Tom Newnham pictured during a visit to a village in China in 1981 - the same year as the Springbok tour of New Zealand. Photo: Wikipedia / Anne Newnham
A New Zealand anti-apartheid activist has been posthumously honoured for the decades he spent campaigning to cut ties with apartheid South Africa.
Tom Newnham, who died in 2010, was awarded the Order of the Companions of O R Tambo for his tireless campaigning against apartheid.
Starting with the 1960 All Blacks tour of South Africa, Newnham worked to change New Zealand's sporting contact with South Africa by organising speaking tours by prominent international anti-apartheid activists.
Newnham's son, Rewi Newnham, attended the ceremony in Pretoria and told Morning Report it was a tremendous ceremony.
"These are the highest national awards bestowed upon not just South Africans, but international citizens as well who have supported South Africa over the years.
"It was really quite humbling to be there representing my father, a few years after he passed away of course, so a lot of memories coming back.
"Amongst the awardees were some very notable people in South Africa and internationally, many of whom have made huge sacrifices.
"To see my father's award amongst that was really quite a humbling experience for me."
Newnham said his father spent 40 years fighting the anti-apartheid campaign, which ultimately triumphed when apartheid legislation was repealed in the early 1990s.
"The sort of sacrifices he made were psychological. There was a lot of stuff that today would be called hate speech and hate mail and so on, that he suffered, some physical abuse as well.
"But he stood up to that, and I guess in some ways he maybe thrived on it. He knew that he had to in order to get through this."
Newnham also acknowledged the people who supported his father over the years, saying they should take a lot of credit for the award.
