Melktert in Orania with Betsie Verwoerd – Read an excerpt from 100 Mandela Moments by Kate Sidley
More about the book!

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Madiba’s birth, 100 Mandela Moments by Kate Sidley is out now from Jonathan Ball Publishers.

The book features a hundred memories of the great man, as revolutionary, world leader, family figure, and more. Each story or ‘moment’ encapsulates something about the man behind the legend, and the book can be read cover to cover or dipped into as inspiration strikes.

Women24 has shared an excerpt from the book, including snippets describing Mandela eating melktert with Betsie Verwoerd, getting Queen Elizabeth to dance and a London coronation.

Read the excerpt:

It is a picture that borders on the surreal – Nelson Mandela and Betsie Verwoerd chatting over tea and coffee, melktert and koeksisters, in the company of the Verwoerd daughter, Anna, and of course [struggle stalwart Amina] Cachalia and [Albertina] Sisulu.

Verwoerd’s son-in-law, Carel Boshoff, the founder of Orania, hovered about.

‘I have looked forward to this with eagerness,’ Mandela apparently told a smiling Betsie Verwoerd, 94, ‘I am happy to be here.’

Verwoerd had once lived the life of a first lady, in beautiful official residences in Pretoria and Cape Town.

Nelson Mandela had spent 27 years in prison as a result of her husband’s policies. And now Mandela was living in her one-time home, and she was living in self-imposed exile in a dusty dorp in the middle of nowhere.