Visiting Robben Island where post-apartheid enthusiasm has been replaced by bitterness and disillusionment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

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 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.

Pele and Mohammed Ali: Are there any other sporting icons of this calibre?

The passing of the footballing great, Pele, has made me think of others who have transcended nations, generations and their chosen field, and are held in huge affection long after they ran, jumped, threw, kicked or hit a ball. In sport, Pele was one. Mohammed Ali another (even though he made his name from hitting other people!). 

In politics over the last hundred years I can again think of just two: Gandhi and Mandela.  Other than Mohammed Ali, the others are recognised by a single name. Usain Bolt might make it in a decade or two.  But now I am struggling and risk getting myself into trouble as everyone I have mentioned so far is male.

Until the last decade or so, women’s sport had been marginalised by the media regardless of the fantastic skills, dedication and entertainment individual women and women’s teams have displayed. In recent years another Brazilian number 10, Marta, has wowed football crowds, as has the dynamic American, Megan Rapinoe. But neither is yet a household name across the world, and the adulation they currently experience is yet to endure for 30 years after their retirement. An exception is, possibly, Martina Navratilova, also recognised by just her first name, who is as popular today, if not more so, than when she played. 

In politics there have been some iconic women, but I struggle to think of any who enjoy admiration and affection internationally now that they have retired or died.  Thatcher (another one recognised by her surname only) changed society and, in her own way, parts of the world.  But she remains a divisive figure, a figure for affection and hate in equal measures.  Perhaps The Queen fits the criteria, but I am hesitant to include someone who was born to greatness, fame and wealth, notwithstanding her obvious personal qualities and the longevity of her service.

Who do you think meets the criteria of having transcended nations, generations and their chosen field, and are continue to be held in huge affection?  I would be very interested to know.

 

Why I don’t like Bonfire Night – it might be a family thing

(This item first appeared on 2nd November in my ‘Brighton and Beyond’ column in the Brighton Argus)

This coming Saturday is Bonfire Night, the day we remember the foiled plot of 5th November 1605 to blow up Parliament and King James I.

The person most associated with the plot, Guy Fawkes, was not, in fact, the leader of the plot, rather a humble servant who happened to be found beneath Parliament with barrels of gunpowder. 

Robert Catesby, a Roman Catholic, was leader of the conspirators who hoped to restore a Catholic monarchy to England after a long period of persecution of Catholics. Catesby died of a gunshot wound when resisting capture, while many of his fellow conspirators were rounded up and brought to The Tower of London where they confessed, usually under torture. 

Robert and Thomas Wintour / Winter

Amongst the conspirators were Catesby’s cousins, Robert and Thomas Wintour, sometimes written as ‘Winter’, and the signature on Thomas’s confession was written with this spelling. Antonia Fraser, in her book, The Gunpowder Plot, said that the signature differs from his normal signature, ‘Wintour’, and suggested that the confession was a forgery. There is no doubt, however, that Thomas was central to the conspiracy and involved from the outset.

At their trial, Thomas tried to protect his brother, saying that he regretted having involved Robert to the plot. He asked that he be hanged on his brother’s behalf as well as his own, but that was not to be.

At his execution, according to Fraser, Thomas was “a very pale and dead colour” and, while he absolved the Jesuits from any part of the Plot, said that this was “no time to discourse” and that he had “come to die”. He was hanged for only a few moments and, while still conscious, he was taken to the block for the remainder of the sentence – the dismembering of his body while still conscious.

Guy Fawkes died when his neck was broken as he was hanged, thus sparing him the agony of being ‘quartered’.

As a keen genealogist, I have spent many years trying to establish a link between Robert and Thomas and my family but, alas, without success.  Some of the surviving members of the family, like many Catholic families, experienced an increase in persecution following the plot and fled England for Ireland where they remained. My Winter ancestors, all Catholics, moved from Ireland to Liverpool in the nineteenth century.

I hope that one day I might be able to establish a family link to Robert and Thomas. It is said that the plotters were amongst the few who “entered Parliament with honourable intentions”. This may be a controversial view. How can anyone planning what can reasonably be described as an act of terrorism be described as having honourable intentions?

The Plotters and their Catholic community had been subjected to harsh repression by James, and their maternal uncle, Francis Ingleby, a Catholic priest, had been executed in York in 1586, a fact which, Antonia Fraser said, “could hardly have failed to leave a stark impression upon the Wintour family.”

Terrorist or freedom fighter, let’s not forget that the greatest freedom fighter of them all, Nelson Mandela, led a bombing campaign aimed at overthrowing a regime which was itself violent and anti-democratic.  Mandela was, allegedly, described by Margaret Thatcher as a “grubby little terrorist’. History has judged him differently.

Excluding the war, it wasn’t until 1979 that another bomb was planted within the Palace of Westminster. On that occasion it killed its intended target, the Conservative MP, Airey Neave.

By pure coincidence, I was there at the very moment that the bomb detonated. I had only recently arrived in the U.K. from South Africa. I was travelling from Brighton to Stoke-on-Trent but was too early for my train so I decided to walk from Victoria Station. I lost my bearings and did not know which way I was walking. After about 20 minutes I found myself outside the Palace of Westminster for the first time. As I was looking up at the iconic tower that houses Big Ben, I heard an almighty explosion. Soon there were police officers everywhere and we were all moved back to the other side of Parliament Square.

It struck me as ironic that having lived in a state of emergency in South Africa, I had never heard a shot fired in anger, nor witnessed an explosion. Yet six weeks after arriving in the U.K., I was no more than 100m away from the highest profile political assassination of that time.

I’ve never liked Bonfire Night. It might be something to do with Thomas and Robert Winter. I am also uneasy about bigoted elements of some of the Lewes Bonfire Societies.  I don’t like anything that goes ‘bang’, and animals really suffer on the night. 

Others love Bonfire Night, so enjoy it, look after your pets, and please keep yourself safe.

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!

My Lunch with The Queen

(This item first appeared in my ‘Brighton and Beyond’ column in the Brighton Argus on 1st June 2022)

Tomorrow is the start of a four-day celebration to mark the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee.

The Queen and Nelson Mandela

In the past decade or so I have had two encounters with the Queen – lunch with her and Prince Philip on one of their visits to Brighton, and at a Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. Even though I am a republican, I accepted these invitations which were made in my capacity as chief executive of BHT Sussex. 

I did find the protocol at the lunch difficult. Even though we were in a different room to the Queen when she and Prince Philip arrived, we were told we were not allowed to speak to each other, nor as we were taken from that room to the dining room. There we had to stand behind our designated chairs, permitted to talk in “hushed tones” until the royal party entered the room.  

There was protocol about how we should address the Queen. On the first occasion it is “Your Majesty” and after that “Ma’am” to rhyme with jam. (I have always thought that sounds a bit American – “Howdy, Ma’am”).

There was something quite hypnotic when she first arrived – being in the presence of someone so incredibly famous. I found myself smiling at her as she acknowledged us with her regal smile and an almost indecipherable nod of the head.

We had been told that when the Queen finished her meal we were to stop eating as well. I wasn’t having any of that so I made sure I had finished my Sussex lamb well before she had finished hers. Fortunately she had a better upbringing than me and doesn’t rush her food. (As a child, if you lingered over your food you could have expected my dad to whip it off your plate).

I wasn’t at her table, thank goodness, but seated about 15 feet away with her in my peripheral vision.  It was very strange being so close to, possibly, the most famous woman in the world. I sat next to her Equerry who was a hoot and who kept me merrily entertained. I am not at liberty to recount any of his tales. 

It was a fascinating experience and I have kept the invitation, menu and place name.

On another occasion, as part of her Diamond Jubilee, I went to one of the Queen’s garden parties at Buckingham Palace. The invitation was for two people, again made in recognition of my position within BHT Sussex.  I think I have one of our former Board members, Hugh Burnett, to thank for arranging the invitation. Hugh had been the High Sheriff of East Sussex and was a Deputy Lieutenant. 

I went with my colleague, Jo Berry.  We had a wonderful day, exploring the Palace gardens, and the refreshments were out of this world. I conveniently ‘forgot’ that I had recently been diagnosed as having Type 2 diabetes, and enjoyed more than my fair share of the tea and sandwiches (cucumber, no crusts) and some yummy cakes.

With Jo Berry at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party

Photography was prohibited but Jo and I still managed a few snaps, although not with members of the Royal Family.

Afterwards, from a souvenir shop, we bought a couple of pencils engraved with ‘Buckingham Palace’ and a ‘crown’ at the end which I gave to Jo’s young daughter, Lola, telling her that I had stolen them from the Palace.

I feel quite conflicted about royalty. Like others, I have huge admiration for someone who has devoted her life to the service of her country, albeit in the most comfortable of circumstances.

I have never understood the idea of having an hereditary head of state, especially in the twenty-first century. It might be down to me having been born and brought up in South Africa which was, throughout my childhood, not a member of the Commonwealth. Why should someone, because of an accident of birth, have this elevated position, above impeachment? 

If one accepts the concept of an hereditary head of state, I find it bewildering that there is a wider Royal Family. There is a case for having an heir and a spare, but why are there so many people whose main quality is that they are the cousin, the nephew or niece, of the monarch.

The decision by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to modernise seems sensible, saying they want to be called William and Kate, and dispensing with bowing and curtsying. A precedent was set by Nelson Mandela who, apparently always called the Queen “Elizabeth”.

Does the Monarchy have a future? I am sure that The Firm is evolving, that after King Charles and Queen Camilla, William and Kate will be the very popular models of a modern King and Queen.

Meanwhile, I send Her Majesty my best wishes for health and happiness.

The Destruction of District Six by the Apartheid Government, and a Pivotal Moment in My Life

With my brother Simon, sisters Sue and Jude, in District Six, January 1963. (I’m the baby of the family).

It was 55 years ago today (11th February 1966) that District Six in Cape Town was declared a white area by the apartheid government. Within a few years all the residents had been forcefully removed to live on the barren Cape Flats. A vibrant multi-cultural and multi-racial community had been destroyed.

By 1971 much of District Six had been bulldozed. On one particular day, as my bus sped from the affluent suburb of Rondebosch where I was at school, to Sea Point, 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 viscous blows and kicks from two young white men. The beating, which I saw for, at most two 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 left 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 wrong with the society I was living in.  At the time I did not have the language or 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, how he lived or how and when he died. But I know that some of the things I have done in my life to combat apartheid, racism, ageism, and violence has been driven by an abhorrence of injustice, violence, abuse and exploitation originating from those two seconds as my bus rushed by.

There is another apartheid-related anniversary. It was 31 years ago today that a political prisoner was released from prison. He had been incarcerated for 27 years, most of it on Robben Island. Four years later this former prisoner, Nelson Mandela, became the first democratically elected President of South Africa.

Today sees a new high watermark in the history of South African Rugby

The three regular readers of this blog will know that I have a great love of the sport of rugby. Since 1994 I have been a massive supporter of the South African national team, the Springboks, and the Blitzbokke, the national side that plays in the shorter form of the game, Rugby Sevens. I will be at Twickenham next weekend hoping that the Blitzbokke will do better than last year when they lost in the quarterfinals to England.

As a child, brought up in a family which opposed apartheid, I supported the touring New Zealand side when they toured South Africa. At the Test Match in Cape Town, I must have been one of the only white persons present who was supporting the All Blacks. Every black person there, in the racially segregated ground, was supporting the tourists. I recall being hit over the head with an umbrella by a large Afrikaner and told to shut up when I cheered a New Zealand score!

(As an adult I would have opposed the tour itself, breaking as it did the sport and cultural boycott of the apartheid state, but I was too young to make that call at that time).

It wasn’t until after Mandela was elected President that I first supported the Springboks. In 1994, supporting the Springboks was not uncontroversial I would recommend the amazing book by John Carlin, ‘Playing the Enemy’, for a comprehensive account of the complexities at that time. (The book became the basis for the film, ‘Invictus’, entertaining though it was, it has nothing on the book).

Nelson Mandela presents the William Webb- Ellis Trophy to Francois Pienaar

There have been highs and lows being a Springbok supporter since 1994. Winning the World Cup in 1995 was, undoubtedly, the high water mark, not just for South Africans, but for people around the world. 

The exchange between Mandela and the Springbok captain, Francois Pienaar, is one of the iconic moments of sport and a defining moment in Mandela’s presidency. “Thank you for what you’ve done for our country, Francois,” said Mandela as he presented the William Webb-Ellis trophy to Pienaar. “No, Mr President,”replied the Afrikaner Pienaar, “thank you for what you’ve done for our country”.  Such an exchange would have been unheard of even a year earlier. 

With my daughter Clare and three Japanese supporters before the South Africa v Japan game in Brighton during the 2015 Rugby World Cup

The low point happened right here in Brighton, in the 2015 World Cup. I was there as Japan scored their winning try in the 4th minute of extra time to cause the biggest upset in international rugby history. I have written about that game here.

In 2017, I found myself standing next to Francois Pienaar at baggage reclaim at Cape Town International Airport and we spoke about the Japan game. I said I had been traumatised for about two weeks. Pienaar said he was still traumatised by the result.

My great nephew, Daniel Myburgh, with Springbok captain, Siya Kolisi

Why am I writing about rugby today? Today it was announced that Siya Kolisi will captain the Springboks in the forthcoming series against England and so becomes the first black South African to captain the Boks. It is a great day for Kolisi himself and for South African rugby. 

(As a footnote, I’ve been thinking about why I never played for the Boks. Other than not being able to tackle, hated being tackled, having no sense of tactics, having the physical attributes of a lamppost, not being able to kick, and hated scrumming, I think I had everything to make a great player).