Gems

I was born in White-City in Soweto on 15 July 1952 as Phillip Doctor. Moloto. I started writing Black-Consciousness-based poetry and plays/drama/sketch in Forms-3 & 4. I matriculated in Morris Isaacson High School in 1974. Between 1969 and1971 I studied with the Naturopathic College of South Africa and qualified as a Naturopath. In 1976 I enrolled at Ongoye University in the then Zululand. However, during the 1976 Soweto Uprising I was detained and kept as a political prisoner in a prison in eMtuba-Tuba. I broke out of prison, taking along a fellow prisoner who was in solitary confinement with me, Charles Muzi Thembekwayo. We both joined the African National Congress and its military wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe by accident. We also both ended up on death-row in the ANC's detention camp, Quatro, in Angola. I did my initial military training in MK's Novo-Catengue camp in Angola. I also completed a Commando Course in Funda near Luanda in Angola. I have lived in Lusaka, Tanzania and Harare, Zimbabwe, and spent time in the United Kingdom where I worked as an artist. I returned to South Africa in 1992 and joined the South African National Defence Force. Presently, I am a happy pensioner who knows when not to complain.