By Jasper Cook
In the late 1980s, Jasper Cook worked unofficially for Cheadle Thompson & Haysom, the pioneering labour law firm that emerged from Wits University’s Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS). Among its founders was Fink Haysom — student leader, political activist, legal consultant to Nelson Mandela, and peace emissary for the United Nations — who died in New York last week. A brief remembrance follows:
I worked unofficially, at the CTH offices in Bertha Street, Braamfontein, and was paid out of petty cash. I set them up with PCs, and taught all three typists/secretaries word processing.
One day, Fink phoned me and asked me to go downstairs and collect something from his car. He said he knew me by sight, and would pip his hooter.
When I got downstairs, a Mini Minor drove up with a ‘pip-pip’. Fink had a comedic advantage over Mr Bean, because he was two metres tall. All I saw was a smiling face above two knees, a package held out of the sliding window, and he was gone.
From then on, while we never really talked, I saw a lot of him. He was serious and intense in meetings at the Bertha Street office, and at my sister’s Yeoville house, where he and many other lawyers met often. Early on, most of the meetings were with NUM leaders. Two alumni from those NUM groupings became presidents: Kgalema Motlanthe, and the current president.
All that seriousness and procedural gravitas disappeared at parties! Fink and Halton Cheadle danced up a storm at liberation events and parties, and the band I was in [the African Jazz Pioneers) played at least a hundred of those. It amazes me to think about Fink becoming such a global figure. I can’t think of anyone who played a larger part in South African statesmanship since General J.C. Smuts.
Among others, CTH was involved in a case about atrocities in a township in Colesberg (Lowryville I think), perpetrated by what were then known as ‘greenflies’ — township police who wore green uniforms. Memorably, one of the team’s hired kombis was torched outside their Hotel, but Halton, Fink and Clive Thompson continued regardless. As almost always, they were successful.
I can’t forget the two people Fink was: the calm, serious negotiator, and the fun guy at those liberation parties. But most of all I remember the smiling face in a Mini. If I write a song about him, it will be ‘Knees Up, Brother Fink’.
- For a tribute to Fink by his old law firm, click here.
FEATURED IMAGE: Nicholas ‘Fink’ Haysom addressing members of the Bakwena ba Mogopa Community in the course of a dispute, April 1989. Source: Cheadle Thompson & Haysom website.