TheUmtalifinallyarrivedinCapeTown,in thedark, early onemorning. Unlikewartime Britain, where blackouts prevailed, the whole city was illuminated. I remember my mother waking me up and saying: "Look through the port-hole, Nigel! It's Fairyland!"
It was indeed. When the sun rose, I could seethemagnificent TableMountain behind the city, flanked by Devil's Peak and Lion's Head — a site rivalled only by Rio's Sugarloaf.
But on the dockside, I then saw three black labourers. I was terrified, believing them to be the cannibals of Darkest Africa we had been warned about in Britain. Yet my mother both then and later refused to return to Britain. She and my father never did, and today lie buried in the beautiful village of Barrydale some 250 miles east of Cape Town.
