The court appearance on the 31st of March served no other purpose than to convert us from detainees into awaiting-trial prisoners. The security police had finished with us and were now placing us in the custody of the Prisons Service. Their preparations for indicting us were not complete but as the real trial was set for the 1st of June, two months away, they had plenty of time to complete their work.
In a sense the appearance in court was a relief. It meant the re-establishment of links with the world and an end to uncertainty. Although our period of detention had been short compared to the average time detainees were held, it had been wearing enough. In fact it was hard to imagine how people managed to put up with the strains of detention for six months or more.
The best part was being able to see some familiar and friendly faces again. In the courtroom were members of our respective families, friends from work and Heri, Klaus and Daphne. The appearance only took a few minutes. The Magistrate announced that we were to be charged under Article 2(1) of the Terrorism Act of 1967 and Article 11(e) of the Internal Security Act of 1950 (formerly called the Suppression of Communism Act). We were not asked to plead to the charges and a state representative handed to the Magistrate an order from the Attorney-General stating that we were to be remanded in custody until we appeared for trial in the Cape Town Supreme Court. Bail is seldom granted in political trials, especially when the charges are considered to be 'serious'.
The security police delivered us personally to Pollsmoor Prison - Cape Town's main prison - not trusting the courts or Prisons Service to do the job. The new section of Pollsmoor to which we were taken had only been completed two years earlier and looked like a huge square fortress. Several floors of tiny slatted windows pock-marked the red exterior wall and at each of the four corners of the block was a tall guard-tower staffed by armed guards.
Spyker and Van Aggenbagh accompanied us into the reception room and then left without any human remark, not even a rude one. Hundreds of black prisoners were sitting in rows on the floor waiting for their turn to be fingerprinted and signed in. Those who had had their fingers done, ritualistically wiped their inky thumbs in their hair and were hustled out of the room by impatient warders. There was much shouting and racist cursing, an ugly apartheid scene being repeated in one of the hundreds of prisons across the country.
We felt like queue jumpers when we were told to go to the head of the queue. But then we were white and no white person was to be made to stand in the same queue as blacks. Not only were we treated more speedily but a pair of subdued warders personally accompanied us through the reception process and the maze of corridors to our 'quarters'.
Unlike most black South Africans, we had never seen the inside of a prison before. We had certain preconceived ideas about them from seeing American cop movies, but this was something different: very long corridors stretching into the distance with highly polished floors and along both walls, every two metres or so, large flush-fitting steel doors looking like giant safes in some vast underground bullion vault. The clinical, almost sterile, atmosphere was frightening. It was impossible to imagine how human beings could live in such a place.
This was the awaiting-trial prisoner's section where unsentenced prisoners who had not been granted bail or who could not afford bail were held. At that time there were at least 20,000 such prisoners in custody in South Africa each day, most of them black.
Stephen and I were placed in two completely isolated cells in the section. They were extremely small, even smaller than the police cells we'd been held in while in detention: about 2 metres by 1.5 metres. The cells were bare save for a tiny stainless steel basin on the one wall, a toilet bowl, and a small metal locker fixed to the opposite wall. High on the outer wall was a sealed, vertically-slatted window with frosted glass, and looking into a short corridor was another, smaller, slatted window.
Two prisoners brought us thin rope mats - our beds they informed us - and our bedding. The same two later brought us a 'meal' and asked us why we had been placed in the 'bomb'. At first we thought this meant that we had been placed in special cells set aside for 'bombers' like us. They gave us our first lesson in prisonese: the 'bomb' was an isolation section consisting of three cells used for the punishment of prisoners who had infringed prison regulations. Through the door of the 'bomb' section we could hear the movements of other prisoners. They did not appear to be confined to their cells like us. So, our punishment was to start here, before we had been sentenced.
Although Steve and I could talk to each other through the locked, barred grilles (inner doors) of our cells (the outer steel panelled doors were left open during the day) both of us wondered how we were going to last two months being cooped up in those tiny cells with only half an hour's 'exercise' per day. Admittedly things were not as bad as detention as we were permitted visits from relatives, reading matter, food parcels and could write letters. On the other hand the food was worse and the cells more cramped. In fact the food was so awful that it made us vomit after two or three spoonsful. Everything was boiled in fat and it was as though all the various ingredients had been slung into a giant boiler and cooked for at least six hours. The only way you could distinguish chicken from pork, say, was by the shape of the pieces of bone on which you choked. There was no way of identifying what vegetables, if any, had been thrown into the slop. After eating this swill for a few days both of us refused to eat it any longer and persuaded our parents to bring us salad vegetables and tinned meats which we could turn into relatively respectable meals.
It was hard to believe that black prisoners were much worse off than us as far as food was concerned. There were at that time graded diets according to your 'racial group'. The Prisons Service now claims that such diets have been eliminated and that everyone receives the same diet which is 'prescribed by professional dieticians...and based on modern requirements for the maintenance of health'. Africans received the worst and least food while 'Coloureds' and Indians received intermediary diets below the Grade I 'white man's diet' that we received. Later we were to see black prisoners being made to squat in the exercise yards while they ate their meals. Their diet appeared to consist mainly of mielie pap (maize-meal porridge) with sometimes what could have been a piece of meat floating on top.
At his first visit Stephen's father brought him, amongst other things, the book Papillon by Henri Charriere. This is the story of the multiple escapes by the author from the French prison colonies on Devils Island and in Guiana. Although reputed to be a true story, much of it is too fantastic to be believed. Nonetheless, it is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read and without doubt one which profoundly affected our lives.
Both of us, naturally, had thought about escaping but only in the most reflexive way; Papillon set us on the course of seriously considering the prospect. It taught us a number of valuable lessons which guided our thinking and actions in the months ahead. The first and most important of these was that if you want to escape from prison you have to approach the task with single-minded determination. Every moment of every day has to be devoted to observing, planning and preparation. No escape will be successful if it is approached in a half-hearted manner or if you place it below other objectives.
The second lesson was that while lucky breaks do occur, you can't depend on them. You have to plan your way out with obsessive thoroughness, taking into account every conceivable factor. At every point where something may not go according to plan you have to have a contingency plan. While every plan has to take into account the minutest detail it should also be flexible enough to adapt to changes in routine or security that take place.
The third, and most practical lesson, was that an escape does not end once you are beyond the physical confines of your prison. This point boiled down to the fact that if you want to get away from the immediate vicinity of your prison quickly you must have money.
Papillon warned us to expect to find prisoners who would not be interested in escaping: such people could not face up to the risks involved and were more interested in making their immediate circumstances as comfortable and bearable as they could. This was difficult for us to understand as we had always imagined that prisoners thought of nothing else but escaping. On top of this our fellow prisoners would all be political prisoners who had a duty to escape. It was inconceivable that the struggle should cease while behind bars.
The overall message of the book, as we read it, was that there are two basic philosophies a prisoner can adopt while serving sentence: a 'getting out' philosophy or a 'making out' philosophy. The former involves thinking of nothing else but how to get out of prison - to the extent that everything else is of little consequence. The latter is the philosophy of acquiescence and resignation. It assists in adapting to the situation and making life as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.
Four days in the isolation cells were as much as we could stand. When the officer-in-charge came around to hear our 'complaints and requests' we asked him why we were being kept apart from the other prisoners and subjected to the punishment of segregation before we had been sentenced. His reply surprised us as we had thought that our separate confinement was something that had been prescribed by the security police or because they feared that we would contaminate the other prisoners with our political ideas. He said that he had thought he was doing us a favour by keeping us apart from the 'scum' as he could see that we were 'decent' people. No, we assured him, we would rather be placed among the other prisoners because we did not wish to be treated differently. He shook his head and went away.
Within an hour we were moved out of the 'bomb' and relocated in cells alongside the 'scum', although next door to the warders' office in the section. Life was more bearable after that. Most of our fellow awaiting-trial prisoners were harmless down-and-outs who in most cases were in prison because they could not afford the bail that had been granted them. One poor fellow had been inside for four months because he could not muster the R2 bail. He'd stolen a blanket from a train.
Some of the other prisoners were out-and-out criminals but interesting to talk to. There was a bloke who had shot his wife with a crossbow, several drug smugglers - one of whom proudly went about displaying the hole between his nostrils caused by sniffing cocaine - some pimps and others who could not explain why they were in prison.
One talkative crook who tried to cultivate our company in order to get at our food told us of the many ingenious methods he had devised to smuggle money out of the country for rich businessmen. On one occasion he hollowed out a pair of cricket pads and re-stuffed them with rolled up banknotes. He flew out of the country with his cricket togs to the accompaniment of well-wishes from the passport controller. On another occasion he cut up the frame of a scrambler motorcycle, stuffed the tubes with notes and then welded it together again. He crated the bike and had it lifted aboard the ship on which he was travelling to Britain. He explained to customs that he was a member of the team of motor cyclists who were 'going to show the Brits how to ride'. Again he was sent off with the blessings of the authorities. His philosophy was that if you were into smuggling you always had to have a reason for travelling which met with the approval of the authorities. That way there would be no problems.
He was also into fraud. He would hang about the lobbies of large blocks of flats where the postboxes were situated. After the postman had been he would put his hand into the boxes and feel for credit cards. When he found one he would do a preplanned lightning tour of all the banks in the area where the card was valid and withdraw R50 from each. If he 'hit' 30 banks he could take home R1,500 in a day. He could also buy himself a new wardrobe of clothes and much else besides.
There were many other crooked types who were only too eager to boast about their misdemeanours. Most of them were sordid characters who were incapable of separating fact from fantasy. They could all sense that we not 'ordinary criminals' and at times we had them queuing up to clean our cells in return for favours of tobacco and food.
Visitors were permitted to see us twice a week for half an hour at a time. There was no physical contact and speech was through a telephone intercom. The panes through which prisoner and visitor viewed each other were of thick bulletproof glass. To demonstrate the strength of the panes the warders were wont to point out the marks on one of the windows caused by a bullet fired by them at point blank range.
Usually there was a warder in attendance on the visitors' side but as you sat in a sort of cubicle it was impossible for him to see all the prisoners at the same time. When he was not looking directly at you it was possible to quickly flash up a message written on the palm of your hand or a piece of paper for your visitor to see. This had to be done if you wanted to pass an important or confidential message because conversations through the telephones were recorded. We found this out after my father had read a letter to me during a session when no warder was in attendance. When he left the visiting-room he was severely reprimanded and told that he would be prohibited from visiting me if he did it again. All letters had to be censored first.
Daphne applied for permission to visit me but it was not granted on the grounds that she was a 'Coloured' and could not use the 'whites'' visiting room. When I then asked to be able to see her in the 'Coloureds'' visiting room I was told that that too was out of the question because white prisoners could not use the 'Coloureds'' visiting room. They were not being vindictive - just following the rules.
Awaiting-trial prisoners were not only entitled to receive food, books, newspapers and magazines from outside but could send out their dirty clothes for washing and receive clean clothes in return. This twice-weekly exchange afforded an excellent opportunity to have sent in all manner of contraband and to send out screeds of uncensored written material.
Theoretically you were allowed to write and receive as many letters as you wished. In practice the censorship was so rigid that very few letters got through in either direction. When they did get through they were so cut to pieces or blanked out that alternative methods of communication were inevitably sought. Many of the other prisoners sent out their letters with prisoners going to court but this had its dangers as some of them would report the 'felony' to a warder in order to ingratiate themselves. Stephen and I, after first using the official channel and finding it unsatisfactory, wrote our letters on sheets of toilet paper (see picture) and then folded and sewed these into the hems of our trousers to be sent out for washing. Our parents did likewise in the opposite direction. The system was set up by flashing a message during a visit. Thereafter a thumbs-up sign meant there was something being sent in or out in the agreed way.
In this manner we were able to send out letters to many people expressing our true feelings and opinions. I was able regularly to communicate with Robin and thereby pass on to the ANC some of our thoughts about the events leading up to our arrest. My mother or sister would copy out the messages and send them on to her using the false names and addresses I had supplied. They would do the reverse with letters from her.
Food parcels, too, permitted a ceaseless flow of contraband, although in one direction only. The first illicit substance we arranged to have sent in was booze. In one of my toilet paper letters I explained to my parents how to remove the plastic cap of a bottle of orange squash without breaking the seal by holding it in steam. Once it was removed half the squash could be emptied out and replaced with a clear spirit such as gin, vodka or cane spirits. With the cap replaced the same way no one could tell the difference. Twice a week Stephen and I would share our bottle of 'orange juice' and get totally smashed. The feeling of being drunk in front of the warders was exhilarating, to say the least, and also helped us to get through the day.
Most important of all, the food parcels enabled us to smuggle in money. Stephen managed to persuade his parents to send in a large sum - R360 in total. The money was sent in concealed inside boxes of powdered milk which had been carefully opened and resealed. In Papillon the convicts hid their money up their anuses in what they called 'chargers'. These were metal tubes with screw-on lids in which the money was rolled and inserted. Borrowing this idea we 'ordered' a couple of cigars of the sort which come sealed in aluminium tubes. Neither of us smoked but our parents never questioned our requests. The tubes, about 12 cm long, had plastic pop-fit lids which on test under water were prone to leak slightly. To overcome this problem we 'ordered' two rubber sheaths, which were sent in concealed in a packet of sugar.
The money was divided two ways, rolled up, sealed in the sheaths and put into the tubes. These we then shoved up our rectums a la Papillon. The first time was the most scary, but with the help of a little Vaseline it went up with ease. In fact it went up so easily that I thought it was going to shoot up my bowels and get stuck somewhere in my guts. I immediately went to the toilet to try to expel it. I expected it to be a hard push and when my bowels worked with such ease I thought the tube had not come out at all. I was really worried, thinking that I would have to call a warder and explain what had happened. But then I spotted a glint in the bowl and realised that it had come out after all. The handling of the object was a bit off-putting at first but we soon overcame our squeamishness. The money remained in place for over three months, until we reached our ultimate destination.
The 'chargers' were the first practical step that we took towards effecting our escape, a step not taken in the off-chance that we might be able to escape - we were definitely going to escape. From the moment we were brought together as awaiting-trial prisoners we made a solemn pledge to each other that we would be out in six months after being sentenced. Our overriding direction of thought after installing the 'chargers' was not towards our defence but towards breaking out.
We did not hide the fact that we intended to escape, but neither did any of the other prisoners. Prisoners, especially when facing probable prison terms, we observed, talked of escaping all the time. Turning that talk into reality, into freedom, was another matter.
Many of our fellow prisoners were people who had already done time and so could relate many stories of escapes, most of them unsuccessful. Two that I remember involved the quick recapture of those involved. Both of them were daring attempts but seemed to be no more than the exploitation of minor cracks in security. Neither contained planning that extended beyond the initial breaking-out phase and were consequently doomed to failure.
One of them took place at Pollsmoor. Two prisoners had managed to find a way onto the roof of the prison, a flat walled area used as an exercise yard, and made a rope of sheets to get over the wall and down the side. The rope must have been very long as the height they had to drop was equivalent to the height of a five-storey building. The two must have realised that they would be seen by the guards in the watchtowers but must have banked on being able to get away before any recapturing forces could be mustered.
They managed to get over the wall and to the ground before the alarm went off. As the prison building is in the centre of a large complex comprising a number of other prison buildings, warders' houses and facilities, they had nowhere suitable to hide; they were also still dressed in their prison clothing. The two fugitives took refuge in the rafters of a garage belonging to a warder but were soon tracked down by sniffer dogs.
The other escape was more ingenious. Two prisoners in charge of packing dirty laundry to be sent out for washing hid themselves in the baskets and were driven out of the prison to freedom. I do not remember how they were recaptured but their freedom was shortlived. It appears that the attempt was more of an impromptu act than a well planned escape.
The most important lesson gleaned from listening to escape stories was that once you have penetrated the outer barrier of your prison you should get away from the immediate vicinity as quickly as possible. Another point was that you must get as far away as possible in the time that you imagine you have before your escape is discovered. We heard a number of stories of prisoners who had made successful breaks but who had then gone into immediate hiding near their prisons or to whoop it up in the nearest pub. These all led to recapture as the prison staff were able to muster their strongest forces close to the prisons. At any time too there would always be some off-duty warders about who would spot you.
The authorities do not take kindly to escapes. Those who are recaptured not only have their sentences prolonged but have their legs chained together for several months. In true mediaeval style, iron shackles are riveted around the escapees' ankles. The shackles are joined together by a long chain which they have to carry in their hands. Because they can't get their ordinary trousers over the chains they are issued special ones which consist of front and rear halves that button together up the sides.
A number of bare rooms just off the section were provided for the prisoners to consult with their lawyers. Curiously our first consultations did not take place in these rooms but in an office belonging to the commanding officer of the prison. Why this happened we never found out, but for some reason the warders at Pollsmoor treated us quite differently to the other prisoners, according us more respect. Perhaps they were acting under instructions to show us how well political prisoners were treated?
The office had no barred or frosted windows, affording us sight of the beautiful mountains of the Cape Peninsula. We'd only been cut off from such views for a month and a half, yet we found ourselves already deprived of visual relief. How would we feel after being cut off from the sights of nature for years on end?
Our consultations took place separately as Stephen's parents had appointed a separate advocate to deal with his affairs. It would have made more sense to have had a single legal representative but his parents refused to have anything to do with mine as they believed at the time that I was responsible for their son's plight.
I was bitterly disappointed with my first consultation. The lawyer in charge of my defence appeared to have been well briefed by the security police because he had a good knowledge of the details of our case and could not have got it from anywhere else. This horrified me as I was expecting him to find out about the case from the person he was supposed to be defending rather than from the side of the prosecution. He appeared to know so much that he was not bothered to ask me any questions relating to the alleged offences for which I was being charged. The feeling he gave right from the start was that he believed I was guilty of the charges and that he could not really defend me, in the sense that he would try to refute the allegations or prove my innocence. All he could do was prevent an outrageous sentence being imposed.
This attitude, to say the least, did not inspire confidence. Later consultations, which were held in the normal consultation rooms, were equally disappointing as he continued to display little interest in the specific acts which constituted the 'offences' with which I was being charged. My suspicion that he had very little sympathy for our cause was confirmed when he announced at one session that he thought the best approach would be for me to plead guilty and that he would attempt to play down the significance of the acts.
Foolishly I did not argue the point and even went to great lengths to provide him with information about the leaflet bombs which could be used to prove that they were not bombs in the real sense. I went along with him because he was the legal expert; I was merely being guided by my prejudices and feelings. I did feel 'guilty' because in their terms I was, but couldn't help feeling that I should plead not guilty and put the damn police to the bother of having to prove their rotten case down to the last petty detail.
Stephen was having much the same problems with his legal 'help'. The family lawyer had dug up some decrepit old dog of an advocate who let alone not being able to speak coherently, had not the faintest clue what a political trial was about. Stephen would come back from his consultations each time in a terribly bad mood, swearing that he had to find a better advocate. But his family would have none of it. They wanted no 'political' lawyers near their son and felt insulted that he was rejecting their best efforts to ensure that he was not going to spend the rest of his life in prison.
In retrospect, however, most of the blame for the appalling advocates with whom we ended up must be put down to our attitude toward our trial. We viewed it simply as an obstacle between our state of being awaiting-trial prisoners and our future state as full-blown prisoners - a state we would soon relieve ourselves of by escaping. Both of us were of the opinion that the trial was just going to be a farce, a big 'show trial' - in fact not a trial at all but an occasion for the security police to swagger and boast that another threat to the 'security of the state' (i.e. to white minority rule and privilege) had been tracked down and was soon to be eliminated. We wanted nothing to do with it. They could have their trial, they could score their points, but we would show them in the end.
Politically speaking, it was wrong to adopt such an attitude, as the battle has to be continued at every point of contact, even where it appears futile. This error was not due to a lack of understanding about the nature of the political trials in South Africa: we knew that the courts were used to hide the fact that the 'security laws' actually by-passed normal law; we knew that the courts were used to give legitimacy to state action against its political opponents. Our determination to escape sapped our motivation to make the most of our trial. We also did not wish to offend our parents who believed that they were doing their best for us.
If we had decided to take our trial seriously there were two ways we could have approached it: participating actively or rejecting completely. It is important to adopt one of these two tactical options because a political trial, in South Africa at least, is not a trial in a purely legalistic sense - it is a battle between two opposing political forces.
As a defendant in a political trial a court has to be seen as a battleground where you are obliged to defend yourself and fight back even though you find yourself severely handicapped because your opponent has defined the conditions and rules of the battle. A political trial is akin to an ambush, where your enemy chooses the best circumstances to favour themselves and disadvantage you to the utmost. But even in an ambush, if you don't want a massacre, you have to fight your way out as best you can. Sometimes, if you are skilful enough, you can get through without too disastrous results and on the rare occasion even turn the tables.
There is, however, one fundamental difference between an ambush and a political trial. The first usually takes place without spectators while the latter is watched by many people. It is imperative to make the correct impression in such a trial because the public does not see you so much as an individual but as representing an organisation or cause. Although our indictment said 'State versus Jenkin and Lee', it should really have read 'State versus ANC'. We should not have given them the opportunity to score any victories over the ANC.
For us, participating actively would have meant, firstly, expelling our lawyers and taking on a single advocate with a reputation for defending accused in political trials. Secondly, we should have demanded that we be allowed to plead not guilty so that the police would have to bring all their 'evidence' before the court. This would have meant, most importantly, that we could have been brought before the court to present evidence in our defence. 'Evidence' from our mouths would have been in the form of political speeches explaining our motivations for engaging in activities which challenged the racist state and our contempt for apartheid 'justice'.
The previous year (1977) the apartheid legislators had decided that they could no longer tolerate political trialists using the dock to make political statements against them and had amended the law (Criminal Procedure Act) to prevent this happening. In the past, convicted trialists had used the dock to make brilliant statements against the regime and these had gone down in the revolutionary history book. Now that this could no longer happen we should have taken the opportunity to use the witness stand instead.
Participating in the court processes defiantly, we well knew, had never got any trialists anywhere in terms of reducing sentences. There was no evidence, however, that participating submissively had ever had the opposite effect - of leading to shorter sentences. Most terms were worked out on the basis of precedent and not on court behaviour. For this reason we should have seen it as our duty to confront the court defiantly.
To reject our trial completely would also have involved expelling our advocates, but not taking on new ones. It would also have involved making a statement in the court, but before the proceedings started. The statement would have been to the effect that we did not recognise the court, that we were not prepared to participate in the proceedings and that we would be prepared to face the consequences, however bitter they were.
This approach was more in line with our way of thinking. We regarded the apartheid regime as illegitimate and illegal and therefore believed that its courts had no right to try us. Additionally, by employing lawyers we were in a sense collaborating with and giving legitimacy to the court that was about to try us. To participate in the proceedings was a betrayal to all we believed in, to the oppressed in whose name we had carried out our activities and to the international community that had declared apartheid a crime against humanity. Apartheid's courts were not courts at all, just forums used by it to shout defiance at its enemies and the world.
However, in the past this option had been studiously avoided by ANC trialists because it had been shown to be ineffective in producing any useful outcome. Some Pan-Africanist Congress members refused to participate in their trials in the early 1960s with the result that their trials became non-trials and the accused simply vanished into prisons. So for us there were no precedents to follow and instead we looked to those who had made the most of being brought before the courts. Since our time a number of political trialists have refused to participate in their trials and have made powerful statements condemning apartheid courts and justice. These have made a strong impact on people who are inspired by the activities of those brought before the courts for engaging in 'illegal' political activity.
The two months before the trial went by quickly. The jail routine was monotonous but not intolerable. The day began when a warder released his frustrations on a large gong at half past five in the morning. The cells were opened at about seven thirty followed by an inspection and count of prisoners before breakfast. The warders had great difficulty in performing this count because if they counted each individual prisoner it took too long and they lost count. To speed up the process we were required to stand in twos - then they only had to count half the number. Clever blighters! The only problem was that they were not too good at division and often detected a shortage of prisoners if there was an odd number. This would lead to an alert and a frenzied search for the 'missing' prisoners. When they could not be found a more senior warder would suggest a recount. Any prisoner who laughed was in trouble.
Breakfast consisted most days of mielie pap, 'coffee' and a few slices of bread. Stephen and I were never allowed out of the section to fetch our meals but had them brought to us - if we wanted them. The rationale for this, as far as we could work out, was that the kitchens were considered a prime area for smuggling. Food and other supplies were brought in daily by outsiders and perhaps they thought we were so devious that we would be able to open a channel there. If only they knew that we'd already opened a channel...
The mornings were set aside for cleaning cells, passages and ourselves. At about eleven everyone was taken out to one of the prison's internal courtyards for an hour's 'exercise'. Some people played soccer but most just lay against a wall and soaked up the fading autumn sunshine. Stephen and I did not accept the midday meal and instead put together our own meals from the food brought to us by our parents. After the midday meal we were locked up for the afternoon, alone or with more than two people per cell: two people might get up to something 'unsavoury'. Most of the time we spent reading, playing chess or just chatting. At about 4 p.m. the cells were opened and the prisoners let out to fetch their evening meal. This normally consisted of a sort of thickened liquid which they said was 'soup', a brown liquid alleged to be 'coffee' and bread smeared with a disgusting pink jelly.
At four thirty the prisoners were locked in their individual cells for the night and after eight they were supposed to keep quiet. The long evening hours gave you the most wonderful opportunity to read those books you'd always wanted to read - such as Tolstoy's War and Peace - but for which you'd never had the time. To overcome the boredom Steve and I would sometimes remove the water from our toilet bowls so that we could talk to each other through the pipes. The sound carried remarkably well and we were able, after we'd each acquired a chess set, to play the game late into the night. The lights were never switched off so you could go to sleep whenever you wished, although official bedtime was 11 p.m.
The straw mats which were our beds were rolled out on the floor. They were required to be immaculately made in the morning and not slept on during the day. As with most things over which you have no choice, you soon got used to your 'bed' despite it being extremely hard and cold on the concrete floor.
The cells were almost completely inhospitable. The tiny handbasin was practically useless except as something on which to stand to look out of the window. The tap operated by pushing a knob, but as there was no plug in the basin it was almost impossible to wash yourself as one hand had to keep the knob depressed. And when you pressed it the plumbing throughout the whole prison would judder and make the most frightful noise. For this reason hardly anyone used their taps at night and instead drew their water from their toilets. These were flushed by pressing a button on the floor with your foot, sending endless torrents of water into the bowl. Everything, including plates and bodies, was washed in toilet bowls and after you had overcome your inhibitions they also became the main source of drinking water. It seemed a shame to have to use them for other purposes.
We were sustained through the two months before our trial by the visits, bottles of laced orange squash, illicit letters, newspapers and the determination not to stay in prison longer than was absolutely necessary. Our morale sagged a little a times but a sudden flood of solidarity letters that arrived in our last days cheered us no end. The letters came from Britain - the result of our 'Defence Committee's' good work. They proved to us that we were not forgotten, as had been alleged by the security police, and that people far away were concerned about our plight. The authorities must have realised this too, for after a few days the flood dried up as suddenly as it had begun. No matter how much we pleaded they insisted that there were no more letters and took offence at our suggestions that they were deliberately withholding them.
We had not yet got used to our powerlessness.