Maya Pillay – a British/South African actor, writer, activist and director of inclusive children’s literary project Books From Herbie – writes about why new docudrama London Recruits, about the volunteers that travelled from 1970s UK to join the ANC in South Africa, has such resonance for her.

I first met Ronnie on a sunny morning in Jozi in February 2022. Well, I say ‘first’ but, growing up in London the youngest daughter of a South African exile, I was surrounded by a vast amount of ‘aunties’ and ‘uncles’ who my father always called ‘comrade’. One of them was – more than likely, and at some point – Uncle Ronnie.

For this reason, Ronnie and I agreed it was our first meeting as adults. (Conversely, you wouldn’t catch me dead referring to him as anything other than Uncle Ronnie usually, but for the purposes of this piece and my word count, I will drop the title of respect for one’s elders.)

Something that has always struck me when I make my, now annual, pilgrimage ‘home’ to South Africa is the way politics drips from people’s lips unprompted, always. To me, South Africa is an inherently political space. Whether it be a conversation with an Uber driver, a family member, friends over a pizza, someone in a shop – everyone will have an opinion, and pretty much always one they’re willing to share. Political discourse engulfs you, and I love it.

This was also very much my childhood experience. The news was always on, my parents’ friends would arrive, station themselves around our dinner table and debate would unfold. Growing up with a family who’d been part of the struggle was ‘cool’. I’d proudly announce that my dad had been in prison in South Africa, and tell the story of my uncle’s jailbreak, which gave me some playground kudos. “Does your dad know Nelson Mandela?”

However, I was born in 1992, by which point Mandela was free and everyone swore they’d always stood against apartheid… history had been rewritten. It was only as I got older, and started to really delve into things, that I realised this had not always been the case. The country I now call home had not always been kind to my father and his comrades: rather, upon arriving in the UK, they were seen by many as terrorists.

My mother – a white woman from Yorkshire – was seen by some as mad, marrying this terrorist from South Africa. Margaret Thatcher condemned the ANC as a “typical terrorist organisation” (while her husband Denis had business interests in the country). The Federation of Young Conservatives wore ‘Hang Nelson Mandela’ badges. The UK, USA and Israel were the last to end support for South Africa’s apartheid regime.

It’s important we remember this context and this ostracism from society. As I listened to Ronnie’s story of finding the London Recruits who gave the film its title, it would have been easy to assume that their choice to join the struggle was a simple one. In reality, they would have faced a huge amount of backlash in the UK, aside from the risks they were taking in South Africa. The right road is not always the easy road. 

For my dad, and many other South Africans, it felt as if they had no choice. South Africa was their country; they had to fight for it. To me, there is something particularly impressive about young British men and women who were willing to risk it all for a country that was not theirs. It’s an act of unity and solidarity: people willing to stand up against the status quo, whether it be directly going to South Africa to carry out secret missions, protestors in Swansea storming the rugby pitch to show their disdain for the exclusively white Springboks playing in the UK, or those who tirelessly argued with friends and loved ones that apartheid was evil.

As I sat with Ronnie in his beautiful garden, to interview him about his first wife Eleanor, our conversation flitted between stories of the struggle to current day events. Now in his eighties, he is still fiercely political and a believer in human responsibility to stand up against wrong. I am in no way surprised he was able to mobilise ‘ordinary people’ to enter a police state and risk so much. They were very clear that they were not the proverbial white saviours, but were simply amplifying the voices of the leadership at a time so many had been forced underground.

To me, the London Recruits are an example of hope in humanity. The line which has stayed with me from our interview is one which I believe Ronnie – and many other South African struggle heroes – instil in all those they come into contact with: “You’ve gotta act.” One they’ve carried all their lives, and one we can all learn from. 

London Recruits is released in cinemas on Fri 22 Nov. Find your nearest screening here.

words MAYA PILLAY (Instagram)

This article was commissioned by Film Hub Wales as part of its Made in Wales project, which celebrates films with Welsh connections, thanks to funding from Creative Wales and the National Lottery via the BFI.