Identity area
Reference code
ZA COM NMFP-2012/41-2012/41-5
Title
Nelson Mandela's Warders (page 5) [Nelson Mandela's Warders_005.jpg]
Date(s)
- 2011 (Creation)
Level of description
page
Extent and medium
1 digital image
977 KB
977 KB
Context area
Name of creator
Repository
Archival history
Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Verne Harris
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Page 5 of Nelson Mandela's Warders
Introduction and Jack Swart
Introduction and Jack Swart
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling
Accruals
System of arrangement
Conditions of access and use area
Conditions governing access
Access by permission of the Nelson Mandela Centre of Memory
Conditions governing reproduction
Language of material
- English
Script of material
Language and script notes
Physical characteristics and technical requirements
Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related units of description
Notes area
Note
In an important sense, Gregory’s book is not his own work, as it was ghost written by a British journalist, Bob Graham. In 1994, Graham was sent to South Africa on assignment for Today, a tabloid newspaper which has since ceased publication. During the course of his time in the country, Graham met and interviewed James Gregory, as did many other journalists, including some French journalists, who may have been instrumental in the French publishing house Editions Robert Laffont acquiring rights to Gregory’s story. Graham found the ex-warder’s reminiscences compelling and within months he had expanded them into a book.
Establishing the precise nature of the relationships these three warders had with Mandela is challenging. Their claims address the central challenge of historiography: the authority of the storyteller. Mandela has commented cursorily on his relationships with them in his own autobiography, in his book Nelson Mandela: Conversations with Myself, and in Anthony Sampson’s Mandela – The Authorised Biography, but these comments are, understandably, in passing. Consequently, although Gregory’s narrative stands in conflict with those of Brand and Swart, and although former prisoner Ahmed Kathrada has condemned Gregory’s account, it is Gregory’s word which dominates the internet. A simple Google search foregrounds his relationship with Mandela as a matter of record, and yet it is seriously flawed.
Jack Swart
The first of the warders to come into contact with Mandela was Jack Swart, in 1966.
Swart was born in 1947 in the west coast town of Darling, where his father ran two butcheries. His early childhood years were spent here, and here the
Establishing the precise nature of the relationships these three warders had with Mandela is challenging. Their claims address the central challenge of historiography: the authority of the storyteller. Mandela has commented cursorily on his relationships with them in his own autobiography, in his book Nelson Mandela: Conversations with Myself, and in Anthony Sampson’s Mandela – The Authorised Biography, but these comments are, understandably, in passing. Consequently, although Gregory’s narrative stands in conflict with those of Brand and Swart, and although former prisoner Ahmed Kathrada has condemned Gregory’s account, it is Gregory’s word which dominates the internet. A simple Google search foregrounds his relationship with Mandela as a matter of record, and yet it is seriously flawed.
Jack Swart
The first of the warders to come into contact with Mandela was Jack Swart, in 1966.
Swart was born in 1947 in the west coast town of Darling, where his father ran two butcheries. His early childhood years were spent here, and here the
Alternative identifier(s)
Access points
Subject access points
Place access points
Name access points
- Gregory, James (Subject)
- Swart, Jack (Subject)
- Mandela, Nelson Rolihlahla (Subject)