The fugitive... on the run in London: Confidante reveals the astonishing inside story of the 'Black Pimpernel' and his clandestine mission to Britain in 1962... while posing as a tourist

The most wanted man in South Africa, Nelson Mandela, 44, was in London on a clandestine visit to gather support for the fight against apartheid
Pictured alongside Freda Levson and Mary Benson by the Thames
He later told a friend this time in London was the freest he'd ever felt

By Angella Johnson and Elizabeth Sanderson

PUBLISHED: 18:10 EST, 7 December 2013 | UPDATED: 18:10 EST, 7 December 2013

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Drifting with the crowds along the Thames, staring up at Big Ben and the Gothic Revival towers of the British Houses of Parliament, the dapper figure wearing a tweed suit in the cool sunshine of June looked every inch a tourist.

In one way he was. Yet this was also 44-year-old Nelson Mandela, the most wanted man in South Africa, a fugitive nicknamed ‘the Black Pimpernel’ for his remarkable ability to escape capture.

And he was here on a clandestine ten-day visit to London to gather support for the fight against apartheid, all the while evading the attentions of South Africa’s infamous secret service.

This picture shows a 44-year-old Nelson Mandela by the Thames with Freda Levson and Mary Benson

As he later told a friend, this time in London was the freest Mandela had ever felt, and the little-known trip in the summer of 1962 laid the foundations of a life-long affection for Great Britain, the former colonial overlord.

He, in turn, had a profound effect on those who met him here, including Mary Benson, a Pretoria-born friend who took Mandela and Oliver Tambo, the exiled future president of the ANC, to see the sights of London.

Mary, a human rights activist who would become Mandela’s confidante and official biographer, was clearly quite taken with the physical presence of this tall former boxer with the careful manners of a trained lawyer. She wrote in her diary: ‘N Gorgeous.’

She later recalled how it had been a complete surprise to her when he appeared at her caravan-size flat in St John’s Wood.

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‘I’d been expecting Oliver Tambo to dinner, but when I opened the door, beside him stood an exuberant Mandela,’ she said.

‘I can’t think what I gave them to eat because I’m a very indifferent cook, but it was quite an extraordinary evening. My flat is tiny, about ten feet by ten, and Mandela was pacing up and down, talking about the tour of Africa he had made after being smuggled out of South Africa.

‘He had been visiting the different countries in Africa raising support and funds for education, and getting some military training, though he never in fact made any use of that. He talked so excitedly and with such enthusiasm, it was unforgettable.’

Wanted by the authorities in South Africa for inciting workers to strike, Mandela had to keep his trip to Britain a closely guarded secret, especially because South African spies were notoriously active in Britain.

He had just become head of the armed wing of the African National Congress. But Mandela told a suspicious immigration officer he was an author called David Motsamayi writing a book on political thought in Africa and that he intended to visit museums and libraries to carry out research.

As he explained in his autobiography: ‘In London I resumed my old underground ways, not wanting word to leak back to South Africa that I was there.’

One of the pleasures of the visit was the chance to spend time with his ANC comrade Tambo, whose wife Adelaide was concerned that his asthma was worsening under the strain of work.

Mandela came to London as the most wanted man in South Africa, a fugitive nicknamed 'the Black Pimpernel'

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, the Tambos’ son Dali recalled the day when the man he knew as Uncle Mandela came to stay at their home in North London.

‘There was a lot of excitement,’ said Dali, now a television presenter in South Africa. ‘I was only three years old, but I recall that it was a joyous time. My parents were very happy to have him staying with us. I liked him because he was always laughing and would bounce me on his knees.

‘My parents talked about him all the time and it was a gnawing sadness to them that so much of his life was wasted as he languished in prison.

‘My father admired Mandela’s vigour and commitment to the party. He wanted him to take over, but my uncle kept saying no.’

Mandela’s affection for Britain was evident even back then. Mary showed him the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, where he posed for photographs with activist Freda Levson, whose husband Leon was behind the camera. The group then hopped on to a bus to have lunch at a restaurant in Chelsea.

And it was Mary who arranged for him to meet Labour politician Denis Healey, a friend from her days working for the British Army in Egypt. This was not her only connection. She later worked as a secretary for film director David Lean.

‘He was only here for a few days, but I remember him saying it was the first time he had felt free,’ Mary said later.

‘He was absolutely thrilled to be in London and he was delighted when we took him to Westminster and took a photograph of him outside Parliament.

‘He was in a mood of tremendous exhilaration. We could not go inside the buildings. Parliament was closed, and there was a service in the Abbey.’

In his own memoirs, Mandela says he shared a joke with Oliver Tambo about the statue of General Smuts in Parliament Square, saying that perhaps some day their own statues would be there instead.

‘My ten days there were divided between ANC business, seeing old friends and occasional jaunts as a conventional tourist,’ he wrote.

Even staunch supporters were kept in the dark about his presence.

Nelson Mandela (right) with fellow ANC leader Oliver Tambo and his son, Dali

But one rare exception was Vella Pillay, a South-African-born economist who with his wife Patsy helped organise the British anti-apartheid movement.

Their son, Anand, a mathematician who now lives in America, was 11 years old at the time.

‘Everything was highly confidential,’ he said. ‘Ours was a political home, there were refugees coming in and out, but we weren’t told anything – the armed struggle was about to begin.’

Mandela also paid a surprise visit to his old friend from Soweto, Todd Matshikiza, who wrote the lyrics to the musical King Kong. He was living in exile in Primrose Hill with his wife Esme.

‘I’ll never forget his vision that night,’ Esme recalled. ‘I really felt he was divinely inspired, completely unmaterialistic.

‘With his big vision he didn’t even see the rumpled bed.’

When Mandela described how he had to keep on the move because the South African police were determined to find him, she begged him to stay in London. Mandela replied: ‘A leader stays with his people.’

His luck, though, was running out. After his return to South Africa he was arrested on charges of incitement and of leaving the country illegally. He was sentenced to imprisonment that other charges would stretch out until 1990.

Day my father died, he revealed his greatest regret, writes Gillian Slove, daughter of activist leader Joe Slovo

When my anti-apartheid activist father Joe Slovo died in the early morning of January 6, 1995, Nelson Mandela was the first person we phoned and the first person to visit.

It was still dark when he got to us. He sat himself down in my father’s living room with the light of the new day filtering over the lush garden outside and talked softly about how he had heard the news, who he had phoned to spread it, and how he had found a driver to bring him to us. And then he lapsed into silence.

We sat wordless in the breaking dawn until Mandela looked over to where I and my two sisters, Shawn and Robyn, were sitting, and began again to speak. He told us about a day when, after he had come out of prison in February 1990, he went to hug one of his daughters.

As he neared her, he said, she flinched away. When he asked why, she said that although he was the father of all the nation he had never made time to be a father to her.

He went on: ‘This is my greatest, perhaps my only regret, that my children and the children of my comrades were the ones to pay the price for the choices that we, their parents, made.’

Exile: Joe Slovo and Ruth First with Robyn and Gillian in London in 1964

What a story to be told at that moment of our father’s death, particularly because it rang so true. My father Joe was one of the founders of the military wing of the African National Congress, while my mother Ruth First was an activist who was eventually killed in August 1982 by a parcel bomb sent to her in Mozambique, where she was working in exile.

As he neared her, he said, she flinched away. When he asked why, she said that although he was the father of all the nation he had never made time to be a father to her.

He went on: ‘This is my greatest, perhaps my only regret, that my children and the children of my comrades were the ones to pay the price for the choices that we, their parents, made.’

Mandela and those around him had dedicated their lives to righting a great injustice, and they suffered for it. Their families suffered alongside them. We certainly did, albeit in different ways.

Nelson married Winnie and had two children by her but, while on the run, didn’t have a day of normal family life. We, in contrast, were mostly able to live with our parents. But we grew accustomed to the fact that, because almost everything they were doing was against the law, they were in constant danger.

It looked like a ‘normal’ white existence. We were ferried daily to our all-white school. And yet when we were at home we had parents who could trust almost no one. They would suddenly get up from the table to go and talk in the garden, so that we – their children – wouldn’t overhear what they were saying.

Mandela was among the many activists who came to our parents’ parties, and was present when the police smashed their way in to prosecute the revellers for breaking the race laws that banned black and white people from drinking alcohol together.

This was only the most innocuous of the police incursions we endured. Sudden parental disappearances were part of our everyday lives. ‘Mummy has gone to prison to help the black people,’ was what my six-year-old sister Shawn told a newspaperman when both parents were carted off to jail in 1956 and charged, alongside Nelson Mandela and 153 others, with treason.

In 1964, we went into exile from South Africa, to which my father would not return until 1990. We came to Britain, where we could live without fear of that ominous knock on the door.

The Mandelas and the mostly black families of other activists were not so lucky. With Nelson in jail for life – and in South Africa it meant life – while Winnie was a target of the vengeful security police, their daughters spent 27 years without a single day of calm.

Nelson married Winnie and had two children (Zindzi pictured) by her but didn't have a day of normal family life

That is why on that morning in 1995, as the sun rose over Johannesburg, Mandela knew the truth of their, and our, experiences.

Joe’s funeral was enormous. People, mostly black South Africans, came in their tens of thousands to Soweto’s Orlando Stadium. Mandela was there to lead the mourners in this celebration of his friend’s life.

He was in pain because his eyes, damaged during his time on Robben Island, were bothering him, but he left only after the end of the seemingly endless tributes.

Avalon cemetery in Soweto, where Joe had asked to be buried, was a scene of chaos. But there was one moment of complete calm.

That was when Joe’s second wife and now widow, Helena, gave the family’s thanks to those who had come to bury him.

She spoke as we had agreed she would, not of the dedicated revolutionary but of the Joe we had known: a man who liked women, whisky and song. What made men like Joe or Nelson Mandela heroic was that they were ordinary mortals who had carried out deeds of heroic self-sacrifice.

As for their families, we truly suffered because of the choice they made. Yet, looking at their lives, how could we not simultaneously feel the pride of being brought up by people whose thirst for justice had led them to change the world?

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Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, You Want the Truth...You Can't Handle the Truth, 8 hours ago

Can we please remember that this "great man" was involved in a terrorist organisation that killed innocent people over 165 separate incidents. Would we be eulogising over any of Sinn Feins deaths like this?