That home was in Tshepe Street, Bekkersdal; a house identical to all the others in the township, distinguishable only by the freshly painted white outside walls. A compact three-roomed house – one bedroom, for my parents; a dining room; and a big kitchen with an adjoining narrow room, we called the laundry. The laundry had a concrete sink and a separate bath area with a concrete bath in which, for some odd reason I no longer recall, we used to store fresh water; and used portable plastic basins for washing ourselves.

Although I claim Bekkersdal as my home, I wasn't born there but it is where my family relocated when I was about six years old. Before that, my parents, my younger sister and I lived a simple life in the married quarters of the Venterspost mining compound, where I was born on the 9th of September 1943.

It is therefore on Venterspost Mine that I grew up, living with Ntate – my father Malebelle Magomola, also named Israel; Mme, my mother Sophie Matlakala (Out of the ashes) – ten years younger than Ntate; and my younger sister, Semakaleng, (Don't be surprised), who was born three years after me. From what Ntate shared with me as a child, I got the sense that the whole world was consumed by World War II around the time of my birth and during my early childhood.

The family's first-born son and they named me Thono, in Sepedi, the last sediment of liquor in a calabash, the most concentrated, delicious, precious drop. Gabriel, my middle name, comes from my paternal grandfather.

From these names, I gather my parents were more than glad to have me. From their actions, ever since I can remember, I knew I was cherished.

Ntate was a store clerk. Mme worked as a casual in nearby Westonaria. I don’t remember experiencing hunger, there was always enough to eat. Every month Ntate supplemented his mine rations with a sack of mealie meal, a sack of sugar, tea, a box of tins of condensed milk so that we had something to fall back on when there was no milk at the store (which often happened). We never felt deprived.