‘Alison, I’ve got bad news.’ The voice of the pathologist at the other end of the telephone confirmed for Alison Tucker the news no woman ever wants to hear: she had breast cancer. Once the shock had settled, Alison decided that she would take charge. Not only would she take ownership of the dreaded disease, but she would do so with a positive mindset and prepare herself as best she could for what was to come. She did detailed research and paid close heed to what she was told by others who had walked the path before her.

Dov Fedler was a laatlammetjie, born and bred in Johannesburg in 1940 just as Hitler was getting into his stride. A third child was not on his parents’ ‘want-list’. It was hard enough supporting two much older children and a printing business struggling to exist. When Dov was about three his mother had a ‘nervous breakdown’ which is when he remembers seeing his first pencil and knowing precisely what it was that he wanted to do with his life.

‘It’s simply not human!’ a passenger proclaims loudly, aghast as to what she is witnessing. Ryan Stramrood stands at the top of the gangway stairs that are lowered down the side of an ocean liner in one of the coldest, most hostile places on Earth – Antarctica. He wears only a small Speedo costume, goggles and a swim cap. Over a hundred passengers, wearing thick layers of insulation to protect from the bitter cold, are leaning over the ship’s railing on the upper decks, cheering and desperate to get a glimpse, in morbid fascination, of what is about to happen. What Ryan is about to attempt could potentially push boundaries beyond what humans can survive.

‘I am not recovering. I am recovered. You, too, can be a recovered addict.’ Imagine going from schoolboy experimentation with drugs to being so addicted that you begin planning your parents’ murder so that you can get money (for more drugs) from your inheritance! Sadly Marco’s story is not an isolated one. Marco Broccardo was an ordinary boy from an ordinary family. He had parents who loved him and provided him with a safe and caring home. He had older sisters who doted on their little brother. He had friends and he played sport at school. When he experimented with weed and then with coke and ecstasy, he was no different from the circle he socialised with and partied with at weekends. Drugs made him feel great. What was the harm?

Brutally dragged 780 metres beneath a taxi – a young woman’s inspiring story of survival, courage, and the will to live. ‘13 September 2011. The story would shock thousands and be remembered by many for years to come. It would be plastered all over the papers and continue to attract interest well after the shock factor of what happened had passed. Reports and articles would be written, and “facts”, as given to reporters by some of those involved and willing to be interviewed, would be recounted and repeated in all forms of public media over the months and even years that followed. And although these versions would generate widespread outrage, none was entirely accurate.The stories were about me. I was there. I am Kim McCusker, “the girl who was dragged by a taxi”.’

“On my better days friends find me flirting with the nurses, cigarette in one hand and scotch in the other, but if I listen carefully I can hear the tribute concerts starting up. There they are, celebrating my life like never before, and here I am, knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s door. That rhymes, doesn’t it? I think I might even feel a song coming on but I’m so tired and the words are slipping away and the music is fading into a soft chant round my bed and Madala was spot on, he said when God says He want you, we can’t run away. I know Bafo, I know. I’m not running anymore.”