The first time I visited Great Britain was in 1973 with the productions of Sizwe Banzi Is Dead and The Island, both plays written by Athol Fugard, Winston Ntshona and myself. We were welcomed by many South African exiles from all political persuasions. The one thing they all had in common was a longing for home. They all believed it would not be long before the country was liberated and they could return to a free and democratic South Africa. All we talked about was South Africa. I realised that the South Africa they were talking about was the one they had known before they left and I had to be very careful not to interfere with their memories by talking about the developments in the country since then.

Many of the exiles who had married natives of the countries that hosted them spoke about the day they would bring their families back to a non-racial society with no laws prohibiting interracial marriages. I always wondered, silently within myself, whether these interracial marriages would survive in a free South Africa under the pressure of cultural differences; whether families that were successful abroad would be able to adjust as the spouses went back to their original homes in the townships and rural communities; whether their children, who saw themselves as Africans, would able to handle the fact that back in South Africa they would be classified or seen as ‘coloured’ people.

Another interesting thing I observed among the exiles was that each tended to exaggerate the role he or she had played in the struggle. Everybody was second to OR Tambo in importance within the Organisation and had worked closely with people like Nelson Mandela, Govan Mbeki, Walter Sisulu and many others in the senior leadership of the ANC. So, when Nelson Mandela was released from prison and negotiations started with the leaders of the apartheid government, headed by FW de Klerk, I imagined what the families of many of the exiled South Africans felt, as not all political exiles were invited to return home to join the team of negotiators alongside Mandela. I wondered how those who were not invited explained to their spouses, families and friends why they had not been included.