The only time a “famous” person came to Vrygrond in connection with any work undertaken by the Trust, was in March 1999 when we formally opened the Library.

Jonny Levy from London had donated R30,000 to fund a shipping container, as well as the cost of painting it bright yellow, and fitting it out it as a library. One of the Trustees, Eddy Klaasen, who a little over a year later was shot and killed in the violence relating to the housing, somehow managed to send an invitation to the Speaker of Parliament, Frene Ginwala, and to everybody’s surprise she actually turned up in Vrygrond.

We have the photo to prove it. Ginwala stands squat and solid, her Hindu drapes nicely contrasting with the canary yellow of the container, while around her stand 6 of us Vrygrond Trustees. Three of them are now dead, - Eddy and Trevor both shot, and Yvonne died of a stroke. But Thys, Freddy and I are still here. The only thing I recall about Ginwala’s speech was her candid admission that until that morning she had never heard of Vrygrond!

That little library in the container was remarkably successful. Two and a half years later we moved it into the largest room in the Trust building. That room had been used as the main information centre for processing the housing applications of the residents, but was empty when the housing rush was over.

A few years ago Elizabeth Everson came to work for the library. Elizabeth is one of those people whose presence and drive transform a place. One of her first coups was to get a major donation of books from the Municipality. Since then she has really driven the library and, with the help of Jane Sylvester, her assistant, it has become a wonderful example of a thriving community library.

The library has in fact become a resource more for the children of Vrygrond than anything. This was to some extent dictated by the nature of the community; very few adults in Vrygrond have the desire to read books. And the low literacy levels do not help. So the library has become a place used by school-going children. Many come there to have a quiet place to do their homework.

And Elizabeth has built on this by holding reading classes where she and older kids assist others to read. In addition she has helped form a group of Vrygrond teenagers, called “Generation for Change” who use the library as their centre for community activities. This is not a library where silence often reigns!

The library has also benefited from the help of various outsiders, of whom Lil van Ryneveld is the foremost. Lil managed to get the Council to lay down a large outdoors chess board. The child-high chess pieces are kept in the library for fear of being stolen, and when the board is not being used for chess, it makes a handy slab for parking in front of the library.

The Trust pays for the entire costs of running the library, which is about R4,000 (£300) per month. The community gets a lot for this relatively small outlay.

In January 2007 the library was given an award by the Library & Information Association of South Africa as the Best Branch Library in the Western Cape Province. One of the judges said that the deciding factor was the way the library, instead of passively waiting for users to come in and borrow books, actively went out and engaged with the community. This was a nice confirmation that we are doing something right.