Life for the families involved in our life story started out as normally as it did for most other Cape Flats families in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. Comfortable houses with low brick boundary walls, nice gardens where the kids could play, safe leafy suburban streets where children could ride their bikes and play ball….

Stop, wake-up! Smell the coffee or whatever your neighbours in Cape Town were smoking.

Who am I kidding? The life I’ve just described might actually have happened, possibly in a fairy tale, or perhaps in an 80’s American TV show but definitely not on the Cape Flats. Our story, however, plays itself out in good old 1970’s South Africa, where the Apartheid Government of the time were still ruling the country with an iron fist. It was a crazy time in South African history, Economic sanctions, the Sharpeville massacre and constant student uprisings in other parts of the country, along with an increased use of violence to suppress the “Swart gevaar”. It definitely made for interesting fireside chats amongst those old enough to remember it, later on. Thinking back, even the start of our family was different to most. In some strange way, it looked and felt like an arranged marriage of sorts. Just for the record arranged marriages were not a thing in our culture.