Putting down local roots (SWANENG PART 3)

At dawn on the first day of our second school year in 1964, the stark and painful reality of so many primary school-leavers seeking entry to so few secondary schools arrived outside our rondavel.

These were not dry statistics in some government report, but real people in a desperate situation, and for Liz and me in that moment, the experience was traumatic. We woke to find a huge crowd of hopeful youngsters together with their anxious parents — some of whom had travelled hundreds of miles to reach Swaneng — bringing their blankets and camping on our doorstep.