Rayne Kruger

Charles Rayne Kruger (29 January 1922 – 21 December 2002) was a South African author and property developer.

Charles Rayne Kruger was born on 29 January 1922 in Queenstown, in the eastern Cape Province, the son of an unmarried 17-year-old daughter of a British Army officer.^[1] As his father had disappeared, his mother married Victor Kruger, a Johannesburg estate agent.^[1] He was educated at Jeppe High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, but was sent down after an escapade with some donkeys and became an articled clerk in a law firm in Johannesburg. During the Second World War, his eyesight was too poor for him to get into one of the armed forces, but he served as a steward aboard a merchant ship, which gave him the material for his first book, Tanker. After the war, he qualified as a lawyer and joined a theatrical company.^[1]

Kruger's first wife was the actress Nan Munro, a widow, 16 years older than him, with three children, including John Gau.^[1] They later divorced, and he married the restaurateur, chef and television presenter Prue Leith.^[1] They had a son, the Conservative, and later Reform UK, MP Danny Kruger,^[2] and adopted a Cambodian daughter, Li-Da.^[1]