FORMER Shuttle/Times and News reporter, Chris Bishop, had a unique role in a former South African troublespot on the 10th anniversary of the country's move to democracy.

He had been commissioned by Johannesburg Council to make a television documentary about the first installation of Christmas lights in a park in the heart of the Soweto township.

"It was a symbolic gesture to send a message to the world that the bad old days of apartheid are gone for good," he said.

It was in 1976 that police opened fire on a crowd of protesting children and killed many of them.

"Twenty years ago, you would have come to this park at the risk of your life," he explained, "Now a new generation is growing up in a township which improves every year and which wants to rise above the struggles of the past."

Mr Bishop, who went to school in Hartlebury where his parents still live, has been in Africa for 10 years.