Following that year of service he commenced a cadetship with the major afternoon daily in Cape Town, the Cape Argus, a prominent voice of opposition against the dominant National Party during the apartheid years. During his years with the newspaper, particularly while doing police rounds in the courts of Cape Town, he saw at first hand the degrading effect of apartheid on people of colour and felt the experience changed him.

During his mid-twenties he married his wife, Anita, and moved to Grahamstown