A Pretoria Boy by Peter Hain. A review by Myrna Robins

A Pretoria Boy by Peter Hain

“The Story of South Africa’s Public Enemy Number one” is the self-explanatory sub-title, with the following quote on the back cover as a good counterpart:- “A tour de force of an extraordinary half-century of campaigning for justice.” This was penned by Helen Clark, Former New Zealand Prime Minister and United Nations Development Chief.

Hain’s autobiography is a well-organised, well-written story that will see senior South Africans recall events both in South Africa and the UK that made headlines from the late 1960’s onward to the end of the century along with two decades of the new millennium. Younger readers should enjoy a history that vividly brings to life aspects such as the sports boycott and its gradual dissolution, right up to recent events like the Marikana massacre and state looting that saw Hain mounting another – and rather different – campaign for justice in this country.

Being moved by British Police

As a schoolboy in Pretoria, life started changing from a normal happy childhood to one increasingly fraught in 1961 when his liberal Party activist parents were jailed, and finally forced into exile five years later. His teen years were dominated by helping look after his two younger sisters and brother and watching the security police take over his parents’ lives and he himself taking part in the cremation after John Harris’s hanging.

Lord Hain and friend

In London Hain joined the Young Liberals of the British Liberal party and soon became involved in activist , militant, non-violent events . His focus for years was on campaigning against apartheid in sport: a series of non-violent direct actions at every rugby match and tennis court a story that makes exhausting reading. He was now in a leadership role and was often reviled by both the conservative British as well as South Africans. But their efforts were not in vain and matches were cancelled and South Africa faced global sports isolation. On the other hand Hain reports that the British police and intelligence showed no interest in discovering who sent him and his young family a letter bomb in the post one morning.

Intricate scheming by the British intelligence services along with action by BOSS (the South African Bureau for State Security) make for interesting chapters as Hain faced a long trial after being framed for a bank theft.

When Nelson Mandela was released by President FW de Klerk in 1990 Hain was in Wales as the MP for Neath. From then on the “public enemy number one” noticed rapid change as he became accepted – even applauded – by both officials and the public in the UK.

Lord Hain in The House of Lords

Family matters take a back seat in the book as they did in his political life, particularly when he was appointed minister of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1999 and was seldom home. Hain and his wife Pat separated and he married Elizabeth Haywood in 2003.

Deep Throat, who is not identified, supplied Hain with the info he required when he agreed to use his position in the House of Lords to expose evidence of international connivance with state capture, looting and money laundering under President Zuma. This makes for gripping reading and is pretty up-to-date. As Hain questions the depth of the rot that saw the corruption of supplies of personal protective equipment and food during the Covid pandemic, he draws a symmetry with business friends of the British Tories and related contracts their companies were granted to combat the pandemic.

Lord & Lady Hain

If, like me, you were frustrated by the initials used to refer to organisations involved in protests – the AAM and the STST for example – you will find their full names in the index at the end of the text.

In the centre of the book four pages of photographs provide readers with glimpses of Hain from childhood until the present along with his family.