'My life stood still for 28 years'

The year 2007 means a new start for most of us - and a whole new life for Piet van Wyk.

Van Wyk, 48, was released on the Day of Goodwill after 28 years behind bars, and emerged into a different world from the one he left in 1978.

Van Wyk was, in his own words, a wild young man who was sentenced to a 33-year jail term for murder, attempted murder, assault and housebreaking. He was just 20 years old.

"I had wild blood and I had my own law, no law, and I paid for it with a prison sentence which beat Nelson Mandela's 27 years," he says.

This week at his sister's home in Valhalla Park on the Cape Flats, Van Wyk had his first glimpse of a microwave oven and thought it was a broken television.

He was equally confused by a modern telephone, assuming it was a calculator - when he went to jail telephones had circular dials.

After spending his entire adulthood behind bars Piet van Wyk's eyes were like saucers when he was taken on a quick afternoon outing to acclimatise, a few days before he was released on Tuesday from Helderstroom Prison near Caledon where he had spent the past 11 years.

But luxuries and home-cooked meals were not his priorities on his release.

The first thing he did after being freed was to head to Melkbosstrand, where he shed his clothes and dived into the icy surf.

"In my cage it was always my dream to one day swim in the sea again so that the salt water could wash prison life off my skin," he said.

Van Wyk changed his ways in prison, started playing chess and became a sculptor.

"It was my dream of freedom which gave me hope and kept me sane," Van Wyk said.

Asked what was the part of freedom which he appreciated most after being released, Van Wyk said "walking, walking and more walking".

He said being cooped up in a cell for 23 hours a day, he lived for the daily one-hour exercise sessions albeit in a small courtyard.

"There is so much to see, everything is different. My life stood still for 28 years.

"I bought nice clothes a looked for a music shop to get some songs."

But the digital age dawned while he was locked up, and he was taken aback when he was presented with CDs.

He then bought a bag full of cassette tapes to play on his sister's old tape deck.

And for the future? "I'm staying with my sister at the moment.

"I want to find a job in the new year so I can buy myself a bicycle. I want to go out and see the world."

Tapping his feet he added: "These feet will never see the inside of a jail again."