CYNTHIA: Sometimes police vans would come whilst we were helping the squatters, and all the black community workers would be arrested. The white ones would be sent home, or be fined for being in there without a permit. We would be interrogated for hours on end, then warned never to go to the squatter camp again.

But we went. We went.

My disillusionment increased as our arrests got regular. What were we doing, eh? I mean, we were giving temporary relief to a few squatters, but was that really solving anything? A mug of soup will sustain the spirit for a day, but will it change anything? Some decided to work directly with the squatters, to organise them into a mass movement that would launch an open defiance campaign.

Then one day they came. My daughter and I were getting ready to go to church that Sunday morning. Special delivery by three security police. A very special document from the Minister of the Interior. Eight pages of perverse instructions. I was banned, and my banning order was to include house arrest.

Thank you very much for the nice letter from your nice Minister. Now if you will excuse me. I have to go to church.

POLICE OFFICER: NO, you can't go to church. If you read that ‘nice letter’ you will note that it prohibits you from leaving your premises at weekends.

CYNTHIA: What the hell! Your Minister of Interior prohibits me from praying to my God in my own way?

POLICE OFFICER: Not only that, Madam. It is illegal for you to meet more than one person at any one time. It's right there in black and white in the banning order.

CYNTHIA: You mean I can't go to work any more? How the hell do you expect me to live, and my little girl too?

POLICE OFFICER: You only have yourself to blame. If you hadn't gone on with your terrorist activities … And we warned you, you know. You can't say we have not been fair with you. Anyway if you want to take a job you have to apply for special permission, and I can't guarantee that the Minister will grant you one.

CYNTHIA: What the hell!

POLICE OFFICER: And note, madam, the banning order prohibits you from entering the premises of any factory and any institution of learning.