FREEDOM STREET, a photo memoir set in eighties Long Street ... and connections

264pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, (Cape Town), 2023

RG Meintjes lived at 222 Long Street in the 1980s.

"My journal’s contents were like beads on a Long Street thread. I became conscious as I revisited the journal that my life was vindicated by that Long Street decade. Despite its hedonism, it was a simple, happy existence ... Freedom Street, that’s what Long Street felt like to me. Its wrought-iron balconies, diverse speciality shops, bars, and lodges enhanced that feeling. Long Street transcended the claustrophobia of apartheid South Africa." RG Meintjes