A teenager in the house!

Ten years. First double digit. Rather impressive. That’s a long time for any business, in any industry, to survive – especially in today’s world where rands and cents trump all else. You have to be able to jump through unanticipated hoops, think on your feet, thwart crooks, look over your shoulder every now and then, and walk on eggs. And always look ahead and keep your shoulder to the wheel.

This is all true of our magazine’s first 10 years, but it has always been a joy to produce it.

The era in which we live is also a complicated one. There was a pandemic. War. A shaky economy. At the same time, technology has been advancing at breakneck speed. The digital age has made our life easier, but it also brought a number of new challenges, one of which is the theft of words. (If someone is nice enough to send you a free copy of a book or magazine, please let us know and delete it immediately.)

But do you think a paperless world will become a reality? Well, not if it depends on our civil service. Paper will be with us for a long time, and we are grateful for and proud of the troopers who are willing to pay a lot of money to keep buying a magazine printed on paper.

Fortunately, we can proudly say that we try to offer our readers journalism of the highest quality, by some of the best journalists, writers and experts – on topics that matter.

Just have a look at the stories in this anniversary issue: articles that are well thought out, well researched and well written by people such as Bun Booyens, Marita van der Vyver, Lindie Koorts, Herman Lensing and Ilse van der Merwe.

Then there are our regular contributors, people who have been involved right from the start, or who have been a part of our magazine family for a long time: Marian van Wyk, Mia van der Merwe, Willem van der Berg, Maja Palm and Sean Robertson. And, of course, our favourite contributor, Ina Paarman.

Thank you to every contributor, letter writer and advertiser – and our management team who make sure we stay on course in these turbulent times.We hope you enjoy this 41st issue, our first one of the new decade. May the teenage years rock!