The Sunday Times celebrates a century of the best stories

The Sunday Times unveiled plans for the heritage project and the publication of four centenary supplements at a function hosted by editor Mondli Makhanya for top clients in Johannesburg yesterday.

A special centenary team, headed by journalist Charlotte Bauer, has been working for months on preparations for the launch of the heritage project early next year. Bauer has been brief by Sunday Times to create a permanent "trail" of memorials across South Africa marking some of the compelling moments in 100 years of our history, on the spot where they happened.

"The Heritage Project is not a revenue-driven exercise," Bauer says, "but an adventurous series of public interactions... The Sunday Times wishes to give the people of South Africa a more informed sense of who we are and how we got here - painfully, joyfully, passionately."

The stories told by these 'living monuments' will showcase people and events from many news fields including politics, entertainment, sport, business and society.

The plan is to roll out the first 10 'story sites' in Johannesburg, where the newspaper started on February 4 in early 2006, moving to other South African cities and towns as the year proceeds.

The first of the four 64-page Sunday Times centenary supplements, edited by Nadine Dreyer, will be published on February 5 2006 and the first Sunday of the month until May 2006.

The centenary team has trawled through Sunday Times back issues, starting with the very first one, in an attempt to bring the past 100 years alive. The result will be a fascinating window into the past and will reveal why the Sunday Times has been South Africa's 'paper for the people' since the first edition. The serious, the profound, the frivolous, the trivial - in true Sunday Times tradition, it will all be there.

The centenary supplements will also provide the basis for a book, to be published by Struik later next year.

Other Sunday Times centenary projects unveiled last night include a Birthday banquet on February 4 for staff, past and present, VIPS and guests from all walks of South African life; a centenary documentary; A Gwen Gill "celebrity" dinner; a scholarship competition for young writers; and a special centenary Finders' Keepers competition. All of these will be supplemented by regular in-paper reader promotions and competitions.

Sunday Times is also celebrating its 100th birthday with a multi-media above-the-line advertising campaign, which launches late January 2006.