Colour Bar (39 page)

Six months later, Baring had Jomo Kenyatta, who had returned to Kenya from the UK the year before, convicted for being the leader of the ‘terrorist' movement of the Mau Mau. Kenyatta's trial, which took place at Kapenguria, was based on fabricated evidence. Baring had set him up, just as he had tried to set Seretse Khama up at the Harragin Inquiry in Bechuanaland in 1949, which effectively served as a rehearsal for Kapenguria.
⁴
Up to this point, the Mau Mau rebellion had been relatively minor. But now, in response to Baring's ruthless measures, it erupted into a mass movement, leading to a colossal loss of life and suffering by the Kikuyu people.
⁵

Before Baring's arrival as governor, the Kenya African Union hadarticulated a clear and firm opposition to the appointment, because of his role in the exile of Seretse. It passed a resolution describing him as ‘an official closely identified with the policy of appeasement of South Africa who has apparently approved South Africa's racialist policies'. Such a Governor, who had handled Bechuanaland's affairs so disastrously, stated the resolution, could never be acceptable to Africans – and urged Her Majesty's Government to appoint someone else.
⁶
But their plea went unheeded.

As far as Fenner Brockway was concerned, the Mau Mau crisis was of a piece with a larger picture of colonial inequality, like the treatment of Seretse and Ruth Khama. In the summer of 1952, he decided to intensify the campaign to end their exile.
⁷
The Seretse Khama Campaign Committee had served a valuable role, but it was largely a fringe organization and had little impact on mainstream public opinion. What was needed, reasoned Brockway, was an all-party committee, in order to make use of the sympathy and support of well-known people across the political spectrum and from the fields of education, the arts, religion and athletics.

The outcome of Brockway's thinking was the creation of the
Council for the Defence of Seretse Khama and the Protectorates. He was Chairman, the Vice-Chairman being Jo Grimond, a Liberal MP; the Treasurer was Anthony Wedgwood Benn. Members included the Conservatives Earl Baldwin and Lord Boyd-Orr, and Labour supporters such as the Reverend Sorensen, Lord Stansgate, and the compaigner Sir Richard Acland. Other members included Canon Collins, the cinematographer Frank Byers, Learie Constantine, MacDonald Bailey, the actors Alec Guinness and Dame Sybil Thorndike, the writer Sir Compton Mackenzie, Kingsley Martin, who was the editor of the
New Statesman
, the playwright and Labour politician Benn Levy, and Charles Njonjo. The Council was not intended to replace the Campaign Committee, which continued its work, but to bring Seretse's case more directly into the public eye.

The aim of the Council was primarily to secure ‘the recognition of the right of Seretse Khama to return to Bechuanaland as Chief of the Bamangwato Tribe', but it also called for the right of Tshekedi to take part in the political life of Bechuanaland. These demands were made within the context of a larger objective: the need to develop all three of the High Commission Territories ‘educationally, socially, and economically, so that they may become models of racial equality and African development'.
⁸
In this way, believed Fenner Brockway, they would be able to influence South Africa, ‘where the colour bar operates so viciously'.
⁹

Officials at the Commonwealth Relations Office watched the formation of this new Council in dismay. ‘The organisation chiefly concerned hitherto,' observed one, ‘has been the Seretse Khama Campaign Committee, which has been a small affair under Communist influence'. But the new Council under Fenner Brockway's chairmanship, they realized, was ‘clearly intended to be a much more influential body with a wider basis'. But there was nothing to be done, ‘except to prepare for the projected assault on the Government'.
¹⁰
The campaign began in earnest on 16 February 1953, with a deputation to the Commonwealth Secretary. Signatures were collected for a huge petition to Parliament, supported by well-known people including the playwright Christopher Fry, the artist Augustus John, Bertrand Russell, the novelist Ethel Mannin, the actor Michael Redgrave, and A. J. Cummings of the
News Chronicle
. When 10,800 signatures had
been collected, the petition was presented to Parliament on 23 March 1954.
¹¹

For quite a while, CRO officials had been carefully watching meetings at which Seretse spoke; they did not think of him as an instigator, but simply as ‘a pawn in the hands of the “woolly-woollies”'.
¹²
But now, as he started working closely with the Council in the autumn of 1952, his speeches became more powerful and more effective.
¹³
‘Whenever Seretse speaks,' reported the Council in a letter to the people of the Bangwato Reserve, ‘he wins the sympathy and support of the British people.'
¹⁴
He went all over Britain – to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Leeds, Sheffield, Port Talbot and other parts of Wales – to tell the British people about Bechuanaland, its people, their customs and their problems.
¹⁵
Many local newspapers had articles like one in the
Yorkshire Post
entitled ‘Seretse Khama pays a visit', with a photograph of Seretse with smiling schoolgirls.
¹⁶
There was a large meeting at Hammersmith Hospital in London, where Naledi was working as a nurse. His listeners were particularly struck when he told them that in Bechuanaland elderly people were looked after by their families, not put in homes for the aged.
¹⁷

The Council was a leading organization in the growing movement for black Africa in the UK. Another organization was the Africa Bureau, set up in March 1952; it was financed by David Astor and directed by Reverend Michael Scott, with considerable help from Mary Benson. Journalists for the
Observer
, such as Colin Legum and Anthony Sampson, were also involved. Out of the activity that led up to the setting up of the Bureau emerged a book called
Attitude to Africa
, published by Penguin in 1951. ‘A whole continent is stirring into political life,' observed an editorial in the
Observer
, ‘and we in Britain are as directly responsible for the political fate of whole African communities as the people of America are for what happens in their Southern States.' The Bureau felt particularly strongly about the planned creation of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, on the grounds that it was opposed by the Africans in the territories. Although it did identify the exile of Seretse as an injustice that needed to be addressed, it was far more concerned about Tshekedi and worked energetically to support him.
¹⁸

*

On 27 February 1953, the Khamas had a second child – a boy, Seretse Khama Ian Khama. His second name was requested by a group of Serowe elders, in memory of the Great Khama III. Seretse Khama Ian's birth changed Tshekedi's position in the Bangwato nation, because he superseded Tshekedi in the line of succession after Seretse. On 10 March 1953, when baby Ian was just twelve days old, the Council for the Defence of Seretse Khama called a press conference in a room at the House of Commons, which was attended by Seretse. Cables were read from leading members of the Bangwato, pledging loyalty to Seretse and his son. It was known ‘all round the Ngwato tribe', said one telegram, ‘that the 4th Khama is born. Again WE humbly request the Government to return our Chief Seretse and family back… We can never change our opinion.'
¹⁹
Another cable congratulated

both Chief Seretse Khama and Ruth Khama for having a baby boy whose only name is Khama –
Pula! Pula! Pula!
We ask that he and the family come and live amongst us. We want to nurse him ourselves… We, the Bangwato, Seretse's people, want that child here.
²⁰

‘We are like sheep in a jungle and there being attacked by a leopard,' was one sad message.
²¹

Brockway briskly announced the start of a new nationwide campaign to annul the banishment against Seretse.
²²
Seretse himself spoke briefly, recalling that the chieftainship was hereditary: ‘So long as it is the desire of the tribe that I should be Chief – and information from Bechuanaland indicates that this is so – I am ready to serve them to the best of my capacity.'
²³

Towards the end of this busy year, Seretse and Ruth decided it was time to leave Chipstead. With their growing family, they needed more space, andthey also wanted to find a friendlier neighbourhood, where people were less conscious of racial difference. They found a house in Addiscombe, a suburb near Croydon, twelve miles from London, where things started to change. ‘People have seemed more friendly to us,' said Ruth, relieved. ‘Whenever I go shopping in the market with Seretse, people chat with us, and seem pleased to see us. Little Jacqueline has made friends at school, and she brings them home for little spreads and things.'
²⁴
The house had a small strip of garden
around it, where the children could play. A special pleasure for Seretse, who badly missed the vast spaces of Bechuanaland, were the open fields nearby, where he and Ruth went horse-riding.
²⁵
Brockway often came to visit and was pleased to see that in Addiscombe they were treated by their neighbours ‘without a trace of colour feeling'. Three of the neighbours had cars and they would take it in turns to give the children a lift to school.
²⁶

England was becoming an easier place to live, without the austerity and controls of the early postwar period. Meat stayed on the ration books until July 1954, but other foods that had been rationed for a long time, such as eggs and sugar, were now widely available. Televisions and refrigerators were found in more homes, as well as other modern amenities. By the time of the next election, in 1955, observed Brockway, the Tories were able to say with some truth, ‘You've Never Had it so Good.'
²⁷

Every Sunday, Ruth cooked a curry or a joint for lunch and the house was full of friends. The Khamas' Croydon home, recalled Charles Njonjo years later, was ‘a haven to many people from everywhere' – Ruth, he said, was very welcoming and proud of her home. Seretse had his ‘own' pub, where he was popular; he and Charles used to go there on Sunday morning, while lunch was cooking.
²⁸
The Khamas were finally able to enjoy a settled family life. People seemed to think, said Ruth, that the pressure of exile must have led to a ‘good old family tiff', but this was not the case – ‘We have them, of course. But they are mostly over the children. Seretse wants to spoil them. I have to do all the disciplining.' But they were perfectly united in their marriage. ‘Seretse and I', she stated firmly, ‘are one race. Colour doesn't enter into it. It never has.'
²⁹

A reporter from the
Evening Standard
came to Addiscombe to interview Seretse in their 1936 Tudor-style house, with black beams and leaded windows. In the firelit lounge, she said, leopard-skin karosses hung on the old walls, adding ‘a magnificence that the Tudors never knew'. She heard Seretse telling his children about life in Africa – ‘You don't like animals,' accused his daughter Jackie, as he described a lion hunt. ‘Yes I do,' he explained gently, ‘but lions must be killed because they eat the cattle.' Then Jackie, wearing jodhpurs because she had just come back from her weekly riding lesson, took ‘a
spectacular leap' into her father's lap and his reflective face burst into a smile. One thing was certain, said the reporter – this was a marriage that would last. She quoted a crisp comment made by Ruth: ‘
All
marriage is an experiment. It is not the race, or races, of the couple concerned, but the couple themselves.'
³⁰

‘Our house became quite a cosmopolitan centre,' said Ruth. ‘We were visited by West Indians, Africans, Indians, Arabs and Americans.'
³¹
Visitors from Africa included a number of South Africans who were leaders in the struggle against apartheid. Walter Sisulu, the Secretary-General of the ANC, came to Addiscombe during a visit to London for political reasons. He found Seretse especially impressive in his understanding of the South African situation and he raised with him the possibility of reviving political activity in the High Commission Territories.
³²
Sisulu was accompanied to the Khamas' home by Lionel Ngakane, a South African film maker who had gone into exile in the UK after his work on the 1951 film of
Cry, the Beloved Country
; this film of Alan Paton's novel, starring Sidney Poitier, was a powerful and harrowing portrayal of the suffering caused by racism, and contributed to the growing criticism of apartheid among the British public. Like Seretse, Ngakane was a graduate of Fort Hare and had also been to Wits.

Joe Appiah and Peggy Cripps were frequent visitors. Joe, who was appointed Prime Minister Nkrumah's Personal Representative to the UK in 1953, had married Peggy in London on 18 July of that year. Their marriage did not lead to exile, as had Seretse's and Ruth's, because Joe's nation, the Gold Coast, did not border on South Africa. And whereas Ruth came from an ordinary middle-class family, with no influence, Peggy was the youngest daughter of Sir Stafford Cripps, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour Government. Perhaps, too, it helped that the Gold Coast, was under the aegis of the more enlightened Colonial Office, rather than the Commonwealth Relations Office – and also that attitudes among the general public in Britain had started to change since the Khamas' marriage in 1948. Even so, Joe and Peggy did not escape racist abuse, such as the foolish questions from the press at their engagement party. ‘The most audacious of them all,' recalled Joe in his memoir,