Ben Baartman

The Autobiography of a South African Textile Worker

What is SACTU?

• SACTU was founded as the first non-racial trade union co-ordinating body in our country on 5th March 1955.
• SACTU at is formation committed itself and its affiliates and workers to struggle on both economic and political fronts against all forms of oppression and exploitation.
• SACTU through its place in the Congress Alliance, led by the African National Con ­gress, (ANC-SA), shows its total commitment to the destruction of the apartheid regime and to the implementation of the Freedom Charter.
• SACTU's successes in mobilising workers on both trade union and political fronts met with severe repression from the racist regime in the early 1960's. Between 1962 and 1965 hundreds of SACTU activists were banned from trade union work, banished, imprisoned and murdered in apartheid prisons.
• SACTU was forced to find new ways of organising workers. Today SACTU is forced to use every means available to build the strength of the trade union movement in our country. As long as the oppressive apartheid regime exists, where the above-ground trade unions face detention without trial, torture and murder at the hands of the racist police, the occupation of their townships and the brutal strike-busting tactics of the regime and bosses, there wi~always be a need for SACTU.
• SACTU worked for the re-emergence of non-racial trade unions. With their creation in the early 1970's SACTU struggled for the unity of the above-ground unions. SACTU wholeheartedly welcomed the formation of the non-racial Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) at the end of 1985. SACTU views this development as crucial to uniting the South African working class against apartheid.
• SACTU will not rest until there is the maximum unity of all the oppressed people of our country. We will continue to fight for our policy of 'Organising the Unorganised'. Some 4 million workers, many of them in the rural areas, are yet to be organised. Organising these workers is crucial to the continued growth and strength of COSATU.
• SACTU will continue to seek financial, political and moral support from the Interna ­tional Trade Union Movement for the struggle for full trade union and political rights in our country and the implementation of total sanctions against the racist regime.
• SACTU will continue to guide, influence and persuade the trade union movement of our country along the revolutionary course of our struggle.

What can you do?

• Follow the example of the Liverpool dockers, the Irish Dunnes workers and the Dun ­dee seamen - refuse to handle South African goods.
• Demand sanctions now.
• Support the SACTU strike fund.
• Act in unity with SACTU, the ANC, the AAM and all forces against apartheid.
• Invite SACTU to address your unions meetings.
• Campaign for the release of all detained trade unionists through your national trade union.

South African Congress of Trade Unions

8, Flowers Mews, off Archway Close, N19 3TB 01-2813233

The textile workers of South Africa have a proud history of struggle. From the very beginnings of trade union organisation in our industry we have worked for a united, national, industrial union free from racism and discrimination, and dedicated to the emancipation of the South African workers.

We call upon textile workers of our country to read this book and rebuild that unity. Forward to freedom.

Committee member Worcester Textiles Industrial Union	Ben Baartman
N.E.C. Member African Textile Workers Industrial Union	J. Mkwanaz
Gen Sec Textile Workers Industrial Union	R. E. Press
N.E.C. Member African Textile Workers Industrial Union	S. Dlamini
N.E.C. Member Textile Workers Industrial Union	S. Williams
General Secretary African Textile Workers Union	A. Selby
Branch SecretaryT.w.I.u. (Cape Town)	N.Dick
Founding member ofT.W.I.U.	B. Du Toit

Introduction

The Textile Workers Industrial Union, whose long history spans five decades, was tempered in struggle. Throughout time, written accounts about this struggle have appeared, such as Twenty-five Fighting years and Betty du Toil's Ukubamba Amadolo. The primacy of the role played by African workers cannot be over-emphasised in both documents.

It is always refreshing, then, to read a first-hand account of these battles and skirmishes against the bosses. Ben Baartman's book is the story of how he personally participated in this struggle. In those unforgettable years, many lessons were learnt; many fell victim to the cruel blows of the bosses and the apartheid state they represent. In all the trials and tribulations, victories and losses, what becomes undeniable is that this impulse forged a philosophy and a weapon for the liberation of the workers, for the liberation struggle in our country.

The Textile Union was a founding member of the South African Congress of Trade Unions in 1955. It played a very important role in establishing the principles upon which the trade union movement in South Africa has rested ever since: that the union belongs to every worker irrespective of race, colour, creed or sex; that economic struggle is inextricably bound with the political struggle; that the struggle of the workers - especially African workers - for freedom is part and parcel of the struggle of all people, and that unity created in action can usher in victory.

This is what makes Ben Baartman's book so instructive and, in these troubled times of our advance towards victory, immensely compelling.

There may be instances in this book where slight inaccuracies in cronologies appear. The book however is based directly on interviews with Comrade Ben Baartman and as few alterations as possible have been made during editing so as not to change the flavour of his recollections.

Thanks are due to International defence and aid fund for assistance in the publication of this book.

Autobiography of Ben Baartman

Based on interviews transcribed and edited by Margaret Ling

I was born on 1 March 1924 in the small country town of Molteno in the Eastern Cape . Similar small towns - Jamestown , Queenstown, Steynsburg, Burgersdorp, Alwal North - dot the flat landscape of wheat, cattle and sheep farms owned by white farmers.

In those days, more than 60 years ago, life for black people in the area was hard. There was no work for the thousands of people living around the white farms, except by working for the farmers themselves. My own father was in the same situation as everyone else, moving from white farm to white farm, from one job to another, Kroonstad, East London , and Molteno itself.

For black children whose parents worked on the farm, there was no chance of schooling. There were schools in towns such as Molteno, but farms might be 15,20 or even 50 miles away from such centres. It was simply assumed that when children grew up, they would work on the farms as their parents had done before them.

Things were very hard for us Africans. We were a family of seven, five boys and the last two girls, and my father was the only breadwinner. He worked for a white farmer, driving a tractor, milking, looking after the livestock. His wage was £1.10 shillings a month, plus a ration of mealie meal, a tin of milk, paraffin, sugar, coffee or salt - it depended on how the farmer sympathised with his workforce.

That was a standard wage in those days. It would be a very lucky man who got £2 a month. It was very hard to survive, but possible - after all, here we are today. But quite often we would find ourselves going to sleep without food.

The standard fare in all African homes was mealie meal, or maize porridge.

It was prepared in various guises - plain porridge, thick porridge, sour porridge - but always porridge. My father, like other black farmworkers, was allowed by his boss to keep a number of cows: the boss took the cream, and our family had the skimmed milk to mix with our porridge. The same kind of system operated for land ploughed by the black worker: the boss took a percentage of the bags of maize or other crops produced, in lieu of rent.

Every two or three months a sympathetic white farmer might slaughter a sheep to divide among his workers, maybe 18-20 families. Occasionally there was beef as well. We were always happy when a cow died on the farm, because we knew then that we would get some meat.

Those families who owned their own livestock might slaughter a beast from time to time and take the meat to town to raise a little extra cash. I used to see the men going up and down the main road with their animals and I began to be a nuisance, continually asking my father and mother 'Why?'. I was at an age, 8 or 9, when I was beginning to notice what was happening around me, and to know that 'this is right' and 'this is wrong' .

The white farmers in the area were opposed to their black workers owning more than a minimum of livestock, because it meant competition for grazing land. After the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, the 1913 Native

Native Land Act had been brought in to ensure that the black man never had anything, by restricting access to land and livestock and so destroying the basis of the traditional rural economy. The black man was to die a worker for the white man, because if you have got your own cattle, if you are ploughing your own land, then you'll be looking after your own and you won't need to work for the white farmer. They needed us to work, and the Native Land Act was a way of destroying our independence.

A Chance to go to School

My father, like other black agricultural workers, tended to keep on the move, shifting from farm to farm in search of a better wage and improved conditions. It was not easy to change employers, and workers tended to travel long distances to get right away from a previous employer into an area where they were unknown.

When I was 8 or 9 years old, my family were living in Kroonstad and I remember father telling us "We are going to live in East London ". His employer liked father; he had sold out a farm in Kroonstad and wanted to take father with him to a new farm in East London .

I can remember the name of my father's boss to this day: Mr Reynolds. They used to say he was Scottish. His new farm was a dairy farm, with many black and white milk cows, and many workers. Father was to be assistant to Mr Reynolds' white foreman. He learned to drive a truck to take the milk to town and his wage improved. He was now getting £3 a month, and the rations improved as well.

The journey from Kroonstad to East London passed through my birthplace, Molteno. Father took us to the station in an ox-wagon, putting my mother and us children on the evening train before returning to the farm with the wagon. He and Mr Reynolds followed us to East London by car after winding up affairs on the old farm.

The new farm was some distance from the town of East London itself, across the Nahoon river. After settling in, I and my brothers began to attend school in a small town called Cambridge , outside East London . Together with a few other children from the farm, we had to walk the 15 or 16 miles to Cambridge , getting up at three o'clock in the morning and walking as fast as we could to get to school on time. Sometimes we got so tired that we didn't even reach the school, we just sat down in the forest. Our journey back home was slower because we used to play on the way, and we only reached home at eight or nine at night.

School was expensive too, because my parents, like other black families, had to pay school fees, with expenses for books and materials on top of these. But after some time a better solution came along, when uncles living in East London offered to take me into their home to enable me to attend school in the big town.

I don't quite know why I was chosen rather than any of my brothers. I think that in any family, whether it be 10, 11 or 20 children, there will be one who is especially loved, and I was the favourite one. Anyway, attending school was now very easy and I remember liking it. I passed Standard One and, after some years, Standard Two.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, father was orgamsmg to build a church together with others in the surround area. He was a kind of preacher and under his leadership, the church was completed and they went on to start a school for the youngest children. Two teachers, a man and a woman, were engaged and my brothers started to attend. My sisters, who had been born after we moved to East London , were still too small, however.

Return to Molteno

In 1936 or '37, when I was 12 or 13 years old, my father decided to go back to Molteno again. By this time we children were grown up and we decided to corner him. "Why do you keep going from farm to farm father?" we asked.

His reply was that he wanted to buy his own house in the township and look for a better job. His wage of £3 a month was a good one for those days and he was able to save quite a lot of it. Things were very cheap: a vest for a grown-up might be 10 or 15 pennies, a loaf of bread would be three or four pennies.

When we returned to Molteno we stayed to begin with on my grandfather's farm about 10-12 miles outside the town. We were there for a few months, walking into Molteno to attend school, until my father bought a house for us in the township. It was just a single room, divided into two parts by father, and we lived there with mother while father went off to seek work. After a while we received a letter to say that he was now working as a lorry driver delivering oranges. He used to send money to us every two or three months, sometimes £2, sometimes £3.

Mother had no alternative but to go and work for a white woman while we were attending school. My first brother decided to take a contract to go and work in the goldmines. There was no work in the area, and people had to go to the big towns, the gold and coal fields, and to the suger plantations. The problem was getting a permit.

My brother was about 19 when he left home, when I was about 14. It was not very long before my second brother followed him, and they have never returned to this day. I could see that things were getting very hard for mother; she was getting about 15 shillings a month, and she couldn't maintain us. My two brothers weren't writing to us or helping us, and so I decided that I was going to leave school.

When I left school I was 15; my first sister was about three or four - I remember that she was born in 1936 because it was the year of the war in what was then Abyssinia - and my little sister was just a baby. My mother was very upset at my decision, because I was the favourite at home and, even while we were still at East London , there had been talk of how one of us children must go as far as he could manage at school- and that one was to be me. My parents could see that I was braver than my brothers because I used to ask so many questions. My mother used to talk to me about it; about how she and my father hoped for a child who would boost the family's name by becoming a minister, a teacher or a lawyer. She wanted me to stay on at school as long as possible and then go to Lovedale College to study to be a minister.

My mother was so upset, in fact, that she arranged for the principal of my school to come and try to change my mind. But I was quite decided - I was going to leave.

My first job

Even before I left school, I had been helping out at home by working as a caddie on the local nine hole golf course, where I would earn about a shilling. Others worked during out-of-school hours as garden boys in white homes. I knew enough about the system to know that I didn't like it and already by the time I left school I was fed up with things. I could see that our fathers were being exploited and oppressed. I could see the people travelling up and down the roads looking for work and unable to fund it - whole families, mothers, fathers, children and livestock, travelling until the livestock were gone and the families homeless. I could see that it was a painful thing. A child might die on the road, and then the father would have the problem of finding a place to bury it. To notify the authorities of the death would mean exposing the whole family to officialdom, and they were probably travelling illegally, without permits to be in the area. So during the day the body would have to be concealed and then buried secretly at night on a farm.

I was very conscious of the way in which white people lived, and I used to ask mother "Why do you work under a white woman?" She did domestic work, cleaning the house, washing and all that kind of thing. When I came out from school I used to go to that house and play with the white children of the family. We played as children, but because I was much older than them I used sometimes to make them cry by hitting them. The missus used then to intervene and tell me "You are playing rough. These are white children. You as a black child mustn't hit white children".

One day I got so fed up I decided not to visit that house again, and this is how it happened. I arrived one day to find my mother in the kitchen with the white woman, baking a cake. I rushed in - remember I was only a child - "Hello mamma" I said, "Good afternoon mamma, and good afternoon, other mother". I think my mother and her mistress had already been having a talk, and that the missus had asked my mother to tell me to greet her first. So when I came in my mother said "Look Kopi my child, look. You must change your attitude. You must know that this house is for missus. Missus is bigger than us. First of all when you come here you must greet missus. You can see that she is great for us, because she is giving us nice things. We are living in our home today because miss us is giving me pay and other things.

So from now on you greet this mother and you greet me last".

The missus herself agreed with my mother, "Yes, yes. And when you play with the small baases you must respect them, they are white".

I had a shock. I couldn't reply. I was really demoralised by this etiquette. Why should my mother tell me to greet another woman who is bigger than herself? I took a cake and went outside and sat down to eat it. I remember thinking "I don't like this." I decided not to come again to the house. My white friends came to play but I was not happy, I just vanished. I went home, leaving my mother. She arrived back at sunset, full of questions. Why had I left? The children were looking for me everywhere and the missus was prepared to give me more cake. "Mother", I said, "I didn't like what you told me this afternoon. Why must I respect that other mother more than you? I reckon that you are my mother. There is no other mother who is bigger than you. The other one is a second mother, not mine but the mother of Jan whom I played with. I have taken a decision, I am not going there again." And I didn't.

Even before I had left school I had found a job with the boss whose golf clubs I carried as a caddie. He was prepared to employ me as a garden boy. And so I went to work, earning ten shillings a month. I also got three meals a day and sometimes I could earn an extra ten pence by caddying for my boss, which I would use to buy food for home. This was how all the children of my district grew up, finding jobs in shops or in the big town to earn enough money to put shoes on their families' feet and clothes on their backs.

Contract Labour

But it didn't last long. After barely six months as a garden boy I decided to give it up, and follow my brothers by taking a nine month contract in the gold mines of Johannesburg . I wanted to better myself. And I had started to have a hatred of seeing things that were wrong.

The house where I worked as a garden boy was just opposite a police station and I used to see how the sergeant treated people, hitting them with his sjambok. I would be in the garden and I could hear them, maybe old people, crying out as they were being beaten and accused. And the following morning after such incidents I would hear stories of how the victims of beatings had died. I would see the wife and family come to fetch the body and I decided to leave and look for work elsewhere.

The other thing was seeing the pride of other boys, coming from the big towns or the mines wearing much better clothes bought with their earnings. Or others with bicycles - it was a great thing seeing a person riding a bicycle. And so I decided to go and be recruited as well.

My mother was, naturally, upset. "I don't like this as at all", she told me.

"You have disappointed me. Time and again we had a wish that you would go to school" .

"Now, mother, look" , I said. "When I took this decision I took it deep down in my heart. I'm going to follow my brothers and seek them out. But I will never lose touch with you like they have -unless I die underground. But as long as I'm still alive, I'll be coming back home. I'm going to help you and my two brothers and sisters still at home - we can see if one of them can have a better education as a result."

And so I took the train from the Eastern Cape to Johannesburg , a whole day and a night's journey, to work in the Springs Mine. I was 16 years old, but I was tough, and I was able to forge my age to the recruiters. I told them I was 18, which was the minimum age for working on the mines.

When we reached Johannesburg all the new recruits congregated at a place called Mzilikazi. They came from the former British Protectorates - Lesotho , Botswana , Swaziland - and from the Transkei and other 'homelands'. It was my first visit to a big city, with all its people and cars, and I was excited by the prospect of going underground and working for my mother.

When we arrived we had to strip naked, go into the shower and be examined by doctors. When the doctor saw me he called over: "Hey boy, come over here. Tell me the truth, how old are you?"

"I'm eighteen", I said.

"No you're not, you're telling me a lie."

I knew in reality that I was sixteen, going on seventeen, but I pretended to the doctor that my mother had told me that I was eighteen. It was no use. "Look, I'm not going to allow you to go underground", he said, "I'm going to put you on surface."

I was so disappointed. All my own home boys were going underground and were going to get better money than me. For surface shifts we used to get one shilling, eight pence for eight hours work, so at the end of the month we would get £2-something. But if you went underground you got two shillings and some pence per shift, so at the end of the month you got about £3.

Springs was a gold mine, and working on the surface involved a lot of different things. I began to learn a lot about the different stones coming from underground on belts, which we had to clean and sort. It was now 1941, and I worked there on surface for nine months.

Like everyone else, I lived in the compound, where the conditions were horrible. People were accommodated according to their tribes, Tswanas, Zulus, Xhosas, Shangaans and so forth. In the room where I lived there were 48-50 men packed together, sleeping in three tier cement beds. We weren't given any mattresses, and if you had just arrived as a new person you had no money to buy one. You had to sleep on your clothes and the one blanket you had brought with you, unless you could find people who were going home who would sell you their mattress.

Admission to the compound was for men only, and the single gate was guarded by the compound police. Food was cooked in the kitchen and you went with your plate to collect it. It was the same menu every day: porridge and a kind of soup made with meat, tomato, onion, carrot and sweet potato all thrown into the water together, served to you when you came off shift. Many people went outside the compound to buy bread and meat to do their own cooking in small pots in their rooms. The food in the kitchens and some of the working clothes, especially for those who were going underground, were provided free - jacket, rubber knee protectors and lamp. But you had to buy your own trousers and shirt, rubber boots and shoes.

After nine months, I went home. I had been sending money home, about one or two pounds at a time, and I arrived back with about £7 or £8. I didn't stay long, but returned to Springs, this time to go underground.

First contact with the union

It was now 1942, and a number of pamphlets were beginning to make their appearance and to circulate around the mine. They were advertising the African Mineworkers Union, or the African National Congress, or even the Communist Party of South Africa. I would read about their meetings, and I beian to wonder how I could make contact with the people and officers concerned I noticed especially the name of J B Marks - he was either the president or the secretary of the African Mineworkers Union.

One afternoon I was just coming from the store when I heard a microphone calling people to a meeting outside the compound. It was a very big meeting. I listened carefully as the chairman opened the meeting and explained that it was being called by the African Mineworkers Union. The main speaker was J B Marks himself. We used to call him 'father', although his light complexion gave him an appearance quite different from other fathers we were used to. He was an African, but he looked like a Coloured person. He stood up to issue his call to the mineworkers, and I can remember his words to this day. He appealed to us to first of all join the African Mineworkers Union, and then to form our own committee. Once united, he told us, we would be able to confront our employers with our grievances, to win better wages, better treatment, and the replacement of the compounds by a system through which families could join workers. The gold miners were so numerous, he told us, that if necessary we could force our employers and the Chamber of Mines to agree to our demands by going on strike.

I listened very carefully to what J B Marks was saying. I was happy in my heart. "Yes", I said to myself, "I'm meeting the right people, those who say we must come together, and unite and fight for better conditions and better wages." It was the general reaction: people started to shout with approval. It was the first political meeting I had ever been to; I had been to church meetings and football and rugby matches, but never anything like this. I was so interested that when J B Marks sat down and the chairman appealed to people to join the union, I looked in my pocket and found that I just had the 25 pence needed to join. So many others had the same idea that there were two queues to two different membership secretaries.

I got my card and I was elated. I felt that everything was going to happen tomorrow. I started to follow up the meeting, attending other meetings at other mines. It was not possible to organise openly inside the compound; the police had many collaborators among the men, and I started to campaign alone. One day after lunch I started to address the men who lived in the same room as myself. I was only 18, and after a while they started to shout me down. "Sit down, young chap, you're talking nonsense!"

"Look at you, young as you are, and here working for your family and your brothers and sisters - now you're telling people like us to join the African Mineworkers Union!"

There was no one else in the room where I lived who belonged to the union - I was alone. I used to visit other houses in the compound where I had friends and talk about the union, and in time this got me noticed by the 'indunas', the officials responsible for keeping order, preventing compound fights and so on. One day I was called over by the indunas. "Sit down young chap", I was told. "We've had information that you've been giving trouble here. You've been boasting about your union card and telling people to join the African Mineworkers Union. You must stop this, or we'll beat you and chase you out of the compound.

I felt a little bit scared, but it didn't stop me organising.

Opposition at home

In 1945, I went home again to Molteno. By this time I was working on a different gold mine, the West Rand . As soon as I arrived I started being in trouble again, going round among the people talking about my favourite topic, the African Mineworkers Union, and urging them to join. "If we can come together we can beat these boers", I used to tell them. My spirits were high.

One day mother called me over. "Look", she said, "I've been told by the sergeant at the police station that I must stop you. You want to give trouble here and to provoke the people. You must stop this my child, forget about these things that you've learnt in the big towns."

Her warnings didn't have much effect. One day I went along to a meeting called by the Advisory Board for the municipality of Molteno - comprised of people prepared to collaborate with the government. I was grown up by now, and quite prepared to stand up and ask questions.

The chairman of the meeting, an old man, explained that it had been called because the town council had decided various new laws to be applied to the township, and the Board was appealing to the people to observe them. I stood up, full of confidence. "Chair", I said, "I want to ask you a few questions. As a young person who has grown up in Molteno, please can you explain to me exactly what the Advisory Board is, and how you came to be elected?"

"You've been telling us about the laws that have been made by the councillors, the administrators of this township. Can you tell me how many of us, the people, were there when these laws were made? Can't we make laws for ourselves?"

I was acquiring some notoriety by this time, and the chair reacted angrily. "Sit down" he said. "Where have you come from with your rude and silly questions, .accusing us of being collaborators and of working with the system?"

But the other youngsters at the meeting, my contemporaries, started saying, "No, no, chair, he's right." "I'm supporting the questioner", one said, "because we're lost, we don't know what's happening. We don't know how you've been elected. We're grown up now, we're your sons and we think we're going to change the system."

The meeting by this time was getting quite rowdy, and my questions weren't answered. "I can't answer these questions today" the chairman said. "I'll call another meeting at which the superintendent will be present to answer them."

But the next day I was called to the police station. They had been to the police and reported my presence at the meeting, and the trouble I had caused. "We have heard about you", the sergeant told me. "You are growing up badly. You want to spoil the people. Why? These aren't the mines here, you know. Stop your nonsense."

He backed up what he was saying with his sjambok - very painful. "OK boss", I told him, "I'll stop". But I didn't.

Back to Johannesburg

The last time I returned to Johannesburg on contract was in 1946. This time I found myself in the midst of a general strike being called by the African Mineworkers Union throughout the gold mines. There were leaflets all over the country, urging people to support the strike. Many had joined the AMU by this time, particularly those like myself coming on contract from small towns and farms all over South Africa . Those who came from outside the country, or from the reserves, tended to stay on the sidelines.

The strike was suppressed all over the mines and at Springs, where I was working, the police arrived with dogs and horses. We were chased into the compound, and we couldn't move. Out came the sjamboks to stop us going to the meeting which had been called by the AMU to decide on strike action the following day. The strike was widely supported by the mineworkers, whether or not they were actually members of the AMU. You didn't need to be a member to understand the issues. We agreed with the demands being put forward by the union leadership because they reflected our grievances: better conditions; better wages; better food; the abolition of the compound system - people must be allowed to bring their families with them to work; the abolition of the system of beating people underground by the baas boys and the foremen.

In the Springs mine, owned by the Anglo-American Corporation, the strike was suppressed before it could even begin. But elsewhere the workers carried on.

On the morning after the police action, we were collected by the compound and mine police, and taken to the compound manager. Those of us in the group had been named as organisers and inciters, and we were given a warning by the white manager. He pointed a finger at me: "I had a report about you Ben", he said. 'I think I'll just give the others a warning, but you are not going to work in this mine any more. I've decided to chase you away - go back home. You've been giving us a headache with this union of yours."

It was the end of my days as a gold miner. I arrived back home at the end of 1946, seven months into my contract. My mother, naturally, was none too pleased. "I told you, my child" she said. "Why couldn't you stop all this?"

But I had decided to go in the opposite direction from the Rand and the Transvaal- to the Western Cape, I had never been to Cape Town, but people I knew from Molteno were working in Western Cape, especially in Worcester, especially in Worcester, an industrial town more than 40 miles before you reached Cape Town itself and about two days journey by train from Molteno.

My mother was worried. How was I going to get a pass? How would I find accommodation? But I reasoned with her: "look mother, this town is too small for me now. The boers can find me here and kill me."

She agreed, and gave me the address of people we used to know in East London , now living in Langa, outside Cape Town . "They are very Christian people" she said, "they will be able to help you."

Arrival in Worcester

I stayed for three or four weeks with the family in Langa, but I had no pass, only the receipt for my poll tax. To get around the influx control laws and to get permission to work I needed both documents. So I decided to move to Worcester , where I knew there were home boys from Molteno whom, because it was a much smaller place than Cape Town , it would be easier to find. It was now the middle of 1947.

I had to sell my coat to raise the train fare to Worcester , but I arrived. It was early in the morning, and 1 decided to go to the station restaurant for a tea or a coffee. There, working in the restaurant, 1 found one of my home boys! At 6 am he knocked off and we went to the township. Here 1 felt at home, being welcomed by people I knew. They organised a pass for me - it was not an easy thing and had to be done illegally, by bribing the clerks. You could even bribe the whites in charge, the pass control officers.

A new company was being opened in Worcester, the Worcester Retreading and Vulcanizing Co (Pty) Ltd, and I went to work there for six years. I was employed as a 'tyre buffing boy', operating the machine which scraped off the surface of the old tyres prior to retreading. This was now the start of a new phase in my career, among people who were very politically active and aware.

Involvement in Nationalist Politics

When I arrived in Worcester I met a friend called Joseph Mposa. Like me he came from Molteno, but was now living in Worcester with his mother, brothers and sisters. We used to chat together, and one day he told me that he was the secretary of the Vigilant Association in the township. This was a self-help group of people elected by the township residents to represent them to the administration and to take up their grievances. It served as a counter to the official Advisory Board, which was also supposedly elected but in practice comprised people selected by the administration and prepared to collaborate with the system.

The Vigilant Association, in other words, was involved in political work.

Joseph Mposa invited me to join in its activities, and I was made welcome. Even here in Worcester I was boasting about my membership of the African Mineworkers Union and the people I had met in Johannesburg , such as J B Marks. In no time I became a committee member.

Joseph Mposa was also a member of the African National Congress.

Although I had seen ANC pamphlets at Springs, it was the first time I had met a member, and I asked him to explain its work. "It seems to me that these people are at one with J B Marks and the others I have met," I told him. "That's correct", Mposa said, "they are all fighting oppression and the exploitation of us black people."

The ANC committee in Worcester was going to organise a public meeting, with speakers from Cape Town . Joseph offered to introduce me to the committee, and so I joined the ANC. The membership fee in those days was half a crown. It was supposed to be levied monthly, but if you couldn't pay, you still got the membership card.

I joined the ANC soon after my arrival in Worcester , in 1947, and I began to learn many things. Although I was not a union member now, I used to discuss trade union matters with my friends in the ANC, many of whom worked in the textile industry. This was a major industry in Worcester , employing more than 2,000 African and Coloured workers and drawing its wool supplies from all the white farmers around. My friends were members of the Textile Workers Industrial Union (TWIU).

I wanted to be involved. As an organiser and a confirmed trouble maker, I felt that I could be more effective in the textile industry. There was no union organisation at the Worcester Retreading Company, where there were barely 20 workers and I was the only one keen to form a trade union. It was not easy to organise here. I decided to resign from my job as tyre buffing boy, and I went to work in the textile mills. It was now 1953.

Unity in Action

Immediately I started work in the textile mill, I joined the TWIU. Now I was among people who were progressive.

We were very lucky in Worcester , in that part of the Western Cape . We were staying together in our own townships, and the Coloureds, although in a separate township, were not far away. There was a marvellous unity among the African and Coloured people.

We decided to organise to fight the government's Native Settlement of Disputes Act, which laid down that we could not have trade unions and under apartheid laws we could not go on strike. The Coloureds, who were in a majority in Worcester , were allowed to go on strike. But in the factories where we worked, the African and Coloured workers were all mixed up together, all doing the same sort of jobs.

I was now a member of both the ANC and the Textile Workers Industrial Union, and the two organisations didn't have separate ways of working. You would find that the leaders in the trade union were also leaders in the ANC. The Coloureds had their own organisation, the Coloured People's Congress, which was linked to the ANC. If they had a committee meeting or if they had any problems, they used to invite us along. Problems involving the workers were discussed by the trade union leaders together to see how the issue could be tackled. If there was to be a political campaign, the heads of the ANC and the Coloured People's Congress used to come together. There was no squabble among us. The important thing was that campaigns should be successful and that the government's efforts to incite and use its collaborators were countered and kept under control.

The Hex River Textile Mill

The Hex River Textile Mills were controlled by a French company and the people in charge were French. The working conditions weren't too bad; African and Coloured workers together looked after the weaving, washing and dyeing machines, and the two groups received the same wages. The foremen were white South Africans, but over them, working in the laboratories and in managerial roles, were French staff imported into the country. While we didn't have too many problems working with them, we had some grievances, notably over wages, which were very poor. They ranged from about £3 a week, which was my own wage, up to the lucky ones who were getting about £5 a week. That was very low for the time, and that was why in launching the strike we had a campaign to demand a £ a day. It became in fact a national campaign of S.A. C. T. U.

We also demanded various benefits, such as the provision of work overalls.

And we wanted a fair deal from the white South African foremen, to stop them kicking us around and dismissing people without any reason. We already had our own committee and we wanted recognition of the union and proper discussions of grievances between employers and employees.

At that time, the workers in the Worcester area had a militant reputation.

One reason for this was the unity of the leadership in the area, both African and Coloured. There was a real sense of team spirit, and of the need to lead people honestly and to consult them. Decisions could be taken by the executive or in committee, but then the leadership ought to present a united front in explaining it to the people at a public meeting and inviting their comments.

We had whites working with us too. We were very close to Cape Town and many of us had learned our politics with the help of the leadership of the Congress of Democrats. I have to take my hat off to them. They often visited Worcester and we used to invite them whenever we had a public meeting. In return we would attend their public meetings in Cape Town . Whenever we had a campaign we would see how we could work together.

Wolfie Kodesh, Fred Carneson, Brian Bunting, Sam Kahn (who was elected to the Cape Town parliament) Nancy Dick - they were all active in Cape Town .

The principle was always that the leadership should work together and discuss issues together. You can never go it alone. If you are to have a successful campaign, you need a campaign committee to run it which will be dissolved when the bus boycott or whatever it is is over.

At the textile mill we had a committee of African and Coloured workers - we were as one. When the Coloured workers decided to strike in March 1956, it was with the agreement and approval of the African workers, and it was agreed that the latter, who did not have a legal right to strike, would carry on working.

Even before I resigned from the Worcester Retreading Company I had been used to attending meetings of the Textile Workers Industrial Union, of which many of my ANC colleagues were active members. When I went to work at the mill I became a trade union organiser and a member of the committee very quickly.

The Textile Workers Industrial Union was recognised by our employers at that stage. We ran a subscription system which paid for an office in town and permanent paid staff. The secretary was called Mangali.

The March 1956 Strike

The success of our strike action owed much to the fact that we were as one.

When we decided on defiance, we agreed that the Coloureds would start the ball rolling. We would see that no African worker would take advantage of the fact that they were on strike by coming to take their jobs at the mill. And we never saw a single Coloured person coming to look for work while the strike was on either.

We had three shifts at the mill: 6am to 2pm , 2pm to l0pm and l0pm to 6am .

It was agreed that the African workers would continue to operate the machines. It was difficult; while I previously operated two machines, now I had to operate about four, with the help of others who weren't operators. After three weeks on strike a notice appeared, that all the Coloured workers had been dismissed. The management was not prepared to accept their conditions, and negotiations had broken down. The notice stated that the Coloureds should collect their wages and go, and that new recruits were to be organised to fill their places.

Now the strike was on in earnest. The onus was on us Africans, and we took an immediate stand by calling a meeting. The message was passed from ear to ear as we were working: "This meeting must be tonight, at midnight ". We didn't want any collaborators or informers to hear the decisions we were about to take. The meeting had to be restricted to African textile workers and the representatives of the Coloured strikers, and so the arrangements were made very quietly.

A Midnight Rendezvous

I was working on night shift at the time, 10pm to 6am . The meeting was to be held at midnight , in a forest. All the footpaths leading to the spot were to be guarded by volunteers, who would challenge each and every person passing along to check that they were textile workers. Those who weren't from the mill would be turned back.

How was I to attend this meeting? I was going to be at work. My Afrikaner foreman was a very young chap, but progressive, and I had developed a relationship with him. At about llpm I went to him: "Look", I said, "we're having a meeting tonight. I can't tell you how or where, but I hope you won't mind if I just slip out to attend." We were having problems of manpower shortage, but he replied, "No, you're right. You must go to the meeting and I'll stop two machines and operate two others with help from the other hands."

I had heard that the meeting was going to start at about a quarter past or twenty past eleven , so at half past I slipped out and rushed to the meeting. "You're late!”, the volunteers guarding the forest paths exclaimed. "The workers are already working!"

In the darkness it was impossible to see who was speaking but I could hear the chairman's voice announcing the decision that was being taken. "The decision is this", he was saying, "tomorrow morning: down tools! We are joining our Coloured brothers! We won't allow management to dismiss them, because what they have been demanding is what we want. We are with them."

I listened to what was being said, and then it was my turn to speak: "Point of order, Mr Chairman!"

"Oh yes Ben, it's you. I can hear your voice - you're late! What are you saying?"

"No", I said, "I have no quarrel with the decision. The decision is right. I've listened very carefully and I want to suggest something. It's this: that when we as Africans join our Coloured brothers tomorrow morning, the first shift shouldn't stay outside the security fence with the Coloured strikers, but should go straight inside to the administration office, and hold a sit-in. When the night shift knocks off at 6am , they can join the day shift in demanding that the management comes and addresses us. We will force the management to guarantee that no-one will be dismissed - we want the Coloureds back at work and our conditions met, a £ a day and all the other demands."

The Coloured strikers up to now had been spending the whole day outside the mill's security fence as a kind of picket. I was concerned that the reasons why the African workers were now going on strike should be made very clear to management, and that we must insist on the reinstatement of the Coloured strikers. We must not be seen as just another lot of strikers, but as people complaining about the dismissal of the Coloured workers, and taking solidarity action. It was essential that management had a very clear understanding of this.

A United Strategy

My suggestion was accepted. At 6am the night shift knocked off and gathered in front of the administration offices. The day shift who were due to take over from us joined in the action. Time passed, 7, 8, 9am , the whites arrived and went to their jobs. But everything was at a standstill, even the boilers, because when we had knocked off from night shift we had switched off all the machines.

We had already chosen our spokesman, so that when the assistant manager arrived and came over to us we put our position clearly. "We see our Coloured friends and comrades at the gate, why have they been dismissed? We want them to be reinstated and back to work, failing which, down tools. We are not going to touch anything unless this matter is sorted out today. "

We had to have the dispute resolved quickly because we as Africans would soon start suffering. The management's response was to say, "Yes, we understand your point. But the question of the dismissal of the Coloureds, and the grievances you are putting forward, can be discussed while you are operating the machines. Go back to work as usual. You have your committee and we can discuss with it."

We weren't going to be caught like that. "No", we said. "Our grievances are the same as those of the Coloureds. We are only interested in discussing them when they are back at work, side by side with us."

So now we clashed. In the management's view it was quite clear that we were on strike the same as the Coloureds. "OK" we said. "If you put it like that, yes, we are on strike. The matter must be sorted out now!"

The management went back inside the office to meet among themselves. We were sitting under the trees and I remember the sun was hot. It was now midday , when the message reached us through our Coloured friends that the police were organising themselves. The police station was full and they were waiting for more police to arrive from outlying stations. The management had clearly handed over the issue to the police and something was now going to happen.

Now we could see the police trucks and vans arriving, led by two or three big shots from the police force. We stood up, singing our freedom songs. "Unzima Lomtwalo" ("The burden is heavy") we sang. The trucks stopped inside the factory, outside the administration office. The police took up their position all around us, and a district commissioner came forward. "Gentlemen", he said through his interpreter, "we have heard what is happening here. You as Africans have no right to strike. You must go back to work as the management suggested and negotiations can continue with your committee. I'm giving you five minutes to decide. Those who are not on shift must go home."

Our interpreter stood up. "Look" he said. "You are just a policeman. You should just do your work. We have made a decision which we are not going not discuss with you."

The five minutes passed. "Three minutes", said the commissioner. "This is my last warning. Three minutes or you're all going to be arrested!"

We were all quite ready for this. Even before the three minutes were up, we ourselves opened the trucks and got in. There were more than 1,000 of us.

The police, standing around with their guns, were shocked. They had probably been expecting that they would have to push us into the trucks, but all they had to do was come over and shut the doors on us. "Lock us in", we said, and away we drove to the police station.

Overflowing Cells

There were lots of police at the station yard. They stopped the Coloured prisoners from coming over and joining us. Then tables were set up, and the long process of opening dockets and taking names began. Close to 1,000 workers had already been arrested from the night and morning shift, and we were still expecting the third shift to join us.

At 2 o'clock we heard singing coming down the street from the 2pm to 10pm shift. They were marching towards the police station, trying to get themselves arrested. The police were under orders: on no account were they to be allowed in. "We are not going back to work", the third shift declared. "We are coming to join our brothers."

We were now taken to the cells, joining the ordinary prisoners. There were so many of us that the cells were packed, and none of us slept that night. We passed the time sitting up, singing. The next morning we refused to go and wash: there was no soap, no wash towels, nothing. We refused the breakfast provided. A few minutes later we were taken out of the cells and told that people outside had brought food for us: the Coloureds had made a big breakfast for us, and we went into the yard and all ate together.

At about 10 o'clock the cells were opened again, and we went out into the yard to find that tables had been set up and a court was being prepared inside the gaol. The magistrate arrived together with our own defence lawyer, the late Lionel Forman. It was not difficult in South Africa in those days to arrange defence, there were people specialising in this. The charges brought against us were of taking part in an illegal strike under the amended Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act and the prosecution asked for the case to be postponed for one week. Bail was to be about £3 per work, and all were to be released except three of us - myself, Joe Ndamoyi and Julian Busa.

We three were immediately separated from the rest and taken back into the awaiting trial cells. We heard that the rest of the workers were all released, when the management decided to pay the fines for them. The workers themselves had refused to pay: "We have no money, take us back", they protested.

It was a victory. Not only had the management agreed to payout a great deal of bail money, but next day the Coloureds were called back and reinstated alongside the Africans.

The three of us left behind in gaol were joined the next day by two others collected by the police special branch: Joseph Ngulube and George Mpinda. I can't remember exactly but the number of us awaiting trial eventually rose to seven.

The workers wanted us out, and were unwilling to return to work while we remained in gaol. The management's position was that if we were found guilty, we would be dismissed. But if we won the case, the doors would be open to us to return to work, and we would be repaid for the days lost. It was a really great victory. The company was interested in profit, and it could see that it was losing. That day at the police station, everything was at a standstill. The management had information that if they simply sacked the whole lot of us, no-one else would be prepared to come and take our jobs. We had the support of the local community in that. Our people know very well that if there is a strike, no-one should go anywhere near that place to look for a job. The management certainly lost the day.

Breaking Bail

After three weeks, our cases came up before the court. All seven of us in gaol were officials of the textile union, and we heard that the police were now interrogating workers and taking statements from them about how the strike began. They couldn't understand why they had not known about the strike meeting in advance, but they had subsequently learned about my own role and the proposal I had made at the midnight gathering for our strategy the following day.

We were charged with incitement to strike and Lionel Forman was brought in again to defend us. In the fourth week we were given bail of £200 each plus conditions: no attendance at meetings, funerals, church services or anything and not to interfere with the witnesses. Our defence protested to the prosecutor, arguing that this was far too harsh. We were not communists, he maintained, but we had to accept the conditions in the end.

While we were out on bail, however, before our case came up to court again, four of us were asked to attend a committee meeting of the ANC. It was being called to discuss solidarity with the strike, and because we always worked together as a team with the ANC it was important that we should be there.

The meeting started at about 11pm , and the house was full. Early next morning, a police van arrived for us. In we had to get, and back to the cells. "We have information that you have broken bail and attended a meeting", we were told. It was clear that there were informers among us.

The same day we were taken to court - it was packed. The prosecutor stood up, and Sergeant Makalima, an African member of the special branch, was introduced to the court. He had taken notes of the speakers at the ANC meeting, he said, by standing outside the house and listening through the window. It was an unlikely story, because the house where we met had thick cement walls, and our defence challenged his story vigorously. "Tell the court who your informer was inside the house", our defence lawyer demanded, "you are wasting the court's time with your 'evidence'. I will appeal to the magistrate that the whole court should go to this house and see if you can write down what we are saying when you are standing outside".

Sergeant Makalima scratched his head. "Your worship" he said, "let me contact my seniors". After five minutes he came back. His seniors had refused to let him say who his informer was inside the house. The court collapsed. "Case dismissed, the bail stands", the magistrate announced.

In time we did discover who the woman was among us who had acted as informer.

Who wants to be a State Witness?

We were warned by the magistrate not to break our bail conditions again, and we didn't attend another meeting until the case was over. Meanwhile, the police were trying to organise workers to give evidence against us. It was important to maintain discipline, and the workers warned their fellow that anyone who did give such evidence would have to pack their bags and leave Worcester with his family. The people's court would deal with him.

The day of the case came. Proceedings opened at 10am and the state's witnesses were brought in by the prosecutor. But one after another they drew back: "I don't know anything about this, I don't know anything about that". It was after 12 when the magistrates said to the prosecutor, "It seems we are just wasting our time here all day. I don't myself see a case against these people." The prosecutor stood up: "Look", he said, "I want to prove to this court that there is a case against Accused Number One" (that was me). "When I have proved that I will have proved there is a case against them all, that they were present at the strike meeting. At 2 o'clock I will bring my witness to prove it."

Who was this witness going to be? What was going to happen? At 2 o'clock the court was full up again. They brought in the young white foreman from my night shift. The prosecutor stood up. "We want you to help us", he said to the foreman. "You know about the strike by the Coloured workers, and how it was joined by the Africans. Can you remember, on the evening before the Africans joined the strike, which of the accused was working with you on night shift?"

"Number One was with me that night", the foreman replied.

"Did you know that at a certain time he was out of work attending this meeting?"

"No, I don't know anything about that".

"Didn't he ask you? Didn't he disappear for 20 or 30 minutes?"

"No, he didn't ask me. And he couldn't have disappeared that night because, since the Coloureds were on strike, Accused Number One was responsible for operating four machines - two for the Coloureds who were on strike, and two for himself. And I was standing right next to him helping. Even if he had gone to the toilet for five minutes, I would have known about it. I would have told somebody to look after the machines so that no damage would have been done."

The prosecutor gave up. The magistrate turned to our defence: "Do you want to add anything Mr Forman?" "I don't see any case", Lionel Forman said. "I would ask the court to release these people. I have nothing more to say."

And we were all discharged. We had won again, and we were due for compensation for the time that we had been locked up. It was reinstatement, and back to work.

Fighting Oppression

Back at the textile mill, conditions and wages improved. We were now getting an increment, and nobody was being paid less than £5 a week. We were supplied with overalls, and conditions were not too bad at all.

Now the strike was over, we started to organise again. The whole of South Africa was to be mobilised to defy the Native Labour (Settlement of Disputes) Act. The Act was an attempt to break us to pieces, and the response of the trade unions was to try to come together to form a national non-racial congress. It was the background against which SACTU had been formed. We couldn't have a union which was just fighting for better wages and conditions when we could see that people were being oppressed and exploited. We had to fight that oppression first of all.

Workers and the Bus Boycott

During the Alexandra bus boycott, a directive came from the national executive of the ANC that all branches should show solidarity. The boycott lasted for a month, a long time, and it was in winter. We came together in Worcester to decide what to do, and a bus boycott committee was elected, followed by a public meeting. We knew that in Worcester a bus boycott might fail, and we decided to form a squad to watch out against boycott breakers who carried on riding the buses. People were reasonably satisfied with bus fares in Worcester but there had been a lot of publicity for the event in Alexandra and on the first morning of our boycott we had 50-55 per cent support. Everyone knew what the issues were and people were concerned to give support. That evening after the buses had come home the squad went around to the homes of those who had been seen riding the buses, to teach them a lesson for defying the call of the nation. The offenders were beaten with sjamboks and warned that if they went to the police another squad would come and they and their families would be forced to leave Worcester .

The next day the buses were empty. The police were there, urging people to get on and offering their protection, but nobody would.

The Coloureds didn't use the buses, but we had solidarity from them. We had frequent meetings with them and they gave encouragement to the Africans.

The Worcester boycott action started on a Monday, and on Friday I decided to call the bus boycott committee together. "I think the people have shown their spirit", I said. "They have shown the organisation that they are prepared to sacrifice. But I think we should now call it off - it's too cold and we mustn't divide the people. We have old people among us, and there could be fever."

On Sunday we called a general meeting at which we suggested that the action should now be called off. The principle had been established and, as in other campaigns, the leadership had acted as a team throughout.

Support from the Community

In Worcester you could not separate a trade unionist and an ANC member.

Immediately a trade union made a decision, that decision went to the ANC and the ANC called the people to give their support. You couldn't take industrial action in isolation from the community. And when the ANC took a decision, for example about the bus boycott, the decision was immediately taken to the trade union leadership to be explained. There would then be no opposition to its implementation, people would be happy to see the action, even if they weren't members of either the trade union or the ANC.

I had got married soon after my arrival in Worcester , and my first daughter was born at the end of 1948. My wife was a member of the ANC Women's Section, and she supported the decisions taken by both the ANC and the trade unions. She supported my own stand too, and would defend me if the police came looking for me. As politicians we sometimes used to disappear to attend secret meetings.

Sometimes we would invite leaders from other parts of the country to visit Worcester . We would have discussions in our ANC branch or workers' committee with them, but the main thing was to organise a big public meeting. When Dr Njongwe came from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape , for example, we booked a hall in the Coloured area, and it was packed out, with people unable to get in. We got a good increase in membership out of that, with lots of people joining the ANC that same evening. Dr Njongwe challenged everyone there: "you are in your Coloured organisation - why don't you belong to the ANC?"

I myself was elected as regional branch chairman of the ANC and I was also a committee member of SACTU. The Congress of Democrats helped us a lot; they had money to print leaflets so that people could read about current issues, they used to come to our branch meetings, they were involved in the trade unions. When we organised something we organised around the clock.

A visit from Nelson Mandela

We were never alone in our branch in Worcester , as leaders would come from other parts of South Africa to give us support. I remember one such visit in particular, which took place in 1957 or '58, in secret: it was a visit by Nelson Mandela.

It was when Mandela was a 'banned person' working illegally, and he arrived at midnight . As the chairman of the branch I was called out, and I went with a coat over my pyjamas to hear that Mandela wanted to meet the committee and the leaders of the ANC and SACTU in the district. We called up this person and that person, and at 12 o'clock we started the meeting behind closed doors.

It was the first time that I had met Mandela, and he impressed me very much.

It was another step forward for all of us. He struck me as a gifted leader and he's right when he says "The struggle is my life". He explained that he wanted to see the leaders of all the branches, so that he could brief us on the situation in our country. He warned us that the regime was going to become very vicious and that it was going to introduce more and more repressive laws. He said that it was going to ban all our organisations, but that the struggle must continue and we must adopt a system of teaching our people how to work underground. And he briefed us on the M-Plan - the Mandela Plan - and urged us to adopt and implement it.

He explained that the M-Plan was to organise people into small groups of ten, each with its own leader, so that when the time came for the government to impose a state of emergency, we could continue to defy the enemy regime. Like it or not, he warned us, the organisation was going to have to go underground, but through the M-Plan people would already be used to organising themselves when that time came. The racists were hardliners, and the people must work together to fight apartheid, and raised the question of an armed wing.

He stressed that we must get to know our people and who the collaborators and informers were. Who were the stooges and the puppets? It was very important because the system was using these people and we as leaders must train our own. "The ANC and SACTU are leaders of this district", he told us. "Be very careful. Don't make the mistake of thinking that the ANC belongs to you, or that SACTU belongs to you. ANC and SACTU belong to the people and you must see that you build more leaders besides yourselves. Go to where the people are gathered, and if you can see that a particular person is powerful, follow him and make him your friend."

Mandela urged us to talk to people in small groups and to visit them in their houses. The ANC and SACTU had to be known and accepted throughout the district. Members who belonged to sports or cultural groups, or who were church members, must use every opportunity provided by these activities to inform the people about what was going on and to build up confidence in the leadership. We would not assume that everyone who joined the ANC or a trade union therefore knew what it was all about and we had to make sure that each and everyone of our people understood our work.

Mandela gave very many examples of how people could be trained and taught to take up the struggle. "Everybody should be a leader when he joins the organisation" he said. "Everyone is capable. You will find that some leaders are jealous and don't want others to become leaders. Why? A teacher produces students who will become doctors, professors and scientists. A leader should do the same."

"Members of our organisations must be disciplined, hardworking and honest" he went on. "Our movement needs leaders and people must know that they can rely on those leaders to look after their interests. In this way we can build up confidence in our organisation."

My ears were open. I was listening. We asked him questions, especially about the homeland leaders and puppets and what was to be done about them, which pleased him a lot. He explained that he had met many of the homeland leaders and had only recently come from his uncle, Kaiser Matanzima. "I have done my best to convince him that he must change and that others like him must change" he told us. "I told him the regime just gives him dead horses." The kraal had been full of royal families, even Chief Dalinyebo, he said, because the regime had a lot of money to use on those who were greedy. He warned us that we should not openly fight this type of collaborator because the enemy would be happy if we were fighting each other. We would find another way to destroy these stooges.

Mandela addressed us on many more matters that I can't now remember, and before the sunrise he had gone. We didn't know where and we didn't follow it up. But he called a meeting of ANC and SACTU a few days later to report on what he had said, and to urge implementation of the Mandela Plan and his call for leaders. We called together those who had not been present when Mandela spoke to us, some activists whom we knew, including a number of Coloured people. The house was full and we all discussed the report until we reached a decision.

A plan was proposed and accepted, that we should form a special committee who would sit once a month. Campaigners were to report on their work to this committee, with details of how many members they had organised and the difficulties they had encountered.

For the next two years I was actively involved in building the cell system that Mandela had proposed. In a street in the township, we would have about ten leaders on each side of the street. If you wanted to convey a message along the street, you just called the leaders. And we divided ourselves into areas, some into trade union work, some to work in the ANC and others in the Coloured people's organisations.

The cell structure made it possible to organise big meetings or other activities at very short notice, and it still exists in South Africa today. It helps to explain why Worcester had the reputation for being so militant.

A Banishment Order

In response to what was happening in Worcester and elsewhere, the regime began to work on its own plan of retaliation. They could see that people were listening and following us, and it made them determined to scatter the leadership and to clean us from the area. I was certainly not alone in being victimised. After my banishment the anger of the people at what was happening erupted in riots, looting and burning in Worcester .

When you are banished the reasons are not stated. The banishment order that was served on me simply said that I must go to Ingwavuma in northern Zululand . It was not served by the small chaps, but by the district police commissioner of Worcester and another senior policeman. I was in the textile mill at the time and I remember that it was before 12 o'clock , during the day shift. I was operating one of the machines and I could see everyone coming in and out of the big door. I saw a policeman come in and then the foreman came over from the office and told me that some people wanted to see me outside. The two senior officers were sitting in a car outside, one in the front and one in the back, and they opened the door for me to get in the back as well.

These senior chaps pretend to be with you. They don't harass or rush you like the other police. The district commissioner greeted me nicely: "Are you Ben Baartman? Look, we have been instructed to serve you with this letter, a nice letter for you, this document. It's written in Afrikaans, can you understand it?"

I told them I couldn't read or understand Afrikaans, and they scratched their heads. They decided that one of them had to read the letter in Afrikaans, while the other one would translate into English. I was just giving them a tough time because I could understand Afrikaans in reality.

The banishment order was signed by the President, Swart, and the minister of bantu affairs, de Wet Nel. It stated that the government had decided to send me into banishment in Ingwavuma, in the area of the Mngomezulu tribe. It was a centre for the tribes, a village with a post office, a police station and so forth.

When they had handed over the document to me, they told me I had to be at the district commissioner's office at 2 o'clock that same day, when I would be given further instructions about my journey. "There are two or three trains leaving Cape Town for East London and Durban before midnight , which go past Worcester ", they said. "We suggest that you must catch one of these trains today. From one minute past midnight you will be in our hands, and we will give you an escort straight to Ingwavuma. You better rush, see your friends and say goodbye to them, so that before 12 o'clock you'll be out of Worcester ."

I was not so shocked. I was thinking of my wife and the trouble she would have looking after our four small kids. We had two boys and two girls; the eldest, a girl, was 11 years old, the youngest, a boy, was 18 months. 1 was not surprised by the banishment order itself, because this was how the the regime was beginning to take steps against us and 1 was now the second person in the Western Cape to be banished. Elizabeth Mafekeng, a trade unionist in Paarl, had been banished about six months before. 1 didn't have any warning from the government that 1 was to be banished but 1 had received information during the treason trial that something was likely to happen. 1 had made some preparations for looking after my children, through my brother, who had his own family. And a white man in the town, an underground friend of mine, had promised to help if 1 could put him in contact with my brother. My wife herself knew very well that anything could happen.

By the time 1 arrived back home the word had already gone round the whole township and my colleagues were waiting there for me. They chose two people to accompany me to the bantu commissioner at 2 o'clock . The commissioner also greeted me kindly, "I'm very glad you arrived in time" he said. "I have instructions for your journey, to give you a rail warrant and money for provisions. "

He gave me £3 for my journey. "What about your family?" he asked. "Are you prepared to take them with you?"

My family would also have been issued with rail warrants if 1 had wanted, but how can you take your family to a strange place, where you have no relatives or friends and the people come from another tribe? Igwavuma was new, it was the first time 1 had looked at it on a map, right up in northern Zululand on the borders of Mozambique and Swaziland .

With the £3 and my third class rail ticket 1 was finished with the bantu commissioner. When we arrived back at my house, people had heard that 1 had been served with a banishment order, and the whole township was there. People were very angry. "We've decided they're going to take you over our dead bodies" they said. "We'll see how they're going to take you out of this house, we'll fight them."

Colleagues and leaders arrived from all over the Western Cape , and the support and solidarity began to come in as donations, five shillings, one rand and so forth. Others just came to say goodbye. When it was sunset, my colleagues put up loudspeakers outside my house. It wasn't possible for everyone to get inside and 1 wanted to say a few words to them. 1 wasn't surprised by the people's response; 1 knew that they would be angry and 1 felt 1 had to stop them doing what they had in their minds.

First of all we had a closed door meeting inside the house, to discuss who would be chairman, two or three speakers and me last, to say goodbye to the people. We didn't want what had happened to Elizabeth Mafekeng to happen to me: in her case, when the banishment order was served, she had been taken secretly by car by Congress leaders beyond the place to which she was to be banished, and had driven right through the night into exile in Basutoland. 1 didn't want to evade my banishment order in this way and 1 resisted suggestions that 1 should go into exile through the back door. "Comrades, forget about this", 1 told the closed doors meeting. "I want to go to Ingwavuma. 1 want the people to accompany me to the station. 1 will say goodbye to them and tell them that the struggle continues."

I felt that it was my duty to continue the struggle in banishment. We knew that the language of the tribes of northern Zululand was not too distant from our own and that I would be able to communicate easily. I would go on organising. I wanted to stay in South Africa . It would not be easy to set up a trade union branch but I felt that I could set up a branch of the African National Congress. At the same time I did not want the people of Worcester to get the idea that as soon as things got tough the leaders ran away. I wanted them to come with me to the station as a victory parade rather than a defeat. There were thousands of people, and the demonstration would also show that black people were prepared to defy the nine o'clock curfew on being in the centre of town.

Farewell - The Struggle Goes On

My colleagues were not particularly happy at my decision, but I convinced them that I was going to Ingwavuma and that it would be up to me to see how to escape from that place. What I needed was for them to stay with the people and continue the struggle.

There were Coloured and white people at the farewell meeting as well, some of whom had driven over from Cape Town when they heard the news over the radio. It was time to go outside the house, and the chairman, ANC committee member Joseph Mposa, opened the meeting. I can't remember what the other speakers said but I can recall my own few words in saying goodbye. I could see that people were angry and some were crying and I reminded them about the struggle. "This is not really a time for crying" I said. "Many things have happened to me. Many other people are being killed but I am going to Ingwavuma alive. Maybe I'm going to be killed there, but in front of you now I'm OK. You must carry on; through your struggle you people will force the regime to release those of us in prison and banishment and exile. The jails are going to be opened through your struggle and your unity."

The last train was at 20 minutes past 11, and the time had come to accompany me to the station. There was a convoy of buses and cars, people singing, from my house to the train. When the train arrived it was dark as the people on it were sleeping, but when they heard the singing they looked out to see what was happening in Worcester . There was quite a commotion, the police were there, and I had another chance to address the crowds in the station, speaking from a footbridge over the platform.

And then I was on my way, to Natal , Gollela, and Ingwavuma. The journey took about 2 1/2 days. The leaders had already notified the people along the way, so that in De Aar I met a crowd of people who had come to say hello and goodbye, and in Bloemfontein the same. I arrived in Durban in the morning as the train was late, and heard that thousands of people had come to the station the night before to greet me. Two men met me off the train with my luggage, and took me to the ANC and SACTU offices in Durban to wait for my connection to Gollela the next day.

When I left Durban station there was again a farewell meeting, with hundreds of people. "Work as hard as you can" I told them. "You are the leaders and you are going to fetch us from exile and jail by destroying apartheid."

Arrival in Ingwavuma

I arrived at Gollela at sunset and I wondered how I was going to be taken to Ingwavuma, as this was the end of the line. People started getting ready to sleep at the station, and I thought I would do the same. I was sitting on top of my luggage, smoking and thinking, when I heard two chaps talking, one of them a policeman with a Native Affairs Department badge, the other in a suit. "Let's take a last chance to see if we can spot this person among the people", one said to the other. "You start that side and I'll take this side and we'll meet here."

I laughed inside. The one in the suit was Mtimkulu, a clerk of Ingwavuma. I greeted him. "It seems to me that you have a problem, gentlemen", I said. "Who is that you are looking for?"

"Ben Baartman" he replied. "Well, here is the person you are looking for", I said. He started to laugh and called his colleague over. "We were expecting a big man" they said. "We didn't expect a young man like you."

From Gollela we had to cross Swaziland to get to Ingwavuma at the top of the Ubombo mountain. I chatted with them in the van and Mtimkulu was quite free with me. He told me about the four tribes who lived in the Ingwavuma area, Mngomezulu, Matenywa, Nyawo and Tembe, and their four chiefs. I asked him if there was any other banished person in the area and he told me there was one, a Tembe. He told me that a hut had been built for me in the Mngomezulu area although he had never been in it himself.

When we arrived at Ingwavuma the bantu affairs commissioner was already waiting. The journey from Gollela had taken about three hours and by this time it was almost 9 o'clock at night. The office was lighted and I could see the other staff running away, leaving the commissioner alone.

The policeman, Tembe, had also started to be free with me on the journey, and I had asked him why he did not seem happy. "I'm shocked because you are so young" he said. "We were expecting a big man because the one who is already banished here is a chief." I went into the office to be greeted by the bantu affairs commissioner, Mr Wilson. He was very polite, explaining that he was in charge of the district, that accommodation had been prepared for me and that I could come and see him any time without an appointment if I had a complaint.

It was very dark by this time and so it was agreed that that night I would stay at Tembe's place and go to my hut in the morning. His house was in the police camp and he introduced me to his wife there. I had a lot of food in my luggage which had been given to me while I was passing through Natal , including three bottles of brandy, I put food on the table and we were all quite friendly.

The next morning at 9 o'clock we went to my accommodation. It was a round hut about five miles away, thatched, with a reed door and no window. The foundations had not been made properly, there was grass inside and water was running past the door. The walls were also made of reeds which you could part to see what was going on outside. Now it was clear why the commissioner had not allowed me to come here late at night. There was no furniture inside, not even a teaspoon.

The hut was far away from the people of the area. I could see their kraals far away, and the people themselves going up and down the road. I could see that something had made them afraid of me. They weren't coming over to greet me but were passing with their heads down.

My First Friend

It was nearly 12 o'clock when a chap approached, singing a Zulu song. I was sitting outside the hut, it was cool and pleasant. He stopped and greeted me, and then came over. "Have a seat", I said. "What's your name?"

"Shongwe", he said. He was my first friend at Ingwavuma. I asked him why everyone was so sacred. He told me that when the house was being built, people asked about who was coming to live in it. They were told it was for someone who was giving the government a headached, who was a murderer. They were warned to be very careful, to keep away from the person and not to be friendly, as he was very dangerous.

"So we know about you", Shongwe said. "But I'm not so sure. How can a young person like you harm us. What have you actually done?"

He was beginning to realise that something was wrong, and I started to explain everything to him. It was not difficult. I told him he should read the local newspaper, Elanga Lase Natal, written in Zulu, or get children who were attending school to read it to him. I had a few copies of the paper with me that I had collected in Natal , which had photos of me arriving in Durban station, and I read relevant paragraphs to him, about resistance to the Bantu Authorities Act and Bantu Education Act, women with sticks destroying the dip tanks and so on. "Shongwe" I said, "do you know about the ANC?"

We talked about how Chief Albert Luthuli had recently been elected president of the ANC and I explained the workings of the Bantu Authorities Act and how the chiefs were to be put aside if they did not cooperate with the government. "Ben" he said, "now I can understand what you are saying. Our old chief is the only one who is not prepared to accept that Bantu Authorities Act. He won't go to the meetings with the other chiefs and he's not prepared to cooperate with these white government officials. He's a hardliner."

So we chatted until lunchtime. I never had any problem feeding myself during my banishment because of the support I received from the people. Before I left Worcester there was a collection for me and I was given further donations as I passed through Bloemfontein , collected by the ANC and SACTU. When I arrived in Durban there was a further collection. I did not have to worry about how I was going to live, even though all that the regime provided was the £3 given to me by the bantu affairs commissioner in Worcester .

I had a paraffin stove and frying pans inside the hut, and I prepared Shongwe a special lunch as we carried on talking. He told me a lot. "When this white man was building your hut", he said, "he told people here that if anyone killed the person who was coming to live in it, no charge would be brought against them and nobody would be arrested." This was calculated to make me feel insecure, to say the least. "But now I'm your friend", Shongwe continued, "I'm going to be with you and I'm going to take you to the chief's place to introduce you. I'll go there first alone and then I'll come and call you."

Shongwe came back later that afternoon and helped me cut poles to make a bed and to lay stones for a proper floor in the hut. We stayed chatting till 8 or 9 o'clock, and we could see that people were beginning to follow up what was happening as they saw me and Shongwe going in and out busily. Others began to greet me now.

The next day Shongwe came again. "Come on", he said, "you can't sit here.

You must be introduced to the people. They must know you and you must know them."

There wasn't much happening in the village. It was a typical country scene, with groups of people sitting round to whom Shongwe introduced me. From this first meeting 1 became accepted as one of the people, and 1 started to organise them to read the newspapers, particularly the younger men who were attending school. The Elanga of Natal was not an ANC paper, but it covered our struggle, and 1 also ordered copies of New Age from the ANC branch in Natal .

1 bought a bed, and Shongwe and I and a couple of other chaps started again to make the floor of my hut nice. It was my first experience of isolated rural life, but 1 was now welcomed and began to receive information and invitations from the people to visit their homes. One day Shongwe took me to the chief's place to introduce me. He asked me a few questions and then got his youngsters to slaughter a goat for me and Shongwe.

Confrontation

I had arrived in Ingwavuma on 9 July 1959 , and by the end of that year 1 was already organising a branch of the ANC underground. The people could understand and were reading the newspapers. I had nothing much to do except visit their kraals, as there was little chance of finding work in the rural areas. I bought my food at the store in the village, or the people would give it to me - I had no worries about my money coming to an end as I was now in contact with the ANC and SACTU and was getting an allowance from them. I knew they wouldn't let me down.

During 19601 approached the bantu commissioner in Ingwavuma. "Look" I said. "I was given £3 by the bantu commissioner in Worcester when 1 came here. What do you and your government think I'm eating?"

"Keep cool, Mr Baartman" he replied. "Keep cool, because it's my fault.

When you came here I was given instructions that you must be given work here in the village."

"But it's over six months since I arrived" I said. "Why didn't you do that? Do you want me to steal? You've got a big jail here to put me in."

"I'm very sorry", he said. "You will be given work. The other person who is banished down at Tembe's place is getting £3 a month allowance."

I started to attack him, telling him that he and his government were cowards for putting me here to suffer and die, and that the regime's days were numbered as apartheid was going to be destroyed by the masses. After some argument it was agreed that I should start working on the roads and other jobs among the villagers for £7 10s a month, starting the following morning and working under the white man who had been responsible for building my hut.

Barely three weeks passed before I clashed with the white foreman over his treatment of the workers. As a trade unionist I was concerned that the workers should be organised into a union branch to receive their proper benefits, overalls and so forth, and this led straight to the dispute. I demanded the wages due to me up to that day, and that was the end of that. I didn't go to work again but just lived among the people.

Return to Worcester

In the middle of 1960 things became very tough and painful. I received a telegram that my wife had passed away. It arrived on a Saturday, and the ANC leadership in Natal had already taken steps through their lawyers to obtain a permit for me to go back home for the funeral. That was the great thing about the organisation back home in South Africa : people like me, who were in the leadership, were never isolated or left to sort out problems and difficulties alone. On the Monday morning I was called by the bantu commissioner who told me he had received instructions to issue me a permit to travel to Worcester . He gave me a rail warrant for a third class return ticket from Gollela to Worcester .

When I arrived in Durban it was Tuesday morning and I was already late. I went to the ANC office, where arrangements immediately started to be made for me to fly from Durban to Cape Town . All the flights that day were booked up, but fortunately a conference of the Race Relations Institute had been taking place in Durban and one white woman delegate who had been planning to return to Cape Town gave up her seat on the plane to me. I was the only black on the plane until Joe Matthews joined the flight in Port Elizabeth .

When I arrived in Cape Town , Wolfie Kodesh was there, standing by with a car to take me to Worcester . The funeral had already taken place two days before, on the Sunday, so instead of rushing off immediately we went and had a cup of tea in a restaurant. We found ourselves surrounded by reporters and photographers, asking questions about my banishment and my way of life in Ingwavuma. I told them everything, about my hut and so forth, before we set off for Worcester .

When we arrived we found ANC and SACTU people at my home with my brother and I was given a report of how my wife died. I had not received any warning while I was in Ingwavuma that she was ill, just the telegram informing me of her death. Now I learned that after I had left Worcester , she had never been happy. She suspected that I would be killed and that she would never see me again. The sickness which killed her was very sudden; she was only ill for two or three days and died immediately on being rushed to hospital. The doctors said that she had been poisoned, but they were unable to say what sort of poison. I asked the elders whether it was possible that she could have committed suicide, but nobody could tell me.

I had been receiving letters from my colleagues and friends while I was in exile, and I had been writing home regularly. But I had not received more than about five letters in the year from my wife, and those had mostly been about domestic matters and the children. She had not complained about herself or given any indication of her state of mind. I had tried to suggest that she and the children should soon join me in exile, and I remember that in her last letter she said she was not prepared to do that, unless I could leave northern Zululand and go to another country.

My Brothers

My younger brother Alfred, who had been working with me in the textile mill in Worcester , was looking after my children at this time. My first two brothers, the elder of whom is in Springs, Johannesburg , to this day, had never returned to Molteno where we were born. All the youngsters of that area grew up and left for the mines, the coalfields and the big towns, and never came back.

My fifth brother, Henry Baartman, however, was arrested in a swoop by the boers against alleged members of the PAC. There had never been members of either the PAC or ANC in that area, but a case was framed against them nevertheless. Henry was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment, and another man, Mathebe, to 15 years. Mathebe was cited as the chairman of the alleged organisation, and Henry as his secretary. About 18 or 20 people were arrested, and four or five selected at crown witnesses in the fabrication of a case against the accused. If they had had proper defence they would never have gone to Robben Island , but in these small country towns, the kind of help that was available in Cape Town or Johannesburg just wasn't available. In the big towns, if you were arrested, you knew that your colleagues and friends would rally round and organise a defence lawyer the next morning, or even that same night.

My Children

Returning to the situation in Worcester after my wife's death, the news of my return travelled fast. Many people came to greet me and to support me in my mourning. It was now getting late, past sunset, when reporters turned up from the Cape papers to show me the coverage of my arrival at the airport. The minister of bantu affairs, de Wet Nel, had disputed what I had told reporters about the conditions of my banishment. He claimed that I was lying when I described the type of hut I had been given to live in, the lack of furniture, the lack of provision for my maintenance.

I told them that anyone could go to Ingwavuma to inspect the truth of what I was saying. Meanwhile, a campaign was getting under way to cancel my banishment order and enable me to stay in Worcester with my children. De Wet Nel's retort was that I was still a hardliner, and that all he was prepared to give was a few days extra in Worcester beyond the expiry of my temporary permit.

I was not doing anything alone. Every stage in the negotiations to end my banishment order was discussed with the ANC or SACTU and I was always among the people. Leaders from Cape Town and other parts of South Africa on their way through Worcester would come to see me and I was never isolated. I found the people in angry mood, urging me to defy my banishment order and stay in Worcester . I appealed to them to support our policy of non-violence, and I was reluctant to tell them of the date set for my return to Ingwavuma as I felt sure that something would happen if they came to accompany me to the station as before. There would be a conflict with the police and people would get killed. I knew that the boers would use the opportunity to provoke people and fights would break out.

My colleagues supported me in this strategy for avoiding bloodshed. The ANC pressed for an extenstion to my fortnight's permit, but this was refused. I was preoccupied with the political struggle against apartheid, and felt certain that my children would be cared for by my brother and my colleagues. Alfred was quite prepared to look after them on a permanent basis, and the children were still young and not really aware of what was going on.

Several years later, when I was in exile in Swaziland , my children had rejoined me and I had remarried, I arranged for my elder daughter Mary to go back to South Africa and take care of my brother Henry's children when he was sent to Robben Island . Eventually several of my nephews and nieces joined my family in Swaziland and I cared for them there.

Return to Ingwavuma

The end of my fortnight's stay approached, and I got ready to leave Worcester secretly. There was no public meeting this time and only my colleagues knew when I caught the train.

Back through Natal , Durban and Gollela, to Ingwavuma. The next morning I reported back to the bantu affairs commissioner. "Sit down Mr Baartman" he said, "I want to have a chat with you. I'm very sorry about your hut - when it was built I didn't go to inspect it. I just read it in the newspaper while you were in Worcester. "

I was still in no mood to forgive the regime about the house, and he explained that he was organising materials to build me a better one. The builders were due to arrive the following morning, and I was to show them where I wanted my house to be built.

Sure enough, the next day a truck turned up with everything aboard, poles, thatch, cement, workers. My hut was just below the road, and one of the workers got down from the lorry and walked down to see me. "Go and tell your boss to come and see me", I told him. "I'm not his boy. He's been sent to see me about the house and I'm his boss rather than the other way round." After some delay the foreman came down from the truck and gave me an apology.

I planned to use the new house as my bedroom and the old hut as a kitchen, so I instructed them to lay the foundations just a few yards away, out of the water. They built a very nice round hut, with a big glass window, a proper door, walls plastered with cement and thatched with reeds and grass. I had two houses now, and I was all right. I started to keep chickens, and a puppy dog which I called Verwoerd. Political awareness was improving a lot in the area, and I was pleased with the results of my activities among the people.

I was quite happy to be back in Ingwavuma, and felt quite settled. The people in the kraals round about would give me chicks that had broken legs or were sick and I would nurse them back to health. I was never short of meat, and by the time I left I had bought two cattle as well. By this time I was no longer thinking of returning to Worcester or of getting involved again in trade union activity. My thought now was to join Umkhonto we Sizwe in exile.

ESCAPE TO SWAZILAND

I had learned from the people that there was a bus from Gollela which reached the crossroads between Ingwavuma and Swaziland at about 7am in the morning. It went on to Manzini in Swaziland . I watched from the top of the mountain and checked that their information was correct. Every day except Sunday the bus arrived from Gollela and people who wanted to go to Swaziland just walked down the mountain and joined it. There was no border fence and no checks.

I had a friend in Ingwavuma called Kalani, a Coloured man. He was a tailor, and after I got to know him he decided to leave Ingwavuma to live in Swaziland . When he came back on visits to friends I learned of his tailoring business in Manzini and where he was staying, and stored the information away in my mind for the day when I could make use of it.

The time now came when I read in the papers and heard on the radio that the Tanzanian government was planning to send a plane to evacuate refugees from Swaziland . At that time Mozambique was still ruled by the Portuguese and Umkhonto we Sizwe was based in Tanzania . Swaziland and Botswana were staging posts for ANC refugees from Natal , Transkei , the Eastern Cape and northern Transvaal , before they moved on to East Africa . Swaziland was still a British colony at that time, and during 1961 I read in the paper that it had been agreed in the House of Commons that refugees from South Africa should be granted political asylum there. I cut out the article and filed it, and I thought that now I had all the information I needed to go down the mountain and get away.

What finally prompted me to quit Ingwavuma was hearing, confidentially, from a friend of mine in the village who worked as a clerk for the department of bantu affairs that there was talk about me. "You are becoming too friendly with the people of Ingwavuma" he told me. "This is being discussed, and now the special branch in Natal , in cooperation with the department here, have sent a report to Pretoria , requesting that you be removed to another district.

They've heard that you are organising a branch of the ANC and you must be prepared to be moved away."

The one thought in my mind as I now prepared to skip the country and seek political asylum in Swaziland was that I was preparing to move into the second stage of my political career: to join MK. I wasn't so worried about the struggle back home because I knew the people were there. We had built them up and they could carry on without us.

When I arrived in Swaziland the first ANC people whom I met were two comrades whom I had heard about from Kalani, named Shange and Lukele. Before I left Ingwavuma, Kalani had told me how they used to talk about the ANC; they had been involved in the struggle in Natal , where Lukele had been chairman of an ANC branch. But I found that they were not so interested in the struggle now, and were more concerned to open a business in Swaziland .

Father Hooper was a rather different matter however. He was also a refugee in Swaziland , and came from Zeerust, where he had taken a great lead in defying apartheid laws. He helped me by providing accommodation at the mission where he was a teacher, enabling me to leave the hired room over a restaurant where I had been staying since my arrival in Manzini.

I was still intent on getting to Tanzania , although I had learned that the plane which I was hoping to catch had already come and gone. Another plane was due to be organised, but in the meantime, people arriving in Swaziland were moving on, on foot, through the northern Transvaal , to reach Botswana . It was a very dangerous journey.

I had reported to the district commissioner of Manzini immediately on arrival. He was a white colonial official, and he called in the police to question me. I warned them not to probe too deeply, but I kept the cutting about the House of Commons decision on political asylum in my pocket and I never seriously feared that I would be deported back to South Africa .

Thoughts on entering Exile

The one thought in my mind now was that while in South Africa I had been a politician, now I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to learn to carry a gun and to join those who were going back into the country to fight apartheid and to dismantle it. I felt that I had finished with preaching and was ready to take another line.

I lived at Father Hooper's mission until 1963-64, being joined by another refugee, an elderly man called Magwaza, who had been involved in faction fighting in Zululand and sent to Swaziland to seek asylum by the Zulu authorities. I was still intent on joining MK, but no more planes had as yet been organised from Tanzania .

Around this time I met Or Margaret Chenne, a doctor and a leader of the ANC in Natal , where she had been deeply involved in the struggle. She had also sought political asylum in Swaziland , and now had plans to open a surgery there. She invited me to work with her, and to take over the driving of a combi vehicle that she was planning to buy. She hired a nurse and we were soon busy.

Another person who influenced me at this time was Margaret Roberts, whom I met through Or Zwane, a local Swazi doctor. She was with her two young daughters, and explained that she had heard about me and my story while visiting relatives in Johannesburg . She was particularly concerned about my children now that my wife had died. "Look, I've had a fight in my heart", I told her. "I'm not a person to rush into things, but I've decided that the time will come when I will take the same path as my friends who have gone to Botswana to join the ANC in exile or Umkhonto we Sizwe. My children are with my brother and with millions of other children in South Africa . It's not that I don't care for them but they will work things out for themselves. One day I may be able to bring them out to join me in exile."

"I'm speaking to you as a woman now", she replied. "It seems to me that you want to work harder than other people, and that's wrong. You know very well why you were banished and why you've been chased by the police in South Africa . Now your wife has died, but you still want to carry on. As a mother I can't agree with you. Why don't you simply settle in Swaziland and bring your children to join you? Their care will be in your own hands and you may be able to get better education for them in Swaziland . "

She made me feel rather guilty, but I put a last point to her. "But I've got no money", I told her, "you're putting me in a difficult position. How am I going to pay for my children to join me?"

"Money is not a problem" she said. "There are people who will help you. The problem is in your mind as it's you that has to make the decision to settle in Swaziland ."

Margaret Roberts was certainly not telling me to give up my work with the ANC. I had intended joining MK, but of course I had no guarantee that the leaders of the ANC would not in the event have required me to do some other job. Living in Swaziland meant that I would be very close to the struggle and have plenty of contact with it. It was very easy to work in Swaziland . It was right next door to Pretoria , after all, and it was easy to maintain underground contacts through the frequent visits that people based in South Africa made to the country.

Working for the ANC

I now became involved in welfare work for the ANC and SACTU, looking after those who passed through Swaziland on their way into exile, making sure that they had accommodation and food. The work expanded after 1975 and the end of Portuguese rule in Mozambique . I was kept busy arranging transport to take new arrivals into Mozambique , and I felt happy to see the struggle entering a new phase. The numbers were increasing, and we were receiving young people on their way to join MK as soldiers for the African National Congress. Our struggle was undoubtedly making a breakthrough.

In those years I was working as a driver for a warehousing firm in Mbabane, I would get a phone call to come down to Manzini because a number of young people had arrived and were being distributed among ANC and SACTU houses to be fed and clothed. They would stay in Swaziland for perhaps two or three weeks while we organised transport to take them to Mozambique , from where they would travel on by air to Tanzania . The air lift to Tanzania was very slow and the groups sometimes got very frustrated.

I remember one group of 12 or 13 young chaps, all from the Soweto uprising in the Transvaal . They had been staying in my house in Manzini for about two weeks, and my wife - for by this time I had married again, to a local Swazi warned me that they were getting agitated at the delay. We gave them a nice supper and cold drinks, and then I decided to say a few words to them, to cool them down and put them in line. They were in a rush to get into the struggle, thinking that freedom would come as soon as they could be trained to be soldiers.

"I hear that you are not happy, my boys", I told them. "I can understand your point of view and I sympathise. When you left home you perhaps thought that you could be trained to carry guns while you were in Swaziland , and go back to fight the apartheid regime. But now you have entered a stage of discipline, and you must learn first of all to take orders. If you are not satisfied with the orders you must ask why and try to convince the next person."

I pointed out to them that they were very fortunate in finding a machinery to take care of their needs when they arrived in Swaziland . When people such as myself had entered the country, there was nothing and things were much harder. I began to give them a history of the South African struggle and of the ANC; they were not members themselves but they already knew a lot about it. They had heard the freedom songs and read the literature, and they also knew about the PAC and black consciousness. They wanted to be rid of bantu education, and they wanted freedom.

I talked to them about the history of South Africa , and how we were today all involved together in the struggle, young and old together. I explained that the planes used in the airlift from Mozambique were chartered, and that this was why their journey to join MK was so slow and not because of some failure on the part of the leadership. "There are others like you waiting in Botswana and Lesotho ", I told them. "Your turn will come."

I was able to convince them, and they were satisfied.

During the years I was in Swaziland , I met many such groups of young people. In the later years in particular, I found that they already knew a lot about the ANC, despite many of them not being members.

A Secret visit by our President

After the downfall of the Portuguese in Mozambique , our president Comrade o R Tambo visited Swaziland secretly, and we met him in Mbabane on 6 July 1975. The leaders of the ANC in Swaziland , Comrades T Mabizela, G Ntsibande, B Duma, K B Baartman, P Nzima, TMbeki and Dlomo were also present. The president was accompanied by Mozambican security offered by President Samora Machel. He introduced these young comrades to us and informed the meeting that they had received special orders from President Machel to look after him.

Nothing went wrong and we had a very successful meeting in which we briefed us about his work since he left South Africa . It was a moving report to us all. He told us that the ANC was being welcomed by the Eastern countries, who were promising to give us solidarity support. Now he was looking forward to mobilising the West and to making sure that the ANC was recognised as the sole liberation movement of the people of South Africa . He told us as the people in the forward areas, we must work hard, and be in contact with the people at home, so that even his secret visit to us must be made known as soon as he left Swaziland . Even the enemy must know that he was next door to Pretoria and that he will knock at the door one day and tell the regime that the people want power now. He asked us to call a photographer,that photos should be taken with us who were there.

He concluded by inviting us all to ask questions. The house was very quiet for some minutes, because it was not easy to ask any questions. But very quickly something which I think was worrying all of us in the ANC as leaders and members came into my mind. "Here is a question Comrade President: it concerns the homeland leaders more especially a dangerous one like Chief Buthelezi. What must be done with such leaders, because this Chief Buthelezi is the one who we understand travels the whole world even meeting the ANC leadership?" .

He thanked me for asking the question and replied: "Comrades, our struggle is reaching a point where as a liberation movement we should be very careful of fighting with individuals. We are fighting a dangerous enemy which would be very happy to see us fighting against each other. We should organise the masses to stop such people, because we cannot trust anybody who is being paid by the Pretoria regime. Your duty is to see we have people in these homelands we have people who will destroy them in time to come as we are going to enter a very tough battle with the regime."

After the talks, our president gave us lunch. I have a photo of when we met with our great leader, a person who never fails to deliver the goods on behalf of the exploited and oppressed people in our motherland.

Reflections on the Struggle

I lived in Swaziland for 23 years, from 1961 to 1984, and during that time some marvellous developments took place in the struggle inside South Africa . The main changes flowed from the action taken around the time I left, to ban the ANC and to force it and SACTU underground. The regime rushed to arrest and banish; people were being killed and flocking into the jails. It was a great mistake on the part of the racist regime to be so harsh on the people, even those who were not really supporters and sympathisers of the ANC. Everyone was woken up by the enemy and their eyes were opened. People were so angered that they could no longer be controlled and began to organise things in their own way. It was the end of the period of non-violence, but no-one could get up and say the people were acting wrongly. They were right.

During the period since I left South Africa , the trade unions, too, have grown up. The leadership, harassed and forced underground, took on board the Mandela Plan as a way of organising the people. It proved to be a very successful plan and today, when the organisations are still working underground, remains relevant.

In SACTU, we could see that there was no way in which we could organise the people to fight for higher wages and other benefits while they were still being oppressed and exploited nationally. This was why we decided to form an alliance with the liberation movement. We felt that all forces in South Africa , black and white, should join the Congress Alliance to fight and destroy apartheid. This is the first priority: only when we have done away with apartheid will the trade unions really be able to organise freely, or people attend church freely or students go to school freely.

Those of us who, like myself, were involved in South Africa in the early days of the struggle, are today witnessing what has grown in the soil that we ploughed. We are not shocked or surprised by what is happening, because 25 or 30 years ago, we were mobilising the people to be ready to sacrifice, even with their lives, when the time came. The most important lesson that we taught was the need for unity. When the decision was taken to boycott potatoes because of what was happening at Bethal on the potato farms, for instance, then everyone should support the boycott and so make it a success. When the time came, the people would be clear on the need to take a stand and destroy the exploitation of the Bethal workers. The issues might be minor ones, but the principle was very important because we knew the time would come when the struggle entered a phase of life and death. Today it is very easy to convince a person in South Africa of the issues involved in the struggle because events are happening all around and there is no way that a person can remain aloof. The only way to safeguard the future for yourself and your children is to help build the future of the nation.

When we first started organising for SACTU, it was with the aim of building support for the principle one industry one union, one country one federation.

In those days many workers and trade unions were unorganised, but we successfully formed a federation. Many many trade unions have grown up since those efforts to show people the value of unity. Today, COSATU has emerged as a much larger federation, but it is based on the same principles as SACTU and we can see the continuity with the past.

If I returned to Worcester and Hex River today, I believe that I would feel at home and able to organise where needed. I would go out into the rural areas, where I feel I could easily make a contribution, so long as my health permits. I would tell the people about the new trade union federation, and I would tell them about the old federation, SACTU. I would start even before SACTU, by telling them of the time when the trade unions were scattered and how the government's enactment of the Bantu (Settlement of Disputes) Act prompted us to organise together.

It's now very easy to organise the people, to tell them to "Bring the wood, because the pot is boiling. We are going to all eat together now." In the rural areas, in the urban areas, wherever you go, it's just to tell the people to bring more firewood. They can see what is happening for themselves.

We made a mistake in the past by concentrating so much on the urban areas.

We neglected the rural areas, and I feel that my experience in Ingwavuma means that I have something to contribute in this respect. There is plenty of time to discuss issues with people in the rural areas, and one thing I learned is that you should never take them away from what they are eating or 'drinking. The sun is hot, and you must just organise by sitting under a tree and drinking beer with them. In Ingwavuma I simply built on the support for the ANC that was already there, for the people were opposed to the bantu laws and the bantustan policy, and to government attempts to impose its own choice of chief upon them.

In those years in South Africa , it was impossible to be lost if you were involved in the struggle. People would never allow you to be left stranded. Even while I was banished, I received visits from my colleagues, as well as from the special branch. I remember particularly an unsuccessful attempt by Ernest Galo and John Makatini to come and see me - unfortunately they had a road accident along the way, which involved a police car, and got themselves arrested. One was just put in jail and the other was sent to hospital under guard to be treated for his injuries before they were both kicked out back to Natal . Another visitor, a white man, disguised himself as an Anglican priest in a cassock in order to get permission to enter the reserve. He came from Johannesburg , and brought me food and clothing, and about £25 in donations. We prayed and sang together when we reached my hut, so as not to arouse any suspicion in the minds of the children who were hanging around, some of whom belonged to the local church choir.

Those visits showed how things could happen without your ever knowing how they had been organised. Once you had got involved in the struggle, you would always be among the people and the people could always be with you. In exile in Swaziland , it was very much the same: we always kept in close touch with what was going on at home in South Africa , through the underground networks.

Conclusion

I have written this biography after many years, to show how apartheid laws have been applied to us since the boers took over the government of South Africa in 1948. All the laws they passed were repressive and aimed at destroying us.

I was banished in July 1959 by the regime and I was already in exile when I received the news that SACTU, as a member of the Congress Alliance, had taken a decision to go underground. The ANC had been banned and it was felt that this step was necesary to safeguard the leadership, who were being banned, arrested and deported to the bantustans.

We comrades of SACTU will continue to work until apartheid is crushed. We are calling for sanctions, the solidarity of the international community and for support from people everywhere for our strike fund and for our workers.

We are very happy about the formation of COSATU. Our dreams and wishes