Zelda La Grange spent 19 years of her life with one man. She was fully committed to him, always had his best interests at heart and even sacrificed several friends and relatives who couldn’t understand her unwavering loyalty to him.
That man was Nelson Mandela.
La Grange spent the best part of two decades working as Mandela’s PA. It was a 24-hour-a-day job that left no time for her to have a family of her own, let alone social plans.
And it came to an abrupt end when he died in 2013 aged 95.
Her father called him a terrorist:
La Grange never knew Madiba before his release having grown up in a conservative Afrikaaner community.
“But one day, I was in the swimming pool when my father came outside and said, ‘Nelson Mandela is being released and now we are in trouble’. I asked why? And he said: ‘he is a terrorist’. I said oh, and continued swimming because it really didn’t affect my life.”
How she started working for him:
When La Grange was 23 she started working in a junior position in Mandela's office, as a typist.
Then in 1994, Mandela reached out to her. “Because he was interested in me, I started performing very well. I was appreciated and acknowledged,” she explains. “I needed that affirmation. I put 200 per cent in.”
Mandela then promoted Zelda to be his PA – a decision that shocked many people at the time: “It may have been a political move from his point. It was unlikely he would appoint a white secretary, so it was strange. But he wanted to show the world that all people in South Africa would have a future. It helps show the world we’re one people.”
She was a racist – and he changed her:
La Grange was not a supporter of Mandela’s politics. She did not believe in the liberation of black people
“Any person growing up in this way can’t deny that they had racist tendencies. We were fed this propaganda. We grew up in privilege. We were brought up to fear the liberation struggle and the people that stood up for it.”
She recalls the first time she actually met him – she started sobbing as a wave of guilt washed over her, all she could think was ‘my people put you in jail’
But soon she started to ‘re-learn’ the history of her own country. It took her eight months to un-do the racist knowledge she’d been brought up with - “The way I view life in general has changed completely. If I try and remember myself as that 23-year-old, I’m completely a different person. My thinking has changed so much. I no longer just accept propaganda for what it is. I question things.”
La Grange set about trying to change the world by helping Mandela. Whether organising conferences, travel or just making him tea, she played a crucial role in his human rights campaigns.
It meant working non-stop, cancelling social arrangements and left her no time to have a family.
They became close:
“Anyone working close for someone for 19 years will develop an emotional attachment to that person. Because we travelled together extensively, I started feeling like his granddaughter and he started feeling like my grandfather.,"
She misses him - “Most of the sorrow has eased up now and I realise there are other things I miss as well. It’s things like hearing him telling me stories or joking with us or asking his advice".
Her 19 year employment stretched far beyond his presidential term:
When he ended his presidential term in 1999 she became his de facto gatekeeper, a position which gave her a tremendous amount of power, as well as access to famous people everywhere.
For there has not been a political leader, a Hollywood actor, a pop singer, a famous footballer who has not longed to be photographed alongside him. Which has meant that everyone from Bill Clinton to Robert De Niro to Elton John to David Beckham has had, to some degree, to curry favour with her.
Her role in his life also made things a bit awkward at times with his very large family – trying to negotiate with his ex-wives etc
