Kerry-Anne Allerston
I remember when the very first episode of Egoli: Place of Gold aired. We were at my uncle Peter’s house and it was back when families played cards at each other’s houses on Friday nights and Sundays were always braai days. I think we still had TV presenters telling us what was coming up next and Scott Scott and Ashley Hayden were superstars.
It was 1992 and television was a very different beast. There weren’t nineteen streaming platforms and six remotes to lose down the side of the couch. When something big was on, everyone watched it. Egoli arrived on M Net on 6 April 1992 and South Africans fell in love with the people, the drama and, of course, the glamour of the Place of Gold.
Families really did plan their evenings around their favourite shows and missing an episode was an actual problem. There was no going back three episodes because you’d been out for dinner. If you missed it, you missed it.
A year or two later my mom and I drove past Sasani Studios and I spotted one of the Egoli actors walking out. This was quite a thing. I had seen an actual television person in the wild. Fast forward about ten years and, as luck would have it, I became besties with one of the writers on the show.
