Early years and education in England Noni Jabavu was born in
Middledrift in the
Eastern Cape into a family of intellectuals, the marriage of her parents forging a union between two of the most prominent Christian families in the Eastern Cape at the time. Her mother was Thandiswa Florence Makiwane, founder of Zenzele Woman's Self-Improvement Association; Her maternal aunt was
Cecilia Makiwane, the first African registered professional nurse in South Africa and an early activist in the struggle for women's rights. From the age of 13, Noni was educated in
England, under the guardianship of Margaret and Arthur Bevington Gillett (alongside
Mohan Kumaramangalam and his sister
Parvati Krishnan), and she would continue to live there for many years. She later recalled: "Like a typical black child of those days, at 13 I was not too well primed about the negotiations that must have gone on between my parents and my prospective loco-parents, about the life they were planning for me which I was to learn in years to come, was to be a practical demonstration of the generations of friendship between families. I learned then that the plan was for me to be trained as a doctor to serve my people. But it misfired, for a medical doctor was the one thing I didn't want to be. I didn't know what I wanted to be." Jabavu studied first at
The Mount School, York, and later at
London's
Royal Academy of Music. Before the
Second World War she had become uninterested in the Royal Academy of Music and concentrated mostly on left-wing student politics. In 1938, she was at a
Prom concert in the
Queen's Hall that was interrupted to be told of
Neville Chamberlain's "
peace for our time" settlement.
Post-war life: visits to South Africa and memoirs On the outbreak of the Second World War, she gave up studying to be a film technician and trained to become a semi-skilled engineer and oxyacetylene welder, working on bomber engine parts. After the war, she remained in London, where she married
Denis Preston, jazz critic, radio presenter, journalist and record producer. She became a features writer and television personality, and worked for the
BBC as a presenter and as a producer. She paid extended visits to South Africa until her marriage to the English film director
Michael Cadbury Crosfield in 1951. Their marriage broke South Africa's
miscegenation laws and because of the
Immorality Act then in force, he could not accompany her. Thereafter, she also travelled and lived in
Mozambique,
Zimbabwe and
Uganda.
Drawn in Colour was reprinted five times within the first year of its publication, and was also published in Italian in
Milan under the title
Il colore della pelle. She also did editorial work for
The New Strand (the revived version of a century-old monthly renowned for publishing
Conan Doyle), before being selected as its editor, a choice its proprietor Ernest Kay explained by saying: "Miss Jabavu has led such a varied life that she will bring a completely fresh outlook to the magazine. She certainly couldn't be conventional if she tried." She took up the role in December 1961, though resigned after eight months, deciding that she preferred to be a writer than an editor. Describing herself as "a married woman first and a career woman second", Jabavu's second book,
The Ochre People: Scenes from a South African Life, published in 1963, was also a memoir, of which she said: "It is a personal account of an individual African's experiences and impressions of the differences between East and South Africans in their contact with Westernization." It too received acclaim, hailed by critics as "brilliant" and "fascinating".
Later years During time spent in South Africa in 1976–77, researching a book about her father, Jabavu published a weekly column in the
East London (Eastern Cape) newspaper
Daily Dispatch, under the editorship of
Donald Woods. and was buried in East London, South Africa. Her legacy continues as she leaves behind her relatives, Mxolise Jabavu and others. ==Legacy and influence==