Wendy Woods was born on 5th February 1941 in Mthatha, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Her parents were James Murray Whitehead and Kathleen Preston.

She excelled in school and after being moved up a year ahead of her age, she gained a first class matric before leaving home aged 16 to become a librarian in Pietermaritzburg in early 1958. She later went on to become a music teacher, gaining her Teacher’s Licentiate through the Trinity College of Music.

Having met Donald Woods in Cwebe, Mbashe where both their families had seaside cottages, they were married in 1962 and over the following decade, had two daughters and four sons: Jane, Dillon, Duncan, Gavin, Lindsay and Mary. Wendy and Donald were devastated when Lindsay contracted meningitis and died aged just 11 months.

Donald became editor, aged 31, of the Daily Dispatch newspaper in 1965. Wendy’s anti-apartheid campaigning began with the Black Sash movement, campaigning with Ruth Belonsky and Val Viljoen against the imprisonment of political detainees.

Donald’s editorship and anti-apartheid stance brought increased Security Police harassment, which initially took the form of death threats by telephone and raids on labourers doing building work at the Woods home in 1971. On one occasion, two workers ran into the house, and Wendy hid them in an upstairs bathroom with her. When the Security Police knocked on the door, Wendy replied: “I’m in here” and the two policemen immediately withdrew, unable to comprehend that a white woman could possibly be in a bathroom with two black men.

After meeting Steve Biko, Wendy’s anti-apartheid stance became more radical, and this was further hardened when a young black consciousness journalist, Thenjiwe Mthintso, on the Daily Dispatch was imprisoned and tortured and another, Mapetla Mohapi, was killed by the Security Police.

The Security Police stepped up their surveillance and harassment. They wired the whole house with surveillance microphones in each light fitting and were recording all telephone calls. On two different occasions the Security Police fired bullets into the Woods home, one right next to a bedroom entrance while Donald was out of town, following another death threat. On such occasions, Terry Briceland, and in particular, Donald Card, risked their own personal safety to protect the Woods family. These incidences led Wendy and Donald to install infra-red beams running throughout the downstairs of the house connected to an alarm system, among other security measures, designed to protect the family against the Security Police.

During one of his terms in jail, Biko had been charged with ‘defeating the ends of justice’, and had been brought to East London jail in the Eastern Cape. Wendy decided to go and visit him in jail. Initially she was obstructed by the prison warden who said: “whites never visit blacks in jail”. Wendy informed them that she had visited black prisoners in King Williams Town jail and taken them food.

Demanding to see the Commandant, Wendy eventually got her way, and after a long wait, Biko was brought through looking down, his expression sullen, withdrawn and angry. On greeting Wendy, Biko’s face lit up, but with the jailers remaining in the room, Biko quickly adopted his stony approach of drawing a veil between him and his interrogators, or ‘the system’, who he shut out completely so they could not get to him. Wendy brought Biko several books including Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, which she later discussed with him. “We talked about a system which consciously and with consummate refinement achieves the debasement of the individual in order to retain power”.

Following Biko’s death, Wendy wrote: “What I find so painful now is that the Security Police reduced him to a cabbage lying naked on a concrete cell floor. They stripped him of the very dignity we had spoken about in discussing ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, and they did it not because they were consciously concerned to do so but because, to them, he was ‘just another Kaffir’ – and that is what I will never forgive them for.”

In early 1977, Wendy and Donald personally conveyed a written message from Biko to Pan-Africanist Congress Leader, Robert Sobukwe, who was banned in the Kimberley area hundreds of kilometres away from Biko’s banning area. The purpose of the message was to bring together a plan for the Black Consciousness Movement to work more closely together with the ANC and PAC in the liberation struggle.

Later that year, Biko was killed and at great risk, Donald arranged for Biko’s body to be photographed in order to bring out the truth. In protesting his death at the hands of the Security Police, Donald challenged Minister of Police, Jimmy Kruger, who alleged that Biko had died of a hunger strike, to a public debate. Kruger served Donald with a banning order – effective house-arrest, which prevented Donald from continuing the legal action. So Wendy challenged Kruger instead, with the newspaper headline: “And now his wife dares Kruger”.

With Donald banned, Wendy arranged to attend the 13-day Biko inquest in Pretoria. She wrote: “An atmosphere of muted warfare prevailed in the courtroom. Empathies and animosities formed. A palpable sense of “we” and “they” developed. We got a chance to get a good look at Security Policemen. For the first time, these men were flushed out of their police stations and their little interrogation rooms.”

While Wendy was away, 5-year old daughter Mary received a T-shirt, which the Security Police had laced with acid-powder. Mary’s acid-burn marks on her face and arms remained for three weeks, but this action forced Wendy and Donald to decide to go into exile, which was a challenge, as the house was bugged and Donald was under a banning restriction.

Such a decision was extremely difficult for a range of reasons, and it was only down to Wendy’s stoicism during the mid-1970s in the face of extreme brutality, combined with clarity of thought, that the family was able to get through such trials. Where living under apartheid brought constant challenges and fear, after Biko was killed, Wendy’s outlook moved past fear and became one of defiance and anger.

Donald Card and Australian diplomat, Bruce Haigh were integral in the family’s escape in December 1977 via Lesotho, Botswana and Zambia with Donald disguised as a priest. This story is told in Richard Attenborough’s film ‘Cry Freedom’ with Denzel Washington playing Biko, Kevin Kline – Donald and Penelope Wilton – Wendy. 

Arriving in exile, Donald and Wendy were able to continue their anti-apartheid campaigning with the support of Oliver Tambo, Canon John Collins, Zolile Keke, David Astor, Jerry Dunfey, Chuck Morgan, Mendi Msimang, Randolph Vigne, Colin & Margaret Legum and others.

Wendy worked for the International Broadcasting Trust, as well as providing film script analysis for Marble Arch Productions. She also worked as a journalist including several feature articles for the Guardian Women’s page. In addition, she collected thousands of books for the University of Fort Hare.

Wendy also worked in charities at Board level, including Trustee and Director of the Lincoln Charitable Trust; Chair of Age Concern, Kingston; Deputy Chair of the Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern Africa; Chair of Amnesty International, Esher; Founder and Chair of the Donald Woods Foundation (2003+); and Trustee of the Mandela Statue Fund, which was initiated by Donald prior to his death in 2001. The seven year project culminated in Wendy unveiling a nine-foot statue of Nelson Mandela with Prime Minister Gordon Brown in Parliament Square, London. With Mandela (Madiba) as guest of honour, Wendy concluded her speech as follows:

“Madiba – on behalf of my husband and my family, I want to say how privileged we are that you have been our leader.  This statue will remind the world of the human qualities you have – qualities which helped South Africa put paid to its past, and take its first steps towards a future in which all of its people could hope to flourish and lead happier lives. It will remind us South Africans how very fortunate we have been.  We have so much to thank you for … Rolihlahla: Namhlanje, sonke apha, kweli cala, lolwandle, naba, baseMbashe sifunukuti, siyakuthanda kakhulu. (Madiba, today all of us on this side of the water [Europe], and from Mbashe [Eastern Cape] – we want to say we love you very much.) As Wendy read this last passage in Xhosa, Mandela looked over at her with a warm smile of acknowledgement.

During her ten year term as Chair of the Donald Woods Foundation, Wendy presided over the Foundation’s growth from zero to over 100 staff. In this time, the Foundation built 13 clinics, carried out 150 000 HIV tests, screened 75 000 people for TB, built a Training Centre, conducted 70 training camps and workshops for over 1,000 people working in health and education; ran a home-based / palliative care programme; ran an orphans and vulnerable children programme; ran a schools programme; and initiated the new “Health in Every Hut” programme, aimed at visiting and screening each and every person in each and every hut for around 300 000 deeply rural people in the Eastern Cape.

In a recent letter to Wendy, Peter Hain reflected on Security Police harassment and the sudden escape into exile: “You should be eternally proud of how you managed … the process of dislocation and adjustment during what must have been some dark times. I have always been struck by your courage, decency and concern for others. … I have marvelled at your strength and the sacrifices you and Donald made in the cause of the freedom struggle.”

Wendy passed away on 19 May in Surrey. She is survived by her five children, her brother, Peter, and her nine grandchildren.

Her son Dillon expressed in a letter to Princess Alice Hospice staff:

"Our mother, Wendy, could not have spent her final weeks in more wonderful care.

All of us are eternally grateful to each and every member of staff at the Princess Alice Hospice, for the care, concern, understanding and quality given in every aspect of our mother’s well-being.

We appreciate not only the professionalism, but all the little things that matter in such a sensitive time, and this has not gone unnoticed by each of us.

Our mother has meant the world to us, and it was so important to us for her to have the best care possible, and for this we are very grateful indeed."