Return to ContentsWhen we left for the United Kingdom it was full of expectations and of apprehension. I was on my own. I was a family man. Fortunately I was well educated and I had an introduction to Wiggins Teape with the prospect of a job. On the other hand I had no relations in the UK nor the address of any friends or contacts. However I had been there before so I had some idea of what to expect. I had limited funds with no prospects of getting more. I was ignorant of any social services, national health, advice bureau, or other place or person to turn to. There was no ANC branch and I knew of no Anti-Apartheid movement. Funnily enough I did not even think about the possibility of help or advice from the Communist Party in Britain. I had my health and the necessity to succeed.
We landed at Southampton and passport control was set up in the lounge of the ship. Sibyl had her passport and I went in with my South African Exit Permit. "Oh," said the man "what an interesting document. I haven't seen one of these before. Please kindly wait." Why do they do these things to people? It raised the same fears and uncertainties that were in my memory from so many police raids and arrests. What was I to do? What was going to happen? There were no alternatives? The "Please kindly wait" was not the message of a friend or a waiter in the restaurant who will bring the food in a moment, it was the precursor of doom.
Then just when the anxiety was subsiding from self exhaustion I was called and "That's all right sir." So off down the gangplank I went. At the side of the door stood my first glimpse of England, a man in a black jacket, pin striped trousers and a bowler hat. He was a small thin very white man. I immediately thought, "So that is how the representatives of the state dress here." It was all very gentlemanly and sinister at the same time. Perhaps it was mere expectations creating my own reality. Then we were off to collect the luggage. All was well organized and no problem except my tool box. It had broken open with the weight and poor packing. Again no problem they would strap it together and deliver all my stuff to a warehouse in London for collection later.
We took the coach to London. On the way our darling Estelle decided to make the biggest mess in her nappy. There I sat with the smell pervading the coach and the yellow stuff oozing out. Sibyl was only half there, but it was the better half so that was OK. There was no reaction of sympathy, help or disgust from the assembled passengers. The realization soon dawned that we were in a land of "Suit yourself as long as you don't expect me to do anything about it." It is not a bad thing in many ways. At the first and only stop, I did the business and clean and tidy we had some tea and proceeded. We ended up in a basement room of a cheap hotel in Earls Court. The hotel was still too expensive so we soon transferred to a bedsit while I started the process of trying to get a job.
This took about two months. Although my interview with Wiggins Teape went very well and they had clearly been given a very good reference by S.A.P.P.I. they only had a job in their research division that involved the physics of light sensitive coatings on paper. This was the beginnings of the era of the photocopier and Xerox machine. It fell through because I was not really a physicist. However I got a job with John Dickens's in Watford in their paper mill as a chemist. We rented a furnished flat with a garden in a house in Watford and settled in to become, I hesitate to say, a member of the working class. I was soon to find British society to be complex in a different way to that in South Africa.
Shopping was of course a necessity and there was a Co-op. This was quite new for me but clearly a good socialist thing so I joined. Next there was advertised a general meeting. So I went. In the meeting a stranger stood up and made an intervention and during it he said that he was from the Communist Party. I collared him as soon as I could and I was soon a member of the C.P.G.B. The trade union organizing scientists was the Association of Scientific Workers so I joined. Life was so simple. Choices were obvious. I was becoming a citizen.
Politics in the UK was not the politics I knew. In South Africa joining the movement meant being sucked in, becoming one of a "Band of Brothers" as Henry the fifth says. In the factory things were different. There was a canteen for the shop-floor hourly paid workers, two canteens for the white collar hourly paid (male and female), and another for the managerial strata. I qualified for the monthly, male canteen. Here I found that many of my fellow eaters were in their own myopic view far superior to the hourly paid eaters although they earned less and were less skilled. They were clerks! I found that I was inferior to the managerial eaters. The assistant general manager was an ordinary graduate in Geography and knew nothing of the technology or of paper but he had been educated in Oxford so he was superior. It did not bother me since I always regarded myself as superior to the bosses because I was a worker not an exploiter. The funny thing was that the workers in the factory regarded me as separate from them and their inverted snobbery made it difficult to get close to them. They were highly skilled and the plant could not possibly have run without them. The machinery was old, the pipework so re-routed and re-arranged that nobody knew where a pipe went and there were no plans to assist in finding out. They however seemed lulled into an acceptance of their place in society. If they were at the bottom then they were proud of it. This was something that I had not encountered with the African workers.
I was soon transferred to the board mill in Hemel Hempstead New Town. I would have to move house again. I spoke to the boss of the possibility of getting accommodation in Hemel and he took it on board. I also spoke to the secretary of my Party branch who also said he would see what he could do. I was given a two bedroom flat in Fennycroft Road. The boss was a bit angry. It seemed that he had been embarrassed when he found out that the housing officer had been approached by the left as well as the right. Divisions between classes and groups seemed most important to the people of Britain.
The work was not too onerous. The New Town was quite pleasant. I had a car, a 1947 Rover, which I had bought for #45. It went all right but I had to carry a large can of water around with me because it was always boiling over. Our first winter in the UK, 1962, was a record one for frost and snow. One Monday I went to go to work and there was snow all about. I had seen snow before, once in Johannesburg when I was not quite into my teens. This was in itself a record because most South Africans never see snow. The other time was in 1957 at the peace conference. This was the first time I had ever driven in snow. I started the car without problems and then it just slid down the path to the road. I had absolutely no control. Only then did I realize that it was a sheet of ice. I had never heard of black ice, let alone seen it. The snow on the road stopped the car and I tentatively took control. I did not get far because at the first bend the curbside wheels disappeared into a snow bank. I tried digging, pushing, revving the engine all to no avail. We did not have a phone so I could not contact the factory. I walked back to the flat and returned with some lengths of rope. These I tied and wound around the rear tyres as I had believed snow chains were. They got me out of the drift and when the roads ahead were clearer I took then off. It was below freezing for months that year, especially one evening when we came back to the flat and the electricity and thus the under-floor heating had been cut off. I turned the gas stove on, left the oven door open and after a while we got over the worst. We went early to bed. All in all it was exciting and beautiful, especially the hoar frost on the trees and the fences. And then the white turned gray at the edges, then black and mushy, then wet and horrible. After a further thirty years I have become attuned to the fact that the British Isles are situate at a weather bifurcation where the choice between summer and winter is always less than an hour away.
I drove on my South African license that was legal for a year. The time was running out so I took my British test and failed. It seemed I used the wrong hand signals. I then carried on driving without a valid license until I took my test again this time successfully. We later sold the car for #75. This was my first and last deal in which I ever made a profit. Estelle was growing up and Sibyl seemed quite healthy and stable. We made friends through the party, one of which turned out to be a sister of Hilda Bernstein. She lived in Gade Bridge nearby. Another was a postman and his wife. They had four children of their own and fostered a few more. This seemed very strange. But then one learns that there are people who just love kids. I do too but not that much. Life was not so bad. Political activity was at a minimum, no demonstrations, marches, no public meetings, only the occasional leaflet and branch meeting. Activity connected with the struggle in South Africa was not a priority for me or generally.
At work they were always wanting the machines to go faster. I was supposed to be keen as they were. I found this very difficult but it was not a serious strain to pretend or otherwise to just keep quiet. One night I had been home from work for a couple of hours when a car came to take me back to work. Something had gone wrong with the pH of some solution or other. I corrected the problem and got back at midnight. Next day I stayed in bed a bit longer and arrived at work an hour later than usual. The boss ticked me off, "Why are you late?" Well, I mumbled something in surprise. It reminded me of the question put to me by the special branch when they released me from jail. "Why did I want to go?" I was exasperated. This was not for me. This was not my world. What was I doing here?
I completed a course on Teaching Method in Dacurum College in Hemel. I was looking for a change.. As luck would have it one of my old professors from Wits, Malcolm Clarke, was working at the University of Cape Coast in Ghana. He suggested that I applied for a post as lecturer in physical chemistry. Without ado I was offered the position. I did not have a passport so I asked for a passport from the Home Office in the UK. They refused saying that I would have to get a letter from the South Africans saying that they would not give me one. I was getting the bureaucratic run around so as time was of the essence I got an Identity Document from the Ghanaian authorities. This turned out to be an almost disastrous mistake.
We arrived in Ghana in early 1964. I was worried about not having a passport so I wrote to the Home Office again. Then I wrote to Barbara Castle and she got the following reply to her query on my behalf.
"If Dr. Press had delayed his departure from the United Kingdom
until he had received notice from the South African authorities (as
he did on the 6th of January) that they were not prepared to issue
him with a new passport, the Home Secretary would have been
prepared to issue him with a travel document to enable him to
travel. I am afraid, however, that such documents are not issued to
persons living abroad."
The system in the UK was proving to be a complex variant on that in South Africa. I got down to work of teaching which was far more rewarding than working in industry.
I soon became the Secretary/Treasurer of the Senior Staff Association. All went well until a problem arose concerning the expatriate staff and the administration. A choice had to be made. In my letter of resignation from the Association I wrote to the administration.
"It has further seemed to me that certain people are construing my
efforts and criticisms as destructive and as those of an expatriate
with ulterior motives. Since I wish to stop all such talk or
thinking I intend to resign from executive position in the Staff
Association....
I however remain a firm friend of Ghana and wish to see her progress
as rapidly as possible to complete independence and self sufficiency
both materially, culturally and scientifically."
I recognized quite soon that independence meant just that: Independence but not interference no matter how well intentioned. Even disinterested assistance was not easy.
At the college there were lecturers from the Soviet Union, India, Britain, exiled South Africans, and from elsewhere. The salaries they were paid varied considerably depending on odd criteria. For example the Indian lecturer, we called him Chuckles, was an expert in grasses. He had traveled the world and categorized over 72 grasses, no doubt a noble, rewarding, and boring job. He was seconded by the United Nations and got a very high salary. The Soviet lecturers some of whom were very high powered in their fields, were instructed by their government to accept only half the usual expatriate salary. Since as they said, Ghana was poor and half salaries were quite enough to live on anyway. The effect on the students was interesting. They said the Soviet professors were not very good because they were paid much smaller salaries. In some ways the Soviet lecturers were a bit ignorant. One of them, a theoretical physicist, came up to me the day after a night out asking, "Ronnie what is this `Methodism.'" He seemed quite anxious. After some discussion I realized he was not talking of some Physics phenomena or method but of the Methodist religion. He seemed a bit pained and confused to have been so ignorant.
Still there were ways of assisting. There was scope for research on local resources. Paper could be made from a local rapidly growing tropical soft wood (Albizzia Zygia so my friend identified it). I published this research and one on "Manganese in the Chlorine Dioxide Bleaching of Kraft Pulp" (The work for this had been done at SAPPI but never been published). (4 & 5) They indicated the possibility of paper manufacture in Ghana and also got the name of the University of Cape Coast into the international journals. Because of this work I was asked to join a special group that was looking into the production of paper in Ghana. On it was an expert from Hungary.
I was all keen and as usual did not quite understand the purpose of the members of the group. I was busily putting forward ways and means of saving money and using what technical resources were available while the real purpose was to get money from various overseas agencies. Having been put right it was suggested that perhaps I would like to go to Hungary and see their paper industry where the raw material used was straw. It was agreed that I could combine it with a holiday for Sybil and Estelle. We spent a week in Dubrovnik a living museum with cobbled streets, no cars, city walls, an ancient harbour, and the shops and hotels owned and run by workers' co-operatives. Then I left the family in an hotel and went off to Hungary for a week. I had to stop over in Beograd which apart from the Hotel again being a Co-Operative, was a typical modern city. Hungary was memorable for Budapest, the castle on the hill, the dramatic peace statue, the trams, and the sweep of the river. The paper mill was of passing interest, relatively modern and efficient the main innovation being the use of straw as the raw material.
They recalled the events of 1949 almost with disbelief. The modus vivendi of their present seemed to be accepted with reluctance. The future did not beckon but was expected to come anyway. The story of one of the chemists summed it up thus. His Professor was traveling in a tram when a passenger approached him saying "Colleague, could you tell me where to get off for the University?" Now the use of the appellation "Comrade" had been discontinued after the Soviet intervention and "Colleague" was the flavour of the month. The professor answered. "Sir I do not recall seeing you at university, I am certainly not your colleague." It was like the food at the works canteen. Each day there was a large serving of a well cooked and nourishing single item meal. Each day one item and each day different in a weekly cycle. Adequate but uninspiring. I had the obligatory meeting with the sponsors of my visit TESCO Hungarian Organisation for Technical and Scientific Cooperation, and gave them a carved ebony head in thanks. I joined the family in Yugoslavia and to Ghana.
Hymie Basner whom I had first met in jail during the State of Emergency was in Accra. At his instance I wrote a long article for the Ghanaian Times, "Africa's New Scientist" (e). The All African Trade Union Federation was centered in Accra so I got in contact and sent some money in recognition of their help in the South African struggle. Students could be spoken to and they sent a petition together with a donation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK. However I was never a great socialite so I minimized participation in the usual social rounds. Sybil was not outgoing or the one for dinner parties or cocktails.
In a way this has been my greatest weakness. It is a great help to be able to drink in a pub, play skittles, talk about football or rugby, and generally be one of the lads. I had never been one of the crowd. I was a Jew in a Catholic school. I was never a member of a gang. I was a loner. I do not know whether to blame Freud or Pavlov but my early training did not equip me to be an organiser. I always fancied myself as a Chairman, and when the opportunity arose I made meetings go with a swing but ended up being unpopular. I always took meetings to be an organised method of reaching an agreed conclusion only to find that this was an ideal much to be sought after by the few. Each person at a meeting seems to have their very own personalised reason for speaking. When I applied the text of Wal Hannington's book, Mr. Chairman, I soon lost my job as Chair. Most of the comrades could quote passages of the Bible or of Marx but I met few who had even heard of Citrine or Hannington. I always had something to contribute but I never was a good organiser of people.
Cape Coast, the town, was in a valley next to the sea. There was nothing there of note except the usual market, a few shops, and no industry. We bought our meat at the butchers. This was a real butcher where the animal was cut up before you and you chose the piece you wanted. Fish was bought at the quayside directly from the fishermen who caught them. Pineapples and bananas were sold by the peasants who grew them But anything "civilized," such as chocolate, canned butter, pencils, paper, cups, all were imported from the age old sources overseas. This trade was largely controlled by the local Lebanese. Prices in these goods were unstable. Once the price of butter spiraled due to a chronic shortage. When it was at its peak the butter arrived. We learned later that the whole shortage had been engineered to raise the price. The sale of local crafts such as carvings, Ashanti stools, trinkets and such like was largely controlled by traders from the northern province.
The valley was infested with malarial mosquitoes. The surrounding hill tops were relatively free of the pests. In Colonial days the white representatives of power such as the police chief, the magistrate and such, each had his residence on a hill top. Each of these residences was now occupied by a black representatives of the black power. The Mayor was the chairman of the PPP, Peoples Progressive Party and the richest man in Cape Coast. Things had changed, by how much, was still a question.
Once when in the bank in Cape Coast an African woman recognized my accent and came up to me. She said she was from South Africa. We talked for a while and she said how out of place she felt. The people "were so backward." The gap between the ordinary people in Ghana and the expatriates was not merely one of colour. I was quite friendly with Kofi the carpenter. I never knew anything about his family. It never entered my head to ask. He was an excellent craftsman and could make anything of wood with the most basic of tools. His approach to money was also interesting. I asked him if he would make me a large wooden tool box that could also serve as a workbench. I would pay him whatever he wanted for the work and raw materials. The overall supervisor, formally a chief technician working at University College London, gave his permission for the use of the facilities provided Kofi did the work in his own time. For many weeks nothing eventuated. The position was that he was not prepared to work overtime. Work time was enough even if he needed the money. Ken, the supervisor, shut his eyes and I got my box and Kofi got his money and no overtime was worked.
Kofi was not very good with the pen and ink but with the chisel and plane he was tops. So when they decided that they needed a Foreman in the work shop they appointed a young man just out of school who could read and write but knew next to nothing about carpentry. It was an injustice based on crude educational qualifications, the very discrimination that education in an aspirant socialist country was supposed to eliminate. Both Ken and I were annoyed. Kofi was furious, but there was nothing any one could do.
Estelle made friends easily and there was nursery school, swimming in the sea at Birrawa beach, and a bright hot sunny climate. We traveled around to see the sights. Once on the way to Takoradi we came across a beautiful sight. The gentle blue sea, hot yellow sun, palm trees, an acetylene white fort a top a finger of land, the curve of a lagoon with a pristine bar of sand. Here was the tropical paradise of the travel brochures. We found what Gauguin failed to represent in his art. The stagnant lagoon stank.
Sibyl however gradually found the absence of stimulation wearing. She made no friends, we had a servant to do most of the chores, she did not find it easy to get about on her own and she had no hobbies. Her schizophrenia got worse until she started wandering about at night. This was dangerous. We were on the boarders of the country and wild animals including poisonous snakes abounded. I discussed the problem with various friends one of whom was a Soviet professor who got me some tranquilizer but it did not help.
As an aside. At about this time I was approached by a Soviet trade representative who said they could arrange any drugs I needed for my wife, and would I give them any information of value. I was being recruited as a spy. Like the old American trade union song I was being asked the question, "Which side are you on?. Which side are you on?." I had no problem with this. I was on the side of the workers. Nothing came of it.
I was getting desperate but it was impossible and the doctor had her taken to the mental hospital in Accra. There they gave her insulin shock treatment. A week later they called me to come and pick her up to take her home. I arrived at the compound surrounded by a high safety fence. There were a large number of rooms enclosing a quadrangle. It was clean and tidy but utterly basic in its facilities. Poor kid, she looked so forlorn. She was lost in her inner self in an alien environment. It was so sad. Not only for her but for the others who were also wandering about in their other worlds. The first "lunatic asylum" I had visited was in Pretoria in the 1940's with my father when he went to fix a cine projector in the women's section. There were shrieks and cries that can still raise horrors even now. Things have slowly improved and Ghana was more civilized but the strange metaphysical rhythms were still there. Later Sibyl was in the Frenchay complex in Bristol where the other worldly-ness was less intense. Unreason always frightens me.
Perhaps disembodied cries awaken other memories. When I was quite young I was playing in the yard with a neighbor's dog. Just messing about. A piece of wire came to hand and I decided to tie the dog's front paws together. For a moment the dog did not take it amiss then it suddenly began to howl with unrestrained anxiety. I was horrified at what I had done. I was only playing? My feelings raced and my heart hammered. I untwisted the wire and the spell was snapped. The dog relaxed and became quiet. It left patterns in my mind that perhaps lay behind my reaction to cries of pain.
Clearly we had to return to the UK. I had no passport. I had to embark on a long series of letters to friends in Britain and visits to the British Consul in Ghana. On top of that the University authorities were not al all sympathetic as I had another year of my contract to go. The UK also had a problem with foreigners who they were afraid wanted to go to Britain to get treatment of the National Health Service. The Soviets were often criticized because their citizens were kept on a short leash when out of their country, but in the sort of circumstances that I was in they were far better served. I was close to deciding to ask the Hungarian authorities to let me immigrate there. However so many rallied around that eventually I was given a temporary visa to go to Britain for an interview for a job. In this Barbara Castle, Dutton the secretary of the ASCW (Association of Scientific Workers), the AAM, and so many others brought pressure to bear and we flew back to London.
We arrived on the 1st. of July 1965, a Wednesday, and took a bus straight to Percy Cohen in Mill Hill. After a quick meal I went with him and bought a new black suit, white shirt, a tie and shoes, took the train to Bristol, stayed the night in a pub near Temple Meads station, went to the interview at the Brunel Technical College and returned to London on Thursday with a job. We stayed in Bristol for the next 22 years.
Things were a bit different on this return to the UK. I had a job, experience and some finance in the bank. As usual the first thing to do was to get accommodation. We got some rooms in a house in Braivels Grove off Ashley Down Road, near to the college. We were subtenants to an old couple and were quite comfortable. It was to be very temporary. We were there a week when the couple had a row, split up, and gave us a notice. I was convinced it was illegal. I was sure they could not do it to us so I rang the police from whom I got no joy whatever, not even advice. I came home sure that I would find the family out on the street. Sibyl at the moment of crisis had come up trumps. She had found us temporary accommodation with a landlord who usually put up students. As it was now holiday time we could stay there. We decided to buy a house. We had some money in the bank for a deposit and it seemed the only alternative.
While in Ghana expatriates were paid in Ghanaian pounds in Ghana and a portion of the salary could be paid in sterling into a bank in the UK. We had managed fairly well in Ghana but we had had debts when we left the UK. However many of the other expatriates were short of foreign exchange. One of them approached me when he heard that we were leaving and that I had some unused Forex. A very favorable rate of exchange was agreed and I managed to accumulate a small nest egg in the UK. I still feel bad about it because it was illegal and although the laws in South Africa were there to be broken this law was not in that category. Most of this nest egg formed the ú450 deposit on our house in Ashley Down road. It was your typical three up and two down terraced house on the side of a hill. It overlooked allotments and the railway way some half a mile away.
Slowly life was stabilizing. We moved into our house and bought furniture from the Co-Op. Estelle, now five years old, started school just across the road, I was lecturing at the Tech and Sibyl was settling in well. Then once again Sibyl had to go to hospital, this time Frenchay. With the help of social services I found a child minder easily enough. Estelle went off to school in the morning and then I picked her up from the child minder afterwards. Then panic. I was required to take evening classes. The child minder said that it was not possible for her to keep Estelle after five because she had to have her time for meditation and prayer. Fortunately my neighbor Mrs Wood, who I barely knew offered to help. The general support services and community co-operation were much greater than in my previous experience. Sibyl came out of hospital and with the help of the proper medication became one of the family again. I had a heart attack just before Xmas 1967. It was a very mild one and kept me off work for a number of months. We coped and made friends mostly with comrades in the Communist Party.
I now had time and the necessary support to make some improvements to the house. Over the years I put in central heating, rewired the whole house, rebuilt the wooden back stairs in concrete, put up a car port and did all the general repairs and decorations. My dad would have been proud of me. I also made some furniture out of the wood of the boxes we had brought from Ghana. At my request Kofi had made these packing cases from mahogany. Estelle had one large room to herself upstairs, Sibyl and I had the other and the smaller room was my workshop. The large toolbox made of Odum, a Ju Ju wood, formed its centerpiece. I bought a lathe for five pounds from one of the technicians. It was not a patch on our old one but it worked. I was all tooled up for the struggle. That was to come later.
In 1970 I got the news from my sister that my Mother was dead. It seems that a lorry jack-knifed in front of the car driven by Lydia who had been seriously hurt but my mother was killed. The question of my going home for the funeral was never raised. We were not an emotional family and although we loved each other very much we never let our emotions govern us. I was on a one way visa from South Africa, we were not rich and I was working going home for a funeral seemed somehow inappropriate. Mother left her jewelry to Estelle, a diamond ring, earrings and a string of pearls. I knew mom had them but they were seldom worn. Even to this day with Estelle having a family of her own they are seldom seen let alone worn. Perhaps we are faintly embarrassed by having wealth, not that they are worth much anyway.
We also came into some money and decided that we would go on a holiday to the Soviet union. The three of us spent two weeks in August '71 visiting Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev. It was a happy time. The Hermitage, the Tretyakov, the Great gate of Kiev that is always invoked by 'Pictures from an Exhibition' by Mousorsky, Palace Square where they stormed the Winter Palace, the battleship Aurora, The Kremlin, St. Basils. And when in mid-afternoon we sat on a bench in Leningrad and Estelle, exhausted fell asleep for three hours.
Ethel DeKeyser of the AAM office in London put me in touch with the local branch and my round of political activities began.
My first meeting of the AAM was at the house of Jane and Bill Gilchrist in South Mead. He was the convenor of shopstewards at the local aircraft factory and a member of the Communist Party. He was a skilled craftsman, a pattern maker. He was not your flamboyant leader of men but he was always there, experienced in getting the pieces to fit together. Jane was also a comrade and active in the small AAM group. She had stood for the city council and was active in the community. A few years after this meeting I became the secretary. We held meetings, marches, brought out and distributed leaflets and arranged coaches to London demonstrations. The group was small and things went slowly. The struggle in South Africa was at a low ebb after the Rivonia trials. The Bristol public however responded to the call for the boycott of Apartheid South Africa.
South Africa was playing in Bristol in a Davis cup tennis match in mid 1969 and we organized a meeting outside the tennis courts in Redland. We set up a platform with various speakers followed by a small march around the grounds. It was all quite peaceful even if we did shout slogans and make our presence heard inside the high walls where they were trying to play tennis with the racists from South Africa. There just in front of me walked Estelle who was now about 9 years old. One of your gentle, sports and democracy loving spectators poured, a fortunately now cold, cup of tea on to her. I was beginning to learn what lay beneath the smooth facade of fair play and freedom of protest.
A far bigger protest took place at the end of the same year when the Springboks played rugby at the Memorial Grounds in Horfield. It was December the 31st. It was cold with a sprinkling of snow on the grounds. We set up a platform, the back of a lorry, on Horfield common opposite the grounds. Our organization and our publicity were now quite good, even the Church around the corner in the main road had a placard denouncing Apartheid. The night before a stink bomb had been let off in the Hotel where the Springboks were staying. During the night others set off fire alarms and rang the players on the internal hotel phones. The day of the match we had a big crowd of some two hundred standing on the grass under the trees. Amongst others Bill Nicholas spoke from the Trades Union Council and I from the AAM. Then we marched off down the main Gloustercester Road towards the shops in Horfield. Then back up the hill. One of the protesters wanted us to sit in the main road thus blocking it but we dissuaded him. Then we marched around the grounds. While we were busy one of our supporters, a local teacher, got onto the rugby ground and scattered tacks on the playing field. He was arrested but the whole effort got headline publicity for the protest against Apartheid.
From this high point the membership decreased to an all-time low. There was little news of any activity in South Africa. The movement was dormant recovering from its battering. In the UK we did not have any kernel around which the British people could be mobilised in protest. It was however essential that the AAM be kept alive because I knew that the problem of Apartheid would not go away. Protest and support would be essential and the Bristol AAM must survive to organise it. I remember a general members meeting held in the Transport and General Hall in Victoria Street. They had kindly given us the use of one of their small meeting rooms. I was there early and waited, and waited. One young lady supporter turned up. We sat there for a few minutes offering each other comfort and agreed to have the A.G.M. again the next year.
The Soweto events of 1976 shattered the silence and the backwash hit the AAM. Things began to liven up and I became more involved directly with the ANC and SACTU in London. I willingly gave up the secretaryship of the Bristol AAM and Hedly Bashforth took over. I of course continued to participate on the committee and in the general activities. The Bristol branch of the AAM remained very active and was one of the largest. Gerrard Omasta-Milson became the secretary. I used to help with the regular Soweto Walks at the home of Bevis and Jackie in Priddy nearby.
College work was fortunately never really trying. Academic progress, or status was never a problem. Teaching is a very satisfying job. Students come in, unsure of themselves, uncertain of what they know and wary of the jungle around them. In some little measure they leave having recognized some of the landmarks and at least knowing where the levers and buttons are. They may not press the right ones but they now have the courage to try. I remember one particular student by name of Bond. (For me remembering a student's name was indeed an honour.) He came on a chemical technicians course. He was a rather tubby chap with dark hair. Not particularly memorable but just got on with the work. I never paid any special attention to him except perhaps to recognize that he was trying. After few years he left the college with a City and Guilds certificate. Sibyl and I were walking down Gloucester Road. It was quiet with little traffic so it must have been a Sunday. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure running across the road towards me. I suddenly recognized Mr. Bond. He was more grown up, more a citizen and less a slave. He said he wanted to thank me for all I had done for him and how I had helped. It was a very pleasurable moment. That is why I remembered his name.
Work also brought challenges. The college was a technical college and therefor doing research was not even a minor expectation on the part of the authorities. I determined to do some because it added that extra interest and I could stand out a bit in the crowd. Dennis Hardcastle and I published a paper on, believe it or not, "Some Physico-Chemical Properties of Ellagic Acid" . The then new principal lecturer was a pushy irritating character whose intelligence was difficult to discern. He was always boasting about this and that and his having a book published. Well, if he could, so could any idiot, so could I. My problem was not the science but the English. One of the lecturers went through the script with me line by line smoothing out the rough corners. The book "The Chemical Electron" published in 1969, was dedicated "To the Grandchildren of Oom Gert, Their universe will be much bigger." It was translated into Italian and Japanese. (I found out later that the little bugger had never written a book himself anyway. He was merely the editor.) A short paper in the Journal of Chemical Education followed. In 1976 my last published research effort was "Observations on the Foxing of Paper" (6,7,8 & 9) which concerned the reason why brown spots appear in old books. The excitement of the struggle was beckoning. The call of Academia receded.
One did a job to the best of one's ability and deserved a reward commensurate with it. This had been my fathers favorite slogan, "A fair days pay for a fair days work." The dispute came over what was fair. So work was also about trade unions and since I was a member of the Communist Party about socialism. The ASCW had become ASTMS. I retained my membership for a year or so but carried a paralleled membership with the ATTI the teachers trade union. Later when the ASTMS lost their representation of the technicians in the college I remained a member of the ATTI later to become NATFHE. This involved the usual meetings, both of the college and the region. I was also appointed as a representative to the Bristol Trades union Council and became an executive committee member. In these positions on and off I contributed to the trade union struggles in Bristol over the years from my arrival to when I retired in 1987.
I even got a showing on television. The anti-racist movement in Bristol organised a counter march to the National Front. We were quite canny about this in that we did not confront them but followed them on both sides of the street, through the heart of town and to the "private" hall where they held a meeting. We distributed leaflets, carried placards, shouted slogans and generally destroyed their message to the Bristol public. They could not retaliate since we were perfectly peaceful citizens going about our lawful business of walking on the pavement and talking to our friends the public. The police had very little to do until the march came to their meeting place down near Temple Meads. There the police formed a line and kept the opposition out. We were by far a bigger number than them by now. They had lost the day. Our supporters milled about in the street outside and a number of us climbed onto a garage roof at the side. Standing there overlooking the assembled crowd I suddenly felt like doing the Lenin act. I had seen the pictures of him on the armored car addressing the masses in St. Petersburg. Why not me? I stood and started a meeting. It was great but I had not taken into account that I had been shouting for over an hour and my voice was almost gone. Still for a brief few minutes it was just like in the books. I was captured by the television and went on air. For a brief moment I was the center of the vortex of Bristol Anti-fascist life.
During these years there was a strike of the lecturers only for a day but a strike nonetheless. We stood on a picket line outside the gates and watched while many of the staff went past. It was very peaceful with not a police officer in sight. Other activities were attendance at one or two national conferences, supporting other workers on strike, and raising the trade union and liberation struggle in South Africa whenever appropriate. Money was collected, leaflets and pamphlets distributed, friendships made and momentous accumulated. I have a letter specially distributed to the Trade Council Executive by the post office workers during the post office workers strike, a Stewards armband and two certificates conferring life membership on me. The two life memberships of the Bristol Trades Union Council, indicates a case of collective memory loss.
Rocks hidden under the water
It was early summer in 1976 it was the time of the Soweto events. As was my wont, I was playing around with ways of concealing things from the apartheid regime. I was by then a member of a subcommittee set up by the South African Communist Party. Its job was to provide technical assistance for the African National Congress. Being a scientist, an engineer and more important still one who loves to potter about making things, I was chuffed to be asked to join the Party's group of technical "subversives." Before this, I had been working freelance so to speak.
A muddled phone call summoned me to London to talk with Jack Hodgson and Aziz Pahad my fellow sub-committee members. The movement was developing a plan to get some hardware (military equipment) into South Africa. Two Mkontho we Siswe units were established in the country and spurred by the Soweto events they were ready for operations. We had some discussions, sitting in the sun on a park bench off Holloway Road. Children were playing, mothers were shopping and we were based thousands of miles from the action. Jack and Aziz explained the bare outlines of the plan to me but as it was later to turn out, not my full role in it. At that stage all they needed was a way to camouflage TNT, detonators, fuses, and hand grenades. Would I think about it?
I find planning without discussion very difficult, so the two Ronnies, Ronnie Kasrils and myself, got together. We decided that we needed a well dressed tourist on holiday to South Africa. Such an upper crust Englishman would naturally shop at Fortnum and Mason and take a gift of fancy food for some great white chief in Johannesburg.
Picture the two of us buying hampers of luxury food in this shopping citadel of the wealthy. PatÚ, canned grouse, whole yellow peaches in brandy syrup and other canned goodies. It was a revelation to me how the rich lived. It was a shock how much we had to pay. I remember that we paid over ú50 which was a hell of a lot of money in those days. Ronnie answered my anxiety. In the context of the total costs of the operation, these delicacies played a minor part. All the same it felt strange walking down Oxford Street with a hamper. It was just as well nobody from the press or the ultra-left saw us. We laughed at the imagined headline. "White Communists live a life of luxury."
I returned to Bristol with the two hampers. Since I only needed one of the hampers and the empty cans My wife Sybil, our 16 year old daughter Estelle and I were in a position to stuff ourselves silly. The food was a perk of the job but frankly the pate was too rich, the grouse unpalatable and we only enjoyed the peaches.
Having achieved what I wanted I now had the equipment to make the dummy containers. I had opened the grouse cans in different ways. With the first, I cut out the bottom without using a tin opener so that the rim and the label were undisturbed. The other I got into by cutting around the middle with a pair of tin-snips. After careful cleaning, the rim of the first can was ground and cut off, leaving a sharp edge. I cut the bottom of the second can so that the bottom, the rim and half an inch of the side remained. The wall was frilled and after some careful adjustment it fitted into the first can with just the rim and the bottom showing. It looked as if the can had never been opened. All that was necessary was to fill the interior so that it weighed approximately the same as when filled with grouse. It should also make a similar noise when shaken. I treated the other can in a similar manner.
For the detonators I decided to go up market technically speaking. I carefully emptied a large, pressurised shaving cream dispenser. The bottom of the can was treated much the same way as the grouse can. The domed button part of the top was cut away on a lathe. A small anti-perspirant sample was fed in from the bottom, filling the hole with a new dome and button. Glued and painted, it appeared as if nothing had been altered. Now the tricky part was to remove the anti-perspirant and replace it with shaver foam. The new can was then hollow to receive the detonators and delivered enough foam for one or two shaves.
I traveled back up to London. Aziz asked if I would help collect the hardware, put it into the cans and pass it on to the courier. My problem has always been my love of science and puzzle-solving is stronger than my common sense and I do like being part of the movement. Such decent people with a logical and reasonable cause make up the movement. So I said I would act as the courier, opting for danger.
The plan was that I would go to Mogadishu in Somalia. Comrade Masondo would meet me there. The then Socialist government had agreed to supply us with whatever we needed. I would pack the equipment and take it to Nairobi. Another courier would collect it and go on to South Africa.
Aziz arranged a meeting on the platform of a central line underground station where I would get a sight of S, the courier to whom I would hand over in Nairobi. He was British. ( I still do not know his name.)
It all sounded exciting and it was a welcome break from teaching at a technical college. I had a friend, Philip Biggs, who printed letter-headed paper for me. It was purportedly the letter- head of a 'Standing Conference on South African Refugee Education' , based at a fictitious address in Lusaka. Using it I wrote myself a letter seeking my assistance for a few weeks and signed it with an unintelligible signature. In the letter, I asked the college for leave of absence. Such requests had become almost a ritual. Since I was on the executive committee of the South African Congress of Trade Unions I had to attend meetings in Lusaka from time to time. I got the impression that my immediate superiors did not really mind as long as they could sell my reasons to the bureaucrats to whom they were answerable. In so many ways the sympathy for the struggle of the African people had become part of the psychology of the ordinary Brit. It was heart warming.
With cans stuffed with tools, glue, and other necessaries, I secured the bottoms with Blu Tack and packed them back in the hamper amongst the straw. The so-called hamper was in reality a posh cardboard box tied with high quality string. I became the tourist with my shaving gear, my British passport, shorts and a British Airways ticket to Nairobi via Mogadishu.
It was Sunday afternoon on the 22nd of August at the small dusty airport in Mogadishu when I ran into trouble. The immigration official took one look at my passport and I could see the disbelief and suspicion in their eyes. I carried a British passport that said I was born in South Africa. " Sorry you must take the next plane back to the UK" one of them said. `Where was Masondo ?' I asked myself. He was supposed to meet me here. I decided to explain that I was member of the ANC. Their eyes became even wider with disbelief. "Who is this mad Englishman?" I thought I heard them say. "Next plane back", they insisted. I did not know what to do. I could not let the mission fail. It depended on me getting the material packed and taken to Nairobi. Fortunately the comrades had given me the name of the general who was our contact in the Somali army. Reluctantly I gave his name and asked the passport officers to check with him. This did not create much interest but they agreed to follow it up all the same. About an hour later, a young man in casual short-sleeved shirt and flannels arrived. It was all very informal now.
Into customs and they opened the hamper and asked me what was in it and to take out a can. Out came the can of grouse. To my horror the bottom had come apart and the contents were in imminent danger of falling out. As it rose out of the straw the bottom gaped open with strands of Blu Tack merely stopping the bottom from falling off completely. My heart sank. Just then the customs man said it was all right. Apparently satisfied. I quickly plunged the can back into the hamper.
Off to town with the shirt-sleeved young man driving a very ordinary car. He took me into a quiet sunny pleasant office, with not a uniform in sight. A half an hour later, he drove me through streets reminiscent of many a small African town to a neat, sparsely furnished bungalow in a high walled compound. By now it was late, but I had passed an important hurdle, my prospects were not clear but the Somali's knew who I was and what I had to do. I do not remember much until next morning when to my relief comrade Masondo walked in, a big muscular man, whom I remembered vaguely but who clearly knew me. I gave a sigh of relief. Masondo apologised, explaining that he had been delayed for some reason. The young man who had taken me through passport and customs revealed he was a Special Branch officer, that we were now in a military compound.
It was now Monday. Masondo and I discussed the next steps and what we could possibly get into the containers I had brought with me. My knowledge of explosives, hand grenades, TNT and such like was purely theoretical so I left the decisions to Masondo. He decided we could pack two hand grenades, TNT, detonators, fuse and blasting cord into the containers I had brought. After a meal in the canteen, he went off to arrange the supply of the hardware.
We worked all next day and ended with a set of cans ready for gluing. At home I has used large "C" clamps to hold them shut while the glue hardened but they had been too large to bring with me. The ill-kempt Somalian garden, or more aptly desert, had plenty of large boulders. We decided to hold the cans closed by putting a bolder on the top of each. Comrade Masondo, carried the rocks from the garden. I used Araldite to glue the bottoms in. While Masondo placed the boulders on top, I crawled on my hands and knees, wiping away the excess glue. Satisfied we went to bed that night with the living room populated with large stones perched on top of cans of grouse, patÚ and peaches. It looked like an exhibition at the Tate Gallery.
Next day my comrade was feeling apprehensive and his shoulders ached. He was sure he had malaria. When I suggested that he had not done manual work for such a long time he perked up and laughed. As the task had gone so well he decided that I should make a false bottom for his suitcase and pack a handgun and cartridges. This needed a few things from town, so off we went. Masondo also wanted a power supply unit for his portable radio and I wanted a towel. Drying myself with a handkerchief after the nightly shower was not satisfactory. It was my own fault for forgetting one. We obtained the power supply from a ramshackle shop stocked with all sorts of second-hand electrical bits and pieces. It was not part of the operational plan or budget, and neither was the handgun. However I am always uneasy arguing with my leaders especially when I am not sure of my ground. The going price for a small hand towel was seven pounds, so I continued with the handkerchief. Anyway it was not so bad because the climate was warm and dry. It was not much of a shopping zone but I bought a necklace and a small carved head. After all, I was a tourist.
Wednesday was spent making a false bottom to M's suitcase and concealing the gun and cartridges. The next day I set off on the short flight to Nairobi with my hamper of hand grenades, TNT, and foam-shave surrounded by detonators. I left M with the false-bottomed suitcase and in all the years since have seldom seen or heard of him. There were always so many loose ends and unfinished stories.
There is something psychologically peculiar about a branded package. When it is to all outward appearances a tin of pate, it becomes a tin of pate irrespective of what is inside. At Nairobi customs there was no problem at all. They did not even open the hamper. It was perfectly normal for a UK visitor to bring one in to his relations. They just asked for the payment of import duty. I had brought the receipt with me and I remember it cost the movement £10 odd in tax. The Taxi driver recommended a suitable hotel and drove me to it.
I decided that the hamper might be recognised at the airport when in a few days' time it left for South Africa. I went to town to get some rope or binding which would at least modify its superficial looks. On the way I crossed a stretch of grassland before the town where a young fellow accosted me. He was very much in earnest and I was a soft target. We sat on the grass in the sun. In front of us was a row of small Indian shops and behind them a backdrop of large buildings including one tall, completely out of place, skyscraper called the Kenyatta Tower. On a small lake people were messing about in boats.The youth spun me a long tale. Schooling was not free but university education was. He raised money by carrying goods for merchants from the market to the shops. If only he could afford a handcart he could carry more goods and then he could employ somebody. Then he could go to university. The final thrust of his argument was that as he was not a Kikuyu he had little chance anyway. I gave him a few pounds for the lecture and hurried on. I felt bad about that since I had long ago decided that throwing the snowballs of charity at the fires of capital would not put them out. The contradiction between my humanity and my reason still bothers me whenever a beggar accosts me.
At a small shop I bought a long leather belt, just the thing to create a different look for the hamper.
Next day was Saturday, the day for me to hand over the hamper to the man who was going to take it into South Africa. At midday I entered the main post office with the hamper, the new leather belt around it. The post office was small and unsophisticated, with bare wooden shelves for the customers to fill in their various forms. I trotted in and put the hamper under the writing counter and made out as if I was filling in a long form. The time was as arranged and I suddenly became aware of the presence of S. There was no sign of recognition. I left with the form in hand and the hamper under the counter for S to pick up.
Well, things were out of my hands now. I had a few days to relax and see the tourist sights. my first expedition was to a Masai village. The tour operators took us to a farmstead. A White madam lived in the usual single-storied house with a wide veranda set in a well-kept garden. In the yard were the inevitable kia's ( one room living quarters) housing the servants. These servants gave us tea while the white madam collected our money and handed us a small printed folder.
This explained that we were at Mayer's Ranch. 'It consists of some 6,000 acres.' The literature explained. 'The indigenous Masai live on the ranch by special arrangement with Mr. Mayer'. It went on to tell the visitor that 'Masai are remarkably egalitarian, there is no social stratification and no form of organised leadership. All Masai are equal - and all Masai are better than anyone else.' The irony of the text was clearly lost on the Mayers and most of the visitors.
We were then led off to a few Masai huts where they laid on a show for us. To be fair to the madam, she allowed them to sell trinkets to the tourists and to keep the proceeds. I bought a folded and decorated 12 centimeter length of leather which was used as an ear adornment. I had to keep up the appearance of being a tourist.
What with the young man who would become a transport tycoon, and the white madam and the socialist Masai, Kenya had changed. Concurrently the 'socialist' prehistory of the Masai, the recent colonial past and the raw capitalist present lay before me. It somehow remained much the same as before liberation when I had visited it on an ANC mission in 1957. Somewhere in this strange new mixture lay a lesson for the future South Africa.
The next day I went to see some traditional dancing and music organised by a governmental cultural committee. It was a controlled release of traditional talent. Next day I flew back to London with a running stomach but a good feeling.
I settled down again to the job of lecturing. Attending Bristol Trades Union Council meetings, trying to revive the local Anti-Apartheid branch and going up to London for the technical committee, SACTU, and the ANC. All routine stuff, but in the midst of it all at least I received some news. S had delivered the hardware via Jan Smuts Airport to one of the underground groups. The other group, it seemed, could not be contacted. Later still, I saw a report by an officer of the South African security branch about these clever terrorists who smuggled detonators into the country hidden in shaving cream cans. I had mixed feelings about such reports. On the one hand I was proud of having done something. On the other hand, it meant that the police had harassed and perhaps murdered some brave comrade to obtain the information.
One day in the early 1980s I bumped into S, giving out leaflets at a peace demonstration. We recognised each other immediately but equally stopped short of showing it. It was our secret. Again in 1990 Tim introduced me to him as a person who held a bank account in London for operation Vula.
Among my mementos are a small carved head, a Masai earring, a small metal tag with the figure 2 cut out. This came off a detonator. Kenya has not changed much. Somalia is a tragedy.
In conjunction with and parallel to my time in the trade union movement in Bristol I played an active part in the local Communist Party both at branch and district level. I came from a different school of struggle. For me the case was simple. The workers were exploited by the bosses and socialism was the answer. In the course of the struggle against exploitation I gradually realized that things were more complex. The situation in the UK had its specifics. For example I found that in party circles and in the labour movement generally there were complaints and protests against the education system. More money should be spent. Equipment and accommodation were poor. The class sizes were too large. Coming from South Africa most of these assessments were ridiculous. Slowly I began to realize that these were the problems of the people as they saw them. There was also some truth in their assessments because they were made in relationship to the schools of the upper crust in the UK not to the majority of the worlds' people. The underlying truth was the same although the form and extent of differentiation were very different. I could relate to both but it did cause difficulties.
I renewed my membership of the Communist Party soon after my settling into the house in Ashley Down Road. I quickly became active in the Party and was variously branch Secretary, Treasurer, and delegate to various conferences both District and National. Jack Evans a teacher lived nearby. Bill and Shiela Williams lived around the corner and Brian and Betty Underwood who lived in Knowle with their two girls who were about Estelle's age. We all became firm friends. Brian was an electrician as my father and Bill was a lecturer at a technical college. Shiela managed a big family and Betty worked as an assistant, later a medical secretary in a hospital.
One of the customs of my head of department was to invite new members of staff to his house for tea. He wanted to bridge the natural divide between himself and his staff. It was quite nice but as usual I was uncomfortable in a posh house with the boss trying to be nice to the family and me. I had of course to invite him back. I could not be a pig. So he and his wife duly visited us. Our dear Estelle decided in her un-inhibited wisdom to bring out the picture album. There on the second page was a picture of her under the communist party banner. "Are you a a communist?" asked Dr Green. "Yes" says I. "Are you a member?" He asked as if being a communist was all right but actually being a member was really beyond the pale. After this he never tried to get close again. I am sure this incident made waves far into the future.
One of my early tasks at college was to teach inorganic chemistry to chemical technicians. Many of them worked at Rio Tinto Zinc that had a big plant in Avonmouth near Bristol. One section was a smelter producing lead and zinc from ore mined in Auatralia and elsewhere. The other section was mainly concerned with the production of fluorocarbons. The problems of the workers at the plant were often raised at the Trades Council. They complained of the low wages and were told that they could not be paid better because the smelter was not making much profit. Their union found out that the miners of the zinc ore in Australia also complained of their low wages and got the same reply. The trick it seems was that the ore from the Australian mine was sold by RTZ to RTZ on the high seas. RTZ made no money at mine or the smelter only on sale of the ore. There were two party members working at the complex, one in the smelter and another in the chemicals division. My daughter Estelle later also worked there. Another problem was that there was considerable pollution both within the plants and up wind from them.
My ASTMS branch sent a resolution to the Trades Council supporting a public inquiry into the pollution. Little was done. In the mill where the ore was ground up dust was heavy so they took down one wall to let more air in and the dust out. There was a ventilation system that was supposed to wash the dust from the air but it became clogged and was disconnected to allow work to continue. The workers went on strike because of the levels of lead poisoning were higher than the so called accepted levels. The bosses agreed and put the workers off work when their blood levels rose and replaced them with others. This meant that the workers lost bonuses and overtime. A compromise was reached where the "acceptable" safety levels were raised.
In town there was a lead shot tower. Molten lead was dropped down a tower. The droplets reached the bottom as small round pellets used in shot gun cartridges. The workers who had heard of the problems of their colleagues in Avonmouth complained to the Health and Safety Inspector. It was agreed that the lead levels were dangerous so an extract fan was installed and the lead exhausted from inside the work area of the tower and blown out onto the citizenry outside.
Naturally I became involved with the whole question. The Communist Party was developing a Science Bulletin, and they asked me to write an article for them that I did. In it I railed against the Medical Officer of Health, the management of RTZ, the Science Research Council for being unable to find money to investigate the problem, one of the trade unions for putting jobs ahead of pollution, and one of the technical directors who was proud of being a reader of the party news paper the Morning Star but rendered no help to the Party in this matter. His wife was a prominent party member.
I submitted that the party organization did not rally all it's forces to mobilize action against the lead pollution. In February of 1973 I was summoned to appear before the District Secretariat. I should have been thanked and perhaps asked to be more circumspect in future. Instead I was censured for attacking in print a party comrade and her husband, neither of whose names I had mentioned in the article. The fact that I had made a public stand in print, in the Trades Council and at work against RTZ its pollution was it seemed, of little significance.
Photo of me speaking on the Downs
In Bristol there was a traditional place for public meetings. The Downs opposite the water tower were to Bristol what Speaker's Corner was to London. Brian, Jack, Denver and I use to regularly set up a platform and speak about this and that. I usually spoke about Apartheid and against Racism in Britain. There was seldom any trouble but quite a few hecklers and know all's. I remember one time Brian was speaking and one of the ultra revolutionary pseudo- intellectuals started quoting Marx to prove that Brian was wrong. Without hesitation Brian quoted Lenin on Page 207, line 21, of the Collected Works published by Progress Books Moscow. This quotation contradicted the heckler and instantly silenced him. After the meeting I asked Brian how on earth he knew that particular quotation. "Invented it," said Brian, "he couldn't know that. He will never remember to look it up anyway." I got to quite enjoying the meetings which on occasions were quite big. They were nothing like those in South Africa. They did not have the spirit, the vitality or the crowd response.
Well one day in the summer the circus came to town. It was being set up on the Downs. We were holding our regular meeting when some roustabouts came over. They were real toughs but amongst them was a black fellow so I for one felt reassured that they would give no trouble. Well, I was wrong. It mattered not that I spoke against racism. I was a communist and they were having none of it. They started pushing us about and getting nasty. It was not worth carrying on and we closed early. We issued an urgent appeal to the District Committee of the Party to help us defend free speech. To no avail. The matter was reported in the local press but even this did not rouse the party to defend us against the ruffians. After a few weeks of this we decided that without support there was no point in carrying on. All sorts of reasons were given why it was not possible, why the meetings were unessential, why it was better to put one's energies elsewhere and so on. Really it was because Brian, Jack, Denver and I were no part of the inner circle.
All organizations seem to develop a group of associated individuals who resent anyone else rocking the boat except them. I had never experienced this so clearly until then. The storms I was used to were more violent and vital and I never noticed this phenomenon that was hidden from me in the smoke of battle in South Africa.
Underlying my treatment in this episode was the fact that many in the local, and national leadership of the British party were blaming the imperfections and mistakes of the USSR for their own lack of success in the UK. From my point of view I could only see that without the USSR fascism would not have been defeated in Europe and could not be defeated in South Africa. In my acceptance of the underlying pattern of capitalist exploitation I oversimplified my assessment of the players in the contest. The Soviet Union was the bastion of socialism. The USA was the bastion of capital. My fellow communists in the UK did not always see it like that. It was also a certain reluctance to accept the challenges facing them in their own back yard.
I had always taken an interest in theoretical discussions. My first venture into print had been in South Africa with the article in Liberation. In exile I wrote on Marxism and Science, The Environment, Socialist Democracy, and on a variety of subjects from trade unions, safety, star wars, to genocide and the environment (f to k), I contributed to a book edited by my friend Mervin Bennun, "Computer Judges and Judgments" (10),
These were generally published in various British and later South African Party journals. Re- reading them today reveals a naivety and vigor that is both embarrassing and satisfying at the same time. The scribblings do not strike me as being nonsense but are minor contributions to the great debate. They also show how my thinking was moulded by the environment of the times they were written in. The earlier ones mirror the convictions of the movement. Socialism and the path to it were clear and inevitable. Living in the UK unveiled some of the complications missed in the view presented by South African society. Later, things like the environment, resources, the balance between centralism and democracy, had to be taken into account. In South Africa the question "Exactly what is Democracy" was seldom discussed because 'Democracy' was clearly the opposite of Apartheid. Then the great swirl of history rose upon itself and crashed down upon the socialist experiment of the USSR. The arrow of time did not fly in a trajectory governed by the laws of Newton. Its path was more a natural ordering of disorder. Linear models gave way to the non-linear. The stages in the evolution of society were governed more by strange attractors than a simple point to point. The natural laws that underline this evolution are just more complex than we had anticipated. Change it must and change it will. Either I was not so utterly sure of myself as expressed in my early writings or perhaps my scientific training was strong enough for me to accept that theory must be modified to follow the facts.
In retrospect the Soviet events were quite consistent with Chaos theory, strange attractors and the butterfly wing of history as I wrote in an article "New Tools for Marxists" (r),
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