written by Ben Beaumont-Thomas

“I’d been living in Amsterdam for eight years, working on the lighting for film sets. Photography was always around – I’d studied film-making in London – though it was never in the foreground. But when you reach your 30s you have a realisation: what do I really want to do? In my case, I bought a ticket to Cape Town. I’d never been to Africa. I just wanted to get far away.

I got a job at a production company, and it was there that I met Ruthy Jones, who did the cooking and cleaning, commuting from Manenberg township. We became very good friends. She’s an adorable woman who loves her family. When she was 14, she was raped at the local swimming pool by one of the employees. She wasn’t even that aware of what was happening, because sex education was so poor. She only found out what had gone on when she became pregnant.

The day I met her, I found out about her love for Jesus and religious music. After the rape, church became the most constant, steady thing in her life. Most churches there have a brigade, a band that parades around the area. Ruthy’s Anglican brigade is the most professional: they have uniforms and all the kids play an instrument – there are so many boys on triangle! Ruthy plays everything, but she likes the flute the most. It gives them a bond, a group dynamic, and tells children there’s more to life than the violence they see on the streets of Manenberg. “