SUNDAY nights were very much Carte Blanche nights in our household when I was growing up. Like many families around South Africa we’d watch Derek Watts and Ruda Landman in action, wondering what bad guys would fall under their investigative gaze.

Derek was a constant on the show over the years and many fans felt like they knew him even if they hadn’t met. And from what his family and friends say in our moving story on page 10, he was very much the lovely, funny, warm-hearted guy you thought he was. He never seemed to take himself too seriously but knew when he had to be serious.

In the end he was rather serious, of course. He’d made peace with death in his final weeks and he prepared his family for those final moments, asking them to let him go. Derek’s wife, Belinda, and kids, Kirsten and Tyrone, were at his side as he drew