Please join us on Thursday 25 January 2018 at 19H15 for 19H30
Complimentary wine. Guests welcome.
R.S.V.P. mensacape@gmail.com for venue details
It is with great excitement that we welcome our guest speaker, Jonathan Ancer.
Biography
Jonathan Ancer is an author and freelance journalist who has held various positions on a variety of publications: reporter on The Star, editor of Grocott’s Mail, deputy editor of Bicycling magazine, and crossword columnist for the Cape Times. He has won awards for hard news, features, columns and creative writing. Jonathan has one wife, four children and the largest Billy Bunter collection in South Africa. He has written two books – “The Victor Within” and “Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson”, which was published in March 2017.
Intro: Spies, Lies and the Search for a Pink Rabbit
In 1972 a burly, bearded man walked onto Wits University campus and registered as a student. The burly man – Craig Williamson – joined the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), and was on the frontline in the war against apartheid. He rose up through the student movement’s ranks to become its vice president. He decided to flee the country to continue his activism in exile. He joined the ANC and formed his own unit to carry out clandestine work to topple the National Party government. But Williamson was not the activist his comrades thought he was. In January 1980, he was unmasked as Captain Williamson – a secret agent working for the Special Branch. Williamson returned home and during the turbulent 1980s was responsible for a parcel bomb that killed Ruth First in Mozambique and a bomb that killed Jeanette Schoon and her 6-year-old daughter Katryn in Angola. Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson – the book I wrote about South Africa’s super-spy – was published in March 2017. The book details the life and double life of Williamson and culminates when I came face-to-face with South Africa’s most infamous spy.
The book is actually a coincidental culmination of three of my main obsessions: Billy Bunter, cryptic crossword puzzles and a British Folk singer. The question I get asked most about my book about Spy is “Why Craig Williamson?” The answer – which only came to me after the book was written – is a pink rabbit. Let me explain…