I don’t know whether you will remember me, but in August 1985 you interviewed me and three other South African women. We were on tour with a protest cabaret, and when we came to Glasgow, you came to see the show and talked to us afterward. I am writing to you because of all the newspaper and magazine articles that were written about us, yours was the best. You painted an honest picture without being sentimental, and the memory I have of you is a journalist eager to tell the truth.

We need your help now. In all honesty, I do not know if you can help us, but I can think of no one else. Some time ago, Joshua Shabala, a good friend of mine, disappeared. No one knew what had happened to him, but we all had our suspicions that he had been taken away by the secret police. As you will know, finding out information about the actions of officials in South Africa is virtually impossible if you are black, but his girlfriend, a young teacher in the townships called Mary Nkobo, determined that she would discover what had happened to Joshua.

Mary was a talented writer. She had already written a play for us to perform. She decided that she would write down the story of her search, which she did in all its details. She called her story “Black Hope.” After a few weeks, it became clear to her that Joshua had been murdered by the secret police in South Africa, and she wrote all she could find out about this too.

But in our country, asking too many questions is a dangerous path to take, and Mary too was arrested. Her manuscript was smuggled out to Zimbabwe by the same friend who is taking this letter. Mary had left instructions that if anything was to happen to her, the manuscript should be sent to an English writer, Cordelia Brown. She chose this woman because she had enjoyed her work, and when she had written her a letter to express her admiration, this Cordelia Brown had written back a very encouraging letter to her. Mary felt she could trust her. Now Mary too has disappeared without trace and we fear that she has been murdered by the police.