Standard stuff for an island tour a mere sideline on this one But Muthi does his tourist guide duty

Standard stuff for an island tour, a mere sideline on this one But Muthi does his tourist guide duty He shows us the penguin colony They were extinct on the island until 1992 There are now thousands of them. Are they celebrating the release of the political prisoners? He points at a pair: “They are monogamous,” he says. Six months stretched to 13 years.”Do you remember our President, Nelson Mandela, had an operation on his eyes recently?” asks Muthi “It was to remove the lime which had blocked his tear ducts. Each still has a slopping-out bucket in the middle of the floor. Nineteen years in there.Back to the bus we are driven out to the lime quarry where political prisoners were forced to labour.

At first Mandela was told he would be labouring here for six months. “Something to make you feel ridiculous, to make you sorry you became an opponent of this evil system called apartheid,” says Muthi.The block where Mandela and other ANC leaders were held in solitary confinement has their names printed up on the doors of each cramped cell. In the 1960s, black prisoners were issued with short trousers (the island is freezing in the winter), no socks, and open sandals; Coloureds (of mixed race) and Indians got long trousers and proper shoes But they were given shoes that were too big or of odd sizes. They might superimpose your wife’s head on a photograph of a naked woman making love to a man.” He speaks as if he understands that we are hardly likely to believe the perversity of this regime.It is, of course, the details that hit home. Where applications to visit us were approved or turned down.” It is as if Muthi is reminding himself of what happened here as much as informing us of it; catching the recent past before it slips away “It is in this office that marriages were broken.

They forged the handwriting of wives and wrote asking for divorce. It is in this office that our newspapers and letters were censored. “That office was meant to break us, demoralise us, frustrate us,” he says, keeping his eyes on the door, as if braving the place out “It is here that psychological torture took place. One of the lucky ones, he served just three years until all political prisoners were released.Muthi stops his tour group in a prison corridor, by steps leading up to the door of the censor’s office. A young, thin, serious- looking man he welcomes us to Robben Island and tells us it is a nature reserve so he’s afraid we will not be able to get out of the bus while outside the prison walls.Once inside the prison, Muthi tells us he served time on the island In 1987 he was jailed for 25 years. He skippered Mandela off the island, but he doesn’t think the President would remember him.On arrival we are ushered on to a bus outside the prison gate and introduced to our guide, Theophilus Mzukwa – Muthi for short. And here I am – I’ve still got a job!” Political prisoners in handcuffs and leg-irons were held in the forward cabin, “common criminals” aft.