"When I arrived at Rhodes there was virtually a war going on in the Eastern Cape. I had been a member of the Students for Social Democracy and the Wages Commission at UCT, and a student, Roland White came to visit in my first week and 'allocated' tasks for me in the Left movement. I was startled and impressed by his assurance. 

That began my involvement in the Grahamstown Voice (Ilizwe LaseRhini), the Grahamstown Rural Committee, GRADAC, Surplus Peoples' Project and the UDF, none of which, needless to say, endeared me to the VC, Derek Henderson. After a few years of lecturing he called me into his office. There was a pile of what was obviously my writing on his desk, including several of my books. 

He pointed to the pile and asked: 'What is this?' 
'Journalism,' I answered. 
'No it isn't, it's leftwing rubbish. Is this what you are teaching students to write?'
'I'm teaching them to be inquiring journalists aware of what's going on around them, I said. 'Preparing them for working in a future democracy.' 

I think it was the last comment that really got his goat. He refused me tenure on the spot. (I later did get tenure - after Mandela was released).

Some of the courses I created were Development Journalism and Environmental Journalism. The latter was closed down after a year because I got the class to vote in a student team to co-plan the course and we invited ecologists and other scientists to give talks. The students also collaborated on creating lectures which they gave. 

At the end of that year I was told by Henderson through the HOD that other lecturers were complaining that students were challenging their lecturing style, citing the Enviro course, so the course was a problem and I was to close it down (these days my main focus is environmental journalism, directly related to the stuff I learned from that course).

Most of my memories of that decade was about really hard work developing new ways to think about journalism as a profession and teaching it - as well as a bunch of wonderful students who went on to become brilliant and highly conscious writers of whom I remain rightly proud. 

I also remember the spies (I taught Olivia Forsyth) and the ever-lurking Special Branch (phone taps, post opened, arrests - students, other lecturers and me). I worked with Matthew Goniwe, Fort Calata who were murdered and very closely with Gugile Nkwinti who on occasion took refuge in our house (and in our cellar when there was a knock on the door). He is now Minister of Water Affairs. 

One of the friendships I cherished above all others was with Marion Lacey. She had an edetic memory and a heart of gold. Only after her death and in the '90s did I discover she had been a member of the SA Communist Party all the time.

Those were wild days indeed."