Mabopane was where we brought up our children in the early 1970s. Despite the thriving community of a good mix of young progressive professional Africans – nurses, teachers, doctors and lawyers, a sense of deprivation still prevailed, further aggravated by the clear and visible contrast between black and white life and living. A low-level white worker, say a railway policeman or a foreman in a factory or at the offices of the municipality, would live closer to the city in a house three times that of mine. He would own property twice what I rented and could only rent but not own, all the roads around him tarred, the amenities supported, a city hall, clinic and first-world schools at his disposal. At the end of the year, he could afford to drive to the coast in his own car with a caravan (which were popular in the seventies) trailing behind. We had none of that, and I had almost completed a university degree.

Day in and day out, on our way to and from the city where we worked, going by bus or taxi or whatever other transportation was available, we would cross and recross the white suburbs, the glaring disparities inescapably in our faces. Apartheid ruled that whites should enjoy superior privileges just because of the colour of their skin.

In 1973, I left the family-owned paper and pulp company in Pretoria and joined one of the larger firms, the Swiss-owned Ciba Geigy in Spartan, just outside Johannesburg, again as an accounting clerk. But this time, I reported to the Chief Accountant, Mr Bassi. That was, by the days’ standards, a very prestigious opportunity. The Swiss were trying hard to crack the delibitating job reservation restriction and I was the first black professional at this firm to be brought into the corporate head office among a sea of white faces. It became obvious that this was a delicate experiment and I felt like the proverbial guinea pig. However, I was cautiously well-received by the majority of the people there. It was quite intriguing that while we had that comradeship and professional fraternity on the job, come lunch-time, I would have to walk to the inferior lounge facilities designated for African employees who were, for the most part, lowly unskilled workers.