To mark his passing

As most of you know we have family and friends in South Africa.  Or to be more precise, Mike has family and friends in S.A. who in the best and kindest of ways, readily accepted me into the Shearing fold some thirty years ago, when we first travelled there together.  This was around '79/'80.

At that time I was working in the theatre in London. The Arts community was fociferous in its condemnation of apartheid in S.A.  So it was rather tricky for me to announce, as a Press and PR officer in the heart of London's theatre land - that I was going there. So I didn't tell anyone. If I'm honest, I didn't want to go. I felt extremely uncomfortable.
My head was full of images and reports from The Observer, who through author and Observer journalist Anthony Sampson and the editorial courage of  David Astor, kept all that was happening in S.A. in our hearts and in our minds. This visit was to meet Mike's family and friends. So I was torn. I went. An elaborate plan was hatched to cover my four weeks away. A friend who was holidaying in the States sent all my postcards from there and even bought an office present for me. How crazy! But the mood was such that I needed this subterfuge. 

Mike and I went initially to Johannesburg and ended up in Cape Town. In between we travelled all over the Karoo, along the Garden Route, visiting as many of our friends and family as we could in the time we had.

This visit changed my perspective and I returned to the UK in a far better informed position than that in which I had arrived. Two of the reasons for this are called David and Taffy Shearing, who is in fact another Hilary. Two Hilarys in the same family. Those Shearings know how to give themselves a hard time! I was better informed, not in the sense that things diverged from what I was seeing and reading about in The Observer, but informed in terms of what David and Taffy were doing, as white South Africans to bring about change. This was a perspective that wasn't so readily available in the UK.

There are many stories to be told about our different visits to S.A., one of which was arriving the same day that Nelson Mandela was released. Our last visit was in 2011.
But for the purpose of this blog and to mark the passing of Madiba, I'd like to include a piece from David and Taffy's Christmas letter to the family, which tells of Taffy meeting him in 1994. I hope David and Taffy don't mind. They refer to it as a 'treasured memory' - it truly is and one I felt I just had to share:

" As a member of the local Peace Committee, I [Taffy] was invited to have breakfast with Nelson Mandela at the Oasis Hotel in Beaufort West in 1994 at the start of the ANC election campaign. The ticket was quite cheap, and there were about ten of us white people among the 50-60 in the multi-racial group.

But the funny thing was that breakfast wasn’t served. An ad hoc choir sang to us instead. We asked the old waiter what was happening. He warned that a procession of pick-ups, driven by khaki-dressed white men, had surrounded the hotel, and were standing in squads all around it. We soon heard they were far right-wingers from the Northern Cape, and our police – caught short – were in vans in the back streets. Somebody asked me what I was going to do. I didn’t fancy pushing my way through the right-wingers, so said I was sitting tight as I’d not yet had breakfast.

Next we heard that Mandela, in a room upstairs, had sent for their leader – a chap called Macdonald, who couldn’t speak any English. His khaki hat was decorated with huge black ostrich feather plumes, and we could just catch sight of them as he jauntily raced up the stairs. They say Mandela’s bodyguards removed a dagger from him. I don’t know if that’s true. He and Mandela had a one to one interview. A few minutes later the same guy, now holding his hat in his hands and his bravado gone, meekly walked down the stairs with his head down. He ran up to each of his squads just paraded outside, and ordered them to go home. “Ons behort nie hier nie,” (We don’t belong here), and they left for their various homes. Minutes later Mr Mandela and his entourage appeared at the main table, and he said in his gravelly voice, “I’m sorry. I got a bit delayed. I’m sure we’re all hungry, so let’s have breakfast.” The tension blew away as we all burst out laughing, and we tucked into our delayed breakfast.

Nelson Mandela’s speech to us was short. He apologized again for keeping us waiting, and then said these most important words, “We’re all going to work together for peace. There will be no persecution of white people, and we will build this country together for a better future.” He spoke in English, in Afrikaans and in Xhosa, so nobody could misunderstand him.
I was stunned. Did we whites deserve this warmth, this kindness?
I’m sad to say of course we didn’t.

Then the local Chair of the ANC brought him over to meet the Peace Committee. Of course I remember that special smile when I was introduced, but for me, what was even more reassuring was that he had a very small hand for a man of his size. And from that hand poured the most tremendous warmth.

So what I remember most of that precious moment nearly 20 years ago was my happiness that, thank God, there was life in this hand yet, and that he would be with us for quite a few years to come as we needed his leadership and his guidance. "

Thanks Taffy and David.