‘HE WAS MY SPECIAL BOY’

NEXT door to the teenager’s home is a corner shop stocked with supplies – milk, bread, sweets and chocolates, cans of food, cooldrinks, tins of coffee. And the biscuits the boy loved so much: a little packet of three to four shortbread cookies that sold for R1.

Nathaniel Julies often walked to the shop to buy his biscuits, a source of pleasure for the teen who had many challenges in life.

He had Down syndrome and according to his mom, Bridget, he was often ill and spent a lot of time in hospital.

But ask anyone in Eldorado Park, Johannesburg, about Nathaniel and they’ll tell you about a “sunshine