It's 2.30 on a Friday afternoon and I am sitting at a pavement cafe overlooking Patong Beach in Phuket. My laptop lies open in front of me, but for the past hour I have been idly watching people stroll by. Most are tourists, all sunburnt and wide-eyed, their tropical shirts and bright sarongs identifying them as first-timers.
Occasionally, an expat resident will saunter past, the deep tan and faded beachwear the hallmarks of a long spell in paradise. Thai workers scurry back to their shops and offices after a late lunch, while others wait in the shade with an armful of trinkets, languidly eyeing the passing parade for customers. A newspaper seller saunters up to my table and slaps down a copy of the Bangkok Post. I'm a regular, a foreigner with a thirst for news. Old habits die hard.
As I scan the front page and assess the stories and pictures, I think of home. Right now it is 9.30am in South Africa. At the Sunday Times office in Biermann Avenue, Rosebank, editors and section heads will be rushing into the conference room for one of the most important meetings of the week. In the next hour or so, they will decide the shape of this week’s paper - which reports and photographs are destined for the front page, which will lead the other pages and those that will be cut down to small stories.
I can picture the editorial meeting in my mind, the editor seated at the head of the table, the news editor at his side. For five years I occupied one of these hotseats – doing my best to juggle competing news reports and compile the best edition possible. With a roomful of hardened and opinionated reporters and editors, the potential for heated debate was ever-present. Difficult choices had to be made. Should we lead with a corruption scandal in the Cape Town Municipality? Yes, there’s too much about Gauteng in the paper, says the news editor. No, argues the sports editor, the big football game in Soweto this weekend is crucial to our World Cup chances and it must go on page one. The business editor chimes in: Use a picture of the football – our interview with Tito Mboweni is dynamite.
One by one the contenders stake their claim – the investigation unit’s probe into a government official, an exclusive interview with Nelson Mandela about Aids, the uplifting tale of a woman’s battle to rescue her daughter from a religious cult in Germany. The editor has the final say, but everyone gets a chance to speak. There may be tears, insults and recriminations, but by the end of the meeting that week’s Sunday Times would be taking shape.
I wonder what the paper will look like this week. Will their carefully-laid plans come unstuck at the last minute when an earthquake shatters lives across the globe or a local celebrity is carjacked? Perhaps a photographer will come up with a sensational picture that results in the entire front page having to be redone from scratch. I remember how we, as junior reporters, used to criticize the decisions taken by the editors of the day. Influenced heavily by how well are own stories were being used, we grumbled long and hard about how fuddy-duddy and backward-thinking they were. Not to mention racist, sexist and elitist. Sometimes they did get it wrong, but years later I realized what it took to keep three million readers entertained and informed every Sunday.
I remember my first day on the newspaper. Uneasily trussed up in a tie and jacket, I arrived at the newspaper's offices in Main Street, Johannesburg, to take up a vacation job as part of my university training. I was taken to meet the managing editor, Joe Sutton, who then introduced me to editor Tertius Myburgh with the words: "Here's the young Old Dalian." I soon learnt that the ed had not only attended the same school as me, Dale College in King William's Town, but had also grown up in the same town, Komga, a small farming hamlet near the Kei River in the Eastern Cape. The managing editor was another old Dalian.
While my old school tie got me the eye of the editor, it did little to ease my passage with the news editor, Hans Strydom. He had graduated from the school of hard knocks and wasn't about to make any concessions for this well-connected tubby know-it-all. With his black and grey beard, he was a fiercesome sight. Regularly a roar would emanate from his corner office: "Malherbe, come here, NOW!"
I have a book of cuttings that documents my first writing successes, but I recall that my days were spent hovering between terror and relief. The Sunday Times was a tough training ground. Either you performed or you got out. Fresh from university, the world inside 171 Main Street seemed slightly crazed. The stories from those days are legend – typewriters being flung from third-floor windows, steamy affairs in lift shafts and locked offices, “on the spot” sports reports being filed from the pub around the corner, a printing press strike set off by a drug squad raid and endless dramas about “police spies” in the office and the latest censorship laws.
Our newsroom was on the same floor as the Rand Daily Mail's and one of our missions was to ensure that we beat the "Mail" on every single story. The pressure was intense. In the beginning I wrote about lost dogs and car accidents for the Times Metro section, but I managed to get one or two stories in the "main paper" by the end of my two-month stint. And, more importantly, I was offered a full-time job when I graduated.
A year later, I began working as a full-time reporter, embarking on a rollercoaster ride that would culminate in my appointment as managing editor 15 years later. Looking back now, I realise just how many people took me under their wings as I rose up through the ranks. There were the photographers like Andrzej Sawa and Horace Potter who pointed me in the right direction when my story went off track or I bungled an interview. There were colleagues who would spend a few minutes telling me how to put my story together, but shrug off any suggestions that they had helped me.
There were also those who found me places to live, lent me money to buy my first suit and gave me a nudge when my spirits were flagging. They let me scour their contact books, sewed on my buttons and, most importantly, covered up my many faux pas in and out of the office. Later, editors like Ken Owen and Mike Robertson, offered the greatest vote of confidence by simply saying; “Do what you think is best. I will support you.”
My first career leap came at the tender age of 23 when I was promoted to bureau chief of the Eastern Cape office of the Sunday Times. In reality, this was only a one-man show in Port Elizabeth, but it gave me an office of my own and a company car. I excelled back on home turf. I was able to drive all over the province looking for the incredible tales and characters that make this part of the country so unique.
For example, a couple I met in a bar of a Port Alfred hotel told me about a lovely, romantic holiday farm that I should visit. “Its fabulous,” they assured me, “But when you arrive, cover up the little holes in the ceiling of your bedroom and bathroom and you won’t be disturbed.” I listened incredulously as they explained that there were peepholes in the ceiling above all the double beds and the baths in this country hotel. “All the regulars know about them, it’s not a problem if you cover them up.”
A day later, a photographer and I checked into the hotel and discovered that not only did the peepholes exist, but an elaborate walkway had been constructed in the ceiling for the “peeper” to get to all the holes. That Sunday the country was treated to the story of the “honeymoon hideaway with peepholes”. It was a great tale.
Another of my stories made international news. We discovered that a famous British “supergrass’’ was living in Port Elizabeth. Once a member of the London underworld, he was cleared of all charges and given a new identity for blowing the whistle on his colleagues and testifying against them. Under the name Arnold Nugent (new gent?) he was living it up as the owner of one of the city’s top nightclub.
We were doing the story along with the British newspaper, the News of the World, so I was instructed to confront him on the Friday night. My photographer was terrified, so he stayed in the background and snapped away as I made my way to the bar of the nightclub. At first, the man denied the story. When I started listing my evidence against him, he turned nasty and threatened me. I hot-footed it back to the office. We had our picture and our story. I slept uneasily until the story was safely on the front page of the paper.
On the Sunday I received a call at the home of a friend where I had been staying. It was him: “Please come to the club. I want to talk to you.” As the one who had exposed him, it was a strange feeling being escorted into the club past all the waiting reporters. Mr. Nugent apologized for threatening me, congratulated me on the story and said he was going into hiding as some of his former underworld mates were on their way from Britain. We shook hands and I left. A few weeks later, I received a postcard from him, just to let me know that he was fine. What a strange world!
If my experiences in Port Elizabeth were exciting, I was heading for even greater times. After a stint back in Johannesburg, mostly spent hounding the mysterious Italian millionaire Marino Chiavelli, I was offered the position of London correspondent. An Eastern Cape boy at heart, I was overwhelmed by the broad canvas of journalism in London. I shared my office with a dozen other South African journalists, all representing publications back home.
My job was primarily to keep track of world news and provide an international perspective for the newspaper. But this was also the time of Charles and Diana’s very public marriage woes, recorded in amazing detail by the British tabloid press. This Royal war of words – along with Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery exploits – ensured that I could always find a spot on page one of the paper.
My most memorable assignment during my two-year stint in London was when I was sent to Warsaw, Poland, to find out more about Janus Waluz, the rightwinger who was arrested for murdering South African Communist Party supreme Chris Hani. Hani’s assassination was a huge story, even in Britain, and I was terrified of failing. On arrival in Poland I found a translator and tracked down Waluz’s wife to a small glass factory. She seemed totally perplexed by her husband’s arrest, as he had not discussed politics with her. She had lived with him in Pretoria, but found the weather too hot.
I persuaded her to take me to their home – a shabby one-room flat in a rundown building. I could not believe she had given up a four-bedroom house with a pool in sunny South Africa for this. She seemed happy to have someone to talk to about it all – and she agreed to let me borrow a selection of photographs from the family album. Having got there before any other reporter, I had my scoop and the Sunday Times came out tops again.
Handling big stories is what the Sunday Times does best. And there were many momentuous events during my time on the paper. I returned to South Africa to take over as news editor just prior to the first democratic election in 1994, an event that would be difficult to surpass in our lifetime. The editor at the time, Ken Owen, had one of the sharpest minds around, excelling in his analysis of the constitutional negotiations that led to the election. He realized the enormity of the event, and our coverage was a massive undertaking. This was history in the making – and we treated it as such.
Then there were the sensational events that begged massive coverage, such as the release of Nelson Mandela, the death of Princess Diana and winning the Rugby World Cup. On these types of stories, the Sunday Times is virtually unbeatable. When Diana died in the early hours of a Sunday morning, the newspaper had already been printed. But most of the staff trooped back to the office and a special edition hit the streets by midday. Di is dead, screamed the headline.
There were great achievements, but things were not perfect all of the time. During the early 1980’s, the political direction of the newspaper came under heavy criticism, There was heavy censorship and pressure from the government, but I joined many of the staff in feeling that we did not do enough to fight back. Too often, we failed to expose government propaganda for what it was.
On one occasion, the staff wrote a petition to the editor after one of our former colleagues, Marion Sparg, received harsh treatment in the Sunday Times. She had left the country to join the African National Congress after planting a bomb in a police station. When she was arrested, the paper carried a photograph of her in leg irons on the front page along with a report which depicted her as a sad, pathetic figure. We knew this not to be true.
Another former staffer who went into exile, Muff Anderson, was also a victim of a “smear” report in our paper, which enraged staff. If this was happening to people we knew well, we realized that much of the information being fed to the newspaper by the authorities was more than suspect.
The political direction of the newspaper changed under the editorship of Ken Owen and much of its credibility was restored. This was taken further by the next two editors, Brian Pottinger and Mike Robertson, who had both served as political reporters in their day. An American-style accuracy test was implemented, which ensured that reporters verified every fact in their reports against a checklist. The theory was that if any detail was incorrect, even if it was a street number or the colour of someone’s tie, it threw doubt on the entire report.
I served as managing editor under Mike Robertson and together we fought hard to ensure that we the paper and its staff remained above reproach. A no-gift policy was enforced. Any “freebies” or gifts delivered to the Sunday Times were auctioned for charity. Reporters were urged to pay for all lunches and drinks with contacts. It became even more important after our investigations unit started cracking big stories. We could not afford a lapse anywhere.
As I sit back and recall the long hours we spent planning and scheming of ways to improve the paper, I realize that the sun is about to set on Phuket. All along the beachfront, the neon lights are switching on. As the last of the swimmers paddle in the dusk, the bargirls arrive for another night of partying. Later, from my bedroom, I will listen to the disco beat from the nightclub across the road as I catch the late-night news on TV. This is my new world. But, for the past few hours, my mind has been in South Africa. I have been back at my desk at the Sunday Times. It seems a million miles away now. I think the passage of a few years and and distance has given me a much clearer perspective of what the newspaper meant to me.
I remember the stories, but it is the people that kindle the brightest memories. I think of the ever-jovial office secretary, Sandra Hattingh, who joined the paper on the same day as me and still sends me birthday wishes and jokes from the newsroom. I think of the allies who lifted me up when times got tough, editor Mike Robertson, who never doubted me; Clifford Fram, who could always see the bigger picture, and Hoosen Kolia, who had been on the paper longer than anyone and could always say: “Don’t worry, it’s happened before.”
I think of the great reporters I worked with, those who taught me and those I taught. How could I forget the bustling, unstoppable Jocelyn Maker with her battle cry; “Go for it!” or Charmain Naidoo, who could befriend interviewees in an instant. I think of Lesley Mofokeng, who agreed to wear a ridiculous “Lucky Lottery” costume for weeks on end to launch of our successful lottery campaign. I smile when I think of Doc Bikitsha, who never seemed to leave the building, and Gwen Gill, who is as close as anyone can get to being irreplaceable. And I fondly think of the late photographer Joe Sefale, who chose to take me with him as his partner when he was the only outsider invited to Nelson Mandela’s private family birthday party.
It’s now 7pm in Thailand, 2pm in South Africa. The newsroom will be chaotic now, as everyone rushes to meet the early deadlines. The Sunday Times is being born again.
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This article was written for the special edition commemorating the 100th birthday of the Sunday Times newspaper
I am writing this on the island of Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, the land of lush tea plantations, Dutch forts and untouched tropical beaches. And, yes, I am aware that there's a civil war going on. I have read the travel warnings about visiting the country. A day after I arrived there was a bomb down the road in the capital, Colombo and there are roadblocks everywhere. But it's still reasonably safe for visitors. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers have been battling away for more than two decades, so it hardly makes sense to delay a trip to the country because of civil unrest.
The tourist industry has suffered as a result of the violence (and the tsunami three years ago), but it still lures adventurous holidaymakers and those who prefer an un-packaged destination. And, believe it or not, I find this one of the most peaceful places on earth. It's my second visit to this lovely country and both times I have been overcome by a feeling of total calm and inner peace. I know it sounds almost mystical, but there is something about Sri Lanka that touches me deep down in my soul.
A guide book I read described Sri Lanka is a gentler, kinder version of India. Well, I have never been to India, but this is enough of an assault on the senses. There's not much prettiness around. Buildings are ramshackle, the cars battle and wheeze their way down clogged roads and the smells and signs of poverty are everywhere. But, despite it all, it is all rather charming in a faded colonial sort of way. And I feel totally at home.
Once again, I am staying in a magnificent guesthouse in Negombo, which is an extraordinary refuge from the streets outside. Behind high walls lies a world of five-star service and stunning design. From the airconditioned comfort of my bedroom I look out over a shimmering swimming pool, with palm trees and a hammock gently swaying in the wind.
My favourite spot is Le Dolce Vita, which is a rather grand name for a 'pastry and tea' shop attached to a one-star boarding house. But the owner is a friendly chap, the food fresh and tasty and the view of the beach is great. The park at the end of the beach is where one finds all the action. With very few tourists, most of the swimmers are Sri Lankan and the facilities cater for them. A steam train (made entirely from old coke cans) provides children's rides on a small circular track, a pony stands idle awaiting customers and a rickety old pick-up advertises Elephant - Sri Lanka's Finest Ice Cream. I have a cone (well, two) for only 10 rupees and am finally coerced by a disabled vendor into buying a silver necklace for 500, that's five dollars.
There's little to do at night, so I tend to head for bed early and get a long night's rest. In the morning I know there's a slap-up breakfast waiting for me: a cup of the finest Ceylon tea, bacon and eggs, a basket of toast and a platter of freshly cut fruit. What a way to start the day.
