Sir: I read with interest Simon Barnes's article on South
African rugby being the game of apartheid.
Actually, it is the game of all true South Africans and, but for them, Simon Barnes's black leader, clad in the sporting uniform of apartheid, showing colossal generosity, would still be sitting in a mud hut.
At the risk of personal embarrassment, Simon Barnes should ask himself whose side South Africa was on in the 1914-18 war and whose side she was on in the sec- ond world war, and for what reason did these fathers and sons of apartheid twice volunteer to fight 6,000 miles away from home at places like Delville Wood in 1916, or Tobruk, or with the 4th South African armoured division in Italy in 1944?
At a recent get-together of Somme veter- ans — British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealander, and even the former Ger- man enemy — a South African contingent was not invited.
Was this because they were white? Or what other reason was there to snub former comrades in arms — even allowing for the world rush to prostrate itself at the feet of Mr Mandela?
J. R. Lubbock
31 Crompton Court, London SW3
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