By road Stutterheim is about 100 kilometres to the north-west of East London. Another 30 kilometres in the direction of Transkei brings you to the settlement of Mgwali. Mgwali dates back to the 1850s. It was a mission area, created as a buffer zone in the midst of the Frontier Wars. Like so many other long established settlements, Mgwali is today under threat of removal or forced incorporation into the Ciskei bantustan. Chairperson of the Mgwali Residents’ Association and in the forefront of opposition to the threatened removal is Wilson Fanti, the very same Fanti who remembers Com T's volunteers coming to his house in Langa, Cape Town.

At the beginning of the campaign Fanti was, indeed, in Cape Town. Then a few months later he was active as a volunteer in Port Elizabeth. However, throughout the period he remained in contact with his home in Mgwali, and with the Stutterheim district in general.

Fanti: At that time the people of Stutterheim district were very well organised.

Firstly, in Stutterheim there was a big meeting which was held right inside the town. I remember at this meeting it was explained that there would be people going around taking their views, house to house.

Edgar Ngoyi, an ex-Robben Islander who recently completed a 17-year prison sentence, is now president of the UDF Eastern Cape region. In 1954–5 he was sent as a volunteer from Port Elizabeth to the rural areas.

Ngoyi: I went to Stutterheim (my home town), Peddie, Kingwilliamstown, and other areas.

Wilson Fanti also remembers volunteers from East London being sent to the Stutterheim district.

Fanti: The people of Stutterheim were encouraged by these volunteers to go to Kliptown, and transport was organised for them after their views were collected. Not all the people of Stutterheim went to Kliptown. But their views, including Mgwali, even workers on farms for that matter, were asked. They were asked what type of government they wished.

Q: What sorts of difficulties did volunteers experience in the rural areas?

Fanti: Really, in areas like Transkei and Pondoland it was very difficult to work.