Looking Back

From the Sunday Times 50 years ago

POSTAL sorting and delivery services on the Rand are on the verge of collapse, senior officials at the General Post Office in Johannesburg said this week.

A top-level conference of postal authorities will be held in the next few days to discuss solutions, including the scrapping or suspension of job reservation to allow the full-scale employment of Coloureds and Indians as postmen and sorters. A senior official said conditions at the GPO had become “chaotic” since the Christmas rush. “Our postal sorting and delivery service is on the brink of a complete breakdown.” Another official said: “We have had mass resignations . . . Unless job reservation is suspended to allow the full-scale permanent employment of Coloureds and Indians, the service will crash.”— January 10 1965

From the Sunday Times 25 years ago

MOST blacks, coloureds and Indians are NOT opposed to the rebel English cricket tour. This is the dramatic finding of a snap opinion poll conducted this week at the height of the Peter Hain controversy.

The survey, by the prestigious Markinor Gallup organisation, shows only 24% are against Mike Gatting’s tour. A 41% majority actually support it. The rest were neutral or didn’t know.

The poll — commissioned by the South African Cricket Union and carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday — debunks antitour campaigner Peter Hain’s claim that the rebel cricketers are not wanted in South Africa.

A total of 1 000 people — excluding whites — in Soweto, Durban and Cape Town were questioned during the survey. — January 14 1990