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He then said that, as he had indicated on a number of occasions, he was prepared to renounce his claim to the chieftainship, so long as he was able to take part in the political life of the tribe. This was out of the question, replied Salisbury quickly. But here Lord Ismay intervened – he had not, he said, realized that Mr Khama had ever considered renouncing his claim to the chieftainship. If this were the
case, then surely the situation was rather different and ought to be considered. But this was an avenue that Salisbury did not want to go down. He interrupted to say that they had had a very long discussion and that it would be a good idea to adjourn for fifteen minutes or so, to review its course.

When the meeting resumed, Ismay kept silent. Salisbury informed Seretse that his suggestion of renunciation, while retaining his political liberty in the Reserve, was unacceptable. They were therefore making the refusal to recognize him as Chief permanent and final.
²²

Seretse and Ruth walked out of the office, in a state of shock. ‘He came home,' said Ruth, ‘and buried his face in his hands and said, “To think that I can never go home again. Never, ever”.'
²³
He gave a press conference the next day. The offer of a job in Jamaica, he said, meant that the Government was trying to placate South Africa, even if it meant alienating thousands of Africans. He had always believed, he added, that in Britain and elsewhere in the Commonwealth it was ‘no crime to marry anyone you love'.
²⁴
Seretse took the news, said Ruth, ‘like the man he is. You know, Seretse's ability to take things, good or bad, with complete equanimity is one of the things I love about him. He just refuses to be cast down.'
²⁵

The Secretary of State's announcement about Seretse was given in the Serowe Kgotla at 5.30 in the evening by Colonel Beetham. About 1,000 people listened silently. ‘The decision of which I have just told you', warned Beetham, ‘is absolutely final.' The Tribe would have to choose a new Kgosi, he said, but until then the District Commissioner would continue as Native Authority. At this point there was angry murmuring and people stood up, as if to go; some of them walked out of the Kgotla.
²⁶
One man pointed his switch at Beetham and shouted, ‘You go. I will see you.' He was supported by two young men, who were both ‘storeboys' for European stores, who shouted, ‘What beer does he drink?
Marete
[balls].' The ‘distinct rumbling heard then, and the absence of the Pula Salute usually accorded to the Resident Commissioner,' noted one man who was there, ‘were sure signs of discontent.' It was only because Keaboka appealed to the people to sit down, he believed, that they did not leave the Resident Commissioner alone in the Kgotla.
²⁷

On the same evening, meetings were held at Mahalapye and
Palapye.
²⁸
The meeting at the Mahalapye kgotla was addressed by Dennis Atkins, a local official, and it ended in disorder. When Atkins gave Manyaphiri Ikitseng some copies of the Commonwealth Secretary's address to Parliament in London, one man stood up and said that he should not accept them; he repeated this three times. Another man stood up, saying the same; and then the entire meeting stood up and said the papers should be handed back. Atkins left. As he went, the papers were thrown in through the window of his car. Then, as Atkins started to drive off, another man stood up and shouted, ‘Hold the DC's car! Do not let him get away, ask him where he obtained the papers. They are not from England.' Some men picked up their stools and shouted that if Tshekedi were to come back, there would be trouble – and accused the Europeans of wanting to take their country. At this moment, Manyaphiri's wife – who was in her fifties and was regarded as ‘tough', the equal of any man
²⁹
– approached the Kgotla with about 100 women, all shouting. She said that Atkins was lucky to have left before she arrived, as she would have taken him from the car and thrashed him. Scenes of fury and despair were repeated in every village that Atkins visited over the next few days. Many of the Rametsana, too, regarded it as a terrible injustice.
³⁰
It was a disastrous time for the Bangwato, made even harder to bear by a severe shortage of water: the dam in the reserve was dry and the cattle were gasping from thirst.
³¹

The decision was given to the Commons in London at the same time as the announcement in Serowe. It was heard with dismay and Anthony Wedgwood Benn made an application for an emergency debate, which was successful. Seretse Khama was in the Visitors' Gallery. ‘A ray of sunshine', reported
Time
magazine, ‘reached down through Britain's gloomy House of Commons… and glanced brightly off a pale gold wedding ring on the hand of a young Negro.' It was a fortuitous spotlighting, went on the article, of the matter then before the House: ‘under sharp debate on the floor was the political consequence of the gleaming wedding ring'.
³²

‘Tonight in Serowe,' said Wedgwood Benn, opening the debate, ‘feelings would not be dissimilar from the feeling here in 1936 at the time of the abdication of King Edward VIII.' The Government had argued that Seretse had demonstrated his ‘total incapacity' for any
office – but now they were told the Government hoped he would have a successful career in Jamaica. They knew, he argued, that if Seretse were to set foot in Africa again he would be seen as a national hero, so they wanted to send him to another, distant, part of the world. He said Africa was facing a choice: either to go the way of apartheid, or towards cooperation. He asked:

What effect is this decision going to have on Prime Minister Nkrumah on the Gold Coast and on Nigeria, Tanganyika and even as far north as the Sudan?

What effect would it have on the African delegation which was coming to London next month to discuss Central African Federation?
³³

Wedgwood Benn was speaking from a deeply felt conviction. He had come across the colour bar and racial inequality in southern Africa in 1944, as an RAF officer in Southern Rhodesia, and had been shocked and disgusted by it.
³⁴

The Government's action on Seretse was a ‘disgraceful way to introduce the principle of the colour bar,' said Fenner Brockway. It was helping the South African Government at the very moment when the liberal element in the Union was waging war on the issue. ‘Why Jamaica?' wondered Hynd, a Labour MP, drily. ‘Is there no suitable opening at St Helena?' Gordon Walker, too, condemned the government's decision. ‘It is calculated,' he said, ‘to create the worst possible impression in the tribe, and to appear to them to be a deliberate provocation of their expressed views.'
³⁵
When Lord Salisbury heard about Gordon Walker's intervention, he seethed with anger and later wrote:

At the time of the Troubles over Seretse Khama he came to see me at the CRO and told me that he felt personally that the Govt were doing the right thing, but he felt sure that I would understand if, for party reasons, he did not say so; and then he went down to the House of Commons and made a most violent speech on the other side. Politics are politics; but I remember being very shocked at the time.
³⁶

Sir Ian Fraser, Conservative, defended the Government. ‘I think it would be wise as well as gracious of members of this House,' he said, not to bring South Africa into the discussion:

I understand Dr Malan did not intervene at all, that he made no recommendation or representations directly or indirectly, and that the British Government did not ask for any advice or help from South Africa.

After the debate, there was a vote. MPs approved by 308 votes to 286 the Government's decision to exclude Seretse Khama permanently.
³⁷
The Government had held firm. Seretse quietly left the Visitors' Gallery and went home.

Ismay gave the announcement to the Lords. ‘Both in its substance and in its timing,' said Earl Jowitt, the leader of the Opposition, ‘there is obviously grave matter for criticism here.'
³⁸
He then asked for a debate. This took place on the following Monday, when Ismay argued that the previous government had been mistaken to banish Tshekedi, ‘for he was guilty of no fault as Seretse, in his character of ruler, had been'. Tshekedi had committed no offence, whereas Seretse had committed ‘I do not say a crime or an offence but a most serious breach of all the tribal customs and traditions'. Ismay was accused of trying to bribe Seretse with the offer of a job in Jamaica. His reply was an implicit compliment to Seretse: ‘I can assure the House that it was not intended in that way. Indeed anyone who has talked to Seretse for five minutes would realise that on that basis it would not be likely to be successful.'
³⁹

In the view of
The Times
, at least the Government's decision had the benefit of being definite, and the
Daily Telegraph
said that the decision was courageous. The
Manchester Guardian
, however, believed that it would shock many people in Britain and ‘will give mortal offence to millions of Africans throughout the continent'. The
Daily Express
said it was a ‘bad deed which should arouse shame and anger throughout the country'. Many people were disgusted. ‘This case really makes me ashamed I am English,' wrote ‘Miss X' in London, ‘and proves what sort of hypocrites we are… I am afraid our “bossing” days are over and we must wake up.'
⁴⁰
Oliver Messel, the celebrated theatrical designer, wrote personally to the Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden. ‘I am wildly distressed at the issue about Seretse Khama,' he said:

I am a staunch Conservative supporter but this injustice and change of policy gives me a shock, which I feel so strongly about that I have to write to you
… Surely you cannot approve of the attitude in South Africa. It will have to change as it has already in America, or end in bloodshed like the French Revolution.
⁴¹

The British Council of Churches sent a deputation to the Secretary of State, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Even if the policy were right for the Reserve, said the Archbishop, it could not be isolated from its effect on African opinion elsewhere at a time when Africans were putting great faith in Her Majesty's Government.
⁴²

A cable from the African National Congress was sent on 1 April to Lord Salisbury. The ANC, representing 10 million Africans, it said, was shocked at the ‘arbitrary and harsh exclusion of Seretse' and it warned of serious repercussions throughout Africa.
⁴³
Reaction in the white South African press was muted. ‘There has been no public comment,' reported the High Commissioner to London, ‘and it would appear almost as if there had been a general tacit understanding that the subject should be avoided.'
⁴⁴
The only papers to comment directly on the decision were
Die Transvaler
and
Die Volksblad
, which heartily approved.

In less than six months after the start of their term in office, the Conservative Government had ended the exile of Tshekedi and had made Seretse's exclusion final and permanent. In Chipstead, 2-year-old Jacqueline Khama said she liked gooseberries and other berries – but not ‘Salisberries'.
⁴⁵
Her parents were now faced with the prospect of spending the whole of the rest of their lives in exile, away from Africa and away from the Bechuanaland Protectorate. Without Ruth, thought John Redfern, Seretse might have been ‘knocked hard' by these years of frustration. But with her, ‘he has taken all his misfortunes with a shrug of the shoulders. Occasionally cutting, he is never sour.'
⁴⁶
Seretse and Ruth were admired by their friends for their restraint. ‘Throughout this ugly period,' wrote Joe Appiah in his memoir,

Seretse displayed regal dignity and calm worthy of his royal ancestry. And as for his dear wife, Ruth, her courage and defiance, her devotion and stead-fastness will forever be remembered wherever the story of this inhuman treatment is told… Like her biblical namesake, Ruth went with Seretse, making his God her God and his people her people.
⁴⁷

There was a cloud of sadness and despair over the Bangwato. The usual self-help projects had ceased and the whole of the Malekantwa regiment – Seretse's age group – now wore beards: they had vowed to shave only when Seretse returned.
¹
Every time a plane passed over Serowe, the children looked up to the sky and called, ‘Seretse come down!'
²

The Bangwato had pleaded with the Government for Seretse's and Ruth's return on three separate occasions – at the Harragin Inquiry in November 1949, at Gordon Walker's Kgotla in Serowe in February 1951, and during the tour of the Observers in August 1951. But it had made no difference. Tshekedi, on the other hand, had managed to persuade the Government to end his exile from the Bangwato Reserve. It occurred to Keaboka that they needed to adopt a new strategy: to follow Tshekedi's example. The former Regent had gone to Britain to press his case – and had been successful. In 1895, the diKgosi Khama III, Bathoen and Sebele had gone to Britain to appeal for protection against the Boers – and they, too, had been successful. It was now time for Seretse's people to go to Britain, to plead with the Secretary of State: ‘Black as we are we can think. Government is doing something unjust to us.' He proposed the idea to a meeting at the Kgotla and it was immediately taken up, with renewed hope for Seretse's return.
³

A request was made for the use of Tribal Treasury funds for the journey, but it was refused. This meant that all the money had to be collected from individuals in the Reserve, which called for great sacrifice. Most people were very poor, and even if they did have some kind of means, it was likely to be in the form of cattle or goats – they had
little access to cash. Much of the money had to be raised in loans, against future payments of cattle.
⁴
Almost daily, the women of Maha-lapye met together to organize the fund-raising campaign. Many of their meetings were addressed by Manyaphiri's wife, in her hut.
⁵