My father was a civil servant, fairly sort of middle ranking, low to middle ranking. He worked almost entirely in what was then called Administrative Labour, dealing with employment and unemployment issues

I was grateful for the opportunity to make a difference. The political violence really started in 1970-1971. The political difficulties start a little bit beyond that.

My father was unemployed and I was the eldest of seven children. We were very poor. And when you ask how did we support ourselves, the only funding that we had was unemployment payments.

I went to the local schools, the local state primary school, and then to the local grammar school. A secondary school, which technically was an independent school, it was not part of the state educational system.

There were two mentalities, and both mentalities had to change. There was what I called the Afrikaner mind set of the Unionist politicians, which was holding all power in their own hands, and discriminating, and their objective was to protect their identity

Every child growing up will look to their parents, my mother and my father. My grandmother lived with us. I picked up quite a bit of family lore and history from her, which was interesting.

Before the arrival of the Credit Union, people who were from the poor background or a working class background couldn't borrow from banks.