LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Mrs Zenetha Smith denied angrily today that her heart transplant husband, Mr Pieter Smith, was being shunned by White South Africans because he had a “Black heart”. While South Africans might sometimes appear to be “a little mad”, she said, “we are not that narrow-minded”. Mrs Smith was at a loss for words to describe her distress at a report in a German magazine, Bunte Illustrierte, that her husband had been refused jobs and a house because he had an African woman’s heart. “This is absolute rubbish,” she told me today. “In fact, everybody has been most kind, especially the people in Cape Town, who have made us feel most welcome.” — January 12 1969

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

ANC president Nelson Mandela and President FW de Klerk will cross swords in what is sure to be SA’s biggest political bunfight — a televised election debate — some time before April 27. Speaking yesterday in Johannesburg on the 82nd anniversary of the launch of the ANC, Mr Mandela accepted President De Klerk’s challenge to debate him in public on the policies of the NP and ANC. Mr Mandela also repeated his accusation that the president was deliberately fuelling violence in the townships to undermine the ANC’s electoral support there. He lashed out against violence and appealed to groups opposed to the interim constitution not to opt for civil war. — January 9 1994