I'm South African by descent - my mother and father were born there. I visited South Africa with my elder brother Zola and my father in the summer of 1976 when I was seven years old. It was amazing spending five weeks in such a different culture. In my first week we stayed with relatives on a farm just outside Soweto. I spent the day happily playing with a lamb that was tied up outside the main farm.

That night when we were all having supper in the kitchen, I innocently asked if I could take the lamb for a walk the next day. They said I couldn't, because I was actually eating it. I went pale, pushed my plate away and refused to eat another mouthful.

Although I was too young to know what was going on, we'd actually picked the worst time to visit relatives in Soweto. My brother and I stayed with my aunt there, while my father went away on business for a few days. The Soweto riots started up the day after he left. As a seven-year-old I thought it was incredibly exciting seeing lots of armoured vehicles trundling though the streets. My aunt had to snatch me away when I tried to climb on them and ask where the bullets came out. And my mother was sitting at home seeing the rioting pictures on TV, worried sick about us. I had no idea at that age the deeper significance of what was going on.