Andrew Russell was born in Cape Town in 1964 and grew up as a white South African under the apartheid regime that had been introduced and perpetrated by the National Party following the whites-only election of 1948, in order to control and restrict the movement of black people.

He attended Bishops College, a private school in Cape Town, then the University of Cape Town. Sometimes Andrew finds it bewildering to think that he was born in April 1964, during the Rivonia Trial, and completed his schooling in 1982 – and that for exactly those eighteen years, Nelson Mandela was incarcerated on Robben Island.

After completing a B.Comm degree, a postgraduate diploma in Human Resource Management, and a High School Teaching Diploma, Andrew then completed his two years of National Service, as was compulsory at that time in South Africa for all white males.

Then he taught for eight years, before taking the bold step in 1997 to leave teaching and start his own tourism businesses. The first was Gateway to Newlands, offering guided behind-the-scenes tours of Newlands rugby and cricket stadiums and the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. He then bought a retail travel agency and in January 2000 launched Cape Africa Tours, arranging sporting and cultural tours to South Africa for school, university, and adult groups.

Andrew also launched a sports charity, sport4kids, as a vehicle for distributing the many generous donations of cash and used sporting equipment that his touring sides would leave behind in South Africa.

In July 2018, Christo Brand, Nelson Mandela’s former prison guard who became his lifelong friend, resigned from Robben island Museum after twenty years and asked Andrew to be his business manager, as he set out to establish himself as a full-time storyteller and public speaker.

During Covid lockdown Andrew realised that Christo’s book, Doing Life with Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend, which had been published in 2014, needed updating. He contacted Ethan Casey of Blue Ear Books in Seattle, and together they embarked on a two-year-long journey to produce the updated book. In September 2022, the second edition of Christo’s book was published by Blue Ear Books, with Andrew as the Editor.