The City of Durban in Kwa-Zulu Natal, was and has been the birthplace of two visions. “Freedoms Children”, a musical and prophetic expression of the times in South-Africa that challenged the normality of not only the ideas that South-Africa had of what music should sound like, but also what is should look like! The name in itself, causing deep concern with the law enforcement of the then apartheid government.
The city of Durban, within its “walls” provided the perfect conditions for the rise of “The Children” “free” to express in abandonment their desires and hopes through music. This was my dream when I left SPRINGS in the then Transvaal, for the “City of Gold” Johannesburg, but arriving in Durban years afterwards, I was a seasoned minstrel, having done my time in the miles of night clubs, some deep in the bowels of the earth!
The City of DURBAN had a "pioneering spirit" permeating throughout its streets. Music played by Indians, Rhodesians, Enlishmen, African, on Sundays the mighty Zulu Impi gathered to compete, the sun almost darkened by the rising dusts, and the colourfully clothed ricksha was cheered as he lifted himself high in the air holding his cart, his ox horn headgear almost casting shadows on the road.
Down in the Valley of a Thousand Hills these “Freedoms Children” joined up together with the “Malombo Jazzmen” a black band of men, all the time the Freedom Children, watched by the enquiring South-African police. Malombo having to wear masks and painting their hands white in order to play with the Freedom Children at the Durban city hall.
It was the name Freedoms Children, the music played by its “sons” that eventually conquered the land and its records recorded to day are collector’s items, fetching very high prices, world wide.
From this very city some decades later, I co-founded “Shepherds Keep” reaching out to abandoned children saved from toilets, and park benches, a sort of coming of age I find myself, without really understanding the process, a father of over 500 infants, that “Freedoms Children” has never left me, but now through distant shadows from this very city Durban, I see these once lost children, taken onto new homes, saved and truly free.
