“Hello, I’m Ruda Landman and this is Carte Blanche” had thousands of South Africans glued to their TV screens on Sunday evenings from 1988 when the popular actuality show was first aired.
A household name for 19 years as a presenter, Ruda is today a keynote speaker, philanthropist and author … and she visited Benoni last week to entertain The Garland Ladies Luncheon Club with tales of her experiences working for Carte Blanche.
Before the guest of honour was introduced, however, president of the club Margie Kostelac honoured another very special guest, Audrey Matthee, whose 90th birthday it was (April 25).
Audrey was overwhelmed with the attention and special cake brought to her table, complete with candles and sparklers.
Before starting her talk, Ruda also extended a warm congratulations to Audrey, adding she would want to be just like her when she is 90.
“There is no reason at all that you can’t be,” was Audrey’s beaming response.
Many a remark was made too about how “good” Ruda looks for her age (65) as the former TV presenter, elegantly dressed in black pants, a maroon shirt and striking black and white jacket, addressed the audience.
She made no bones about the fact that when approached to present the show, she wasn’t overly excited about “this new actuality programme” which would air for an hour on Sunday nights.
Carte Blanche, now in its 31st year, would, of course, bring Ruda a wealth of experiences and interactions which many a journalist can only dream of.
Her presentation wove a thread between the early years of reporting for Carte Blanche and issues which still make news today – some, for example, the challenges in the township of Alexandra, featuring due to a steady deterioration through the dawn of democracy to present day.
“I am not a fan of people referring to the goeie ou dae (good old days) because things were not all wonderful in South Africa at the time – many of us look back at those days with bright pink (rose-tinted) glasses, I think.”
“Missing the bigger picture” also struck home for Ruda upon her return from covering a story on the mountain gorillas in Rwanda in 1993 – the infamous episode of Carte Blanche which had everyone talking as, during filming, Ruda was suddenly stormed by a young male gorilla and had to curl up into a ball as the animal made incredibly close contact with her.
“I’ve never been so afraid in my life,” she said at the time.
Less than a year after the “heartwarming” gorilla insert was filmed, the world watched in horror as the Rwandan genocide unfolded.
“When we went to film the gorillas we drove through roadblocks and saw many soldiers and guns and the atmosphere was tense – why didn’t we see the real story though? Why didn’t we notice, as journalists, what was really happening? We were so focused on this tourist exhibition we were on, that we failed to pick up on the real news in Rwanda,” Ruda said.
“I will be the first to admit that as journalists pre-democracy, we often missed the bigger picture, especially in our own country – it’s embarrassing actually that we simply didn’t see what was really going on in South Africa in the early ’80s and ’90s,” Ruda said.
This belief has been reinforced in a poignant collection of interviews, published nearly verbatim, in Ruda’s book Tell Me Your Story.
“How can we know each other, or understand the whole of our reality, if we don’t hear each other’s stories?” she asked the audience.
“My book is a discussion with prominent South Africans about their life choices and how change has affected them.
“I was astonished at the experiences and stories they shared – many of the stories we missed or never knew about as journalists; they touched me deeply.”
Ruda admitted to “never coming out this way” when asked whether she’d been in Benoni before – she lives in Melville.
This made little difference to the largely local audience which were keen to grab a photo opportunity with the popular personality and share a few of their own insights into South Africa pre and post democracy.
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