Sue Krige

Sue Krige writes about the Nightingale of India and Mahatma Gandhi.

It is noon in Cullinan, near Pretoria, and the Whispering Oaks restaurant is bustling in preparation for the arrival of a bus-load of international tourists. Cullinan locals like to boast that the famous Big Hole is smaller than the 100-year-old crater of its Premier Diamond Mine. Cullinan’s appeal lies in the glitter of its multi-faceted past.

"When I mention Sophiatown people say one of two things; one is that it is pointless going there because there is very little left to see; the other is that it has already "been done" — in photographs, books and films about the glamorous 1950s, the halcyon days before the bulldozers moved in." Sue Krige goes on a walking tour of Sophiatown and discovers the area’s architecture of memory.