One question that lingered on my mind during the 80th birthday celebration of renowned newspaperman, political activist and patriot Joe Thloloe was whether we have honoured and celebrated people like him enough so that their names are not a distant memory when they are no longer with us.

Listening to various speakers – from union organisers, journalists and political activists, among them Sithembele Khala, Cunningham Ngcukana, Thami Mazwai and Jaki Seroke – waxing lyrical about the life and times of this son of the soil, again I realised that his story and that of other doyens of journalism have to be documented and their names remembered for they are an asset to the country...