'What sort of victory for the anti-apartheid forces would it be if the British Council decided to withdraw from South Africa?  It might make people sitting in front of television screens in London feel better, but no one has developed satisfactorily the argument that it would assist the liberation struggle'

This was one voice raised in the vexed debate in the mid-1980s about whether we should withdraw from South Africa or continue our work there.

The issue was debated by both the European Community and the Commonwealth Heads of Government in 1985, and both agreed that member governments would not engage in cultural events.  But the European Community added the recommendation that programmes of assistance to non-violent anti-apartheid organisations and programmes to assist the education of the non-white community should continue.  This formed the basis of our work in South Africa during those years.

By the mid-1980s, we were bringing around 200 non-White South Africans to the UK each year on visits and training awards.  Many participants reported a huge increase in confidence as a result of their time in the UK.  One social worker from Pretoria said: 'I suddenly discovered that I am alive, that I am a human being.'

At the University of the Western Cape, we organised training visits to Britain for the staff of the Dental Department, resulting in what some saw as the best dental department in southern Africa.  It set up a free dental clinic in Crossroads, a shanty town outside Cape Town.

We worked with the Molteno Project, a non-Governmental organisation involved in language education in black primary schools in South Africa, developing and implementing an alternative curriculum, and introducing new ways of teaching young children to read.  One primary headmistress from Soweto said that on returning from her training in Britain she able to see for the first time the flaws in the 'Bantu education' material supplied to her by the South African Department of Education and Training.

Archibishop Desmond Tutu said of our work at that time: 'It is important to try to prepare people for the post-liberation South Africa.  This makes your scholarship programme relevant, and work needs to be done on the ground level also.  And of our education work he added: 'We will be insisting more and more on how sensitive you are to black concerns, and how much you consult with black groups, especially in the field of education.'