Free Winnie Mandela by Anné Mariè du Preez Bezdrob

bewildered Ezra was too embarrassed to comfort her. He never said a word about the matter, and Winnie regretted having told him.
    The assistant principal taught three subjects to Winnie’s class, and she found it impossible to concentrate on any of them. Disappointed by Ezra’s reaction, she did not want to tell any of her other classmates, and dared not confide in her father or the matron, Mrs Mtshali. The matron was something of a martinet who regularly inspected the girls, and if she found anything untoward, would make the offender lie naked on the floor and beat her with a whip. Winnie was forced to help her strip the girls and found the duty mortifying, thinking it a shameful way to treat a girl. She had no doubt that if she told Mrs Mtshali about the money she would be accused of encouraging the teacher, and be beaten, naked, on the floor as well. The disgrace would be harder to bear than the pain, so she kept the awful secret to herself.
    Generally, though, life at Shawbury was stimulating and challenging. Winnie was popular with her peers, partly because she was always willing to help them where she could. One of her school friends, Nomawethu Mbere, would later recall how Winnie, having abandoned her youthful rebellion against religion, took the lead in organising their church attendance on Sundays. Nomawethu looked up to Winnie, whom she saw as reserved, even introvert, but with obvious leadership qualities and a remarkable talent for disciplining other pupils. Winnie was two classes ahead of Nomawethu but regularly helped the younger girls with their assignments, so much so that one teacher admonished Nomawethu for being too far ahead in the curriculum, thanks to Winnie’s coaching.
    Shawbury was one of a number of mission schools in the Transkei run by various religious denominations. When the National Party government introduced its Bantu Education programme, most of these schools closed down rather than apply the lower standards. But many of the young blacks of Winnie’s generation emerged from the mission schools well equipped to make their mark in both South African society and the liberation struggle.
    Had there been any scholarships for blacks, Winnie would undoubtedly have been an excellent candidate for one, but Columbus had to pay all her tuition fees from his sparse income. It was a huge financial burden, but he was determined that she would get a decent education. His daughter Nancy noticed that he was struggling, and made a personal sacrifice on Winnie’s behalf. The two sisters had always been close, and after their mother’s death the bond between them deepened even more. Nancy shared their father’s confidence in Winnie, and sheleft school and began to take casual jobs that brought in a small amount of money. Most of it went to Winnie for pocket money, and as soon as she was able, Winnie repaid Nancy’s generosity by sending her the fare to Johannesburg and arranging for her to train as a nurse at the Bridgeman Memorial Hospital.
     
    After the National Party came to power in 1948, South Africa found itself increasingly in the stranglehold of Afrikaner nationalism. Laws drafted with the sole intent of segregating black and white were rushed through parliament, provoking an inevitable backlash from an outraged black community. The early 1950s were momentous years in South African politics, and Winnie was at Shawbury in 1951 and 1952. It was not her marriage to Nelson Mandela that made Winnie an activist, but the germination of seeds planted many years earlier by her father and teachers.
    At Shawbury, she made her first acquaintance with political debate. Some of the teachers belonged to the Society of Young Africa, the so-called Conventionists, a theoretical, academic organisation that held no appeal for ordinary people, but was greatly admired by the senior pupils, who had no contact with any other political movement.
    Their political awareness shifted into higher gear in 1952, when a young