IT WAS late in 2001 when I got a call from Cape Times editor, Chris Whitfield. “Do you want a job?” he asked. “I’ve got a three month contract position open.”
It was just a few weeks after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, which the Cape Times had covered with the memorable headline: “Moment the world changed”.
After 14 years of being completely freelance, working variously as a foreign correspondent for Canadian television, the BBC, Irish and New Zealand radio, newspapers and magazines around the world, and finally, for several years as a travel and wildlife writer and photographer, it was time to go back into daily news, working for one of the finest editors, and finest newspapers, South Africa has ever seen.
Thus began a wild ride with Whitfield, first as a sort of gung ho “bigfoot” reporter, later on the news desk. Last night at the Kimberley Hotel we raised our glasses and toasted Chris farewell as he took early retirement from his job as editor-in-chief (“retirement”, what a joke – you can’t retire the Duracell Bunny).
One of the first quirky stories was one of those routine events that the Cape Times, in our snobbish desire to ignore the Cape Argus as much as possible, stumbled across by default – the Pick n Pay Cape Argus Cycle Tour being won by an impossible outsider, Ronel Liss.
Allister Arendse was a brand new intern on the Cape Times. He came back after the results were announced and said “there’s something weird going on, a rank outsider has won the women’s section, and nobody saw her during the race.”
It was sensational: Liss had claimed victory by 15 seconds.
Even more sensationally, her husband, Jago, a German citizen from Cologne, appeared to have “won” the A-group of the men’s race, the top amateur group after the professional riders. While Allister got the race organisers on the line, announcing they were suspending the results, I tracked down Jago and some of his buddies.
“We are very upset at what has happened. From the beginning I got the impression that it was pre-set who would be the winner. Their eyes were not focused on what really happened,” Jago told me.
It was the con of the year – two hitherto unheard of cyclists pulling off a double at “The Argus”. Both were disqualified.
Then, on April 10, 2002, came the big one: another German conman, Jürgen Harksen, had been making nice with the DA mayor of Cape Town, Gerald Morkel, and other party bigwigs. Rumours were flying about bags full of cash handed over to politicians, of Morkel’s rent and rates bills being paid by Harksen, and of lavish lunches at Cape Town’s best restaurants.
Armed with nothing more than a bunch of rumours and innuendo, Ashley Smith and I doorstopped Morkel in his offices at the Civic Centre. Within minutes, he was falling over himself as one lie after another came out, and several nuggets of truth.
Instead of shutting the hell up and telling us to get out of his office, he bumbled his way through an interview, piling half-truth upon half-truth.
The next morning’s Cape Times was sensational: “Harksen and I, by Gerald Morkel.”
The story read in part: ‘In an exclusive interview with the Cape Times, Morkel was asked why original invoices relating to R60 000 rent on his Higgovale house and legal fees of R230 000, which were addressed to him (Morkel), were found in Harksen’s wife’s office.
‘... “That is not true... There is a trust fund, there was a Jewish fellow, he was phoned, and he gave R100 000; there was another fellow, he also gave money, I’m not sure... you must ask Jürgen Harksen”.
It was the first in a series of award-winning exposés that led to Morkel being forced to resign, to the Desai Commission of Inquiry, and ultimately to Harksen’s arrest and deportation to Germany to face multiple fraud charges.
And who will ever forget the night that Chris, after a session in the Five Flies with me and the late Colin Howell walked back in and was told there were topless pictures available, taken during “shower hour” in the Big Brother SA house.
“Front page,” Chris said.
It was his finest shower hour.
Thanks Chris - I’m not brave enough to do a downhill mountain bike ride with you, but nothing could be as wild as the ride we’ve had together on the Cape Times, and during the last two months at Independent Newspapers. It’s been our own Cape Epic.