So where were you when SA held those historic elections in 1994?

It is 24 years since South Africa’s first democratic elections. It is now one of those ‘so, where were you’ moments?’… in Dundee it was like this…

Then we had the first real elections in 1994. A chaotic affair – the script of which a movie producer would have shunned as being too unreal. Here, in Noord-Natal it was fun.
On April 27 1994 we had stuff happen that Stephen King could not imagine.
I was honoured to go around with Sanjay Singh (freelance journalist),  Jan Noordman (policeman – now late) on that famous day. We went to every nook and cranny in our immediate vicinity.

There was also humour when one old man who come down from the mountains to vote and was upset to find that King George was not on the voting sheet. Not sure when he last listened to the radio.

In rural Dannhauser we photographed the arrest of a priest dishing out false birth certificates so people could vote. In Nquthu people made their own voting sheets. In Wasbank, the goats queued with the voters, Kid you not.

Back then, as long as you had an ID you could vote anyway in the country. We voted at Rorke’s Drift. We liked that touch. The valour and fame of Rorke’s Drift – we had that stamped in our Ids – it was special.
There was also humour when one old man who come down from the mountains to vote and was upset to find that King George was not on the voting sheet. Not sure when he last listened to the radio.
The euphoria kind of wore off when we heard voting would continue to April 28.

The humour was also dampened when a couple of weeks later those working at voting stations started marching and complaining that they had not yet been paid. In hindsight, it was a sign of things to come. Service delivery. Grants not paid. It started on April 29, 1994.

Anyway, they were paid and since then… well, we know the story.
But the revolution was not yet complete
When asked what would happen should they not be paid, one of the women marching on Willson Street, told us rather darkly ‘what will happen will happen automatically.’
Eventually, the Standard Bank (back then on Gladstone Street)  was forced to open after 7pm and the irate poll station workers queued up waiting to be paid. The bottle stores, the illegal ones still open at that time of night, did well.