Page 4 - SA Chamber UK-NOV News letter 2023

THE ENGLISH JUDGE WHO

LOVED SOUTH AFRICA

L-R: Sir Nicholas Stadlen, Lady Vanetta and Lord Joel Joffe, John Battersby, and Pumela Salela

A chance meeting with the late Rivonia defendant and anti-apartheid
hero Denis Goldberg in Cape Town changed the life of a former English

High Court Judge and inspired him to seek a wider audience for ‘Mandela’s
Unsung Heroes’.

Sir Nicholas Stadlen KC, who died on 5 0ctober aged 73 after a long illness, spent the last
decade of his life researching the “back story” of the 1964 Rivonia trial which saw Nelson
Mandela and seven co-defendants sentenced to life imprisonment for sabotage. The trial
changed the course of South African history and led 30 years later to the first democratic

elections.

Nick’s research resulted in an award-winning documentary – Life is Wonderful: Mandela’s
Unsung Heroes – the creation of a charity to fund the screening of the film at 6000 state

schools in South Africa and dozens of articles about the surviving Rivonia defendants and
legal team.

After retiring as a judge in 2013 following six years on the bench, Nick was on a visit with
family in Cape Town when Mandela died on 5 December 2013. He was struck by the
overwhelming local and international media coverage that was devoted to the Mandela
story and the Rivonia trial but in contrast by how little most people knew about Mandela’s

colleagues and the legal team led by the brilliant Afrikaner barrister Bram Fischer.

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SA CHAMBER UK NEWSLETTER NOVEMBER 2023