Ballito book reader’s club takes off

Born one of Britain’s so-called “brown babies” in 1945, Ballito resident Richard Finch has started a local book reader’s club, which he hopes to expand into a larger creative hub for the community.

Finch shared his unusual story at the inaugural meeting last Wednesday.

The child of a white British woman serving in the Royal Air Force (RAF), and a black father from Trinidad who served as a war-time RAF pilot, Finch’s biological mother gave birth to him at a ‘home for unmarried women’.

This was a time when white women were censured for having a black man’s child, especially out of wedlock.

While Finch’s mother gave up her baby and left the day after his birth, another woman unable to conceive desperately wanted a child of her own.

Sharing her inability to fall pregnant, Joyce Finch was told by a nurse that a baby was up for adoption, but warned the child was of mixed-race.

“I’ll have him! I don’t care if he’s yellow or purple,” Finch was later told by his adopted mother.

His childhood was not always easy, but Finch would go on to lecture English across Africa, part of his work with the British Council.

At the age of 40 he met his biological father, then aged 70, for the first time, who it turned out wrote Ghana’s Constitution.

His father, Ulric Cross, was a Trinidadian judge, diplomat and RAF pilot, recognised as possibly the most decorated West Indian militarist of World War II.

Cross helped prevent some 200 bomber aircraft from being shot down in a raid over Germany in 1943. This was done by flying off into enemy territory at low altitude, letting off flares allowing bomber planes to accurately spot targets at night, and then hightailing it out of the area within 10 seconds to avoid being caught in the path of bombs going off.

He left the RAF as squadron leader in 1947 and went on to practice law in Ghana and Tanzania. He later became a high court judge in Trinidad, and in 1990 was appointed High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago in London.

Finch relocated to Ballito from Namibia in 2011 after leaving the UK in 2008 and is now keen to share his passion for reading.

While the club is yet to settle on a name and set dates for monthly sessions, the goal of the first meeting was to establish a functioning group.

Members are encouraged to share ideas, contribute and take ownership, with film, poetry and other creative disciplines to be introduced as they go along.

Finch’s Ekhaya Guesthouse at 75 Hilary Drive, Ballito, features books in pretty much every room, and club members and visitors will be allowed to read these.

A book launch for author Dr Beryl Botman will be held at the guesthouse on March 30 at 6pm.

Botman published With(-out) You in 2022, in which she shares the true life journey of a woman dealing with the sudden loss of her husband.

RSVP your attendance to Finch, with a cost per person of R50. Refreshments will be served.

Contact Finch at richard.finchvso@gmail.com for more details.

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