4 famous people who hail from Springs, ek sê

09 April 2017 - 02:00 By Ufrieda Ho
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Penny Heyns is Springs' golden Olympian.
Penny Heyns is Springs' golden Olympian.
Image: GALLO/GETTY IMAGES

Small-towners who grew up to become world-class giants

1) Penny Heyns

Heyns is Springs' golden Olympian. The swimming sensation was born in 1974 and spent her early years in the mining town before her family relocated to KZN.

She has clocked up firsts and broken numerous records in her swimming career. In the 1996 Atlanta Games, she became the first woman in the history of the Olympic Games to win both the 100m and 200m breaststroke events. In 1999 in LA, she set four world records in two days in the 100m and 200m breaststroke events.

She lives in Pretoria and works as a motivational speaker and a swimming clinician.

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2) Doug Watson

Watson made history in 1972 when, as a 29-year-old, he became the youngest bowler in history to represent South Africa in lawn bowls.

3) Nadine Gordimer

Gordimer wasthe Nobel Prize for literature laureate in 1991, was also a political activist and a voice of conscience through her writing. She was born in 1923 to Jewish migrants. She started writing when she was nine years old and was published as a teenager. Her novel The Conservationist (1974) signalled the Springs native's arrival to the international literary world. Gordimer died in 2014.

4) James Phillips

Phillips was born in 1959 and grew up at the height of apartheid. He was the son of a Presbyterian minister, but grew up to become the man called "the East Rand cowboy, singer, songwriter, cultural icon, voice and conscience to a generation of apartheid-era white South Africans".

Phillips formed Corporal Punishment in the late '70s and later a band called Illegal Gathering. His music was about political statement, alternatives to Calvinistic conservatism and taking a stand in a difficult time. Phillips died in 1995.

LISTEN to James Phillips' track Africa is Dying

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