It was the Hunchback of Notre Dame that first showed me television was a powerful medium.
It was 1976 at boarding school in Makhanda on a Saturday night and we were all crammed into the common room, waiting for a prefect to turn on the TV that was installed in the top left corner.
Like most kids growing up in South Africa in the 1960s and 70s I spent most afternoons after school playing outside. I never missed TV, and when it first arrived in the country all I remember was the test pattern. I didn’t take to sitting inside and watching a glass screen when I could be outside running around with my mates.
But this Saturday night was different. The prefect pushed the switch and a flow of images flickered through the darkened room. It was an old black and white movie based on the famous novel about the hunchback who lived in the bell towers of the spectacular cathedral in Paris. Somehow, this old movie captivated me. I
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