South Africa of 60 years Ago

By Dean McCleland in Historical 1 Comment

South Africa of 60 years ago was a vastly different place than the South Africa of today. The changes are more than the cosmetic ones such as apparel and motor vehicles. Apart from the fact that the black man had to “know his place”, the white community was riven with divisions. Inspite of also being white, the English speaking was discriminated against in terms of the unwritten Afrikaans Affirmative Action Policies.

Much like the current policies, with limited promotion possibilities for English speakers within the Civil Service, they fled the government service in droves. From the majority of Civil Service being English Speaking in 1948, by 1960 it was overwhelmingly Afrikaans speaking.

Main picture: Cape Town Station

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How could they ever have permitted adverts like this?

By Dean McCleland in Current Affairs, Other Galleries 0 Comment

In this era, Political Correctness had clearly not been invented. Women were meant to occupy the kitchen and babies to drink copious quantities of Coke. What about smoking? Even the doctors were advised their clients to smoke.

What will our grandchildren berate us for? Advertising breads and pasta. Perhaps even hamburgers will a distant memory with the Golden Arches of a McDonalds only serving fatty foods and salads but no carbohydrates or starches. That is the excruciating difficulty in making predictions about the future as the future is synonymous with change but where will that change lead us to.

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What it sometimes takes to get to School

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

As a child we never got a lift to school. In Primary School it was on foot albeit only for half a dozen blocks. High School was a little further, so I cycled to school. Given the fact that my mother could not drive, and that we were a one car family, that was our lot. In my children’s generation, they never experienced the pleasures of walking or cycling to school as they were fetched and carried.

In the case of many third world children, even our experiences are minor in comparison. This blog highlights their plight or perhaps that their real determination to obtain an education.

Main picture: Children of Gulu in China should be run up to 5 hours on a cliff path that is sometimes 50 inches wide to reach their schools

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Quintessential Images of Various Countries

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

Every country has its own set of images which evokes the essence of that country; England with its lush verdant fields, Norway with its fjords and Japan’s paddy fields. Each of these photographs will evoke such a response: “It only happens in…………”

Main picture: This was an easy one. Of course it could only be Australia where one would take a pet kangaroo to the supermarket.

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The Yukon Quest: The World’s Toughest Dogsled Race

By Dean McCleland in Other Galleries 0 Comment

Of the dogsled races, its contemporary, the Iditarod is the better known. Both cover 1600kms of frozen terrain. In the case of the Quest it stretches from Whitehorse, the tiny capital of the Yukon to Fairbanks in the heart of the Alaskan interior. Notwithstanding that, of the two the Quest is widely acknowledged to be the more difficult.

The surprising aspect of the race is the unbelievable resilience and hardiness of the dogs. The most prevalent breed is the Alaskan Husky as opposed to its purebred Siberian variety. Their stamina is demonstrated by the ability to run all the way between check points which are up to 320 kms apart with tails still wagging as if it was a Sunday picnic jaunt.

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