RaDical MiDDle - ColdType

180 | denis beckett
and Thapelos. I liked their visits. I beheld their pages in a
newly published edition with fondness. also, if they weren’t
in Frontline where would they be? The Spectator/New Yorker
segment of readership said “they belong in Drum”, but they
didn’t. There were downmarket black publications to ooh
and aah about ghosts amputating children’s organs, but the
upmarket ones shied away from the whys and wherefores of
witchcraft’s grip. My own black readers revolted. To many of
them – Nthato Motlana was captain of this team – witchcraft
was a brake, a bad memory. I’d say it’s a huge reality for half
the population, our job was to deal with the realities around us.
“Not this one”, Nthato urged.
But I couldn’t tell Thapelo “sorry, the biggest thing in your
part of our country’s life makes commercially important
readers switch to the Spectator.” What he called “real african
things” came up, on and off, until the end. In fact the end end,
coincidentally on edition 100, was despite a classic “reprieve”
piece; Benson Ntlemo on village dynamics after a tornado.
This was not “damage is estimated at rX-million”. It was who
accused whom of bewitching who, plus the sordid and sad class
wars between brick-house owners and mud-house owners over
relief funds. Had there been an edition 101 Benson would have
featured, making 102 all the less likely but leaving this reader,
for one, with a fuller picture.
Generally the witchcraft school needed plenty of editing.
Strangely, my explicitly low-life specialist needed nil.
a face poked round the ajar door of 402 Dunwell. I said
“come in” and a person entered. He had evidently slept on a
park bench. He’d lost his razor, his shirt had endured since the
Verwoerd administration, one of his soles slapped on the floor.
I was reaching for 50 cents when he said he wanted to speak to
Mr Beckett. I said he was doing that thing. He wouldn’t believe
me. He said editors don’t sit at reception rooms where anybody
just walks in.
This was Steven ashley Botha. Steve had brought a
handwritten essay on Pretoria central Prison, a resident’s view.