Pierre Van Blommestein

Carry on Padre: Memoirs of an Army Chaplain in Apartheid South Africa Pierre Van Blommestein

About the Book
Pierre van Blommestein shares his incredible true story in Carry on Padre.
The book gives insight into the author's liberal religious upbringing in South Africa, his personal view of Apartheid, serving as a chaplain during National Service, and the following 17 years as a Reserve Forces chaplain. His story spans a period of 25 years, including the darkest years of the Apartheid era in the 1980s and 1990s. It includes the free elections in 1994, the reconstruction of the "New South Africa," and his emigration to Australia in 2000.
This poignant and sometimes funny memoir of a liberal-minded young man tells how he was raised in a race-unconscious home, only to find himself serving in a conservative right-wing military. He was an ordinary young man aware of the pain of his homeland, as he tries to get through this difficult period in South African history.
Pierre van Blommestein's memoir began as a simple recounting of his Apartheid experiences for his family. "I have a growing conviction that the stories of the ordinary people from this generation and this country, not the official histories or the propaganda, must not be lost in the turning wheels of recent history."