IN MANDELA’S EARLY FOOTSTEPS

Standing on the railway tracks at the dilapidated Bityi Station, deep in the rural landscape of the old Transkei, it wasn’t hard to imagine the apprehension two young rebels felt when they boarded a train for the distant city of gold, eGoli or Johannesburg.

The young Rolihlahla Nelson Mandela and his older cousin, Justice Dalindyebo, were not just heading into the unknown. They were escaping from the future that the royal regent, Justice’s father Chief Jongintaba Dalindyebo, had mapped out for them. It would be a life of relative privilege in tribal society, where Justice would succeed his father and Mandela would step into his own late father’s shoes as a trusted adviser to the royal family.

‘They were running away from marriages