Yusuf Dadoo was married thrice. His first wife was Ilsa, his second, Maryam and his third, Winnie. His first two marriages ended in divorce, partly because of his political commitments that left little time for family. His third marriage lasted, partly because Winnie was as politically involved as Yusuf Dadoo himself He has two daughters, Shereen, from llsa and Roshan from Winnie. The following notes were made from an interview with Winnie a year or so after his death and it gives some insight into his personal life in London.
Winnie's grandparents had immigrated to South Africa at the turn of the century, from Russia, more specifically from Latvia and Lithuania, respectively. She was brought up in the Jewish tradition, observing the rituals but not very regular in her attendance to the synagogue.
Winnie met Yusuf Dadoo in 1948. She was then already a Communist Party member and had been working on the CP paper, Guardian for two years. She met him at a party a Bram Fischer's house, organised in honour of a delegation bound for a UN meeting in Paris. She was part of that delegation. "The trip never materialised for we were stopped at the airport the next day and our passports were taken away. " The party however was memorable for there she met Dadoo. "He was wonderfully good looking The Indian passive resistance struggle was on and the party was agog with news of the campaign
"In 1949, Yusuf spent a year in Europe. He met Krishna Menon and Bridget Tunnard of the Indian League. They gave him an office. He travelled to Bulgaria and me Dimitrov."
"I met Yusuf again a year later, again at Bram Fischer's house. He was married to Ilse at the time, but the marriage was not working out. Ilse was living in Parktown, Yusuf in End Street. A married niece and her family shared the cottage with him. Boxer was "general manager". I visited Yusuf at Boxer's house. l became quite friendly with Mrs Boxer, though she was shy at first. They had four children. Their's was the first non-white home I had visited. I was quite scared the first time for their house was in a dingy part of Doornfontein." White girls didn't go out alone in those days, certainly not to Doornfontein. Boxer met me at the tram stop. I couldn't have told my sister l was going to some non-white family.
Later when she found out she was horrified. I enjoyed my visits to the Boxers, with Yusuf. As time went on, we all became very relaxed and we would sit in the kitchen, talking and eating; we celebrated the children's birthdays. Yusuf was the pleasantest of company on those occasions.
"In 1951, Ilse left the country with Shireen. Yusuf and l became very close, but we could not contemplate marriage. There was the Immorality Act, among other things and there were raids. We parted. Yusuf married Mariam in 1955. She came to live in End Street with her children ."
Winnie concentrated on her journalism in the New Age, (formerly Guardian) and became deeply involved in protest action. In 1960 she was arrested and detained for five months at the Fort with Hilda Bernstein, Rica Hodson, Molly Fisher, Violet Weinberg and Sonia Bunting. They were locked up with the ordinary prisoners most of whom were prostitutes. "We slept seven to a cell, on straw mattresses on the floor. We were subsequently moved to Pretoria where conditions were much better. We went on a hunger strike. They tried to deal with that by separating us from each other. I was sent to Nylstroom, to a rehabilitation centre. It was a beautiful place, but for the bars and the walls.
Yusuf by then had left the country and was in London. His marriage had virtually ended. Mariam never joined him in London and they eventually divorced
"On my release from prison, I took an exit permit to lsrael, and from there joined Yusuf in London. " There were at last no barriers to their being together. They married and started house in an attic room in the India League. "Yusuf didn't care where he lived I later found a two-roomed flat at six and a half pounds a month. The flat was cold and damp, but we couldn't afford anything better. Yusuf got something from the United Front in those days, and sometimes his family helped. I found work in a travel agency and later, as a bookkeeper. That helped to some extent, but when Roshan was born, I had to give up my job. "
To aggravate matters, they were given notice to vacate the apartment they rented, since the building was sold. They moved to Muswell Hill. "We had lived in furnished accommodation up to then and had no furniture or money to buy any; South African friends, settled in London, helped. Percy Cohen's father-in-law gave us the carpet that we still use, and Esme Goldberg brought in a bed, a table and chairs. They are all here.
Winnie says that Yusuf was against acquiring properly, but she had to think about herself and Roshan, and when Yusuf's health began to fail, she made arrangements in secrecy, so that there would be some security for them.
Their's was a happy marriage which ended with Yusufs demise. His last days were spent in hospital.
"He lay ill for week, periodically going into a coma. We were all there with him, Shereen, Roshan, and I and his family from South Africa -- his brother Eboo and his wife Fawzia, his sisters Amina and Julie, and his late brothers wife Gorie. He would periodically emerge from his coma and his face would light up and he would be surprised to see us, and he would chat happily. The friends also came. Joe Slovo, Gill Marcus, Beverly and Tessa, Brian Bunting, Cassim Patel and Zainab Asvat"
On the day of his death, his sisters-in-law were at his bedside reciting the Quran. He called Joe Slow and talked to him, then he talked to his brother Eboo. I whispered in his ear that Shereen was coming. He was waiting for Shereen, but steadily weakening. His breathing grew shallow and then I realised that he wasn't breathing at all. I called the others. It was 8pm. He had passed away peacefully, in coma or sleep. "