Media Release: 5 February 2015
“Are you surprised to see me?”
This is how Nelson Mandela greeted prison official, Warrant Officer Jack Swart, on 10 February 1990.
Nelson Mandela and Jack Swart reunited. (Courtesy: Louise Gubb)
Swart, who had cooked and cleaned for him at Victor Verster Prison for the last 14 months of his imprisonment, was indeed surprised.
The previous afternoon his commanding officer had told him to pack ‘padkos’ (food for the road) for Mandela who was to be released after an evening meeting with President F W de Klerk.
Swart replied: “Yes I am, because they told me you were gone.” Mandela then told him “No, on my conditions.”
His prisoner had once again impressed him by his strength of character. He had demanded to be released from the prison in Paarl, outside Cape Town and not in Johannesburg as De Klerk wanted. Mandela had also asked for an extra week in prison, for his people outside to prepare properly. In the end the decision was to release him from Victor Verster but only on 11 February.
Mandela had left the prison at 4.35 pm on 9 February 1990 for ‘Tuynhuys’ the President’s office in Cape Town and had returned at 1am after the six-hour meeting. When Swart saw him, the 72-year-old appeared unphased by the late night or the momentous event about to dawn.
Soon activists, who would be responsible for his wellbeing on his release, arrived to discuss the arrangements. First Mandela, who wanted to address the people of Cape Town, had a speech to write.
The next morning, Sunday 11 February 1990, Mandela woke early as usual and was dressed by the time Swart arrived at 7am.
Now retired from the Prison Service, Swart recalled the morning of Mandela’s release: “He heard me when I opened the door and he came down and he said ‘Good morning Mr Swart, how are you?’ I say, ‘No, good and you?’”
Another warder James Gregory delivered the prisoner’s daily newspapers and Mandela sat down for for breakfast. But when guests started arriving from 8am he asked to abandon his cholesterol-free meal in favour of the richer fare they were being served.
The team of activists finalised the programme and packed the 22 cardboard boxes containing his possessions into the waiting cars. Mandela offered Swart any remaining goods, including groceries, but he only accepted the gesture once Mandela had put it in writing.
Supplement to Warrant (Courtesy: Nelson Mandela Foundation)
As the activists and Mandela’s family members excitedly prepared for him to leave prison for the last time, it was difficult to hold a conversation in the house. They could hardly hear themselves above the clatter of helicopter blades overhead as journalists hovered above attempting to record whatever they could of the historic occasion.
In the midst of the storm was the calm that was Nelson Mandela. Throughout all of this he carried on as normal, even taking his daily nap of 30 minutes to an hour. He chose to rest in a small spare room in the house where he inadvertantly left his speech and his reading glasses. Fortunately when it came time for him to address the people from the balcony of the Cape Town City Hall he was able to borrow suitable spectacles and there was an extra copy of the speech available.
A series of delays had meant that Nelson Mandela had signed out of prison at 4.22 pm instead of 3 pm as De Klerk had announced to the world the previous day.
Recalling his last minutes in the house, Swart said: “We didn’t even say goodbye. He went past me, tapped me on the shoulder and went out.”
The man who had spent at least nine hours a day with him for the last 14 months was left wondering “what now?”
Not only did Swart tend house for Mandela and cater for him and his guests, he also accompanied him to most of his appointments outside the prison – except for a visit to President PW Botha on 5 July 1989 and two to De Klerk on 13 December 1989 and 9 February 1990.
Swart quietly revels in some of Mandela’s victories at Victor Verster, especially when, in his first winter there in 1989, the District Surgeon who visited him once a week wrote him a prescription for wood. He had received a basket of wood from the prison but used it all up in one night and was told to buy more from his own funds. Mandela told a visiting doctor who immediately wrote out the prescription.
Mandela did not only receive medical visits. Twice a month he left the prison to see various doctors, and on one occasion, the dentist. Whenever he made such trips Swart and Gregory were told they could take him anywhere he wanted.
Unbeknown to the journalists itching for just a sight of him, Mandela travelled all over the Western Cape: He visited Ceres, ate fish and chips at Hermanus, crayfish at Hout Bay, visited Paarl Rock and even walked on the beach in Paternoster. Once, during a visit to the dentist in the Cape Town suburb of Wynberg, they could not find a parking space at the building. The three men in civilian clothing had to walk between 300 and 400m along a public road. No one recognised that one of them was Nelson Mandela.
Swart need not have worried about what was to become of him once Mandela left prison.
Mandela described him to others as a “very good friend of mine” and they visited each other. Swart was invited to his inauguration as President of South Africa on 10 May 1994. On another occasion, as a guest of President Mandela at the opening of Parliament, Swart sat in the ‘Lodge’ of the National Assembly. Mandela walked in with his Director General Professor Jakes Gerwel. He greeted Swart as ‘Luitenant’.
Sure enough, a few months later he was officially promoted. Swart was never told and has no proof but in his heart he always knew that Mandela had him promoted.
Ends
Media Enquiries:
Danielle Melville
+27 82 994 0349