We hope you enjoy abit of a history lesson from this very interesting cache. You will need to investigate the two Ruth First plaque located in Durham City Centre to solve the puzzle below. In the container you will find a log sheet, 10 SWAG coins☀️
Journalist, academic and political activist, Ruth Heloise First was born on 4 May 1925. She was the daughter of Jewish immigrants Julius and Matilda (neé Levetan) First. Julius, a furniture manufacturer, was born in Latvia and came to South Africa in 1906 at the age of 10. Matilda came to South Africa from Lithuania when she was four years old. They were founder members of the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA, later South African Communist Party [SACP]) in 1921. Ruth and her brother Ronald grew up in a household, in which intense political debate between people of all races and classes often took place.
During the 1960s, First researched and edited Mandela's No Easy Walk to Freedom (1967), Govan Mbeki's The Peasant's Revolt (1967) and Odinga's Not yet Uhuru (for which she was deported to Kenya). With Ronald Segal she edited South West Africa: Travesty of Trust (1967). From 1973, First lectured for six years at Durham University, England, on the sociology of underdevelopment.
In the 1970s, she published The Barrel of a Gun: the Politics of Coups d'etat in Africa (1970); followed by Libya: the Elusive Revolution (1974); The Mozambican Miner: a Study in the Export of Labour (1977); and, with J Steele and C Gurney, The South African Connection: Western Investment in Apartheid (1972). It was during this time that she read contemporary feminist works, resulting in a work which she wrote with Anne Scott, Olive Schreiner (1980). Many of these works were landmarks in Marxist academic debate.
In 1977, First was appointed professor and research director of the Centre for African Studies at the Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. She began work on the lives of migrant labourers, particularly those who worked on the South African gold mines. The results of this study were published as Black Gold: the Mozambican Miner (1983).
In honouring the memory of First, an environmental patrol vessel named the Ruth First was launched in 2005 by the Department of Environmental Affairs. In 2010, First’s former high school, Jeppe Girls, set up a scholarship entitled the Ruth First Jeppe High School for Girls Memorial Trust, with Albie Sachs as patron. To read a collection of writings by Ruth First, visit The Ruth First Papers.
SOLVE PUZZLE FOR FINAL CACHE. Located on a beautiful suburban street.
N54° 46.ABC W001° 33.DEF
Look at the bigger plaque with the information about Ruth First for ABC
ABC = Number of days Ruth First was held in solitary confinement x 8 - Number of letters of the country Ruth First was born in
Look at the smaller plaque on the right side combined with the bigger plaque to get information for DEF
D = How many years was Ruth First a lecturer in Sociology, University of Durham
E = The number of letters of the first name of the person who unveiled the mural
Look at the big metal letters bolted on to the big plaque
F = Number of bolts on the last big metal letters
Check sum A+B+C+D+E+F = 35
The mural has been removed for refurbishment, so please find the answers to the puzzle using the picture below.