But there was a part of me, and it rose from deep inside and surprised me, which felt insecure.The songs, chants, inflections and humour of the black people all around us were African - undiluted, unapologetic African. Watching my father, like myself, making gawky attempts to sway in rhythm and learn the words, I realised that for the first time I felt a stranger in my native country. It didn't feel like an unbridgeable gap, and certainly there is no obligation upon whites to straddle it, but to feel truly "comfortable" in South Africa now it is incumbent upon whites to make the effort to embrace African culture. Many whites, despite their fears of falling standards, are learning to go with the flow. Without making much fuss, they're accepting what it means to live in Africa.It may be optimistic; it may not last; but today the freewheeling energy of Berry's 1960 mixed-race cafe is alive and well and... almost everywhere'Living Apart' by Ian Berry is published on Monday (Phaidon Press, pounds 45). His photographs are at the Royal Photographic Society, Bath, from Saturday1969 A black nanny, aged only 10 or 12, with her young white charge.

Despite the lack of contact elsewhere in South African society, it was until recently absolutely normal for whites to entrust their children to black servants 1961 Dr Anthony Barker (left), who ran a mission hospital in Zululand, treating a pregnant woman in a local traders' store room, where he held clinics. His practice covered an enormous area, which he visited by ambulance - a sledge drawn by oxen. 1984 A blind man busks to bus queues in Johannesburg (below left). The man in the foreground, who was slightly tipsy, began dancing on the pavement. 'Even then,' says Berry, 'it was becoming difficult to walk safely round the area You could take a couple of shots and mo ve on.

Now, it would be impossible' 1960 After the Group Areas Act, 1959, when the Nationalist Party government enforced apartheid, the outskirts of Johannesburg, previously racially mixed, were declared a white area.This cafe (right), which was illegal, was frequented by a few liberal whites. On this particular evening, the pianist Dollar Brand was playing and Ian Berry went along for 'Drum' magazine. 'It was just a nice moment that I saw, and shot off a frame,' he recalls. 'It summed up the tender side of the African, which was not often seen' 1981 Halfway down Adderley Street in Cape Town, coloured ladies try to tempt passers-by with flowers (top).

Just before the 1994 election, the extreme right-wing AWB blew up a building close to the ANC headquarters. The area was immediately cordonedoff and given an army guard (middle) Here, a young black man mocks the soldiers. In 1995, Berry spent a couple of nights with the Johannesburg Flying Squad, with two sergeants, one black, one white, who spend most of their time chasing stolen cars. Driving round Hillbrow, now a predominantly black area, they picked up a black man. But, despite his threatening attitude (bottom), the sergeant merely warned him to keep his domestic problems quiet.