 51 % of the world’s Mohair and that baby Angora goats are called ‘kids’ and not ‘lambs’ as with sheep.
He repeated the story of how the Angora goats came to South Africa many years ago by boat from Turkey and how the pregnant ewe gave birth to a ram kid en route (establishing the Angora goat breeding stock in South Africa). He genuinely listened to all the inspiring people he met this morning.
Feedback from Beauty: You are welcome, Sidney – till today I’m still amazed with your interest in the natural fibre, mohair. You remain my highlight of NAMPO 2023 and we are looking forward hosting you again. Next time we want to take you and your mother to the farm so that you can spend time with the angora goats and their babies’ called kids. You are such an incredible boy, Sidney.