Trevor Johston

Political activist

For a lad who abhorred injustice it was not a happy city to grow up in. That’s  what turned him into a political activist.

His stance led to him experiencing the full force of white South Africans’ discrimination against those whose skin was of a different hue.

Trevor’s skin is light. He gives us a lesson in genealogy of how this came to be.

 His paternal heritage stems from Scotland. “Hence the name Johnston.” His mother’s side links back to the French but the mix is from slavery.

“The population of South Africa has a pretty interesting make-up. Being on the trade route, lots of slaves were brought to the Cape.”

Being of mixed race put the same target on his back that black Africans carried.

Dodging bullets

Trevor wasn’t always a peaceful protestor.

“I started out following the ways of Gandhi but I became much more militant as the hatred increased, burning tyres and attacking barricades.”

He was in the vanguard of protestors who faced the police firing line as Cape Town’s infamous Trojan Horse massacre erupted.  “Dodging bullets whizzing past my head.”

Three innocent young people lost their lives in the carnage that made headlines across the world. Two were still at school.

“This was at a time when there was a State of Emergency and political protests were quelled by the apartheid state,” says Trevor.

His recall of Trojan Horse Day, October 15, 1985, remains crystal clear.

“A truck drove into the line of protestors. Rocks and stones were being thrown but it kept coming. It had crates on the back.

“I saw a crate slide open, I saw a shotgun then it was just the mayhem of shots being fired. I ran down a side road with bullets whizzing past me.

“A voice in my head was telling me ‘go left’, ‘go right’ so the bullets missed me.

“I dived under a car and watched the on-going gunfire. I was really shocked. I had never been that close to being shot. It still haunts me.”  

Another near-death experience is equally seared into his memory.

Born with the spirit

It was when a gun was pulled on him in Cape Flats, a part of Cape Town notorious for gangs.

“I was heading for the [railway] station on my way to the mountains.

“These guys just appeared. They took my backpack. They wanted to know where the money was. I said I had no money.

“They wanted to take me under a bridge. I knew that meant they wanted to kill me. One held a gun against my chest. It just went ‘click’. I was completely calm.

“He took the magazine out, put it back and pulled the trigger. Again, it just went click.

“One guy said in Afrikaans ‘leave him, he was born with the spirit’.

“I realised then I had a guardian angel, that there is a God.

“Since then, I’ve always had this knowledge that someone is watching over me. That is when I became a Christian.”

Bucket list achievements

He was already politically active when that bucket list of his teenage years was written. full stop It was packed with ‘must dos’.

“I reckon I’ve knocked off close to 40 of them but I keep on adding to the list. It’s probably up to 70 or 80.

“That includes the things I haven’t done. That’s like climbing K2 and going into space. I call them ‘the impossible dream’.

He’s a space junkie. Collecting models of rockets is a hobby.

While Everest will always be “up there” in what he’s achieved, he insists getting a university degree was an even bigger buzz.

 He has a BA in education bolstered by a postgraduate degree in higher education.

 “I’m pretty proud of that. I was the first person in my family to go to university.

“I grew up in a garage until I was 12. We were poor. My father was a labourer.

My mother studied to be a teacher. After she qualified we got our own home.”

As a family the Johnstons spent a lot of time at the beach. It was of course racially segregated.    

“My dad was a keen diver and fisherman.”

Until he was in his early teens Trevor had no inkling his father had a previous interest. It was climbing.

Cupboard find inspires climbing 

“One day I was messing around in a cupboard and found his climbing gear and a scrapbook of his exploits.

“I was in awe. I still get a buzz thinking about it. After that I found the beach boring.”

Trevor turned to the mountains. He was a natural. At 14 he was leading school groups up Table Mountain.

“I got more and more interested in the vertical scene. I was soon rock and ice climbing around South Africa. The Drakensberg mountains have some amazing ice walls.”

Trevor ramped  up his skills in  Europe.

“I was rock climbing in Scotland and Wales, climbing in Chamonix and on Mt Blanc in the French Alps. I absolutely loved it. I have always felt comfortable, really at home in that environment.”

When apartheid ended the world opened up to include South African sportspeople and adventurers.

 Everest beckoned

In 1998 he applied to join the second South African Everest expedition. 

The first claimed one of his countrymen’s lives.

“My sister called me up and said ‘they are calling for people to join this [1998] expedition. You should apply’. “I wrote a one-page letter almost as a joke. Twenty five thousand people applied. It was like auditioning for X Factor.”

Six mountaineers were selected to train on South America’s 6900m Mt Aconcagua, the world’s highest peak outside Asia.

The six were whittled down to two to join the Everest expedition. Trevor was named one of the two.

“I couldn’t believe it. I was stunned. For this dream of mine to climb Everest to come to reality it was mind blowing.

“When they announced my name I slumped to my knees. I was crying, it was  emotional.”

Before being selected for Mt Aconcagua Trevor was visited at the black school where he was teaching by Everest expedition representatives.

“They asked about how I would feel being seen as a token coloured person in the team if I was selected.

“I said ‘I see myself as a human being first and not a symbol defined by colour or politics. That climbing has given me the freedom to express myself with the same feelings and aspirations as anyone regardless of colour’.”

He heard no more until his selection was announced.

‘Delhi belly’ strikes low blow

Trevor and his fellow mountaineers flew to Kathmandu. The plan was for the team to be away for three months but Trevor’s expedition hopes were teetering on the verge of obliteration when ‘Delhi belly’ dealt him a low blow.

“Again someone was looking after me. The expedition was delayed byavalanches blocking the road. I  had time to recover.”

He compares driving across the Tibetan plateau with its towering waterfalls and sweeping views of the Himalayas’ highest peaks to scenes from an Indiana Jones movie.

“It took a week and a half to reach base camp. It was this amazing journey.

“We were looking at this colossal mountain rising out of the Himalayas. It was unbelievably huge. I was quite afraid.

Doubts creep in, climb begins

“It’s one thing to look at magazine pictures of Everest. It’s quite another to actually be looking and it and thinking ‘wow’.

“I had doubts creeping in. I thought ‘This is what I have always wanted but do I want it that bad?’

“I did a lot of meditation, spent time on my own. I told myself ‘This is my dream, it’s now reality’.  I asked ‘How do I take on this challenge?’

“There were graves of two British heroes of mine who’d died attempting to climb this mountain. It was inspiring to be following in the footsteps of my heroes.”

So climb he did, starting out “all eager and excited”.

“I probably got 3kms up the glacier then collapsed like a fish out of water. I spent a couple of days back at base camp licking my wounds.

“Being humble makes you aware of your place in the world and how insignificant you are because of it.”

His climb resumed, much of it alone. Trevor was on his way to Camp Three when he developed a bad cough, a sign of altitude sickness.

It forced him to turn back.

“There aren’t any doctors on Everest. You hope you will get back down and survive.

“Yes, of course I’d have loved to summit but I had no great expectations. I was very pleased with my performance.

“I tried to climb as high as I could without oxygen, with oxygen your chances significantly improve.

“The realities of life weren’t taken away from me. My love of adventure and travel were born out of that climb.”

Life after Everest

After Everest he spent a year in London working for the company that organised the expedition before returning to become a programme director for Educo Africa. It’s an environmentally conscious organisation running programmes for at-risk youngsters .

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu was its patron. The two became friends.

Trevor treasures the letter the “great man” wrote him when he left Educo.  

While with Educo, Trevor led a sponsored expedition of young people infected with HIV to Mt Kilimanjaro. “We summited on Boxing Day 2005.”

There were also sponsored expeditions to peaks in the US and Europe.

“I was always very thankful I saw the word as a climber and an employee.”

By then he had met and married Michelle. Neither was happy with South Africa politically, despite apartheid ending.

Becoming a New Zealander defining moment

They applied for residency in other countries. New Zealand was the first to respond.

“Getting residency here was a defining moment for me. Edmund Hillary had always been my hero.

“When we arrived and showed our passports the immigration officer said ‘Welcome home’.

“I’ve had that sense of belonging since day one. I don’t have a South African passport any more.

“I am fully committed as a Kiwi. I have lived and worked in both the North and South Islands, learned basic te reo Maori to understand the language, culture and indigenous perspective and I support the All Blacks!”

 The exclamation mark is Trevor’s.

“I was liberated in South Africa in 1994 but I gained true freedom in New Zealand.”