Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-17T15:58:50.223Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Return to Africa, 1961–1962

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 September 2020

Kevin Shillington
Affiliation:
University of London
Get access

Summary

Having finished his writing tasks for the two publishers, Patrick began thinking seriously about his future. As far as his relationship with Liz was concerned, it was accepted between them that when they were settled and knew something of their future they would marry. But how might he earn his living and where might they live?

Patrick was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the concept of being a permanent émigré. He could not envisage any career path for himself in the United Kingdom. Besides, there were still suspicions among some of his fellow exiles about the speed and ease of his flight into exile and this may have burdened him with a degree of guilt.

He could not throw off the sense that he ought to go back home and join the struggle, even if it meant going underground with a high risk of capture and imprisonment, probable assault and possible torture. The only alternative he could think of would be to go to one of the protectorates (the ‘High Commission Territories’), where he would at least be close to home and, as an exile, perhaps provide some support to those within South Africa who were struggling against apartheid.

The idea of a career in education had probably first been planted in Patrick's mind by the offer of a teaching job in Johannesburg in 1959. Since then he had seen the inspiring work of Frank Krawolitski, involving young South Africans in work camps to build a primary school in Swaziland. Krawolitski's playing and singing of Beethoven's Ninth in the remote bush while conducting a volunteer project for the local community was the sort of image that appealed to Patrick.

He could see himself in a similar role. While in Serowe he had learned that what was needed in the Bamangwato capital was a local secondary school, though there is no evidence that he discussed this issue with Seretse Khama at the time. The only secondary school in the northern half of Bechuanaland was Moeng College, a communal self-help project, the brainchild of Tshekedi Khama.

The school, which had opened in 1949, was a boarding school in a remote site in the Tswapong Hills to the east of ‘the line of rail’ and more than 100 kilometres from Serowe.

Type
Chapter
Information
Patrick van Rensburg
Rebel, Visionary and Radical Educationist, a Biography
, pp. 111 - 124
Publisher: Wits University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×