We have already met Com T, once the Volunteer in Chief for Langa. Christmas Fihla Tinto is today vice-chairperson of the UDF (Western Cape). He always wears a big smile. Perhaps it is because he has been sentenced twice to long spells of prison, and twice, after some time on Robben Island, he has got off on appeal. Maybe he smiles because of his luck, maybe he has been smiling ever since he was born in the festive season, Christmas Day 1925. Com T grew up in the Transkei, and then worked as a contract labourer on the mines. After being involved in a strike he was blacklisted. So, in the early 195Os, he came to Cape Town to look for work. He soon became involved in union organising.

Tinto: In 1954 I organised a hospital workers’ union in five months. Thereafter I was instructed by the movement, by the ANC, to organise the railways, because at the railways are mostly people coming from rural areas. They speak deep Xhosa, just like myself. You were told in those times to go and do that. You don't say that I do what I think. You do what you are told to.

Still in 1954 then, I went to organise the railways. I went to Johannesburg to get training there, on how to approach the problems involved there. I met the comrade, the late Lawrence Ndzanga there. We discussed together. Although I heard that Joshua Nkomo was organising the railway workers as well in Pietermaritzburg I couldn't get a chance to go there. Then I was involved in the Railway Workers Union till I was detained in 1963 under 90-days detention.

Q: Was it very difficult to get access to the railway workers?

Tinto: Ja. It was. But we used various tactics. For instance, if you are organising an industry you must have a uniform of that particular industry. The first thing I bought a railway overall, when I go inside the gate the watchman, the police whoever, he doesn't differentiate from these other people. I just went inside. Usually I used to go closer lunch time, so that at lunch I addressed them in the mess-room.