Special Report Transcript Episode 9, Section 3, Time 09:42

The last thing that my father said to me was, think about the planets. I was thirteen, I couldn’t sleep and I had wandered the house to where he was lying in the bath reading. He told me to try counting sheep but I already had and it didn’t work. Then think about the planets, he said. // I did go to sleep and a few hours later I woke up when I heard my dad in the hallway, saying who’s there? And there was no answer and he came into our bedroom and he walked up to the window and he parted the curtain. And, with barely a beat the shot went off, an incredible explosion and it flung him right back onto the floor. And he fell screaming, I mean literally writhing with pain. His whole body convulsed. But he picked himself up and he ran through the house. He fell here on the floor and he was face down in a pool of blood. And because he was face down all I could hear was his breathing [sound of breathing] because he was breathing in and out the blood and I had to turn him over. And he was very heavy because he was unconscious. And I tried to help him, by giving him mouth to mouth and I couldn’t find where the wound was and I was calling to him saying daddy, daddy, what’s wrong? Tell me what happened. But he was completely unconscious by then. And I just held him. And after about 20 minutes, I thought at the time that he was trying to say something to me because his eyes and his mouth quivered. But that was when he died.

Notes: Short film by Jann Turner; ‘South Africa 8th January 1978’

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