LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

A public prosecutor, Mr. A. J . van Wyk, asked the Magistrate, Mr. D. H. Coetzee, in the Brits Magistrate’s Court this week if the time had not come for sterner application of the provisions of the Immorality Act, which carried a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment. Mr. Van Wyk was addressing the Court after a 24-year-old father of three, whose wife is expecting their fourth child, had been found guilty of contravening the Immorality Act with an African woman. They were each sentenced to nine months’ imprisonment. Before sentence was passed, Mr. Van Wyk submitted that offences of this nature had become a plague in the Brits-Rustenburg district. — March 2 1969

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

The Democratic Party’s PWV leader, Tony Leon, waved his R10 note at the woman behind the spaza shop counter. “Now what must I do with them?” he asked, walking away with a handful of bananas. It was not the only time Mr Leon and his team were uninspired when they took their “battle bus” into Alexandra this week. Unlike the National Party’s roadshows, the visit had not been choreographed down to the finest detail. This is to the DP’s credit. But to its shame, once they were there, they appeared not to know what to do or say … Their duty was to raise the DP’s flag in this brave new world, but their hearts were not in it — and they didn’t even have the good manners to hide this. — March 15 1991