Obituary: Des Blow, lone-wolf reporter who could land a punch and a scoop

Desmond Blow, who has died in Johannesburg at the age of 88, was a legendary journalist of the old school who stopped at very little to get a good story.

He was one of the first white reporters, if not the first, to enter the seething cauldron of Soweto days after the student uprising on June 16 1976 — in the boot of Sunday Times photographer Alf Kumalo’s car.

He covered the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Israel for the Sunday Times and wrote a gripping and poignant book about it, Take Now Thy Son.

Blow was an untameable character. He didn’t respond well to authority, that of his editors or anyone else. He was highly personable unless you were competing for the same story.

Then he was ruthless. He worked best alone. Nobody knew where he was or what he was up to a lot of the time. They did know that he’d invariably file the most extraordinary stories.

He was in Mozambique during its tumultuous transition to independence. He and his photographer tried to evade an army road block but were surrounded by an enraged mob that began rocking their car. Suddenly the mob opened up and a man waving a meat cleaver approached, making it clear he intended to decapitate them. Blow wound his window down a little and explained they were journalists. By some miracle they were allowed on their way.

Blow’s most effective weapon was that few people took him seriously. In his mumbling, bumbling, disorganised way he projected a faintly ridiculous, wholly unprepossessing image that lulled people into a false sense of security. Before they knew it they had divulged closely guarded secrets, or given him a level of co-operation no other reporter could have secured.

It didn’t always work. He collected a nasty gash on the head from a police baton after refusing to move along while covering neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic riots in Hillbrow. He was locked up in the Fort (now part of Constitution Hill) for refusing to reveal his sources. He was chased down the high street in Witbank by the enraged commander of the notorious Barberton prison farm while covering his trial for beating up prisoners.

When US world heavyweight boxing champion “Big John” Tate came to South Africa to fight Gerrie Coetzee in 1979, Blow, half his size, got into the ring and sparred with him. Tate thought it all a joke until Blow, a former London flyweight champion, landed a few seriously hard punches. Tate quickly wised up and rocked Blow with a few solid ones himself.

Their encounter led to the newspaper headline: Blow by blow by Blow.

Blow brought a sexy-looking white woman with him and set her up with the black champ. She spent the night with him, which was a criminal offence during apartheid, and Blow of course wrote about it gleefully. His editor received an angry phone call from a government minister but was unapologetic.

Blow covered the trial of notorious mercenary Colonel “Mad”Mike Hoare, who tried to overthrow the Seychelles government in 1981. Interest was so intense that seats in the Pietermaritzburg Supreme Court were at a premium. Reporters from around the world had to take turns on an old jury bench. Not so, Blow. He slouched backwards into the well of the court so it looked like he was going out, not coming in. Before anyone realised what he was up to, he had sat down next to the advocates, where he remained, the only reporter with a permanent seat in court throughout the trial.

Blow was born in Bloemfontein on December 31 1927. He wrote his first “book” at the age of six and his aunt, prize-winning novelist Winifred Dashwood MBE, predicted he would be a writer. His father Ernest, who had little to do with his upbringing, was a successful science fiction writer.

Blow completed his schooling in Bloemfontein and began a career as an accountant because it paid more and seemed to offer a better future than journalism. After a year he thought he would “go crazy”, he wrote. He “fled to London in search of adventure”.

He hitch-hiked around Europe living on bread, cheese and wine and took a journalism course at the London Polytechnic. In 1954 he won the London flyweight boxing title at the Royal Albert Hall. He had ambitions to fight at the Olympic Games but was disqualified for a low blow.

He returned to South Africa where he worked on the Springs Advertiser, Rand Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Sunday Express and as an assistant editor for many years on City Press.

He is survived by three children.

1927-2016