The Bang-Bang Club (9 page)

On Joao’s birthday in 1992, he was in his darkroom cubicle processing film when Ken came in to see how the job had gone. After some time, grinning broadly, Ken handed him a large brown envelope. Joao opened it, expecting a card, but instead it was a black-and-white photograph of a train smash and written on the bottom of the picture was ‘Happy birthday Joao!!’ Joao wondered why Ken had given him that picture. ‘That’s what happened the day you were born!’ Ken explained. He had gone to the newspaper archives to see what had been on the front page on 9 August 1966, unearthed the original negative and made an 8’ by 10’ print. ‘A lot of people die?’ Joao asked. ‘Lots,’ replied Ken, who had been born on Valentine’s Day. ‘On my birthday, they had some girl with flowers; on yours there has to be a disaster!’

By 1992, Ken had turned
The Star
’s photo department around. That year Joao won the national Press Photographer’s award, Ken was runner-up and
The Star
photographers dominated all the categories. It was through Joao that I got to know Ken better. There were individual friendships between the four of us, as well as a growing common bond. Our girlfriends and wives became friends, and we would get together for meals and to discuss and edit the pictures when one of us had done a big story.

When there was a lot of violence, we would team up for ‘dawn patrols’ - waking before dawn to be in the townships by first light. It was a ritual that we had each done singly at first and then later two or three of us would sometimes cruise together. The companionship meant I did not feel so alone when the alarm jerked me awake to face
the next day of witnessing the violence. Sometimes when the days had been really bad I would wake seconds before the alarm and try to find excuses for staying in that warm bed, but the thought that the others were waiting somewhere would help me to get up.