LOOKING BACK

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Police are to launch a full-scale search for a family of six from Auckland Park, Johannesburg, whom they believed drowned in Thursday night’s floodwaters while returning home from Alberton. Lieutenant-Colonel J.H. Watson, station commander at Germiston, said police believed they would find the bodies of a Mr. and Mrs. Virgotini and their four children trapped in the family car under water. More rain poured down on the sodden Transvaal yesterday, bringing the fear of even greater floods to an area already devastated by three days of torrential rain. The Weather Bureau says there will be more rain today, but it will not be as heavy as it has been. The floodwaters stretch from Alberton to Vereeniging and beyond. — January 23 1972

FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

James Small, the bad boy of South African rugby, has a new girlfriend with a stormy image to match his own. It all started with a “posed” French kiss with model Christina Storm, 22, during a steamy photo fashion shoot for Femina magazine last year. A bit of fashion foreplay got the cameras clicking as the Springbok wing scrummed down with the leggy model in the magazine’s studio. The doe-eyed beauty, the daughter of a diplomat, was clearly smitten by Small’s natural flair for the camera as he posed in trendy muscle-hugging T-shirts and sunglasses. Before long it was obvious that it was not only the cameras that clicked. Evidently, the on-camera electricity between Small and Pretoria-born Storm was not just an act for the photographer. — January 19 1997