---
title: "‘No time for tears’ on Robben Island: When Lilian Ngoyi visited Madiba in prison"
description: "Martha Evans’s biography of anti-apartheid activist Lilian Ngoyi, one of the leaders of the 1956 Women’s March, is published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the march. This excerpt details her visit with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in 1973."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "BOOK EXCERPT"
author: "Martha Evans"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/martha-evans-2/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2026-08-23-no-time-for-tears-on-robben-island-when-lilian-ngoyi-visited-madiba-in-prison/"
published: "2026-08-23T12:11:38"
updated: "2026-08-23T12:11:44"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 1404
---

# ‘No time for tears’ on Robben Island: When Lilian Ngoyi visited Madiba in prison

> Martha Evans’s biography of anti-apartheid activist Lilian Ngoyi, one of the leaders of the 1956 Women’s March, is published to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the march. This excerpt details her visit with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in 1973.

By Martha Evans · Published 23 August 2026, 14:11 SAST · Updated 23 August 2026, 14:11 SAST

## Key points
- New biography of Lilian Ngoyi by Martha Evans — published for the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Women’s March — includes a vivid excerpt of Ngoyi’s visit to Nelson Mandela on Robben Island on 25 August 1973.
- The visit was unusually authorised and tightly controlled: a glass-partitioned, hour-long meeting under constant surveillance, arranged in the hope the state could monitor and record the exchange.
- Despite the constraints, the reunion was warm and upbeat — Mandela optimistic about the future, urging education and hope (“no time for tears”) and asking Ngoyi to tell supporters he was well.
- Official prison notes paint a different picture: a report of political conversation and intelligence-like details that made the meeting read like a failed “test” — and it proved to be their last face-to-face encounter.

## Content

The date for her Robben Island visit was set for 25 August 1973. Ngoyi said that she had felt apprehensive and “diffident” about seeing Mandela, but that after hearing a biblical parable read out in church, a change had come over her. The sermon recounted the story of Jonah, who is commanded by God to go to the city of Nineveh to preach against its wickedness. Ngoyi appears to have drawn strength from this story, casting her visit in mythic terms.

At this stage, Mandela, as a political prisoner in a maximum-security prison, was very much restricted in terms of visitors. Apart from the International Committee of the Red Cross, legal counsel and family members, by the mid-1970s only a handful of individuals had been permitted to visit him on the island. Opposition MP Helen Suzman and Judge Jan Steyn used their political privileges to visit prisoners on several occasions, and, to everyone’s surprise, the state granted permission for British Labour Party politician Denis Healey to visit in 1970. In addition, the conservative Australian journalist David McNicoll was allowed access in 1973, most likely in the hope that he would report favourably on prison conditions.

Given that none of Mandela’s former comrades ever secured approval to visit, it is curious that Ngoyi’s request was granted. It seems probable that the state saw the meeting as an opportunity to surveil their interaction. All prison visits were closely monitored and strictly controlled; political discussion was forbidden and parties were granted very little privacy. Despite this, for Mandela, the visit, and anticipation of the visit, must have provided a welcome break from the routine of prison life. “A visit to a prison has a significance difficult to put into words,” he wrote in a letter to a friend in 1987. These were the “unforgettable occasions when that frustrating monotony is broken and the entire world is literally ushered into the cell”. It had been a decade since he had last seen Ngoyi and the impending encounter was no doubt a highlight in his calendar.

Lilian arrived at Jetty 1, Quay 6, of Cape Town’s industrial docks around midday on Saturday, in time for the daily ferry across to Robben Island. A white prison official appeared and asked: “Where are your papers?” She handed them to him as requested and paid the fifty-cent fee for the ferry ride.

The official instructed Ngoyi to write down her name and address in a big black book. After a short while, another five visitors (all African) arrived and were ordered to do the same.

“All right, come,” the official said. He led the passengers over the boarding gangway to the ferry. Once they were seated, he handed them paper bags in case of sea sickness. The cold Atlantic sea was notoriously choppy, especially so in winter, and the vessel, a traditional single-hull passenger ferry, was slow. It took over thirty minutes to travel the four and a half miles across the bay. Nausea aside, Ngoyi spent the trip worrying that she would be called back and told that her permit had been cancelled – perhaps because of her previous unsuccessful ocean voyage in 1955.

The ferry berthed at Murray’s Bay Harbour on the island’s east coast, alongside a long breakwater and quay. Ngoyi and the other visitors disembarked and were met with the stark sight of a high blue-stone wall. The wall, made from rock quarried on the island, was built by prisoners to block their own view of Table Bay.

“Follow me,” a prison warder said to the visitors. He led them through a prominent archway, with the words “Robbeneiland” and “Ons dien met trots” (We serve with pride) written across the threshold. They were asked to take a seat in the visitors’ centre, a simple compound located right at the edge of the harbour to keep visitors from seeing too much of the prison.

After a short wait, the warder led Ngoyi to a cubicle in the visitation room. The space was divided by a permanent partition with thick panes of plate glass designed to separate prisoners from their loved ones. Ngoyi took her seat in a narrow booth opposite Mandela.

There are two accounts of the interaction that unfolded: Ngoyi’s version, relayed in a letter to Ray Alexander, and a prison warder’s notes on their recorded conversation. Ngoyi’s account emphasised the warmth and positivity of the encounter.

“Ohh! Lily, my dearest,” Nelson exclaimed when he saw her.

Ngoyi wrote that she said the same, adding, in the only quasi-romantic statement about their feelings, “We felt we should kiss each other”, though they were of course prevented from any contact by the thick glass between them.

Ngoyi had expected to find Mandela depressed but instead was inspired by his optimism about the future.

“No, my sister,” he said, “my message is the day will dawn when apartheid will shrink to be the talk of the past.”

She gazed at him as he spoke. He had lost a little weight since she’d last seen him and, at age fifty-five, was beginning to grey. They went on to discuss the new generation, politics and education.

“You people outside must see that all children should go to school,” Mandela told her – a concern of his expressed frequently in letters.

“Well, dear,” Ngoyi replied, “we are at a time of revolution.”

After various other exchanges (“this and that”... Ngoyi did not elaborate), the warder cut them short. Their hour was up.

“Goodbye, Nell,” she said.

“Goodbye, Lily.”

In a 1974 letter, Ngoyi and Mandela discussed the possibility of arranging another meeting, but this was not to be, and the heavily surveilled one-hour Robben Island assignation was the last time they saw each other.

Ngoyi returned to the mainland to find a crowd awaiting news of Mandela and the other Rivonia trialists, which she happily “dished out”. She later wrote to Alexander: “I was so thrilled by their courage, firm as rock.”

The account in Ngoyi’s surveillance file, described as “reliable and confirmed”, is in fact somewhat vague. It appears to include a good deal of political conversation, which is surprising, given that such exchanges were supposedly forbidden. The file reads, in part, like a report on a test of sorts, one that Lilian and Nelson failed miserably.

The memo claims that the two reflected on the past, acknowledging previous mistakes and vowing not to repeat them. The nature of these mistakes, however, is not detailed. Mandela reportedly asked Ngoyi about the location and activities of various ANC exiles. “Time and again she gave him the correct answers,” the file alleges. Further, Mandela told Ngoyi that she was known for her leadership in the different organisations and that no one would doubt her word.

“You know, Lily,” he is recorded as saying, “people here do rely too much on you. They have a trust on you; they rely on you too much. You know, we hear that you unite people like this… that is very important to us here.”

Mandela tasked her with delivering a message of hope to his followers: “Now, Lily, tell them that you saw me and I am happy here,” and then, in what is undoubtedly a poor translation, “My brains are those they know and there is nothing I am thinking of freedom only every day and I know that we are going to get it. My family and I know that they will not starve while you people are there.”

In their conversation about the new generation of activists, Ngoyi reportedly told Mandela that the current youth organisations had no leaders. “We are trying to get children amongst the people here, you know,” she allegedly said. “That is an offence here. Do not be surprised if we are arrested. But we are going to try to avoid that thing.” The remark, if true at all, suggests some kind of subversive uprising, possibly politicisation through visits to the island, but again the details are very unclear.

Ngoyi spoke to the Rand Daily Mail shortly after the visit and duly delivered Mandela’s hopeful message, which the newspaper bravely published: “On Robben Island there is no despair and no self-pity, which exists in our Black society now,” she told the paper. “There is courage and hope for the future. There is no time for tears there. Time is short and there is so much that needs to be said.” **DM**