Thanks to a colleague’s misfortune, I found myself with my Sony tape recorder in Johannesburg at short notice, covering South Africa’s first democratic elections in April 1994. At an ANC event for international media, the chance arose to interview Thabo Mbeki, who would later succeed Nelson Mandela as State President. It was a big deal to get Mbeki and obviously would make for good tv news material as well as radio, but without a camera crew it seemed like a lost opportunity – until I discovered that the Dutch tv crew just ahead of me in the queue were based…

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