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IN ALBIE’S WORDS: When we first looked at the Old Fort Prison as a possible site for the new Court building, I saw the word FLORENCE daubed on a wall across the road. I’d been born at the Florence Nightingale Hospital, popularly referred to as ‘The Florence’. The building was battered but the name had somehow survived.
Later, when serving on the Court, on what came to be called Constitution Hill [I had proposed naming it Freedom Hill, but Arthur Chaskalson had countered with Constitution Hill, which had turned out to be a better choice], I used to tell people I’d been born across the road at ‘The Florence’, been all round the world and come back home again to my birthplace.
When I left the Court in 2009, the word was still there, rather smudged, on a battered wall. I believe it is still there.
