The Harvest Of My Times (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781713164722)

""Gentlemen, we have no time. For each one, kindly attach your military badges to your right shoulder. From now onwards no one speaks but me; Phezulu and April, both on the South African and the Botswana sides of the border. As I hinted, this is a military op to Katima, there won't be searches at the border, but your little mouth Busta can put us in trouble. Our freedom starts here," and Piet gets behind the wheel of the C10 and takes the "Kraalkop" role, the role of the head of the kraal. The three cars roll into motion, gaining momentum and gathering dust behind them, driving past Ga-Monare village in the direction of Ga-Nkidikitlana, until they can no longer be seen. Beyond there, at a little gas station town of Steilloop, some twenty kilometres or so away, a major road taking traffic to Grobler's Bridge border post lay waiting for them, to take them to their freedom. They leave tyre tracks behind, which will disappear in a day or two when the new week starts tomorrow, they also leave behind relics on the riverbank, as the aliens' spacecraft often leaves behind foreign metals not found anywhere on this planet, relics which astound the scientist and the preacher alike. The relics will tell a story of their passing here!"

In the first week of May 1977, South Africans woke to the strangest tale of a bank robbery in the town of Krugersdorp, north-west of Johannesburg: a bank was robbed in the most daring fashion; there was no visible break-in and yet the bank vault was almost empty. As the week wore on it was discovered that the bank vault was accessed from an underground tunnel dug from the neighbouring building, which was rented by the thieves. The entire world reported the robbery as the first of its kind. The robbers left no clue behind to lead the police in their investigations, the world was told.

In the same week, in the remote village of Ga-Monare, in the northern part of the country, villagers woke up to loads of mint coins dumped along the riverbank in two huge safes. They had never seen such a quantity of money before and alerted the school principal of a primary school in the neighbouring village of Ga-Rapadi. The principal brought along his thirteen-year-old son, Markz, to the scene.

Forty-two years down the line, in 2019, Markz decided to tell this story, his story. Using elements of fiction to recreate the gang which robbed the bank and its modus operandi, he also tells the story about his growing up in the rural parts of the Northern Transvaal

This is the story of power, greed, pain, courage, determination and redemption, with a setting of the era up to 1988.