Visiting Robben Island where post-apartheid enthusiasm has been replaced by bitterness and disillusionment

A year ago today, I visited Robben Island for the second time. We were taken by coach around the island with a tour guide who had been a political prisoner for eight years from 1977. He was in parts funny, moving and inspiring although with a touch of bitterness as his five-year contract as a guide had been terminated from the end of the following week.

We were shown the house of Robert Sobukwe, the leader of the Pan African Congress (a breakaway from Mandela’s ANC). He was kept separate from all the other prisoners as his black nationalist ideas were seen as particularly dangerous. We toured the lime quarry where Mandela worked and where his eyesight was severely damaged because the apartheid prison authorities refused to issue sunglasses to protect the prisoners’ eyes from the glare of the sun.

Mandela’s cell on Robben Island

After the tour of the island we went into the prison itself where another former political prisoner (who served five years from the age of 18) told us about the degradations experienced by black prisoners. Finally, we were taken to the courtyard where Mandela and the other ANC leaders had been forced to break stones with small hammers, and then along the corridor past Mandela’s tiny cell.

We spoke to the guide who said that he relives the horror of his imprisonment with every tour and that he would leave if only he could get another job on the mainland. 

Currently the only guides who show people around the actual prison are former political prisoners but they are getting older and one day there won’t be any.

I have been to Robben Island before and had had a similar tour, back in 1998. However, at that time there was enthusiasm for the future. Mandela was still President and there was none of the bitterness and disillusionment that we detected today. Nevertheless, it was an inspiring and moving experience.

(Postscript: As a teenager growing up in Cape Town in the 1970s, from my bedroom window I could see Robben Island in the distance out to sea. But it wasn’t until I arrived in England that I first saw a photograph of Mandela – an old black and white photo taken many years before.)

Mike Procter: one of the greatest cricketers of all time

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 21st February 2024)

One of the greatest cricketers of all time, the South African Mike Procter, died on Saturday at the age of 77.  He is widely regarded as one of the top all-rounders ever, along with the likes of Imran Khan, Ian Botham, Garry Sobers, and Jacques Kallis. But unlike these greats, many of them his contemporaries, Procter played just seven Test matches, his international career having been cut short by the exclusion of apartheid South Africa from international sport.

All seven of his Tests were played against the mighty Australians.  He took 41 wickets at an average of just 15.02 runs which, for those uneducated in these matters, is a truly phenomenal return. South Africa won six of these Tests.

One of the greatest cricketers of all time (Mike Procter, not me). Photo: Geoffrey Bowden

Denied an international career, Procter carved out a career in English County Cricket where, playing for 14 years for Gloucestershire, he came up against, and vanquished, many of the greatest of his era. Such was his part in the success of Gloucestershire at that time, locals jokingly referred to the Club as ‘Proctershire’. He said that he found that a bit embarrassing: “I never felt as if I was carrying the team, and our victories were always down to more than one individual standing up. My stats and figures sometimes stood out, but I was just happy to be part of a very successful period in its history.”

He scored 21,082 runs in first-class cricket at an average of 36.92, hitting 47 centuries, and took 1,357 wickets at an average of 19.07 runs. He became only the third batsman in the world to score six first-class centuries in six consecutive innings after C. B. Fry and Don Bradman, and he is the only South African to do so.

Perhaps his only failure in the realm of cricket was as a coach. He was the coach when South Africa first played after its sporting isolation came to an end. Like many of the greats, his transition from player to coach was not a huge success, possibly because he couldn’t always empathise with the struggles of lesser mortals who did not share his natural genius as a cricketer.

A lesser person might have become bitter that their international career was frustrated by the sporting boycott. Not Procter. He said: “What is a Test career compared to the suffering of 40 million people? Lots of people lost a great deal more in those years, and if by missing on a Test career we played a part in changing an unjust system, then that is fine by me.”

I once had a very polite argument with the late, great Test Match Special commentator, Christopher Martin-Jenkins, about politics and sport. He said that sport and politics should be kept apart. As a South African who actively opposed to apartheid, I begged to differ. I am sure Mike Procter would have disagreed as well.

After the fall of apartheid in the early 1990s, it was not uncommon to find white people who said that they had always opposed apartheid. This even included prominent members of the apartheid government!  But finding evidence to support their alleged opposition proves somewhat elusive. Mike Procter was not one of these latter-day opponents. In 1971, at the start of the final game of the season, Procter and several other top players including Clive Rice, Vince van der Bijl, brothers Graeme and Peter Pollock, and Denis Lindsay, walked off the field after just one ball had been bowled. It was a protest against the government’s decision not to allow two black players to go on an upcoming tour of Australia. Procter explained that “the point of the exercise was for us as players to be seen – on the only platform we had – to be strongly against racial discrimination. I can’t say how big an impact it made, but I was proud to be associated with a group of players that understood that there were wider implications at play, all around us.”

Over the years I have read far too many books on cricket, and by too cricketers. Almost all were a disappointment with just a handful being the exception. Procter’s autobiography, ‘Caught in the Middle’ is one of those exceptions.

It is said that you should never meet a childhood hero because they are bound to be a disappointment. In 2017, at Lords Cricket Ground, I did meet Mike Procter and, in spite of it being just a brief encounter, I was not disappointed.  He was warm and engaging. As a cricketer and as a humanitarian, he was an exceptional person and I mourn his passing.

What music does it for you: grime, acid and garage, or Olivia Newton-John and Showaddywaddy?

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 17th January 2024)

When I first arrived in England I was overwhelmed by the music scene in the U.K. I had been brought up in 1970s South Africa where the edgiest music to be heard on the apartheid-controlled Springbok Radio included the Bee Gees and Olivia Newton-John. On the pirate LM Radio, broadcast on the crackling shortwave band from neighbouring Mozambique, we could listen to The Beatles who were banned from South African airwaves after John had said that The Beatles were more popular that Jesus and that the Christian faith was declining to the extent that it might be outlasted by rock music. This led to the ban.

There were some bootleg albums that did the rounds including the music of Rodriguez, an American of Mexican origins who was, at the time, big amongst young, liberal white South Africans but virtually unknown elsewhere, not least in the USA. A story of his life, ‘Searching for Sugarman’, won an Oscar and a BAFTA. Rodriguez sadly died last August.

Meat Loaf and Debbie Harry from Blondie

A few days after I arrived in the U.K., I saw Top of the Pops for the first time. It was eye-opening and jaw-dropping for this music innocent, featuring that week Elvis Costello and The Attractions (Oliver’s Army), Blondie (Heart of Glass) and Meat Loaf (Bat Out of Hell). New Wave music had yet to reach South Africa and I was blown away by what I saw and heard. Two Tone, reggae and Ska appealed to me. This was the music of the anti-racist and anti-fascist movements, of the Anti-Nazi League. My first political activity after arriving in the UK was to go on a counter demonstration outside Fairlight School off Lewes Road against the neo-nazi National Front which was trying to hold an election rally in the run up to the 1979 General Election.

In Brighton there were any number of ‘alternative’ bands. They rehearsed in the vaults of the old Resource Centre at the top of North Road and performed at The Richmond Hotel, The Marlborough, Alhambra, Sussex University and Brighton Polytechnic. Even today I can recall names like Birds with Ears, The Piranhas, Dick Damage and the Dilemma, Nicky and The Dots, Peter and the Test Tube Babies, and Pookiesnackenburger. There was even a Christian punk group, Rev Counter and the Speedometers, led by an ordained minister (Rev Counter – get it?) but I don’t think they ever graced The Richmond or the Basement at the Poly.

The Piranhas were probably the best-known group with their version of Tom Hark which is still played regularly at sporting events here in England. Meanwhile, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas from Pookiesnackenburger went on to set up STOMP which has performed to worldwide audiences including at the Oscars. On a more parochial front, there was once some graffiti that read: “Dick Damage reads The Argus”. What a sellout!

But of all these bands, my favourite was a lesbian punk rock group, the Devil’s Dykes that morphed into the Bright Girls and later Siren. As far as I am aware, Siren is the only group from that era that still performs. Its members are a little bit older and perhaps a tad greyer, but they are probably now better musicians. Their politics is still as radical, focusing on women’s rights, lesbianism, peace and, most recently, the climate crisis. It may seem strange that I frequented their gigs, me being a straight man, but I am biased towards Siren because my sister and her partner are still members of the band. Last year they released their latest album, Under the Bridge, and a documentary was made, ‘Bending the Note – the Story of Siren’ as pioneering women, musicians and lesbians, which can be seen on Latest TV.

I imagine that many people look back with fondness at the cultural experiences of their youth, be it rock and roll, the Mods and Rockers, punk, New Wave, reggae or Ska. Even disco from the seventies, my era, brings back happy memories of evenings spent at the Shalom Centre in Cape Town, even if the fashion of the day left something to be desired. Sadly something was lost, in my opinion, with the advent of acid house, garage, hip hop and grime. I know that I have an eclectic, more conservative taste in music, but I doubt that there will be much of a revival of some of that music which, even in its heyday, was nothing to write home about.

So I will be off now to spin Showaddywaddy’s Greatest Hits L.P. on the gramophone. 

The violence of poverty is every bit as real as the violence of apartheid

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 10th January 2024)

Almost every column I write touches on politics. Sometimes it can be a passing reference, other times an in-your-face rant about the state of the country and the failings of politicians.  I was asked recently about the origins of my politics.

At the Carnival in District Six c1963, with my siblings. (I am the littlest one).

As a young boy I used to catch a bus home from school. The journey took a little over an hour, and took me past District Six, an area that had once been one of the most vibrant multi-racial communities in South Africa. The priest in District Six, John da Costa, had been a family friend and we occasionally visited, including at New Year for its famous Cape Carnival. Hardly any white people would go to the carnival. 

In 1966, the government declared District Six a whites-only area under the Group Areas Act 1950, with forced removals of all ‘non-white’ people from the area, starting in 1968. By 1971 much of District Six had been bulldozed. 

On one particular day, as my bus sped from the affluent suburb where I was at school, to another affluent suburb where we lived, an eight or nine mile journey, we passed a row of boarded up, derelict shops on the edge of District Six. In one doorway an old black man in rags lay on the ground trying to fend off vicious blows and kicks from two young white men. The beating, which I saw for at most two or three seconds, was merciless.

My bus continued on its way. I never mentioned what I had seen to anyone until I was about 30 years old. But it had a lasting impact on me. Even today I can close my eyes and see that assault. That momentary snapshot told me that there was something seriously wrong with the society I was living in.  At the time, as an eleven-year-old, I did not have the language nor the awareness to analyse the power dynamic and abuse that was being perpetrated. All I knew was that something was wrong. The violence was sickening, and even today I get distressed when witnessing any violence.

Today I can intellectualise what was happening. The victim was black. He was homeless and poor.   He was weak and powerless. The perpetrators were white, young and strong. They might have been policemen. The victim had no recourse to justice. Had he filed a report at the local police station, at best he would have been laughed at. More likely he would have received another beating.

I don’t know what happened to that man, who he was, or how and when he died. But I know that some of the things I have done in my life to oppose apartheid, racism, ageism, and violence has been driven by an abhorrence of injustice, violence, abuse and exploitation originating from those two or three seconds as my bus rushed by.

Today children in our communities will be having similar awakenings. It won’t be the forced removals of entire population groups and unrestrained violence. But they see and are impacted by parents having to go to food banks. They see their mother going without meals as she struggles to feed her family. Homeless families live in unsuitable temporary accommodation, forced to move from one address to another, sometimes away from family, friends and schools. 

Children see their parents struggling to heat their homes. Days out, treats and holidays are just what other children enjoy. Excuses are made not to go to a party or other events, and not ever being able to invite friends round to play or for a sleepover is the norm.

How will they react in the long term? How will it effect them in later life? The love of a parent might sustain them and they might be inspired by their parents’ struggle. Alternatively, they might become resentful and angry. Life in the U.K. has become more unfair. The welfare state, the education system, and life in general is failing them.

There is a human cost to injustice, poverty and homelessness, paid for years to come. While the injustices of apartheid were obvious, so too are the injustices in today’s Britain where the rich continue to get richer and increasing numbers are abandoned to relative poverty.

South Africa had aspirations to do better than apartheid, but has been failed by the new political elite. Meanwhile, U.K. politicians have abandoned children and young people, a generation that is being scarred by the violence of poverty every bit as real as that experienced by that old man back in District Six.

Amongst today’s politicians, there isn’t a single one who is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as Nelson Mandela

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 29th November 2023)

Next Tuesday is the tenth anniversary of the death of Nelson Mandela. Today he is one of the most recognisable people on the planet, even a decade after his death.  Yet in the sixties and early seventies, Mandela had become invisible in South Africa and throughout the world.

He had been in prison since 1963 and for most of that time his image was banned in South Africa. In fact, displaying any image of Mandela carried a prison sentence. He could not be quoted in public and for the majority of white South Africans, he was out of sight and out of mind. For the first seventeen years of his incarceration he was held in a prison on Robben Island, six miles off the coast of Cape Town. 

When growing up in Cape Town, I had no particular view of Mandela.  I had heard his name but knew little, if anything, about him.  When my friends and I cycled to Cape Town Docks, we were aware of the high security berth where the ‘terrorists’ were taken from the mainland to Robben Island, and that Mandela was one of them.  That area now forms part of the Waterfront, a mecca for tourists and rich South Africans alike.

From my bedroom window I could see Robben Island in the distance out to sea. But it wasn’t until I arrived in England that I first saw a photograph of Mandela – an old black and white photo taken many years before. Today I have on my wall a large ANC election poster from 1994, dominated by the warm, smiling face of Mandela who we had been told in the bad old days of apartheid, wanted to drive all white people into the sea. Archbishop Desmond Tutu used to quip: “How can we drive you into the sea when you don’t even allow us on to the beaches?” Under apartheid the best beaches were reserved for white people only.

In the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties, few would have predicted that a peaceful transition would be achieved, from apartheid to democracy, nor that a single individual, long out of public view, serving a life sentence for acts of terrorism, would be the catalyst for this monumental change. Many people tend to forget that Mandela did, indeed, lead the arm struggle, and was responsible for planting bombs. Margaret Thatcher is alleged to have described Mandela as “that grubby little terrorist”. But, as they say, one person’s ‘terrorist’ is another person’s freedom fighter.

The world now rightly regards him one of the greatest figures of the modern era, and pays homage to him for his dignity, his courage, and his willingness to forgive. Yet it is worth remembering he had his shortcomings, and today’s corrupt ANC government is also part of his legacy.

A true monument to Mandela, himself without an ounce of corruption, is to build on the legacy of the Rainbow Nation, by routing out the corruption that is endemic throughout the new ruling class in South Africa, and which is holding back the cause of fairness and freedom.

We need the likes of Nelson Mandela today in many parts of the world, not least in Israel and Palestine, someone who can reach across historic divides, of painful, violent histories, who can be a catalyst for peace.

In spite of the above, I have always been uncomfortable at how people have co-opted the image of Mandela to demonstrate their own virtues. It was always easy for progressives in the U.K. to oppose the abomination of apartheid from six thousand miles away, yet turn a blind eye to injustice and oppression closer to home. 

When Mandela addressed a combined session of the British Parliament, there was not a single dissenting voice amongst the MPs and Lords present. They basked in being in his presence.  Yet many had not lifted a finger in his support when it did not suit their interests and prejudices. Today, too, many of our leaders fail to deal with the injustices in our own society, like homelessness, poverty and violence. They might say the right thing, but words (unlike under apartheid) come cheap. The Conservatives have destroyed much of the welfare state, while a likely Labour government will fail to act because they want to be seen as being fiscally responsible. 

If political leaders in this country had a tiny fraction of the courage and determination of Nelson Mandela, then great things could be achieved. But amongst them there isn’t a single one who is worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as him.

The Nazi collaborator and his link to a Brighton Member of Parliament

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 8th November 2023)

Julian Amery, the MP for Brighton Pavilion from 1969 to 1992, was known for his right-wing views. He was Patron of the far-right Monday Club, actively supported the racist Ian Smith when he made his Unilateral Declaration of Independence in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and because of his support for the apartheid regime in South Africa was jokingly referred to as “the Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion and Johannesburg North.”

But there was one issue on which he was out of step with his right-wing colleagues, and that was on the death penalty.  He supported its abolition and opposed attempts to reintroduce it.

The death penalty for most offences was abolished 58 years ago today. The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965 was given Royal Assent on 8th November 1965. A few offences remained that carried the death sentence but they, too, were abolished in 1998 by the Human Rights Act.

Amery was the younger son of Leo Amery, also an MP and Secretary of State for the Colonies and subsequently for India and Burma. It was Leo’s concluding statement at the end of his speech in the ‘Norway Debate’ that brought about the fall of prime minister Neville Chamberlain. He said: “You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go”. This was said to a prime minister of his own party.

Leo and Julian were part of the Establishment, even pillars of the Establishment. Julian married Catherine Macmillan, the daughter of Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan.

John Amery

So why was Julian so out-of-step with his fellow right-wingers on this of all issues? Leo’s older son and Julian’s brother, was John Amery. John was a fascist and Nazi collaborator during World War 2. He wasn’t just a sympathiser. In September 1942 he went to Germany. He suggested that Germany should form a British anti-communist legion. It is said that Hitler was impressed by John and allowed him to remain in Germany as a guest. Between 1942 and late 1944, John made regular pro-German propaganda radio broadcasts to Britain and to the Allied troops in north Africa.

At the end of the war he was captured by Allied forces. The arresting officer was Alan Whicker, later to become a famous broadcaster. John Amery was flown back to England on the same flight as the more infamous pro-Nazi propagandist, William Joyce, known as Lord Haw-Haw.

John’s father, Leo, tried to establish that he was mentally unwell, and Julian said he could not be tried for treason because he had become a Spanish citizen. Both these attempts to avoid prosecution were unsuccessful. At his trial in November 1945 John pleaded guilty to eight charges of treason and he was sentenced to death. His trial last just eight minutes.

The Times report of the trial noted that “Amery had kept his eyes on the Judge throughout his remarks and while he passed sentence. Showing no sign of emotion, he bowed with dignity to the Judge and turned to walk down the steps to the cells.”

John Amery was hanged 21 days later at Wandsworth Prison by the executioner Albert Pierrepoint who described Amery as “the bravest person I’d ever hanged”. On his way to the scaffold, Amery joked: “I’ve always wanted to meet you, Mr Pierrepoint, though not of course under these circumstances!”

It is said that because of his family connections, he had not expected the death penalty nor, when it was passed, that it would be carried out. He had hoped that his father’s influence might have saved him.

So it is no wonder that the death of a sibling in these circumstances had a profound impact on the 26-year-old Julian. Julian did not share his brother’s pro-Nazi views nor his support for Germany. Julian had himself served with distinction. He spent 1941–42 in the eastern Mediterranean and served as Liaison Officer to the Albanian Resistance Movement in 1943–44.

From time to time there are attempts to reopen discussions about the death penalty, not least after a hideous crime such as the murder of Sarah Payne in West Sussex. After the Birmingham and Guildford pub bombings, support for the reintroduction of the death penalty increased. Fortunately it wasn’t available to the judges at the trials of the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four as all had their convictions later overturned.

Establishment figures, including the former Home Secretary, Priti Patel, have called for its reintroduction. Let us hope that they never succeed.

 

The terrible cycle of violence upon violence, killings upon killings continues in Israel and Gaza

(This item first appeared in the Brighton Argus on 18th October 2023)

The appalling terrorist attacks on men, women and children in southern Israel a week last Saturday, followed by the unfolding humanitarian crisis, and the killing of men, women and children in northern Gaza, almost defy words.

But there are words. ‘Terrorism’ is just one, a word that the BBC shamefully refuses to use when describing the attacks and murders on 7th October. The Israeli military have now been ordered by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to flatten Gaza City, at a terrible human cost. 

And so the terrible cycle continues: violence upon violence, killings upon killings. 

Opposing flags from counter demonstrations in Brighton in 2014

The trauma and grief of those impacted by the killings and the loss of loved ones, Israeli and Palestinian alike, is heartbreaking. A dead child is a dead child whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. The grief and trauma of mourning family members should unite both Israeli and Palestinian.  

I witnessed firsthand such trauma back in 1978 when living in Grahamstown in South Africa. Amongst others with whom I shared accommodation was a young white man from what was then called Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. He was studying at the local university.  His entire family had been killed in an ambush in the so-called ‘bush war’. During university holidays he would return home to do a tour with the Rhodesian army.

Each evening he would come into our lounge to watch the television news from the apartheid-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation. A standard item was always the situation in Rhodesia. There would be reference to the number of ‘terrorists’ killed that day. He would invariably say, with a face hardened by loss: “Not enough of the bastards.”

He and I had opposing views on the liberation struggle in his homeland. In this case, one person’s terrorist was another person’s freedom fighter. Yet both sides in that conflict, as in every conflict, committed atrocities. Nevertheless, I rejoiced when black-majority rule was achieved in what became Zimbabwe. And now I grieve as much for how corruption has destroyed that country along with the hopes and aspirations of its people. So, too, in the country of my birth, South Africa, where once again a noble liberation struggle, led by one of the greatest leaders of the twentieth century, Nelson Mandela, brought about majority rule before corruption and incompetence destroyed the people’s hopes and aspirations.

Margaret Thatcher is reported to have referred to Mandela as “that grubby little terrorist.” Yes, he led the armed struggle which was responsible for acts of terrorism that led to civilian deaths, but today he is seen, quite rightly, as a freedom fighter and a great liberator. He won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside his apartheid-era opponent, FW de Klerk.

Similarly in Northern Ireland, there were terrorists and there were those opposing them, depending on one’s outlook, and there were occupiers and the occupied. The cycle of sectarian killings seemed unstoppable. The government banned the sound of the voices of those representing Sinn Fein, the political arm of the IRA. We had the ludicrous situation where actors lip-synced the words of people like Gerry Adams.

I was heavily criticised, along with three other Labour councillors, when we invited Gerry Adams to visit Brighton following the Grand Hotel bombing. Such was the hypocrisy of the time that while we were in the eye of a storm, Julian Amery, when the then Conservative MP for Brighton Pavilion, met the leaders of the IRA for talks, he received no criticism at all.

But can the ceaseless cycle of killings in Israel and Palestine come to an end? Who had foreseen the end of the bush war in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, the peaceful transition to democracy in South Africa, or the end to the so-called Troubles in Northern Ireland? But they happened. The outcomes may not be the Utopia we had hoped to see. Compromise on all sides was required. And yes, peace settlements are often fragile and flawed, but the cycle of killings has largely ended.

It is in the interests of ordinary people of Israel and Palestine that some form of peace settlement must be negotiated. What I wonder is: who are the leaders who are big enough to come to the negotiating table?  Leaders on all sides, or internationally, are certainly showing few signs of wanting to stop the violence. I’m not suggesting an equivalence of blame and culpability for recent atrocities and events, but if the starting point is apportioning blame and culpability for the overall conflict, the chances of peace will be as far away as ever.

Whatever happens, as with my former Rhodesian housemate, the grief, trauma, bitterness and anger of ordinary people will remain as real as ever.

Andrew Bowden: a politician of great ability and charm

(This item first appeared in the Argus on 25th January 2023)

In the early 1980s there were increasing calls for sanctions against apartheid South Africa. These were resisted by the newly-elected US President, Ronald Reagan, and by Margaret Thatcher (who allegedly had described Nelson Mandela as a ‘grubby little terrorist’).

As the local organiser of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, I was asked to do a BBC radio debate on sanctions against South Africa with the Member of Parliament for Brighton Kemptown, Andrew Bowden.  Having not been in the country long, I had never met a Conservative politician and, in my naivety, I had assumed he would be a rabid right-winger. 

Sir Andrew Bowden (Photo: The Argus)

When we met at the local studio, then in Marlborough Place, Mr Bowden was charm personified. He sympathised with me for having had to leave South Africa to avoid conscription, and at such a young age.  He said that we had to do whatever we could to end apartheid. The only thing we disagreed on, he said, was the means for doing so. He said that sanctions would mostly harm black people and that he was in favour of “jaw-jaw rather than war-war.” 

I disagreed with his view. The African National Congress and eminent figures like Desmond Tutu (later to become the Archbishop of Cape Town) were calling for sanctions.

Just before we went on air, Mr Bowden said to the presenter that he had recently read in the House of Commons’ Library that this particular programme had audience figures of around 200,000 people. Having been wrong-footed by his charm, I now visualised a mass gathering of 200,000. 

When later I listened to a replay of the debate, Mr Bowden came across as calm, measured and sincere as he spoke quite intimately to the presenter, whereas I came across as hectoring, dogmatic and speechifying, trying to address an audience of 200,000. It was one of my most important lessons in working with the media and for that I am grateful to Andrew Bowden.

I got to know Andrew many years later. He is, genuinely, a charming man and was a very able politician who won over many working-class Labour voters in East Brighton, particularly when he was opposed by arrogant, middle-class academic Labour candidates. He was a regular at Whitehawk Football Club, and ate fish and chips at the same local chippy in Whitehawk for many years.

Like any good Member of Parliament, Andrew nurtured his constituency, making himself available to take up issues on behalf of his residents and maintaining a very high profile. When the national political mood might have turned the political tide against him, his substantial personal vote helped to see off various challenges. He was, perhaps, helped by the contrast that could be drawn when comparing him to his fellow Conservative MP, Julian Amery, who represented Brighton Pavilion.

Mr Avery could not have been more different. He was rarely seen in the constituency prompting a letter to The Argus asking whether he was, in fact, dead as he hadn’t been seen since the previous general election. As a prominent member of the right-wing Monday Club, Mr Amery was a vocal supporter of the apartheid regime and the white-minority government in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). 

This earned Mr Amery the title of ‘Member of Parliament for Brighton Pavilion and Johannesburg South’. (More recently, Jacob Rees-Mogg is sometimes referred to as the Member for the Seventeenth Century).

Mr Bowden represented Brighton Kemptown from 1970, when he defeated Labour’s Dennis Hobden, until 1997 when he lost the seat to Des Turner. Even Andrew Bowden was unable to survive the political landslide that took Tony Blair into Downing Street.

Mr Bowden acted as vice president of the League Against Cruel Sports and through this he became close friends with the former Vicar of Brighton, Canon Dominic Walker (who later became Bishop of Monmouth). Dominic was president of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals, and together they participated in a demonstration against live animal exportation.

After leaving Parliament, Sir Andrew (having been knighted in 1994) took up another activity – poker. In 2006 he told The Independent newspaper: “I am a reasonably gifted amateur but that is the best I would say. My political experience has certainly helped. 

“I did 10 years on the Council of Europe as well as 27 years in Parliament, and when you’re trying to get amendments through or get your point across it is very useful to watch the people around the table for their reactions and body language. Those skills translate very well to the poker table.”

I recently saw Sir Andrew at an event at Brighton Town Hall to mark the retirement from The Argus of Adam Trimingham. Now in his 93rd year, Sir Andrew has various physical health challenges, but the intellect and his abundant charm remains unaffected.

Rabbi Lionel Blue: the perfect antidote to many of today’s religious and political leaders

One of my favourite broadcasters was Rabbi Lionel Blue who was a regular on Radio 4’s ‘Thought for Today’. His insights entertained and inspired, attracting an audience which might otherwise be dismissive of any religious messaging. By doing so he achieved more than many people who speak about their faith.

Rabbi Blue was described by The Guardian newspaper as “one of the most respected religious figures in the UK”. He was also the first British rabbi come out publicly as homosexual.

I first discovered Lionel Blue on a camping holiday on the Isle of Wight when I bought a small book of his broadcast scripts. They made me laugh out loud. I now have several of his books, and I have used some of his messages in my work. He told about a man accidentally falling over a cliff edge. Catching the branch of a tree half way down, and realising that there was no one who could hear his calls for help, he decided to pray even though he was not religious. “If there is anyone up there, please help me,” he prayed.  A voice came from the clouds saying: “Put your faith in me, let go of the branch, I will catch you in the palm of my hand and will carry you to safety.” He looked down and, seeing jagged rocks and an angry sea below, had his doubts about letting go of the branch.  So he prayed again: “Is there anyone else up there?”

The purpose of repeating this story is because many of the people who seek help from BHT Sussex, the organisation I will continue to lead until January, may have no one else to turn to. It is why our staff are so dedicated, making sure that they do everything possible to support and represent our clients and tenants. Just last year, when 1,777 households turned to us for help when they were at risk of losing their homes, we were able to prevent them from becoming homeless.

As for Rabbi Blue, he had an early interest in Marxism. When at Oxford University he became close friends with my uncle, Colin, who later become a priest. Colin tried to convert Lionel to Christianity, while Lionel tried to convert Colin to Marxism. Seeds must have been sown as Lionel  developed a lifelong fascination with Christianity while Colin became a Marxist as well as a Bishop in the Anglican Church.

In his autobiography, Hitchhiking to Heaven, Lionel wrote about hitchhiking with Colin to Jerusalem and how he experienced, first-hand, true Christian values. Lionel wrote: “He was the only Christian or non-Christian I knew who automatically shared his toothbrush with me when I lost mine. It never occurred to him to do otherwise. Not many religious or non-religious pass the toothbrush test!”

After Oxford, Lionel became a rabbi in London while Colin was ordained as a priest, serving in Eastbourne and then South Africa before becoming the Bishop of South West Africa (now Namibia). Years later, after Colin had been deported by the apartheid authorities from his diocese, he approached Lionel asking him to support a particular cause he was promoting. Sadly the two of them had both changed their outlooks. “Politically we had exchanged roles”, as Lionel wrote. They found little common ground at that meeting. “We were fighting different battles though under the same slogan, ‘Let my people go!’” They went their separate ways and never met again.

Lionel reflected in his autobiography that he had been sad to hear of Colin’s death at the early age of 53 shortly after their meeting and regretted that their friendship had not been rekindled. 

For those involved in politics, as was Colin, it is so easy to neglect relationships and friendships. I know that I regret friendships I have lost through my own neglect, something I hope to rectify in retirement. Lionel, on the other hand, made and maintained lifelong friendships.

He said that in old age he learnt to listen. He still laughed and, as an entertainer, made other people laugh, but when he sat with someone who was dying, he had learned that he didn’t have to talk at all as, unlike many religious and political leaders, he knew he didn’t have to have all the answers. “Listening was just letting their hand lie loosely in mine, so that they knew I was with them and that they could drift away when they wanted.”

Sadly I never met Lionel but, having read his books, I regard him as a friend. He personified what is best about people who remain true to their beliefs, and he remains the perfect antidote to many of today’s religious and political leaders.  His love and respect for ordinary people came before any cause. And he still makes me laugh. 

The Day the Rugby World Cup Came to Brighton

(This item first appeared on 14th September 2022 in my ‘Brighton and Beyond’ column in the Brighton Argus)

I love rugby, watching but not playing. I gave up playing as a 15-year-old as it was becoming too violent and I just didn’t have the bulk to survive. There is a joke that men’s football is a game where the players pretend to be injured for 90 minutes whereas rugby is a game where the players pretend that they are not injured for 80.

For many years, until the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the ending of apartheid, I supported the sporting boycott of South Africa. Growing up in Cape Town in the 1970s, it hurt not to be able watch international sport but it was an important part of the struggle for freedom and democracy.  

Mike Proctor, one of South Africa’s greatest-ever cricketers who was denied an international playing career, said: “What is a Test career compared to the suffering of 40 million people? Lots of people lost a great deal more in those years, and if by missing on a Test career we played a part in changing an unjust system, then that is fine by me.”

Following the ending of apartheid, South Africa hosted, and won, the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The symbolism of President Mandela walking out onto the pitch at Ellis Park, the citadel of Afrikanerdom, cannot be overstated. As a remarkable act of reconciliation, he wore a Springbok jersey, for so long seen as the emblem of the oppressor’s game.  And he wore the number 6 on his back, the number of the Afrikaans captain, Francois Pienaar.

The exchange between the two, as the President handed the Captain the Webb Ellis Trophy, was a pivotal moment in the political transition that was taking place. Mandela said: “Thank you, Francois, for what you have done for our country.” Pienaar, who had not voted for Mandela and whose family opposed everything that Mandela represented, replied: “No, Mr President, thank you for what you have done.” 

Twenty years later, seven years ago this coming Saturday, the Rugby World Cup came to Brighton. This was supposed to be one of the highlights of being a South African rugby supporter. One of the games featured the Springboks. The Boks were the overwhelming favourites to beat the weakest team in the tournament, Japan. What could possibly go wrong? 

It was a beautiful sunny autumn day in Brighton. With my daughter, Clare, and my niece, Janice, we met my old dad for lunch.  Then Clare, Janice and I headed off in high spirits to the Brighton Community Stadium. Our seats were just four rows from the front. We had our faces painted and sang our hearts out during the South African anthem which Clare had learned for the occasion. 

We were friendly to the Japanese family sitting behind us. Their team was destined to lose, and we had our photos taken with them and our respective flags. 

No one predicted a winning try for Japan in the 4th minute of extra time. It remains the biggest shock in rugby history.  I will get over it …… eventually.

But rugby is not football, and later that evening, when the Brighton train, filled with supporters from both countries, arrived at London’s Victoria Station, Bokke fans got off the train first and formed a guard of honour, applauding the Japanese fans off the train before allowing them through the barriers first.  Rugby is a classy game.

At this point I have to admit that I have never seen a live game where the Springboks have actually won. I saw them draw against the Barbarians at Wembley but in all the times I have seen them play, I have never seen them win.

I mentioned Francois Pienaar above. In February 2016, I had just landed at Cape Town International Airport and was waiting to retrieve my luggage. I heard a voice next to me saying: “Excuse me, could I have a selfie with you?” Standing alongside me was Francois Pienaar himself. As we waited for our luggage, around a dozen people came up to have selfies with him. 

With Francois Pienaar

Once they had gone I asked him whether he ever got tired of being asked for selfies. He replied: “I once played a game of rugby that changed my life in ways I could not have imagined. It has given me unbelievable opportunities. I’m just returning from Florida where I have been playing a Pro-Am golf tournament, all expenses paid. The fact that a game of rugby played so long ago still means so much to so many people, and identify me with that, makes me happy to pose. It’s hardly any price to pay.” 

He came across as so genuine and pleasant. And, being the groupie that I am, I also asked him for a selfie.  I have no shame!