Visible Gold

The South Africa of the early nineties and especially the mining industry was known for its deep-seated racism. But for people working in the depths of those mines, there was a strong bond of respect and care. The truth of this is evident in the interactions described in this book. Told by a man who toiled alongside both heroes and victims in the shadows below, these pages reveal what newspapers never could. Here are the unforgiving realities of rockfalls and explosions, but also the gentle heroism of those who helped each other survive. Any man might save or comfort another if disaster struck. Away from the apartheid sun, skin colour matters less than a colleague’s hands hauling you to safety.South Africa is a land of unforgiving landscapes and merciless predators but is full of forgiving and gentle people who will prove to be its salvation. Nowhere shows this stark contrast more than the gold mines – at once negligent and nurturing, lethal and life-giving. These true stories deserve remembering, for they reveal hope and redemption glow in the darkest of places.

Born in 1947, on a farm in the White Highlands of Kenya, Roger attended school in Bournemouth, UK, and St David’s College in South Africa. He started on the mines near Johannesburg when he was nineteen years old. He has worked on gold, platinum and copper mines all over the world. Roger married in 1968 and is the father of four children by his first wife, Sharon. She died of cancer in 1993. He has since remarried and lives with his wife, Cynthia and their young son Gordon, on a forty-foot boat near St Ives in Cambridgeshire.