27 July 1963

Leeuwkop Maximum Security Prison – that was our next port of call. And did we get a warm welcome!

This prison is situated just north of Johannesburg. We got there in the late afternoon. Lumped into the back of police vans with jokes for windows and round ventilation holes not much wider than a child's mouth, we saw little during the drive from our point of departure, Number Four, but our relief at what we had left behind carried us forward.

A hush fell as we entered Leeuwkop; disbelief on every face. This was the last thing we were prepared for – Leeuwkop! One of South Africa's top maximumsecurity prisons, made to hold particularly hardened criminals. Leeuwkop Prison is where Ezekiel Dlamini, otherwise known as King Kong, the notorious serial murderer of the fifties, had chosen to throw himself into a lake, take his own life, rather than stick it out in that place. The authorities at Leeuwkop boasted they could soften the most hardened of criminals. Talk about shock! Just when we thought we’d escaped from the horrors of Number Four!

To welcome us, there was a pair of warders, one black and the other white. The two officers were in identical dark brown khaki uniforms. This pair would be our main caretakers for the duration of our stay at Leeuwkop.

Taking over from those who had brought us there, the pair inspected us, coldly looking us up and down as they counted us to make sure there was the number they expected and that we were all in good health. I suppose they didn't want ‘damaged goods’.

The Head Warder, Sergeant Liebenberg, nicknamed Magalies, had been a farmer before he joined the Prison Service. I guessed he originated from the Magaliesberg Mountains, North West of Johannesburg. Beetroot red, he was an imposing six foot four, thick-necked and broad of shoulder. His ice-blue eyes reminded us always that he hated us – and couldn't be bothered to hide that fact. Even his fluency in Setswana only emphasised that deep-seated contempt in which he held us. Looking down at us, Sergeant Liebenberg said, ‘You are the twenty-nine from Randfontein,’ paused before, in measured tone, he continued, ‘Welcome to my farm!’

He stalked us in a slow broad walk; his body seemed to fill the whole corridor.