Mandela - My Prisoner, My Friend by Christo Brand Barbara Jones

Author:Christo Brand, Barbara Jones [Christo Brand and Barbara Jones]
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782198123
Publisher: Perseus Books, LLC
Published: 2014-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

Estelle didn’t tell me about the letter but she began to press me to take up degree courses. I reasoned with her that I already had to study criminal law to ensure promotion in the prison service, and I had a full-time job and a busy family with a baby son, so I had no extra time. In exasperation one day, I told her: ‘You’re beginning to sound just like Mandela. He never stops nagging me about studying.’

His letter to her is written in flawless Afrikaans. Sworn to secrecy so as to avoid trouble for both Mandela and myself, Estelle had hidden it and waited seven years before she showed me.

Mandela would often offer an act of kindness out of the blue. I once told him about an accident I’d had on my 125cc Suzuki motorbike. I’d been driving through a coloured township to buy spare parts for my car and found the road littered with burned tyres and broken traffic lights after a protest.

A pick-up truck drove straight out of a side-street and into me, knocking me off the bike and into the road where a crowd quickly gathered. It was a bad situation and I only got out of there by insisting the truck driver took me to the nearest police station where I’d be safe. Once there, bizarrely, I saw a former prisoner of mine from Pollsmoor who was there scrubbing the floors, and he helped me take off my helmet and attended to my injuries.

I had cracked ribs, severe bruising and a gash that needed stitches in my foot. Although the truck driver had admitted being at fault, I was now getting demands to pay for damage to his vehicle. I showed his letter to Mandela, hoping his legal mind could help. The bill was R420, a small fortune at that time.

He immediately wrote a stern letter setting out the circumstances, demanding the claim be dropped and insisting I was to be paid compensation. Of course, I had to take the letter home to have it typed. If anyone saw Mandela’s handwriting, it would have been serious for both of us. I tore up the original and flushed it down the toilet.

I sent off my typed copy by registered post as he advised, and quickly won the case. Mandela, terrorist and revolutionary, had solved a minor civil case for a non-paying client, his prison warder.

Soon, I was able to carry out some kindness of a different kind for him. In 1985, his prostate problems returned and it was decided he needed another operation. There was a consultation with him about which hospital he should go to. Various private clinics were suggested, primarily because of security concerns, but he insisted he trusted the surgeons at Woodstock. He wanted to return there. He busied himself preparing for another trip from the prison, giving Kathrada strict instructions about watering and weeding the plants in his garden as he was concerned about their upkeep while he was away.

Once again, I was with him throughout the operation.

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