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Five senior Bangwato men went to see MacKenzie. They said that on Seretse's instructions, they would now pay tax. They asked him to call off the police who were chasing defaulters and also for permission to hold a large meeting, where everyone would be told to pay tax and cooperate; Oratile's name, they suggested, should be put on the tax receipt. MacKenzie's manner was cold and abrupt. He said that the tax receipt should be left blank and refused the request for a meeting, arguing that they had insulted the High Commissioner in March and had also refused to come to the meetings that he had called. Referring to Peto Sekgoma and Manyaphiri as ‘scoundrels', he said that if they were to offer a public apology, he might be more favourable. They seemed to think, he complained, ‘that everything in the past should be wiped off the slate and that we should start afresh'. But, he warned nastily, they were not going to get away with it so easily.
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The headmen of villages throughout the reserve were infuriated by this request for an apology. ‘We cannot understand,' they said in a message conveyed by Fraenkel, ‘why this Government is being so persistent with many requests for the Bangwato to
apologise
'. They had had no intention of being discourteous to Sir Evelyn when they boycotted his Kgotla, and had done their best to warn his officials beforehand. The blame for the fiasco, therefore, rested squarely on the Government and not on the Bangwato.
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Six days after leaving southern Africa, on 24 August 1950, the Khama family arrived at Southampton Marine Airport. Photographers and cameramen gathered round to film them as they walked up the gangway from the flying-boat onto land. Ruth's mother and Muriel rushed up to welcome them, waving with broad smiles, accompanied by an official from the CRO. ‘The first interest', announced a Pathe newsreel,

is baby Jacqueline. Next comes Ruth herself. Almost overlooked in the excitement is Seretse Khama himself, the man who lost his chieftainship of the Bamangwato, through his marriage to a white girl. With his wife and daughter, now three months old and weighing ten and a half pounds, he begins his five years exile. While they find a home they are guests of the government.

‘With them is Seretse's sister, to share the exile,' it added, showing Naledi and Seretse carrying Jacqueline between them in Mrs Monks's carry cot.
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It was a chilly summer's day, but the newsreels showed a close-up of Seretse wiping his brow with a handkerchief. Now that they had arrived on British soil, he was faced with the reality of exile and his enforced removal from his people and his land.

A government car drove them to London, where a large crowd was waiting to see them as they reached the Grosvenor Court Hotel in the West End.
²
This was to be their home for the first six weeks – as ‘guests of the government'. The first few weeks were hard. For, as Ruth remarked, ‘hotel life with a baby is no joke'.
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She was also continually pestered by journalists, who wanted to know how she had coped with life in Bechuanaland, especially the food. She replied that it was no different from Britain, except for Mopani caterpillars –
which provoked horror. ‘But the English eat crabs!' remonstrated Seretse.
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The British public were fascinated by the Khamas. A play called
The Baker's Daughter
was written about their marriage and exile, with a performance planned for September in Bridlington.
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But it was ‘Not Recommended for Licence' by the Lord Chamberlain's Office. ‘This, without any disguise,' judged the Reader's Report, ‘is the story of Seretse Khama's marriage':

The baker's daughter is a London girl into whose family Gbor-Gbor (pronounced Bo-Bo) Chief designate of the Beruba tribe, is introduced by her married brother Brian, a student at what is obviously London University. Rose, the girl, falls in love and insists on marrying Bo-Bo, in spite of the opposition from all her family except Gladys, Brian's wife.

They get married and go to ‘Jammatoland, the protectorate where Bo-Bo is Prince. There Rose, now pregnant, is snubbed by the white residents and has a violent scene with Bo-Bo's uncle, the Regent.' The government then exile Rose and Bo-Bo from Jammatoland:

Rose rushes hysterically out into the monsoon (if they have monsoons in Africa, which I doubt) and is nearly killed by a native who mistakes her for a tiger (in spite of the fact that this is Africa). She is picked up by Bo-Bo who nearly runs her over in his car.

Then Bo-Bo abdicates, the child is born healthy, and they go to England. The Reader's Report listed some ‘offensive vulgarities', including the line: ‘I bet there isn't one of those old trollops wouldn't like a night with him.'
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One day, Muriel, who worked for Deloitte, a firm of accountants, was told by one of the junior partners, ‘Miss Williams, I do hope you don't tell these newspaper reporters that you are related to Seretse Khama and that you work for Deloitte.'
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But CRO officials had ‘nothing but praise', reported the US attacheè in London to Washington, for the manner in which Seretse and his wife had been conducting themselves since their return to London:

There has been little of the sensational publicity which the CRO feared and Seretse has refused to allow himself to be used by Communist-inspired political
groups in their trouble-making. Although the CRO are somewhat less enthusiastic about Mrs Khama and find her on occasion ‘aggressive in manner', they pay tribute to the restrained manner in which she has dealt with the press since her return to London.
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‘One of the biggest comforts during the trying first weeks of our return to England,' said Ruth, ‘was a complete reconciliation with my own family. My father met Seretse, and from the first meeting the two of them got on famously.'
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He and Ruth's mother came to see them often, as did their old friends, especially Charles Njonjo.
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A special pleasure for Seretse was the opportunity to share in the success of the West Indian cricket team, who had beaten England at Lords for the first time in June that year. It had been front-page news and was regarded by many black and Asian colonials as a real and welcome challenge to established beliefs about racial superiority.
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Seretse and Ruth were invited by the West Indian Students Union to a dance at Hammersmith Town Hall in West London, to celebrate the Test victory and to say farewell to the West Indies XI. ‘The joint's jumping!' reported Pathe News, introducing viewers to the special guests – Seretse and Ruth, with the Colonial Secretary James Griffiths, and the Jamaican athlete MacDonald Bailey and his wife.
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After six weeks at the Grosvenor Court Hotel, Seretse and Ruth took a six-month lease on a flat in Chelsea, on the third floor of a small pre-1914 block. The flat had three bedrooms, a small dining room, and a lounge. Seretse had arranged to study with a firm of law tutors, Gibson and Weldon, starting in January; he planned to take his final Bar examination the following May, which would qualify him as a barrister.
¹³
He and Ruth also made plans for Jacqueline to be baptized by an Anglican minister, who came round to see them. The minister was convinced, he wrote to a friend, that Seretse was acting in good faith. He liked Ruth, whom he thought was practical, stable and sensible, and surprisingly devoid of bitterness ‘Quite frankly,' he said, ‘I doubt very much the Brit Govt want a rapprochement between Seretse and Tshek – too embarrassing in respect of SA and SR. Why has the Govt not tried to bring Tshek and Seretse together? Why ignore both?' He saw the persecution of Seretse as part
of a larger picture of racialism. What was the use, he asked, ‘of fighting racialism in the Union when we soft-pedal it in Bech?'
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A CRO official, Peter Lewis, visited the Khamas on the evening of 13 November 1950. He had helped them in Southampton, when they first arrived, and his seniors, believing he had won their confidence, encouraged him to build on this – ‘establishing an informal channel of contact for us'.
¹⁵
The day after his visit to the Chelsea flat, he wrote a report. The flat, he said, was ‘fairly well, but not over well, furnished'; he had admired the leopard-skin and springbok-skin rugs on the floor and Seretse had told him that the best one, a lion's skin, was still on its way. He thought the Khamas looked much better and more cheerful than when they had first arrived, especially Seretse. ‘They both, in fact, seemed to be very happy,' he said, ‘and in excellent spirits. When I arrived the baby, Jacqueline, was being prepared for bed in front of the sitting-room fire. She was looking well.' The household had been increased by a young woman, a German refugee, who helped Ruth with the cooking and washing. Naledi was set to go to Hammersmith Hospital in January, at the start of the new nursing students' term, but she had been feeling a little homesick.

Lewis was invited to stay for a meal. The menu was tomato soup, then curry, followed by stewed fruit and custard. ‘The curry was quite alarmingly hot,' said Lewis, ‘and Ruth confessed to having overdone the chillies.'
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This may not have been a mistake. Ruth was an experienced cook and often made curry, which had been Seretse's favourite ever since his student days at Nutford House.
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She and Seretse may have suspected that the visit would end up in a report and were enjoying some harmless fun at Lewis's expense. He was astonished by the civility they showed towards the British Government and their apparent sympathy for Baring: ‘They both, strangely enough, seemed to have a soft spot for Sir Evelyn Baring. Seretse spoke with concern of Sir Evelyn's state of health and thought the job a very onerous one for someone who was not of robust health.'
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Lewis accepted these comments at face value – but it was possible that he was being gently mocked. For Seretse, who was teaching Jackie to grimace whenever Gordon Walker was mentioned, had a mischievous sense of humour.
¹⁹

After dinner, there was a break in the conversation while Seretse listened to the closing stages of a fight between champion heavyweight
boxers, Bruce Woodcock and Jack Gardner. Their own wireless was out of action, so Seretse rang up a friend and got him to put the telephone mouthpiece near the loudspeaker of his set. Then there was some further conversation: ‘In politics Ruth proclaims herself a “true blue Conservative”. Seretse is a “Socialist”. I was also given an outline of the political views of various members of Ruth's family.'
²⁰
The Secretary of State enjoyed Lewis's snapshot account. ‘Very good report,' he wrote. ‘I would like to see Mr Lewis.'
²¹

Seretse became involved again in the activities of the Seretse Khama Fighting Committee, which was still busy campaigning. One of the new people he met on the Committee was John Stonehouse, who was then a student at the LSE with an interest in colonial and African affairs. Stonehouse later became a Labour Government Minister and then shocked the world when he faked his own death; when he was found, living with his secretary, he was imprisoned for fraud. But in 1950, he was unknown and an idealist. He had great respect for Seretse, describing him as ‘impressive in stature', with ‘a brilliant faculty for interpretation and expression', and he enjoyed his warm personality and generosity of feeling. One night, they went together to address a meeting in Basingstoke, at which Seretse was in fine form:

His analysis of democracy and politics was as good as any political philosopher could muster. The audience was fascinated and entranced. When it came to my turn to make the appeal for the Seretse Khama [Fighting Committee] the pound notes and cheques came up in healthy profusion, including a very generous donation from the local Tories.
²²

The Khamas started to make new friends. Clement Freud invited Seretse to speak at a celebrity Club Supper at the Arts Theatre Club off Leicester Square, which he was managing. ‘A hundred members and their guests', explained Freud in his autobiography, ‘bought tickets, got a decent meal and listened to a speech by a man or woman of the moment' – and in the autumn of 1950, Seretse Khama was the ‘man of the moment'. Other celebrity speakers had included Bernard Shaw, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Fry and Laurie Lee.
²³
Freud understood the difficulties faced by the Khamas and wanted to help. He also found Seretse agreeable company and thought Ruth was an admirable and very courageous woman. He and his wife Jill invited
them home and he cooked – which always made for a successful evening, as Seretse appreciated good food.
²⁴

The Labour MPs Jennie Lee and her husband, Aneurin Bevan, gave parties in their home for Seretse and Ruth. Although they followed the doctrine of collective responsibility in relation to the Labour Party, in private they followed their own principles – and they believed that the Labour Party had treated the Khamas very badly.
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Bevan organized a party at Cliveden Place, where Seretse and Ruth met Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham, leading politicians from British Guiana.
²⁶
Bevan publicized this party as much as possible, to draw attention to the problems suffered by the British colonies.

Seretse and Ruth became good friends with MacDonald Bailey, the famous sprinter known as Black Flash, from Port of Spain in Trinidad; Bailey had also married a white Englishwoman and was living in Britain. Over six feet tall, Bailey ran for Britain in the Olympics of 1948 and was to become a medallist in the 1952 Olympics. Movietone filmed a newsreel showing the Khama family and the Baileys enjoying Christmas together in the Khamas' flat, the adults serving sandwiches and cake to the children, and pulling crackers. The four adults laughed happily together in the living room, next to a huge framed photograph – about two feet square – of Seretse's father, Sekgoma, in military uniform, standing beside Khama III.
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