Book Extract: Class Action: In Pursuit of a Larger Life by Charles Abrahams
He has also sued multinational corporates for supporting apartheid and helped secure a R5 billion silicosis settlement from the gold mining industry. In this powerful extract from his autobiography we understand why it started with bread.
ut 200km from Cape Town, where we saw my father in action. It was his life’s mission to preach among the poor, destitute and mostly drunk farmworkers. This is where I saw the father I loved, different from the one who abused my mother – a father who was kind, gentle and compassionate, treating strangers as if they were his own kin.
Having old rattily-tatty came in handy, but our three-bedroom house became too small. My mother and father slept in the big room, Mara and Roseline in the small room. The rest of us were squeezed into the middle room. Amanda, Ronel and Anneline shared a double bunk in one corner; Johan and, later, Lorenzo, got a cot in the other corner. Christopher and Marius had to share the double bed with Francois and me. We slept head to feet, like sardines.
Thursday was a day of fasting with not a morsel in sight until my father returned home in the evening. Kids at school taunted me as a loafer and avoided me on Thursday; they knew it was my begging day. Sheba roused herself and walked sluggishly towards me. I could count her ribs, she was that thin. Her eyes were droopy and, from the way she walked, I knew she hadn’t eaten in days. She licked my face and I pushed her away.She kept on licking and eventually I gave up. After a while, our neighbour’s back door opened. A big, imposing figure emerged: Mrs Sasman, wife of the schoolteacher Mr Sasman. They had three children, about the same ages as Mara, Francois and me.
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