The passing of “Oom Ray” has a particular poignancy for me. Because it was the actions of Ray Louw that ensured that I never spent more time in detention, prison — or worse — and made it into exile to return 27 years later, to meet up with him again.
For most of nearly two months in solitary confinement in 1964, I knew that a fellow journalist on the Rand Daily Mail (RDM) was a police spy. In days and nights in my cell and even during interrogation, I thought only of revenge; in minute detail I worked out what I should do if and when I was released.
I would return to the RDM newsroom, and Gerard Gunther Ludi, the spy, who had a desk near the door would be among the first to greet me. I would reveal him as a spy and initiate a scuffle that would end with me pitching him out of one of the third storey windows.
I was perhaps slightly unhinged at that stage, and I had no concerns about the consequences. But when I was released and entered the RDM newsroom, it was Ludi’s day off. And it was Ray Louw who took me aside when I demanded to know where Ludi was. Although I never told Ray what I intended doing, he persuaded me to sit down and write about interrogation, torture and general conditions in detention.
Several months later I left the RDM, planning to leave the country, illegally, for Zambia. En route, I went to say goodbye to political friends in the then Indian ghetto in Amersfoort, where I stumbled on a good human interest story which I posted to Ray. I heard nothing back and it was not published.
What I did not know at the time was that the security police wanted to know where I was. Had Ray made public that story (with pictures on a roll of film) I would almost certainly never have made it out of the country and friends would have been compromised. When I reminded him about the incident and thanked him for what he had done, he simply shrugged it off.
He was a fine man and a great journalist. I shall miss him. Hamba Kakuhle Oom Ray.
Cape Town, South Africa-based journalist commentator and author specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters. 
Terry Bell Writes 
Ken
June 19, 2019
I became a teenager in the time of the Rand Daily Mail of Lawrence Gandar and Raymond Louw. My father would bring the paper home from work every day and I’d read it lying on the lounge carpet. They, and the journalists of the RDM were men and women of integrity who put aside personal comfort and safety to bring the horrors of apartheid into the homes of the surburban whites. The RDM had a huge, lifelong impact on this young teenager. I remember the disgust I felt for Gerald Ludi and would have cheered if you had tossed him out the window. A tactic favoured by the security police – I needn’t remind you of Ahmed Timol. Thanks for the tribute to Raymond Louw. His contribution is not to be forgotten.