Every Friday, SAfm’s radio anchor Sakina Kamwendo speaks to Martin Creamer, publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly. Reported here is this Friday’s At the Coalface transcript:
Kamwendo: As you can see we have totally deviated from what was supposed to happen on the programme, Martin Creamer not doing an update from the Coalface with us today, but rather also paying tribute to Xolani Gwala.
Creamer: It is good to speak to you, but it is also a very sad occasion. I worked with Xolani for about two years. He used to interview me on this programme, the Coalface. It was always a great pleasure working with him and he even excused me for not being able to use the ‘click’ in his name, because we are supposed to when we say Xolani say it with a ‘click’.
He said you are excused from doing this. In fact, he said most of Soweto doesn’t do it, it is really the coastal areas that give you that ‘click’, so he was very accommodating. He was also so supportive of the Gwala clan, and of course, you have got Bongi Gwala and Xolani and they worked together very well. Really, we are going to miss him terribly and he is so young to leave us. I am heartbroken.
Kamwendo: Thanks very much. We certainly know, as I said, you used to come into the studio back in the day when we still had the AMlive, so there was that personal interaction and something that we are all the richer for having gone through.
Martin Creamer is publishing editor of Engineering News and Mining Weekly.