Noem my Skollie film writer and author, John W. Fredericks has died.
The prolific Cape Flats writer, who opened us about his former life of crime and time spent is prison, lost his battle to cancer and passed away peacefully in his Strandfontein home on Sunday afternoon, his family confirmed.
Fredericks, 73, hit the spotlight after he published his memoirs which was later turned into an award winning movie, Noem My Skollie.
He has been writing and telling stories ever since he was a little boy, growing up in Kewtown in the 1950s.
His father worked at a dumpsite and he found a typewriter which Fredericks used to write the script for the movie.
Noem My Skollie, a crime drama based on Fredericks' life is set on the Cape Flats in the 1960s, and is centered around four youngsters - AB (Austin Rose) and his three best friends Gimba (Ethan Patton), Gif (Joshua Vraagom) and Shorty (Valentino de Klerk).
The boys became a small gang and when AB is arrested their friendship is tested.
Since his retirement as a security guard, John was writing scripts and was the brains behind documentaries like, Hard Living Kids and Mr Devious.
Many of his childhood stories have been recreated for the film, including that time he was jailed in Pollsmoor for theft at the age of 17.
Get the full story in Monday's Daily Voice.