The Illustration: Sir Richard of EC1
Every book holds within its pages an adventure – some routine, others less so. When I opened the cover of “In A Rain of Dust, Death, Deceit and the Lawyer who Busted Big Asbestos,” I had no idea what awaited me.1 The tale it told took me to places both familiar and foreign as I revisited a time in my life when two phone lines were barely adequate to deal with all the queries and conversations my job entailed.
In the mid-1990s, a frequent caller was human rights lawyer Richard Meeran who had embarked on what was to become a landmark struggle to hold to account a multinational asbestos conglomerate: Cape Plc. With no prior asbestos experience, Richard was learning as he went and the files and knowledge contained in our archives were to prove highly relevant.
Remember, please, that this was before publications, both important and irrelevant, had been scanned and uploaded to the internet. If you wanted documents you had to dig or befriend someone who had already done so – me!
Reading David Kinley’s new book revealed much that I hadn’t known about the battle waged by Richard and his ad hoc coalition of colleagues, experts and activists. The image which came to mind time and again was one of Don Quixote and Sancho Panzo. The further I got in the book, the stronger the memory was of a framed drawing that had hung on the wall at my Uncle’s house in the 1950s.
 Pablo Picasso sketch of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza (1955). |
When I first saw it, I had no idea what it was or who it was by but for some reason it became lodged in my brain. Now I know it was a sketch by Pablo Picasso but back then I was intrigued but that’s as far as it went.
To turn my idea into an image, I emailed a South African friend Hein du Plessis whose devastating photographs depicting the human cost of Cape’s profits were featured in David Kinley’s book. Hein recommended the artist Ernst du Plessis (no relation). Within hours of our first contact, Ernst had sent me a rough sketch that incorporated and improved on my ideas. The finished product you see below benefited from the input of Richard’s colleagues and family members. It was presented to Richard in London (EC1!) on May 22, 2025 by Laurie Kazan-Allen.
 Original illustration by artist Ernst du Plessis. |
In a press release issued on May 13, 2025 welcoming David Kinley’s new book, veteran ban asbestos campaigner Fernanda Giannasi said:
“The victory achieved in the case brought against a UK company in a UK court on behalf of injured South Africans was a watershed moment as it revealed that huge multinationals could be held to account for crimes committed in foreign countries.”2
This illustration was commissioned on behalf of all those who fight for the rights of the asbestos-injured at home and abroad as a reminder that change is possible.
May 29, 2025
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1 Kazan-Allen, L. A Very Long Wait for Enlightenment. May 15, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/lka-a-very-long-wait-for-enlightenment.php
2 Press Release. A Day to Celebrate! May 13, 2025.
https://ibasecretariat.org/press_release_a_day_to_celebrate.pdf
