After a long wait, I have finally been able to make some decisions concerning the tartan I designed last year based on the South African flag.
I have altered the colours to conform more closely to those actually used in the flag:

I had been waiting to hear from Fred Brownell, the retired State Herald of South Africa, who designed the flag in 1993. When I phoned him a few weeks back, he told me that his wife had suffered a heart attack in September, and that he had been fully occupied in caring for her. As he spoke, he said, she was able to walk around by herself once more, but she was still in need of a lot of rest.
I had proposed to call the tartan Brownell’s Flag, but he felt that his name ought to be left out of it. He proposed the name Flag Tartan instead, and gave me the go-ahead to register it.
When I wrote to the Bureau of Heraldry in Pretoria I was informed that the Heraldry Act, under which the Bureau operates, gives it no authority to register tartans. It could not permit me to design a tartan based on the national flag, but it could also not forbid it.
This means I can register the tartan in Edinburgh, provided my wife gives me the nod to pay the £70 (R763, $114) registration fee. So far, she has balked at the idea.
But I have finally picked a suitable name for it: Spirit of 1994.
It represents the high hopes we had for our country when we went to the polls in that year to elect a democratic government under a new Constitution.
Let me know what you fellows think of it.
Regards,
Mike