Return of the Native

I left apartheid South Africa in 1982 as the last of its crusading newspapers crumbled around me, either beaten by censorship, run down by their accommodating owners, as in the case of the late great Rand Daily Mail, or banned outright in one case (over coverage of the Biko affair), neatly severing me from a job. I came back to the land of my birth with a sense of sadness for a life unfinished, and got down to work. In the 13 years I lived in London I knew only Tory rule. Thatcher was a history woman, overseeing the great transition to a consumer society which had no communities, just families, as she explained. I put my cross next to Labour without any particular love of socialism; they were just decent people, they had a chance of power, and that would do.

When Mandela was freed another chapter of my history opened too. By the end of 1995 I had made the great trek back, this time to ruminate in my beloved Cape and eke out a living in a media backwater. How ironic that the next great British event was the coming to power of a Labour government at last.

Now, this May, I am returning for the first time in 10 years, and it is going to be fascinating to see just what hath Labour rule wrought in my absence. Although two and a half weeks isn't a lot of time to cover all the bases, and I probably won't be spending much time cursing the Northern Line ...

It's a curious feeling: I was born in north London and left it as a child, then lived in Finchley for all those 13 years of exile; and this time I am a visitor, though hardly a tourist. I do hope I don't really fancy the old place now. I am not sure I could handle another uprooting and replanting. George Steiner believes that the writer is always in exile, and now I believe he is right. I often feel that I am occupying my own Lost island. Except I have all my bloody luggage to tote around.

London doesn't belong to me, exactly, but I belong to it, in a tenuous kind of way. This post is becoming extremely tenuous too, so I'll wrap it up. Pretty soon the Oyster will be my world ...