It was shocking. We’d take our girls to the beach and people would just stop and stare
Mixed-race daughter’s apartheid film to show racism of South Africa
Thecity was the first to give him its freedom, famously tormenting his tormentors and helping to mobilise a worldwide campaign for his release. And, when he was, Nelson Mandela’s long walk to freedom led to Glasgow where he thanked the city for its support exactly 25 years ago.
The crowds joining him to celebrate included
Radha and Maggie Chetty; who had more knowledge than most of the apartheid regime in South Africa that had jailed him. Radha had been forced to leave South Africa, where he was born, to build a new life in Scoland where he met and fell for Maggie
Now their film-maker daughter Dhivya-Kate is telling her parents’ story, which was shadowed by a regime marked by fear and repression.
Radha, an Indian South African, was one of 12 children and his parents couldn’t have been more aware of the restrictions on opportunities.
“They had two shops in what became designated as white areas. The government passed legislation that meant they had to sell up,” said Radha.
“The educational privileges given to white people were far superior. I wanted to be an engineer but I would have needed physics and I wasn’t allowed to study that because of the syllabus the government dictated.
“My parents knew it was impossible to live a decent life with dignity in that country.”
So Radha and several of his brothers and sisters were sent to study and make themselves new lives in Scotland.
It was here, while getting the qualifications at Strathclyde University he needed for what would be a successful career as an engineer, that he first met Maggie in 1965. They met again in the early 1970s and married soon after.
Even if the couple had wanted to start a new life back in South Africa, it wouldn’t have been possible.
“I couldn’t get a job because a person of colour couldn’t give instructions to someone who was white,” Radha said.
“Indian or African doctors, of which there were a few, had to work in non-white hospitals. “But it was still heartbreaking to leave.”
Maggie insists that, work aside, they couldn’t contemplate a permanent return as a mixed-race couple. “It would have been very difficult,” said former teacher Maggie.
“It was against the law and we would have been very visible.
“When we visited the family home, it was so segregated that it was like living in India for me.
“When we went with our daughters, who’d been brought up in Scotland, they found it truly shocking.
“People literally stopped and stared. And when we took them to the beach they couldn’t understand what was happening.
“The white area of Durban