Peter Soal

I have done many things in my 70 odd years. After leaving school at Selborne College in East London I worked as an Underground Surveyor on the Geduld Mine outside Springs o n the East Rand. Thereafter I changed direction and specialised in accounting and administrative matters ending up as the Financial Director of an engineering company.

Politics has always been a particular interest of mine and, in 1982, I was elected to the Johannesburg City Council and to Parliament for the constituency of Johannesburg North. Amongst my many duties I was a Parliamentary Whip; elected to the Executive Committee of Liberal International and a member of the Convention for Democratic South Africa (CODESA) and the Multi-party Negotiating Forum negotiating the interim constitution, which came into effect on April 27, 1994.

While in public life I became fascinated with the media in general and broadcasting in particular, becoming the media spokesperson for my party. I called for the establishment of an IBA in order to remove control of the airwaves from the bureaucrats and the SABC. The head of the SABC at the time pooh-poohed the idea and said his Corporation could manage the airwaves! Eventually, at the Kempton Park talks we produced a bill that provided for the “opening of the airwaves and a multiplicity of voices” and for the “radio frequency spectrum, a limited natural resource, to be placed in the hands of an independent body”. The bill broke the monopoly the SABC had over broadcasting and I subsequently served o n the team to choose the first council of the IBA.

In September 1994, President Nelson Mandela appointed me to the Staff of the Mission of SA to the United Nations where I served for four years as the SA representative on the Human Rights Committee. In 2000 my darling wife and I retired to Cape Town, a dream we had nurtured for many years. And now I am a DJ!

Soon after arriving in the Cape I was accepted as a volunteer presenter at FMR and a new chapter opened in my life. What do I know about music? My knowledge is limited. But I must add that in the years I have been presenting I have learned a great deal – from responsive listeners, the public in general, the literature and reference books available in the studio and from my colleagues at the station. It has been a fascinating learning curve. While a public representative I was fortunate to travel a great deal and always made a point of attending concerts wherever I landed. This whetted my appetite and confirmed what I was once told – that in art one knows what one likes, but in music one likes what one knows. My formal knowledge of music is limited but I know what I like and that is the sort of music I tend to play and as long as charming listeners phone to say they enjoy the programmes I hope to continue!