July 1963

The Old Fort Prison complex – commonly known as Number Four – is one of the oldest remaining buildings in Johannesburg. Virtually every important political leader in South African history from Mahatma Gandhi to Nelson Mandela and Robert Sobukwe, as well as scores of other South Africans caught in the web of colonial and apartheid repression, have been imprisoned in these jail cells. The old stone walls tell a century's worth of stories of an iniquitous political system, a brutal penal institution, and the resilience of generations of prisoners. Without warning or any preparation, my turn had arrived to experience the harsh reality of Number Four.

There was nothing glamorous about the harsh violent inhabitants of Number Four. We encountered debased souls who had surrendered to the life of crime, a reflection of the damaged society we lived in. What I saw there challenged everything I believed about humanity. The experience of that first night felt way beyond my realm of any perceptions or experience of life.

New to this harsh and violent reality, we tried to maintain our dignity.

Askance, we watched the food area, where prisoners shoved one another for a chance to grab the runny porridge and a mixture of kaboe mealies from trolleys before they moved off to eat, grunting like animals.

In the poorly ventilated dormitory cells, the blankets were also grabbed in a rush by the common-law prisoners, some of whom boasted to have been born in jail. The overcrowded stinking cells with bloody floors had no adornments of any kind. They were cold, dark, filthy, barren concrete cells filled with masses of unwashed bodies boasting hostile stares from the scarred and brutal men. We were definitely out of our depth.

For the first time, we experienced eastern toilets; the prisoners called them ‘long drops’, holes just dug in the ground with no partitions so that we had to relieve ourselves in full view and hearing of other men. Mind you, these latrines were right across from the concrete floor platform from where we squatted as we gulped our morning porridge and what passed for dinner.