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Hatch's return, which was heavily publicized in the UK, raised the profile of Seretse's case. So too did the publication in July 1955 of a book by John Redfern –
Ruth and Seretse. ‘A Very Disreputable Transaction
'. It was the outcome of the many years he had spent reporting on the story. The
Manchester Guardian
was full of praise. ‘He brings out perhaps more clearly than has been done before,' it said, ‘the human side of the story, the dignity and decency of Ruth and Seretse Khama, the clash of personalities, the dissolving doubts and later the passionate loyalties of the tribesmen.' All these things, it went on, ‘add weight to the case for reconsideration'.
³²
The Nationalist newspaper in the Transvaal,
Die Transvaler
, was annoyed about the fuss made of the book and responded with an article entitled, ‘The Bamangwato are only a handful. The British public is not aware of this.'
³³

Yet another event which reminded the public of the injustice against Seretse was the return home in October 1955 of the exiled Kabaka of Buganda, to the great joy of his people. All along his route from Entebbe airport to the royal palace, triumphal arches were erected. When he arrived, there was a long procession of cars to greet him, decorated with leaves from banana trees. As he drove slowly along the 25 miles to Kampala, the road was lined on both sides by cheering crowds, waving banana leaves; when he passed, people knelt down and clapped to show their respect and their happiness to see him back.
³⁴
But the CRO in London was not happy at all, as they feared that the end of the Kabaka's exile would fuel the campaign on behalf of Seretse. In 1954 Lord Swinton had warned:

Public opinion regards the two cases as parallel; and when a comparison is made it will be said with truth that the Kabaka's behaviour was more reprehensible than Seretse's. Indeed, the removal of Seretse can only be justified as an act of State in the interest of the Tribe.
³⁵

By the end of 1955, there had been a significant change at the top of the CRO: in April, Lord Swinton had been replaced as Secretary of State by the patrician Alec Douglas-Home, the 14th Earl of Home (who became Prime Minister in 1963). He was a considerate and courteous man and someone, observed Macmillan, ‘who represents the old governing class at its best'.
³⁶
Although he was widely criticized for his backing of the Federation of the two Rhodesias and Nyasaland, on most other issues regarding the empire he took a progressive – though paternalistic – approach and he strongly denounced apartheid in South Africa.
³⁷

There had also been substantial changes in the senior officials at the CRO who were dealing with Seretse's case. Sir Percivale Liesching, who as the official head of the CRO had been instrumental in Seretse's exile, had gone to South Africa to take up the appointment of High Commissioner to South Africa in March 1955. The new Permanent Secretary was Sir Gilbert Laithwaite, a very different sort of man. They were almost the same age and had both served with distinction on the front line in the First World War. But whereas Liesching was old-fashioned in his spirit, and a model of the Establishment – and even, with his lean figure and sharp features, looked the part – Laithwaite was rather different. Solidly built, he was a Roman Catholic and a homosexual, who never married, with a keen interest in fine arts. He had a reputation for fairness and got on well with the Deputy Under-Secretary, Joe Garner, who had been in post since 1953. Garner was the son of a draper and was married to an American. He was a personable man of integrity, who condemned racism.

Another fresh and progressive recruit to the senior levels was Eleanor Emery, who had moved up the ranks of the civil service and joined the CRO in 1955; she had been born in Glasgow and then grew up in Canada. She was the first woman official to be involved in the Seretse Khama case – indeed, one of the first women ever to be appointed as a principal at the CRO – and she quickly introduced a
more human and sympathetic approach. Michael Fairlie, another principal, had worked as an official in the Bechuanaland administration and had regarded the racial segregation and treatment of Africans as inhuman. This new stable of mandarins at the CRO held modern attitudes and was very different from the one that had backed the exile of Seretse and Ruth. As a consequence, Lord Home was given far more enlightened advice than that which had been given to previous Commonwealth Secretaries – Noel-Baker, Gordon Walker, Ismay, Salisbury and Swinton.

On 9 August 1955, Home met with a delegation from the Labour Party, led by James Griffiths and including John Hatch, who recommended a conference of tribal representatives in London to find a settlement. But Home replied that ‘it was necessary to face the fact that Seretse could not go back as Chief with a white wife'.
³⁸

At the Labour Party Conference in Margate in October 1955, Seretse and Ruth sat in the front row of the Press Gallery. ‘On the question of Seretse Khama,' observed one Labour MP, ‘we cannot pat ourselves on the back overmuch.' Fenner Brockway was more blunt. Seretse's only crime, he argued, was that he had affronted Dr Malan and South Africa.
³⁹
Griffiths, speaking for the National Executive Committee, observed that the period of five years, for which Seretse had been excluded from the Bangwato Reserve, was shortly to expire. He said that Labour had made a commitment in 1950 to review Seretse's case in five years – and they were determined to do this. On the strength of the evidence gathered by Hatch, he added, they hoped to arrange a meeting of tribal elders in London.
⁴⁰
When he had finished speaking, the Conference Chairman extended a welcome to the Khamas, sitting together in the Press Gallery. There was an outburst of applause, which swelled into an ovation when Seretse and Ruth responded to shouts of ‘Stand up!'. As they left the Conference Hall, they were loudly cheered again.
⁴¹

The Commonwealth Secretary, Lord Home, a principled man, was troubled by the Seretse Khama issue. On 29 November, he sent a paper on the situation in the Bangwato Reserve to the Prime Minister, who was now Anthony Eden. ‘I thought I would show you this,' he said, ‘because these situations are apt to blow up quickly, and I do not want to be unprepared.'
⁴²
The paper by Home described increased
unrest in the Reserve, which he attributed to Hatch's visit. In the previous few months, he added, Rasebolai had been opposed in the Kgotla by the pro-Seretse faction on important issues, and it had been necessary to send a security force to the north of the Reserve, to deal with an outbreak of violence. He was wondering, he said, whether the Government ought to review their policy on Seretse, though on balance he supposed they should leave it as it was.
⁴³
He asked Eden for advice about whether or not to circulate this paper to Cabinet. Eden replied promptly, telling him to go ahead. ‘Socialist party', he added, referring to Hatch's visit and to Labour's demands for a review of the permanent banishment, ‘appears to be behaving very badly.'
⁴⁴

Meanwhile, in Addiscombe, the Khamas waited and hoped. One great pleasure during this period was a visit to their home by Mrs Lilian Ngoyi, a leader in the struggle against apartheid. The daughter of a washerwoman, Mrs Ngoyi had become the National President of the Federation of South African Women in 1954. In 1955, she went to the World Congress of Mothers in Lausanne with Dora Tamana, a leader of the ANC.
⁴⁵
Then they travelled through various countries, including England:

In Uganda, she sat in the same cinema as white people… At the hotel in Rome, an Italian man opened a door for her.

For a dreadful moment Lilian thought she was being shown to the kitchen, but the man simply smiled and asked her what she would like to drink…

More eye-openers awaited the two of them in London. They saw white men digging in the streets, swinging huge pickaxes as they worked… On an overcrowded train, two white men stood up and offered Lilian and Dora their seats. Lilian was amazed. ‘Am I dreaming?' she asked herself.
⁴⁶

During her visit to London, Lilian struck up a firm friendship with Ruth.
⁴⁷

A correspondent from
The World
went to visit the Khamas and asked Seretse if he would like to return to Bechuanaland. ‘I should like to go very much,' he replied. ‘Otherwise I would not be continually approaching the Commonwealth Relations Office.' He talked about his wish to improve people's lives:

The Government, I know, have big plans for Bechuanaland. Big plans which they cannot at present push ahead because there is no life, no enthusiasm, among the people there.

They feel they have been deprived of something. Those plans concern not only administrative matters but matters of development in the way of agriculture, cattle, minerals and so on.

I believe I could help in bringing those plans to a good end and it would be my aim and joy to try and do so.

He was asked if he would miss the stores, the big football matches, and he replied – as he looked through his sitting-room windows at the bleak and grey February sky – that he could just as easily watch football in Bechuanaland. ‘I think I might put it this way,' he explained:

I think I should like it here if I came from my own country on an occasional holiday.

But as I am living now I feel very much an exile – as though I had been banished here.

All the time I feel restless – an urge to get back to where I rightly belong.

‘I have no doubt,' he said, that ‘if it rested with the ordinary British people, I should be allowed back any time. But it is the British Cabinet that must give the decision.' The Bangwato were asking for Ruth back, he added, as well as wanting him: ‘It is only the Government that seems to mind about her being white.'
⁴⁸

Tshekedi was smarting under his restrictions in the Bangwato Reserve and longed to resume political life. The only way of changing this, he knew, would be through a common front with Seretse – but he was adamant that Seretse would have to renounce the kingship. This for him was a sticking point, as he explained in a letter to Creech Jones towards the end of 1955:

I wish to say that if I am invited by any Party in power to come to London for discussion with Seretse, I will gladly do so, but my attitude would be to inform Seretse that I would not take any part in his case if his line of action is to continue to fight for his return as chief.

But should Seretse abandon his claim and fight for his return as an individual – ‘then I would support such an action'.
¹

The Bangwato now needed Seretse's return more than ever before. For there had been a new and significant development in Bechuanaland: mining companies were showing interest in the minerals of the Protectorate. Geological surveys had been carried out and copper, gold and silver had been discovered in exploitable quantities.
²
The Anglo-American Corporation was particularly interested in the Bangwato Reserve and they were now keen to start negotiations. In March 1956, senior headmen met twice in Serowe to discuss the issue of mineral development with the District Commissioner. He was encouraging them to give their consent to concessions, but the Bangwato – although they accepted the idea of mineral development in principle – opposed any kind of agreement in the absence of Seretse and Tshekedi.
³
They were afraid that, without the guidance of the Khamas, they would be taken advantage of by the Government and the mining
companies. As well, many of the men had worked in the harsh conditions of the mines of South Africa, and they were determined to make sure that this brutal system was not replicated in their own country.

Some of the diKgosi in the Protectorate had anticipated the discovery of minerals and prepared for it. In 1953, Kgosi Mokgosi of the Balete had engaged lawyers in Johannesburg to find out what rights the British Government had in relation to their land and to the minerals that might be found on it.
⁴
He was assured that as the law stood the consent of the diKgosi and their people was necessary for any concessions.
⁵
Fenner Brockway made sure that this point was put on record during discussions in the House of Commons in London: Commander Alan Noble, the new Commonwealth Under-Secretary of state, was required to give an assurance ‘that no leases will be given to any firms, South African or otherwise, without the consent and the knowledge of the African Native Authorities concerned'.
⁶

The Bangwato now had leverage over the British Government. Finally, for the first time since Seretse's marriage, they had something to offer that the Government wanted. This put Tshekedi and Seretse in a very strong position. On 29 March 1956, three days after the second Kgotla at which the Bangwato refused to grant mining concessions, Tshekedi wrote to David Astor to tell him that he would be coming to the UK with his wife Ella, to take their sons to school in Ireland. He was ‘a shackled man', he complained, heavily restricted by the Government. The question of the moment for Bechuanaland, he went on, was the exploitation of minerals, to which the people were not opposed – ‘but took the line that they needed advice from the two sons of Khama viz. Seretse and Tshekedi'. It was clear, he said, that

there was a pronounced spirit of unity where there has been disunity and it would be most advantageous for the Government to try and bring the parties who differed on the effects of the Seretse marriage together. But the Government does not seem to be anxious to do this. Do not be led away to believing that there is any strong objection to mining developments, because there is none.
⁷

Tshekedi and his family went to Britain in June and met with Seretse and Ruth. Seretse welcomed his proposal that they work together and
told him that he was willing to give up the kingship. But he insisted on being able to take part in politics, out of a sense of duty to his people.