OUT OF SOUTH AFRICA
SIR TREVOR MCDONALD RETURNS TO THE LOCATION OF HIS HISTORIC INTERVIEW 28 YEARS AGO – AND CONSIDERS WHAT’S CHANGED…
MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF NELSON MANDELA WAS HE WAS VERY AMIABLE”
TREVOR MCDONALD: RETURN TO SOUTH AFRICA | ITV TUESDAY
Just three days after Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990, Sir Trevor Mcdonald became the first journalist to interview him as a free man – an event that Trevor would later refer to as the highlight of his journalistic career.
When Inside TV sits down with Trevor to chat about a new documentary, in which he returns to South Africa to mark what would have been the 100th birthday of its former President, it’s clear that the veteran broadcaster still remembers the time vividly.
“It came with a lot of pressure – knowing that you’re doing the first interview with a guy whose name everybody knew, but who hasn’t been seen for 27 years,” reflects Trevor. “So it was a great challenge, and I was nervous about it! And very much in awe of the reputation of this guy about whom I had read so much.
“My first impression was he was very amiable, but not nervous,” he adds. “But I could sense the strangeness for him of being out and interviewed. I don’t think he’d seen tiny mics which you buttoned on. It’s not very profound, but he did ask what we were doing to his lapels when we put on the microphone!”
One of Trevor’s first stops in the documentary is Soweto, the township in Johannesburg where Mandela lived after his release from prison – and Trevor notes that the area still pays homage to its celebrated former resident.
“It was interesting to see how things had moved on – Soweto has changed a lot,” he explains. “The place is a bit of a tourist trap now – his former house is almost unrecognisable from what it was. It’s now all coach tours and so on.”
Mandela’s dream was to break down the barriers that had been imposed upon his country by apartheid, and build a greater understanding between people of all races. While great strides have been made, Trevor’s visit to a gated community for white South Africans shows that segregation is still an issue in areas of the country.
“People still live separately in a lot of ways – that’s why we went to the gated community,” he muses. “But those days are gone, they’re playing a losing game. It’s all over. They still want to perpetuate the idea of a white race – but you’ve got to find somewhere where the black population is not 80 per cent, and then try there!”
Another inescapable factor of life that Trevor explores is income inequality, and the country’s ongoing problems with extreme poverty.
“You hope that as years have passed, it would get better,” he sighs. “I still saw some of the same people scraping through rubbish. I suppose one of the great conundrums of political life is that when you give people a vote, a vote equals freedom
equals prosperity – but that takes longer than we think.”
While Trevor’s visit shows that there remains a lot of work that needs to be done in South Africa to fully realise Mandela’s vision, he is still optimistic for the future.
“It’s going to take time, but they’re on the right road,” he says with enthusiasm. “The hopeful thing for me is that it seems to be a very vigorous democracy. I have a kind of Trevor-philosophical view that you can’t keep people down forever. Otherwise we’ll all just give up!”