45 Facts About Harold Strachan

Robert Harold Lundie "Jock" Strachan was a white South African writer and anti-apartheid activist.

Harold Strachan flew for the South African Air Force during the Second World War, trained as an artist, then became Umkhonto we Sizwe's first explosives expert.

Harold Strachan was imprisoned for sabotage, and after his release served another sentence for telling a journalist about poor prison conditions.

Harold Strachan wrote two semi-autobiographical books, and completed the Comrades Marathon twice, winning a medal once.

Harold Strachan was born in Pretoria on 1 December 1925.

Harold Strachan's father had been a metalworker in the Clyde shipyards who had emigrated from Scotland to South Africa in 1902, and his mother was a teacher from an Afrikaner family.

When Harold was three his mother left his father for another Scotsman, Jimmy Brown.

Harold Strachan attended Merchiston Preparatory School then Maritzburg College, where he began to develop his political consciousness.

Harold Strachan joined the South African Air Force straight from school, and served as a pilot towards the end of the Second World War with the rank of lieutenant.

Harold Strachan trained on the Tiger Moth and did advanced training on the Airspeed Oxford.

In 1949 Harold Strachan completed the Comrades Marathon, an 89-kilometre ultramarathon run between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

In 1950 Harold Strachan won a scholarship to study at the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts in London, and married fellow South African Jean Middleton.

Harold Strachan finished sixth in 7 h 48 min and earned a gold medal.

Harold Strachan was friendly with the English satirist Tom Sharpe until they fell out over a woman.

Harold Strachan worked as a lecturer and teacher from 1955 to 1960.

Harold Strachan became a founder member of the Liberal Party of South Africa in 1954, along with Alan Paton and Peter Brown, and in 1957 joined the Congress of Democrats.

Harold Strachan accepted Mbeki's request to improvise explosive devices for the newly-formed Umkhonto we Sizwe, and experimented with substances such as nitric acid, potassium permanganate, magnesium, glycerol and icing sugar.

Harold Strachan, who was MK's first explosives expert, designed a simple incendiary device based on petrol and initiated by glycerol filtering through beach sand onto potassium permanganate.

Harold Strachan later researched and created an explosive device based on a form of ammonal, inspired by his reading of Robert Graves.

Harold Strachan trained other operatives, who then disseminated the expertise through a clandestine cell system.

Harold Strachan was caught when one of his trainees planted an improperly constructed incendiary device in the magistrate's court in Butterworth.

Harold Strachan was arrested at gunpoint and tried under the Explosives Act.

Harold Strachan was found guilty of sabotage on 8 May 1962, and sentenced to six years' imprisonment, with three years suspended.

Harold Strachan served thirteen months of his sentence in solitary confinement in Pretoria Central Prison, and had his teeth removed.

Harold Strachan passed the time in solitary constructing a Tiger Moth in his imagination then preparing an aerobatics routine for it.

On 31 March 1965 Harold Strachan faced a further trial for other bomb attacks but was found not guilty.

In 1968 and 1972, Harold Strachan applied to run in the Comrades Marathon, but was refused permission both times by the Chief Magistrate.

Harold Strachan was unusual among white activists in that he did not go into exile following his release but stayed on in South Africa.

Harold Strachan acknowledged the support of his wife over the decades when he was unable to work.

Maggie Harold Strachan went on to become a well-known local artist.

Harold Strachan had a third child in France who he never met.

That year, Mbeki and Harold Strachan had a tearful reunion at the African National Congress congress in Durban.

Harold Strachan became publicly alienated from the ANC because of what he saw as their authoritarian tendencies and the indiscriminate bombing campaigns they carried out after his imprisonment; in return, the ANC ensured that he was marginalised once they came to power.

In South Africa's first majority election in 1994, when Mandela became the country's first democratically elected president, Harold Strachan voted for the Democratic Party.

Harold Strachan testified to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996 and 1997.

Harold Strachan worked as an art restorer, and illustrated Hugh Lewin's book Bandiet: Out Of Jail.

Harold Strachan wrote an original manuscript, titled So It Goes, in six weeks.

Harold Strachan made a link between the protagonist's "call to arms" in the Second World War and the author's motivation in his struggle against apartheid.

Harold Strachan was disappointed with the edited version that was published.

Harold Strachan describes his involvement as a "boys' own armed struggle"; one passage depicts a successful demonstration of a bomb to a senior comrade by blowing up a beach toilet:.

Harold Strachan described how he tried to use the techniques of painting, such as contrast of texture, in his writing, and expressed his admiration for the writing style of John Bunyan and Laurence Sterne, and the emotional authenticity of Thomas Hardy and Graham Greene.

Harold Strachan wrote regular columns for publications including the Weekend Witness and Noseweek.

Harold Strachan remained as astrant in post-apartheid South Africa as he was as an activist.

Harold Strachan moved to a care home in September 2019, and died from complications of liver disease on 7 February 2020, aged 94.

Harold Strachan was cremated, and there was no funeral according to his wishes.