The Individual, Auto/biography and History in South Africa

side with foreign officials in Algiers in the previous month represented the beginning of
Dora Taylor’s political ‘coming‐out’. Her Hemel Hempstead address was given to
foreign officials as the place for them to send their communications.
After Tabata’s departure for South Africa, Taylor immersed herself in political work
“single‐handed”, 79 retyping Tabata’s APDUSA presidential address, “preparing notes,
to write up the history of the movement”, composing articles on South Africa and the
movement, and mailing reprinted pamphlets back to South Africa. She also “retyped
[the] biography of B” and felt “pain all the way” as she retraced the London sites and
“familiar streets” of her and Tabata’s reunion. 80 In their correspondence, Taylor and
Tabata reported to each other on the progress of their political work. And they also
reminisced about their time together in England, Algiers and Rome. In these exciting
settings, they had experienced the frisson and stimulation of being reconjoined in the
passions of political work and the intimacies of each other’s company. “If we were not
mad we would never have had our Algiers”, Tabata declared to Taylor. Tabata also
expressed his satisfaction with Taylor’s ongoing biographical labours, and with the
possibility of his life history being included in Tomac’s work: “I am glad about the
profile. It will be a good thing if your fellows can get in the who is who”. 81
At the end of December 1962, Taylor left for Cambridge, Massachusetts, where J.G. had
gone to do research two months previously. Tabata returned to Cape Town to the news
of Goolam Gool’s tragic death and Nathaniel Honono’s house arrest. Both Tabata and
Taylor immersed themselves in the politics of biographic narration. Tabata addressed a
series of meetings to pay “homage” to Goolam Gool. In Cape Town, at an extended
executive conference held in semi‐secret at Witsands, Tabata gave a “real tribute to that
gallant spirit”, presenting what some thought was “a tribute worthy of the man and of
79 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 2 January 1963, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
80 Dora Taylor, Pocket Diary, entries for 22 November‐20 December 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC
925.
81 I.B. Tabata to Dora Taylor, 14 December 1962, I.B. Tabata Collection, BC 925.
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