(don’t fall, ma said)

(don’t fall, ma said) is a memoir in 25 poems that records Finlay’s childhood  and primary school days 
in the 1970s to early-1980s when his family lived in  Honeydew outside Johannesburg.  
In stark images and the blunt tones of South African dialogue, the poems bring  to life scenes of daily 
life – family, school, horses,  teachers, grandparents, neighbours,  farm workers and friends – to evoke 
the atmosphere of a white boyhood at that time.