COMMISSIONER
We met in this clandestine fashion a few times between 1978 and 1981.  In this period Security Branch Police would often come home and harass my family, especially my mother, who was alone while the rest of us had gone to work.  They would want to know if we had received any communications from my brother.  This was a traumatic period for all of us, especially my mother.  It was obvious that the police were keeping tabs on all of us.  For instance, in January 1981 we made another trip to Swaziland to see my brother.  The officials at the border post gave us a torrid time.  They demanded to know why we were going to Swaziland.  They refused to believe that we were going on holiday.  They turned us back, saying that my son, who was two years old at the time, did not have a passport.  When my brother and I pleaded with them, saying that my son was a mere child who could not do anything wrong in Swaziland, they became abusive.  One of the chaps threatened my younger brother.  So we were forced to go back, but I knew that my mother and father were devastated by the fact that we had to go all the way back to Durban. Fortunately my wife suggested that I leave her and my small son at Piet Retief, so I drove at breakneck speed to Piet Retief, which was one hour's drive away from the border post, and here I found the greatest difficulty in obtaining accommodation for my wife and son in a predominantly conservative Muslim community.  There was only one Hindu family apparently in Piet Retief at that time, a Mr Singh, but he was not in town.  So I carried on driving around the town until one of the families took me in.  I then drove back again at breakneck speed, this time through lightning and thunder, to beat the 4 o'clock deadline at the border post.  The officer grudgingly allowed us to go through.