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The day before I write this is the 11th of September, the first anniversary of the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York. It's a date that from now on will be burned into people's collective memories.
But it was already burned into mine, because yesterday was also the 31st anniversary of the day my daughter was born.
Last year I awoke with absolute dread on my daughter's 30th birthday. Cruelly, the events in New York have made sure I will never be able to forget it. '9/11' is written and talked about everywhere, and each time I see it, it is like a knife in my heart. It is a date that has been seared into my brain for two-thirds of my life.
I became pregnant at 16. A forbidden love. In 1971, South Africa was at the height of its repression. Apartheid was not just between black and white, but anyone who dared to go against the government and morals of the country. Being an unmarried mother was one of many things that were not tolerated.
I was still at school - a strict and severe convent staffed by nuns - and extremely cruel; warped women most of them were too. I was so terrified that I did not confide in anyone until I was seven months' pregnant and could no longer fit into my school uniform.
With great fear, I told my mother. I was desperate to keep the baby, but helpless due to my age and circumstances. I was whisked off to a tiny town in Zululand where our old family doctor was living. The nuns were told I had glandular fever. I was given no information on childbirth and told to speak to nobody. I had to pretend to be married, and an adoption was arranged by my mother and the doctor. I was given no say and had no rights. My baby girl was taken from me at birth.
I have never recovered.
On my return to Cape Town, I refused to return to school. It was a nervous breakdown, although I did

not realise it at the time. I left home and moved into a 'Coloured Area' in Cape Town. So began my political involvement in the anti-apartheid movement.