South Africa does not have television. If any girl reads the Rand Daily Mail newspaper, which turns the spotlight on political and socio-economic issues affecting blacks, she may have gleaned that all is not well in the country, but most girls are probably unaware of the dire events unfolding: the fugitive, Nelson Mandela, shopped to the security police by the US Central Intelligence Agency (its involvement revealed only in recent times), is apprehended near Howick and sentenced to five years in prison for inciting a strike against the proclamation of South Africa as a republic and for leaving the country illegally.

When a security police raid on the ANC/South African Communist Party safe house at Liliesleaf Farm in Rivonia, a mere 14 kilometres from St Mary’s leads to the arrest of his comrades, Mandela is implicated in documents they find. At the trial he begins his defence with his famous “I am prepared to die” speech. He is sentenced to life imprisonment, eventually serving a 27-year sentence.