As a teenager growing up in Mitchell’s Plain, I would flip through the pages of the Plainsman, often just to see who I recognised in that week’s edition.
I had always wanted to feature in the Plainsman, and little did I know that I would one day end up reporting for the paper .
On my first day in the newsroom last year, I felt like Alice in Wonderland who fell down the rabbit hole and entered a whole new world.
Being a reporter for this paper requires hard work and dedication and I have the benefit of working with staff who have worked on the paper as well as other publications in the Cape Community Newspapers stable, for decades.
Growing up, I had made it my mission to do something with my life when I finished school. I did not want to fall into the trap of becoming a statistic in my community. So, I furthered my studies in order to become a journalist.
Looking back, I recall that there had always been copies of the Plainsman around our home. And if the current edition wasn’t delivered, my family would get upset because we were missing out on the news. I treasured the paper, particularly when I saw someone I knew in it.
As a youngster, I had never “toured” Mitchell’s Plain the way I do now, and I always have to have my finger on the pulse of what is happening.
In previous years, I simply went to school and I went home. Nowhere else. That’s what my mom taught me.
However, since working at the Plainsman, I have discovered many cool places and people. I even met and spoke to President Cyril Ramaphosa at an early morning run with the community, in Rocklands, in my first week at the Plainsman and had a front page story on the Siljeur Foundation and Ronnie Siljeur from Westridge, who is synonymous with cricket in Mitchell’s Plain.
I met Aboebakar Frieslaar, 60, from Lentegeur High School who retired this year and was a third-generation principal and discovered that the first police station had been based at a house in Westridge, which was the first part of Mitchell’s Plain to be developed.
So, here’s to many more years with the Plainsman, much more learning and many more memorable times with my community, Mitchell’s Plain.