A sad farewell to one I once knew well

To a large extent, our frequent and mutually appreciated contacts in Mochudi, Serowe and elsewhere, in those early days, were brought about by Naomi Mitchison who had first heard of me when I directed the Boycott Movement (against Apartheid) in London in 1959 and the early Sixties. She had recognised all the promising potentials of Kgosi Linchwe and made me and others aware of them, too.

 
A very early meeting in Serowe was in a rondavel at Swaneng in which my wife, Liz, and I, lived. Naomi came with Linchwe, both in evening dress, which we weren't able to reciprocate. Naomi presented Liz and I with a poem she had written about us. Linchwe gave us a cheque for R500 from the Bakgatla administration, which infuriated the Bangwato hegemony of the time, though we were getting our school going with the help of people from abroad and even from liberals in South Africa.