CLEANER'S BOY, a resistance road to a liberated life

271pp., b/w & colour illus., paperback, Cape Town, 2022

Patric Tariq Mellet was born in 1956 and grew up in the working class districts of Salt River, Woodstock and District Six. One of 13 children, he spent his childhood in three foster homes, a children’s home and an industrial trades school, and was forced to go out to work when he was 16 years old. In 1978 he went into exile in Botswana and joined the ANC. Later he was deployed to Lusaka, where he established an ANC Printing Press at Makeni, served on the production board of Mayibuye, and worked for Radio Freedom.

In 1981 he was sent to the UK where he worked for the South African Congress of Trade Unions, the International Defence & Aid Fund for Southern Africa and the ANC DIP Printing Press. He returned to South Africa in 1990 and worked in the NGO sector. In 1996 he joined the staff of Parliament of South Africa as Head of Public Relations, and went on to work in various government positions until his retirement in 2015. In 2019 the Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture appointed him to the Governance Council of the South African Heritage Resources Agency.