Now before we come to the events of the 16th June, 1976, at Soweto, had you been to Soweto before then?

On one occasion. Mrs Thompson who was with me on the 16th June this year, is involved with various charities, one of which is Cripple Care and there was a party given for tiny children in Soweto, a Christmas party and I went with Mrs Thompson to that Christmas 1975.

… Really it was my first visit to the crèches which are run by African Self Help…

Now, you together with three other ladies went to Soweto on Wednesday, the 16th June and before we ask you to detail the experience you all endured that day, shortly thereafter you drew up a memorandum entitled: "My Personal Experience of the Soweto Riots".

Yes, I did.

Would you tell the Court why you did that and for what purpose?

Ms. Carruthers:

With pleasure. I was very angry at the newspaper reports of the incidents in Soweto. One incident in particular, there was a leader in one of the papers which inferred that my friends and I were attacked in retaliation for the killing of seven Africans. In fact, this was not true.

In the Rand Daily Mail…

I felt that the papers here were unfair, then perhaps the papers in England would also have been unfair. So I wrote my personal experience—obviously I could not write anything else, because I do not know what happened to other people, but what happened to me I wrote to my friends in England.

And you sent it to your various friends—you had it photostated?

Yes.

And you sent it to various friends in England.

Yes, I did, and one in America.

And did you give permission for your account to be published in the press overseas?

Yes, I did. One of my friends wrote and asked me if she could let her editor of the Esher News, which is a very small local paper, print my story, but obviously they could not do it in its completeness, could they take excerpts from it and I said yes, provided that the sense of my account was not changed in any way.

And in particular provided?

Provided that they did not infer that the police used brutality.

The suggestion was that they had used brutality?

Indeed.

That was not your experience?

No, I did not see any policemen in Soweto until after the incident.

[Yutar reading from the personal account] On Wednesday, 16th June, 1976, would you tell us?

Could I read this?

Would you please?

I went with my dear friend, Jennifer Thompson, and two other women, Mrs P. Kent and her daughter, Mrs J. Beatty. We had arranged with these two ladies to go with them to Soweto where they went every week, to supervise the administration of two crèches, one each. Mrs Kent had being doing this service to the Black community for 20 years. These ladies, with many others, assist the African Self Help group where the crèches are actually run by African staff and the European women just visit their particular crèche each week to take fresh vegetables. The children have three meals a day at the crèches. The vegetables being bought from an accommodating vegetable store at reduced prices. The ladies also collect any fees which parents may have paid. Each child is cared for for R5 per month. They bank any such fees and generally check whether any help is needed in any way, such as equipment in need of repair, etc. We duly collected the vegetables from the store mentioned, carefully noting how to get there and travelled on into Soweto. We had been issued with special permits to enter Soweto by the police the previous day. Mrs Kent and Jane have permanent permits, I believe, and Jenny and I expected to have similar ones if we decided to join the volunteers in doing this work. This was the object of our going to Soweto that day, to see if we would like to do just that.

… Were these the only four European ladies who did voluntary charitable work there?

No, I believe there are a great number of them.

A great number.

Possibly 30 or 40, I do not know the exact number.

And they do it on a purely voluntary basis.

Yes.

They give of their time and their services without charge for the interests of the Black children in Soweto.

They do, yes.

Right, that day you duly collected the vegetables?

And travelled on into Soweto. On entering the township we noticed large numbers of teenagers about the place and assumed, wrongly, that they were on holiday. We had all forgotten that some schools were on strike because of the compulsory teaching of some subjects in Afrikaans, which I may add, has been roundly condemned by everybody I have discussed it with.

You know about the use or the instruction that Afrikaans should be used as a medium in certain subjects?

Yes, we had heard this and we were told that mathematics in particular was one of the subjects and we felt that well, frankly, if you tried to teach me mathematics in English I would have trouble having to try and do it in a language I do not know.

Yes, so let us be quite frank, you thought that this instruction, if it did exist, was stupid one.

I thought it was perfectly ridiculous, yes.

That had been advanced as a reason for the eruption of the riots on the part of the school children in Soweto. Do you go along with that?

I personally think it could be an excuse for the riot.

Chairman:

It could be an excuse you say?

Yes. I think possibly the children were used. In fact I believe that the children were used and that this Afrikaans business was the excuse for getting the children involved.

When you say you believe the children were used, what do you mean by that and used by whom?

This is very difficult. I believe that certain forces, people, are trying to cause trouble amongst the Black Africans and I believe that this was an ideal situation. They could go to these children and say look, you must demonstrate about this and having got scores of children together surely this is an ideal place and time to cause disruption.

We will come to those causes presently. Now, may we carry on then? We drove to the first crèche?

Where we were shown round very proudly by the first assistant.

Who was?

I am sorry I do not know her name. She was a Black African lady.

The place was well equipped with toys, outside equipment such as slides, climbing frames, etc.; there were the cutest little tables and chairs, just the right sizes obviously for tinies and an interesting array of towels, blankets, overalls and so on, each marked with a symbol of some kind such as a jug or a ball or a teddy-bear so that the children could identify their particular belongings, all supplied by the crèche of course. It was all most interesting and rewarding. The babies were a happy lot and much loved and cared for children and the staff were obviously all very fond of them.

That is the impression you gained.

Indeed, yes. Behind the first crèche at about half past ten, dozens of teenagers began to pour from a building which I assume was a school. Jenny and I were in the garden of the crèche looking at the various equipment and when they saw us, several of the youngsters gave us the Black Power salute, that is the clenched right fist. This was done to the accompaniment of broad grins and seemed very good-natured. The crowd of teenagers seemed most cheerful and happy. We then left the first crèche, taking with us a Black assistant named Barbara, who was going to attend a meeting about the crèches and Mrs Kent had offered to take her with us to the second crèche where she could meet another assistant who would be going to the same meeting and then Mrs Kent would drive both over to the said meeting which was being held in a youth club near to Orlando High School. On arriving at the second crèche, we discovered that the assistant from there had already left to go to the meeting. Then Mrs Kent drove Barbara over there immediately. She dropped Barbara at the youth club and drove back through Soweto, a White woman, alone in the car with no qualms whatsoever, merely remarking on her return on the very large numbers of school children that were in Soweto that day.

This is what Mrs Kent had been doing for the last 20 years?

Indeed, yes, every week.

We had a lovely time at this crèche because [one of] the assistants asked us if we would like the children to sing for us. Naturally we said yes, please. And it was quite beautiful. These gorgeous little tots who were all under six years old, sang at the top of their voices in Zulu with all the appropriate actions, that is arms aloft and bosoms clutched and feet stamped as children love to do. When their teacher stopped singing, the children carried on quite spontaneously with another song on their own; it was most enjoyable. We all then had a cup of coffee with the first assistant, Jane and Mrs Kent having dealt with the necessary business and then we left because Jane, on looking at her watch, had realised it was 11: 15 and she had to be back home to pick up her own children from school at 12:30.

Incidentally, I think this was one of the sites the Commission saw last Tuesday. Tiny little tots all dressed in uniforms.

Yes.

Romping … [intervenes—both speaking simultaneously] Yes, and playing there happily.

Yes, very well-equipped crèches indeed.

And wanting the opportunity to sing for visitors who might come and enjoy doing so.

Thoroughly doing so, yes.

We saw that last Tuesday.

Right, carry on. We were then in Mrs Kent's?

We were then in Mrs Kent's powerful American-type car which had power operated windows, etc., and as we drove along, we saw ahead of us a large crowd of what appeared to be more teenagers. Jane said we had better lock all the doors in case there is any trouble, which we did, thank God, because if we had not done so, there is no doubt at all in my mind and I do mean at all, we would all be dead.

Yes, I think there were roughly 500.

Some were in uniform, some were not. The uniforms I noticed were green with a yellow line at the bottom of the pullover.

In the first instance it was just a large crowd of people walking towards us along—spread completely over the road and on either side of the road. At that stage they just looked like a crowd of youngsters coming towards us.

All right. And then as Mrs Kent was going to slow down. [reading from original account?] Why did she slow down?

Because they were spread completely across the road. Had she kept on at the speed she was going, she would just have mowed them down.

To avoid hitting any of the walkers. Right, will you continue?

We were surrounded by a slowly moving horde of Africans. They crowded round the car peering into the windows, some still with grins and Black Power salutes. I even heard a couple of wolf whistles and at my age you notice wolf whistles. Suddenly a Bantu girl or woman, I cannot say which as she was so close to my window, all I could see of her was an enormous bosom, screamed something in an African language at the top of her voice and then thumped with both fists on the roof of the car. This was the signal for dozens of others to do the same and the noise inside the car was quite something. I was frankly terrified and started to shout: "I am English, I am English!" to my everlasting shame. What I expected them to do because I am English I really cannot tell you. I can only say that until anyone is as frightened as I was at that moment, they cannot know what their reactions would be. I always thought I would be so brave. Then out of the window, I was sitting behind Jane Beatty who was in the front passenger seat, therefore I was in the left of the back seat, Jennifer beside me behind Mrs Kent. At my side of the car I caught sight of a man and I repeat man, not teenage boy.

If I can just stop there for a moment. When we did an inspection, we noticed some of the school children, some were young, others were not so young. Now, somebody might have been as old as 18 or 20 still at school. Now when you refer to this man are you perhaps not making—are you not in error? Was it a—do you think it was a student or was it a full grown man?

This man was—he was not a middle-aged man by any means; I would have put him at about 26 or so, but he certainly was not a 15 or 16 year old.

Or not a 20 year old?

I could not honestly say that because well, how does one tell the ages? He was a big man, he was powerfully built, he looked about 26 to me.

I do not know if I focused on him because he was a man or because he was standing holding a huge rock in his hand. The rock was so big that his hand was hidden by it. My immediate thought was dear God, if he throws that we are dead because they will all stone us and then I watched him hurl it at us and within seconds our car was being battered by dozens of rocks, most of them very large. I was screaming at the top of my lungs after being struck by one of the rocks on the back of my head and feeling the warm blood run down my back. My back and my head were being hit by rock after rock. Jenny grabbed me by the neck and pushed me down towards the floor and as she did so, her arm jerked violently against my back. We later realised that her wrist had been fractured at that moment by a rock which, had her arm not been there, would in all probability have broken my back. We were all quite sure we were going to die. I was just dully hoping that it would be quick. I was not even praying as such. All the car windows were shattered and gone, with the exception of the windscreen which, although shattered, had not fallen out. I remember a glimpse of an African hitting the windscreen with a stick at one stage, but it stayed in place. Mrs Kent's right hand was broken, but she kept on driving slowly through the mob, peering through a tiny piece of clear windscreen at the bottom right-hand side. She saved all our lives without a doubt. Had she driven any faster, she would have hurt some of the Africans crowding at the front of the car. As it was, she was just gently pushing them with the car and they were instinctively moving aside. By this time Black hands were trying to pull out the knobs which lock the doors but they had quite miraculously jammed. If this had not been so, we would have been dragged out and torn to pieces or hacked to death as poor Dr. Edelstein was, a short time after we were attacked in the same vicinity by, we believe, the same mob. I had black skin underneath my fingernails when I was being cleaned up at the European hospital later, but I do not remember actually scratching anybody. I obviously did, but it must have been pure instinct.

… Don, who is my husband, says the door locks would have jammed when the power-controlled windows were shattered. I still believe it was a miracle. Eventually we drove gradually away from the mob and still slowly drove along the main road until we came around a bend where there were several Black policemen and three White ones. This brave soul leaned a bloody, tear-stained face out of the window and pleads: "Please help us, please help us." A European policeman climbed in between Jenny and me and we drove on until we came to Orlando Police Station. On the way we had passed a group of about 20 or so Africans and the policeman with us shouted: "Don't stop, don't stop," which we had been urging Mrs Kent during the attack. I remember feeling less ashamed of my cowardice when we realised that he was as frightened as we were.

… The police station is in a wired-off compound and as we drove through the gates, several men standing around in the compound looked utterly amazed by our appearance. For a couple of minutes they seemed too stunned to be able to think. Then several of them visibly pulled themselves together and dashed over to us. One policeman in uniform blue prized out the door locks which I had mentioned earlier had by the grace of God jammed at the time of the attack on us and we were helped out of the car which was a wreck. People who saw the car screened on SABC Television News that evening told us that they could hardly believe that anybody could have escaped alive from such a wrecked vehicle.

I later discovered it was a Ford Fairlane. There were two men standing in the compound as we got out of the car who had cameras hanging round their necks and I thought it rather strange that they made no attempt to photograph four White women who had so obviously just been attacked in Soweto. Who they were, I have no idea, but I still think it strange. We were taken at once in two police cars to the nearest [hospital] which happens to cater usually for Bantu only, Baragwanath, which I understand is a Welsh name, the founder being a Welshman. There we were given first aid. It was a trifle unpleasant being wheeled past numerous Black faces so soon after what can only be described as a terrifying ordeal ... A Black orderly was most upset when I flinched as he came towards me with a razor in his hand and assured me he would not hurt me, nor did he, but I still did not enjoy having part of my hair shaved from my head especially as it was very tender and bruised as well as bleeding…

And here you mention the date on which you wrote this memo, the 25th June, that is 9 days after the tragedy then. The events were then still fresh in your mind.

This is why I wrote them because I wanted my friends in England to know exactly what happened and they tell me I do not write letters, I write books. This is how I write…

Jenny had been very courageous in the car, sitting with her arms around Mrs Kent's head to protect her from the rocks and so enable her to keep on driving and was badly battered as a result especially about the face… I had asked the police to send for Don and as they could not pronounce Carruthers, Afrikaners of course are reliable, stalwart and kind but defeated by English names… Jenny had a fractured wrist, concussion, brain bruising and severe facial swelling and bruising. Mrs Kent had the bones of her right hand between the knuckle and wrist broken. I do not know of any other injuries. Jane had stitches put into scalp wounds, head bruising and some back bruising also. I had similar injuries to Jane with severe back bruising and my family doctor tells me quite severe internal bruising and a cracked rib, plus the scalp lacerations…

[Rand Daily Mail] … I think it was June 17 or 18; I think it was the 17th. The leader did not mention us by name, but the inference from the leader was that the people who had been attacked in Soweto and I do not think there were many people attacked in Soweto that day, had been attacked in retaliation for the shooting … by the police of 7 Africans.

And the facts as given in the leader, did they correspond to what you personally saw and witnessed that day?

Not in any way.

We heard no shots at all in the area of Soweto where we were.

[Carruthers was upset at Rand Daily Mail article implying that the women were attacked in retaliation for the shooting of seven Africans; she says the attack took place around 11: 30 or earlier; she never saw any police in Soweto until after the attack.]

… and those we saw then were well away from the demonstrators.

You are there referring of course to that particular area of Soweto where you and the three other ladies were.

Yes.

And even in that area we heard? [reading from the memo?]

No shots or gun fire of any kind during the whole time we were in the area and we went into the area at about 10 o'clock and we were leaving at about half past eleven. The police were absolutely astonished, amazed, astounded by our arrival at the police station… I personally think that the school children were used.

Would you care to elaborate on that?

Well, I think that this Afrikaans business as we mentioned earlier, was the excuse for rabble raisers to infiltrate, if you like, into the crowds of children demonstrating. I think the children thought they had a valid reason, but I personally and this is just a personal opinion, feel that there were rabble raisers in that crowd.

You go on to mention them in the next paragraph.

I believe that there were rabble raisers in the crowd and that they incited the children to attack us. It was a man, remember, who hurled that first rock. I do not know exactly how long the man held the rock, but when I first saw him, I was looking out of the back window and he was there and by the time he threw the rock, he was there. So to my mind he held that rock a fair time really, I mean he did not just pick it up, hurled his arm back and throw it, he held it like that and I think that this was possibly a signal.

… The date of the meeting between Mr Vorster and Kissinger was too convenient for my money.

Well, there was a meeting between Mr Vorster and Mr Kissinger due the following week and it just seems strange to me that you know, if there were going to be any riots, well, they were beautifully timed, weren't they, for Mr Vorster to be embarrassed when he went to see Mr Kissinger.

That is your personal view?

It is; it is also the view of several of my friends.

It was arranged to embarrass the Prime Minister on the eve of his meeting with Dr Kissinger in Germany.

I most certainly think so, yes.

The next part is again pure personal opinion. The children who were shot by the police were in fact throwing huge rocks at the police, not itsy-bitsy stones, great, hard, heavy rocks. And they jolly well hurt when they hit as I know. If I had had a gun when they were throwing them at me, I would have shot them without compunction and I cannot blame the police, especially the Black ones, for doing what I would have done. Nor do I believe would anyone of us behave differently when so confronted not by children, but with mob, a stone-throwing, knife-wielding mob. Joyce Sutkiss, a friend of mine, who is also a North-Englander, was in Baragwanath Hospital that morning where her maid was being admitted for tests. She was at the hospital when the boy who was shot by the Black policeman was admitted, dead on arrival. When Joyce left at 11:45, there was a commotion of bustling activity and Joyce thinks the staff were expecting our party to arrive, perhaps having been alerted by telephone. The road to Soweto had by this time been closed, but Joyce was not aware of any trouble at all and was not warned of any. She did not realise that there were any riots of any kind. It was assumed that the child had been shot in a robbery or some crime by a ricochet or stray bullet. Only a short time after my treatment was finished at the South Rand Hospital, the army helicopter, carrying the mutilated body of that poor martyr doctor, Dr. Edelstein, landed in the grounds. Another White man was treated at the hospital at the same time as we were for similar injuries to ours. I have seen several incorrect reports of what happened to us in the local press. A so-called eye witness said that we were in a small car—it was a long, streamlined one—and that we were taken to hospital by helicopter and that we were gravely injured. The only paper who asked me for an interview was an Afrikaans one, Beeld, and even they said we went in an ambulance when in fact we went in two police cars. I was interviewed on SABC Television on Thursday, 17th June. It was shown here and fed into the European pool, but not used in Britain. My name and telephone number were given to the local correspondent of The Times, … who obviously was not at all interested in the near-murder of an English woman because he did not contact me. Not that I wanted publicity, that is not so, the last thing I want is for my mother to have any knowledge of what happened to me, but it does strike me as a little odd. Oh, for the days of the gunboat. [obviously reading from her memo]

Would you explain that to the Court, the reference: Oh, for the days of the gunboat?

Well, if you will bear with me, this was a letter to my friends and, you know, 50 years, 100 years ago, if an English woman had been attacked in an African township, they would have sent a gunboat. My husband said they would have had a job to get a gunboat up to Johannesburg, but this is the point, you know, there would have been a few more ripples than there were.

Maria, my maid, was in Rustenburg at the time, having her pass signed by her chief and she has been most upset ever since. She cried all Friday, Friday morning, the 18th June, and many of her friends have telephoned to ask how I am after learning of the incident through the grapevine. Maria refused to take her day off the following week because she did not consider I was well enough to manage without her. Maria also told me that the chiefs of the various tribes—and there are many different tribes here—have been broadcasting on all the African radio stations, telling their people not to become at all involved in the troubles. She says that those Soweto people do not listen to the chiefs any more, but we do and we are afraid of our chiefs, so we obey them. Democracy, did somebody say? How? One of the drivers from Don's company was murdered.

This was mentioned by the managing director of the division in which my husband works.

I believe he was murdered in Soweto…

There was no suggestion that he was involved in the riots and shot by the police or anything like that?

No, I do not even know that he was shot, I believe he was stabbed, but I cannot be sure of that.

[Carruthers continues to read] Before we knew this, another of the drivers asked if he could please stay here overnight at our home, because he was afraid to go back to Soweto and naturally we said yes. He asked if he could see me, I was in bed of course [bed rest prescribed for her injuries], and when he came into my room, he was most upset and could only apologise for what his people had done to me, as if it was his fault. He stayed the night and when we heard that one of the drivers had been murdered in Soweto, we were very glad that he had stayed. Many Africans have told us that it was tsotsis or gangsters who did all the killing and looting and they cannot understand why the police did not shoot the lot of them because Soweto is a dangerous place for any African all the time. There are dozens of killings and stabbings and rape every week in Soweto. The crime rate there is the highest in the entire world. Maria who is very intelligent and an educated woman to the degree that she can read and write, thinks we are stupid for not shooting all the troublemakers while they were in the act. The African sense of justice is not the same as that of the West. I then said this: As the attack happened on a tarred road, it seems strange to me that sufficient large rocks should be available in quantities that could wreck the car as they did from the verges and I have since kept a lookout for the number and sizes of rocks to be found on the unmade roads here in Johannesburg and have not yet seen any lying in any large number, which made me think that certain of the school children must have had them with them because really we were under a hail of rocks and all the windows were completely shattered. My hair and the hair of the other ladies involved were full of glass .... but I have put at the end of this report to my friends that I have since learned that rocks litter the entire Soweto township, therefore my conclusion there was incorrect. If, as the press are saying, the trouble started early that morning in Soweto, I want to know why the police did not try to stop us from going into Soweto…

Do you want my personal opinion? … On the unrest. Well, I am not really qualified to judge properly because I haven't been here that long, but from what I have spoken to the Black people and heard what they have to say, the few that I have spoken to, it seems to me that they grievances. If I had to live in a house that did not have electricity or running water, especially hot water, then I would feel very aggrieved. I think those things like overcrowding of busses and—it is so hard to—I think there are too many restrictions on the Africans. I think some of them are petty. I appreciate the need for passes, because this protects the Africans from perhaps Rhodesian Africans, Malawis and so on coming in and getting work that they should have, but I think that the laws could be relaxed a good deal in certain areas…

Do you think it was the children who organised this uprising?

No.

Well, I think and maybe I am seeing Reds under the bed, but I think this is communist controlled… and I am sure that this was definitely communist [inspired] or similar.

… Not really [any difference between the causes that led to the riots here and the causes that have led to the riots elsewhere in the world, including England and America]. As I say I think that the grievances the Black man has here are used as an instrument by the agitators whoever they are to start this kind of trouble…

Can you remember anything that had been shouted at you; if you could recall actual words that you heard?

—No, I am sorry. Most of it was shouted in African languages and it was just words.

You say that you did see Black Power signs being given?

Yes.

Did you see at that particular time just before you were attacked?

Yes, as we entered the mob, for want of another word describing it, as we encountered the mob, the first few did not seem aggressive, they were grinning; they were cheeky, cocky and some of those were giving the Black Power sign.

They were coming in your direction and you were going in the opposite direction.

Yes.

Eventually you had to pass through the whole lot.

Yes.

To get to safety.

I think actually this was one of the things that saved us because the crowd were moving in this directions and we were moving in this direction and we were able, as people were trying to open the doors and so on, the car was moving away from them and the press of people behind them was preventing them from coming with us.