All in a day’s work for Deven Moodley
I WAS BORN into a large, humble family in Kearsney on the KwaZulu-Natal North Coast. I was one of 12 children. My grandparents worked on the tea estates and in a tea factory. My disciplinarian father owned a trading store, and a sugar and rice plantation.
I attended a government-aided Indian primary school. Life was tough then, and children from the neighbourhood walked 10 kilometres to school without shoes. Our uniform was khaki shorts and a shirt.
After school and on weekends we grazed cows, worked in the garden and fetched water from nearby ponds. There was little time for schoolwork, and we used candlelight and paraffin lamps to do homework in the evening.
In the late 1950s, I attended Stanger Indian High school. In 1963 my brotherin-law, the late Nagoor Bissetty, the first Indian journalist to work for the Natal Mercury, got me a job in the newspaper’s library.
After reading the newspapers, I cut out important articles for later reference. Thus, my passion for journalism was kindled, resulting in a career in newspapers spanning 44 years, from 1964 to the end of 2008.
I still hold dear to my heart that I achieved my childhood dream of becoming a journalist. In the 1960s and 1970s under apartheid, it was difficult for people of colour to enter the journalism profession.
My real journey in journalism began in 1967 when I responded to a newspaper advertisement inviting hopefuls for two reporter positions at Golden City Post, a “sex-and-sin” tabloid newspaper that was owned by the late Jim Bailey and which had the second largest circulation in the country, after the Sunday Times.
Vas Soni, now an advocate and acting judge, and I applied and were interviewed and recruited by the then editor, the late GR Naidoo.
The offices in Goodhope Centre, Queen Street, were in the heart of the Durban Casbah area where Struggle stalwarts, the late George Singh, attorney MD Naidoo, Dr K Gonum, MJ Naidoo, RD Naidoo, MN Pather, Louis Nelson, Dr Farouk Meer and JN Singh ran their successful businesses.
There were six cinemas in the area, with the Rajabs owning three of them.
On my first day, Mr Naidoo introduced us to the late Bobby Harrypersadh, crime reporter IA Khan, photographer Dawood Bux, sports writer George Mahabeer and secretary, Leela Naidoo.
Mr Mahabeer warned me that Mr Naidoo was a strict disciplinarian and a no-nonsense editor.
Writing articles from day one, sweeping the office, making tea and running errands for senior staff was all in a day’s work.
Soni and I went to cover stories together, and after a month he complained that he was unhappy with the job, which included crime stories, immorality and sex-across-the-colour-line reporting. He detested covering such stories.
Also, Soni and I walked or boarded a bus to cover stories which brought along an element of danger to our lives.
When Soni quit, he was replaced by Dennis Pather who was introduced to the editor by Leela Naidoo. The country correspondents at the time were Shan Pillay of Pietermaritzburg and the late KG Moodley of Ladysmith.
My knowledge of photography and freelance reporting for the Natal Mercury and Weekender guided me towards the Golden City Post’s style of sensational and salacious reporting. I took pictures with my camera and helped out whenever Bux was unavailable.
In 1968, Mr Naidoo moved to Drum magazine and Harrypersadh became editor. The late Ranjith Kally was recruited as a photographer. A few months later, the late MS Roy joined. Brijlall Ramguthee was recruited as a reporter from the Leader newspaper.
In 1969 Mr Mahabeer quit, and I took over as sports writer because of my experience in the coverage of African football at the Somsteu Road grounds and boxing for the Johannesburg edition of Golden City Post.
The Federation Professional Soccer League was established in 1969 and games were played at Currie’s Fountain, Athlone Stadium in Cape Town and Lenasia Stadium in Johannesburg.
Soccer guru, the late Norman Middleton, was head of the SA Soccer Federation and RK Naidoo was elected president of the FPL.
Together with journalists from other black-owned newspapers, Golden City Post spearheaded a drive to end apartheid in sport.
Many prominent Indians joined in the fight against apartheid.
While non-racial football was played at Currie’s Fountain, racial football was organised at Kingsmead Stadium in Durban under the banner of the National Football League (NFL).
At the same time, the late YC Meer and DM Shaik launched rival Indian football associations in Isipingo and Chatsworth.
The late Farook Khan, a news and sports reporter from Cape Town, moved to Durban in 1969 and joined Golden City Post. We co-edited the “We don’t pull our punches” column.
In the early days with Golden City Post there was no question of returning to the office without a story. If the story we went to cover did not materialise, we had to find something else to fill the pages of the newspaper.
Each one of us had our own contacts and befriended politicians and the police to secretly leak information. Every morning we phoned each contact.
One of my major stories, which made international headlines, was when I received a phone call from a contact, Haniff Manjoo, who worked at the local Stanger hospital.
He told me that the late ANC stalwart Albert Luthuli was killed in a train accident, and his body had been brought to the hospital.
I rushed to Harrypersadh and informed him. He called Kally and the three of us drove to Groutville, near Stanger. It was a black reserve but Kally and Harrypersadh went in, and I remained in the car.
Kally came to the car several times and handed me film spools from his camera to prevent the police confiscating them if they were caught for being in the reserve.
Then the police arrived and asked me what I was doing there, and I replied that I was waiting for my superiors. They rushed into the reserve, but Kally and Harrypersadh escaped from the Luthuli home through a back door.
“It was a close shave,” commented Harrypersadh.
There were many other exciting news stories I wrote for Golden City Post.
There was the story of an Umzinto woman whose head was shaved bald and chilli powder smeared on the sexual parts of her body by the fuming wife of an Umzinto doctor who suspected her of having an affair with her husband. Before and after photographs of the victim were used in Golden City Post.
I also covered the death of Dr Rajen Nulliah who was lured from his Reservoir Hills surgery and murdered in Canelands, near Verulam.
We were told of the incident on a Sunday, and Roy and the late Morris Reddy, also a photographer, accompanied me to do the pictures and story. I was hounded by the cops.
The next day a white policeman arrived at the office and confiscated my camera. He said I had no right to go to the scene of the murder without him.
Living in Carlisle Street while working on Golden City Post and walking to the office was also exciting.
There were more than a dozen gangs operating at the time – The Salot gang of Overport, headed by Dee Salot and his sister, Bibi, was the most feared. Other notorious gangs were the Drain Rats, Queens Brigade, Dasheens, Italian Boys and the Carlisle Kings.
I remember the confrontation I had with a Dasheens gang member while walking to work. I was crossing Beatrice Street, outside the Himalaya Hotel, when a man came close to me and a bottle fell from his hands.
He accused me of causing his bottle of cane spirits to fall. He demanded that I pay for the loss. I assured him that I would return with money from Golden City Post.
I reported the incident to a member of Queens Brigade who drove with me to Beatrice Street. When the gang member saw me, he apologised and said the bottle contained water.
He was warned not to harm me because I worked for the POST and lived in the Casbah.
Apart from the gangs, Golden City Post staffers were hounded by the ruthless Special Branch police.
When Golden City Post was taken over by World Printing and Publishing, a subsidiary of the Argus Group in 1971, it was relocated to Umgeni Road.
It was there that I met the editor of Ilanga newspaper, the late Obed Kunene, who encouraged me to write stories that could be translated into Zulu and used in his newspaper.
My six years with Golden City Post were most interesting, but sad at times to see Indian, Coloured and Black people being uprooted from their homes and moved to far away areas under the Group Areas Act.
In 1975 I was approached by the late Roy Rudden, editor of the Sunday Tribune, to join his publication. I worked with a junior reporter, the late Manu Padyachee.
My best remembered story on the Tribune was a lead headlined “Second class land for second class citizens”. Indians were regarded as an inferior race and were handed mostly unusable land riddled with shale.
The salary at the Tribune was meagre, and for a R20 a month increase, I crossed the floor to the Natal Mercury as a news and sports writer under the editorship of James McMillan.
In my 12 years as a journalist on the Mercury I did many beats – supreme court, magistrate’s court and when courts sat in outside towns. I also did a beat as a shipping reporter.
My imaginative, accurate and objective skills got me the highly sought-after post of political correspondent for the South African Morning Newspaper Group, in 1984, to cover the House of Delegates (Indian) sessions in Cape Town.
I mixed with interesting people like the late JN Reddy, PI Devan, Amichand Rajbansi and SV Naicker.
I also worked as a senior sub editor, on a part-time basis, for the Press Trust of South Africa, an independent news agency.
Due to my interaction with senior government officials, I accepted a post with the South African Communication Services (SACS) in 1987 to edit two publications – SA Today and Now-KwaZulu Natal.
I had to choose between settling in Australia or taking on the offer to work for the government. Due to family ties, I chose to remain in South Africa.
In the 1994 Sanlam Awards competition for local press, I won a prestigious journalism award. I finished third out of 104 South African journalists. This was for articles in the actuality category, which attracted the most entries.
Following the launch of the Government Communications and Information Services (GCIS) in 1998 under Joel Netshitenzhe and Abba Omar, I was appointed Director of Communications and relocated to Pretoria.
I worked closely with ANC activist Rafiq Rohan, who also joined GCIS. While with GCIS, I was given the task of managing nine provincial offices with a total staff complement of 160. I travelled by air and car to each province fortnightly.
I returned to KZN in 2006 and was in charge of GCIS in this province, a position that I retired in.
My achievements as a long-standing journalist are too numerous to tabulate, suffice to say I had met, personally, and interviewed many celebrities, among them Prince Charles (now King Charles III).
I also interviewed President FW de Klerk and President Thabo Mbeki. I played a pivotal role for GCIS in controlling the local and international media during the Non-Aligned Movement summit in Durban during August and September 1998.
I am married to Inbaranee, the first Indian woman to join Standard Bank in 1968. Retirement affords me the opportunity to continue my travels around the world.
I am also a board member of Southside radio station for Tamils and Telugus.
◆ Over the next few weeks, journalists and photographers will share their stories and experiences.