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My company posted me to South Africa in 1972 for a two year tour.

It was interesting that promotion exams in the Government IT service were more about having the right political answers rather than technical knowledge. Even Chief Operators were appointed by their ranking in the Civil Service - no IT experience required.

One of the things I quickly learned was that it wasn't a clear cut black & white country. There was a long-established pecking order: Afrikaner; indigenous English-speaking whites; white immigrants; Chinese; Asians; Cape Coloureds; KwaZulu - then the rest of the tribes in order with the Ndebele at the bottom. The Japanese were visiting business people and were officially classed as "white". Everyone knew their group's position in the indigenous ranking.

All these groups were effectively still fighting their internal battles of the last 400 years. The Boer War and the Battle of Blood River being the obvious ones. At Christmas the mine and urban workers would return to their "homelands" - triggering reports of pitched battles over ancient tribal rivalries.

Violence was always just under the surface. You were warned that you didn't insult a white man's ability with a gun, car, or women. People were shot in cases of road rage. You didn't drive at night with your car doors unlocked.

The Police emergency phone number wasn't free - you needed a "takkie" (6d) coin. After a mugging by three men with knives and machetes the police came to see me. As an English person - they were more interested in looking round my flat to see if there were any banned books, posters, or record covers. IIRC the previous year a third of the Police force in Pretoria were officially alleged to have taken part in burglaries while on duty.

One poster was regularly banned and unbanned. The poster was of two people on a beach at sunset. The banning debate was about whether the woman's silhouette had a bikini top or not. The telephone directory for Hout Bay near Cape Town was recalled and pulped because a Kodak advert had a picture of a woman in a bikini. The funny thing was that it was very modest by any standard - and nothing like as revealing as the "string" ones worn on beaches at Durban - "The Blackpool of SA". It was said that Bloemfontein still had a local law that men and women had to be at least 18 inches apart in the swimming pool. Copies of Amateur Photographer regularly went on sale with their front cover removed by customs.

The liberal Jo'burg Star newspaper reported with glee that a pastor of the dominant NGK Church had said - "If God had intended us to walk about without any clothes - then we would have been born naked".

Tom Sharpe's two novels from his SA experiences in the 1970s - "Indecent Exposure" and "Riotous Assembly" - are not as over the top as they might appear.

The Progressive Party was a brave attempt to change apartheid from the inside - and they probably helped the peaceful transition. Similar small groups are still fighting against institutional corruption.

The experience was my coming of age regarding politics. I learned that a political situation can have many nuances that are generally disregarded by those with an axe to grind outside that country. The last 50 years have often confirmed that when the oppressed gain power - then they often behave in much the same way as their previous oppressors. Sadly - in spite of the Rainbow Nation constitution - it sounds as if much has not changed. A new elite gets rich - and the old poor stay poor.

What really worries me is seeing Britain apparently moving towards the same scenario of corruption, hypocrisy, and distrust of the Establishment. It is easy to drift into an effective Police State in the name of political expediency if you make enough voters fearful.