VERY rarely in life do you meet someone who so profoundly changes your life that for the next three decades you take up the struggle to free people living in a country you've never visited, writes Tricia Walters. But Bermudian Ronald Lightbourne's life did change in the late 1960s when he heard tireless anti-apartheid campaigner, Peter Haines speak at a meeting in London.

The 23-year-old teacher/trainee from Bermuda was so moved by Mr. Haines' plight that he joined the movement without a second thought: "I was stunned to see this young white... well, hardly more than a student, with such fervour and passion bringing us the anti-apartheid message and that very day we formed an anti-apartheid society at my college," he said.

As a high school student in Bermuda he had heard about Nelson Mandela and the Rivonia trials, but always, he says in hushed tones and that was the first time he had heard the full-blown story of South Africa.

"I knew in that instant this was going to be a lifelong commitment, or as long as apartheid existed," he adds.

Mr. Lightbourne was a student at the College of St. Mark and St. John in Chelsea at the time and says their society liased with other anti-apartheid societies in London in various "actions" in efforts to make the world aware of the plight of black South Africans.

Armed with skull and crossbones labels, they would go to local shops in London, find products imported from South Africa and cover them in the labels.

He explains that members would then proceed to the cashiers and clog up aisles as they unpacked their baskets while shouting "We don't want these, we don't want these!".

With a laugh he says it got so crazy that business came to a standstill and the police were called in to remove them.

However, it wasn't until an incident at Wimbledon that Mr. Lightbourne got arrested for his actions in the anti-apartheid movement.

The plan, he explains, was to walk onto court three during the third set of the third game, but things took a turn when a whistle malfunctioned.

"I don't know how we did it going to Wimbledon with placards stuffed under our jackets with the handles sticking out, but we were allowed to go and sit there which we did," he says. He explains how one of the members was to blow a whistle, which would be their signal to rush onto the court with their placards, but when the time arrived and the young man stood up and blew on his whistle - nothing happened.

"You know what it's like when you blow on a whistle too hard... no sound comes out," he says with a chuckle.

"Nothing happened and I decided I'm going to do what I came here to do and walked onto the court. For about five minutes I was the only one standing there before the others decided not to leave me out to dry."

Meanwhile he struck up a conversation with the young South African tennis player who told him that while he agreed with the plight of the anti-apartheid group, he didn't quite agree with the action, which involved disrupting his game.

Mr. Lightbourne and his friends were escorted from the court by police and with a soft laugh explains that he had no idea his accomplices were furnishing police with false names and addresses, while he remained honest and yes, a little scared: "But luckily nothing happened."

The following day, and eager to see if the disruption at Wimbledon had made it to newspapers in South Africa, he and a young white New Zealand girl called Mary went to the South African consulate at Trafalgar Square to pick up a copy of the South African daily newspaper, The Star.

However what happened next only made him even more determined to continue his struggle in the anti-apartheid movement. He encountered firsthand what racism was like in South Africa.

"I went in first and walked up to the lady at the counter and said 'Good morning' and told her my name and what not, but there was absolutely no response. It was as if I was invisible," he says. "Then Mary walked up and said 'Good morning, my name is Mary and I'd like a copy of The Star' and the girl greeted her and handed her a copy of the newspaper. It was bizarre!" Sure enough the front page was splashed with the story of Mr. Lightbourne's actions at Wimbledon, but the incident at the consulate left him shaken: "The fact that they (the South Africans) can practice that in London chilled me." Another action taken by Mr. Lightbourne's anti-apartheid group involved painting anti-apartheid slogans on the walls of an English public school planning a tour to South Africa.

But he explains for whatever reasons that incident never reached the newspapers.

During the four years he lived in London Mr. Lightbourne also had the opportunity to meet Archbishop Trevor Huddleston, who led the British campaign against apartheid at a time when identifying with the cause of equality for all South Africans was seen as the height of betrayal by the privileged. And he did so at a great risk to his personal safety and well-being.

Huddleston had spent 13 years in South Africa as a missionary for his religios order, Community of the Resurrection, and during that time he became a much-loved priest and respected anti-apartheid activist, earning him the nickname Makhalipile ("Dauntless One"). He fought tirelessly against the vicious apartheid laws while both living in South Africa and after leaving the country. In 1955 the African National Congress gave him the rare honour of bestowing on him the title "Isitwalandwe", at the famous Freedom Congress in Kliptown.

"Huddleston was a profoundly wise man, a charismatic man who very patiently listened to everyone and answered our questions," recalls Mr. Lightbourne. "We asked him about Black Power, revolution and apartheid and he laid out a beautifully argued truth that people were being oppressed and that wasn't fiction and they had every right to fight in any way they could... preferably legally and if the circumstances didn't permit, then in other ways," he explains, adding that Archbishop Huddleston silenced the group, of which the majority were theological students, with this statement.

"What he did and said stayed with me and he himself had such a profound effect on me that when we were in the midst of our anti-apartheid struggle here, I kept promoting him as a person we might invite to Bermuda." Mr. Lightbourne eventually got his wish when the man he thought of as a mentor, came to Bermuda and addressed a packed City Hall on April 21, 1986 He explains that this meeting was considered a turning point in the anti-apartheid movement in Bermuda.

After four years in London, Mr. Lightbourne returned to Bermuda and joined forces with a former high school friend, Glenn Fubler to breath life into Bermuda's own anti-apartheid movement.

"He called me and asked me if I was interested in going to a meeting. There were three of us on stage and two in the audience and that's how we started!"

Mr. Lightbourne believed continuing the struggle was crucial to the island's own "liberation": "I always thought that our work in the anti-apartheid movement had a secondary function as a stalking horse in Bermuda's race relations, which people were reluctant to confront directly, but by confronting and reacting to South Africa's situation, people were indirectly confronting our situation." Asked what some of these racial issues were, Mr. Lightbourne cited the relationships between white Members of Parliament at the time, many of whom were seen as "defensive", and black MPs who were seen as "timid" as an example.

It was an opportunity, he says, for the Bermudian people to help make a difference and express themselves and realise that South Africa's struggle was similar to that which had taken place in Bermuda, the United States and elsewhere in the world during the CivilRights period.

The organisation grew from that first meeting to thousands who participated in a public march and celebration following Nelson Mandela's release from prison on February 11, 1990.

That morning he and fellow anti-apartheid movement member, Margaret Carter watched Nelson Mandela's "walk to freedom" on television and Mr. Lightbourne admits that tears were streaming down their faces.

With obvious emotion he explains: "It's what I feel right now... we won! Right-minded people across the world won and brought an end to racism and injustice!" Recalling Archbishop Huddleston's visit to Bermuda, Mr. Lightbourne says he took him around in a mini van, showing him the sights and was impressed that the cleric was genuinely interested in Bermuda.

While having tea at a hotel later that afternoon Archbishop Huddleston leaned over and told Mr. Lightbourne something that changed his life: "He told me never to believe that what I did was not important." Archbishop Huddleston told him a story about how he was getting ready to leave for the US to meet Martin Luther King Jr., when a youngster at the orphanage asked him to bring a trumpet back for him. Mr. Lightbourne says after the meeting between the two great men, Dr. King asked Archbishop Huddleston if there was anything he needed, or could help with and the archbishop told him about the little boy back in South Africa who wanted a trumpet.

"Martin Luther King wrote a note and gave it to Archbishop Huddleston to take to a man he knew. When he got there a man handed him a trumpet, which he gave to the orphan back in South Africa. Well, it turns out the man who gave him the trumpet was Louis Armstrong and the young boy was Hugh Masekela," he says with a laugh.

He continues to recall another story involving Archbishop Huddleston and Desmond Tutu.

When Tutu was was eight-years-old, Archbishop Huddleston visited the hostel for the blind where Tutu's mother worked. Tutu was amazed when the tall cleric in flowing cassock doffed his hat to Mrs. Tutu - a courtesy rarely extended to blacks by whites - and made the young Tutu realise that not all whites were the same.

Tutu later followed in Archbishop Hudddleston's footsteps and took up the struggle to end apartheid.

When asked in an interview five years before his death if he had expected apartheid to last so long, Archbishop Huddleston had replied: "No, but I've always said I wanted to see apartheid dead before I am - so they've got to get a move on."

Mr. Lightbourne says his work in the anti-apartheid movement and having met Archbishop Huddleston, Peter Haines and later Desmond Tutu when he visited Bermuda, made him the man he is today.

It is his passion for life and the belief that every action, no matter how insignificant can ultimately change a nation that drives him in his music, poetry and teaching and his only regret, he says, is never having visited the country he fought so hard to free.

"The opportunity just never arose," says Mr. Lightbourne with a broad smile. "I guess I was just waiting for the right time".