LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Mr. Edward Dickson and his wife Jean, whose appeal against their reclassification as Coloured was dismissed by the Cape Supreme Court this month, are planning to quit South Africa for Zambia, Mozambique or Swaziland. “We have lived as Whites, and will die White, even if it means we cannot stay in South Africa,” Mr Dickson said this week. Mr. Dickson was speaking out for the first time since his reclassification as a Coloured. The decision of the Race Classification Board to this effect was upheld by Mr. Justice Van Winsen, Mr. Justice Corbett concurring, when the matter went to appeal in the Cape Supreme Court. “We will never accept the situation that we are of mixed blood,” he said. “There is nothing left for us but to leave with our six children.” — May 26 1968

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

One of the last bastions of prohibition in South Africa crumbled this weekend when the “drought” that has gripped the town of Groot Brak for more than a century ended. But the only people who will be able to consume “legal” liquor are the town’s policemen. The SAP was granted the town’s first — and only — liquor licence because its social club is in a new area of the town, which falls outside the original boundaries where teetotal is a way of life. Older residents are strongly opposed to the change, continuing to support the strict policy of abstinence introduced by founding father Charles Searle. — May 30 1993