[1] He was educated in Johannesburg at St Peter's College, also known as the "Black Eton" of South Africa (Oliver Tambo was his mathematics teacher before becoming a lawyer and president of the African National Congress).

[2] Maimane was originally intending to study medicine, when a young priest, Trevor Huddleston (who was involved in the Sophiatown forced removals), persuaded him to take a vacation job at Drum magazine.

[2] The photograph of Maimane in Anthony Sampson's 1956 book Drum: A Venture into the New Africa, "trilby on back of head, cigarette dangling", is an amusing take-off of the Hollywood "newshound" image, but conceals his innate seriousness as a reporter and analyst of the world around him.

[2] Moving in 1961 to London, England, the young editor accepted a position at Reuters and was posted to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as the agency's correspondent in East Africa.

There, Maimane met his second wife, Jenny, and, when he was deported from Tanzania, after refusing the founding editorship of TANU's new daily and for critically reporting political events, the couple returned to London.