An African trip to be remembered (From Stroud News and Journal)

An African trip to be remembered

FOR most people, attending Desmond Tutu's golden wedding celebrations and meeting Nelson Mandela would be enough excitement for one weekend.

But for Stroud politician and human rights campaigner Brian Oosthuysen, his favourite memory of the trip to his native South Africa was an emotional reunion with the brother he had never met.

"It was such an amazing trip," he said.

"There were two highlights, the wonderful day we had at the golden wedding, and meeting my brother for the first time."

Brian, 67, and Archbishop Tutu became friends while studying at King's College in London in the 1960s and have stayed in touch.

The weekend was "an emotional rollercoaster" for Brian, who was reunited with his long lost brother Melvin Nowell the day before the celebrations.

Melvin, 75, was born out of wedlock in 1929 and was forcibly removed from their mother and placed in care.

"In those days, if a young woman who wasn't married had a child it would just be taken from her. It was terrible," said former Archway School teacher Brian, who has been looking for Melvin for 20 years.

Three weeks before the trip, a researcher he had hired contacted him to say that he had tracked down his brother.

"It's an amazing feeling to be able to put my family tree back together," said Brian, a Gloucestershire county councillor who is also a committed Amnesty International campaigner.

"He had Alzheimer's Disease and couldn't really relate to the situation. But it was a very emotional moment for me, as the only surviving member of my family, to meet him.

"It was a complete shock to his children. They didn't know that my mother had gone on and started a family."

Brian - who left South Africa in the early 1961, has promised to keep in touch with Melvin and his four children Diane, Keith, Marc, and Jennifer, and Jennifer's daughter Rykie.

He was also intrigued to discover that, like him, Melvin had considered a career in the church.

The next day, he and his wife Carole were at Holy Cross Church in Orlando, Soweto with 500 guests for the golden wedding. They included Nelson Mandela, Princess Irene of the Netherlands and her husband Prince Carlos Hugo, the King of Lesotho, the South African president's wife Zanele Mbeki and the Nobel Prize Committee.

The service was conducted by Archbishop Winston Ndungane on Saturday, July 2.

Desmond Tutu and his wife Leah recited the same wedding vows they expressed 50 years ago.

Afterwards, guests enjoyed a meal and entertainment.

"The service was very moving," said Brian. "It was just so full of wonderful moments all the way through.

"There were people standing up in the aisles just full of the joy of life, with Desmond leading them. He's a most unusual archbishop."