Two-thirds of South African gold reserves have now been extracted, and as the mines get deeper they become more 'marginal', yet more reliant on cheap labour. For the time being there is optimism on all sides that something, some kind of miraculous economic 'diversification', will eventually turn up to replace gold. I give Gabriel a lift back to his home township, south-east of Johannesburg. On the way we pass Dawn Park where the young, inspirational ANC leader Chris Hani was murdered just a couple of years ago. At the township the crude road is diverted beneath a modern highway to which there is no connection.
Signposts disappear, replaced here and there by armed police searching for weapons.
Turn right, drive like hell,' he says, 'and don't stop'. He phones to check I've arrived safely. It is, as Gabriel would say, the end of the day. The Challenge of Mining Health and Safety , Fleur Plimner, monograph report to NUM, June 1994. I have not identified the mine in order to reduce any potential risk to individual NUM members who work there.