LEEDS Euro MP Michael McGowan

paid tribute to Archbishop Trevor Huddleston

 

Mr McGowan spoke of his relationship with the man - a renowned anti-apartheid campaigner - who became a mentor to the likes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and a friend of activists Oliver Tambo and Nelson Mandela.

Archbishop Huddleston died aged 85 on Monday at the Community of the Resurrection, the Anglican monastery in Mirfield which he had joined in 1939.

 

Aged 13, Mr McGowan first met Archbishop Huddleston when he visited his class at Heckmondwike Grammar School.

 

"We all loved and respected Father Huddleston in the Spen Valley as did the people of South Africa with whom he had lived and worked."

The pair were to meet up again when Mr McGowan first visited South African 20 years ago. Archbishop Huddleston introduced him to anti-apartheid activists on the ground in the country.

He had been posted to South Africa in 1943 where he quickly became active in the struggle against the apartheid regime, meeting Tambo and Mandela. He became Bishop of Masasi in the south of Tanganyika in 1960.

 

Mr McGowan said: "The culmination of his work came with the democratic elections in South Africa when I had the privilege of being a member of the team of international observers.

"He achieved his lifetime ambition to live to see the ending of apartheid in South Africa. He was a very great man, an inspiring Christian Socialist, a lifelong peace activist, a towering figure on the international scene for more than half a century"