Frances was very upset when she returned from her holiday and found herself living at the Lewittons’ house. But at least both she and Pat understood – more or less – where our parents were. Keith was too young to grasp what had happened, and he didn’t want to leave the house. Our Aunt Jean arrived to take Keith to nursery school every morning – but he refused to go. In his little mind, if our parents came home while he was at school they would not know where he was.
Ivan and Lesley Schermbrucker, friends and colleagues of my parents, lived in the street behind us. They had two children roughly the same age as Pat and Frances, and Lesley, who was very fond of Keith, helped to look after him in the afternoons.
We hated the meals at the Lewittons, which were valiantly cooked and supplied by their long-time domestic helper, Muriel. Fuzzy was at work for most of the day and we were left to our own devices after school. It was very different to our home scenario. Although my mom worked, she was usually home by the time we returned from school in the afternoons and, unlike Fuzzy, she was very much a homemaker.
We just had to adjust and get on with it like all the other children of detainees. School and friends provided some normality for all of us. We never spoke to anyone about our miseries and if anyone had ventured to ask us how we were getting on, we would probably just have said, ‘Fine’.
On some days, we went home after school to see Bessie and Claude and to visit our dogs, Fluffy and Muffin, and our cat Tintin. I didn’t like going to the house under these circumstances: it felt empty and wrong but at the same time, I liked to spend time in my room with my own things.
While we were getting used to our changed lives, the women were adjusting to their new circumstances. Instead of cells, the women detainees were put into dormitories comprising two large rooms filled with beds.
The prison authorities were at a loss as to what to do with them. They had little or no experience with a large number of middle class, educated women who stood up for their rights. This was very different from the few white women prisoners they dealt with, the majority of whom were in for petty offences like drunkenness, prostitution or theft.
Most of the wardresses in charge of the women were very young. My mother said many of them were attractive girls but in a short space of time, their faces changed, becoming grim and hard as they shrieked abuse at the women prisoners. The yelling became a habit. They shouted not only at the prisoners but also at each other. The detainees speculated about what made them take such a job. At first the wardresses tended to be hostile to the women, but they were also very curious about them. In the end most of them became friendly.
Right from the start, the women protested about their detention and the conditions in prison.
Saturday, 9 April
We all had a horrible night. The mattresses were just hard lumps of coir, the discomfort of rough blankets, no sheets, and the bilious feeling left by forcing down a few mouthfuls of curried water and potatoes the previous night, left us bleary-eyed and headachy. In addition, many of us had arrived at the Fort after a nightmare ten days of tension and alarms that had become almost unbearable.
We were told to line up for the doctor, and angry and rebellious, we decided to make a fuss about everything
‘Are you fit?’ was his question to each of us in turn. And each of us replied, ‘Yes, we were fit when we came in, but we won’t be if we have to put up with these conditions for long.’
The doctor was balding and middle-aged, with the look of a man who either suffered from a nagging wife or continual indigestion. I told him that many of us were middle-aged women, at a difficult time of life, physically speaking, and felt we couldn’t easily adjust to the prison diet.
The doctor – first of several to tell us the same story – maintains that the prison diet is scientifically worked out to provide all the food-values needed. ‘No one has ever left the prison weighing less than when they came in.’ ‘That’s just the point,’ we say, ‘heaviness is not an indication of good diet or good health.’
He asks me to prepare a memorandum along the lines of which I have spoken to him and says he will pass it on to the authorities concerned. We regard this as our first victory and it proves to be the first of an endless succession of memos, petitions, requests and complaints that are put in writing and passed on – and out of our lives.
Matron raises her gorgeous, heavily painted eyebrows and is annoyed that we didn’t first bring some of our complaints to her.
We are told the Colonel (gaol supervisor) is arriving and we may appoint a deputation to lay our complaints before him. The deputation is Margaret Kalk (our food expert), Shulamith Muller (our lawyer), and Betty du Toit and myself (two who talk too much).
Colonel Le Roux is a khaki-looking, severe, lined, cold man. He starts by telling us we are all detainees and must conform to prison regulations – then he listens to our complaints:
1.That we were denied access to relatives;
2.Our children were left uncared for;
3.We had had no opportunity to delegate powers of attorney;
4.To attend to payment of rent;
5.And so on.
The Colonel began by saying he could say something very rude to us but wouldn’t. He then said it may be possible to see legal representatives, in which case these problems would be dealt with.
Margaret explained she had left two sons, both students, without money, when she and her husband were arrested.
Colonel: ‘You should have arranged these things a year ago.’
Margaret: ‘But I haven’t dabbled in politics for about fifteen years, how was I to know?’
Colonel: ‘Do you mean to tell me you have never dabbled in politics?’
Margaret: ‘No, but I have had nothing to do with any political parties or activities for such a long time, that I had no inkling that I would ever be involved in such a situation.’
The Colonel then abruptly implied that it was our own fault that we were here, and therefore we could expect nothing.
Margaret was not the only person who had long left politics but had now been detained. Several of the other detainees, both men and women, had only ever been marginally associated with anti-government politics or were no longer politically active and were shocked to find themselves suddenly in prison – and with a number of communists, to boot. And initially, they thought the mistake would be rectified and they would be released.
Freda had arrived at Marshall Square immaculately dressed, with earrings and high-heeled shoes, but proved to have failed to pack any change of clothing. ‘Why didn’t you bring anything?’ we asked her. ‘I thought it was all a ghastly mistake,’ she replied.
Before long, the women obtained certain concessions from the Colonel. They were allowed recreation time in the yard outside their cells and some games would be brought in – but no books, of course.
Money could be deposited for them, and the Colonel said he would look into the matter of writing materials and paper, and their jewellery.
They asked again about the food and were told they were receiving the proper diet as laid down in prison regulations for whites.
Margaret: ‘Do you mean to say there are different diets for different racial groups?’
The Colonel: ‘You are making a political question out of this.’
Apartheid affected every part of life, even in the diets of prisoners in South Africa. Prisoners were classified by racial groups – whites, coloureds, Indians and ‘natives’. The black prisoners were given mainly maize porridge (mealie meal) and beans, with meat only once or twice a week. The Indians