Laurens van der Post

Laurens van der Post (1906 – 1996) wiki

"Van der Post was a friend of Alan Paton, the writer of Cry the Beloved Country (1948) and helped to fund his Liberal Party causes. From the 1960s he started to suspect that the South African Special Branch had something to do with the loss of letters to his sisters and to Paton. Van der Post's assumption was not groundless - the Bureau for State Security (BOSS) had a file on him. Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party leader, who was appointed Prime Minister in 1979, received from van der Post several long letters dealing with Africa. His closeness to the Prime Minister astonished the Foreign Office officials. Van der Post's friendship with Prince Charles gave rise to jokes - he was called "the Prince's Guru". Before his death, van der Post witnessed the fall of the apartheid system. In the power struggle he supported the Zulu leader Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, not Nelson Mandela and the ANC. Laurens van der Post died in London on December 16, 1996. His ashes were buried in Philippolis in South Africa."

In 1958 his most famous book was released under the same title as the BBC series: The Lost World of the Kalahari, followed in 1961 by The Heart of the Hunter.

His daughter is Lucia van der Post.

Affiliations

 * Founding Patron, Countryside Restoration Trust
 * Patron, Gaia Foundation
 * Former Patron, Wilderness Foundation
 * Cofounder, Wilderness Foundation (UK)
 * Member, ResponseAbility Alliance

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * Ian Cedric Player
 * Margaret Thatcher - his former neighbour
 * Godfather to Prince William
 * Jeremy Ractliffe
 * Kathleen Raine - friend