Started working as a reporter on the Rand Daily Mail, then joined The Star for five years, from 1959. For a period as ‘African Affairs’ reporter, covering Soweto and Alex, meeting ANC leaders, interviewed Nelson Mandela when in hiding. Covered Alex bus boycott, Special Branch nationwide house raids, Rivonia trial etc. Joined the Congress of Democrats the day after Sharpeville, March 1961. Active for five years in the Johannesburg region: meetings, protests, slogan and pamphleteering, political education, fund-raising. After the Congress of Democrats was banned, I was ‘listed’ as a member of a banned organization, and was no longer allowed to be published, which effectively ended my journalistic career in South Africa. My wife, also a COD activist, and I decided to leave the country with our three young sons, to work in an independent African country. We were both South African citizens, but were refused SA passports. We obtained British passports, through my paternal ancestry
Left wing commentary from the heart and the head