I noticed some years ago that on landing in Johannesburg or Cape Town from an overseas flight after a long absence from South Africa, unanticipated memories — not always helpful or wanted, often unusual — would begin to surface. For instance, telephone numbers I’d not accessed or needed for years would be readily available.

I had not unbuckled my 46G seat and faced customs and immigration yet on this trip and for some reason I remembered the newspaper seller who stood on the corner of Field and Smith Streets at 1am on a Sunday morning after I’d left the Oyster Box Hotel. Danny would save me “all three” papers for a healthy tip and remind me that he’d kept “all three” last week and I’d not arrived.

I can never go too far down my Duran memory lane before Gordon Michael at the Mitchell Gardens Blue Zoo restaurant, a beloved afternoon tea spot, fills me with delight. On visiting, Gordon would open his menu and show me my columns he’d cut from the paper and stuffed into his menu to show his customers how long we’d been friends. Gordon has no idea how often I’ve told audiences of his stories of Durban and of his 46 years of faithful service to a city and people whom he has so deeply loved.