Dad, Mom, Ben, Mary and Sherry
Dear Philip,
Eve and Tony were very dear friends of ours since they joined "the movement" in 1960, bringing fresh enthusiasm and liveliness into quite a battered Congress of Democrats. Their Johannesburg house (in Norwood or Oaklands?) was a happy meeting place and a shelter for lost souls.
The twins were born there and you were just a little boy, wondering what had happened. I can picture Eve today with the babies each cradled in one arm. If I'm not mistaken they had taken out twin-insurance because there were twins in Eve's family. That must have helped as they were never flush with money - it wasn't important to them.
Shortly afterwards they moved to a kind of experimental farm north of Johannesburg (I can't remember the name) and were there when Eve was arrested with me, Pixie Benjamin, Mollie Anderson, Costa Gazides and Gerald Ludi (who turned out to be a police agent) .
We were sentenced to 6 months for furthering the objectives of the ANC by putting up posters calling for an eye for an eye . Eve hated prison particularly the humiliation of wearing a uniform far too big for her and not being able to shave her legs. The matron in charge of Pietersberg prison was very hard on us and in retrospect I think for Eve this must have dredged up recollection of the concentration camps during Nazi occupation of France.
After a few weeks she became very depressed and was moved, together with Mollie and Pixie to Nylstroom prison. I remained alone at Pietersberg. When I was released I was put under suburb arrest and not allowed visitors so contact became almost impossible.
Eve and Tony left South Africa and we met them again in Nairobi - where again their flat had become a meeting place for friends and visiting exiles. After six months we left for Tanzania and did not meet them again until we visited you in Brighton and Eve had started her course at Reading.
Eve and Tony were not like other friends who gypsies like us meet and then, when we move, lose touch with. Somehow with them we maintained contact over all the years - and I am sure it was their initiative because in the course of their travels they collected innumerable friends and kept in touch with them too - all people who, by one path or another, were trying to do something for the common good. Ideological differences were no barrier to them. They were ahead of their time.
We returned to SA from exile in 1991 and within a year or two Eve and Tony were back - and we visited them in their Yeoville home which, like their social networks, was filled with beautiful memorabilia from their travels. Later they bought Matumi and we visited them twice - it was a superb final resting place for them both although that seemed unthinkable at the time - Eve was still travelling for the ILO.
Its hard for an outsider to imagine how difficult was Eve and Tony's fight against her cancer . I suspect the cost of her treatment may have delayed Tony from seeking treatment for his own health problems . Eve clung on to life despite her poor prognosis. When we last met she laughingly told me how she had wept when her doctor prescribed the last course of chemo-therapy, perhaps forcing him to assure her than the cancer was almost gone.
But Eve was never consumed with her own illness and also urged me to take up with government the high cost of medication (especially analgesics) as a particular problem for poor people with Aids.
Out of the blue in August 2007 Eve proposed a trip to see the wild flowers in the Northern Cape. It was a crazy idea but I agreed to go along, having never ventured that far myself and keen to join them in the adventure.
We started at Kalk Bay where we hoped to see whales cavorting and spent the first night on the seashore in Langebaan where Eve and Tony occupied the honeymoon suite complete with sauna. Then followed the long slog to Niewoudville via Clanwilliam. Tony did all the driving in a hired car and had not brought proper maps so we had to take a long detour via bad roads. This was punishing for Eve. She bounced back when we reached Niewoudville , a funny little platteland dorp where we spent 2 or 3 nights and went to daily expeditions to the flowers.
Tony tried to protect Eve from more knocking about on bad roads but she was very persistent. They it was back to Stellenbosch where we over-nighted with Johan Simons, son of Jack and Ray Simons (another contact?) who runs a not-too-successful B and B and wine farm. For Eve it was a heavy safari but to be able to spend so much time with her and Tony was magic for me. Their deaths a few months later came as a terrible blow.
I have forwarded to you separately some pictures of the Niewoudville adventure and Tony's 2020 vision.
Good luck with your book - its a lovely idea. Do let me know if I can help in any way.
Much love to you and your brothers,
Mary Turok
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