Outwitting police
March 16, 2005 Edition 1
Post has survived. Now, five decades later, it continues to play a role in the life of the community, taking on an added responsibility by virtue of first The Graphic and more recently The Leader disappearing from news stands.
The Leader, the first Indian-owned weekly, launched in 1942, became the standard bearer for the community and as "the voice of the people", while The Graphic, emerging 10 years later, was more conservative in its approach. I have happy memories of both, having served as their news editor at different times.
It has been a long time, half a century to be precise, but my memories remain intact and I vividly recall the great stories that made the headlines, the men and women who were the sources of our stories, the exclusives that rattled the white media, and the exposes that had the police top brass rubbing shoulders with the black Post newshounds.
Yes, we were streets ahead of the best there was in the criminal investigation department, Post stories being graphic in detail, providing valuable links in resolving issues of crime.
The beginning of the Golden City Post was an epoch-making event in the annals of journalism for style, presentation and depth. So efficient were its investigative journalists that the police grudgingly acknowledged the tabloid's exceptional ability to source its facts, with its investigative team of black journalists always closer to the truth of its sensational exposures.
I joined Post at its launch while working as sports editor of The Graphic in 1955. Editor Cecil Eprile approached me to become the paper's sports correspondent for Natal, a position that allowed me to continue working for The Graphic.
A year later, in April 1956, Drum and POST proprietor Jim Bailey invited me to join his group. Two weeks later I was in Johannesburg, meeting the Drum and Post greats of that era - Cecil Eprile, editor of Post, Sylvester Stein, editor of Drum, ace journalist Henry Nxumalo, news editors Arthur Maimane and Can Themba, Casey Motsisi, art columnist Ezekiel Mphahlele, Blokes Modisane, Todd Matshikiza, photographers Jurgen Schadeberg, Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane.
Henry Nxumalo was the soul of the pressroom and indispensable because his courage and dimension was of a different proportion.
Can Themba was a former teacher, while Arthur Maimane was a student at St Peter's School near Sophiatown and introduced to Jim by Father Trevor Huddleston.
Post
He thrived on interviewing beauty queens and later taking them to bed, while Blokes Modisane was the debonair man of the world who always dressed immaculately, loved black suits and white shirts, and always had a red rose in his lapel with his handkerchief neatly tucked in his left sleeve.
Zeke Mphahlele was the scholarly English teacher who later left for the US where he became a professor of literature. Can Themba was a magnetic character, while Casey Motsisi (Jim Bailey's favourite), was a silent operator who said little but was at his best compiling a comic column that later brought him literary acclaim.
Tod Matshikiza was a jazz composer and internationally acclaimed for creating the music for that great South South African stage presentation, King Kong.
I was on an initial three-month training schedule with Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane perfecting my photographic skills, while Arthur Maimane and Blokes Modisane took me through writing skills, a la Post.
On a Saturday afternoon three weeks later, with staffers long gone home to Sophiatown and Alexandra, I was perusing the handiwork of Bob Gosani in the group's darkroom in an annexe of the massive Sunday Times-Rand Daily Mail-Sunday Express building in Main Street when I was alerted to commotion in the pressroom.
Seconds later, Eprile was outside the darkroom door, the intensity of his quick-motion knocking on the door, indicating some emergency.
"Who's there?" he said, and before I could respond he was already issuing instructions.
"Grab the camera and go to Vlakfontein this instant," he thundered, adding, "there's a riot there and damn it, I need some action now."
Eprile ignored my pleas about being new to both Post and Jo'burg, and I had no idea where Vlakfontein was. Eprile, in his stuttering speech (a disability that surfaced whenever he was under stress) was insistent. "Ff . . .ff . . .," he ordered.
"Get your backside to the railway station to Pretoria and you'll find Vlakfontein somewhere there."
He was furious, obviously incensed by the absence of senior staff, unable to comprehend at that moment that they indeed had the right to be home because it was a late Saturday afternoon, and the Sunday edition had been all wrapped up, and put to bed, ready for print.
"Fifty will do and make sure you get the pictures," he said, slipping out some cash from his rear pocket.
"And don't forget to keep me informed if you're in trouble."
That sent a cold shiver up my spine but who was I to object? This was an assignment in an emergency situation. The decision had been made.
It was a baptism by fire and an unexpected introduction to the way this new publication was grabbing the limelight, a weekly that was already shaping the unorthodox approach to news-gathering, an approach that was to make it the greatest little tabloid in Africa.
That was my first interaction with Eprile, and the Vlakfontein exercise was the single most important event that shaped my future as an investigative journalist, in a career that has spanned half a century.
As I recall, I found the train to Pretoria; discovered the burning township of Vlakfontein; fell foul of the police and escaped, straddled dangerously on the running board of an old 1948 Dodge pirate taxi, whose driver subsequently found me shelter for the night with an old black priest. He, in turn, filled me in on the events leading to the riots, confirming police brutality and shooting.
Next morning he summoned another taxi for the drive to the hospital where I concealed the camera and photographed victims of the police brutality. Back in Johannesburg, Post did a special, with graphic pictures of the burned-out shells of homes and pictures of the gun-shot victims who were brutalised and hospitalised. This was evidence that rubbished police denials that had their slants in the white media.
I had earned my stripes and editor Eprile, in appreciation, put the group's press car, a Morris Minor, under my control. That quickly took me all over Jozi and the black townships of Soweto, Alexandra and Meadowlands, as well as Benoni and Boksburg, with the Drum and Post staffers on hot assignments.
Bob Gosani and Peter Magubane exposed me to the vigour and the freshness that came from the heart of the townships where I was feted for my command of the Zulu language. Life was different; my first taste of shebeen life, beauty queens, beer halls and brawls, and gang wars.
When not on hot story leads, Peter Magubane and I socialised with the stars of Alf Herbert's African Jazz ensemble on their regular beat through the townships and suburbs of the old Rand Triangle - famous stars like Dotty Tiyo, Dorothy Masuka, Dolly Rathebe and Ben "Satchmo" Masinga.
I vividly recall the commotion that was created when the African Jazz stars turned up in their bus at 66 Mint Road, Fordsburg, where I lived, to be feted by my host, school principal Bala Moodley, a former Transvaal soccer star and close friend of Father, the Rev Bernard Sigamoney.
It had never happened before: Blacks and Indians lived their own lives in separate areas and this was a first. But proud Mr and Mrs Moodley were happy to oblige. Notorious gangster Sheriff Khan, who lived at the rear of the Moodley home, was equally intrigued and dropped in to share in this social happening.
Peter and I had many narrow escapes from the police and black security officers at the beer halls where angry black activists spawned cells for opposition.
On one occasion I was singled out as their target and Peter shielded me, taking the full brunt of the sjambok that lacerated his behind.
The Vlakfontein incident was my first brush with the law as a journalist, while on an assignment to expose the apartheid regime and its brutality against blacks. I was glad it happened the way it did - it sort of prepared me for what came soon afterwards - the Treason Trials at the Johannesburg Fort.
Hundreds of ANC and Indian Congress politicians were rounded up and put on trial in what turned out to be the turning point in black politics. The entire Post and Drum team was assigned to the trial, the courtyard crammed with security personnel and armed vehicles.
There was a cold drizzle on the fourth day and people outside were huddled under the trees in groups when Peter Magubane suggested I slip outside to capture some action there.
Some white women, who described themselves as liberals, chatted me up.
White security officials took a dim view and when the women departed, the policemen promptly bundled me up and dumped me outside the Fort.
Some time later I was able to sneak in and took cover in the public toilets, a decision that served its purpose because I was able to communicate with and photograph some of the ANC and congress stalwarts who had escaped arrest.
The intermittent flashlight that emerged from the toilets aroused the curiosity of the police and a timely warning put me in flight, taking cover behind a sentinel's post.
Minutes later there was a burst of gunfire from a rifle and others followed in quick succession. I emerged from hiding, and with all eyes focused in the direction of the action, managed to take a series of pictures without security being aware of my presence in their midst.
I had learned a trick of two from Peter Magubane and, turning around to avoid detection, I quickly got down on my knees and emptied my camera, depositing the film in my socks.
And just as quickly extracted a new roll from my pocket. The action was swift and so was what happened to me almost instantly thereafter. An officer in stripes, gun at his side, grabbed me by the collar and forcibly lifted me up, turned me around, and snatched the camera.
When he realised I had extracted the film, he slapped me across the face, found the film in my palm and immediately exposed it. He returned the camera and threatened to shoot me if I was found taking pictures again.
There was no need for that because I was on a "scoop" and hastened to the office, Eprile putting darkroom staff on alert. Jim was summoned when the negatives showed clear images of the police brutality and victims being mowed down by gunfire, contrary to reports in the dailies the next morning of police denials of any use of guns.
Although Eprile talked about security arrangements for the night, the negatives disappeared from the darkroom when Jurgen Schadeberg, Gopaul Narainsamy and Peter Magubane came in the next morning to process the pictures.
I remembered a Life International journalist contacting me for copies, for which I would be paid a tidy sum. I refused. It was subsequently learned that a Post staffer was in cahoots with Life International and although my exclusive pictures had disappeared and the evidence of police brutality gone without trace, the Life International contact in Post was never identified, as the stolen negatives were destroyed to save detection.
My Johannesburg stint had its highs and lows. On one occasion I was waiting for the "white" tram that allowed Indians and coloureds to occupy the cabin upstairs for their daily travel.
I always found Indian and coloured passengers standing on the stairwell leading to the upper cabin and at the very rear, even if the tram were empty.
On my first trip I walked up and took a seat in the front row, and next evening was confronted by some Indians at the tram stop asking if I was new to Jo'burg.
When I said yes,, they explained that I needed to be wary as Afrikaner youths insulted and assaulted Indians and coloureds who took up seats. But it never happened in all the time I was there and, on one occasion, they actually helped me find an address in the heart of Mayfair, an Afrikaner stronghold, after the Afrikaans tram driver discovered I had lost my bearings.
On another occasion I was desperate for transport for a story in downtown Jeppe and boarded a "green" tram in Main Street. I was asked to get off the tram at the next stop by the conductor, who insisted that it was reserved for blacks only and refused to listen to my pleas that I was desperate. So much for reverse racism.
My hunch about the killer or killers of Henry Nxumalo was never taken up by police. Nxumalo and I shared a dark secret. He frequented a medical outfit in Sophiatown in a shady area, after taking a fancy to an attractive Xhosa nurse.
From time to time I drove him there in Bailey's Morris Minor, always taking care to keep the car well away from the Jewish doctor's clinic.
In the beginning I was convinced he was having an affair with the nurse as his actions and responses seemed suspicious. One evening, when a storm was brewing, he asked me to drive him to his usual destination and I suggested there was something mysterious going on there.
That was when he confided that he was on to the doctor's immoral activity, conducting abortions. His escapades with the nurse were a cover-up.
Nxumalo had done considerable work on his investigation into the abortions at the stage, when I left Johannesburg to take up Jim's appointment as Natal editor of Drum. Only months later he was murdered. The killers were never found, and the reasons behind his killing were never revealed.
Apartheid police did little to pursue investigations, and my subsequent input in identifying the Jewish doctor as a suspect, because of Nxumalo's secret investigations into his immoral activities, also failed to elicit response.
At the time it was rumoured that the police were happy to be rid of "Mr Drum" Nxumalo because his activities were seen as a threat to the Afrikaner establishment.
My interactions with gangs and gangland were always conducted in the open as these guys had a "love" relationship with Post, so Can, Arthur, Blokes and Peter put me in touch.
That's how I met the notorious Pirates Gang, all of whom sported tuxedos and white American straw hats and drove white Cadillac convertibles. They were a daring bunch and told me one day they would be breaking into a bank in Main Street.
Sure enough it happened that night, and police never traced the culprits.
There was definitely a professional slickness to their operations.
Back in Durban many years later, when the SASL launched professional soccer, we met again. They were the kingpins of Pirates (FC) and yours truly was then with Berea FC.
That explains, in part, the close friendship that developed between Pirates and Berea, both teams entertaining each other in their respective towns when games were scheduled there.
I'll let you into a secret. One day, they walked into Daddy Reddy's clothing factory in Old Dutch Road, asked if they could help him find good textiles to improve the quality of his products and then borrowed his clerk's van, drove up Albert Street, emptied part of the railways truck parked there, which was offloading bales of textile for a wholesaler there, and then disappeared.
Interestingly the van was traced but the missing textiles never surfaced. The Pirates bunch was arrested but the case was dropped when cops failed to come up with the missing cargo.
However, the real truth behind their release was something else. On arrest, they had threatened the investigating officers and warned them of dire consequences if they were meted out punishment to confess.
They asked the police to come up with the evidence, or, if there was none, to release them. When the investigating officers got to know who they were, they were promptly released.
As for the missing bales of textiles, those surfaced long afterwards and were put to good use.
