MBOMBELA – On the morning of January 30, 1976 the Lowveld was rocked by a huge scandal. It remained front-page news for several weeks.
According to the first reports the police raided a strip show on a farm near Barberton. It had been organised by a group of local businessmen.
The party, which featured a braaivleis and free liquor, was allegedly the scene of wild revelry before the police burst in shortly after midnight and arrested five strippers. They recorded the names of all the men in attendance and, on the Monday, laid charges of public indecency against two prominent Barberton residents.
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Three of the five strippers, Gino Lorna Frank (23), Kathy Jennings (26) and Susan Hutton (24), were charged with public indecency. The remaining two girls were released.
One, known only as Sheena, was apparently not charged as she had not stripped completely naked. The other had allegedly been waiting for her turn when the police broke up the party.
The three who were charged were each released on R100 bail, which was paid by a local businessman. “At the party a prominent Barberton businessman apparently had his clothes removed by one of the girls,” according to the report.
Two weeks later, on March 19, a headline in The Lowvelder, as the paper was known 40 years ago, read: “Strip men guilty”.
“A Barberton cartage contractor, Joel Meyer Sammuels, and three Johannesburg women, mentioned above, were found guilty in the Nelspruit Regional Court yesterday on charges of stripping in public and making suggestive movements with their bodies. A second Barberton businessman, Roy Gordon Scott, was found guilty of conspiring to organise the strip show,” the report read.
Constable AJ du Toit from Ermelo, one of three policemen at the scene at the time of the raid, told the court that he had been tasked with attending the event by the police in Nelspruit. It took place on the farm Tecklenburg, where initially some 30 men gathered in a shed to enjoy the revelry. Later that evening the figure grew to approximately 150.
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In another report, a spokesman for the event later told The Lowvelder the plan was to raise money for charity. The party showed a profit of R800 after the fee for the strippers and the cost of the liquor had been deducted.
An amount of R200 was passed on to The Lowvelder as a donation to the Southern Cross Fund. “We want to give something to the boys on our borders,” the spokesman was quoted as saying.
